January 6, 2014 - Unreality Revealed

"Illusions in Mongolia"
photo by Aaron Springston 

ACIM Workbook Lesson #6

“I am upset because I see something that is not there.”

Have you seen a documentary entitled, "My Life as a Turkey"? I found it to be profound in many ways, but today I relate it to our practice of seeing the unreality in everything we have come to think of as real. For more than a year, Joe Hutton lived with a flock of 16 wild turkeys, which he incubated and bonded with while they were still in the eggs. He didn't just live with them as you and I might. He was with them 24 hours a day to the exclusion of seeing any humans. He spent his days walking the woods as part of the flock, seeing through their eyes, speaking their language, striving to match their awareness of nature and their ability to live totally in the moment. The dedication and love expressed by this man is wonderfully inspiring to me. By his all-encompassing need to understand nature, to be a part of it without any of the learned beliefs he has acquired in his life, he has shown me what is possible when a discipline is approached with a "single eye". It is this singularity of purpose which we are learning to recognize in our study of both A Course in Miracles and Christian Science. I want to know God as much as Joe wanted to know turkeys. He gave it his all, and so will I!

Mary Baker Eddy quote:

"Befogged in error (the error of believing that matter can be intelligent for good or evil), we can catch clear glimpses of God only as the mists disperse, or as they melt into such thinness that we perceive the divine image in some word or deed which indicates the true idea, — the supremacy and reality of good, the nothingness and unreality of evil." 

Science & Health Page 205:15-21

September 28, 2011

ACIM Lesson #271 “Christ's is the vision I will use today."

Photo by Aaron Springston

[Marsha's thoughts]

This lesson causes me to consider how the way in which we place our attention affects our experience. Think for instance of monumental events in your life. What comes to my mind is having a baby and it seems everyone has one, too. Perhaps you just got a new car, and you see the same model everywhere you look. It's not surprising that we see what our attention directs, but it is surprising to me that we are so adamant about keeping our sight tuned to things which no longer serve us. A friend was recently telling me that after retirement from his job as an airplane mechanic, he had yet to find anything that interested him as much. He related that photography and bluegrass music intrigued him for a while, but then that passed and he was left disinterested once again. Upon reflection, this seems a natural progression. Only something which stirs us deeply and is a never-ending unfoldment can be the passion of a lifetime. For me, the learning to let go of the many perceptions I have of how things are, or how they ought to be, is a passion. The leaving behind, even to a minuscule degree, of these beliefs, and the replacement of them with the vision of God, is an adventure which allows every moment of this existence to be exciting and new. What my attention is fixed upon is what I see. So today I see through the eyes of the One, and I will do this by having a single Eye focused only on the Truth of Being. And if past experience has shown me anything, it is that what thought is consumed by is what appears before my eyes!

Mary Baker Eddy quote:

“Agassiz, through his microscope, saw the sun in an egg at a point of so-called embryonic life. Because of his more spiritual vision, St. John saw an "angel standing in the sun." The Revelator beheld the spiritual idea from the mount of vision. Purity was the symbol of Life and Love.”

Science & Health Page 561:5-10