The Peaceful Path

Years ago, I had an acquaintance who was in a horrendous automobile accident. The first thing he said to me when I spoke with him afterwards was, I always knew I’d be in a bad wreck. Some folks would say this statement was a premonition of the future; others would say he caused the situation because he thought about it with intense energy. Other thought systems may blame a person for their illnesses and the trauma in their lives, perhaps saying they have chosen these paths for themselves in order to make up for a past life or to learn something they need to know. This is why I love our teachings so much: It just doesn’t matter! We are learning what our true self is, without the beliefs and fears and supposititious realities we believe to be truth. And that is all that matters. We are learning to know ourselves as the experience of Mind, the reflection of Love, the interpretation of Truth. What a peaceful path to walk! 

"Faith is higher and more spiritual than belief. It is a chrysalis state of human thought, in which spiritual evidence, contradicting the testimony of material sense, begins to appear, and Truth, the ever-present, is becoming understood." Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 297:20-24

“Irrational thought is disordered thought. God Himself orders your thought because your thought was created by Him. Guilt feelings are always a sign that you do not know this. They also show that you believe you can think apart from God, and want to. Every disordered thought is attended by guilt at its inception, and maintained by guilt in its continuance. Guilt is inescapable by those who believe they order their own thoughts, and must therefore obey their dictates. This makes them feel responsible for their errors without recognizing that, by accepting this responsibility, they are reacting irresponsibly. If the sole responsibility of the miracle worker is to accept the Atonement for himself, and I assure you that it is, then the responsibility for what is atoned for cannot be yours. The dilemma cannot be resolved except by accepting the solution of undoing. You would be responsible for the effects of all your wrong thinking if it could not be undone. The purpose of the Atonement is to save the past in purified form only. If you accept the remedy for disordered thought, a remedy whose efficacy is beyond doubt, how can its symptoms remain?” A Course in Miracles T-5.V.7:1-12

No Matter Where You Go, There You Are

“Maybe the only enemy is that we don’t like the way reality is now and therefore wish it would go away fast. But what we find as practitioners is that nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know. If we run a hundred miles an hour to the other end of the continent in order to get away from the obstacle, we find the very same problem waiting for us when we arrive. It just keeps returning with new names, forms, manifestations until we learn whatever it has to teach us about where we are separating ourselves from reality, how we are pulling back instead of opening up, closing down instead of allowing ourselves to experience fully whatever we encounter, without hesitating or retreating into ourselves." ~ Pema Chödrön, in "When Things Fall Apart"

“Your whole perspective on the world will shift by just a little, every time you let your mind escape its chains. The world is not where it belongs. And you belong where it would be, and where it goes to rest when you release it from the world.Your Guide is sure. Open your mind to Him. Be still and rest.” A Course in Miracles W-128.7:3-8.     

“The human mind, imbued with this spiritual understanding, becomes more elastic, is capable of greater endurance, escapes somewhat from itself, and requires less repose. A knowledge of the Science of being develops the latent abilities and possibilities of man. It extends the atmosphere of thought, giving mortals access to broader and higher realms. It raises the thinker into his native air of insight and perspicacity.” Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 128:11-19

Taste the Apples

 

Andrea Kowch - Reflections on Humanity, 2017

“Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won't either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could.” Louise Erdrich

Grace

People are interesting. Everyone has an opinion, especially when it comes to what is right and what is wrong. Moral compasses are flipping from one point to another, wildly fluctuating with the opinions of their favorite newscaster or podcast host. Upon waking up this morning, I discovered (via my favorite  news source, YouTube) that a famous actor had  slapped a famous comedian at the Oscars for making a joke about said actor’s wife. It seems this is all people can talk about today. I suppose it’s nice to take a break from the horrors of wars and politics, and I don’t chastise either side of this moral debate. I know I’ve followed Will Smith’s spiritual journey over the last few years and it would be easy for me to judge him for his actions.  I admit to having done so in thought. But this is what those years of spiritual study do for us; they allow us to realize when we’re thinking we could have done something better, or handled something with more wisdom and love than someone else. I hope to more fully understand what the phrase “growth in grace” means, and put it into use in daily life every moment. Namaste …  

“What we most need is the prayer of fervent desire for growth in grace, expressed in patience, meekness, love, and good deeds.” Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 4:3

Awareness

 

Awareness by John Austen

Awareness-

her gaze is so constant,

our every move

watched

with such affection,

a ceaseless vigil

without condition

or agenda,

silent,

patient,

unrelenting in her

embrace.

