Present Truth

 

Photo credit: Aaron Springston

There are many personal identities we cling to, and it's certainly difficult to keep from mentioning one or more when asked "who are you?”. In the new year, I plan on putting my focus on truth. Whether it’s my personal self or the whole world, let there be TRUTH! It doesn't matter to me what horrible things happen as the result of truth being known; I simply want everything to be out in the open. While pondering that, I realized that the predilections we identify with are decisions we have agreed upon as our personal truth. As part of my new, more-open thought, I resolve to not fault anyone for thinking in ways I find to be odd or disconcerting. We all have different expressions of the divinity we are, and it is not my place to pass judgment — although I'm not sure what's up with people who think the earth is flat! In the coming new year, I want to stop lying to myself and about others, while living in the honesty of the present moment, and celebrating every moment of Life!

"Love, too, would set a feast before you, on a table covered with a spotless cloth, set in a quiet garden where no sound but singing and a softly joyous whispering is ever heard. This is a feast that honors your holy relationship, and at which everyone is welcomed as an honored guest. And in a holy instant grace is said by everyone together, as they join in gentleness before the table of communion. And I will join you there, as long ago I promised and promise still. For in your new relationship am I made welcome. And where I am made welcome, there I am." 

A Course in Miracles T-19.IV.A.16.

“The power of the human will should be exercised only in subordination to Truth; else it will misguide the judgment and free the lower propensities. It is the province of spiritual sense to govern man. Material, erring, human thought acts injuriously both upon the body and through it.” 

Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health  Page 205:4-9

Hardwired For Goodness

 

I read a review of the book, “Blueprint, the Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society”, written by Nicholas Christkis, a professor at Yale. His basic premise is that love, friendship, cooperation, and teaching have been hardwired into human beings, but we tend to deploy these qualities selectively, only toward those who are like ourselves. He says America is an unprecedented social experiment, testing whether we humans can share these behaviors more broadly. This statement of his feels especially true: “The less segregated we are — not just racially, but by ideology, religion, income, and education — the stronger the democracy.” His conclusions I’m sure are many, but one discussed in this review is that we need to overcome the urge to tribalism, if we are to have a diverse democracy. He believes that political tides can push against our innate desire for love, friendship, and cooperation, “but only for a while.” I am thrilled to read of this and other messages of hope! 

"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 wlll be established." Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 467:9

“The Holy Spirit was given you with perfect impartiality, and only by recognizing Him impartially can you recognize Him at all. The ego is legion, but the Holy Spirit is one. No darkness abides anywhere in the Kingdom, but your part is only to allow no darkness to abide in your own mind. This alignment with light is unlimited, because it is in alignment with the light of the world. Each of us is the light of the world, and by joining our minds in this light we proclaim the Kingdom of God together and as one.” 

A Course in Miracles T-6.II.13:1-5

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