March 1, 2013 - Material/Spiritual Meaning

"Clorado Sunset"
photo by Aaron Springston

ACIM Workbook Lesson #60

Today we review Lessons 46-50

Love, forgiveness, salvation -- these and many other words have taken on interesting connotations through our material interpretations and beliefs. How often does our version of love include jealousy, attachment, and various demands we insist upon for someone to be a worthy recipient of our matter-based love? And forgiveness seldom is an acknowledgement that there is truly nothing to forgive, but carries with it superior thoughts and magnanimous gestures. Salvation has an odd interpretation which includes a paying of penance to someone or something. As we turn away from the material conceptions of these and other words, we are allowed to glimpse Love, wherein there is no forgiveness nor salvation as we think of them. We are told in the first lesson review today that "God does not forgive because He has never condemned." And we are told that the forgiveness we are learning of as human beings is "the reflection of God's Love on earth." How beautiful is that!!  When looked at from this angle, it seems senseless to say that we can forgive but not forget. If we truly are, in reality, the perfect reflection of divine Love, if this is the spiritual reality (hence, the Only reality), how easy it becomes to lay down the sword and go forward living from the heart rather than the brain. We can let go all thoughts of retaliation or revenge and live by the law of grace. How I long to forget everything and begin again from Love!

Mary Baker Eddy correlative quote:

"Progress takes off human shackles. The finite must yield to the infinite. Advancing to a higher plane of action, thought rises from the material sense to the spiritual, from the scholastic to the inspirational, and from the mortal to the immortal. Love, the divine Principle, is the Father and Mother of the universe, including man."

Science & Health Page 256:1-8

February 28, 2013 - Walking the Talk

"Glacier National Park"
photo by Aaron Springston

ACIM Workbook Lesson #59:

Today we review Lessons 41-45. 

As a child, I had a recurring dream of walking on the edge of a razor blade, with deepest outer space surrounding me. It wasn't painful, nor frightening, it just was. It seemed I could fall off at any moment, but there was no fear of that either. Sometimes it feels as though we're walking a tightrope in this life, with erroneous thought everywhere other than the straight and narrow way. Throughout the first forty years of my life, I indulged what is often termed an addictive personality. I really liked alcohol, marijuana, amphetamines, men -- well, you get the idea. Those indulgences fell by the wayside when I embarked on a deep spiritual study and quest for change. But in the last few years, I've found myself allowing food to become somewhat of an idol to me. In an effort to break this illusion, I decided to go on a five-day green juice fast. While this has facilitated a letting go of caffeine and a break in the compulsion to eat whatever is in sight, it has also brought to my attention what I've been doing. That is, falling into old habits of material pleasure, rather than seeking first the kingdom of heaven within. In that resting place, everything falls into place and is witnessed by balance. Now I step back and ask myself what I'm really hungry for. Interestingly, the documentary which broke the miasma of materiality for me is appropriately entitled "Hungry For Change". I am grateful for having been drawn into a structured fasting situation, wherein I have experienced more than a physical change. I have seen a shift which has always been there, waiting for me to change gears and catch up, showing me Life through true Vision rather than personal sense. 

Mary Baker Eddy quote:

"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."

Science & Health Page 265:10-15

February 27, 2013 - Holiness For All!

Park City, Utah Sunset
photo by Aaron Springston

ACIM Workbook Lesson #58:

Today we review Lessons 36-40 

This review speaks of "my holiness" in four of the five summarized lessons. What does that mean? Is my holiness different from your holiness, perhaps based on  actions or thoughts? We are learning that this holiness is our true state of being as reflections of Love, realized through forgiveness in its purest sense. When I assert this Truth about myself, I affirm it for everyone. The urge to micro-manage things is strong in most of us, because we've been taught to make plans, to set goals, to nail down all the details. Recently the building in which I have my gallery was sold. The new owners have undertaken repairs which include replacing an old wooden awning on the front. While I had accepted that this was going to be done to the benefit of all, numerous people questioned if they were doing this in the proper way. And I had fallen into this questioning thought myself. While in the market, someone asked me how long it was going to take to get the new awning up and wondered about the appropriateness of the material to be used. When I told her that I didn't know when it would be done or how it would be done, but that I was trusting that everything would turn out best for everyone involved, she told me that rarely happened, particularly with people our age. Wow! Could this be true? We can't trust in goodness and our ability to allow it to be? And what did age have to do with it? This was enough to wake me up to what I'd been doing. I've learned to listen for inner guidance when making decisions of any kind. Most things in this life are beyond our control, aren't they? How many times do we make intricate plans only to have to change them when circumstances change?  I could write a book! Wayne Dyer tells us that worry is counterproductive. Why worry, he says? If we can do something about it, we will. If we can't do anything about it, what's the use in worrying? Living by this precept has brought a freedom I wouldn't have known had I held on to my old drama queen ways. My mantra is, Only Good can come of this. For this realization, I am most grateful.

Mary Baker Eddy quote:

"Man walks in the direction towards which he looks, and where his treasure is, there will his heart be also. If our hopes and affections are spiritual, they came from above, not from below, and they bear as of old the fruits of the Spirit." Science & Health Page 451:14-18

February 26, 2013 - Radical Reliance on Truth

"Altai Mountains"
photo by Aaron Springston

ACIM Workbook Lesson #57:

Today we review Lessons 31-35 

I have often been asked if (or perhaps told that) Christian Science is a cult. Having been affiliated with this way of life since childhood, it assuredly is not. I've never been controlled by anyone, or asked to worship anyone, or any of the other criteria necessary to qualify for this category of action. And I'm sure that Course in Miracles students often get the same thing, judging from what a quick search of YouTube videos reveal! What we do ask of ourselves is a radical reliance on God, a wholehearted acceptance of God as the only power, to recognize that Love leads every action. This is the goal I set for myself at every moment. And this is why I see such a strong interaction with these two disciplines: they both ask us to give up material beliefs and rely on Truth. And this may not be as hard as we'd like to make it out to be! Think back on the so-called laws of life you have adopted in the past. Shouldn't it be as easy to allow spiritual principles to guide your actions as it is to accept material rules which make no sense? For example, why should being cold and wet give you a cold? What silly admonitions we have heard about things that will cause us to "catch cold". This is only one example, but I'm sure you can think of many you have heard and lived by in your life. This quote from Lesson 34 says it all: "When I see the world as a place of freedom, I realize that it reflects the laws of God instead of the rules I made up for it to obey." And the rules of God are simple to hear when we have cleared out the cacophony which hides them from our thought. To live from the Truth within rather than the made-up rules of material existence, this is the freedom which will lead into harmonious peace for all. 

Mary Baker Eddy quote:

"The conceptions of mortal, erring thought must give way to the ideal of all that is perfect and eternal. Through many generations human beliefs will be attaining diviner conceptions, and the immortal and perfect model of God's creation will finally be seen as the only true conception of being."

Science & Health Page 260:7-12

February 25, 2013 - See It and Live It

"Utah Morning"
photo by Aaron Springston

ACIM Workbook Lesson #56:

Today we review Lessons 26-30

Once we develop the habit of seeing everything in Love, it is jolting to hear someone speaking from a space of fear and attack. One of my neighbors has become so sure that everything is attacking him, that everything is attacking him! For almost 20 years, I've watched him as he goes from one drama to the next, including divorces, lost jobs, personal attacks of various types. All of his thoughts seem magnetized to attract more of the same. Many of us have been there to some extent, and most of us reading these words have made a conscious choice to see Love, to see the Reality of our being rather than the attacks often envisioned in uneducated thought. Wanting to see differently more than anything else is the key to finding this open secret. The acknowledgement that God is everything, including my true self, is the first step in demonstrating Truth. Closing the door on the illusionary images we have become accustomed to thinking of as reality allows us to see true Reality. And when we see it, we can live it.  As soon as we allow ourselves to not only observe this truth, but to actualize it in daily practice, we start to notice synchronicities in various surprising ways. It may be that we're in the right place at the right time in order to meet people we need to meet to facilitate projects and other related things. Or maybe we notice we are where we need to be in order to help someone else by the utilization of a particular skill or resource that we have. The only thing more satisfying than noticing these parting-of-the-veil experiences in ourselves is watching this light come on within others. It's with childlike wonder that we relate these events to each other, until they become such a part of our lives we expect nothing else but good, God, to be manifest in our experience. There is nothing to fear in this change of thought. Embrace it and feel joy!