There is endless room in

the heart of this lover,

infinite space for whatever

foolishness we may

toss her way.

But she is also

crafty, this one-

a thief who will steal away

everything we ever cherished,

all our beliefs,

all our ideas,

all our philosophies,

until nothing is left

but her shimmering

wakefulness,

this simple love

for what is.

The Friend Who Can Be Silent

John Currin - Pistachio, 2016.

“When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.”

Henri Nouwen

“Learn to be quiet in the midst of turmoil, for quietness is the end of strife and this is the journey to peace. ⁶Look straight at every image that rises to delay you, for the goal is inevitable because it is eternal. ⁷The goal of love is but your right, and it belongs to you despite your dreams.” A Course in Miracles T-12.II.5:5-7

Still Here …

Photocredit:BlakeLasater

Having heard the news that a good friend passed on this evening, I’ve been thinking about that. Phyllis is certainly as alive to me today as she was yesterday. I can still hear her laughter, see the light in her eyes, feel her excitement about living. As with my dear Kevin, my parents, anyone I have loved who is no longer walking around in their body, they are alive in my sleeping dreams. After having had an adventure with them while asleep, waking up is wonderful because I can still feel their presence. So have they really gone anywhere? I don’t think so. I’m not sure there’s anywhere for them to go. Mary Baker Eddy says the big surprise will be when they wake up and find out they’re not dead. What an adventure awaits us all! Tomorrow is an act of heroism, simply to wake up and love the world. If I don’t wake up in my physical body tomorrow, that, too, will be a great adventure. We are all Spirit. One. We are all the expression, the manifestation of Love. The tears may fall for a while, and that’s just the love overflowing from our bodies. Let’s hold each other close and know there is no end …

“A blundering despatch, mistakenly announcing the death of a friend, occasions the same grief that the friend’s real death would bring. You think that your anguish is occasioned by your loss. Another despatch, correcting the mistake, heals your grief, and you learn that your suffering was merely the result of your belief. You will learn at length that there is no cause for grief, and divine wisdom will then be understood.” Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 386

Friendship

Today I’m contemplating friendship. I know a man who thinks he is no longer friends with someone if they don’t “keep up” with each other on a regular basis. I find this to be sad, because I have hundreds, maybe thousands of friends, and naturally do not stay in regular contact with most of them. But our connections are unique and beautiful; I cherish them deeply. What fond memories I hold with childhood friends, and social media has enabled us renew our friendships in a way which would not have been possible 20 years ago. And I am grateful. There are a multitude of folks who became friends because our children had connections. The bonds we have made through the friendships of our children are some of my favorites. We have many warm fuzzy memories and love our time together. The people who shared metaphysical meetings are an eclectic group which has continued to grow through the years. Joel Goldsmith said that people who share a spiritual love are bound together throughout eternity. What love is not spiritual? Today I took a woman, who has been a friend for many years, to meet a person who is a good acquaintance through my association with her as an accompanist where she is in the church choir. These two are helping each other in a nurturing and heart-warming way. I’m still glowing from witnessing the interaction between them! Old friends, new friends, close friends, good acquaintances — the list is never ending! The joy it brings is exponential in scope and rich with blessings. And we are grateful …  

“When your friend speaks his mind you fear not the "nay" in your own mind, nor do you withhold the "ay."

And when he is silent your heart ceases not to listen to his heart;

For without words, in friendship, all thoughts, all desires, all expectations are born and shared, with joy that is unacclaimed.

When you part from your friend, you grieve not;

For that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain.

And let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit.

