“Remember, we are all affecting the world every moment, whether we mean to or not. Our actions and states of mind matter, because we're so deeply interconnected with one another. Working on our own consciousness is the most important thing that we are doing at any moment, and being love is the supreme creative act.”
Ram Dass
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pExCByqi0NU
I’ve spent the last day joyfully celebrating the miracle of connectivity between people. Sometimes we meet someone and it seems as though we’ve known them forever, or perhaps you know a married couple who have been together for decades and still enjoy each others’ company, or maybe you have a childhood friend who has been a part of your life for as long as you can remember. These musings brought back memories of a woman I was friends with for 50 years. We learned to play the trumpet together, and we had shared memories of playing reveille for school flag raising and taps for soldiers’ funerals. I played the piano at her wedding and she held my hand through divorces. Our ties were deep and filled with Love. When she was in hospice care, I visited her for the last time. She was having a hard time talking, so we sat quietly and looked into each others eyes. Every moment we ever shared was relived in the space of a few seconds. It was a miraculous communication and I was reminded of Mr. Hoggett singing to Babe in the movie by the same title. And so I sang it to her, and I did his dance in my imagination. Namasté, sweet Friend!
“We think of an absent friend as easily as we do of one present. It is no more difficult to read the absent mind than it is to read the present. Chaucer wrote centuries ago, yet we still read his thought in his verse. What is classic study, but discernment of the minds of Homer and Virgil, of whose personal existence we may be in doubt?”
Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 81: 2-10
“Your mind will elect to join with mine, and together we are invincible. You and your brother will yet come together in my name, and your sanity will be restored. I raised the dead by knowing that life is an eternal attribute of everything that the living God created. Why do you believe it is harder for me to inspire the dis-spirited or to stabilize the unstable? I do not believe that there is an order of difficulty in miracles; you do. I have called and you will answer. I understand that miracles are natural, because they are expressions of love. My calling you is as natural as your answer, and as inevitable.”
A Course in Miracles T-4.IV.11:5-12
Cesar Milan, “The Dog Whisperer", (whom I mention often in these writings) tells us he rehabilitates dogs and trains people. He observes that dogs live in the moment. When he is helping people to understand a dog which seems maimed by past experiences in its life, he always tells us that feeling sorry for the animal is of no benefit. How can this be? The dog is hurting and we're being asked to deny that? Yes!! This is why we are learning that it's necessary to give up all beliefs -- not just those we deem to be "bad", but all material beliefs. By letting them go and replacing them with an openness of thought which allows us to hear the Truth of our Being, we experience the miracle which is the natural order of Life. It may not seem logical to say that we can simply release feelings of fear and anger. They can appear very real to us, but if we stop and examine them, do they have any purpose other than to bind us to the past? One dog Cesar worked with had slid into a glass door. The dog was now afraid to walk on any floor without a carpet. Upon investigation of its people's reactions, they had immediately reinforced the dog's fears by petting, and commiserating, and talking about what a horrible experience it had been. They held the dog in fear by acts they thought of as compassion. What Cesar explains is that dogs live in the moment, unless they're held in the past by everyone around them. I’m so grateful for every experience which helps me to discern between belief and reality -- especially when it's shown to me by a dog!
“When an accident happens, you think or exclaim, 'I am hurt!' Your thought is more powerful than your words, more powerful than the accident itself, to make the injury real."
Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 397:12-16
“The present now remains the only time. Here in the present is the world set free. For as you let the past be lifted and release the future from your ancient fears, you find escape and give it to the world. You have enslaved the world with all your fears, your doubts and miseries, your pain and tears; and all your sorrows press on it, and keep the world a prisoner to your beliefs. Death strikes it everywhere because you hold the bitter thoughts of death within your mind.“
A Course in Miracles W-132.3:1-5
During a lull in the rain today, I drove to do an errand. On the way, I saw a woman sweeping up leaves and debris from her front porch and sidewalk. This dear neighbor has recently lost her son in a tragic bicycling accident. She also has been struggling with memory loss and cognitive problems. But there she was, sweeping her porch; doing what needs to be done, despite her sorrow and confusion. She inspires me to meet the challenges of my day with a smile and the quiet determination to see a task done. When I think about people I know and the difficulties they face simply getting out of bed in the morning, it makes me proud to call them friend. Consciousness unfolding is the stuff of God, and I’m so happy to share it with everyone! Namaste, my friends …
“Fixing your gaze on the realities supernal, you will rise to the spiritual consciousness of being, even as the bird which has burst from the egg and preens its wings for a skyward flight.”
Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 261:27-31
“A major contribution of miracles is their strength in releasing you from your false sense of isolation, deprivation and lack.”
