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Accepting Holy Spirit’s Plan Brings Peace

I recognize today just how often I make plans in advance for myself and others.  I think of things I will say and do, and how others will say and do.  I make expectations in my mind by scripting in advance.  I plan how people will act at family events and parties, meetings, holidays, work schedules - really, almost every situation or event I can think of.  I script interactions and moods.  I plan it out to meet my needs or what I think would be best, not only for me but others, as well.  Sometimes these expectations get locked into my mind and if they don’t happen, I feel keenly disappointed

I remember receiving my high school graduation gift, a watch.  May parents, especially my mother, picked it with care - one she thought would last a lifetime. (Of course, that was in the days when wind-up watches still did!)  She saw elegance.  I looked at it and saw an old-fashioned, old ladies watch.  I wanted something bright, modern and quirky.  The level of disappointment I felt was so strong, I can feel it today as I write this.  Part of its strength was also the terror I felt about how I was going to hide my level of disappointment and thank them for the gift in front of all gathered.  I knew I wasn’t doing a good job of it.  My heart just sank as I opened the box, and I felt no joy.  I could not enthusiastically say thanks.  I am sure they knew, as did all present, that I didn’t like it as I issued my perfunctory thanks and said it was lovely.  I’ve never been very good at hiding my feelings, I’m told.  There they are for everyone to see clearly no matter how hard I try to disguise them.

This scenario has repeated itself many times over in my life.  I can think of many disappointing gifts on disappointing birthdays and holidays.  I can think of many disappointing conversations during meetings with friends and family, meetings long anticipated with excitement.  Yes, I plan details - how things will look, what people will say, even how the food will smell and taste at a holiday dinner.  I have been doing this since I was a child.  I can remember vividly the times in my life when my expectations were met or exceeded because the are so rare, and were so fleetingly temporary.

During my last few years as an ACIM students, I have practiced changing this old habit.  It is a tough one to break.  I thought I was making good progress, but all of a sudden I have come to realize how deeply embedded in my unconscious is this habit.  I am planning details before I even recognize I am do it.  Out of the unconscious comes thought of fear in a steady stream.  I underestimated what comes forth from this mysterious place or force at a never ending pace.  Today I sit in amazement at the vast undertow that is present there, like the force under the waves coming to shore that can, once caught, suck someone far out into the ocean.  Once caught in the undertow of the unconscious mind, I am sucked into a world of illusive expectations set up to keep me feeling dissatisfied and unfulfilled because they cannot be met.  They cannot be met because they are false - only a dream of something grand but not grand themselves.

What to do when recognizing one is caught, yet again, in the undertow of expectations, is to, yet again, ask to be released.  We have to be willing to let go of expectations and come back to the present now, listening to Holy Spirit now, and leaving all planning to His capable hands.  As I listen now, look now, think now with Holy Spirit, I can choose trust and find peace.  And, also, find forgiveness of myself that there are these thoughts streaming from the unconscious that invite separation.  I cannot change my unconscious - I don’t even know what is in it!  I must leave this all to Holy Spirit.  As in the conscious mind I choose to be joined with Him in truth, the stream of unconscious thought can come forth to be looked at in the light of truth without fear. 

As I consciously join with Holy Spirit, I forgive myself for the world I think I make with my mind.  Right now I choose to give plans and expectations to Him, for I no longer wish to make a future that is designed to bring me only pain.  As I open my mind to that which Holy Spirit will provide me, I open my mind to pleasant surprise.  As circumstrances and events unfold, there can only be delight for me if I give all my expectations to Him, and only expect to find Him everywhere in everything.  This is a conscious choice I make now and it brings me peace.  In this, there is complete forgiveness of all I think I project, and also forgiveness of what yet lurks in the unconscious, waiting to stream forth in my unmindful moments to sweep me out to the sea of fear, and the fear of being lost in the sea of fear.  Yes, this happens over and over again until my mind is completely healed. 

I am recognizing I need not have any fear of being lost in fear.  Holy Spirit is always there in His rescue boat, ready to lead me to the harbor of peace, safe and secure, as I always was in truth.  My expectations sink me.  Holy Spirit helps me walk on water to the safe shore of truth.  All I need do is take His hand and by so doing, let go of my thought, for I cannot hold both in my hands.  I can only hold one or the other.  Only Holy Spirit’s thought uplifts me.

So, for today, I let go of my expectations and plans.  I grab Holy Spirit’s hand, His thought, and His plan.  I can only know this by staying in the present moment with Him.  This is the only way I can remain untroubled about the future, expecting nothing but His love and His help, and trusting it will be there always.  This is a good day, a Godly day, when I let Holy Spirit look ahead for me and I follow Him to joy, knowing I can never get there on my own.

© 2005, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Barbara Kraetsch.