For love that seeks aught but the disclosure of its own mystery is not love but a net cast forth: and only the unprofitable is caught.” Kahlil Gibran

Nothing Left But a Blessing

 I like to shop in thrift stores. The thrill of the hunt is a fun hobby and it’s one of the reasons I enjoy using mismatched plates and bowls: I always have a reason to look for another pattern which brings me joy! Now I'm happy when I chip a plate or break a bowl, as I now need a replacement and have a reason to wander around and look at things in my favorite resale shop. Libraries and secondhand stores hold a fascination I can’t quite describe. Not only is there a certain delight associated with finding treasures, but there’s the energy of all the hands these items have passed through. I can imagine who touched the pages before me and wonder if he/she was as excited to be learning about another way of life as I am. In this throw-away society, there’s a certain happiness I feel in not buying things. Exchanging belongings with friends and neighbors adds to the tapestry of life. It’s the little things, don’t you think?

"All your past except its beauty is gone, and nothing is left but a blessing. I have saved all your kindnesses and every loving thought you ever had. I have purified them of the errors that hid their light, and kept them for you in their own perfect radiance. They are beyond destruction and beyond guilt. They came from the Holy Spirit within you, and we know what God creates is eternal. You can indeed depart in peace because I have loved you as I loved myself. You go with my blessing and for my blessing. Hold it and share it, that it may always be ours. I place the peace of God in your heart and in your hands, to hold and share. The heart is pure to hold it, and the hands are strong to give it. We cannot lose. My judgment is as strong as the wisdom of God, in Whose Heart and Hands we have our being. His quiet children are His blessed Sons. The Thoughts of God are with you.” A Course in Miracles T-5.IV.8:2-15

Anchor of Hope

Photo Credit: Richard Quick

Humans are extremely resilient, and our environment is awesome in its regenerative powers. I am currently reading/listening to The Book of Hope, the latest offering from Jane Goodall. I highly recommend it to everyone! She admits that it is difficult for us to maintain a hopeful attitude in the face of the destruction we are witnessing. She gives an example of hope with a tree which was destroyed during 9/11. While the clean-up was happening, about a month into the process, a remnant of a pear tree was discovered between two large pieces of concrete. It nearly went to the dump, but a woman asked that she be allowed to try to save it. It went to a nursery in the Bronx and survived. It is now planted at the memorial site and is a great inspiration to everyone, particularly those who feel hopeless. She gives another example of camphor trees is Nagasaki. We can all tell about demonstrations of the will to live, and, also, the ability to let go of this material existence gracefully. My friends inspire me with their adaptability and realization that Love is indeed the answer. The meaning of life is love — learning how to feel it, express it, and let it flow into its many forms. I am grateful…

“The nature of Christianity is peaceful and blessed, but in order to enter into the kingdom, the anchor of hope must be cast beyond the veil of matter into the Shekinah into which Jesus has passed before us, and this advance beyond matter must come through the joys and triumphs of the righteous as well as through their sorrows and afflictions. Like our Master, we must depart from material sense into the spiritual sense of being.” Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health P 40:32

Igor Gruppman Plays Tribute to Ukraine

https://youtu.be/i-jyP2vs30s

As the world watches the destruction of Kyiv, we feel great sadness. A native of this city, Igor Gruppman, is a violinist with the Rotterdam Philharmonic  Orchestra. Recently he performed this tribute to his country. It has been in my head all day and nothing has moved me quite so much as this video, which I share with you here. 

For some reason, this HG Wells quote also has stayed with me today: “We all have our time machines, don't we. Those that take us back are memories...And those that carry us forward, are dreams.” The Time Machine, 1895

What is Happening?

Do you believe in magic? It’s a good song, that’s for sure. We all want to believe that things can happen just because we think about them, but is that magic? Perhaps it’s simply the way things are. Thought is powerful. Tonight I watched a documentary called “You Can’t Kill Meme”. Frightening stuff, but I’m finally beginning to understand what has happened to us in the past few years. The mind control being exercised by large groups of people is scary, but what of the few people who utilize the internet to exponentially heighten their thought manifestation? To quote one man, “Introduce an element of chaos to break down social hierarchies.” Without citing specific instances, what I’ve ultimately taken away from this informative video is that we must be pure in our reflection of Love and its energy. There was one woman who came closest to my way of looking at the task before us as “lightworkers”, but unfortunately she wandered off into the ozone, talking about Obama being a time traveler and going to Mars. Let’s stay on point! I have friends who are working for Truth and Love by the food they ingest and the information they spread about a pure way of living. There are many paths and we all have a purpose. Let’s not be afraid to spread love and joy!

