Taking a Stand Against Anger

Broomfield, Colorado

Taken during my current visit

Have you ever heard these statements? "It's my cross to bear." "He/a thorn in my side." These are ways of saying that some things and/or people seem to be a problem in our life, and we're carrying them around as though they're a part of us and we have no choice but to bear it. There's a particular topic of contention in our town which never fails to get me riled. I like to think nothing bothers me, but this seems to be my "cross to bear." Motorcycles. Big, loud, revving motorcycles. Obviously I can change the way I think about them. It should be easy to see the drivers as reflections of Love, unified by our humanity, not separated by our mode of transportation. Today I shall choose to look at this differently. Another saying comes to mind: “God, give me strength!”

"’Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.’ 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 will be established." 

Mary Baker Eddy- Science & Health Page 467:16-20

“Today we practice differently, and take a stand against our anger, that our fears may disappear and offer room to love. Here is salvation in the simple words in which we practice with today’s idea. Here is the answer to temptation which can never fail to welcome in the Christ where fear and anger had prevailed before. Here is Atonement made complete, the world passed safely by and Heaven now restored. Here is the answer of the Voice for God.”

A Course in Miracles W-161.1:1-5

Where Fear is a Stranger

Photo courtesy of Jim Young

At times, my identity with fear has been so great that it seemed impossible to exchange it, to identify with Love. Everywhere we look, someone is running around like Chicken Little declaring "the sky is falling!" The act of realizing our true heritage as the child of divine Mind is the beginning of freedom from the bondage of mortal mind's beliefs. My home is Love. Fear is a stranger in that home. I want to relax into the comfort of my true home, turning away from every fearful thought. This acronym for fear will help me do this: False Evidence Appearing Real. Years of identification with duality have made me believe it's necessary to have fear and love, good and bad, health and illness. I'm beginning to see the fallacy of this story!

“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


“The Apostle John says: "There is no fear in Love, but perfect Love casteth out fear. . . . He that feareth is not made perfect in Love." Here is a definite and inspired proclamation of Christian Science.”

Receive It, and Give It Away

Photo courtesy of Blake Lasater

In metaphysical healing, we are not trying to change a physical condition, but rather to change thought about the situation. Although we tend to think there are certain laws of living which cannot be usurped, most of us have witnessed numerous examples of how this is not so. We have witnessed what appears to be a law set aside, and our society generally thinks of this as supernatural intervention. In Christian Science, we call these events the demonstration of Truth. Today's A Course in Miracles workbook lesson asks us to give what we have received. The sharing of the understanding of our relationship to God is gained through our living of it. When we let ourselves slip into that space which releases all mortal thought, we allow the "Mind to be us, which was also Christ Jesus". Through this simple -- yet not always easy -- process, we give all we have accepted, and this is sometimes referred to as healing. I look forward to giving everything I have received, and by that giving, I will come to understand what it truly is.

“You understand that you are healed when you give healing. You accept forgiveness as accomplished in yourself when you forgive. You recognize your brother as yourself, and thus do you perceive that you are whole. There is no miracle you cannot give, for all are given you. Receive them now by opening the storehouse of your mind where they are laid, and giving them away.” 

ACIM, W-159.2:1-5

"Implicit faith in the Teacher and all the emotional love we can bestow on him, will never alone make us imitators of him. We must go and do likewise, else we are not improving the great blessings which our Master worked and suffered to bestow upon us. The divinity of the Christ was made manifest in the humanity of Jesus."

Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 25: 27-33   

Giving Back

Colorado Wildflowers

Photo from Aaron Springston

Before we learn to give as we receive, we must realize what we are receiving! It could be said we're receiving the gifts of God. But what is that? We are learning it is the knowledge that our true state is Spirit, that we are one with All That Is. We needn't worry that we're not good enough, that we don't know enough, that we've made too many mistakes to qualify as the reflection of God. All those thoughts have been propagated as fact, but they are only material belief. When we are open to receiving divine Life, Truth, and Love, that is what we give to the world with every breath, with every inspiration.

