Symbolic Beginnings

"Moab" PC: Aaron Springston

Don't we all love new beginnings? Every symbolic new beginning we experience gives hope that it truly will be one this time. We yearn for peace and plenty, purity of heart and environment, joy, satisfaction. Sometimes we catch glimpses of what it could be like. For instance, I witnessed a man and woman in their 70s cavorting like teenagers in giddy expectation of exchanging marriage vows. Their happiness in this new beginning was infectious! A true new beginning is at hand -- your hand and mine, today, right now. Let’s not be distracted by ego-based taunting to play the game being enacted all around us. I will look through the temptation to stay stuck in the muddle of material belief by giving energy to the lower propensities. Raising thought above what cries out so loudly for attention, I'll see the beginning in every situation. If there is no end, can there be a beginning? Ah -- ever-flowing forever. Now!

“The infinite has no beginning. This word beginning is employed to signify the only, — that is, the eternal verity and unity of God and man, including the universe.” Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 502:24-27

I Want to Know

"Mongolia" PC: Aaron Springston

Spiritualization of thought is said to be a slow process, and many people think they don't have "time", hence it's not worth the effort to try. To remember that I am One with God is a giant step toward this spiritualization. This puts our goal right where we are, here and now, rather than somewhere far off which we may or may not reach at some point in the future. I am One with God right now! To know this intellectually and to understand it from the core of your being are not the same thing. The hunger to think through divine Mind, the longing to know myself as Love, these desires cannot be satisfied with words. Glimpses of truth cause me to crave more. The rising above human belief may seem like the work of a lifetime, but the realization that you want to know God happens in a heartbeat. Listen ~~~

"Let me remember I am one with God." A Course in Miracles

“Before human knowledge dipped to its depths into a false sense of things,--into belief in material origins which discard the one Mind and true source of being,-- it is possible that the impressions from Truth were as distinct as sound, and that they came as sound to the primitive prophets.”  Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 213:30-3

Consciousness Unfolding

"Mongolia" photo credit: Aaron Springston

There was a time in my life when I declared that I did not believe in God. The act of writing these words brings back the feelings of cynicism and self-importance which accompanied this seeming-revelation. I think what I was pushing away was the universal belief of a manlike being doling out favors or punishment from somewhere “out there”. While I had been steeped in the Science of The Christ as a child, when I left home I was sure there was something better waiting to be found. Looking for this illusive something took me along many avenues, from university classes in the bible as literature to LSD trips. Nothing ever satisfied me like the teachings which explain my being as the expression and experience of God. I am consciousness unfolding. I am Love — and so are you!

"Question: What is God?

Answer: God is incorporeal, divine, supreme, infinite Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love.” 

Mary Baker Eddy - Science and Health Page 456: 8-10 

Constantly Changing Form

photo credit: Aaron Springston

If I have something and give it away, my material belief is that I don't have it any longer. I am learning through these studies how giving will increase what I possess. I am also learning that things represent thoughts. I am discovering when I give ideas away, they become stronger in everyone's mind. The form is often changed in what we give and and what we receive, but it never leaves us lacking. Thoughts and ideas cannot be lost, whereas material form is constantly changing. By allowing ourselves to bless ourselves, we bless the world. 

“In the scientific relation of God to man, we find that whatever blesses one blesses all, as Jesus showed with the loaves and the fishes,--Spirit, not matter, being the source of supply.” Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health, Page 206:15-18

ACIM Workbook Lesson #187

“I bless the world because I bless myself.”

Image and Likeness

PC: Aaron Springston

"I am not a body. I am free." This is the topic of a workbook lesson from ACIM. The idea that I am not a body can seem like a puzzle, perhaps one of those intricate knots with an object in the middle which I’m trying to extricate, but there seems no way to do so. Then the solution appears in my thought and I wonder what seemed so impossible about it! We may put the puzzle away, not looking at it for awhile,  forgetting what we knew about it -- at least it’s forgotten until something reminds us of the solution. That's what the writings of Mary Baker Eddy and the teachings of A Course in Miracles do for me: they remind me of what's been forgotten. "Mind has set me free from every error." Today I will look to divine Mind for discernment. Infinite intelligence is my heritage as the expression of God. I pray to release all beliefs I have concerning reality, and allow inner knowing to show me Truth.

Mary Baker Eddy quote:

"I am the image and likeness of God; no mortal mind can confine this image in a mortal body, harm or touch it in any way, Mind has set me free from every error. Divine Love fills every avenue, flows through every channel and removes every obstruction." [This is an excerpt from an article entitled "Body" by Mary Baker Eddy, filed in the Congressional Library, January 19, 1886, found by Lyda Sandifer Hord]

Inspiring Joy

photo credit: Aaron Springston

There's a young woman who works in a market I frequent. I was surprised when she told me she had been gone for almost a year. Time is so elastic! She tells me she got married and it was a horrible experience. She said she didn't think she could ever look at herself in the mirror without blame. She wanted to tell me details, but I asked her not to. I told her she's the reflection of divine Love and that nothing could change that. I suggested she walk in the woods, plant some flowers, get plenty of exercise. She said there was nothing she would rather do than walk in the woods and talk to God, but that she didn't know where to go. I suggested a beautiful spot out of town called the Outdoor Meditation Sanctuary (OMS). When I described it to her, she began to cry and thanked me profusely for telling her. We all have times we need to hear about our true, pure Being. Never be afraid to offer someone that glass of cold water!

“If you inspire joy and others react to you with joy, even though you are not experiencing joy yourself there must be something in you that is capable of producing it. If it is in you and can produce joy, and if you see that it does produce joy in others, you must be dissociating it in yourself.” A Course in Miracles Chapter 9 VI:1

Releasing Perceived Pain

PC: Aaron Springston

I saw someone today whom I hadn't thought about in a long, long time. Immediately when I saw her, the grudges I held, the blame I apportioned, came to mind. But I stopped and thought about why it had ever mattered so much in the first place. The immediate conclusion was that I had felt self-righteous in the situation. I had taken actions and words personally AND had made assumptions about the reasons for her behavior. Now I look back and see that it just doesn't matter. Any hurt that I thought had been inflicted on me was nothing but my self-important response. Almost immediately I began to wonder if she thought badly of me. Then I realized that didn't really matter either. I'm not responsible for what anyone else thinks, only myself. As a good friend tells me time and again, It's none of my business what anyone thinks about me! I'm so happy to have released yet another perceived pain. Namasté ~~~

"If your brothers are part of you and you blame them for your deprivation, you are blaming yourself. And you cannot blame yourself without blaming them. That is why blame must be undone, not seen elsewhere. Lay it to yourself and you cannot know yourself, for only the ego blames at all." A Course in Miracles, Chapter 11:IV-5