Leaving It Behind

photo credit: Aaron Springston

ACIM Workbook Lesson #163  "There is no death. The Son of God is free."

Some people may think of these ideas as platitudes designed to placate some of us with Pollyanna thoughts and wishful thinking. Personally, I see these teachings as much more. Actually, I see them as everything. A well-known author and seer wrote a book declaring there is a spiritual solution to every problem. He was much decried by many serious metaphysical students because he seemed to be admitting there are problems and then trying to solve them. I saw it as using the title to get people to read the book, and then showing them a purer way to think about all of this. Everything we see or read is interpreted by our brain based on past experience. This is what I so badly want to leave behind. This is the freedom I seek. 

Mary Baker Eddy quote:

“This spiritualization of thought lets in the light, and brings the divine Mind, Life not death, into your consciousness.” Science & Health with Key to the Scriptures Page 407:26-29

Fairy Tales and Reality

photo credit: Aaron Springston

ACIM Workbook Lesson #162 “I am as God created me."

We all have a purpose. Some of us are sure of it, others feel they’re searching, and some don’t seem to know or care. One thing I know for sure, if we try to be something other than true to ourselves, things turn ugly. I have witnessed that within myself recently. I have espoused something which is not me, and I’m not sure what caused this lapse. But I will know, because I’m asking for this knowledge. In the meantime, I shall remember this from A Course in Miracles textbook: “…Fairy tales can be pleasant or fearful, but no one calls them true. Children may believe them, and so, for a while, the tales are true for them. Yet when reality dawns, the fantasies are gone. Reality has not gone in the meanwhile.” (ACIM: T170)

Mary Baker Eddy quote: “The substance, Life, intelligence, Truth, and Love, which constitute Deity, are reflected by His creation; and when we subordinate the false testimony of the corporeal senses to the facts of Science, we shall see this true likeness and reflection everywhere.” Science & Health Page 515:4-8

True Brotherhood

photo credit: Aaron Springston

ACIM Workbook Lesson #161 “Give me your blessing, holy Son of God.”

We are asked today to see our perfection through seeing it in another. I am choosing someone I don’t particularly enjoy being around, and undoing the separation which has caused me to think of him as an enemy. I no longer want to replay past events and conversations. I don’t want to remember things which caused me to think I’m somehow better than him. I want to allow hard feelings to dissipate and fill up the void which is left with Love. This Love is the source of his being as much as it is mine and yours. I am the Love I want him to be. He is the Love I strive to understand and live. We are One whether I think so or not, so now is the time to allow myself to be blessed by his perfection. Namastè!!

Mary Baker Eddy quote: "It should be thoroughly understood that all men have one Mind, one God and Father, one Life, Truth, and Love. Mankind will become perfect in proportion as this fact becomes apparent, war will cease and the true brotherhood of man will be established." Science & Health Page 467:16-20

Fear or Love

photo credit: Aaron Springston

ACIM Workbook Lesson #160

“I am at home. Fear is the stranger here.”

“Fear is a stranger to the ways of love. Identify with fear, and you will be a stranger to yourself.” I’m sure most of you know someone who identifies with fear, turning every situation into a nervous drama. A minor incident from today’s wanderings comes to thought. I was in the media center of our library and a woman I’ve known for years was all atwitter about her first computer lesson. As she got up from the keyboard, she had a barrage of questions for the librarian, most of them fearful what-ifs. As I was choosing videos to check out, she came up to me and continued fretting about the computer, telling me she was afraid she would break it. I assured her that unless she took a baseball bat to it or threw water on it, she wasn’t likely to do it harm. I immediately noticed the contrast between this woman and a young woman whom I’d met earlier while doing laundry. She had moved to a strange town with two young children, knowing deep inside she was in the right spot. She was at home and she wore that loving knowledge for all to see. What a beautiful sight!

Mary Baker Eddy quote:

“Let neither fear nor doubt overshadow your clear sense and calm trust, that the recognition of life harmonious — as Life eternally is — can destroy any painful sense of, or belief in, that which Life is not.” Science & Health with Key to the Scriptures  495:16-20 

Wonderment

"Wonderment"
created by Sandy Wythawai Starbird

ACIM Workbook Lesson #159

“I give the miracles I have received.”

A quote attributed to Albert Einstein says something like this: We can live as though nothing is a miracle or as if everything is a miracle. I, personally, have always leaned toward the side of wonderment, looking at life with rose-colored glasses and being tickled pink at the ever-changing miracle of life, as witnessed by trees and flowers and flowing water and all of nature. Today I’m enjoying the miracle of driving a car! Following a lower-leg amputation over two years ago, I didn’t drive for more than six months. The situation reminded me of when you lose electricity in your home for a period of time, then when it’s restored you’re so mindfully grateful! When I’m driving, I can actually feel my foot, although intellectually I know it’s the prosthetic one. People tell me this is “phantom pain”.  I think of it as a gift of Life. I'll nurture the feeling, and other inexplicable ones which are showing me Truth in all its forms and functions. I will continue to recognize the miracle so I can give it away!

Mary Baker Eddy quote: "The great miracle, to human sense, is divine Love, and the grand necessity of existence is to gain the true idea of what constitutes the kingdom of heaven in man."  Science & Health Page 560:11-16

A Clearer Transparency

photo credit: Aaron Springston

ACIM Workbook Lesson #158 “Today I learn to give as I receive.”

From today’s ACIM workbook lesson: “Thus do you learn to give as you receive…This lesson is not difficult to learn, if you remember in your brother you but see yourself. If he be lost in sin, so must you be; if you see light in him, your sins have been forgiven by yourself. Each brother whom you meet today provides another chance to let Christ's vision shine on you, and offer you the peace of God.” For more than two decades, I have practiced seeing light in my neighbor, Whit. Regular readers of this blog know of his shenanigans — and we have an update today. His quest for convincing the vulture population to move elsewhere has reached a new fervor which surprises even me. He has taken pipes from an organ and made a large gong, which he beats with his grandmother’s rolling pin, in an effort to drive off a valley-full of birds. I had an honest dialogue with him today, sparing no words in trying to help him examine things and be at peace. It could be said I’m being self-centered and grasping at my own peace. But I will remember that “if [I] see light in him, [my] sins have been forgiven by [myself].” My goal for today is to be a clearer transparency for this light to pass through. Namastè. 

Mary Baker Eddy quote: “The sun, giving light and heat to the earth, is a figure of divine Life and Love, enlightening and sustaining the universe.” 

Science & Health Page 538:11-13

One Moment of Divine Consciousness

photo credit: Aaron Springston

ACIM Workbook Lesson #157 “Into His Presence would I enter now.”

"Practicing the Presence" was the first book I read by Joel Goldsmith. In it, he reminds us that we already are and always will be "in his Presence", as this Course in Miracles lesson is reminding us today. The space "I enter now" is a shift in my perception, a change of my thought. This shift allows me to realize that I always was and always will be the experience and expression of God. I Am that I Am. If good news were reported in the media, they would be proclaiming universal yielding to Truth, because we're seeing it everywhere! That's what it's all about, huh? We are being "renewed by the transforming of our mind". We're transforming our mind into Mind and entering into the kingdom of heaven which is within. How wonderful to know we have that choice!

Mary Baker Eddy quote:

“One moment of divine consciousness, or the spiritual understanding of Life and Love, is a foretaste of eternity.” Science & Health Page 598:23-25