July-September, 2021
As a child and teenager, when I would to go to Confession at my hometown church, I would first do a mental inventory. I’d try to figure out how I had sinned so that when I knelt down in that dark box and waited for the male figure on the other side to slide open the little door, I’d have something to say.
“Bless me Father for I have sinned. It’s been (x) weeks since my last Confession. Father, I… (This is where I had to list all of my sins.)
I’d say something like: “I lied to my mother three times and I disobeyed her twice.” I totally made up these “sins” so that I’d have something to say!
Part and parcel of the experience was the ever-present scent of candles burning within the sacred space, which the devout had lit in hopes of having their intentions being put on the fast-track to the heavens. The smell of hundreds of little flickering lights had seeped behind the curtain to, I’m sure, remind me that I was in a holy place and that I’d better be good!
July-September, 2021
I Am the Change
which I’ve been looking for.
I Am the Healing
which I’ve been asking for.
I Am the Abundance
which I’ve prayed for.
I Am the Love
I’ve been calling for.
I Am the Ease
with which I had hoped
to walk through life.
July-September, 2021
I grow in faith by exercising my faith, my mind, my body and my love for others and my love for my Creator. My Creator remains faithful to me always.
July-September, 2021
Love, which is our Creator,
and the Source of all Life,
we give welcome this day.
We ask that you bless each of us
with full awareness of the
thoughts we share with You
and let the Light you offer us
shine away the dream of darkness.
May the memory of Your Love
come and help us to
forgive our misperceptions
of an imaginary fear
as we, together as One,
respond to your Spirit’s invitation
to open wide the doors to Christ.
April - June, 2021
April-June, 2021
Every morning when I wake up I pray and meditate, and then I ask Holy Spirit for a word. I never know what that word will be, but I’ve noticed that the word is exactly what I need for that day. Some words I’ve received are “Kindness, Trust, Peace, Love, Light, Open-mindedness, Patience.” This morning I received the word “Blessing”... and I had no idea how that word would be helpful in my day.
That afternoon I was walking down the street in London and I saw two policemen coming out of an apartment building. I was curious, and so I stopped and waited across the street to see what was going on. They were dressed in yellow luminescent jackets, and had guns and handcuffs. British police don’t usually carry guns, so this was something big.
Behind them came eight more uniformed policemen, and they surrounded a man in his mid 20s. He was wearing trousers with a drawing sewn into the legs, so I guessed it was a drug bust? Or it could be domestic violence? I hear that lots of people are forced to live with their partners 24/7 during the Coronavirus lockdown, and abuse is common. I stood there on the street and felt petrified. I was full of fear even though I was just a bystander. My ego thoughts had me locked in hell.
April-June, 2021
I have found the political events of recent months to be disturbing. And I have been trained to ask for help.
“The horrors of the world we live in today arise from spiritual ignorance. Until we reach that place in ourselves where we identify with one another beyond our own differences, we will perpetuate the disharmony that results from spiritual immaturity.” (From Everyday Grace by Marianne Williamson)
When Marianne Williamson was running for P.O.T.U.S, I did not imagine her winning. I steadily supported her campaign because her vision for the U.S. and the world sounded like the direction I would love to see us take. I never considered it a waste of my money.
I was proud of her for hanging in there for a long time despite the odds. She has a message people need to hear. She believes all the people of the world are God’s equal children. And she believes the world is an illusion that we can positively affect by changing our thoughts about it. She may not have said those exact words during her campaign. But I know what she believes.
April-June, 2021
The ACIM Lesson for the day was “Lesson 80: Let me recognize my problems have been solved.” I started the study of the lessons again last September, and in early February, I was only at Lesson 80!
I was finding it interesting that, in this round, the pace was definitely not a lesson a day! A lot of water has flowed under the bridge since the last time I went through the lessons, and I was now at a totally different place in my life — older, and involuntarily retired due to the COVID pandemic restrictions.
In that space, I found my mind going deeper with each lesson and needing more time to explore those depths. Add to that the fact that sometimes I had trouble remembering the five words of the lesson and had to go back repeatedly to the Text! Then new words and phrases would stand out. This slow build of lesson upon lesson led to this mind healing on that morning.
April-June, 2021
There are no coincidences. All is exactly as it is meant to be. Do you believe this? I absolutely do beyond all doubt, though I cannot say that prior to this particular day I could state this as emphatically as I now am.
Today I experienced some amazing synchronicities or “God winks.” My friend posted in her blog the other day about how we project unconscious guilt and how this shows up as upsets in our lives. At the same time I had just started re-reading a great little book called “Releasing Guilt” by Liz Cronkhite. In this book the author writes about our unconscious guilt showing up as anxiety, fear, upsets, illness, and whole long list of “symptoms.” This unconscious guilt, as described in A Course in Miracles, is from the belief that we have separated from “God” or, in other words, the belief that we are a separate personal self. Because we do not want to face this guilt, we project it onto the “external world,” which in actuality, is not external to us.
