Calm and Exalted Thought

Pembrooke Farm

Eureka Springs, AR

I met a woman who had lived in our mountain town for about a year. She wasn't happy here; not in any way. She told me how she couldn't stand the weather, her job, her apartment, the lack of public transportation, our farmers' market. For most of her diatribe, I calmly listened to her and agreed that she should probably go back to Houston where she was happier. But when she started to put down our local farmers' market, I verbally retaliated in a fashion more vehement than expected! Looking back on the situation, I realize the "peace of God" (which we are contemplating in today’s Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 185) has nothing to do with degrees. Divine Love doesn't become riled up if someone says something derogatory about a cause which is close to Its heart. It doesn’t become a bit upset over something, and ragingly defensive over something else. Today my focus will be on experiencing peace in every situation, not just the ones I have no emotional connection towards! 

"The calm and exalted thought or spiritual apprehension is at peace."

Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 506:11-12

“The mind which means that all it wants is peace must join with other minds, for that is how peace is obtained. And when the wish for peace is genuine, the means for finding it is given, in a form each mind that seeks for it in honesty can understand. Whatever form the lesson takes is planned for him in such a way that he can not mistake it, if his asking is sincere. But if he asks without sincerity, there is no form in which the lesson will meet with acceptance and be truly learned.”

A Course in Miracles W-185.6:1-4 

Seeing Something Where There Is Nothing

Sculpture At Crystal Bridges

Photo credit: Aaron Springston

From the moment we come into this form, we are taught what things are called, what those names represent, and the meaning we should place on them. These names and meanings tend to separate us from each other: they de-unify us. We think of learning as knowing what these things are, and then we study to find out everything about them. In this world we have made, we need these symbols, these names, in order to convey information. And yet, we keep getting glimpses of true communication -- and, if you're like me, you want more! Watching birds fly in formation is but one way we witness a higher form of knowing. Rather than learning more about the illusion of names and notions, I'd rather work toward knowing the reality of a shared unity, by way of understanding the infinite Mind which flows through everything. The knowledge that the confusion we are faced with in daily life is not true creation, this is a key to the door of Truth, wherein peace is found.

“The press unwittingly sends forth many sorrows and diseases among the human family. It does this by giving names to diseases and by printing long descriptions which mirror images of disease distinctly in thought. A new name for an ailment affects people like a Parisian name for a novel garment. Every one hastens to get it.” 

Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 196:31-5

“This space you see as setting off all things from one another is the means by which the world’s perception is achieved. You see something where nothing is, and see as well nothing where there is unity; a space between all things, between all things and you. Thus do you think that you have given life in separation. By this split you think you are established as a unity which functions with an independent will.”

A Course in Miracles W-184.2:1-4

Who Are You Without Your Name?

Basin Park, Eureka Springs, AR 

Photo credit: Richard Quick

There is an Eckhart Tolle video called "The Flowering of Human Consciousness." This talk starts out with him asking us to pretend we have no name. He wants us to examine how this feels and see who we are without this part of our "story" in place. I feel fortunate to have discovered that my personal history isn't exactly what I had been told it was. My parents took me from a relative shortly after my birth, moved to another state, and invented a history for their new baby.  Finding out at the age of 37 that my given name and birthdate were fiction enabled me to begin to see who I Am, in reality. My only parent is divine Mind. I have no birth date as I am eternal, without beginning or ending. Every single part of my material history is a temporary illusion which can be released in favor of Truth. This doesn't mean that I will lose my individuality. On the contrary! I am set free to be more of mySelf when I dismiss the limitations imposed by heredity, circumstance, and other material beliefs concerning my past. Although this changing of history was rather traumatic when I discovered my personal data was fiction, I rapidly found out what was important in this life on earth. Our sustenance, our comfort, are all found within. We are free!

"Man's individuality is not material. This Science of being obtains not alone hereafter in what men call Paradise, but here and now; it is the great fact of being for time and eternity." 

Mary Baker Eddy - Science  & Health Page 285:2-6

“Today you can achieve a state in which you will experience the gift of grace. You can escape all bondage of the world, and give the world the same release you found. You can remember what the world forgot, and offer it your own remembering. You can accept today the part you play in its salvation, and your own as well. And both can be accomplished perfectly.”

A Course in Miracles W-183.9:1-5

True Home

“Homeless … Again”

Ceramic Sculpture by Ken Starbird

A number of friends have told me they don't feel they belong here. I think we all, at some time or another, have felt this way. What if, rather than us not belonging here, this "here" we speak of isn't what we think it is? What if we don't belong in this crazy world, but the world we see isn't as solid as we think it is? Perhaps our true home is something we've sensed is there, sort of like seeing something out of the corner of your eye, but when you look directly at it, it's not there.  For years, I grasped at straws while ignoring the vast Truth of eternity. We're not strangers in a strange land when we realize the truth of the land in which we abide. We think everything is real that we touch and see, but it's shifting and changing, as opposed to the omnipresent stability of our true home. So let's be still a moment and ask to know what that home is. We want it so badly, but we've forgotten what it is. Now we're not afraid to remember!

