February 28, 2012 - Real Thoughts

ACIM Lesson #59

Today is the ninth 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=59

"Reflections in Glacier National Park"
photo by Aaron Springston

As usual, today's review offers so many avenues to explore that I find it impossible to settle on one! Of course, it all comes back to one thing: I Am One with All That Is. And so it is that God goes with me wherever I go; God is my strength, and vision is Its gift; God is my Source, and I see only Truth; God is the sight with which I see; God is the Mind with which I think. I have also been considering the writings of yesterday, in which I was filled with negative and erroneous thought. My stated way of coming back to Truth was through deeper spiritual study in every way, and an allowing of the purity of nature to show me my Real thoughts. A dear friend reminded me that only the inner voice, the relaxing into Truth as discerned from within, is necessary to get "back in tune". Of course, I know this is so -- and yet I find it difficult to still the illusory voices which seem to come from within! And this is why I resort to outside influences such as the writings of people whose works mirror what I've come to know as True. They bring me back to the realization that I Am One, that any seeming disruptive thoughts come from without, and allow physical senses to take a backseat to the spiritual sense which replaces material appearances. I look forward to the day when a moment of stillness will accomplish what I seem to strive for now! This harmony is my true Being -- so why won't I allow it in every moment? A Course in Miracles calls it ego; Christian Science refers to it as mortal mind. It doesn't matter what it's called as it's all unreal.

Mary Baker Eddy quote:

"This scientific sense of being, forsaking matter for Spirit, by no means suggests man's absorption into Deity and the loss of his identity, but confers upon man enlarged individuality, a wider sphere of thought and action, a more expansive love, a higher and more permanent peace."

Science & Health Page 265:10-15

February 27, 2012 - Transforming Thought

ACIM Lesson #58

Today is the eighth 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=58

Butterfly Garden in St. Louis
Photo by Aaron Springston

[Marsha's thoughts]

This is a perfect time for me to be reviewing lessons concerning my purity and holiness. For some reason, terrible thoughts have been coming to mind. After all these years of practicing holding thought to "the enduring, the good, and the True", it seems to be easy seeing things through the proverbial rose-colored glasses. But thoughts have turned murky in the last few days. For instance, I packed up a box of mobiles to ship back to an artist. As I'm sending it off, I see the box as damaged and the mobiles broken. One of my sons works in a factory and when he left for work I saw a possible accident involving him. What's up with this?? It seems every thought I have is colored by a horrible interpretation. Of course, since I'm thinking like this, I'm also having horrible interpretations as to why I'm thinking like this!  So today must be a cleaning day for me. I will delve deeply into my daily studies rather than a cursory reading. I'll listen to an audio chat from spirituality.com while doing some household chores. I'll play an inspirational recording in the car while running errands. And while out, I'll stop by a peaceful little lake and soak up some sunshine and see what early flowers are peeking out, showing me pure holiness without thought. All these things I will see in Truth, and if anything else wants attention, I'll just say no!

Mary Baker Eddy quote:

"Man walks in the direction towards which he looks, and where his treasure is, there will his heart be also. If our hopes and affections are spiritual, they came from above, not from below, and they bear as of old the fruits of the Spirit." 

Science & Health Page 451:14-18

February 26, 2012 - Radical Reliance on Truth

ACIM workbook lesson #57:

Today is the seventh 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=57

[Marsha's thoughts]

Aaron in Mongolia

I have often been asked if (or perhaps told that) Christian Science is a cult. Having been affiliated with this way of life since childhood, it assuredly is not. I've never been controlled by anyone, or asked to worship anyone, or any of the other criteria necessary to qualify for this category of action. And I'm sure that Course in Miracles students often get the same thing, judging from what a quick search of YouTube videos reveal! What we do ask of ourselves is a radical reliance on God, a wholehearted acceptance of God as the only power, to recognize that Love leads every action. This is the goal I set for myself at every moment. And this is why I see such a strong interaction with these two disciplines: they both ask us to give up material beliefs and rely on Truth. This may not be as hard as we'd like to make it out to be! Think back on the so-called laws of life you have adopted in the past. Shouldn't' it be as easy to allow spiritual principles to guide your actions as it is to accept material rules which make no sense? For example, why should being cold and wet give you a cold? What silly admonitions we have heard about things that will cause us to "catch cold". This is only one example, but I'm sure you can think of many you have heard and lived by in your life. This quote from Lesson 34 says it all: "When I see the world as a place of freedom, I realize that it reflects the laws of God instead of the rules I made up for it to obey." And the rules of God are simple to hear when we have cleared out the cacophony which hides them from our thought. To live from the Truth within rather than the made-up rules of material existence, this is the freedom which will lead us into harmonious peace for all.

Mary Baker Eddy quote:

"The conceptions of mortal, erring thought must give way to the ideal of all that is perfect and eternal. Through many generations human beliefs will be attaining diviner conceptions, and the immortal and perfect model of God's creation will finally be seen as the only true conception of being."

Science & Health Page 260:7-12

February 25, 2012 - Seeing Love

ACIM workbook lesson #56:

Today is the sixth 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=56

Photo by Mawuena Davies

[Marsha's thoughts]

Once we develop the habit of seeing everything in Love, it is jolting to hear someone speaking from a space of fear and attack. One of my neighbors has become so sure that everything is attacking him, that everything is attacking him! For almost 20 years, I've watched him as he goes from one drama to the next, including divorces, lost jobs, personal attacks of various types, all of his thoughts magnetized and attracting more of the same. Many of us have been there to some extent or another, and most of us reading these words have made a conscious choice to see -- to see Love, to see the Reality of our being rather than the attacks often envisioned in uneducated thought. Wanting to see differently more than anything else is the key to finding this open secret. The acknowledgement that God is everything, including my true self, is the first step in demonstrating Truth. Closing the door on the illusionary images we have become accustomed to thinking of as reality allows us to see true Reality. And when we see it, we can live it.  As soon as we allow ourselves to not only observe this truth, but to actualize it in daily practice, we start to notice synchronicities in various surprising ways. It may be that we're in the right place at the right time in order to meet people we need to meet to facilitate projects and other related things. Or maybe we notice we are where we need to be in order to help someone else by the utilization of a particular skill or resource that we have. The only thing more satisfying than noticing these parting-of-the-veil experiences in ourselves is watching this light come on within others. It's with childlike wonder that we relate these events to each other, until they become such a part of our lives we expect nothing else but good, God, to be manifest in our experience. There is nothing to fear in this change of thought. Embrace it and feel joy!

Mary Baker Eddy quote:

“Here let a word be noticed which will be better understood hereafter,--chemicalization. By chemicalization I mean the process which mortal mind and body undergo in the change of belief from a material to a spiritual basis.”

Science & Health Page 168:30-2

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