Peace Like A River — Happy Christmas Day

Joni Mitchell - photo by Joel Bernstein

"God's answer is some form of peace. All pain is healed; all misery replaced with joy. All prison doors are opened. And all sin is understood as merely a mistake."
A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson #359

Peace like a river. As I read the above words. this is what keeps coming to mind. Peace like a river. On this beautiful Christmas morning, I allow all imprisoning beliefs to leave my mind, while welcoming Love through the Science of the Christ. The Christ that we celebrate today flows through each and every thing there is. It leads us to healing in all thought and deed. It keeps us happy, safe, wholly directed by eternal Truth to green pastures and quiet repose. Peace like a river, flowing before and around us, pulling and pushing wherever we need to be. I won't fight the flow. I'll float and rest in the Christ consciousness which we celebrate today. This Spirit which permeates everything is recognized by me for what it is: God's answer.

“Christmas to me is the reminder of God's great gift, — His spiritual idea, man and the universe, — a gift which so transcends mortal, material, sensual giving that the merriment, mad ambition, rivalry, and ritual of our common Christmas seem a human mockery in mimicry of the real worship in commemoration of Christ's coming.

“I love to observe Christmas in quietude, humility, benevolence, charity, letting good will towards man, eloquent silence, prayer, and praise express my conception of Truth's appearing.”
Mary Baker Eddy - Miscellany 262:20-30

“Let no despair darken the joy of Christmas, for the time of Christ is meaningless apart from joy. Let us join in celebrating peace by demanding no sacrifice of anyone, for so you offer me the love I offer you. What can be more joyous than to perceive we are deprived of nothing? Such is the message of the time of Christ, which I give you that you may give it and return it to the Father, Who gave it to me. For in the time of Christ communication is restored, and He joins us in the celebration of His Son’s creation.”
A Course in Miracles T-15.XI.8:1-5

The Birth of Truth

Photo courtesy of Blake Lasater

Many people have told me they don't like Christmas. What they mean, of course, is that they don't like the way Christmas is promoted by the media and corporations. It seems there is too much emphasis on buying unnecessary things —  and going into debt to do so. We all know people who are over-stressed, for various reasons, during this beautiful time of the year. And so the words of Mary Baker Eddy which are quoted below are what I will concentrate on today. Spending the day quietly listening, in peace and joy, today and every day, is all I want. This is the gift which is ours for the claiming of it, anytime, anywhere. Happy Christmas to All...

“I celebrate Christmas with my soul, my spiritual sense, and so commemorate the entrance into human understanding of the Christ conceived of Spirit, of God and not of a woman—as the birth of Truth, the dawn of divine Love breaking upon the gloom of matter and evil with the glory of infinite being.

“I love to observe Christmas in quietude, humility, benevolence, charity, letting good will towards man, eloquent silence, prayer, and praise express my conception of Truth’s appearing." 

Mary Baker Eddy - Miscellany Page 262

“In this season (Christmas) which celebrates the birth of holiness into this world, join with me who decided for holiness for you. It is our task together to restore the awareness of magnitude to the host whom God appointed for Himself. It is beyond all your littleness to give the gift of God, but not beyond you. For God would give Himself through you. He reaches from you to everyone and beyond everyone to His Son’s creations, but without leaving you. Far beyond your little world but still in you, He extends forever. Yet He brings all His extensions to you, as host to Him.”

A Course in Miracles ACIM, T-15.III.7:1-7

Oneness Blessing

Art by Peter Max

Years ago, I took an intensive course in giving the Oneness Blessing. At the time (probably 20 years ago), the training had been intensified and done in two days, as opposed to the two weeks that it had taken before. Our instructor told us this was because it was necessary to get as many conduits of divine Love open as quickly as possible. The time was now because great changes were coming and we needed to be prepared. Looking back at that time, I can’t help but wonder if we took our obligation seriously enough. I don’t feel that I did. Having always been a procrastinator, it seems I put off opening my heart 100%, thinking that what I was doing was “good enough”. I urge everyone who works with positive energies — and you know who you are! — to go forward, fearless in our Giving. Truly, what the world needs now is Love, sweet Love. Let’s do it!

