September 17, 2011

ACIM Lesson #260

“Let me remember God created me.”

ACIM Prayer:“Father, I did not make myself, although in my insanity I thought I did. Yet, as Your Thought, I have not left my Source, remaining part of Who created me. Your Son, my Father, calls on You today. Let me remember You created me. Let me remember my Identity. And let my sinlessness arise again before Christ's vision, through which I would look upon my brothers and myself today.”



“Now is our Source remembered, and Therein we find our true Identity at last. Holy indeed are we, because our Source can know no sin. And we who are His Sons are like each other, and alike to Him.”

[Marsha's thoughts]

In today's remembering of our true creation, I think of reminders of the Truth of our Being. Many moments of perfect peace and joy stand out in memory, and it's easy to think replicating them is what this study is all about. And maybe it is! But that's beside the point. As there is only one cause, God, the effects we experience can only be from this original Cause. Each experience we have is individual, as this Cause is infinite. Today I will remember not to limit God through my expectations. I know people who feel they must meditate for hours a day in order to feel the presence of God. Some may think they can only have this experience in a certain place. One of my favorite books is "Practicing the Presence" by Joel Goldsmith. A central point of his writing is that the only way to experience true Being as the image and likeness of God is through silent communion. This listening Within doesn't need to be long, but it does need to be thorough. Through that thoroughness, it eventually becomes perpetual. And so today I surrender thoroughly and experience what that yielding brings.

Mary Baker Eddy quote:
“Infinite Mind creates and governs all, from the mental molecule to infinity. This divine Principle of all expresses Science and art throughout His creation, and the immortality of man and the universe. Creation is ever appearing, and must ever continue to appear from the nature of its inexhaustible source. Mortal sense inverts this appearing and calls ideas material. Thus misinterpreted, the divine idea seems to fall to the level of a human or material belief, called mortal man. But the seed is in itself, only as the divine Mind is All and reproduces all--as Mind is the multiplier, and Mind's infinite idea, man and the universe, is the product. The only intelligence or substance of a thought, a seed, or a flower is God, the creator of it. Mind is the Soul of all. Mind is Life, Truth, and Love which governs all.”
Science & Health Page 507:24-8

September 16, 2011

ACIIM Lesson #259

“Let me remember that there is no sin.”

“Sin is the only thought that makes the goal of God seem unattainable. What else could blind us to the obvious, and make the strange and the distorted seem more clear? What else but sin engenders our attacks? What else but sin could be the source of guilt, demanding punishment and suffering? And what but sin could be the source of fear, obscuring God's creation; giving love the attributes of fear and of attack?”

[ACIM prayer for the day]
“Father, I would not be insane today. I would not be afraid of love, nor seek for refuge in its opposite. For love can have no opposite. You are the Source of everything there is. And everything that is remains with You, and You with it.”

"Olive Tree"
Charcoal by Susan DeRosa

[Marsha's thoughts]
How often we feel we've transgressed some material law and are being punished for it! I had a situation today where this seemed so. After completing a few hours of bookkeeping work on my little eBook, the elderly machine decided it couldn't stay turned on for more than a minute or so and also wouldn't connect to the internet. It seemed the completed work would have to be redone because there was no way to get it off the pitiful Linux-based system. To complete my punishment, I had been prompted to do this monthly chore for the first time on the iPad, but was in a rush and didn't want to try something new, so stuck with what was familiar, even though I had a "feeling" it should be done another way. I had allowed a separation in thought from God by not listening and following up on this inner prompt. Everything I needed to do was waiting for me to accept it, but egotistical knowing once again pushed the still, small voice aside. I again felt punished when thinking of the extra time and effort all this would entail. But instead of thinking of possibilities and time schedules, I quietly went about doing other things and after an hour or so it came to me to try again with a totally cooled down computer. And it stayed on for long enough to print the information to paper. I tell you all this to illustrate that when we totally surrender our plans, we are led in harmonious ways. Also, it's never too late to choose again and find solutions. This way of total Trust always takes us where we need to be in any situation.


Mary Baker Eddy quote:
“Question: Is there no sin?
Answer: All reality is in God and His creation, harmonious and eternal. That which He creates is good, and He makes all that is made. Therefore the only reality of sin, sickness, or death is the awful fact that unrealities seem real to human, erring belief, until God strips off their disguise. They are not true, because they are not of God.”
Science & Health Page 472:23-30

September 15, 2011

ACIM Lesson #258
“Let me remember that my goal is God.”



