May 15, 2014 - A Healed Mind

"Ancient Enigma"
sculpture by Ken Starbird

ACIM Workbook Lesson #135

"If I defend myself I am attacked."

There is so much to love in today's ACIM workbook lesson! A favorite point of mine is this: "A healed mind does not plan. It carries out the plans that it receives through listening to wisdom that is not its own. It waits until it has been taught what should be done, and then proceeds to do it." What freedom it is to realize we needn't be in charge of everything! Waking up in the morning, open to Spirit, God, allows us to be led in ways that wouldn't be obvious if we weren't listening. Of course, there are often parameters involved in our day, but that doesn't preclude our being open to thought about ways to think outside the box. Life is an adventure, and a harmonious one when we leave behind the desire to plan every moment of it!

Mary Baker Eddy quote:

"One says: 'I take good care of my body.' To do this, the pure and exalting influence of the divine Mind on the body is requisite, and the Christian Scientist takes the best care of his body when he leaves it most out of his thought ..."

Science & Health Page 383:5-9

May 14, 2014 - Finding Our Voice

"Finding Their Voice"
sculpture by Ken Starbird

ACIM Workbook Lesson #134

"Let me perceive forgiveness as it is."

Righteous indignation: There's a lot of it going around, don't you think? Maybe I notice it so much because it's alive and well-established within me. Maybe I'm too quick to jump on my high horse and adopt a holier-than-thou attitude. It seems there are so many injustices which need righting. We have been told that forgiveness is looking the other way and doing nothing. I see forgiveness as looking past the illusion of separation from God to the realization of our unity. With this view, I can set aside my stories of right and wrong and open thought to the reality of Love, of God. Some wonder what good this could possibly do in a world so rife with confusion. If everyone lived Love, wouldn't that make a difference? I don't think anyone would deny the perfection of that world! There is a voice audible to anyone willing to listen. Forgiveness, the releasing of illusions, allows this voice to be found. In our unity, our release is everyone's gift. There is no you, me, and God. There is only One. What a joy to be finding our voice!

Mary Baker Eddy quote:

“The voice of God in behalf of the African slave was still echoing in our land, when the voice of the herald of this new crusade sounded the keynote of universal freedom, asking a fuller acknowledgment of the rights of man as a Son of God, demanding that the fetters of sin, sickness, and death be stricken from the human mind and that its freedom be won, not through human warfare, not with bayonet and blood, but through Christ’s divine Science.”

Science & Health Page 226:5-13

May 13, 2014 - Nothing is Lost

ACIM Workbook Lesson #133

"I will not value what is valueless."

"Groups of people who have shared spiritual Love are bound together for eternity." is a quote from Joel Goldsmith. These words float into my mind often. There are so many people who live in our little town whom I feel I've always known. One person who I immediately knew when I saw her is Sandy Starbird. She and her husband, Ken, are artists in the gallery I run. They moved to this little town in Arkansas from the west coast of the USA, without ever having been here before. They were led here and knew it was where they needed to be They were similarly attracted to Eureka Thyme, the art gallery which has provided them with a home for their incredibly original works of art. The ACIM workbook lesson today tells us to not value what is valueless. To discern what is valueless we are asked if it is changeable and if we feel any form of guilt surrounding it. My friendship with Ken and Sandy, their relationship with each other, is true Love in its purest form. I'm beginning to understand this Oneness which I've talked about for years. The Love which we all share as the experience of God is everywhere, and I value that recognition. I don't need to worry about losing anything to change, because how can I lose something which is not real? And on the flip side of that coin, how can I lose anything which is real? 

Mary Baker Eddy quotes:

“Everything good or worthy, God made. Whatever is valueless or baneful, He did not make,--hence its unreality.”

Science & Health Page 525:20-22

May 12, 2014 - A Glimpse is Freeing

ACIM Workbook Lesson #132

"I loose the world from all I thought it was."

Often we feel there isn't time to study the Principle we long to embrace. We tell ourselves that we must live in the "real world" and that leaves little time for spiritual quests. With a slight shift in thought, it becomes apparent that reality isn't what we've always believed it to be. When this happens, we don't need to set aside specific time in order to practice a spiritual discipline. Without the downer of constantly repeating what we don't want in our lives, by refusing to dwell in fear and dread, we have a lot more time to hold thought to "the enduring, the good, and the true". (S&H Page 261:4) By allowing this new way of thinking to become a present reality, I am coming a step closer to understanding where Mrs. Eddy was standing when she said, "The divine understanding reigns, is all, and there is no other consciousness." Every glimpse I have of this divine reality is a moment of freeing the world from the bondage of my thought. What a gift!

