Choices - July 29, 2015

"Ugly Bunny Garden Peppers"
photo by Judy Kavan

ACIM Workbook Lesson #210

Central Theme: “I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me.” Review: #190 “I choose the joy of God instead of pain.”

We have so many choices these days! From the time we wake up and decide which tea to drink, there are a myriad of choices every minute of the day. It seems as though the choice of joy or pain would be an easy one, wouldn’t you think? But making wholesome choices aren’t always easy. Today I was at the farmers' market and had a conversation with a few people who said that good food was a luxury and that they couldn't afford it regularly. I was prompted to think of the choices they had. If a person quits smoking, that frees up money for organic, fresh food. It was tempting to ask how much they spend on alcoholic beverages. There are all sorts of expensive luxuries, such as Starbucks coffee, which could be exchanged for a farm-fresh salad. Perhaps if they did a little research on how to easily prepare food, they would be prompted to do so. There's a book called "This Organic Life" where the author explains in detail how almost anyone with a small backyard can grow enough vegetables to feed themselves and their family. The main point of my rant today is that we most always have a choice. As we are told in ACIM: Don't like your choice? Choose again!

Mary Baker Eddy quote:

“As vapor melts before the sun, so evil would vanish before the reality of good. One must hide the other. How important, then, to choose good as the reality!”

Science & Health Page 480:31-2

Love is the Liberator

ACIM Workbook Lesson #209

Central Theme: “I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me.” Review: #189 “I feel the Love of God within me now.”

During my lifetime, I've seen oppression of various types evaporating. I admit that there are more walls waiting to fall  — but just look how far we've come! The strides I, personally, have made in releasing preconceived notions about people who seem different from me are huge! A man told me that he was afraid to come to Eureka Springs. Of course, I asked him why. He said if we were having one of our "diversity" weekends he didn't want to be here. He assured me he had nothing against  gay people, but he didn't want it “rubbed in his face”. This is a learned behavior of prejudice on his part and has nothing to do with the way he felt when he came out of the womb into this life. As we release what we have come to believe, all those things that we’ve been taught to think, we open the way for divine Love to guide us. Love truly is the liberator!

Mary Baker Eddy quote:

“The history of our country, like all history, illustrates the might of Mind, and shows human power to be proportionate to its embodiment of right thinking. A few immortal sentences, breathing the omnipotence of divine justice, have been potent to break despotic fetters and abolish the whipping-post and slave market; but oppression neither went down in blood, nor did the breath of freedom come from the cannon's mouth. Love is the liberator.”

Science and Health Page 225:14-22

Shining Peace

photo by Aaron Springston

ACIM Workbook Lesson #208

Central Theme: “I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me.” Review: #188 “The peace of God is shining in me now."

Many things we think will make us safe or cause us to feel better, do not. We can spend all our time doing what we have been taught will make us happy and healthy and wise, and then one day wake up and find out we’re none of those things! I’ve just spent three days in a writing workshop with nine other women. It was an exercise in learning how to tell our story, to write our memoirs, to see ourselves as we truly are rather than as we’ve perceived ourselves for years. What a freeing experience! Each and every one of us had were shining, leaving more peaceably than we began, having left on paper vestiges of the past which had hitched a ride for far too long. I know I feel more free and peaceful simply from having known these fantastic women!  

Mary Baker Eddy quote:

“The metaphysician, making Mind his basis of operation irrespective of matter and regarding the truth and harmony of being as superior to error and discord, has rendered himself strong…”

Science & Health Page 423:18-21

Boundless Love

photo by Heather Magnan

ACIM Workbook Lesson #207

Central Theme: “I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me.” Review: #187 “I bless the world because I bless myself.”

What blesses one blesses all! Divine Love does not look fondly on one and turn away from another. Love is boundless and blesses the world as it blesses me — and it blesses me as it blesses the world. Love has never left us. It has nothing to do with form, it is everywhere. I must let go of the meanings I have placed on divine Love and allow it to Be. Acknowledging the reality of our Being, affirming our goodness as the experience of God, knowing that everyone is created as a manifestation of divine Mind, these are some of the ways we bless ourselves and everyone else. Join me in falling in love today -- with Life!

Mary Baker Eddy quote:

“Divine Love blesses its own ideas, and causes them to multiply, — to manifest [Its] power.” Science & Health Page 501:13-18

Freedom Through Storytelling

"Bryce Canyon"
photo from Aaron Springston

ACIM Workbook Lesson #206

Central theme: “I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me.” Review: #186 “Salvation of the world depends on me.”

I’m taking a weekend workshop on the art of storytelling. We have a great instructor named Elaine Blanchard, and the group consists of nine beautiful, passionate women, all of us as different as we are the same. Each of us is there to release a story from where it’s been hiding within us. I can tell it will be an emotional weekend, full of tears and laughter, with joy being the front runner coming down the stretch when we’re through. Elaine has gained national attention from going into women’s prisons, gathering stories, writing them into screenplays, performing them, and allowing the prisoners to see their stories on stage. This process frees everyone involved and many of the inmates are determined to let loose the past and go forward into a new life. Sometimes you just need someone to listen in order to see what must be done. Truth does set us free!

Mary Baker Eddy quotes:

“Love is priestess at the altar of Truth. Wait patiently for divine Love to move upon the waters of mortal mind, and form the perfect concept.”

Science & Health Page 454:21-23

Pink Cows and Silver Pillows

"Andy Warhol Exhibit"

ACIM Workbook Lesson #205

Central Theme: “I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me.” Review: #185 "I want the peace of God.”

We have the most delightful museum here in northwest Arkansas: Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art! Through it, my consciousness has been expanded in ways I never would have dreamed. Today a friend and I went to see the Andy Warhol special exhibit. We knew little about his art other than that he inundated us with Campbell Soup cans and called it art. Today, I learned a bit more about this interesting man. One thing is that he wanted peace and satisfaction in his life and thought he might achieve that through controlling his art, hence the duplication of images. He also had a lively sense of humor, as shown with this room full of pink cows and floating silver pillows. It brings laughter simply to be in their presence! And he had heart, which he showed in his Endangered Species psychedelic prints. Wow, what a day full of calm and exalted thought!

Mary Baker Eddy quote:

"The calm and exalted thought or spiritual apprehension is at peace."

Science & Health Page 506:11-12

Who Am I?

photo from Arthur Lau-Sed

ACIM Workbook Lesson #204

Central theme: “I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me.” Review: #184 “The Name of God is my inheritance.”

We, as humans, make up thousands of designations in order to separate ourselves. We may be proud of our heritage, putting plaques on our walls telling that our ancestors came over on the Mayflower. We teach our children “where they came” from and tell them reasons they should be proud of this. We proclaim what state we hail from, what school we attended, which football teams we cheer for — the list goes on and on. Today’s lesson says, “Learning that stops with what the world would teach stops short of meaning.” I want to see past tribes and nations. I don’t want to think of myself as a Razorback or a woman. I don’t want to think of myself at all, but would rather rest in the knowledge that I am an Idea of God, individually expressing that in whatever way is my function! 

Mary Baker Eddy quote:

“The eternal Truth destroys what mortals seem to have learned from error, and man's real existence as a child of God comes to light.”

Science and Health Page 288:31–1