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July-September, 2020

Learning True Empathy

by Rev. Larry Glenz, Ordained Ministerial Counselor

“To empathize does not mean to join in suffering, for that is what you must refuse to understand.” (T-16.I.1:1)

I received an email this week from a man who lost his son to an accidental opioid overdose only a few weeks ago. The dad lives on the north shore of Long Island in Manhasset and I live on the south shore in Long Beach.

Someone had given him a copy of my book, Forgiving Kevin. His son’s name was also Kevin — Kevin Jr. The father is Kevin Sr. He said he is struggling with the tragic loss of his 17-year old. The boy was to graduate high school the next month.

It has been over ten years since my Kevin passed from a similar overdose. The dad was reaching out and I felt the Holy Spirit was about to bring us together. I have spoken with many parents who have lost their child this way. They most often appear lost, broken, and burdened with a feeling of guilt.

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July-September, 2020

God Is Doing for Me What I Cannot Do for Myself

by Rev. Dan Strodl, Ordained Ministerial Counselor

I am so grateful that God’s Voice (the Holy Spirit) is always there 24/7 to give me guidance. All I have to do is ask, and be willing to listen. This was so helpful recently. I received a text message from the son of a creative partner I worked with many years ago. He told me that his dad was dying and he wanted to talk to me. I haven’t spoken to him for 30 years because I had a grievance that I couldn’t let go of. I have been practicing true forgiveness for many years and forgiven many people in my life, but this one I wasn’t ready to hand over.

We had a successful advertising agency, and worked together as a creative team for 14 years. We won many creative awards, new clients were flooding in, and business was booming. And then one day we had a disagreement that we couldn’t resolve. So behind my back, he called a meeting with the other board members … I wasn’t invited. He somehow got them to agree to kick me out of my own agency.

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July-September, 2020

Break Down — Break Through

by Rev. Gina Lucia, Ordained Ministerial Counselor

In the current viewing of the world trans-script it appears there’s quite a bit of separateness going on. Collectively where does this put us?

“The world you made is therefore totally chaotic, governed by arbitrary and senseless “laws,” and without meaning of any kind. For it is made out of what you do not want, projected from your mind because you are afraid of it. Yet this world is only in the mind of its maker, along with his real salvation. Do not believe it is outside of yourself, for only by recognizing where it is will you gain control over it. For you do have control over your mind, since the mind is the mechanism of decision.” (T-12.III.9:6-10)

As we bring the deceptions of “this” world to the altar and offer them as gifts, we can see from a new vantage point. Here we feel welcome. Here we find peace with our Father, with whom we share the pure Mind. Yet to find this place, we must yield to our investment in this material world. We need to give up the meaning we placed upon it. This opens a new experience of allowing the Holy Spirit’s extension to each of us from the altar of Love to perceive things differently.

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July-September, 2020

Who Rules Your Mind?

by Rev. Barbara Adams, Ordained Ministerial Counselor

Who rules your mind?

Have you left the door open for intruders to enter and trash your sense of peace?

Have you given the key to anyone who asks, or worse, demands it?

Do you claim your mind as yours, or do you offer it to whomever wishes to come inside, settle in and, after overstaying their welcome, claim squatter’s rights?

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July-September, 2020

Lesson 287

by Rev. Joyce Peebles, Ordained Ministerial Counselor

Today’s lesson says, “You are my goal, my Father, Only You.” I understand the lesson; the problem is my resistance to do what it is asking.

I’ve been studying ACIM for about fifteen years. I observe the ego taking pride in thinking I understand what it says. I tell myself nothing means more to me than waking up from the dream cycle. Nobody needs to convince me that this world is never going to make me happy. My real life is in recognizing that I never left God. The separation did not occur.

I am very comfortable telling myself this every day. Yet where the rubber meets the road is in practicing forgiveness. This lesson reminds me that my goal is to remember my Father.

