March 1, 2015 - The Beauty of Forgetting

"White River Winter"
photo by Arthur Lau-Sed

ACIM Workbook Lesson #60

Today we review Lessons 46-50. 

Love, forgiveness, salvation -- these and many other words have taken on interesting connotations through our material interpretations and beliefs. Often our version of love includes jealousy, attachment, and various demands we insist upon for someone to be a worthy recipient of our human-based love. Forgiveness seldom is an acknowledgement that there is truly nothing to forgive, but carries with it superior thoughts and magnanimous gestures. Salvation has an odd interpretation which includes a paying of penance to someone or something. As we turn away from the material conceptions of these and other words, we are allowed to glimpse Love, wherein there is no forgiveness nor salvation as we think of them. We are told in the first lesson review today that "God does not forgive because He has never condemned." And we are told that the forgiveness we are learning of as human beings is "the reflection of God's Love on earth." When looked at from this view, it seems senseless to say that we can forgive but not forget. If we truly are, in reality, the perfect reflection of divine Love, if this is the spiritual reality (hence, the Only reality), it becomes easy to lay down the sword and go forward living from the heart rather than the brain. We can let go all thoughts of retaliation or revenge and live by the law of grace. How I long to forget everything and begin again from Love!

Mary Baker Eddy correlative quote:

"Progress takes off human shackles. The finite must yield to the infinite. Advancing to a higher plane of action, thought rises from the material sense to the spiritual, from the scholastic to the inspirational, and from the mortal to the immortal. Love, the divine Principle, is the Father and Mother of the universe, including man."

Science & Health Page 256:1-8

February 28, 2015 - One Mind

"Snowbird"
photo by Aaron Springston

ACIM #59: Today we review Lessons 41-45. 

I've always had a tough time understanding political conflicts. It seems to me that if everyone is for the good of all, why would there be a conflict? I simply don't understand why we have these problems, and certainly don't want to talk about these crazy-seeming scenarios. We have one such brouhaha churning in our small tourist town. As hard as it is for me to believe, apparently some establishments refuse to do business with people of certain sexual orientations, so our town council passed an anti-discrimination ordinance. Now the state says this is illegal because people should be able to serve whoever they want to and refuse service to whomever they choose. Some people say, Why should we have to pass a law to facilitate something which should be happening in the first place: equality for all. We watch sadly as people choose a side and prepare for battle. Then there are the people who say they don't want to condone behavior by doing business with people whose actions are not approved of by them. Some go so far as to say this is mandated by God. If we believe and practice today's review topics, this is all a moot point. The presence of divine Love is with me and everyone all the time, so why should I feel compelled to condemn? The realization that I am seeing with Spirit's vision, and that I cannot see any other way, precludes any judgment too, because God is Love and does not judge. If God is the Mind with which I think, and that thought is only light, there is no fear nor condemnation. We could stop trying to change others' thought to what we think, knowing that every thought with divine Mind is exponential. Let's go forth and multiply -- Mind with a capital M, that is! 

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, 2015 - What, Me Worry?

photo by Heather Magnan

ACIM Workbook Lesson #58:

Today we review Lessons 36-40. 

This review speaks of "my holiness" in four of the five summarized lessons. What does that mean? Is my holiness different from your holiness, perhaps based on actions or thoughts? We are learning that this holiness is our true state of being as reflections of Love, realized through forgiveness in its purest sense. When I assert this Truth about myself, I affirm it for everyone. The urge to micro-manage things is strong in most of us, because we've been taught to make plans, to set goals, to nail down all the details. But most things in this life are beyond our control, aren't they? How many times do we make intricate plans only to have to change them when circumstances change?  I could write a book! Wayne Dyer tells us that worry is counterproductive. He asks, Why worry? If we can do something about a situation, we will. If we can't do anything about it, what's the use in worrying? Living by this precept has brought a freedom I wouldn't have known had I held on to my old drama queen ways. My mantra is: Only Good can come of this. For this realization, I am most grateful.

