Peaceful and Joyful

Photo credit: Aaron Springston

This writing was originally from ten years ago. I repeat today as it expresses my feelings.

At this time last year, I was in the hospital. The first few days, I requested that no visitors be admitted and I was at peace with the decision, happy to be listening to Mind rather than talking mindlessly. Numerous times a day, nurses and/or doctors would ask if there was anyone they could call for me, or if I’d like to visit with a counselor or pastor or someone. I assured them I was fine. I was fine because I realized that I was one with Love, without fear or worry, accepting the perfect peace that resides within. I think of those days occasionally when people tell me they are lonely and wish they had someone with which to share their lives. I feel I’m sharing everything with everyone, right now, right here, in the middle of the night without another human voice within range of my ears. I feel that way because the unity of Spirit is a never-ending giving and receiving. Accepting this fact, I feel complete, and there is no end to the peace and joy!

"To divest thought of false trusts and material evidences in order that the spiritual facts of being may appear,--this is the great attainment by means of which we shall sweep away the false and give place to the true."
Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 423:8-11

“There is no end to all the peace and joy, and all the miracles that I will give, when I accept God’s Word. Why not today? Why should I wait, my Father, for the joy You promised me? For You will keep Your Word You gave Your Son in exile. I am sure my treasure waits for me, and I need but reach out my hand to find it. Even now my fingers touch it. It is very close. I need not wait an instant more to be at peace forever. It is You I choose, and my Identity along with You. Your Son would be Himself, and know You as his Father and Creator, and his Love.”
A Course in Miracles W-355.1:1-8

Nature Voices Divine Love

 

Art by Abbott Henderson Thayer

Forgive Me - Poem by Mary Oliver

Angels are wonderful but they are so, well, aloof.

It’s what I sense in the mud and the roots of the

trees, or the well, or the barn, or the rock with

its citron map of lichen that halts my feet and

makes my eyes flare,

 feeling the presence of some spirit, 

some small god,

 who abides there.

If I were a perfect person, I would be bowing

continuously.

I’m not, though I pause wherever I feel this

holiness, which is why I’m so often late coming

back from wherever I went.

Forgive me.

~ Mary Oliver

“Nature voices natural, spiritual law and divine Love, but human belief misinterprets nature. Arctic regions, sunny tropics, giant hills, winged winds, mighty billows, verdant vales, festive flowers, and glorious heavens, — all point to Mind, the spiritual intelligence they reflect. The floral apostles are hieroglyphs of Deity. Suns and planets teach grand lessons. The stars make night beautiful, and the leaflet turns naturally towards the light.” 

Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 240:1-9

“Forgiveness turns the world of sin into a world of glory, wonderful to see. Each flower shines in light, and every bird sings of the joy of Heaven. There is no sadness and there is no parting here, for everything is totally forgiven. And what has been forgiven must join, for nothing stands between to keep them separate and apart. The sinless must perceive that they are one, for nothing stands between to push the other off. And in the space that sin left vacant do they join as one, in gladness recognizing what is part of them has not been kept apart and separate.”

A Course in Miracles T-26.IV.2:1-6

No Defense Against Truth

Agapanthus - flowering beauty in France

Courtesy of Geneva Currin 

I’m not sure I’d ever felt fear until last night. Childhood nightmares, fear of parents disappearing, many things I thought were fearful had, of course, been experienced. But last night, waking up in the dark, realizing I had no legs, finding the call button for the nurses was not near — I have officially felt fear. But there are no degrees of fear any more than there are degrees of love. I think this phase of my life will be spent truly trying to know the peace of God. The all-encompassing ego, or mortal mind, has been something I’ve denied, I’ve ignored, I’ve tried to overcome, but I haven’t seen it as nothingness trying to be everything. If this self-importance has not shown me the error of my way, I don’t know what will. Having always had somewhat of a superiority complex – as I’ve described it, jumping up on my high horse — I feel it becoming less substantial in my mind. I’m ready to go forward without this defense against truth.   