“One of the ways in which you can correct the magic-miracle confusion is to remember that you did not create yourself.²You are apt to forget this when you become egocentric, and this puts you in a position where a belief in magic is virtually inevitable. ³Your will to create was given you by your Creator, Who was expressing the same Will in His creation. ⁴Since creative ability rests in the mind, everything you create is necessarily a matter of will. ⁵It also follows that whatever you alone make is real in your own sight, though not in the Mind of God. ⁶This basic distinction leads directly into the real meaning of the Last Judgment.”

A Course in Miracles - T-2.VIII

All

 

All the Hemispheres

Leave the familiar for a while.

Let your senses and bodies stretch out

Like a welcomed season

Onto the meadows and shores and hills.

Open up to the Roof.

Make a new water-mark on your excitement

And love.

Like a blooming night flower,

Bestow your vital fragrance of happiness

And giving

Upon our intimate assembly.

Change rooms in your mind for a day.

All the hemispheres in existence

Lie beside an equator

In your heart.

Greet Yourself

In your thousand other forms

As you mount the hidden tide and travel

Back home.

All the hemispheres in heaven

Are sitting around a fire

Chatting

While stitching themselves together

Into the Great Circle inside of

You.

From: ‘The Subject Tonight is Love’

Translated by Daniel Ladinsky

Finding Solace in a Library

 

“A library is a good place to go when you feel unhappy, for there, in a book, you may find encouragement and comfort. A library is a good place to go when you feel bewildered or undecided, for there, in a book, you may have your question answered. Books are good company, in sad times and happy times, for books are people - people who have managed to stay alive by hiding between the covers of a book."

[Letters of Note; Troy (MI, USA) Public Library, 1971]” 
― E.B. White

Love Out Loud!

 

Photo credit: Blake Lasater

The smoke still hangs in the warm spring air in Eureka Springs. An early morning fire in a house partitioned into apartments left five homeless, having to jump out of bed and leave with what they could grab while barely awake. One of my dear friends is among the refugees, and it has brought home to me the plight of anyone who must leave their homes quickly, and then have no place to return. Another long-time friend was taken by ambulance to the hospital this morning, with alarming symptoms and an uncertain prognosis. My heart is with them, and hence with the world in the individual and collective plights. I am reminded to love more inclusively, to reflect and absorb the infinite Love which is All. Love heals lives, because it is life. Everyone we come into contact with throughout our days has a story which involves joy and sadness. We never know what others are going through, but we do know the importance of being kind. So let’s do that, okay? “Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.” Dalai Lama XIV

“Nothing around you but is part of you. Look on it lovingly, and see the light of Heaven in it. So will you come to understand all that is given you. In kind forgiveness will the world sparkle and shine, and everything you once thought sinful now will be reinterpreted as part of Heaven. How beautiful it is to walk, clean and redeemed and happy, through a world in bitter need of the redemption that your innocence bestows upon it! What can you value more than this? For here is your salvation and your freedom. And it must be complete if you would recognize it.” A Course in Miracles T-23.in.6:1-8

Holy Relationships

Deva Premal and Miten

My thoughts turn today toward the holy relationship. We have many relationships in this life and, if you're like me, you prefer to think of all of them as holy! If God is Love, and we express that Love, then isn't every thing we do coming from that Love which is our essence? Unfortunately, this is not true. What we think of as love is often colored with human emotions such as guilt, jealousy, lust, and fear. This is a hard admission for any of us to make. A dear friend has been talking to me recently about a relationship he is ending. I have been thinking back over relationships I could have stayed in to this very day and where that would have led my life in different paths. The thing that keeps coming back time and again is that each and every relationship I have ever had was based in some way or another on the words, "I want". Maybe I wanted to be loved, maybe I wanted to be IN love, maybe I wanted a love affair like the movies and songs tell us is the be-all, end-all. My friend is feeling sad for the loss of this relationship. He liked so many things about this woman, but there were some basic differences which caused their incompatibility. He could have stayed and been contented, but there was something missing: It wasn't a holy relationship. It was based on expectation of change and other material desires. My friend innately knows there is more than settling down with someone because it's easy. And I know he will recognize, within himSelf, what it is he's waiting for.