The Way to God

Holy Spirit is the Way to God.  It is the way away from the world of illusion to the Presence of God.  It is not always easy to turn away from the glamour of the world, its changing emotions and moods, its drama and its seeming familiarity to follow the unseen and unknown way.  At first, it would seem that there are sacrifices to be made.  There are “special relationships” of parents, spouse, child, siblings, friends, and of course, to things, that would seem to change if we changed and no longer gave them the importance we do now.  What would people say if we no longer invested importance in the emotional drama of the world?  What would we be if not the label we have in the world that we have given ourselves, the way we define ourselves?

Recently I have been looking at this quite carefully with Holy Spirit.  As I meditate on the idea that my only function is to heal my mind, I recognized the fear of how I think it might be difficult to live in the world while waking up, or actually awakened.  I recognized I feared how I would go on with the mundane of life or on the other hand its lure of excitement, how I would have conversations with people I am in relationship with who expect me to be the way I have always been with them, and how I would live without my “special place” in the world.  What is asked of an “enlightened soul?”  Exactly how many changes does it entail to live in the world with a healed mind?  I recognize my fear of not fitting in the world I know.

I gave this fear and doubt to Holy Spirit.  He showed me there is no fear to living in the world in love.  Living in love is all.  There is a different awareness with love that takes us through everything we think we see.  He said He would not bring me this far not to show me how to live in love completely.  I have not come this far down the path of trust not to be shown what it means for me to live in God’s Love.  It could be even more than I dream of now.  I felt more trust than I ever have before that Holy Spirit is the Pathway of Light.

I felt more my Self, my true Self, with Holy Spirit.  We are joined.  Once recognizing this state or feeling in meditation, one knows or recognizes it when not in meditation.  Or maybe meditation continues in this awareness because there is greater stillness in the mind.  Life becomes a kind of meditation experience wherein the recognition of the joining, of love, is real and the rest is just the ego script.  As to how to be with people in this new found awareness, I leave to Holy Spirit.  If I am in love and recognizing love as real, how can I go wrong?  The world may change, but the world is going to change anyhow.  The world may not look the same, but it won’t be the same anyway from one day to the next.  What difference?  Truly, I don’t need to change the world, just how I look at the world.

If I can’t relate to my mother, sister, spouse, child, or friend in the “special way” I did before, so be it.  I give special relationships to Holy Spirit.  I was asked to trust more that all would be very well if I was relating to them from the healed state of mind.  I am not sure what it would mean for me to relate to people only from true or unconditional love.  I do trust more than ever before that if I ask in the moment and listen, Holy Spirit will show me the truly loving way to be.  It is just the ego belief system at work in this fear that I won’t be loving in a way that would be understood and accepted.  This fear is silly and not justified in any form.(Lesson 240)

Of course, if Holy Spirit is guiding the way, we are joined with others in love, God’s love, and how could anything be amiss in this.  There is only the love of God present - just the One Love - how could it not be recognized by the “other” which is really not there anyway.  If the other ego is offended, so be it.  The One Mind of Love is glorified.  The One Self is aware.  That is really all that is important.  I don’t know exactly how this works as yet, but I am sure the Holy Spirit does.  The thought of living in the world while waking up, while awakened, as being difficult or fearful was a new recognition for me.  I am grateful it came to my awareness so that I can give it to Holy Spirit.  It is a barrier to the awareness of love in my mind, and my only desire is for my mind to heal.

There in only one opening to this healing.  It is the pathway of Holy Spirit in my mind, my joining with Him.  Accepting the state of being aware that I am joined with Him and living from that state of awareness is now the practice ahead.  The road ahead is under construction. and is unknown.  I practice trust as to where it goes.  The only question I am asked is how far down the road of healing I am willing to go with Holy Spirit.  I say with unequivocal certainty that despite any fear or doubt, I am willing to go all the way with Him.  I am willing to go through the opening to true Self and to the Presence of God, asking that all fear and doubt be healed.  I trust that Holy Spirit will gladly take it and transform it all, and transform me in the process.  I don’t know exactly what this means, I only know I am willing to go all the way there is to go.  This sounds so bold and so far-reaching to me.  Perhaps it is, but perhaps it’s not as far as I think.  I really have no way to judge.  Judging is not my job anyway.  All I can do is to ask, listen and trust.

I ask to live more and more in the awareness of the joint mind recognition, and letting this guide my way, letting all my saying and doing come from this level of awareness.  I can see that this takes a little adjustment because it is not like letting ego lead the way, which is being lost in the emotional drama or the feeling of what seems to be happening.  When the joint mind with Holy Spirit leads the way, there is a sense of detachment present, a different level of awareness.  The emotional component of the ego script is not present.  Instead, there is a steadiness, a calmness, an other worldly peacefulness, a knowing that all is well despite the trauma-drama that seems present.  There is no roller-coaster ride of changing emotions and moods.  There is the awareness of something more that is present.

