All Things Are Helpful

 

Trip to Mongolia - photo credit: Aaron Springston

I picked up a key from someone today. It was needed to facilitate the learning of a top-of-the-line keyboard which I’m lucky enough to be playing in one of my church gigs. Learning this complex instrument is very exciting and I think about it a lot! When I picked up the key to the edifice where the Yamaha Clavinova resides, the secretary was lamenting the fact that they had a new computer and she was required to change the way she did things. She said, “I’m 78 and I don’t want to change!” Lives tend to fall into familiar patterns as we move through our days. We may find ourselves going to the same places, saying the same things, and thinking the same thoughts. These habits become comfortable. Even if we're experiencing disharmony, we often fear change. We may say, "Something told me I should do so-and-so". We often hear this calling, this inner voice leading us toward a different path than we're on, but we feel it takes courage to walk a road less or never traveled, and so we settle. To settle for anything which brings us less than joyful existence is to dishonor ourselves, which is to dishonor God. The next time I think I'm feeling this thing we identify as fear, I'll choose to interpret the emotion as excitement about what will come next!


“Had Blondin believed it impossible to walk the rope over Niagara's abyss of waters, he could never have done it. His belief that he could do it gave his thought-forces, called muscles, their flexibility and power which the unscientific might attribute to a lubricating oil. His fear must have disappeared before his power of putting resolve into action could appear.” Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 199:25-31


“Next, the teacher of God must go through ‘a period of sorting out.’ This is always somewhat difficult because, having learned that the changes in his life are always helpful, he must now decide all things on the basis of whether they increase the helpfulness or hamper it. He will find that many, if not most of the things he valued before will merely hinder his ability to transfer what he has learned to new situations as they arise. Because he has valued what is really valueless, he will not generalize the lesson for fear of loss and sacrifice. It takes great learning to understand that all things, events, encounters and circumstances are helpful. It is only to the extent to which they are helpful that any degree of reality should be accorded them in this world of illusion. The word ‘value’ can apply to nothing else.” A Course in Miracles M-4.I-A.4:1-7

No comments:

Post a Comment

New Today

Truth Needs No Defense

Photo credit: Jerry Dupy Many of my friends are social activists. They have worked for years to improve our environment, politics, and the m...