February 24, 2012 - Aghast at Nothingness

ACIM workbook lesson #55:

Today is the fifth of a ten-day review of the first lessons. For a guide to this review, and a short description of each of the five, go to this link:http://acim.org/Lessons/lesson.html?lesson=55

Aaron Loosing Bonds - phograph by a friend

[Marsha's thoughts]

This review is so exciting I want to write about each and every one -- but I've already done that! So I'll just go with the first part of the review from lesson #21: "What I see now are but signs of disease, disaster and death. This cannot be what God created for His beloved Son." Christian Scientists are often criticized for using Spirit to heal disease. Obviously this would be impossible. Alternatively, we are chastised for doing nothing when faced with this thing called disease. If you have a so-called disease, it does no good to pretend it's not there. While affirmations, visualizations, different psychological techniques are often effective at changing matter, that is not what spiritual healing is all about. Some think that the metaphysical treatment of disease is trying to affect a change in your experience. It is not. And some think that spiritual healing through prayer is praying to God to heal disease. It is not.  Yet others feel that prayer is "doing nothing". It is not. Witnessing and demonstrating the Truth of our being is what it is. Seeing past the illusion to a single moment of Reality, that is what spiritual healing is about. And when you see this Truth, you live it in whatever realm you're experiencing at the moment. This Principle cannot be changed, and the moment you realize the unchanging nature of this law, you will see it as the governing principle of everything. Today I will not be afraid to live my purpose.

Mary Baker Eddy quote:

"Human sense may well marvel at discord, while, to a diviner sense, harmony is the real and discord the unreal. We may well be astonished at sin, sickness, death. We may well be perplexed at human fear; and still more astounded at hatred, which lifts its hydra head, showing its horns in the many inventions of evil. But why should we stand aghast at nothingness?”

Science & Health Page 563:1-7

February 23, 2012 - Unreal or True Thought?

Workbook Lesson #54

Today is the fourth of a ten-day review of the first lessons. For a guide to this review, and a short description of each of the five, go to this link:http://acim.org/Lessons/lesson.html?lesson=54

Shared Thought at the Great Wall of China
Photo by Aaron Springston

[Marsha's thoughts]

Upon awakening today, I had about 20 inane and/or insane thoughts before I realized what I was doing! Thoughts that start out as simply as "What day is this and where am I supposed to be?" quickly followed a chain of remembrances which took me from a lovely cooking store to my childhood home, zooming over to a friend's house and a remembered conversation, and zipping back to a neglected household chore. This is why it is so important to guide your first thoughts in paths of Spirit. Without this discipline, we can spend all our time with meaningless thoughts which create turmoil rather than peace within us. I have found that leading first thoughts to Truth helps keep my mind in tune with the real for the rest of the day, rather than the material insanity which comes at us from every direction once we leave the sequestered world of our home. We so often feel we are bombarded by thoughts of fear and hostility, lack and disease, error and disharmony. What if our thoughts of peace and harmony could still the seeming turmoil of the world? Then would it be worth the effort to pull these thoughts away from the untrue and keep them steadfastly on the True? These teachings tell us that this is so, that we are not alone in experiencing the effects of our seeing. Everything true we think or speak or do is shared with all. How important then to see Reality rather than the insane beliefs we are taught by the repetition of them. What I see is what I think; what I think is what I see. Take a stand for Truth today and every day and see the transformational power.

Mary Baker Eddy quote:

"Through discernment of the spiritual opposite of materiality, even the way through Christ, Truth, man will reopen with the key of divine Science the gates of Paradise which human beliefs have closed, and will find himself unfallen, upright, pure, and free, not needing to consult almanacs for the probabilities either of his life or of the weather, not needing to study brainology to learn how much of a man he is."

Science & Health Page 171:4`11

Marsha

February 22, 2012

Review of 6-10

February 21, 2012 - To see or not to see

ACIM workbook lesson #52:

Today is the second of a ten-day review of the first lessons. For a guide to this review, and a short description of each of the five, go to this link: http://acim.org/Lessons/lesson.html?lesson=52

Glacier National Park
photo by Aaron Springston

[Marsha's thoughts]

We who are practicing metaphysicians often hear words like these: "Get real! Face facts! Pull your head out of the sand!" I usually just smile and say, "You may be right", and politely wander away. Trying to explain my actions to the spiritually-deaf ear would be akin to explaining purple to a blind child. But if I were asked to do that, it would have to be through feeling the color and allowing that sight to pass to the sightless. And so rather than explaining -- or worse, arguing! -- I will feel Love, the spiritual reality, while allowing the material argument to pass through and be gone. I have not always been so easy to get along with! Recently I've had a chance to spend time with an old friend who will be moving far, far away. A number of years ago, she and I had an altercation which was deeply interconnected to lots of areas in our friendship. If either she or I had held onto the past, we wouldn't share the palpable Oneness we feel today. As this lesson tells us, it's not a choice of seeing past or present, but a choice to see or not to see. Where I've chosen to shade my thoughts with unreality, I will choose again and flow in Oneness with God.