“My holy brother, I would enter into all your relationships, and step between you and your fantasies. Let my relationship to you be real to you, and let me bring reality to your perception of your brothers. They were not created to enable you to hurt yourself through them. They were created to create with you. This is the truth that I would interpose between you and your goal of madness. Be not separate from me, and let not the holy purpose of Atonement be lost to you in dreams of vengeance. Relationships in which such dreams are cherished have excluded me. Let me enter in the Name of God and bring you peace, that you may offer peace to me.” A Course in Miracles T-17.III.10:1-8

Music Opens Perceptions

Performance at Thorncrown Chapel

Music ​opens our ​mind to things we may have forgotten​,​ or​ ​perhaps​ have​ never known. I love to sit with ​a ​symphony orchestra, opening my mind to only the music, until at some point I feel there is nothing else in the world. I recall Wayne Dyer talking about muscle testing using different items. ​Holding an organic banana ​near his heart ​allowed full strength in his son, whereas holding a CD of raucous music left him much weakened. ​We all enjoy music in many forms, and ​on multiple​ levels. Something we would ​like with friends at a party may not compare to the quiet strains of Bach, which take us deeper within ourselves prior to meditation or writing. Find the music which opens you to hearing the messages which  Life, Truth, and Love are offering you. Surround yourself with this river of salvation and see where it takes you!

“Mozart experienced more than he expressed. The rapture of his grandest symphonies was never heard. He was a musician beyond what the world knew.​ ​This was even more strikingly true of Beethoven, who was so long hopelessly deaf. Mental melodies and strains of sweetest music supersede conscious sound. Music is the rhythm of head and heart. Mortal mind is the harp of many strings, discoursing either discord or harmony according as the hand, which sweeps over it, is human or divine.” Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 213:19-29

Solution is Love

It can be quite depressing to watch the lengths people are willing to go in order to justify evil actions. As long as history has been recorded, we have heard irrational words being used to excuse bad behavior. Politics, religion, bullies seeking importance — well, I’m preaching to the choir here, and so I won’t go on giving examples. Also, the quote attributed to Einstein about only wanting to hear about a problem as an identifier, and then only being interested in solutions — that speaks to my heart. The solution is Love. Anything which is abhorrent to our sensibilities is a product of fear — false evidence appearing real. The guiding force of the universe is Love and this recognition is ours to claim. 

“This material world is even now becoming the arena for conflicting forces. On one side there will be discord and dismay; on the other side there will be Science and peace. The breaking up of material beliefs may seem to be famine and pestilence, want and woe, sin, sickness, and death, which assume new phases until their nothingness appears. These disturbances will continue until the end of error, when all discord will be swallowed up in spiritual Truth.” 

Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 96:12-20

“It seems to be the enemy without that you attack. Yet your defense sets up an enemy within; an alien thought at war with you, depriving you of peace, splitting your mind into two camps which seem wholly irreconcilable. For love now has an ‘enemy,’an opposite; and fear, the alien, now needs your defense against the threat of what you really are. 

If you consider carefully the means by which your fancied self-defense proceeds on its imagined way, you will perceive the premises on which the idea stands. First, it is obvious ideas must leave their source, for it is you who make attack, and must have first conceived of it. Yet you attack outside yourself, and separate your mind from him who is to be attacked, with perfect faith the split you made is real.”

 A Course in Miracles W-170.3-4

We Are All Sculptors

Photo credit: Blake Lasater

The first thought we have in the morning shapes the way our day develops. I’ve visited this topic more than once in past writings. Having spent years training myself to stay away from worry and busy-ness, it’s disheartening to find myself waking up in the morning to wandering thoughts. For a few weeks, I've been having vivid dreams and I wake up thinking about what they mean. I've forgotten to bring thought to Spirit, instead allowing a wandering brain to slog through a maze of odd events featuring people, animals, and places which are well-known to me. This seems to be affecting the way I think about things all day long. It doesn't matter how much I try to push and pull my thoughts in other directions, they insist on making judgments, comparisons, and searching for hidden meanings. And so I’m going to return to training tools I’ve used in the past, insisting that my brain repeat well-loved verses from Mary Baker Eddy, pondering their meaning, and taking a stand for Good even before I get out of bed.