“This material world is even now becoming the arena for conflicting forces. On one side there will be discord and dismay; on the other side there will be Science and peace. The breaking up of material beliefs may seem to be famine and pestilence, want and woe, sin, sickness, and death, which assume new phases until their nothingness appears. These disturbances will continue until the end of error, when all discord will be swallowed up in spiritual Truth.”
Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 96:12-20

“Holy child of God, when will you learn that only holiness can content you and give you peace? Remember that you learn not for yourself alone, no more than I did. It is because I learned for you that you can learn of me. I would but teach you what is yours, so that together we can replace the shabby littleness that binds the host of God to guilt and weakness with the glad awareness of the glory that is in him. My birth in you is your awakening to grandeur. Welcome me not into a manger, but into the altar to holiness, where holiness abides in perfect peace. My Kingdom is not of this world because it is in you. And you are of your Father. Let us join in honoring you, who must remain forever beyond littleness.”
A Course in Miracles T-15.III.9:1-9

Certainty of Purpose

Photo credit: Aaron Springston

As the year draws to a close, our busy-ness tends to increase until we are, perhaps, in a tizzy all the time, much like the spinning dreidel which is a staple of many celebrations. I witnessed a friend in such a dither today. As I watched her, I realized she was taking personal responsibility for everything around her. She felt put-upon and over-loaded with duties and chores. She breathlessly rushed about feeling that no one but her would know what to do about any number of things. I closed my eyes and breathed slowly and deeply, hoping it could spread to her, but she wasn’t receptive. She was no more able to accept the peace that was hers, as the expression of Spirit, than she was able to trust that everything would be done with or without her — or not! It’s easy to slip into believing that we’re the only one who knows how to do certain things, thinking that everything will fall apart without us. I have found, time and again, that to stand with divine Love “in peace and certainty of purpose” will allow perfect results to transpire! So take a deep breath and trust the Universe!

‘“Rest in peace’ is a blessing for the living, not the dead, because rest comes from waking, not from sleeping. Sleep is withdrawing; waking is joining. Dreams are illusions of joining, because they reflect the ego’s distorted notions about what joining is. Yet the Holy Spirit, too, has use for sleep, and can use dreams on behalf of waking if you will let Him.”
A Course in Miracles T-8.IX.3:5-8

“When we reach our limits of mental endurance, we conclude that intellectual labor has been carried sufficiently far; but when we realize that immortal Mind is ever active, and that spiritual energies can neither wear out nor can so-called material law trespass upon God-given powers and resources, we are able to rest in Truth, refreshed by the assurances of immortality, opposed to mortality.”
Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 387:5-12

Thought Objectified

Photo credit: Mark McGee

Sometimes events seem too much to bear. A friend’s son was violently killed during a vacation to a warm, beautiful part of our world. In reaching out to her, I’ve learned that the embassy is doing an efficient and caring job taking care of what must be done. I’m having a tough time separating myself from her grief, from imagining it as my own. Which brings a question to my mind: if we are One, why don’t all of our thoughts simply bounce around and become stuck to others. I am learning it is because the only reality is that which is from God, good. Anything else is erroneous thinking and illusion masquerading as truth. When I first heard these concepts, my learned beliefs rebelled against their veracity. It sounded heartless. But I know it is the ultimate expression of Love to embrace our world in spiritual reality. What else truly changes a situation other than seeing it differently? Every time my friends’ grief comes to mind, I shall embrace them in divine Love — even as my tears of sympathy fall. These things are not mutually exclusive.

