Seeing in Light

 

Hillspeak - Eureka Springs, Arkansas

Photo credit: Blake Lasater

Every day, we are made aware of situations which seem to have no solutions. One of those is the practice of capital punishment. The proponents and opponents are often very vocal on this issue, and sometimes it seems they both have valid points. Ultimately, I know I wouldn’t feel better about a loved one’s death because someone else was put to death to “pay” for it. The eye-for-an-eye dogma of Moses was replaced by Jesus’ message of peace, facilitated by forgiveness. Is there a happy medium to be reached between these two ways of thought? There must be a better way than what we’ve settled for up to now. One Course in Miracles workbook lesson tells us that miracles are seen in light. We are told that light and strength are one. The strength we feel from seeing past an age-old belief is, indeed, a miracle!

“Truth and Love enlighten the understanding, in whose ‘light shall we see light;’ and this illumination is reflected spiritually by all who walk in the light and turn away from a false material sense.” 

Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health 510:9-12

“It is important to remember that miracles and vision necessarily go together. This needs repeating, and frequent repeating. It is a central idea in your new thought system, and the perception that it produces. The miracle is always there. Its presence is not caused by your vision; its absence is not the result of your failure to see. It is only your awareness of miracles that is affected. You will see them in the light; you will not see them in the dark.” 

A Course in Miracles W-91.1:1-7

Breathing Easier

 

How many of you feel you've been holding your breath for the last three years? Don't breathe: there are viruses floating around, waiting to be inhaled. Don't breathe: something awful is going to happen, but we're not sure what. Don't breathe: our election process seems to have been turned upside down. Don't breathe: social media is out to get you. Don't breathe: lies will permeate your being and you'll never know what is true and what is not. These years have also been ones of loss and grief. Many of us are suffering the grief of losing loved ones, too many have lost jobs and homes, plus all of the little losses are weighing us down as, day by day, they accumulate. We grieve for the gatherings we missed: the book clubs, spiritual meetings, coffee shop chitchat, family happenings, plays, ball games, concerts -- too many events to count. That is, perhaps, what has affected us the most: the uncertainty and isolation of these years. Yes, it has been difficult. But something in the air feels expectant, hopeful, even joyous! I know I'm breathing easier with every passing minute. Life is good...

"When the destination is desirable, expectation speeds our progress. The struggle for Truth makes one strong instead of weak, resting instead of wearying one." 

Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 426:8

“It is this Child in you your Father knows as His Own Son. It is this Child Who knows His Father. He desires to go home so deeply, so unceasingly, His voice cries unto you to let Him rest a while. He does not ask for more than just a few instants of respite; just an interval in which He can return to breathe again the holy air that fills His Father’s house. You are His home as well. He will return. But give Him just a little time to be Himself, within the peace that is His home, resting in silence and in peace and love.” 

A Course in Miracles W-182.5:1-7

Go Easy On Yourself

 

We are, each and every one, the home of light and joy and peace — whether we remember this Truth or not. It would seem that events conspire to keep us from this peace. We’re rockin’ along being joyful and light, then bam! — something blows up on our car, or a loved one does something we think is awful, or our business falls apart, or — well, as we often say, it’s always something. I find comfort during these times by reminding myself that I don’t have to know what’s going to happen; I simply need to remember that the best possible outcome is there waiting for me to discover it. It’s not going to benefit anyone or anything if I innumerate every possible outcome, worrying about the pros and cons until I’m worn out and feeling hopeless. Instead, I will rest in the knowledge that creative Mind is the principle which governs everything with the light of Love!

“Think of this, dear reader, for it will lift the sackcloth from your eyes, and you will behold the soft-winged dove descending upon you. The very circumstance, which your suffering sense deems wrathful and afflictive, Love can make an angel entertained unawares.”

Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 574:23-30

“Trust not your good intentions. They are not enough. But trust implicitly your willingness, whatever else may enter. Concentrate only on this, and be not disturbed that shadows surround it. That is why you came. If you could come without them you would not need the holy instant. Come to it not in arrogance, assuming that you must achieve the state its coming brings with it. The miracle of the holy instant lies in your willingness to let it be what it is. And in your willingness for this lies also your acceptance of yourself as you were meant to be.” 

A Course in Miracles T-18.IV.2:1-9

Raising Children …

 

Kawase Hasui - Winter Moon over Toyama Plain, 1931

While reading an article titled, “Raising a Good Person in Fractured Times”, many memories came flooding in from long ago. When my boys were 5 and 7, we moved to Eureka Springs and they began to attend a small independent school, The Clear Spring School. This article repeatedly referred to “moral support” and how necessary it is in the process of raising children. Shortly after we began at this small school, Hillary Clinton published her book It Takes A Village: and Other Lessons Children Teach Us. This book presents a vision for the children of America. It focuses on the impact individuals and groups outside the family have, for better or worse, on a child's well-being, and advocates a society which meets all of a child's needs. What I witnessed here in our small village was exactly that: the families helped each other, we filled in for each other when one mom was working and there was a soccer game, we weren’t afraid to discipline each others’ children — we cared. May we never forget we all look at the same moon …

“Always remember we are under the same sky, looking at the same moon." 

