Listen, With An Open Mind

Photo courtesy of Aaron Springston

A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson #106 advises us to "be still and listen to the truth". We are also told that for every five minutes we spend listening, a thousand minds are opened to the truth we hear. Don't you feel we are very close to a tipping point in spiritual discernment? Every thought we have is important, especially during difficult times. When events occur which bring forth strong negative emotions in people, it is even more important to hold our thoughts to this truth which is heard in silence. Listening, hearing, receiving, and giving the Truth which is God — this is our job today and every day!

“Willingness to become as a little child and to leave the old for the new, renders thought receptive of the advanced idea. Gladness to leave the false landmarks and joy to see them disappear,--this disposition helps to precipitate the ultimate harmony. The purification of sense and self is a proof of progress.”

Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 323:32-5

“If you will lay aside the ego’s voice, however loudly it may seem to call; if you will not accept its petty gifts that give you nothing that you really want; if you will listen with an open mind, that has not told you what salvation is; then you will hear the mighty Voice of truth, quiet in power, strong in stillness, and completely certain in Its messages.”

A Course in Miracles W-106. 1:1

Extending the Limitless to the Unlimited

Photo courtesy of Aaron Springston

I love these words from A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson #105: "True giving is creation. It extends the limitless to the unlimited, eternity to timelessness, and love unto itself." To live our lives from this perspective allows us to express love freely, with no fear of it being rejected or misinterpreted. We can gently reach out to people we've just met with heartfelt expressions of empathy and compassion. We bloom in unexpected ways when "extending the limitless to the unlimited". It's ours to give and to receive, in an eternal loop of Love. There's no way to measure how far the ripples of our joy and peace may extend. My cup runneth over!

"The calm and exalted thought or spiritual apprehension is at peace. Thus the dawn of ideas goes on, forming each successive stage of progress." 

Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 506:11-14

“God’s peace and joy are yours. Today we will accept them, knowing they belong to us. And we will try to understand these gifts increase as we receive them. They are not like to the gifts the world can give, in which the giver loses as he gives the gift; the taker is the richer by his loss. Such are not gifts, but bargains made with guilt. The truly given gift entails no loss. It is impossible that one can gain because another loses. This implies a limit and an insufficiency.” 

A Course in Miracles W-105.1:1-8

Joy, Peace, Happiness

Photo courtesy of Aaron Springston

Joy and peace and happiness are my birthright. These things are what belong to me in truth. These gifts do not need to be earned. We needn't barter with a faraway god in order to experience them. We don't need to wait until we die, we don't have to do a certain number of good deeds, we don't need to take communion, it's not necessary to belong to a church. We have been hoodwinked into believing that we must strive all our lives to attain something which seems unattainable. The conflict of the world is so great that we can't make our way through the maze to the prize we know must be hiding somewhere. We are learning that we can confidently clear the altar of our mind, freeing our thought from fear and pain, and embracing our function as forgiveness, thereby healing our mind and allowing us to find what has always been there: joy and peace and happiness!

“God has built a higher platform of human rights, and He has built it on diviner claims. These claims are not made through code or creed, but in demonstration of ‘on earth peace, good-will toward men’.”

Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 226:14-17

“Today’s idea continues with the thought that joy and peace are not but idle dreams. They are your right, because of what you are. They come to you from God, Who cannot fail to give you what He wills. Yet must there be a place made ready to receive His gifts. They are not welcomed gladly by a mind that has instead received the gifts it made where His belong, as substitutes for them.” 

A Course in Miracles W-104.1:1-5

In Search of Happiness

“Hector and the Search for Happiness" is a movie which introduces us to a man who is a psychiatrist in search of happiness. He goes to China, Africa, and the U.S. asking people what happiness means to them -- and, of course, finds out what happiness means to him. Ultimately, there is nothing outside of ourselves which is going to make us happy. One of the people Hector meets along the way asks how many of us remember a moment in childhood when happiness was a state of being; when everything, inside and out, was all right. That says it all, don't you? What does it take to be happy? Allowing our natural state as a creation of divine Love to shine forth! To quote A Course in Miracles Lesson #103: "God, being Love, is also happiness. and it is happiness I seek today. I cannot fail, because I seek the truth.” Love and happiness are our divine heritage as the expression of God. God is Love, and so are we!