Yes, it may be hard sometimes to let go of the world and all its “specialness” hypnotic trance to go on a road to the unknown and unseen destination, journeying to recognition of the changeless and eternal.  Perhaps it is not for everyone at this moment.  All I can say is that it is for me.  And it is for everyone who wants to get off the merry-go-round of the world and experience the greatest joy possible, the Love of God.  Would I sacrifice God for the colorful world?  No, because I am now trusting that in God’s World, Heaven, there is only life, all the color I could ask for and only the greatest joy possible.  There is no sacrifice in letting go of the illusions of the world to experience the Presence of God.  Would I choose illusions of love over the reality of true love? No, I don’t. I choose God.  I choose Love.  I choose the unknown and unseen way to Him.  Of course, I am there already, but I have forgotten. 

The Way to remembering is Holy Spirit.  There is no other way.  There is only the Way of the One Mind unfolding Itself in Love.  I must be on this way, for I can be on no other.  I can turn away from the world.  I see that I can and am ready to really begin doing this.  I am ready to give all fear and doubt to Holy Spirit and to trust the way He shows me.  I go forth in confidence that the way is clear and set.  It will be the way Holy Spirit shows me.  I trust my way as I trust others will go the way He shows them.  The destination is the same- God - and in this respect the ways are all going in the same direction.  The way is the same in that we are all on it, the Way, for the Way is Holy Spirit.  He is the Way and He shows the way.  Holy Spirit is the Pathway of Light.  This we all share.  He gives us all the same tender loving care and individualized instruction of the way to God that is understandable to us.  How brilliant!  How wonderful!  How grand is His Plan of Atonement!

© 2005, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Posted by Rev. Barbara Kraetsch.

Learning the Importance of Seeing Only Love

What can be said to those who grieve themselves and others without being aware of it?  Those who stumble forward without looking where they are going or why.  What can be said except, “I love you.”  Nothing.  But this is hard to say sometimes.  It is much easier to say “I don’t like or approve of what you are doing,” in some fashion.  At times it is much easier to say that you don’t like someone rather than that you love them.

Into every life comes people who seem more of a challenge to love.  Here the ego is in full voice saying this person is separate, distant in values, different in habits and thinking, doing hurtful things.  We listen and believe.  It is a habitual reaction to the projection of our own fear of rejection.  We reject first and blame the other person.

Some years back one of my sisters and her family were on an extended visit at my home.  I felt resentful and angry that they didn’t offer me as much help as I wanted in maintaining the house and yard while they were here.  On their last night I had a special dinner and invited other family to say good-bye.  Before dinner I had a prayer circle to say grace and offer thanksgiving.  My sister’s husband laughed during this and encouraged his daughters to do the same.  I felt rejected and offended.  It seemed like the last straw on the pile of inconsideration.  At that time, I didn’t see that I had been secretly rejecting them first with my inner anger.  This event was just a further extension of the game of separation.  At that time, I was not a Course student, and did not see how I made and contributed to the separation story.

I stewed for a few months after they left and then wrote them a letter saying how offended I was at their behavior.  I felt relieved at the time that I had spoken my mind in a very nice way I thought.  You see, this was one of my first ventures into speaking up about what I perceived as boorish behavior.  They sent a letter of apology, of course, but I know they said to other family members they would not feel comfortable staying at my home again.  Since then, some of them have, but some of them haven’t.

Now, with the help of Holy Spirit I see it all so differently.  I wrote the story of their visit with my perceptions.  If I needed some help, why didn’t I just politely ask for some.  I tried to do everything myself to feed my resentment so that I could secretly complain to my husband and another sister.  My first reaction was not to say that I loved them and needed a little help in a relaxed and peaceful manner.  I am sure they would have jumped right in.  No, my first reaction was to criticize and complain about their behavior.  I was listening to the ego voice.  Now, after being a Course student for some time, I look back and see the progress in my attitudes and beliefs.  How much happier and more peaceful I would have been during their visit if I had not been trying to be right, but was listening to the voice of Holy Spirit instead. 

Woring with ACIM, one can truly learn to say, “I love you,” as the first reaction.  Yes, it is possible, and so practical as well.  Everything goes better with a good helping of the recognition of love as the only reality present.  As I look back and see the love that was present then, instead of focusing on the upset of the last night, I see that there is no danger now in laying down any defenses to love.  I can extend love to them and do extend love to them, as I know they do to me.  I can reach out and say to them that I love them and am happy to see the love.  I can explain that I see differently now than I did then, and how much it means to me to see differently.  This is my reaction now, to see love, and I am grateful for it.

What do I say to myself for stumbling about then, grieving myself and others without knowing it because I wasn’t carefully looking where I was going or why?  Why, of course, I say “I love you.”  Criticizing or berating myself doesn’t help.  Lack of forgiveness doesn’t help.  Ruminating over past mistakes doesn’t help.  Sometimes it can be easier, but it doesn’t help.  Sometimes I seem the most difficult person in my life to love.  Seeing and acknowledging only the love present helps.  Love was present and is present.  I see now there is nothing to forgive my family and nothing to forgive myself.  I can be happy extending love to them and to myself, and extending it in all ways.  I hear Holy Spirit calling me to write another letter.  This one filled only with the recognition and acknowledgment of love always present.

© 2005, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice is included.

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Posted by Rev. Barbara Kraetsch.

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