December 6, 2013 - One Mind

"Eureka Springs Christmas"
photo by Dale Johnson

ACIM Workbook Lesson #340

"I can be free of suffering today."

In these teachings and in my writings there is much talk about "today". I've had someone ask me, Why are you going to do this today? Why not yesterday or tomorrow? Well, I really hadn't thought about that before, but I understand his consternation concerning this. Today is always, which would be now in no-time days. (I can hardly wait to see his reaction to this!) I have a lovely illustration of things coming together in now-time. We are having a snow and sleet episode in our mountain tourist town. The merchants are distraught because this is the time of year we save up for the slower winter months of January and February. The Christmas Festival started today and includes many fun events from now through the 25th. But everything has come to a standstill because of the snow. Today we were contacted by one of our town's marketing mavens and asked if we had on-line shopping sites which she could promote. I had just started to build one shortly before she contacted me! Talk about One mind! We really are all in this together.

Mary Baker Eddy quote:

"Mind: The only I, or Us; the only Spirit, Soul, divine Principle, substance, Life, Truth, Love; the one God; not that which is in man, but the divine Principle, or God, of whom man is the full and perfect expression; Deity,which outlines but is not outlined."

Science & Health Page 591:16-20

September 05, 2012 - What, me suffer?

"Aaron"
unknown photographer

A Course in Miracles Lesson #248

“Whatever suffers is not part of me."

I am reminded of a family friend from long ago. She was a wonderful, spiritually-aware person who showed me the Truth of the above statement. Over the course of a year, her husband passed on, her daughter was in a car wreck which left her in a coma for months before she died, and her house burned down. While I know she felt grief, I'm not sure there was despair. She always had a twinkle in her eye and a generous heart. When she herself passed on some 20 years later, I am told she went with a smile on her face. I often think of her. "Whatever suffers is not a part of me". This is not a heartless statement. It doesn't deny the feelings we have in favor of a hardness which excludes emotion. On the contrary! It's a pure Love which allows us to pass through the hard times with a firm understanding of the beauty of Truth. I've always found it cleansing to totally wallow in sadness, to experience everything there is to feel there. And when the grief has been spent, I'm free to see that nothing can touch my true Self or change the reality of Love.

Mary Baker Eddy quote:

“A blundering dispatch, 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 dispatch, correcting the mistake, heals your grief, and you learn that your suffering was merely the result of your belief. Thus it is with all sorrow, sickness, and death. You will learn at length that there is no cause for grief, and divine wisdom will then be understood. Error, not Truth, produces all the suffering on earth.”

Science & Health Page 386:16-25