“Soul has infinite resources with which to bless mankind, and happiness would be more readily attained and would be more secure in our keeping, if sought in Soul. Higher enjoyments alone can satisfy the cravings of immortal man.”

Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 60:28-1

“Happiness is an attribute of love. It cannot be apart from it. Nor can it be experienced where love is not. Love has no limits, being everywhere. And therefore joy is everywhere as well. Yet can the mind deny that this is so, believing there are gaps in love where sin can enter, bringing pain instead of joy. This strange belief would limit happiness by redefining love as limited, and introducing opposition in what has no limit and no opposite. 

A Course in Miracles W-103.1:1-7

Choose Happiness

We all know someone who seems to be chronically sad, don't we? They share a commonality of repeatedly replaying painful and distressing events in their thoughts and conversation. I have some sad memories which pop into my head occasionally. When this happens, there's a choice: I can relive the events mentally and/or verbally and thereby keep them alive, or I can acknowledge that they're still in my thoughts, but know that they are not the Truth of my Being. Yes, it happened (whatever it is). It's part of my material history, but my spiritual reality has not been touched by it. The peace brought by this understanding is priceless. I can be happy! Even in the midst of things which are not particularly joyful, I can give myself permission to be happy. It is, after all, my natural state of Being!

“Harmony is produced by its Principle, is controlled by it and abides with it. Divine Principle is the Life of man. Man’s happiness is not, therefore, at the disposal of physical sense.” 

Mary Baker Eddy -Science & Health Page 304:16-19

“Be happy, for your only function here is happiness. You have no need to be less loving to God’s Son than He Whose Love created him as loving as Himself.”

A Course in Miracles W-102.5:1-2

In Harmony With Divine Love

Photo courtesy of Aaron Springston

Were you taught that salvation involved some sort of penance for your sins? Most people were, in some form or fashion. Perhaps this is why so many turn away from religion. I'm not sure how theology has decided that we're sinners, because when I read the teachings of Jesus, I find no evidence of this stance. For this reason (and many others), I'm most grateful for the teachings of Mary Baker Eddy and, also, A Course in Miracles. Both of these disciplines attempt to show us that we are the expression of God. As God's experience, we are the embodiment of happiness and joy! Anything opposite of this harmony is a misunderstanding. As we clear away these misapprehensions, we allow what we've always known, deep inside, to begin lighting our path. The more surely we walk in this direction, the brighter the illumination becomes!

“Today we will continue with the theme of happiness. This is a key idea in understanding what salvation means. You still believe it asks for suffering as penance for your ‘sins.’ This is not so. Yet you must think it so while you believe that sin is real, and that God’s Son can sin.”

A Course in Miracles W-101.1:1-5

“For true happiness, man must harmonize with his Principle, divine Love…” 

Science & Health Page 337:7-8

Amplification of Wonder

Total Eclipse of the Sun - April 8, 2024

Photo credit: Aaron Springston 

The recent total eclipse of the sun was an event which piqued the interest of millions of people. The weeks leading up to the happening were fraught with many speculations and predictions, and I hope at least half of those had to do with the pure beauty of light emanating from this spectacle. There was something other-worldly about the glow we witnessed being reflected from everything under this particular sun. My two sons and I traveled a couple of hours from home to witness it in its totality. What a joy to see this dying of the light and its subsequent rebirth! We had no expectations for how we would feel, what we would see, or the aftermath of something so powerful. And it was a perfect day … 

“The incarnation of Truth, that amplification of wonder and glory which angels could only whisper and which God illustrated by light and harmony, is consonant with ever-present Love.”

Mary baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 501:10-13

“Today we will attempt to understand joy is our function here. If you are sad, your part is unfulfilled, and all the world is thus deprived of joy, along with you. God asks you to be happy, so the world can see how much He loves His Son, and wills no sorrow rises to abate his joy; no fear besets him to disturb his peace. You are God’s messenger today. You bring His happiness to all you look upon; His peace to everyone who looks on you and sees His message in your happy face.”

A Course in Miracles W-100.6:1-5