“What is the ego? Nothingness, but in a form that seems like something. In a world of form the ego cannot be denied for it alone seems real. Yet could God’s Son as He created him abide in form or in a world of form? Who asks you to define the ego and explain how it arose can be but he who thinks it real, and seeks by definition to ensure that its illusive nature is concealed behind the words that seem to make it so.”

A Course in Miracles C-2.2:1-5

“Every one must see or feel for himself in order to be convinced; but I am satisfied that any who will lay aside their preconceived notions, and deal honestly with themselves and the light they have, will come to a knowledge of the truth as illustrated in the teachings and life of Jesus Christ; that is, that Mind, or Soul, or whatever you may be pleased to call it, is the real Ego, or self, and that mortal mind with its body is the unreal and vanishing, and eventually goes back to its native nothingness.”

Mary Baker Eddy - Miscellaneous Writings 468: 27

Different Types of Prayer

When I first began to play the organ for churches other than my childhood Christian Science Society, I did not understand many of the terms used in their services. There were different types of prayer, different reasons for communion, ways of thinking about sin, with which I was unfamiliar. Jesus was God and Mary was Mother of God — foreign thinking for me. But now, after a decade of watching three beautiful congregations of Methodists, Presbyterians, and Catholics, I think I get it. We all need comfort and love. Many of us are at peace when we see that all our needs are already supplied, and it’s up to us to accept divine Love. Some of us feel like sinners and need absolution in order to survive and thrive. Many want the communion of like-minded folk, to walk hand-in-hand with a tribe, to have someone to call on in times of need. But the bottom line is we all want to feel and share the Love which is God. Because there is no other love, not in reality. Whatever you do which expresses kindness and charity, whatever brings you comfort, whatever helps you see yourself as One with All That Is — Keep on doing it! And don’t be afraid to think outside of your comfort zone.

“The time for thinkers has come. Truth, independent of doctrines and time-honored systems, knocks at the portal of humanity. Contentment with the past and the cold conventionality of materialism are crumbling away. Ignorance of God is no longer the stepping-stone to faith. The only guarantee of obedience is a right apprehension of Him whom to know aright is Life eternal.”
Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page vii: 13-15

“Right perception is necessary before God can communicate directly to His altars, which He established in His Sons. There He can communicate His certainty, and His knowledge will bring peace without question. God is not a stranger to His Sons, and His Sons are not strangers to each other. Knowledge preceded both perception and time, and will ultimately replace them. That is the real meaning of ‘Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end,’ and ‘Before Abraham was I am.’ Perception can and must be stabilized, but knowledge is stable. ‘Fear God and keep His commandments’ becomes ‘Know God and accept His certainty.’”
A Course in Miracles T-3.III.6:1-7

The People Around Us

Photo courtesy of Blake Lasater

These last few days in the hospital have been wonderful, because of the beautiful young people I have met. Every nurse, tech, doctor — they have all been incredibly interesting. There’s the young woman who just read a novel for the first time in her life, and she loved it. Having been a life-long reader, I made some recommendations to her and she was very excited to try one author in particular. And the young father who became a nurse because his wife was one, and when he heard the stories of her days, he wanted to make a difference in that way, also. They live on a hill which was secluded and has become developed. He has a dream of living somewhere like Eureka Springs. Then there’s the sweetest young woman whose daughter has autoimmune problems. We spent a long time discussing the deterioration of America’s food supply chain. A 20-year-old assistant who was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes when she was 15. She had many tips for my year-old grandson who has just been told the same. The exotically-beautiful nurse, who left teaching to become a nurse, was particularly inspiring to me. The ambulance drivers, in their 20s, who lament the fact they must live with their parents, because after car payments and insurance, there is not enough money left over to think of purchasing a home. I have received insights into their lives, hopes, their desire to dream of more. I’m going to sleep thinking of my sweet little abode, my incredible friends, my children, and all the beauty I see all around. Namaste …