“The sculptor turns from the marble to his model in order to perfect his conception. We are all sculptors, working at various forms, moulding and chiseling thought. What is the model before mortal mind? Is it imperfection, joy, sorrow, sin, suffering? Have you accepted the mortal model? Are you reproducing it? Then you are haunted in your work by vicious sculptors and hideous forms. Do you not hear from all mankind of the imperfect model? The world is holding it before your gaze continually. The result is that you are liable to follow those lower patterns, limit your lifework, and adopt into your experience the angular outline and deformity of matter models. To remedy this, we must first turn our gaze in the right direction, and then walk that way. We must form perfect models in thought and look at them continually, or we shall never carve them out in grand and noble lives.” Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 248:12-29

Abolishment of War

“The man of imagination, maintaining the absolutely neutral position of Principle, with no pro-this or anti-that, is the one who will discover steps and techniques for communication leading to the abolishment of war.” 

We Are the World We Walk Through (or Christian Science, Re-explored) by Margaret Laird 

“The memory of God comes to the quiet mind. It cannot come where there is conflict, for a mind at war against itself remembers not eternal gentleness. The means of war are not the means of peace, and what the warlike would remember is not love. War is impossible unless belief in victory is cherished. Conflict within you must imply that you believe the ego has the power to be victorious. Why else would you identify with it? Surely you realize the ego is at war with God. Certain it is it has no enemy. Yet just as certain is its fixed belief it has an enemy that it must overcome and will succeed.” A Course in Miracles - T-23.I.1:1-9

The Body Cannot Contain You

 

Grotto spring - Eureka Springs AR

Photo credit: Aaron Springston 

What do you think of when you hear the words, "There is no death"? You may think of someone living on in your idea of heaven, continuing in much the same way as we knew them. We find it comforting to think we will see them again, continuing our lives as before they left us. I, personally, think of the change we call death as a grand adventure. Who knows for sure what this change will bring? Some even have an idea that the afterlife is whatever you think it is: if you believe in a traditional heaven and hell, so it is; if you see everything as eternal energy, so be it. You probably have some ideas and intuitive feelings about this, too. I’ve been examining these concepts lately, and I'm comfortable with what I’m feeling.

“When your body and your ego and your dreams are gone, you will know that you will last forever. Perhaps you think this is accomplished through death, but nothing is accomplished through death, because death is nothing. Everything is accomplished through life, and life is of the mind and in the mind. The body neither lives nor dies, because it cannot contain you who are life.” A Course in Miracles - The Lessons of Love

“If the belief in death were obliterated, and the understanding obtained that there is no death, this would be a ‘tree of life,’ known by its fruits. Man should renew his energies and endeavors, and see the folly of hypocrisy, while also learning the necessity of working out his own salvation.” Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 426:12-16

The Solace of Music

 In times of trouble, people turn to music for solace. You may have seen the video of a little girl singing "Let It Go"in the Ukraine. It was wonderfully moving when Yo Yo Ma played Ukraine's national anthem at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. Then there is the man who moved a piano into a German train station to welcome refugees. There's a video of a woman joining him in "We Are The Champions" as she is fleeing her country. Music expresses joy, sorrow, elation, or horror. We use music to celebrate or console. We all have individual needs for soul soothing these days. Reach out and embrace the music which provides you solace and joy...

