Gratitude

photo credit: Aaron Springston

ACIM Workbook Lesson #215 Central theme: "I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me." Review: #195 "Love is the way I walk in gratitude."

I am gaining confidence in learning how to get out of my own way, relying on the wisdom which is heard through spiritual sense. Today is not about being grateful to God, but because of God! God is Love. To experience and demonstrate this Love, nothing is required of me other than my awareness of it. When facing circumstances which feel difficult, I will look at them under the microscope of Love, honestly wanting to know the Truth of the situation. In gratitude, I open my eyes to whatever may be revealed.

Mary Baker Eddy quote:

"We should examine ourselves and learn what is the affection and purpose of the heart, for in this way only can we learn what we honestly are. If a friend informs us of a fault, do we listen patiently to the rebuke and credit what is said? Do we not rather give thanks that we are "not as other men"? During many years the author has been most grateful for merited rebuke.” Science & Health Pages 8:28-3

Giving It Up To Love

photo credit: Aaron Springston

ACIM Workbook Lesson #214 Central theme: "I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me." Review: #194 "I place the future in the Hands of God."

I know a woman who is involved in the messy settlement of her mom's estate. When she gets letters from the attorneys, she puts them in her bible and says she's giving it to God. This is NOT what we're talking about today! The willingness to radically rely on God opens the way for ideas and spiritual sense to lead us in ways we may not have considered before. Things may then "come up" from the depths of our emotional stores, allowing them to be acknowledged and released. That's what I call "giving it to God"! The past is gone. With every letting go of well-rehearsed, long-gone events, or the quiet release of guilt or pain, peace becomes reality for me. It doesn't matter if anyone was right or wrong, it doesn't make any difference what motives were involved, part of me has been emptied to be filled with the only reality: Love.

Mary Baker Eddy quote:

“We cannot fill vessels already full. They must first be emptied. Let us disrobe error. Then, when the winds of God blow, we shall not hug our tatters close about us.”

Science & Health Page 201:13-15

Forgive and See Differently

photo credit: Aaron Springston

ACIM Workbook Lesson #213 Central Theme: “I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me.”

Review: #193 “All things are lessons God would have me learn.”

Today's review reiterates, "Forgive, and you will see this differently." Most everything which comes to mind, I would like to see differently. And so I shall forgive. Letting go of belief, misunderstanding, learned behavior, guilt, blame, the past, the future -- what's left to see? This present moment! — with no expectations or interpretations!

Mary Baker Eddy quote:

“Spiritual sense, contradicting the material senses, involves intuition, hope, faith, understanding, fruition, reality.”

Science & Health Page 298:13-15

Fulfilled Function

photo credit: Aaron Springston

ACIM Workbook Lesson #212 Central Theme: “I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me.” Review: #192 “I have a function God would have me fill.”

In our early years we are often asked the question, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" We are encouraged to choose a profession as our function in life. Many of us were never comfortable with this and didn't manage to do it. For instance, I graduated from high school a year early because I wanted to get out into the world. I went to college because that's what everyone was supposed to do. I majored in music because everyone expected me to. I changed my major numerous times, never finding anything I could imagine doing all my life. What if, rather than choosing what we "want to be", we are rather taught to love ourselves and the world around us, with no preconceived notion of what we plan to do with our lives? What if, by living and expressing Love, we find ourselves drawn to our true purpose, the "function God would have us fill"? Just imagine how happy everyone would be! When the expression of Love is our purpose, our function becomes obvious. And it's never too late to see it!

Mary Baker Eddy quote:

“Spirit, God, gathers unformed thoughts into their proper channels, and unfolds these thoughts, even as [It] opens the petals of a holy purpose in order that the purpose may appear.”

Science & Health Page 506:18-21

Compass of the Heart

photo credit: Aaron Springston

ACIM Workbook Lesson #211 Central Theme: “I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me.” Review: #191 “I am the holy Son of God Himself.”

What barriers am I putting up which keep me from seeing my reality as the experience of divine Mind? This is something I will think about today, because it could be anything. I recall a novel with the intriguing title of “The Art of Hearing Heartbeats”. The main character loses his eyesight when he’s a young boy. One of his mentors tells him that the true essence of everything is invisible to the eyes. He tells the blind child how eyes distract us as they love to be dazzled, and that we rely too heavily on them and neglect our other senses — and he means more than hearing or taste or smell. “I’m talking about the organ within us for which we have no name. Let us call it the compass of the heart.” So today I will let barriers fall and intuition rise, knowing in Truth I’m the holy reflection of Love.

Mary Baker Eddy quote:

“God creates neither erring thought, mortal life, mutable truth, nor variable love.” Science & Health Page 503:24-25

Carry That Weight

photo credit: Aaron Springston

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.”

I remember hearing a story in which we are asked how much a glass of water weighs. Then we are told it doesn't matter what its weight is, it matters how long we hold it. If we hold it a minute, it's light. If we hold it an hour, our arm and/or hand may become uncomfortable with the weight. If we hold it all day, our arm will feel paralyzed. This scenario is a metaphor for holding onto worries and fears. If we keep them with us, we become convinced they are impossible to overcome, and we are paralyzed from the carrying of this weight. All we have to do is put the glass down to be released from our burden! Then we are free to feel the joy which is innately ours as a child of Love.

Mary Baker Eddy quote:

“Who that has felt the loss of human peace has not gained stronger desires for spiritual joy? The aspiration after heavenly good comes even before we discover what belongs to wisdom and Love. The loss of earthly hopes and pleasures brightens the ascending path of many a heart. The pains of sense quickly inform us that the pleasures of sense are mortal and that joy is spiritual.” Science & Health Page 265:23-30

Love is the liberator

photo credit: Aaron Springston

A Course in Miracles 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! Despite these strides, 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 which 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