“What has been given you? The knowledge that you are a mind, in Mind and purely mind, sinless forever, wholly unafraid, because you were created out of love. Nor have you left your Source, remaining as you were created. This was given you as knowledge which you cannot lose. It was given as well to every living thing, for by that knowledge only does it live. (ACIM, W-158.1:1-5)

“The healing power of Truth must have been far anterior to the period in which Jesus lived. It is as ancient as ‘the Ancient of days.' It lives through all Life, and extends throughout all space.”

Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 146:25-27 

I’ll Meet You There

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,

there is a field. I’ll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass,

the world is too full to talk about.

Ideas, language, even the phrase 'each other'

doesn’t make any sense.

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.

Don’t go back to sleep.

You must ask for what you really want.

Don’t go back to sleep.

People are going back and forth across the doorsill

where the two worlds touch.

The door is round and open.

Don’t go back to sleep.” Rumi

“Into Christ’s Presence will we enter now, serenely unaware of everything except His shining face and perfect Love. The vision of His face will stay with you, but there will be an instant which transcends all vision, even this, the holiest. This you will never teach, for you attained it not through learning. Yet the vision speaks of your rememberance of what you knew that instant, and will surely know again.”

ACIM, W-157.9:1-4)

"One moment of divine consciousness, or the spiritual understanding of Life and Love, is a foretaste of eternity."

Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 589: 8-11

Walking in Softness

Created by Sandy Wythawai Starbird

“I walk with God in perfect holiness” is ACIM Workbook Lesson #156. Having had a resistance to yielding in the past, I felt a slight hesitation when first encountering these words. Walking with God in perfect holiness implies a yielding, don't you think? How else could you walk this walk without giving up what you think of as yourself? You can't. What finally got through to me was the realization that what I was giving up was NOT myself, but a mishmash of everything I had ever been told was true, combined with an erratic belief system I had decided was me. Add to that the hypnotism of media and the pull of mass consciousness and we're left with a pretty convoluted idea of what we are. Little by little, I'm letting go of beliefs and learned behaviors. Being present in the moment, giving my full attention to whatever may be in front of me, loving myself and all of creation in Its oneness -- this is what I see as walking with God. Accepting myself and everything as holy becomes easier when viewed without judgment. Simply witnessing events, perhaps with amusement, is certainly more fun!

“We must look where we would walk, and we must act as possessing all power from [It] in whom we have our being.”

Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 264:10-12

“There is a light in you which cannot die; whose presence is so holy that the world is sanctified because of you. All things that live bring gifts to you, and offer them in gratitude and gladness at your feet. The scent of flowers is their gift to you. The waves bow down before you, and the trees extend their arms to shield you from the heat, and lay their leaves before you on the ground that you may walk in softness, while the wind sinks to a whisper round your holy head.”

A Course in Miracles W-156.4:1-4

Following the Spirit

      

Art by Akira Kusaka

For years I resisted admitting that only one thing was required of me in order to experience the peace I was chasing. It seemed that giving myself to this one thing would cause me to be  a religious zealot. I thought that to live in Spirit would be predictable and boring. At that time, material existence seemed exciting, while spiritual living implied a certain aloneness, which couldn't possibly be very much fun. As years have passed and I've become more aware of what living in Spirit means, the understanding of myself as a reflection of God has taken form in many ways. On the surface, it could seem that nothing has changed: I still work, play, sleep, and interact with others. But everything is different. By listening to my inner Self and following that guidance, I don't need to make lists of pros and cons and weigh the value of these in making decisions. Following Spirit doesn't mean that I mindlessly go through life as an automaton, doing what someone tells me. It means that infinite possibilities are opened to me, that thought is expanded in ways which transcend material beliefs. Contentment and peace are waiting for me to find them, as I remember my only function. 

“There is a way of living in the world that is not here, although it seems to be. You do not change appearance, though you smile more frequently. Your forehead is serene; your eyes are quiet. And the ones who walk the world as you do recognize their own. Yet those who have not yet perceived the way will recognize you also, and believe that you are like them, as you were before.”

A Course in Miracles W-155.1:1-5

"This scientific sense of being, forsaking matter for Spirit, by no means suggests man's absorption into Deity and the loss of his identity, but confers upon man enlarged individuality, a wider sphere of thought and action, a more expansive love, a higher and more permanent peace."

Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 265:10-15