“All that is needful is to train our minds to overlook all little senseless aims, and to remember that our goal is God. His memory is hidden in our minds, obscured but by our pointless little goals which offer nothing, and do not exist. Shall we continue to allow God's grace to shine in unawareness, while the toys and trinkets of the world are sought instead? God is our only goal, our only Love. We have no aim but to remember Him.”


ACIM Prayer for today:
"Our goal is but to follow in the way that leads to You. We have no goal but this. What could we want but to remember You? What could we seek but our Identity?"

Dancing on Cosmic Jello
from Sandy Wythawai Starbird

[Marsha's thoughts]
Many of us have gone through life feeling there is something missing; that there's an empty place which can never be filled. When we discover that it's not something lacking in us that we must find, we get very excited! This "training of our minds" which is spoken of in today's lesson is not some sort of system of mind control, it's not hypnotism or cult-like obedience -- on the contrary! We train our minds to recognize and release all the "senseless aims ... and pointless little goals" which have become life practices, learned behaviors which come at us from a multitude of sources. Then we are able to see what they have obscured: the only Source from which all reality flows. The insights and answers which appear in our lives are often thought of as serendipitous, which implies an element of luck. This is yet again something we have made up to explain the inexplicable. But spiritual sense needs no explanation. A mere glimpse through these eyes is enough to convince us of our true Identity.


Mary Baker Eddy quote:
“Spiritual sense is a conscious, constant capacity to understand God. It shows the superiority of faith by works over faith in words. Its ideas are expressed only in ‘new tongues;’ and these are interpreted by the translation of the spiritual original into the language which human thought can comprehend.”
Science & Health Page 209:31-4

September 14, 2011

ACIM Lesson #257

“Let me remember what my purpose is.”


“If I forget my goal I can be but confused, unsure of what I am, and thus conflicted in my actions. No one can serve contradicting goals and serve them well. Nor can he function without deep distress and great depression. Let us therefore be determined to remember what we want today, that we may unify our thoughts and actions meaningfully, and achieve only what God would have us do this day.”


ACIM prayer for today:
“Father, forgiveness is Your chosen means for our salvation. Let us not forget today that we can have no will but Yours. And thus our purpose must be Yours as well, if we would reach the peace You will for us.”

[Marsha's thoughts]
I love the first sentence in the commentary above: "If I forget my goal, I can be but confused ..."! Looking back over the last half-century, I see many times of major confusion, and lots of minor confusions which flutter around constantly, asking for more room to spread their wings. I like seeing them from this standpoint, that these confusions are nothing more than times when I've forgotten that my Life is Spirit. So then I wonder, What is this purpose I am to remember? It's unfolding every moment, and all I need do is show up and be willing. Willing to be open-hearted, open-minded -- just open! -- with no expectations and no plans of how things should be. It's tempting to think of this as undisciplined, and others may be critical of this attitude. But I can attest to the fact that wandering around in college for five years perfectly prepared me for free-lance court reporting, and thirty years of dipping into the minds of every type of humanity while in that profession was a great background for the things I'm doing today. And none of it could have been planned. Today I think of this as listening and following. Then, I didn't think of it at all …


Mary Baker Eddy quote:
“Jesus urged the commandment, Thou shalt have no other gods before me," which may be rendered: Thou shalt have no belief of Life as mortal; thou shalt not know evil, for there is one Life,-- even God, good. He rendered "unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's." He at last paid no homage to forms of doctrine or to theories of man, but acted and spake as he was moved, not by spirits but by Spirit."
Science & Health Page 19:29-5

September 13, 2011

ACIM Lesson #256

“God is the only goal I have today.”

“The way to God is through forgiveness here. There is no other way. If sin had not been cherished by the mind, what need would there have been to find the way to where you are? Who would still be uncertain? Who could be unsure of who he is? And who would yet remain asleep, in heavy clouds of doubt about the holiness of him whom God created sinless? Here we can but dream. But we can dream we have forgiven him in whom all sin remains impossible, and it is this we choose to dream today. God is our goal; forgiveness is the means by which our minds return to Him at last.”


[ACIM prayer for today]
“And so, our Father, would we come to You in Your appointed way. We have no goal except to hear Your Voice, and find the way Your sacred Word has pointed out to us.”