 Mary Baker Eddy quote:

"Spiritual causation is the one question to be considered, for more than all others spiritual causation relates to human progress. The age seems ready to approach this subject, to ponder somewhat the supremacy of Spirit, and at least to touch the hem of Truth's garment." 

Science & Health Page 270:22-27

February 20, 2012 - Illusion to Reality

ACIM workbook lesson #51:

Today we begin a ten-day review of the first lessons. For a guide to this review, and a short description of each of the five, go to this link: http://acim.org/Lessons/lesson.html?lesson=51

[Marsha's thoughts]

In the first 50 days of the year, we have started to recognize what is reality and what is illusion. We have learned that what we think we see is actually taking the place of true vision. By realizing that nothing means anything, we are giving ourselves permission to drop beliefs and accept spiritual facts. Everything I think I see is colored with judgment, both mine and others. This judgment has given me whatever meaning I've placed on anything. These meanings make no sense and cannot be understood because they have been interpreted through erroneous thought and belief. By seeing through the illusions we've made, we free ourselves to see Truth. When we accept that these thoughts mean nothing, we let go of the self-importance we've attached to everything we think. Then we are able to release them and replace them with the inner knowing that is God. When I become upset, it is never for the reason I think. In order to justify these incomprehensible beliefs, I have made up a complex defense system of attacks and  retreats which only serve to leave me in a state of disharmony. I don't want this crazy fantasy to be my life! I want to follow the leadings of Love, to hear through Spirit, to see with Soul, to live Life.

Mary Baker Eddy quotes:

“Spiritual perception brings out the possibilities of being, destroys reliance on aught but God, and so makes man the image of his Maker in deed and in truth.” 

Science & Health Page 203:13-16

February 19, 2012 - Sustained by Love

ACIM workbook lesson #50:

“I am sustained by the Love of God.”

Heather Sustained
photo by Aaron Springston

[Marsha's thoughts]

When an animal looks at us lovingly, do we ever wonder if we need to comb our hair or if we have spinach in between our teeth? This loving glance is pure in many ways which our human love seems to lack. I look to my dog(s) to show me the way to express and to feel the Love that is God. In order to recognize that "I am sustained by the Love of God", I must give up all previous notions of what love is. I once heard a mother say of her child that she had to love him, but she didn't have to like him. I think we often have this idea about God's Love, too. Yes, we'll tell ourselves, God loves me -- but there's a nagging suspicion that it's only because He has to. But this idea never existed in divine Love. Can we even begin to imagine a Love that just is? I certainly want to. I want to know this Love of God and allow it to sustain me constantly, not just when I don't know what to do and reach out in desperation. Today I'm feeling out of sorts for no particular reason. So I think I'll take a walking meditation, stilling my mind and feeling nothing but the air around me. And pretty soon I know there will be a hint of Love coloring my mood. A taste is all it takes for me to want to throw off the shackles of ennui and swim in a sea of all-sustaining Love.

Mary Baker Eddy quote:

In the following Psalm one word shows, though faintly, the light which Christian Science throws on the Scriptures by substituting for the corporeal sense, the incorporeal or spiritual sense of Deity:-- Psalm XXIII

[DIVINE LOVE] is my shepherd; I shall not want. [LOVE] maketh me to lie down in green pastures: [LOVE] leadeth me beside the still waters. [LOVE] restoreth my soul [spiritual sense]: [LOVE] leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake.Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for [LOVE] is with me; [LOVE'S] rod and [LOVE'S] staff they comfort me. [LOVE] prepareth a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: [LOVE] anointeth my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house [the consciousness] of [LOVE] for ever.

Science & Health Page 577:31-18

February 18, 2012 - All day

ACIM workbook lesson #49:

"God's Voice speaks to me all through this day."

 "Heather in Fall"
Photo by Aaron Springston

When someone says that God is speaking to them, it is commonly thought that they are schizophrenic or unbalanced in some way. This is because we have come to believe that our material brains are the center for ideas and thoughts, and that anything else is some form of supernatural brouhaha.  With the understanding that divine Mind is the creator of all things spiritual, and that ideas are a product of this Mind, then it is easier to understand that it's natural; that we can and do hear God's voice all the time. The cacophony in our mind often drowns out the voice of the divine Mind. By training ourselves to quiet this constant chatter which we have become accustomed to accepting as a normal aspect of our material existence, we allow peaceful inner knowing to be heard. This Voice of God is always present, everywhere, for anyone to hear. But so often we are afraid to listen. Do you remember the last time you "just knew" something, but didn't follow through with it, pushing your intuition aside in favor of what we call common sense? These instances might be something minor in nature, or they may be something which would have resulted in a major shift in events. To know our spiritual nature as an idea of divine Mind is to know that the intelligence of the universe is ours for the listening. To allow ourselves to hear from spiritual sense is to hear God's Voice all through the day.

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 [Its] 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