Christ Within

Hubble Image

“The sign of Christmas is a star, a light in darkness. See it not outside yourself, but shining in the Heaven within, and accept it as the sign the time of Christ has come. He comes demanding nothing. No sacrifice of any kind, of anyone, is asked by Him. In His Presence the whole idea of sacrifice loses all meaning. For He is Host to God. And you need but invite Him in Who is there already, by recognizing that His Host is One, and no thought alien to His Oneness can abide with Him there. Love must be total to give Him welcome, for the Presence of Holiness creates the holiness that surrounds it. No fear can touch the Host Who cradles God in the time of Christ, for the Host is as holy as the perfect Innocence which He protects, and Whose power protects Him.” A Course in Miracles T-15.XI.2:1-9

“The star that looked lovingly down on the manger of our lord, lends its resplendent light to this hour; the light of Truth, to cheer, guide, and bless man as he reaches forth for the infant idea of divine perfection dawning upon human imperfection, — that calms man’s fears, bears his burdens, beckons him on to Truth and Love and the sweet immunity these bring from sin, sickness, and death.” Miscellaneous Writings 1883-1896 Page 320

Passing Peace

Art by Peter Max

Sometimes we feel as though our peace has been taken from us by external events. The peace of God is a spiritual quality which can be realized through various avenues — once we know it’s possible. I remember years ago when I took a course in Oneness Blessing. This process appeals to me because there is no need to delve into all the reasons we are not peaceful. When becoming a Oneness Blessing Giver, you first go through an intense day of releasing the past. We started with rectifying our relationships with our parents. And this is not done by counting all the ways we feel we have been wronged, or that we have wronged them. It is a release of guilt and blame, then a replacement of the space left with the realization of divine Love. When you are given this Oneness Blessing you can expect to feel happiness. After completing my training, I gave a blessing to my son, and he immediately started to laugh. I asked why: was he nervous? No, he said, he just felt happy. And that is what this transmission of divine Love is all about: feeling happy and sharing the peace of God. The best gift of all!

“Holy child of God, when will you learn that only holiness can content you and give you peace? Remember that you learn not for yourself alone, no more than I did. It is because I learned for you that you can learn of me. I would but teach you what is yours, so that together we can replace the shabby littleness that binds the host of God to guilt and weakness with the glad awareness of the glory that is in him. My birth in you is your awakening to grandeur. Welcome me not into a manger, but into the altar to holiness, where holiness abides in perfect peace. My Kingdom is not of this world because it is in you. And you are of your Father. Let us join in honoring you, who must remain forever beyond littleness.” 

A Course in Miracles T-15.III.9:1-9

“This material world is even now becoming the arena for conflicting forces. On one side there will be discord and dismay; on the other side there will be Science and peace. The breaking up of material beliefs may seem to be famine and pestilence, want and woe, sin, sickness, and death, which assume new phases until their nothingness appears. These disturbances will continue until the end of error, when all discord will be swallowed up in spiritual Truth.” Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 96:12-20

The Fight Before Christmas

 

After watching a documentary called “The Fight Before Christmas”, I have a better understanding of how people manipulate facts to turn them into half-truths. In this film, a man in Idaho wants to decorate his house to the hilt, including live camels and other excesses, and have people come from far and near to enjoy hot cocoa and sing carols. His neighbors think this is a bad idea. He does it anyway. Well, this seems like a straightforward situation, but the decorating man calls news media and starts a campaign against what he calls his anti-Christian neighbors. He turns the whole scenario into an attack against himself, the innocent man who is only trying to save Christmas. Well, this story has twists and turns and unkind actions on both sides. But what struck me about it was how easy it was for him to portray himself as a victim and set his neighbors up to be grinches and horrid people. I’m not sure why I’m writing about this, other than it has stuck with me. I keep feeling the neighbors sense of hopelessness in the face of a pointless attack. Also, it turns out this guy wanted to run for political office and was trying to make a name for himself. Which he has done. 

“The world gives rise but to defensiveness. For threat brings anger, anger makes attack seem reasonable, honestly provoked, and righteous in the name of self-defense. Yet is defensiveness a double threat. For it attests to weakness, and sets up a system of defense that cannot work. Now are the weak still further undermined, for there is treachery without and still a greater treachery within. The mind is now confused, and knows not where to turn to find escape from its imaginings.” 

A Course in Miracles W-153.2:1-6

“Evil thoughts, lusts, and malicious purposes cannot go forth, like wandering pollen, from one human mind to another, finding unsuspected lodgment, if virtue and truth build a strong defence.” 

Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health with Key to the Scriptures Page 231:31-3

True Colors

I cannot find the creator of this image

Did you know that the same color may appear to look different when placed on various background colors? I read an article about this which explained that the way we perceive a color is based on our education about color perception and how we've been conditioned to see it. Who knew?? As I struggled to grasp this fact, I realized it's the same with our perceptions of what reality is. Spiritual perception allows us to see beyond the seeming reality of our material senses. Interactions with others may be full of judgment and supposition when we look at situations with by-rote, learned behavior, and the immediacy of emotions. But Truth, which shines forth when we see from a spiritual perspective, allows for improved interactions with others. This is true because our human experience is the visible expression of our thinking. To see the world through the eyes of Love frees us to love as God loves: purely, without a skewed view of the color and fabric of everything we see. Now I know what the expression "showing your true colors" means!

