Fear Has No Home Here

 

Photo composite by Nancy Ward Redman

I’m sure most of you know someone who identifies with fear, turning every situation into a nervous drama. A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson #160 states: “I am at home. Fear is the stranger here.” Reading this caused me to think of two different people I met today. While in the media center of our library, I noticed a woman I’ve known for years having 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 wasn’t likely, unless she took a baseball bat to it or threw water on it. I immediately noticed the contrast between this woman and a young woman whom I’d met earlier in the day 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. 

“Fear is a stranger to the ways of love. Identify with fear, and you will be a stranger to yourself. And thus you are unknown to you. What is your Self remains an alien to the part of you which thinks that it is real, but different from yourself. Who could be sane in such a circumstance? Who but a madman could believe he is what he is not, and judge against himself?” A Course in Miracles -  W-160.1:1-6

“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.” Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health 

Identifiers and Solutions

 

Photo credit: Blake Lasater

In my younger days, I enjoyed horror stories. Stephen King was a favorite because of his exceptionally good writing and his insights into the psyche of the psychopath. I was fascinated by the awfulness of it. Going hand in hand with that fascination, was my desire to pollute my body with substances which seemed to be fun, but ultimately were not. Over the last three decades, I’ve given up these things one by one, some more readily than others. I’ve been thinking about the horrors of the political scene as we’ve watched it unfold over these same decades. It has culminated in a particularly intense awfulness at this point, and I have no desire to partake of its emotional rollercoaster. While it seems wise to know what’s going on, I’ve begun to question even that. But I go back to the old statement attributed to a wise person: I only want to hear about the problem as an identifier; after that, I only need to think about it to find solutions. As of today, I reaffirm my conviction to do this. I wish you peace in whatever way you choose to do good!

“The Holy Spirit’s problem solving is the way in which the problem ends. It has been solved because it has been met with justice. Until it has it will recur, because it has not yet been solved. The principle that justice means no one can lose is crucial to this course. For miracles depend on justice. Not as it is seen through this world’s eyes, but as God knows it and as knowledge is reflected in the sight the Holy Spirit gives.” A Course in Miracles T-25.IX.5:1-6

“The mild forms of animal magnetism are disappearing, and its aggressive features are coming to the front. The looms of crime, hidden in the dark recesses of mortal thought, are every hour weaving webs more complicated and subtle. So secret are the present methods of animal magnetism that they ensnare the age into indolence, and produce the very apathy on the subject which the criminal desires.” Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 102:16

The End?

 

Photo credit: Blake Lasater

On a reverse-recommendation from an acquaintance, I am watching a series called The End. It deals with various people who are dying and/or want to. The woman who told me about the show was appalled as she felt that it encouraged people to commit suicide. She also thought that all the talk about death would “normalize” it and cause people to feel it was okay. Of course, I felt the urge to see it! I find it to be more about life than death. There is enough black humor to amuse me and enough love to inspire me. This show has caused me to think deeply about issues surrounding our life choices. There is a woman who feels guilty because she’s happy her philandering, preacher husband died. There’s the teenager who has attempted suicide because others at school ostracize her. I am reminded of friends and neighbors who are unhappy and are having trouble finding reasons to live. Life is good, even when it doesn’t feel that way. Finding joy in the small things brings happiness to the whole, don’t you think? 

“⁶Life and death, light and darkness, knowledge and perception, are irreconcilable. To believe that they can be reconciled is to believe that God and His Son can not. Only the oneness of knowledge is free of conflict. Your Kingdom is not of this world because it was given you from beyond this world. Only in this world is the idea of an authority problem meaningful. The world is not left by death but by truth, and truth can be known by all those for whom the Kingdom was created, and for whom it waits.” A Course in Miracles T-3.VII.6:6-11

“We know that all will be changed ‘in the twinkling of an eye,’ when the last trump shall sound, but this last call of wisdom cannot come til mortals have already yielded to each lesser call in the growth of Christian character. Mortals need not fancy that belief in the experience of death will awaken them to glorified being.” Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 291:5

Three Things

Martin Johnson Heade - Blue Morpho Butterfly, 1864-5.

