All-Encompassing Peace

photo credit: Aaron Springston

Forgiveness is all-encompassing. It’s more than saying we don't hold a grudge against someone for something. Forgiveness is born from the practice of realizing our unity with God, hence our Oneness with each other. What more could we want than peace, joy, love, contentment, bliss, appreciation, and satisfaction? This larger, all-encompassing forgiveness reconciles any so-called differences we may have with each other, and also with anything we are holding against ourselves. Allowing divine Love to guide our every action and thought would free us to live differently than when our lives are dictated by material beliefs and habits. It's always amazing to me that some people choose to not speak to one another simply because they disagree about certain things. I like oranges, you like apples. So what? Our commonality rests in the Oneness of our true being. That's a constant reality!

“Divine Love always has met and always will meet every human need.”

Mary Baker Eddy — Science & Health Page 494:10-11

New/Old Insights

photo credit: Aaron Springston

ACIM Workbook Lesson #336 "Forgiveness lets me know that minds are joined."

After listening to a program on National Public Radio called Invisibilia, I am even more certain we are coming to see the truth of our being. The first segment of this show dealt with emotions and how we are not truly the victim of our feelings, but rather that our emotions create the world around us. They told a story of a truck driver who hit a car which had spun out of control in a rainstorm. He was overwhelmed with guilt about the incident and the ensuing death of a young girl. He sued the people whose daughter had died, stating that it was their fault for the uncontrollable guilt and pain he was experiencing. The facts of this case are beside the point to me, but the findings of a behavioral scientist caught my attention. She says we are born only knowing pleasant or unpleasant feelings, along with arousal or calm. Everything else, she states, are leaned behaviors and within our control. This woman is extremely compassionate to the pain we all feel upon, for instance, the death of a loved one. Yet she acknowledges degrees of pain and examines why we react in these different ways. Fascinatingr! I highly recommend this beautiful program.

Mary Baker Eddy quote: "The nearer a false belief approaches truth without passing the boundary where, having been destroyed by divine Love, it ceases to be even an illusion, the riper it becomes for destruction. The more material the belief, the more obvious its error, until divine Spirit, supreme in its domain, dominates all matter, and man is found in the likeness of Spirit, his original being." Science & Health Page 97:14-20

No-Fault Forgiveness

photo credit: Gerry Toler

ACIM Workbook Lesson #297

“Forgiveness is the only gift I give.”

Today’s topic turns my thoughts to wondering what it is which causes us to “get our feelings hurt” by the actions and words of others. I often quote lines from “The Four Agreements” by Don Miguel Ruiz and I love the agreement which tells us not to take anything personally. He goes so far as to say that even if someone shoots you in the head, it’s their problem, not yours! This recommendation is particularly appropriate during these days leading up to a national election in the United States. People are becoming upset at the slightest provocation. The realization that I needn’t take anything personally comes with a lovely side effect: there is no blame to apportion to anyone, hence I have forgiven without the stress of casting stones at others! What a relief!

 Mary Baker Eddy quote:

“True prayer is not asking God for love; it is learning to love, and to include all mankind in one affection.”

No and Yes, p. 39:17-18

One Light Brings Peace

photo courtesy of Aaron Springston

ACIM Workbook Lesson #82

Review: “The light of the world brings peace to every mind through my forgiveness” and “Let me not forget my function.”

We all share the same light which brings peace to every mind. It's easy to forget this is true. Darkness often feels as real as light, but it's a mirage. We can go around telling people about light, but that doesn't take away the darkness in a room. By bringing light to a situation, no matter how small the flame, the darkness is dispelled as surely as if the sun were shining. We're like the rays of light from the sun. We are an emanation of the One light: the same essence, with the same function. Unhappy circumstances in life may cause us think we've lost our light, but that can't happen. An eclipse may cover the sun beams temporarily, but they are still there, shining as brightly as ever, although unseen by some. Our function is to remember our true being. We are Love with a capital "L"! By our remembrance of this Source, our function is fulfilled. Our light glows and grows, illuminating peace.