“The sculptor turns from the marble to his model in order to perfect his conception. We are all sculptors, working at various forms, moulding and chiseling thought. What is the model before mortal mind? Is it imperfection, joy, sorrow, sin, suffering? Have you accepted the mortal model? Are you reproducing it? Then you are haunted in your work by vicious sculptors and hideous forms. Do you not hear from all mankind of the imperfect model? The world is holding it before your gaze continually. The result is that you are liable to follow those lower patterns, limit your life-work, and adopt into your experience the angular outline and deformity of matter models.”
Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 248:12-24

“Today’s idea takes another step toward quick salvation, and a giant stride it is indeed! So great the distance is that it encompasses, it sets you down just short of Heaven, with the goal in sight and obstacles behind. Your foot has reached the lawns that welcome you to Heaven’s gate; the quiet place of peace, where you await with certainty the final step of God. How far are we progressing now from earth! How close are we approaching to our goal! How short the journey still to be pursued!”
A Course in Miracles W-194.1:1-6

Loving My Rose-Colored Glasses

“Wonderment”

A creation from Sandy Wythawai Starbird

[this is a writing from a few years ago]

This is a quote attributed to Albert Einstein: “We can live as though nothing is a miracle or as if everything is a miracle.” I, personally, have always leaned toward the side of wonderment, looking at life with rose-colored glasses and being tickled pink at the ever-changing miracle of life, as witnessed by trees and flowers and flowing water and all of nature. Today I’m enjoying the miracle of driving a car! Following a lower-leg amputation over two years ago, I didn’t drive for more than six months. The situation reminded me of when you lose electricity in your home for a period of time, then when it’s restored you’re so mindfully grateful! When I’m driving, I can actually feel my foot, although intellectually I know it’s the prosthetic one. People tell me this is “phantom pain”. I think of it as a gift of Life. I'll nurture the feeling, and other inexplicable ones which are showing me Truth in all its forms and functions. I will continue to recognize the miracle so I can give it away!

“The great miracle, to human sense, is divine Love, and the grand necessity of existence is to gain the true idea of what constitutes the kingdom of heaven in man."
Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 560:11-16

“What is temptation but a wish to make illusions real? It does not seem to be the wish that no reality be so. Yet it is an assertion that some forms of idols have a powerful appeal that makes them harder to resist than those you would not want to have reality. Temptation, then, is nothing more than this; a prayer the miracle touch not some dreams, but keep their unreality obscure and give to them reality instead. And Heaven gives no answer to the prayer, nor can a miracle be given you to heal appearances you do not like. You have established limits. What you ask is given you, but not of God Who knows no limits. You have limited yourself.
A Course in Miracles T-30.VIII.3:1-8

Choosing Knowledge

When we feel ill, it seems difficult, perhaps impossible, to understand what is going on. We may fall into the ego’s trap of believing that death is an escape. I think I’ve fallen into the trap of thinking that I know something. In my years of writing this column, my goal has been to introduce people to this way of thought. The function has not been to challenge anyone’s thinking by writing the words I know to be true. I’m afraid I’ve fallen into level confusion and am counter productive in my writings and practice of divine metaphysics. Many of my friends are working with me to regain the joy of God rather than choosing pain. Many other friends do not understand that it’s time for me to choose knowledge, rather than inanity. I do not want to hurt anyone’s feelings, but I am choosing love over fear. This may involve turning away from erroneous thought and seeing through love rather than reacting to fear. I’m not sure where this line of thinking is leading me, but we shall find out!


Lesson 190

I choose the joy of God instead of pain.

1. Pain is a wrong perspective. ²When it is experienced in any form, it is a proof of self-deception. ³It is not a fact at all.⁴There is no form it takes that will not disappear if seen aright. ⁵For pain proclaims God cruel. ⁶How could it be real in any form? ⁷It witnesses to God the Father’s hatred of His Son, the sinfulness He sees in him, and His insane desire for revenge and death.