"Mental melodies and strains of sweetest music supersede conscious sound. Music is the rhythm of head and heart." Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 213:24

Peace on Earth

 Peace on Earth - by Renie Britenbucher

I read a letter from Sigmund Freud to Albert Einstein, wherein he wrote to him asking if there was a way to free humankind from the threat of war. Mr. Freud has quite a bit to say about this subject, but one phrase which brought pause is, “...the lust for aggression and destruction”. I had never thought of it that way, and it caused me to take notice. Part of his conclusion is as follows: “The upshot of these observations, as bearing on the subject in hand, is that there is no likelihood of our being able to suppress humanity's aggressive tendencies. In some happy corners of the earth, they say, where nature brings forth abundantly whatever man desires, there flourish races whose lives go gently by, unknowing of aggression or constraint. This I can hardly credit; I would like further details about these happy folk.” In our world, we see famine and harsh conditions in many places. I question whether this is the way creation is supposed to evolve. I’m pretty sure when we follow the laws of nature, life as we know it would become Life as we wish it were! Namaste ...

"Heaven: Harmony; the reign of Spirit; government by divine Principle; spirituality, bliss, the atmosphere of Soul." Mary Baker Eddy, Science & Health, Page 587

Rainy Nights

Eureka Springs, AR - photo credit: Richard Quick 

 RAINY NIGHTS -- BY IRENE THOMPSON

I like the town on rainy nights

When everything is wet –

When all the town has magic lights

And streets of shining jet!

When all the rain about the town

Is like a looking-glass,

And all the lights are upside-down

Below me as I pass.

Everything Is Waiting For You

 

Photo credit: Blake Lasater

Everything is Waiting for You by David Whyte

"Your great mistake is to act the drama

as if you were alone. As if life

were a progressive and cunning crime

with no witness to the tiny hidden

transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny

the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,

even you, at times, have felt the grand array;

the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding

out your solo voice You must note

the way the soap dish enables you,

or the window latch grants you freedom.

Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.

The stairs are your mentor of things

to come, the doors have always been there

to frighten you and invite you,

and the tiny speaker in the phone

is your dream-ladder to divinity.

Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into

the conversation. The kettle is singing

even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots

have left their arrogant aloofness and

seen the good in you at last. All the birds

and creatures of the world are unutterably

themselves. Everything is waiting for you."

“I am come as a light into a world that does deny itself everything. ²It does this simply by dissociating itself from everything. ³It is therefore an illusion of isolation, maintained by fear of the same loneliness that _is_ its illusion. ⁴I said that I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. ⁵That is why I am the light of the world. ⁶If I am with you in the loneliness of the world, the loneliness is gone.” A Course in Miracles T-8.IV.2:1-7

Love Your Enemies?

All of us, individually and collectively, can find things to be upset about. Humanity is roiling with the pain of events. I wrote yesterday about the emotionally unsettled feelings of the male of our species. For centuries, women have felt put upon because of injustice perpetrated by men. Native Americans, black people, Asians — well, I’m not sure there are any groups of people who have not been tyrannized by their fellow beings. What I am sure of is that it does not need to affect our behavior today, right here and now. Forgiveness means releasing anything and everything from past experience or psychic memory. How do we not hold it against a person who has brought misery to us? What of the genocide, the destruction of art and beauty, the raping of the land? Loving someone who perpetrates such travesties seems impossible, as well it should be. Their actions come from a deranged mind. But following the instruction to love your neighbor as yourself does not mean to love the material, ego-based human. It means to love the true man, the spiritual being which is the creation of the divine Mind. And since we change the world through our own thoughts, every time I see someone committing heinous acts, I will translate the situation in my mind. We are not material; we are spiritual. What if everyone realized this? What a wonderful world …

“The metaphysician, making Mind his basis of operation irrespective of matter and regarding the truth and harmony of being as superior to error and discord, has rendered himself strong…” Science & Health Page 423:18-21

"The Holy Spirit is the Mediator between the interpretations of the ego and the knowledge of the spirit. His ability to deal with symbols enables Him to work with the ego’s beliefs in its own language. His ability to look beyond symbols into eternity enables Him to understand the laws of God, for which He speaks. He can therefore perform the function of reinterpreting what the ego makes, not by destruction but by understanding. Understanding is light, and light leads to knowledge. ⁶The Holy Spirit is in light because He is in you who are light, but you yourself do not know this. It is therefore the task of the Holy Spirit to reinterpret you on behalf of God. A Course in Miracles, T-5.III.7:1-7