July 4, 2012 - Freedom through peace

"London, England, 2006"
photo by Aaron Springston

A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson #185

“I want the peace of God.”

The first two sentences in today's lesson say it all: "To say these words is nothing. But to mean these words is everything." How easy it is to say we want the peace of God. But do we live as though we mean that? That is the question! I am often asked how I expect to pray for the world if I don't know what horrors are happening out there. Even though I don't watch or hear mainstream media news, I do have a few sources of information. My favorite is documentary films. Recently I've watched "Taking Root", telling us about the Green Belt Movement in Kenya. I've received an understanding of how lack of water and forests affect the people, and how things have gotten to the point they're at today. It leads my thought to the personal responsibility we each must take for the environment around us, and ourselves individually. The Christian Science Monitor is a wonderful resource which can be found online or in a weekly print publication. This is a stellar newspaper which Mary Baker Eddy started in the early 1900s, whose mission was and is to "injure no man, but to bless all mankind". Often people tell me that opposites are necessary. For instance, I've been told we wouldn't appreciate peace without unrest, and what would happiness be if we didn't know its opposite, and that we can't know light if we haven't experienced darkness. When these views are voiced, I'm always tempted to say, "Hogwash", or something similar in meaning!! And this seeming need for dualism is what keeps us from wholeheartedly wanting and accepting the peace of God which is ours. If we have peace, how would we recognize it without some sort of struggle to bounce it off of? Let's not think of these things when recognizing the peace of God, which has neither beginning nor end, and is ours now, in this eternity – simply for the acknowledging of it.

Mary Baker Eddy quote:

“Glory be to God, and peace to the struggling hearts! Christ hath rolled away the stone from the door of human hope and faith, and through the revelation and demonstration of life in God, hath elevated them to possible at-one-ment with the spiritual idea of man and his divine Principle, Love.

Science & Health Page 45:16-21