2. Can such projections be attested to? ²Can they be anything but wholly false? ³Pain is but witness to the Son’s mistakes in what he thinks he is. ⁴It is a dream of fierce retaliation for a crime that could not be committed; for attack on what is wholly unassailable. ⁵It is a nightmare of abandonment by an Eternal Love, which could not leave the Son whom It created out of love.

3. Pain is a sign illusions reign in place of truth. ²It demonstrates God is denied, confused with fear, perceived as mad, and seen as traitor to Himself. ³If God is real, there is no pain. ⁴If pain is real, there is no God. ⁵For vengeance is not part of love. ⁶And fear, denying love and using pain to prove that God is dead, has shown that death is victor over life. ⁷The body is the Son of God, corruptible in death, as mortal as the Father he has slain.

4. Peace to such foolishness! ²The time has come to laugh at such insane ideas. ³There is no need to think of them as savage crimes, or secret sins with weighty consequence. ⁴Who but a madman could conceive of them as cause of anything? ⁵Their witness, pain, is mad as they, and no more to be feared than the insane illusions which it shields, and tries to demonstrate must still be true.

5. It is your thoughts alone that cause you pain. ²Nothing external to your mind can hurt or injure you in any way. ³There is no cause beyond yourself that can reach down and bring oppression. ⁴No one but yourself affects you. ⁵There is nothing in the world that has the power to make you ill or sad, or weak or frail. ⁶But it is you who have the power to dominate all things you see by merely recognizing what you are. ⁷As you perceive the harmlessness in them, they will accept your holy will as theirs. ⁸And what was seen as fearful now becomes a source of innocence and holiness.

6. My holy brother, think of this awhile: The world you see does nothing. ²It has no effects at all. ³It merely represents your thoughts. ⁴And it will change entirely as you elect to change your mind, and choose the joy of God as what you really want. ⁵Your Self is radiant in this holy joy, unchanged, unchanging and unchangeable, forever and forever. ⁶And would you deny a little corner of your mind its own inheritance, and keep it as a hospital for pain; a sickly place where living things must come at last to die?

7. The world may seem to cause you pain. ²And yet the world, as causeless, has no power to cause. ³As an effect, it cannot make effects. ⁴As an illusion, it is what you wish. ⁵Your idle wishes represent its pains. ⁶Your strange desires bring it evil dreams. ⁷Your thoughts of death envelop it in fear, while in your kind forgiveness does it live.

8. Pain is the thought of evil taking form, and working havoc in your holy mind. ²Pain is the ransom you have gladly paid not to be free. ³In pain is God denied the Son He loves. ⁴In pain does fear appear to triumph over love, and time replace eternity and Heaven. ⁵And the world becomes a cruel and a bitter place, where sorrow rules and little joys give way before the onslaught of the savage pain that waits to end all joy in misery.

9. Lay down your arms, and come without defense into the quiet place where Heaven’s peace holds all things still at last.²Lay down all thoughts of danger and of fear. ³Let no attack enter with you. ⁴Lay down the cruel sword of judgment that you hold against your throat, and put aside the withering assaults with which you seek to hide your holiness.

10. Here will you understand there is no pain. ²Here does the joy of God belong to you. ³This is the day when it is given you to realize the lesson that contains all of salvation’s power. ⁴It is this: Pain is illusion; joy, reality. ⁵Pain is but sleep; joy is awakening. ⁶Pain is deception; joy alone is truth.

11. And so again we make the only choice that ever can be made; we choose between illusions and the truth, or pain and joy, or hell and Heaven. ²Let our gratitude unto our Teacher fill our hearts, as we are free to choose our joy instead of pain, our holiness in place of sin, the peace of God instead of conflict, and the light of Heaven for the darkness of the world

(ACIM, W-190.1:1–11:2)