“The artist is not in his painting. The picture is the artist’s thought objectified. The human belief fancies that it delineates thought on matter, but what is matter? Did it exist prior to thought? Matter is made up of supposititious mortal mind-force; but all might is divine Mind. Thought will finally be understood and seen in all form, substance, and color, but without material accompaniments. The potter is not in the clay; else the clay would have power over the potter. God is His own infinite Mind, and expresses all.”
Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 310:1-10

“Death is the central dream from which all illusions stem. Is it not madness to think of life as being born, aging, losing vitality, and dying in the end? We have asked this question before, but now we need to consider it more carefully. It is the one fixed, unchangeable belief of the world that all things in it are born only to die. This is regarded as ‘the way of nature,’ not to be raised to question, but to be accepted as the ‘natural’ law of life. The cyclical, the changing and unsure; the undependable and the unsteady, waxing and waning in a certain way upon a certain path,—all this is taken as the Will of God. And no one asks if a benign Creator could will this.

‘In this perception of the universe as God created it, it would be impossible to think of Him as loving. For who has decreed that all things pass away, ending in dust and disappointment and despair, can but be feared. He holds your little life in his hand but by a thread, ready to break it off without regret or care, perhaps today. Or if he waits, yet is the ending certain. Who loves such a god knows not of love, because he has denied that life is real. Death has become life’s symbol. His world is now a battleground, where contradiction reigns and opposites make endless war. Where there is death is peace impossible.”
A Course in Miracles M-27.1:1–2:8

The Affection and Purpose of the Heart

Photo courtesy of Blake Lasater

“It takes a huge effort to free yourself from memory, but when you succeed, you start to realize that you’re capable of far more than you imagined. You live in this vast body called the Universe, which contains all the solutions and all the problems. Visit your soul; don’t visit your past.” Paulo Coelho, Aleph

Seeing this quote from one of my favorite authors caused me to think about something which has been happening recently: I’ve been regretting things from the past. This is a practice I thought had been forsaken long ago, but I’ve found myself waking up in the morning and remembering things I would like to change. Self-examination is a good thing, and anytime anyone chastises me for an action, I examine my motives and double check to see if my thinking needs correction. But I don’t tend to have regrets and feel sad about past actions. As I write this, a quote comes to mind — perhaps from this same author, and maybe even the same book: “You can’t change the past, but what you do in the present rectifies the past and changes the future.” I’ve quoted this many times to other people, and it’s time to practice what I preach!

“We should examine ourselves and learn what is the affection and purpose of the heart, for in this way only can we learn what we honestly are. If a friend informs us of a fault, do we listen patiently to the rebuke and credit what is said? Do we not rather give thanks that we are ‘not as other men’? During many years the author has been most grateful for merited rebuke. The wrong lies in unmerited censure, — in the falsehood which does no one any good.”
Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 8:28-4

“In Him you have no cares and no concerns, no burdens, no anxiety, no pain, no fear of future and no past regrets. In timelessness you rest, while time goes by without its touch upon you, for your rest can never change in any way at all. You rest today. And as you close your eyes, sink into stillness. Let these periods of rest and respite reassure your mind that all its frantic fantasies were but the dreams of fever that has passed away. Let it be still and thankfully accept its healing. No more fearful dreams will come, now that you rest in God. Take time today to slip away from dreams and into peace.”
A Course in Miracles W-109.5:1-8

Love‘s Day!

A Day at Meow Wolf - Denver, CO

Exciting days, routine days — what’s the difference? Truly, there is none. Every moment is cause for celebration! One of my favorite Wayne Dyer quotes is, “If you drop a pen and don’t enjoy picking it up, drop it again!” But of course, I think you’ll agree with me that some days feel enchantingly delicious with prospects and fruition. Some moments in our lives feel full of possibilities and we eagerly go forward, ready to grasp all the wonder-filled moments. This day is Love’s and I will happily delight in its possibilities. Let me embrace every action with the same anticipation that I would expect from a day at a fabulous museum! 

“In dreams we fly to Europe and meet a far-off friend. The looker-on sees the body in bed, but the supposed inhabitant of that body carries it through the air and over the ocean. This shows the possibilities of thought. Opium and hashish eaters mentally travel far and work wonders, yet their bodies stay in one place. This shows what mortal mentality and knowledge are.”
Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 90:16-23

“Miracles occur naturally as expressions of love. The real miracle is the love that inspires them. In this sense everything that comes from love is a miracle.”
A Course in Miracles T-1.I.3:1-3