"Thought will finally be understood and seen in all form, substance, and color, but without material accompaniments." 

Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 310: 6:8

“True vision is the natural perception of spiritual sight, but it is still a correction rather than a fact. Spiritual sight is symbolic, and therefore not a device for knowing. It is, however, a means of right perception, which brings it into the proper domain of the miracle. A ‘vision of God’ would be a miracle rather than a revelation. The fact that perception is involved at all removes the experience from the realm of knowledge. That is why visions, however holy, do not last.” 

A Course in Miracles T-3.III.4:1-6

Adaptation

 

Art by Anna Speshilova

“Plants and animals don’t fight the winter; they don’t pretend it’s not happening and attempt to carry on living the same lives that they lived in the summer. They prepare. They adapt. They perform extraordinary acts of metamorphosis to get them through. Winter is a time of withdrawing from the world, maximising scant resources, carrying out acts of brutal efficiency and vanishing from sight; but that’s where the transformation occurs. Winter is not the death of the life cycle, but its crucible.”

~ Katherine May: Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times 

(With thanks to the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids)

“Love is impartial and universal in its adaptation and bestowals. It is the open fount which cries, ‘Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters.’” 

Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 13:2-4

“Now is the temple of the living God rebuilt as host again to Him by Whom it was created. Where He dwells, His Son dwells with Him, never separate. And They give thanks that They are welcome made at last. Where stood a cross stands now the risen Christ, and ancient scars are healed within His sight. An ancient miracle has come to bless and to replace an ancient enmity that came to kill. In gentle gratitude do God the Father and the Son return to what is Theirs, and will forever be. Now is the Holy Spirit’s purpose done. For They have come! For They have come at last!” 

A Course in Miracles T-26.IX.8:1-9

Why Wait For Joy?

 

Our true selves are the image and likeness of God. So why is there so much which seems to be unGodlike? Because God did not create matter. This human body we seem to reside in, to be inseparable from, is not our true self. When we declare our perfection as a child of God, that perfection has absolutely nothing to do with this material world we are living in. If God created everything and it is good, that cannot encompass the dual good/bad stuff we see around us. Our vision for today is to see with the eyes of our true Being. That true Being does not change. Reality does not change. Our true Selves, which are the image and likeness of the One, that which we all truly are, does not change. So what good does it do to realize that we're not what we see with our so-called mortal eyes? It brings us into harmony with what IS true. Declaring the Truth of our Being is more than just a mental exercise. By establishing this idea within our thought, we are finding the Truth which brings us back to where we began, and never leads us anywhere other than home, wherever in eternity that may be.

“Why should I wait, my Father, for the joy You promised me? For You will keep Your Word You gave Your Son in exile. I am sure my treasure waits for me, and I need but reach out my hand to find it. Even now my fingers touch it. It is very close. I need not wait an instant more to be at peace forever. It is You I choose, and my Identity along with You. Your Son would be Himself, and know You as his Father and Creator, and his Love.” 

A Course in Miracles W-355.1:1-8

"To divest thought of false trusts and material evidences in order that the spiritual facts of being may appear,--this is the great attainment by means of which we shall sweep away the false and give place to the true." 

Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 423:8-12

The Reason Birds Can Fly

Image: C.F.A. Voysey

Storage by Mary Oliver 

"When I moved from 

one house to another,

there were many things 

I had no room for. 

What does one do? 

I rented a storage space 

and filled it.

Years passed.

Occasionally, 

I went there 

and looked in, 

but nothing happened, 

not a single twinge 

of the heart.

As I grew older 

the things I cared about 

grew fewer but were 

more important,

so one day I undid the lock

and called the trash man. 

He took everything.

I felt like the little donkey 

when his burden is finally 

lifted.

Things! Burn them, burn them!

Make a beautiful fire! 

More room in your heart 

for Love, for the trees.

For the birds who own

nothing; 

✨

the reason they 

can fly."

Mary Oliver

“Your Father knoweth that you have need of nothing. In Heaven this is so, for what could you need in eternity? In your world you do need things. It is a world of scarcity in which you find yourself because you are lacking. Yet can you find yourself in such a world? Without the Holy Spirit the answer would be no. Yet because of Him the answer is a joyous yes! As Mediator between the two worlds, He knows what you have need of and what will not hurt you. Ownership is a dangerous concept if it is left to you. The ego wants to have things for salvation, for possession is its law. Possession for its own sake is the ego’s fundamental creed, a basic cornerstone in the churches it builds to itself. And at its altar it demands you lay all of the things it bids you get, leaving you no joy in them.” A Course in Miracles T-13.VII.10:2-13

“Nature voices natural, spiritual law and divine Love, but human belief misinterprets nature. Arctic regions, sunny tropics, giant hills, winged winds, mighty billows, verdant vales, festive flowers, and glorious heavens, — all point to Mind, the spiritual intelligence they reflect. The floral apostles are hieroglyphs of Deity. Suns and planets teach grand lessons. The stars make night beautiful, and the leaflet turns naturally towards the light.” Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 240:1-9