Maxine Lee

“One infinite God, good, unifies men and nations; constitutes the brotherhood of man; ends wars; fulfils the Scripture, ‘Love thy neighbor as thyself;’ annihilates pagan and Christian idolatry, — whatever is wrong in social, civil, criminal, political, and religious codes; equalizes the sexes; annuls the curse on man, and leaves nothing that can sin, suffer, be punished or destroyed.” 

Mary Baker Eddy - Science.  & Health Page 340:23-30

“You can do much on behalf of your own healing and that of others if, in a situation calling for help, you think of it this way:

I am here only to be truly helpful.

I am here to represent Him Who sent me.

I do not have to worry about what to say or what to do, because He Who sent me will direct me.

I am content to be wherever He wishes, knowing He goes there with me.

I will be healed as I let Him teach me to heal.” 

A Course in Miracles T-2.V-A.18:1-6

Dickinson

 

Emily Dickinson has always held a certain fascination for me. The image of her I created from high school English was of a solitary, rather plain, young woman sitting in her room writing poetry which no one read. There’s a fun series based on her life which is on Apple TV. I enjoy watching this interesting program, set in the mid-1860s, but utilizing modern music and mores in the most surprising ways. She is portrayed as beautiful with multi-faceted desires, leading a fairly normal life for the time period. But the words which flow from her mind to her pen are exquisite in their emotion and are a constant source of interest. The time she spent in solitude is what I dream about, with her thoughts resting in a meditative state, and then whirling with the beautiful expression of her words. Oh, Emily, how I’d love to be a friend of yours!

“Mind is not necessarily dependent upon educational processes. It possesses of itself all beauty and poetry, and the power of expressing them. Spirit, God, is heard when the senses are silent. We are all capable of more than we do. The influence or action of Soul confers a freedom, which explains the phenomena of improvisation and the fervor of untutored lips.” 

Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 89:18-24

“A messenger is not the one who writes the message he delivers. Nor does he question the right of him who does, nor ask why he has chosen those who will receive the message that he brings. It is enough that he accept it, give it to the ones for whom it is intended, and fulfill his role in its delivery. If he determines what the messages should be, or what their purpose is, or where they should be carried, he is failing to perform his proper part as bringer of the Word.” 

A Course in Miracles  W-154.5:1-4

False Sense Mentally Entertained

 

Nothing can be imaged forth in form unless it exists in consciousness. What??  I know, I know. You may say you had never heard of such and such disease until you got it. Well, collective consciousness counts, too. Yikes! So how do we keep from contracting every disease and imaging forth all the horrors of the world? This is exactly what Gary Renard tells us in "The Disappearance of the Universe" and what Mary Baker Eddy means by "there is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter". When we put more faith in matter than Spirit, then, yes, we are subject to every little quirk of the universe. But the realization of Truth puts us under no governance but that of divine Mind, God. It may seem that it would be impossible to come out from under the tent of materiality in favor of Spirit. I've had enough glimpses to know it is indeed very possible, but it takes work. When you listen to detailed stories of disease, it become embedded in consciousness. I'm never surprised when something jumps out of that vast forever, but I do negate it in thought -- to the best of my ability. And practice does make perfect, so I won't give up!

“Disease is always induced by a false sense mentally entertained, not destroyed. Disease is an image of thought externalized. The mental state is called a material state. Whatever is cherished in mortal mind as the physical condition is imaged forth on the body.” Mary Baker Eddy-Science and Health 411:21-26

“Wrong-mindedness listens to the ego and makes illusions; perceiving sin and justifying anger, and seeing guilt, disease and death as real. Both this world and the real world are illusions because right-mindedness merely overlooks, or forgives, what never happened. Therefore it is not the One-mindedness of the Christ Mind, Whose Will is one with God’s.” A Course in Miracles C-1.6:1-3

Live Like an Immortal

Written by Alison Nappi “Live like an Immortal. Because you are one. Stay true to your Soul and be incorruptible. It will move you through the world like a spinning prayer, or a long winding story, or an epic battle. Sometimes all of these and more.

Live like an immortal, because you are one. Follow your aliveness, your wildness, your ancientness back to the place where holiness dwells. Read the writing etched into the walls in a language that time forgot, but you didn't.

Live like an immortal, because you are one. Then you are free of enemies, free of strife. Act on every divine impulse, and have no regrets. Do not be left to wonder at the end of your incarnation if you lived well, if you were alive, if you made it count, if you fulfilled the desires of Creation to be you.

Live like an immortal, because you are one. And when the world lets go of you, you will still exist, as wild and free as you were when alive, as the new world dawns in your being.”

Written by Alison Nappi

“The realization that all inharmony is unreal brings objects and thoughts into human view in their true light, and presents them as beautiful and immortal. Harmony in man is as real and immortal as in music. Discord is unreal and mortal.” 

Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 276:12-16

“You are immortal because you are eternal, and ‘always’ must be now. Guilt, then, is a way of holding past and future in your mind to ensure the ego’s continuity. For if what has been will be punished, the ego’s continuity is guaranteed. Yet the guarantee of your continuity is God’s, not the ego’s. And immortality is the opposite of time, for time passes away, while immortality is constant.” 

A Course in Miracles T-13.I.8:5-9