Photo by Jim Young

[Marsha's thoughts]
It seems simplistic to state that I'm only going to think about God today. But when I analyze this thought, it's pretty inclusive! If it's true that God is All, that God is synonymous with Life, Truth, Love, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Mind, as Mary Baker Eddy declares -- then how can we do anything other than think of God?? When seeing ourselves as a reflection of God, as embodying all these attributes of God, it becomes easier to see ourselves as the consciousness of all good, from which nothing need be added or taken away. "God is the only goal I have today." "There is but one primal cause." What effect can there be, what end result can occur, other than a realization that God is all there is? And so it will be easy to attain this goal today, because nothing else exists!!

Mary Baker Eddy quote:
“There is but one primal cause. Therefore there can be no effect from any other cause, and there can be no reality in aught which does not proceed from this great and only cause.”
Science & Health Page 207:20-22

September 12, 2011

ACIM Lesson #255

“This day I choose to spend in perfect peace.


It does not seem to me that I can choose to have but peace today. And yet, my God assures me that His Son is like Himself. Let me this day have faith in Him Who says I am God's Son. And let the peace I choose be mine today bear witness to the truth of what He says. God's Son can have no cares, and must remain forever in the peace of Heaven. In His Name, I give today to finding what my Father wills for me, accepting it as mine, and giving it to all my Father's Sons, along with me.”


[ACIM prayer for the day]
"And so, my Father, would I pass this day with You. Your Son has not forgotten You. The peace You gave him still is in his mind, and it is there I choose to spend today."

Photo by Dale Johnson

[Marsha's thoughts]
If you weren't afraid, what would you choose to do today? To choose perfect peace as our reality is to reject fear and worry. To reject fear and worry is to have an absolute trust in divine Love's presence within us at every moment. The word "absolute" has been showing up everywhere for me, so I decided to see if I know what it means. According to Mr. Webster it is: complete, unadulterated, perfect, not mixed, free from restriction, unlimited. Absolute peace sounds perfect! As I move through the activities of this day, I will remember to live absolutely in the moment, enjoying each perfect moment absolutely, with absolute trust that I am reflecting the One absolute Truth, and peace is the only reality.

Mary Baked Eddy quote:
“This material world is even now becoming the arena for conflicting forces. On one side there will be discord and dismay; on the other side there will be Science and peace. The breaking up of material beliefs may seem to be famine and pestilence, want and woe, sin, sickness, and death, which assume new phases until their nothingness appears. These disturbances will continue until the end of error, when all discord will be swallowed up in spiritual Truth.” Science & Health Page 92:12-20

September 11, 2011

ACIM Lesson #254
“Let every voice but God's be still in me.”


[ACIM Prayer for the day]
“Father, today I would but hear Your Voice. In deepest silence I would come to You, to hear Your Voice and to receive Your Word. I have no prayer but this: I come to You to ask You for the truth. And truth is but Your Will, which I would share with You today.”


[ACIM commentary]
“Today we let no ego thoughts direct our words or actions. When such thoughts occur, we quietly step back and look at them, and then we let them go. We do not want what they would bring with them. And so we do not choose to keep them. They are silent now. And in the stillness, hallowed by His Love, God speaks to us and tells us of our will, as we have chosen to remember Him.”

 [Marsha's thoughts[
Today I met a young woman who told me that God was talking to all of us and it was time to listen. As we chatted briefly, she told a story of finding out her husband had a girlfriend, getting divorced, feeling hopeless, Then she left a job she didn't enjoy and followed her dream of starting a little antique/art store where she has lots of cool stuff like freshly ground coffee and books she wants to share with others: a place where everyone feels welcome. She tells me this happened because she listened to God. Now, this guidance can be called many things -- following your heart, listening for the still small voice, living your dream -- whatever it's called, it can only be heard by shutting out the ego thoughts, the material-based fears, all those other voices telling us we're not good enough, not capable enough, and to just stay put because it's safe there and who knows what might happen if you listen and turn in another direction. Well, I was very much buoyed by her joy and new-found confidence. And by the fact that she started the conversation by telling me that it was time to listen to God! She just made me want to shout Hallelujah!


Mary Baker Eddy quote:
“Nature voices natural, spiritual law and divine Love, but human belief misinterprets nature. Arctic regions, sunny tropics, giant hills, winged winds, mighty billows, verdant vales, festive flowers, and glorious heavens,--all point to Mind, the spiritual intelligence they reflect. The floral apostles are hieroglyphs of Deity. Suns and planets teach grand lessons. The stars make night beautiful, and the leaflet turns naturally towards the light.”
Science & Health Page 240:1-9

Photo by Dale Johnson