They Are Part of You; and You of Them

Ceramic Created by Ken Starbird

What does atonement mean to you? I think of it as being at one with All That Is. The ease with which I accept this concept may have to do with the fact that I've always lived in small towns, where we all know each other. I'm also in a rural area, where it's easy to commune with nature and readily feel our connectedness. But, in the alternative, with the inception of the internet, it’s easier to see our Oneness reflected back at us from others all over the world. I have friends who have just returned from an extended trip around Europe. Both of them are outgoing, loving people who have many stories to tell about the friendships they made in their travels. Seeing ourselves as the experience and expression of God helps us to understand our Oneness with everyone, everywhere. It matters not whether we look the same or agree in any of our material beliefs. As we realize the unreality of our matter-based beliefs, we are better equipped to see the reality of our Oneness with God. This realization then resounds in every interaction with life, turning it into an all-encompassing experience in which we can understand our at-One-ment. We truly are all in this together!

“We have a mission here. We did not come to reinforce the madness that we once believed in. Let us not forget the goal that we accepted. It is more than just our happiness alone we came to gain. What we accept as what we are proclaims what everyone must be, along with us. Fail not your brothers, or you fail yourself. Look lovingly on them, that they may know that they are part of you, and you of them.”

A Course in Miracles W-139.9:1-7 “

Today accept Atonement, not to change reality, but merely to accept the truth about yourself, and go your way rejoicing in the endless Love of God.” 

A Course in Miracles W-139.10:2

“Atonement is the exemplification of man’s unity with God, whereby man reflects divine Truth, Life, and Love."

Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 18:1-3

Choosing Heaven

Photo courtesy of Gerry Toler

Jesus told us that knowing the Truth would set us free. He also mentioned that the kingdom of heaven is within. This truth he's speaking of is the inner knowing we all hold inside of us: the knowledge that we are holy. We truly are the image and likeness of divine Mind, with all the perks that implies. We are the experience and expression of God! We have no function other than to live every moment in the acceptance of our holiness. As spiritual sight outshines material illusions, the kingdom of heaven is our only reality! 

“Heaven is chosen consciously. The choice cannot be made until alternatives are accurately seen and understood. All that is veiled in shadows must be raised to understanding, to be judged again, this time with Heaven’s help. And all mistakes in judgment that the mind had made before are open to correction, as the truth dismisses them as causeless. Now are they without effects. They cannot be concealed, because their nothingness is recognized.”

A Course in Miracles W-138.9:1-6

“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 560:12-15

How Powerful is Love?

Photo by Mark McGee

Love heals. We hear this so often, it's probably become somewhat of a cliché. We may think that nothing can heal the ills of the world, much less something as intangible as love. What if love were the most powerful force in the universe? Not just an emotion called love, but an omnipotent, gentle presence which is a synonymous with God. What if experiencing this Love was sufficient to heal every thought of evil or sickness or misery which has ever been imagined? Then we'd all be lining up to get some of this stuff, don't you think? And it's even easier than that. We only need get out of our own way to see what has always been there. Love heals.

“One moment of divine consciousness, or the spiritual understanding of Life and Love, is a foretaste of eternity.This exalted view, obtained and retained when the Science of being is understood, would bridge over with life discerned spiritually the interval of death, and man would be in the full consciousness of his immortality and eternal harmony, where sin, sickness, and death are unknown. Time is a mortal thought, the divisor of which is the solar year. Eternity is God’s measurement of Soul-filled years.”

Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 598:23-2

“Healing might thus be called a counter-dream, which cancels out the dream of sickness in the name of truth, but not in truth itself. Just as forgiveness overlooks all sins that never were accomplished, healing but removes illusions that have not occurred. Just as the real world will arise to take the place of what has never been at all, healing but offers restitution for imagined states and false ideas which dreams embroider into pictures of the truth.”

A Course in Miracles W-137.5:1-3

For Healing, Welcome Truth

Many new-age thought systems try to find reasons for disease, then work to get rid of the "problem" which is causing you to be unwell. This is something which has no place in quantum thought.  When Mary Baker Eddy realized the nothingness of matter and the substance of Spirit, not many were willing to imagine the possibility until they saw physical proof. The healing which comes about through this understanding is not a manipulation of matter, but a yielding of erroneous belief to the Truth of creation by divine Mind. The Catch-22 is that if you are trying to heal something, you can't. But if you're knowing the Truth of existence, and that knowledge becomes more than just wishful thinking, the changeability of matter is shown in ways which we think of as healing. Knowing that there is nothing to be healed, that all is perfectly reflected as a creation of divine Mind, therein lies the healing. Going to the core of yourSelf and recognizing that your consciousness is One with Spirit, that is what brings an all-encompassing joy and peace which makes us happy to release false belief. Once that is gone, Truth shines forth in all Its magnificence! 

“A correct view of Christian Science and of its adaptation to healing includes vastly more than is at first seen. Works on metaphysics leave the grand point untouched. They never crown the power of Mind as the Messiah, nor do they carry the day against physical enemies, — even to the extinction of all belief in matter, evil, disease, and death, — nor insist upon the fact that God is all, therefore that matter is nothing beyond an image in mortal mind.” 

Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 116:11-18

“Sickness is a defense against the truth. No one can heal unless he understands what purpose sickness seems to serve. For then he understands as well its purpose has no meaning. Being causeless and without a meaningful intent of any kind, it cannot be at all. When this is seen, healing is automatic. It dispels this meaningless illusion by the same approach that carries all of them to truth, and merely leaves them there to disappear.”