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, 2015 - Happily Letting Go

"Parade in Eureka Springs"
photo by Richard Quick

ACIM Workbook Lesson #57:

Today we review Lessons 31-35. 

Reading today's lesson reviews, I am reminded that I am not a victim of the world I see, and that I have invented this sight. It suggests that perhaps there is another way of looking at it all, a way where I could see peace instead of this. It reminds me that my mind is of God, that I am Its holy image. What if we could simply relax into Truth, and not feel the need to make others think as we do or change anyone's mind about anything. It wouldn't matter if anyone believed in God, or followed any particular teaching system or religion -- it just wouldn't matter.  We could all relax and "let it Be", I know quite a few people who are ready to stop the madness and let freedom of thought take us to new heights of equality! And it's not just the airy-fairies who think this way, but physicists and learned people from all walks of life. Every thought counts! Let's go forward today with Joy, knowing that's something which will spread without any effort other than the sheer happiness of it 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, 2015 - Connected -- or not!

"Camels in Mongolia"
photo by Aaron Springston

ACIM Workbook Lesson #56:

Today we review Lessons 26-30

I've been contemplating our connectivity and, also, lack of connection. Many people say that we are suffering from a loss of connections with real people; that we have given ourselves to technology and think we are making connections when we're actually just passing time. I wonder if the face-to-face connections we so often have are any more "real" than the computer relationships we sustain. So far, my conclusion is that any relationship can be shallow or deep, and how they come about really has nothing to do with it. Admittedly, I don't sit on my front porch with neighbors watching the sunset and chatting. But I've noticed that the great majority of communications I have with people have nothing to do with Reality, but have everything to do with mindless chatter. On the other hand, friendships I keep up with on the computer tend to be more substantial. No one emails me and tells me gossip about mutual friends or the details of their gallbladder operation. Although I have received no great insights about how changes in communications have affected our friendships and how they affect the world, I know that we have more opportunities to enjoy each other than ever before, and I want to take advantage of every moment of it!

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, 2015 - Healing

photo by Heather Magnan

ACIM Workbook Lesson #55:

Today we review Lessons 21-25. For a guide to this review, and a short description, go to this link:http://A Course in Miracles.org/Lessons/lesson.html?lesson=55

This review is so exciting that I want to write about each and every one of the five topics -- but I've already done that! So I'll just go with the first part of the review, which is from lesson #21 in the Course in Miracles workbook: "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 attempting to use 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 metaphysical  healing is all about. Some people think that the metaphysical treatment of disease is an attempt to affect a change in your experience. It is not. And some think that spiritual healing through prayer is asking God to heal disease. It is not. Yet others feel that prayer is doing nothing. It is not. Seeing past the material illusion to a single moment of spiritual Truth, that is what spiritual healing is about. This knowledge and the demonstration thereof is available to anyone, anywhere, anytime. This Principle is changeless and eternal. All we need do is awaken to it. Today I am determined to see!

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, 2015 - Determined to See

ACIM Workbook Lesson #54

Today's review is of Lessons 16-20.

Since spending almost three weeks in the hospital, I have been on a rainbow of prescription drugs. This regimen is foreign to me, having not taken so much as a vitamin supplement in the past. Having committed myself to doctors' care, I readily acquiesced and was willing to do what they wanted. But it is becoming more and more obvious (as I've always known, but not personally experienced) that what they recommend is no more than an educated guess. This guesswork becomes more complicated when their judgment is swayed by pharmaceutical companies telling them what they should do. I feel that each and every doctor I have seen in the past two months is a wonderful person, and that they are doing the best they can with what they have to work with. They have made a decision to help mankind and have devoted their lives to this noble pursuit. As our lesson reviews tell us, in part, today: I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my seeing and I am determined to see. Today I vow to devote my thought more steadfastly to the spiritual Truth I want to see. That is the one thing I desire, and I am not alone in this seeing!

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