Wonderment

"Wonderment"
created by Sandy Wythawai Starbird

ACIM Workbook Lesson #159

“I give the miracles I have received.”

A quote attributed to Albert Einstein says something like this: We can live as though nothing is a miracle or as if everything is a miracle. I, personally, have always leaned toward the side of wonderment, looking at life with rose-colored glasses and being tickled pink at the ever-changing miracle of life, as witnessed by trees and flowers and flowing water and all of nature. Today I’m enjoying the miracle of driving a car! Following a lower-leg amputation over two years ago, I didn’t drive for more than six months. The situation reminded me of when you lose electricity in your home for a period of time, then when it’s restored you’re so mindfully grateful! When I’m driving, I can actually feel my foot, although intellectually I know it’s the prosthetic one. People tell me this is “phantom pain”.  I think of it as a gift of Life. I'll nurture the feeling, and other inexplicable ones which are showing me Truth in all its forms and functions. I will continue to recognize the miracle so I can give it away!

Mary Baker Eddy quote: "The great miracle, to human sense, is divine Love, and the grand necessity of existence is to gain the true idea of what constitutes the kingdom of heaven in man."  Science & Health Page 560:11-16

A Clearer Transparency

photo credit: Aaron Springston

ACIM Workbook Lesson #158 “Today I learn to give as I receive.”

From today’s ACIM workbook lesson: “Thus do you learn to give as you receive…This lesson is not difficult to learn, if you remember in your brother you but see yourself. If he be lost in sin, so must you be; if you see light in him, your sins have been forgiven by yourself. Each brother whom you meet today provides another chance to let Christ's vision shine on you, and offer you the peace of God.” For more than two decades, I have practiced seeing light in my neighbor, Whit. Regular readers of this blog know of his shenanigans — and we have an update today. His quest for convincing the vulture population to move elsewhere has reached a new fervor which surprises even me. He has taken pipes from an organ and made a large gong, which he beats with his grandmother’s rolling pin, in an effort to drive off a valley-full of birds. I had an honest dialogue with him today, sparing no words in trying to help him examine things and be at peace. It could be said I’m being self-centered and grasping at my own peace. But I will remember that “if [I] see light in him, [my] sins have been forgiven by [myself].” My goal for today is to be a clearer transparency for this light to pass through. Namastè. 

Mary Baker Eddy quote: “The sun, giving light and heat to the earth, is a figure of divine Life and Love, enlightening and sustaining the universe.” 

Science & Health Page 538:11-13

June 24, 2015 - Sharing Happiness

"Blue Spring"
photo from Arthur Lau-Sed

ACIM Workbook Lesson #175 Central Theme: "God is but love and therefore so am I." Review of: #159 "I give the miracles I have received." #160 "I am at home. Fear is the stranger here."   

I have a friend who lives on the other side of the country who delights in taking an idea and ripping it apart, reveling in looking at it from all sides and discrediting it gleefully. It's interesting that I nurture this friendship, as these types of discussions are not something I usually find engaging. But for some reason, he intrigues me and I love watching the way his brain works! He is very intelligent, but insists on declaring that he's not, along with disagreeing with almost everything I have to say, He scoffs at my talk of Spirit and is often speechless when I throw a statement down like "there is no intelligence in matter". He sent a note today telling me all the reasons god doesn't exist -- and I agree with most of his thinking -- as the god he's talking about doesn't exist for me either. But I can't resist hearing more and so I ask him questions that I know will bring on a barrage. I just sent him a note asking: "What do you think eternity is?" I'm sure he's having fun tearing that one up!!

Mary Baker Eddy quote:

“Happiness is spiritual, born of Truth and Love. It is unselfish; therefore it cannot exist alone, but requires all mankind to share it.”

Science & Health Page 57:18-21

June 8, 2013 - What is Healed?

"Forbidden City Acrobats"
photo by Aaron Springston

ACIM Workbook Lesson #159

“I give the miracles I have received.”

When someone asks us for help with healing, we are not trying to change a physical condition, but rather to change thought about the situation. Although we tend to think there are certain laws of living which cannot be usurped, most of us have witnessed numerous examples of how this is not so. We have witnessed what appears to be a law set aside, and society generally thinks of this as supernatural intervention. In Christian Science, we call these events the demonstration of Truth. Today's ACIM workbook lesson asks us to give what we have received. This sharing of the understanding of our relationship to God is gained through our living of it. When we let ourselves slip into that space which releases all mortal thought, we allow the "Mind to be us, which was also Christ Jesus". Through this simple -- yet not always easy -- process, we give all we have accepted, and this is sometimes referred to as healing. I look forward to giving everything I have received, and by that giving, I will come to understand what it truly is.

Mary Baker Eddy quote:

"Implicit faith in the Teacher and all the emotional love we can bestow on him, will never alone make us imitators of him. We must go and do likewise, else we are not improving the great blessings which our Master worked and suffered to bestow upon us. The divinity of the Christ was made manifest in the humanity of Jesus."

Science & Health Page 25:27-33