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July-September, 2020

The Virus in Our Mind

by Rev. Maria Kingsley, Ordained Ministerial Counselor

A friend of mind used to say, “What a world, what a world!” and rolled his eyes. Indeed, what kind of world are we living in today?

Every day we are confronted with information on what to do and what not to do. The apparent threat of infection and disease, or death, is all around us. It is affecting all of our lives, our communication with family, friends, neighbors and helpers. It is affecting our work, our finances, our movements, and we are asked to look at life from another perspective. How do we deal with life when we are not focused on worldly careers, school, shopping, dining out, movie going, and other community events?

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July-September, 2020

Peace in the Midst of Pain

by Rev. Jennifer McSween, Ordained Ministerial Counselor

On April 28th, 2020, my mother died, five days after coming down with symptoms of COVID-19.
She had been living at a seniors residence for the past four years, diagnosed with Dementia/Alzheimer’s.

We had visited each other “from-a-distance” two days before she came down with COVID symptoms. Because of the lock down, it was the first time in six weeks we had seen each other in person.

I had driven over and parked on the quiet side street on her side of the building. I called to let her know I was there and asked her to get a white cloth and wave it around in front of her window, so I’d know where to look.

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July-September, 2020

Love, Life and the Pursuit of Heaven on Earth

by Rev. Peggy Rivera, Ordained Ministerial Counselor

I have to say that when I thought of what I wanted to talk about for the article this month, it didn’t take but a moment, literally a moment. The thought came to me right away — Life, Love and the pursuit of heaven on earth.

I thought to myself, “How can that be because we are taught in the Course there is no world; what we think the world is is an illusion?” So, I set out to research the subject. And wow, I found many things to talk about. I mean, “What is Life anyway? Is life the gift our Father gave to us in the Creation?” Yes, it is. “Is it eternal?” Yes, it is eternal. But another way of putting it I found is Life is the sea of Creation in which L.I.F.E. arises. The acronym L.I.F.E. stands for Love In Full Expression. And Love is our true nature. I have to apologize I do not remember the source of that information. I found it online and I loved it, but then I forgot to write down the source. But it seems to fit right in for the explanations that I found. I also found a quote from Chuang-tse,

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July-September, 2020

The Discovery of a Temporal Loop

by Rev. Myron, Jones, Ordained Ministerial Counselor

Last night I was watching Discovery, a new edition of Star Trek. In this episode, the crew was stuck in a temporal loop in which they experienced the same 30 minutes over and over again. I looked up the term temporal loop and this is what Wikipedia said about it. A temporal loop in fiction is a plot device whereby characters re-experience a span of time which is repeated, sometimes more than once, with some hope of breaking out of the cycle of repetition.

In this episode, each time the time interval repeated, the end result was total annihilation of the ship. There seemed to be no way out of it. First, they had to realize that the loop was occurring and then they had to realize that if they kept doing the same thing, their future was not going to change. Finally, they had to find a way to do something different that would change the future.

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April-June, 2020

Miracles News, April-June 2020

 

The Holy Spirit will,
of Himself, fill
every mind that so
that so makes room for Him.(ACIM T-14.XI.13:6)

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April-June, 2020

A Simple Question

by Rev. Stepan Mead, Ordained Ministerial Counselor

“A simple question yet remains, and needs an answer. Do you like what you have made?...” (T-20.lll.4:1-2)

Years ago when I first started studying the Course, sentences like the one quoted above were much easier to ignore than they are today. Similar to many students, my life was a mess when I discovered ACIM.

Could this bible looking book really change my miserable life? (a simple question)

I read the Course from the introduction to the last page in a frenzied marathon session. As I recall, it took me about four days and it affected me as no other book had. What was it I just read? (a simple question)

If anyone asked me to summarize my understanding of the nearly half a million words in the book I would have answered, “The Course says I’m insane, and I think it is right!” No one asked me that question though because my thinking was I had read a book which was unexplainable, so I told no one about it.

