Arrogant or Humble?

Photo credit: Aaron Springston

Would you feel uneasy, perhaps arrogant, if you were to say that the salvation of the world depended on you? I know I would have in the past, but that was before I realized that the opposite is true. The realization that we are united with All that Is, this is quite a humbling experience. It's easy to get this concept backwards, believing that if we recognize our oneness with God, we are displaying braggadocio. I have found boastful behavior comes about from thinking that my material, personal beliefs are more valid than the experience I share with the divine Mind. It takes a yielding of my self-important intellectual sureness in order to admit that I want nothing other than to know God. The gratitude I feel from the realization of our unity is priceless!

“The scientific unity which exists between God and man must be wrought out in life-practice, and God’s will must be universally done.” 

Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 201:3-5

“Let us not fight our function. We did not establish it. It is not our idea. The means are given us by which it will be perfectly accomplished. All that we are asked to do is to accept our part in genuine humility, and not deny with self-deceiving arrogance that we are worthy. What is given us to do, we have the strength to do. Our minds are suited perfectly to take the part assigned to us by One Who knows us well.”

A Course in Miracles W-186.2:1-7

Our Greatest Fear —Marianne Williamson

“It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.

Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us.

We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous,

talented and fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be?

You are a child of God.

Your playing small does not serve the world.

There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other

people won't feel insecure around you.

We were born to make manifest the glory of

God that is within us.

It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone.

And as we let our own light shine,

we unconsciously give other people

permission to do the same.

As we are liberated from our own fear,

Our presence automatically liberates others.”

—Marianne Williamson

Calm and Exalted Thought

Pembrooke Farm

Eureka Springs, AR

I met a woman who had lived in our mountain town for about a year. She wasn't happy here; not in any way. She told me how she couldn't stand the weather, her job, her apartment, the lack of public transportation, our farmers' market. For most of her diatribe, I calmly listened to her and agreed that she should probably go back to Houston where she was happier. But when she started to put down our local farmers' market, I verbally retaliated in a fashion more vehement than expected! Looking back on the situation, I realize the "peace of God" (which we are contemplating in today’s Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 185) has nothing to do with degrees. Divine Love doesn't become riled up if someone says something derogatory about a cause which is close to Its heart. It doesn’t become a bit upset over something, and ragingly defensive over something else. Today my focus will be on experiencing peace in every situation, not just the ones I have no emotional connection towards! 

"The calm and exalted thought or spiritual apprehension is at peace."

Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 506:11-12

“The mind which means that all it wants is peace must join with other minds, for that is how peace is obtained. And when the wish for peace is genuine, the means for finding it is given, in a form each mind that seeks for it in honesty can understand. Whatever form the lesson takes is planned for him in such a way that he can not mistake it, if his asking is sincere. But if he asks without sincerity, there is no form in which the lesson will meet with acceptance and be truly learned.”

A Course in Miracles W-185.6:1-4 

Seeing Something Where There Is Nothing

Sculpture At Crystal Bridges

Photo credit: Aaron Springston

From the moment we come into this form, we are taught what things are called, what those names represent, and the meaning we should place on them. These names and meanings tend to separate us from each other: they de-unify us. We think of learning as knowing what these things are, and then we study to find out everything about them. In this world we have made, we need these symbols, these names, in order to convey information. And yet, we keep getting glimpses of true communication -- and, if you're like me, you want more! Watching birds fly in formation is but one way we witness a higher form of knowing. Rather than learning more about the illusion of names and notions, I'd rather work toward knowing the reality of a shared unity, by way of understanding the infinite Mind which flows through everything. The knowledge that the confusion we are faced with in daily life is not true creation, this is a key to the door of Truth, wherein peace is found.

“The press unwittingly sends forth many sorrows and diseases among the human family. It does this by giving names to diseases and by printing long descriptions which mirror images of disease distinctly in thought. A new name for an ailment affects people like a Parisian name for a novel garment. Every one hastens to get it.” 

Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 196:31-5

“This space you see as setting off all things from one another is the means by which the world’s perception is achieved. You see something where nothing is, and see as well nothing where there is unity; a space between all things, between all things and you. Thus do you think that you have given life in separation. By this split you think you are established as a unity which functions with an independent will.”

A Course in Miracles W-184.2:1-4