A Course in Miracles T-1.I.42:1
I’ve been thinking today about the illusions we create for ourselves and others. Perhaps we don’t want our children to know things about our past, or maybe there is a deep, dark secret we think would bring shame on our family, or perhaps it’s something as simple as not examining ourselves in the mirror because we can’t accept the physical changes we see. I remember years ago when I was helping a neighbor who was in denial about many things. I would take her with me to an empty church and play the organ for her, while other neighbors sneaked into her house to clean. She probably hadn’t cleaned her house or herself for years. She had two huge dogs which she fed chicken and rice, but she, herself, would only eat green beans and ice cream. Part of the illusion she had created involved taking down the mirrors in her house. Once someone took a photo of us in the front yard with her dogs. When I showed her the photo, she asked if one of the women was her. She had decided how things were in her life, and nothing was going to change her illusions. Sometimes we weave such a web that everything would fall apart without their false security. There is much to be considered here …
“We must look deep into realism instead of accepting only the outward sense of things. Can we gather peaches from a pine-tree, or learn from discord the concord of being? Yet quite as rational are some of the leading illusions along the path which Science must tread in its reformatory mission among mortals. The very name, illusion, points to nothingness.”
Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 129:22-29
“Miracles honor you because you are lovable. They dispel illusions about yourself and perceive the light in you. They thus atone for your errors by freeing you from your nightmares. By releasing your mind from the imprisonment of your illusions, they restore your sanity.”
A Course in Miracles T-1.I.33:1-4
Tonight I attended a meeting of our local metaphysical society. Although I haven’t done so in years, the man presenting this evening’s program is a friend, and he asked me to be there. I enjoyed hearing him tell of the stumbling trail which led him to this point in his life. Some of the experiences he related led to others asking questions about “past life regressions” and related subjects. It’s always surprising to me that anyone cares about these things, but I managed to keep this opinion to myself. Do we need to know if we’re carrying “bad karmic energy” around in order to rectify it? I have a feeling we’re here to learn to express the Love which created us, and this expression is manifested in our every thought and action. Living every moment as lovingly and with as much compassion as we possibly can, this is what feels important to me. This statement has stayed with me, although its author’s name has not: “We cannot change the past, but what we do in the present rectifies the past and changes the future.” That’s enough for me!
“The ego has a strange notion of time, and it is with this notion that your questioning might well begin. The ego invests heavily in the past, and in the end believes that the past is the only aspect of time that is meaningful. Remember that its emphasis on guilt enables it to ensure its continuity by making the future like the past, and thus avoiding the present. By the notion of paying for the past in the future, the past becomes the determiner of the future, making them continuous without an intervening present. For the ego regards the present only as a brief transition to the future, in which it brings the past to the future by interpreting the present in past terms.”
A Course in Miracles T-13.IV.4:1-5
“Jesus aided in reconciling man to God by giving man a truer sense of Love, the divine Principle of Jesus' teachings, and this truer sense of Love redeems man from the law of matter, sin, and death by the law of Spirit,--the law of divine Love.”
Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 18:6-11
The past two weeks have been a blur to me. Snow, ice, prayer and meditation while waiting for an answer to the puzzle of what is to become of my sweet nonagenarian friends. That seems an odd way to think of them, as I’ve known them for around 30 years and they are just “friends”, but the clarification seems necessary when I’m explaining their extreme need. Many friends have been forthcoming with suggestions and possibilities for someone to live with them. Today, I think they have found the perfect person to help them through this. An incredibly loving and kind woman, with grown children, a part-time job, and a desire to find purpose for her life, has appeared. When Clarence, my friend with Alzheimer’s, asked where I found her, I happily told him the Universe had brought her to us. A series of synchronized events bring us to this parenthesis in eternity. The gratitude I feel is immense!
“And we solemnly promise to watch, and pray for that Mind to be in us which was also in Christ Jesus; to do unto others as we would have them do unto us; and to be merciful, just, and pure.”
Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health 497:24-27
“The secret of true prayer is to forget the things you think you need. To ask for the specific is much the same as to look on sin and then forgive it. Also in the same way, in prayer you overlook your specific needs as you see them, and let them go into God’s Hands. There they become your gifts to Him, for they tell Him that you would have no gods before Him; no love but His. What could His answer be but your remembrance of Him? Can this be traded for a bit of trifling advice about a problem of an instant’s duration? God answers only for eternity. But still all little answers are contained in this.” A Course in Miracles S-1.I.4:1-8
Photo credit: Richard Quick The final five workbook lessons in A Course in Miracles stress the use of few words. Having watched a documentar...