Mary Baker Eddy quote:

"In the Apocalypse it is written: 'And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.' In St. John's vision, heaven and earth stand for spiritual ideas, and the sea, as a symbol of tempest-tossed human concepts advancing and receding, is represented as having passed away. The divine understanding reigns, is all, and there is no other consciousness."

Science & Health Page 536:1-9

May 11, 2014 - No failure

ACIM Workbook Lesson #131

"No one can fail who seeks to reach the truth."

I'm often tempted to resort to chants and affirmation when I am seeking a specific outcome in life. Many people see nothing wrong with this approach -- and perhaps even a lot of right in it! I've come to think of this approach as nothing more than mental manipulation, a form of hypnotism, which may create a temporary change, but is not a lasting solution to anything. If I'm not going to try to talk life into doing what I want it to, what am I going to do? I'm going to seek Truth, only Truth, and in this seeking of One Thing, I will find everything. It's not my job to delineate what that is. Releasing what I think I know, surrendering projected outcomes, and totally relying on Truth, God, I trust that everything I need will be added unto me. I don't even need to think about what these things are. Because whatever the outcome is, it will be far better than anything I could have planned. Truth is waiting for me to clear the mist which is hiding it. For this, I am most grateful.

Mary Baker Eddy quote:

"This is what is meant by seeking Truth, Christ, not 'for the loaves and fishes,' nor, like the Pharisee, with the arrogance of rank and display of scholarship, but like Mary Magdalene, from the summit of devout consecration, with the oil of gladness and the perfume of gratitude, with tears of repentance and with those hairs all numbered by the Father.”

Science & Health Page 367:10-16

                                                

May 10, 2014 - Love or Fear

photo by Richard Quick

ACIM Workbook Lesson #130

"It is impossible to see two worlds."

There is a world of Love, and there is a world of fear. I cannot see them both at the same time. This seems like an easy choice, but fear is often insidious and I may not realize that's what's guiding my choices. I can't know the world of Spirit when I'm thinking from the standpoint of mortal sense. I can't love my neighbors when I'm judging them. I can't hear that "still, small voice" when my thought is full of chaotic chatter. These dualities represent the two worlds we wish to embrace simultaneously, but find we cannot. Everything I do, or say, or think, places me firmly in one world or the other. Moment by moment, I choose what to accept as truth. By consistently turning thought away from mortal concepts and looking to spiritual interpretations, I am choosing the world I want to see. And if I'm not comfortable with what I'm seeing, guess what? I can choose again!

Mary Baker Eddy quote:

“Take heart, dear sufferer, for this reality of being will surely appear sometime and in some way. There will be no more pain, and all tears will be wiped away. When you read this, remember Jesus' words, 'The kingdom of God is within you.' This spiritual consciousness is therefore a present possibility.”

Science & Health Page 573:29-2

May 9, 2014 - Perceptions

"Buffalo Blues"
painting by Carol Dickie

ACIM Workbook Lesson #129

"Beyond this world there is a world I want."

A dear friend of mine is an artist who describes her painting style as abstract naturalism. When you look at her paintings, they are clearly recognizable as trees and barns and other ordinary sights, yet they are other-worldly in her perception  and interpretation of light and shadow and color.  She is having a major art show at a museum in a neighboring city. When viewing 30+ paintings at one time, I was transported to Carol's world. The show was entitled, "An Artist's Journey" and began with a painting she did as a small child and ended with a series of paintings she calls "Fishing With My Father". In walking through the rooms, reading Carol's descriptions of her journey, I was transported to another world. I am reminded once again that we need not leave this world to see a world full of harmony and beauty and peace. It's all in how we look at it!

Mary Baker Eddy quote:

“How true it is that whatever is learned through material sense must be lost because such so-called knowledge is reversed by the spiritual facts of being in Science. That which material sense calls intangible, is found to be substance. What to material sense seems substance, becomes nothingness, as the sense-dream vanishes and reality appears."

Science & Health Page 312:1-6