A Course in Miracles W-136.1:1-5)

“Truth has a power far beyond defense, for no illusions can remain where truth has been allowed to enter. And it comes to any mind that would lay down its arms, and cease to play with folly. It is found at any time; today, if you will choose to practice giving welcome to the truth.”

A Course in Miracles W-136.14:1-3

Truth Needs No Defense

Photo credit: Jerry Dupy

Many of my friends are social activists. They have worked for years to improve our environment, politics, and the multitude of things in need of advancement. Some have told me they are tired of the fight. I am extremely grateful to each and every one of you who work to clean up rivers, who are passionate about producing uncontaminated food, who stand up to various tyrants and declare, "The emperor has no clothes!" Not a single person has told me that they're tired of the physical effort involved in these projects; it's the butting up against thought stuck in strong opinion, or fueled by hate and fear. That is what is frustrating to them. This is where our metaphysical advice can be helpful: Don't try to change anyone else's mind, only your own. More and more of us are witnessing Truth brought to seemingly impossible situations, and we're finding that new avenues of action appear when this is done. There is no need to defend ourselves nor to proclaim our own strong opinions in support of this Truth. Knowing it, within our own selves, is sufficient!

“As when an acid and alkali meet and bring out a third quality, so mental and moral chemistry changes the material base of thought, giving more spirituality to consciousness and causing it to depend less on material evidence.”  

Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 422:14-18

“Without defenses, you become a light which Heaven gratefully acknowledges to be its own. And it will lead you on in ways appointed for your happiness according to the ancient plan, begun when time was born. Your followers will join their light with yours, and it will be increased until the world is lighted up with joy. And gladly will our brothers lay aside their cumbersome defenses, which availed them nothing and could only terrify.” 

 A Course in Miracles W-135.20:1-4

Correcting Twisted Views

Aurora Borealis in the Ozarks

Photo courtesy of Catherine Reed

One of the great things about the study of divine metaphysics is the never-ending opportunity to put esoteric ideas into practice in daily life. There are no dead ends when translating life through Love. But occasionally I run up against a situation which causes me to question my understanding and wonder if I could practice what I preach under such terrible circumstances. An acquaintance shared with me something which happened to her half a century ago: Her husband killed their 10-month-old baby. Although he spent time in prison, had a terrible life and horrid death, she cannot forgive him, and does not want to release herself from the ordeal. When she remarried and had another child, she left a good, kind man because of fear that he would do the same thing as her past husband. She has spent her life in fearful dread. Her situation has stayed with me as I delve into A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson #134, “Let Me Perceive Forgiveness As It Is”. Do I understand forgiveness? It brings me peace to know I will find help from the ideas presented in this lesson. And I am grateful …

“Let us review the meaning of ‘forgive,’ for it is apt to be distorted and to be perceived as something that entails an unfair sacrifice of righteous wrath, a gift unjustified and undeserved, and a complete denial of the truth. In such a view, forgiveness must be seen as mere eccentric folly, and this course appear to rest salvation on a whim.

This twisted view of what forgiveness means is easily corrected, when you can accept the fact that pardon is not asked for what is true. It must be limited to what is false. It is irrelevant to everything except illusions.”

A Course in Miracles W-134.1:1–2:3

“When false human beliefs learn even a little of their own falsity, they begin to disappear. A knowledge of error and of its operations must precede that understanding of Truth which destroys error, until the entire mortal, material error finally disappears, and the eternal verity, man created by and of Spirit, is understood and recognized as the true likeness of his Maker.”

Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 252:7-14

Do I Value What Is Valueless?

Photo courtesy of Aaron Springston

A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson #133 states: "I will not value what is valueless." How do we know if something is valuable? One of the "tests" for recognizing if something is valuable is to ask yourself: Is what I’m valuing changeable? What does not change? Certainly everything physical does, often quite rapidly. Love, with a capital "L" doesn't change, although many of the fleeting things we call love tend to lessen, even turning into other not-so-nice emotions. Some people think that jealousy is part of love. Some believe that overprotective, controlling behavior symbolizes their love. Strangely, people even kill in the name of love. And so the second part of our litmus test comes into play: This thing that we value, do we feel guilt in association with it? So now we have two tests to check for the reality of what we value: does it last and do we feel guilty in any way. I'm looking around the room right now and asking myself what do I value. Many things bring a smile to my heart; I enjoy looking at them and remembering happy feelings I associate with them -- but value? No, I don't value anything in here as much as I value the love friends and family. And I have no fear of change or loss, as how can I value something which is not real? 

“Everything good or worthy, God made. Whatever is valueless or baneful, He did not make,--hence its unreality. In the Science of Genesis we read that He saw everything which He had made, ‘and, behold, it was very good.’ The corporeal senses declare otherwise; and if we give the same heed to the history of error as to the records of truth, the Scriptural record of sin and death favors the false conclusion of the material senses. Sin, sickness, and death must be deemed as devoid of reality as they are of good, God.”

Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 525:20-27

“You do not ask too much of life, but far too little. When you let your mind be drawn to bodily concerns, to things you buy, to eminence as valued by the world, you ask for sorrow, not for happiness. This course does not attempt to take from you the little that you have. It does not try to substitute utopian ideas for satisfactions which the world contains. There are no satisfactions in the world.”

A Course in Miracles W-133.2:1-5