To live in this world by Mary Oliver

To live in this world you must be able to do three things:

To love what is mortal,

To hold it against your bones knowing

Your own life depends on it;

And when the time comes to let it go, to let it go.

Mary Oliver - In Blackwater Woods from her collection, American Primitive, 1983. 

Shrinking Address Books?

After numerous decades of living, we humans begin to notice that our address books are having more and more names crossed out — or deleted, as the case may be. Many of us stress over this, and it becomes a constant topic of conversation when we’re together with others. We know lots of dead people, do we not? Many of our friends have moved offstage, and we’re standing in the queue. But as some of us move out, others move in. There are more and more grandchildren — either ours or our friends — and we delight in the newness and pure love. And that’s a good thing. We are in the process of recycling, perhaps? As many wise seers remind us, Reality is that which does not change. And nothing material is permanent. It is all in the process of changing. I have always chosen to embrace change and I hope to be as fearless in this unknown adventure. But for now, I choose to ground myself in the earth; feel the openness of the sky; watch the trees renewing themselves, and know all is well. Namaste…

“Change is always fearful to the separated, because they cannot conceive of it as a move towards healing the separation. They always perceive it as a move toward further separation, because the separation was their first experience of change. You believe that if you allow no change to enter into your ego you will find peace. This profound confusion is possible only if you maintain that the same thought system can stand on two foundations. Nothing can reach spirit from the ego, and nothing can reach the ego from spirit. Spirit can neither strengthen the ego nor reduce the conflict within it.” A Course in Miracles T-4.I.2

"The true history of the universe, including man is not in material history but in spiritual development. Inspired thought relinquishes a material, sensual, and mortal theory of the universe, and adopts the spiritual and immortal.” Mary Baker Eddy -  Science & Health Page 547

Recognizing The Light As Our Own

Photo credit: Aaron Springston

Defenselessness is strength; defensiveness is weakness. This is most likely backwards from the way we think, and it may feel wrong because we’ve been taught to defend ourselves as thoroughly as possible in every situation. Ask yourself what you did and how you felt the last time someone disagreed with you, perhaps vehemently. If you began a verbal defense, listing all the reasons you were right, you may have felt many negative emotions such as anger. On the contrary, any time I’m able to witness events and calmly watch and listen, I can say something simple such as, “You may be right about that” — and walk away, happily and peacefully. We are told in A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson #153 that we will not see the light until we offer it to others and they take it; then we will recognize it as our own. How lovely is that! I look forward to opportunities for seeing peace today.

“It is the function of God’s ministers to help their brothers choose as they have done. God has elected all, but few have come to realize His Will is but their own. And while you fail to teach what you have learned, salvation waits and darkness holds the world in grim imprisonment. Nor will you learn that light has come to you, and your escape has been accomplished. For you will not see the light, until you offer it to all your brothers. As they take it from your hands, so will you recognize it as your own.” A Course in Miracles -  W-153.11:1-6

“Truth and Love enlighten the understanding, in whose ‘light shall we see light;’ and this illumination is reflected spiritually by all who walk in the light and turn away from a false material sense.” Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 510:9-12

Sage Advice From Emerson

Eureka Springs, AR 

Unknown photographer

“Write it on your heart

that every day is the best day in the year.

He is rich who owns the day, and no one owns the day

who allows it to be invaded with fret and anxiety.

Finish every day and be done with it.

You have done what you could.

Some blunders and absurdities, no doubt crept in.

Forget them as soon as you can, tomorrow is a new day;

begin it well and serenely, with too high a spirit

to be cumbered with your old nonsense.

This new day is too dear,

with its hopes and invitations,

to waste a moment on the yesterdays.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson - Collected Poems and Translations.