“This world you seem to live in is not home to you. And somewhere in your mind you know that this is true. A memory of home keeps haunting you, as if there were a place that called you to return, although you do not recognize the voice, nor what it is the voice reminds you of. Yet still you feel an alien here, from somewhere all unknown. Nothing so definite that you could say with certainty you are an exile here. Just a persistent feeling, sometimes not more than a tiny throb, at other times hardly remembered, actively dismissed, but surely to return to mind again.”

A Course in Miracles W-182.1:1-6

“As mortals begin to understand Spirit, they give up the belief that there is any true existence apart from God.”

Mary baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 282:30-32

Beyond the Appearance

Drumming in Eureka Springs

Photo courtesy of Richard Quick

“I trust my brothers, who are one with me.” I'm very happy to have this beautiful Course in Miracles lesson to guide my thoughts away from a defensive mode to an understanding which affirms the goodness of all -- and explains the reason why. Many teachings help us to deal with material circumstances, and they are lovely reminders of how to improve what we call the human condition. Some teachers tell us that we're humans having a spiritual experience, but very few tell us that we're actually spiritual. In divine metaphysics we learn that everything is an idea of God. I am a spiritual idea right here and now. And you are, too! And so are all those who don't realize the truth of their spiritual being. I'm going to pick a person who seems to fall into this category and concentrate on their true Being as an expression of divine Love. This feels like a Science experiment, don't you think? I shall record the results!

"It should be thoroughly understood that all men have one Mind … one Life, Truth, and Love. Mankind will become perfect in proportion as this fact becomes apparent, war will cease and the true brotherhood…will be established."

Mary Baker Eddy, Science & Health  Page 467:9-13

“Trusting your brothers is essential to establishing and holding up your faith in your ability to transcend doubt and lack of sure conviction in yourself. When you attack a brother, you proclaim that he is limited by what you have perceived in him. You do not look beyond his errors. Rather, they are magnified, becoming blocks to your awareness of the Self that lies beyond your own mistakes, and past his seeming sins as well as yours.”

A Course in Miracles W-181.1:1-4

Unity of Spirit

 

Photo courtesy of Susan Luddy

Words from Kahlil Gibran

“Pity the nation that is full of beliefs and empty of religion. 

Pity the nation that wears a cloth it does not weave 

and eats a bread it does not harvest. 

Pity the nation that acclaims the bully as hero, 

and that deems the glittering conqueror bountiful. 

Pity a nation that despises a passion in its dream, 

yet submits in its awakening. 

Pity the nation that raises not its voice 

save when it walks in a funeral, 

boasts not except among its ruins, 

and will rebel not save when its neck is laid 

between the sword and the block. 

Pity the nation whose statesman is a fox, 

whose philosopher is a juggler, 

and whose art is the art of patching and mimicking 

Pity the nation that welcomes its new ruler with trumpeting, 

and farewells him with hooting, 

only to welcome another with trumpeting again. 

Pity the nation whose sages are dumb with years 

and whose strongmen are yet in the cradle. 

Pity the nation divided into fragments, 

each fragment deeming itself a nation.” 

― Kahlil Gibran, The Garden of The Prophet

“You operate from the belief you must protect yourself from what is happening because it must contain what threatens you. A sense of threat is an acknowledgment of an inherent weakness; a belief that there is danger which has power to call on you to make appropriate defense. The world is based on this insane belief. And all its structures, all its thoughts and doubts, its penalties and heavy armaments, its legal definitions and its codes, its ethics and its leaders and its gods, all serve but to preserve its sense of threat. For no one walks the world in armature but must have terror striking at his heart.”

 A Course in Miracles W-135.2:1-5

“Unity of spirit gives new pinions to joy, or else joy’s drooping wings trail in dust.” 

Mary Baker Eddy - Page 58:2-4

Amazing Grace

There are many definitions given in the dictionary for the word grace. It is a noun, a verb, and an adverb, so it covers a lot of ground. The definition which best suits today’s Course in Miracles Review of Lessons 160 and 170 would be this: "Divine love and protection bestowed freely on people." This grace which is ours shows itself in many ways. Perhaps it is seen in our kindness to others, and in theirs to us. Grace is emerging in the synchronicities we see in daily life. Perhaps it is demonstrated in an apology, or an act of benevolence, a charitable deed, or an acceptance of someone's opinion which is opposite of ours. Grace is mine today, simply by acknowledging its presence. To quote William Blake:

“To see the world in a grain of sand,

And heaven in a wild flower,

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,

And eternity in an hour.”

“Grace and Truth are potent beyond all other means and methods.”

Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health  Page 67:23-24

“Grace is acceptance of the Love of God within a world of seeming hate and fear. By grace alone the hate and fear are gone, for grace presents a state so opposite to everything the world contains, that those whose minds are lighted by the gift of grace can not believe the world of fear is real.”

A Course in Miracles W-169.2:1-2