April-June, 2021
Given the way last year, 2020, unfolded — for all of us — you might think that I’m in denial when I say that for me, 2020 was a year of miracles.
Here’s what I mean: I officiated my last wedding ceremony on March 14th, 2020. This brought the most lucrative part of my ministerial business and the part I enjoy the most — officiating weddings — to a screeching halt as most of the world went into lockdown.
We were now restricted in terms of how we shopped, where we traveled, and the way we socialized. On April 28th my mother died from complications of COVID-19, five days after coming down with the first symptoms. Since she had been living in a senior’s residence at the time, I had not seen or hugged her for six weeks prior to her death due to the lockdown restrictions.
April-June, 2021
After all these decades of being an ACIM student, I still enjoy doing the workbook lessons. This year they seem to have taken on even more meaning and shaped my life experience more deeply. Maybe because I decided to write about every lesson this year, not just journal about a few here and there, but make it a daily practice as part of my devotional time. I especially enjoy and appreciate the review sections of the lessons and I love to feel and experience the relationship between them.
Today, as I’m writing this, I’ve just completed Lesson 52, so I’m just starting out on the first review in the workbook. In the Introduction there’s a lovely paragraph I found so inspiring that I typed it out, made copies and taped it all around my house, even my car dashboard, so I’d see it often as a reminder as to why I do this work. Here’s the paragraph:
“You will yet learn that peace is part of you, and requires only that you be there to embrace any situation in which you are. And finally you will learn that there is no limit to where you are, so that your peace is everywhere, as you are.” (W-pI.r1in.5)
April-June, 2021
Last night I read a disturbing post on Facebook. A large group of evacuees are unable to find lodging. They are out of gas and out of money. None of the usual places, churches, FEMA, Red Cross is responding. They stand outside hotels surrounded by what they were able to grab when they were told that evacuation was mandatory. They are discouraged, frightened, feeling lost and hopeless, some of them crying. How exhausted and frightened they must be. How alone they must feel. The vision continues to haunt me.
The question now is, will I be host to God or hostage to the ego? As I react to their plight, I can relate. That could be me or someone I know and love. But then, I do know them as part of the Sonship, I love them as brothers. As my heart aches for them, though, I realize I’m not helping anyone, not me, not them. My sadness and the nagging desire to blame someone let’s me know I am hostage to the ego.
April-June, 2021
We are in our late 70’s. Here in Florida, COVID-19 has expanded greatly and the hospitals are stressed. We work in the office portion of our residence with Deb and Colleen Fee. We all would like to receive the vaccinations as soon as they are available. Recently the county health department announced they were giving the vaccines near us on a first-come first-served basis. People started camping out in their cars on the road the day before the announced date. If we wanted to be vaccinated, we would have to wait.
After pausing and recognizing we were disappointed, we realized we needed to hand this “problem” to the Holy Spirit. We asked, “How would you have us see this?”
We opened the Course to Workbook Lesson 254 and read, “Father, today I would but hear Your Voice. In deepest silence I would come to You, to hear Your Voice and to receive Your Word. I have no prayer but this: I come to You to ask You for the truth. And truth is but Your Will, which I would share with You today.”
We remembered that we have been carried our whole lives, even when we did not recognize it. We remembered there is no hurry and we remain eternally safe in the Mind of God. We felt that feeling of patience… and heard that whatever we need will come in God’s perfect plan.
April-June, 2021
The fog was thick and, in the darkness, I felt afraid. Ghoulish images crossed my path and my instinct was to attack. I felt that if I could scream loud enough and swipe fast enough, I could rid myself of those demons. But my voice seemed to be sucked into a vast vacuum. My arms felt numb and I could barely move.
“Am I dreaming?” I heard myself ask. Yet, to whom was I speaking?
I started to cry. “I’m so scared,” I sobbed…to seemingly no one.
The fog only got thicker. My fear intensified. And I fell deeper into the dream.
“I love you,” I faintly heard.
April-June, 2021
I always thought my thinking meant something and here I am in the first review (again) and he is telling me that nothing I think means anything. My thoughts are covering up thoughts of God. Not only this but I have assigned the function of everything I see as a means for me to justify attack. WOW! I first have to see this in order to let it go.
How long has the ego’s thought system had reign in my mind unseen? How much Love have I deprived myself of? Much.
Jesus tells me in A Course In Miracles that when I have anxiety or sorrow, it is always because I have seen a brother as less than he truly is. My brother, the Christ, is all that is there. How very long have I thought there was something else there? Again, how much Love have I deprived myself of? Much.
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