Mary Baker Eddy quote:

“One infinite God, good, unifies men and nations; constitutes the brotherhood of man; ends wars; fulfils the Scripture, "Love thy neighbor as thyself;" annihilates pagan and Christian idolatry,--whatever is wrong in social, civil, criminal, political, and religious codes; equalizes the sexes; annuls the curse on man, and leaves nothing that can sin, suffer, be punished or destroyed.”

Science & Health Page 340: 23-29

March 1, 2015 - The Beauty of Forgetting

"White River Winter"
photo by Arthur Lau-Sed

ACIM Workbook Lesson #60

Today we review Lessons 46-50. 

Love, forgiveness, salvation -- these and many other words have taken on interesting connotations through our material interpretations and beliefs. Often our version of love includes jealousy, attachment, and various demands we insist upon for someone to be a worthy recipient of our human-based love. Forgiveness seldom is an acknowledgement that there is truly nothing to forgive, but carries with it superior thoughts and magnanimous gestures. Salvation has an odd interpretation which includes a paying of penance to someone or something. As we turn away from the material conceptions of these and other words, we are allowed to glimpse Love, wherein there is no forgiveness nor salvation as we think of them. We are told in the first lesson review today that "God does not forgive because He has never condemned." And we are told that the forgiveness we are learning of as human beings is "the reflection of God's Love on earth." When looked at from this view, it seems senseless to say that we can forgive but not forget. If we truly are, in reality, the perfect reflection of divine Love, if this is the spiritual reality (hence, the Only reality), it becomes easy to lay down the sword and go forward living from the heart rather than the brain. We can let go all thoughts of retaliation or revenge and live by the law of grace. How I long to forget everything and begin again from Love!

Mary Baker Eddy correlative quote:

"Progress takes off human shackles. The finite must yield to the infinite. Advancing to a higher plane of action, thought rises from the material sense to the spiritual, from the scholastic to the inspirational, and from the mortal to the immortal. Love, the divine Principle, is the Father and Mother of the universe, including man."

Science & Health Page 256:1-8

May 14, 2014 - Finding Our Voice

"Finding Their Voice"
sculpture by Ken Starbird

ACIM Workbook Lesson #134

"Let me perceive forgiveness as it is."

Righteous indignation: There's a lot of it going around, don't you think? Maybe I notice it so much because it's alive and well-established within me. Maybe I'm too quick to jump on my high horse and adopt a holier-than-thou attitude. It seems there are so many injustices which need righting. We have been told that forgiveness is looking the other way and doing nothing. I see forgiveness as looking past the illusion of separation from God to the realization of our unity. With this view, I can set aside my stories of right and wrong and open thought to the reality of Love, of God. Some wonder what good this could possibly do in a world so rife with confusion. If everyone lived Love, wouldn't that make a difference? I don't think anyone would deny the perfection of that world! There is a voice audible to anyone willing to listen. Forgiveness, the releasing of illusions, allows this voice to be found. In our unity, our release is everyone's gift. There is no you, me, and God. There is only One. What a joy to be finding our voice!

Mary Baker Eddy quote:

“The voice of God in behalf of the African slave was still echoing in our land, when the voice of the herald of this new crusade sounded the keynote of universal freedom, asking a fuller acknowledgment of the rights of man as a Son of God, demanding that the fetters of sin, sickness, and death be stricken from the human mind and that its freedom be won, not through human warfare, not with bayonet and blood, but through Christ’s divine Science.”

Science & Health Page 226:5-13

October 24, 2011

Photo by Dale Johnson

ACIM Lesson #297

“Forgiveness is the only gift I give.”

[Marsha's thoughs]We so often think of forgiveness as being given by ourselves to others. It seems that when we give this grace to ourselves, it is automatically given to everyone. I have a good friend who glows with inner beauty and Love. She recently told me that she realized she had no guilt. All those little things she had blamed herself for are gone. Most of us have things we feel bad about, whether it's something unintentionally hurtful said to a friend or perhaps a premeditated act from childhood. I know I do. By following my friend’s beautiful example, I hope to feel this grace which is God, and through this feeling will watch all blame and pain disappear and be replaced with the peace and acceptance which is mine.

Mary Baker Eddy quote:
“True prayer is not asking God for love; it is learning to love, and to include all mankind in one affection”
No and Yes, p. 39:17-18