Mary Baker Eddy quote:

“Here let a word be noticed which will be better understood hereafter,--chemicalization. By chemicalization I mean the process which mortal mind and body undergo in the change of belief from a material to a spiritual basis.”

Science & Health Page 168:30-2

February 24, 2013 - Aghast at Nothingness?

"Skiing in Utah"
photo by Aaron Springston

ACIM Workbook Lesson #55:

Today we review Lessons 21-25

This review is so exciting that I want to write about each and every one -- but I've already done that! So I'll just go with the first part of the review from lesson #21: "What I see now are but signs of disease, disaster and death. This cannot be what God created for His beloved Son." Christian Scientists are often criticized for using Spirit to heal disease. Obviously, this would be impossible. Alternatively, we are chastised for doing nothing when faced with this thing called disease. If you have a so-called disease, it does no good to pretend it's not there. While affirmations, visualizations, different psychological techniques are often effective at changing matter, that is not what spiritual healing is all about. Some people think that the metaphysical treatment of disease is trying to affect a change in your experience. It is not. And some think that spiritual healing through prayer is asking God to heal disease. It is not. Yet others feel that prayer is doing nothing. It is not. Seeing past the material illusion to a single moment of spiritual Truth, that is what spiritual healing is about. This knowledge and demonstration thereof is available to anyone, anywhere, anytime. This Principle is changeless and eternal. All we need do is awaken to it. Today I am determined to see!

Mary Baker Eddy quote:

"Human sense may well marvel at discord, while, to a diviner sense, harmony is the real and discord the unreal. We may well be astonished at sin, sickness, death. We may well be perplexed at human fear; and still more astounded at hatred, which lifts its hydra head, showing its horns in the many inventions of evil. But why should we stand aghast at nothingness?”

Science & Health Page 563:1-7

February 23, 2013 - First Thought of the Day

"Principia Group in China"
photo by Aaron Springston

ACIM Workbook Lesson #54

Today's review is of Lessons 16-20.

Upon awakening today, I had about 20 inane and/or insane thoughts before I realized what I was doing! "What day is this and where am I supposed to be?" was quickly followed by a chain of remembrances which took me from a lovely cooking store to my childhood home, then zoomed over to a friend's house and a remembered conversation, before zipping back to a neglected household chore. This illustrates why it is so important to guide my first thoughts of the day to paths of Spirit. Without this discipline, I could spend all my time with meaningless thoughts which create turmoil rather than peace within.  I have found that leading first thoughts to Truth helps to keep my mind in tune for the rest of the day, rather than thinking of all the material insanity which comes at me from every direction once I leave the sequestered world of my home. We so often feel bombarded by thoughts of fear and hostility, lack and disease, error and disharmony. What if our thoughts of peace and harmony could still the seeming turmoil of the world? Then would it be worth the effort to pull our thought away from error and hold steadfastly to Truth? Everything true we think or speak or do is shared with all. How important then to see Reality rather than the beliefs we are taught by the repetition of them. What I see is what I think; what I think is what I see. Every thought is important. Join me in taking a stand for Truth today and every day and experience the transformational power!

Mary Baker Eddy quote:

"Through discernment of the spiritual opposite of materiality, even the way through Christ, Truth, man will reopen with the key of divine Science the gates of Paradise which human beliefs have closed, and will find himself unfallen, upright, pure, and free, not needing to consult almanacs for the probabilities either of his life or of the weather, not needing to study brainology to learn how much of a man he is."

Science & Health Page 171:4-11