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April-June, 2020

My Mind Is Very Holy

by Rev. Myron Jones, Ordained Ministerial Counselor

I love doing the lessons and I do them every year just for the pure joy of it. The holiness lessons are my favorite. I wonder if anyone just starting this path, doing these lessons for the first time, believes their mind is very holy or even understands how that could be.

The implication of the lesson is astounding. This year I have a new understanding and I am far more willing to accept it than I ever have been before. My heart is filled with gratitude for this.

The self I experience is just an image I have made. The body, the personality, all of what I think of as Myron is an image, not something real. Jesus makes it clear to my mind that he does not mean this metaphorically when he says that I cannot really see the world because I am looking through the eyes of the image of a body I made, and images cannot see.

Having established that I made an image of a body/personality, I see that I then made an image of an environment that was made to protect the image of the self I made. How perfect this plan to experience a separate self, something completely impossible, and yet accomplished, if not in reality then at least in experience! So, I asked myself, “What does this look like for me? What was my desire and how did I accomplish it?”

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April-June, 2020

How Do We Find God’s Voice?

by Revs. Mary & Robert Stoelting

To find God’s Voice, we need to spend time in quiet listening to our true Spiritual Source. We need to give our attention to God. In the Course we are given a helpful way to do this so that it becomes a part of our important daily practice:

“Three times today, at times most suitable for silence, give ten minutes set apart from listening to the world, and choose instead a gentle listening to the Word of God. He speaks from nearer than your heart to you. His Voice is closer than your hand. His Love is everything you are and that He is; the same as you, and you the same as He.

It is your [true] voice to which you listen as He speaks to you. It is your word He speaks. It is the Word of freedom and of peace, of unity of will and purpose, with no separation nor division in the single Mind of Father and of Son. In quiet listen to your Self today, and let Him tell you God has never left His Son, and you have never left your Self.” (W-pI.125.7-8)

What our body’s eyes and ears see and hear are merely illusions that interfere with what our true Self is communicating in every instant. Your eternal Self remains united with God, eternally extending Love.

This practice will help free us from the ego’s interference, which would keep us believing we are limited and alone. It will help us break free from believing we are a body so we can experience the fact that we are Love as Love created us — and nothing else. As we daily, hourly reinforce the truth of our eternal Identity in God, the false ego (separate self) thought system we have bought into gradually fades away.

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April-June, 2020

Ten Years After

by Rev. Larry Glenz, Ordained Ministerial Counselor

When I hear the words “ten years after,” I always think of the rock band of the same name that played at Woodstock over 50 years ago. I remember little about their music but the name always intrigued me. Things are usually different ten years after.

In a few days from this writing, it will be February 14, 2020 — Valentine’s Day. It will be ten years after my son’s transition following a fatal heroin overdose. And things seem different ten years after.

The years before Kevin’s passing were tumultuous. Heroin addicts cause enormous problems for family, friends, and community. I have no desire to revisit those difficult days now.

I know that both sides of Kevin’s family — my family — will connect with each other on February 14 in some way with texts, phone calls, emails or personal visits. Every Valentine’s Day since has been a day of sadness but also a demonstration of love and forgiveness in our family.

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April-June, 2020

Loneliness

by Rev. Joyce Peebles, Ordained Ministerial Counselor

In the epilogue Jesus ends the workbook by talking about not being alone and comfortless. By the end of the workbook, hopefully we have made the choice to choose a different teacher, realizing that everything the ego has taught us is not going to make us happy or feel safe or fulfilled. One lesson we learned from the ego was loneliness. It is painful. If someone does not give us the affection or time we think we need, we feel lacking or not loved. ACIM tells us, “You have so little faith in yourself because you are unwilling to accept the fact that perfect love is in you, and so you seek without for what you cannot find within.” (T-15.VI.2:1)

Our ego equates loneliness with lack of love. The Holy Spirit tells us the opposite, that we are love and just are unaware of who and what we really are. Jesus’ last words of the workbook are, “You do not walk alone, God’s angels hover near and all about. His Love surrounds you, and of this be sure, that I will never leave you comfortless.”

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