New Perception

photo credit: Arthur Bruno

ACIM Workbook Lesson #313 “Now let a new perception come to me.”

A dear friend told a group of us about being terribly afraid of the dark. She said she had always been this way, to the point she had asked her husband to never leave her alone if it wasn't light. She told us that three days after he died, the fear she had always lived with left her. It was just gone! This story has stayed with me and come to mind often. What a beautiful demonstration of letting go! Just like that, in the blink of an eye, we can be past anything, no matter how long we have claimed it as a part of us. What gratitude I feel to this woman for sharing her story of shifting perception making a huge difference in experience! 

Mary Baker Eddy quote:

“The human mind will sometime rise above all material and physical sense, exchanging it for spiritual perception, and exchanging human concepts for the divine consciousness. Then man will recognize his God-given dominion and being."

Science & Health Page 531:10-14

I Want to See Differently

photo credit: Richard Quick

ACIM Workbook Lesson #28: "Above all else, I want to see things differently."

Today's lesson asks us to give up any notions we have concerning the meaning of anything and everything. By doing this, we are able to stop looking at a thing and begin seeing the consciousness which sustains it. When we start asking what things are rather than telling them what they are, interesting answers may be coming our way. For instance, in one of my favorite novels, "The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared”, the main character doesn't make plans, but follows his intuition and ends up in some very interesting situations. Whether he's spending a few years in jail or crossing the Himalayas on foot, he doesn't interpret new circumstance from past experience, but views them as they are and does what needs to be done. The desire to see things differently is the beginning of doing so — and we begin the adventure!

Mary Baker Eddy quote:

"The objects cognized by the physical senses have not the reality of substance. They are only what mortal belief calls them." Science & Health Page 311:26-28

January 21, 2015 - Seeing Softly

photo by Aaron Spriungston

ACIM Workbook Lesson #21
"I am determined to see things differently"

Seeing things differently was illustrated for me today. I went on a car ride with a person who saw the world entirely differently than I did. Every car that came up behind us was following too close; when a car pulled out onto the highway, it should have waited until she was past; people in front of her were going to slow; many others were simply guilty of being "idiots". I became more and more amused as the ride progressed. She has mentioned before that she's been in a number of vehicular accidents in the past, which have always been the other person's fault. So the question comes to mind: Is she driving defensively because of past events, or are events happening because she's expecting them? I'm not going to try to make this determination, but what I do know is the difference in our attitudes towards drivers. When someone pulls out onto the highway in front of me, I'm glad because they probably want to go faster than I do. If someone zooms up behind me, I find the nearest place to happily pull to the side of the road and let them past. If someone in front of me is going slower than I usually drive, I'm glad because I know I'm in the place I need to be. I won't go so far as to say this keeps me safer, but I know it makes me happier!!

Mary Baker Eddy quote: "Seeing is no less a quality of physical sense than feeling. Then why is it more difficult to see a thought than to feel one? Education alone determines the difference. In reality there is none." Science & Health Page 86:20-24

January 21, 2012 - I will see things differently

ACIM workbook lesson #21:

"I am determined to see things differently"

[Marsha's thoughts]

Today's lesson commentary asks us to examine our thoughts for varying degrees of anger, from irritation to rage -- although it makes it quite clear there is no difference in degrees. An emotional reaction I find myself having frequently is the facetious bless-her-heart attitude so often used. If something seems too ridiculous to ignore, yet I don't want to admit the seeming idiocy of it, this is an example of when I would bless someone's heart. This is no different from saying "boy is that dumb"! These feelings of superiority are another way of setting up a separation between me and God. By holding myself up as better, smarter, cooler, that same old separation of myself from others, and therefore from God, is put into action yet again. And so today whenever anything I feel, think, do sets off a feeling of uneasiness within me, I'll pause and ask to see God where my thought may see discord. Looking through the eyes of Love (God) precludes all erroneous thought and allows us to see as we are seen -- purely, as reflections of the only Father-Mother God.

Mary Baker Eddy quote:

"Eyes: Spiritual discernment -- not material but mental. Jesus said, thinking of the outward vision, "Having eyes, see ye not?" [Mark 8:18]" Science & Health Page 586:3-6