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January-March, 2009

My Camino

Rev. Vicki Rostant

This is one story about how the Holy Spirit walked in my life during the past three years. I first felt the strong urge to walk the Camino de Santiago de Compostela about three years ago. I had always known about this road, the longest part of which goes through Northern Spain, hundreds of miles long, walked by many thousands of pilgrims since the beginning of the ninth century. Early Pilgrims walked the path as a means of doing penance for their sins. From all accounts, it is a journey filled with spiritual connectedness and communal blessings. You can start anywhere along the road that ends at Santiago de Compostela, where the body of the apostle, James, was buried. I felt that the time had come for me to take that journey.

I kept meeting people and situations that brought me new information about the walk and my partner and I decided that we would get on with physical training and do the walk in the summer of 2007. I was very excited. However, over the Christmas holidays of 2006, looking at the new year, it became very clear that our planned date was too close — I could feel the tension in my body when I thought, “We’re doing this in 6-7 months!”

We had tentative plans for a house exchange with friends in Scotland for the summer of 2008, so the walk would have to be in 2009, a milestone year for us as we would be celebrating our 20th anniversary and I would be celebrating my 60th birthday. What better way to give thanks for such happy dreams!

So, it then felt right to move it to the summer of 2009 — we would have more time to condition our bodies and minds, as well as, making some life-style changes, we would have better finances in place. That felt better. Each time we came to a junction in the road, I checked with Holy Spirit and felt clear about each step.

We were very excited to proceed with our Camino plans, and my partner, while not looking forward to some of the rigours involved, was supportive. We then met a woman who happened to be sitting next to me at a friend’s birthday dinner, and who had just returned from a pilgrimage on the Camino. We learned from her that there was a less arduous way of doing the walk. Rather than carry everything in your backpack, and run the risk of not finding a place to sleep at the end of the day, you can make arrangements with a travel company to have your stuff taken by van daily from one place to another with a bed guaranteed at the end of the day. All you would carry on the walk is the required food and water.

This meeting felt fortuitous, as by then I had been having doubts about the hardships involved, heat being one of them, and the one aspect I felt I could least tolerate.
My partner was also much happier about the whole thing. (By the way, the house swap fell through, and we had a lovely summer at home.)

So, with Holy Spirit’s Blessings, plans proceeded apace. And then something started to happen. Over the next several weeks, there was a slow unfolding of light in my mind that revealed the following: My motivation to walk the Camino came from a place that felt that I had to experience suffering and hardship in order to feel worthy and to prove my worthiness. I had to “do” this hard thing to feel better about myself.

As soon as that mad thought was illuminated with light and love, the desire to walk the actual Camino vanished. It felt like, with Holy Spirit, I had been walking a life road over the past three years; a road chosen by Holy Spirit to lead me to deep healing. I have committed no sins that I need to suffer for in order to feel worthy. Holy Spirit, gently, step by step, over time, the only purpose of time, carried me on the road to my own forgiveness. I look back on the unfolding of this journey and I am filled with Joy and Gratitude. So, next year, rather than suffering with blisters, aches, heat and nowhere to sleep, we are joyfully going to Paris to enjoy the happy dream instead. That’s the plan — so far. Stay tuned.

Rev. Vicki Rostant is a Pathways of Light minister living in Toronto Canada.

© 2009, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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January-March, 2009

The Gifts of the Spirit

by Rev. Barbara Eberle

I can’t count all of the gifts Holy Spirit has brought my way. Yet, this morning, as I speak with my daughter on the phone and experience the exercises of Lesson 4 with her, I feel Spirit’s joy well up inside of me. 

I found the Course over 20 years ago. I sat it on my bookshelf. I would take it out on occasion, do the lessons for a day or two, and then place it back on the shelf. Sometimes it remained there for years. Sometimes it remained there for only a day or so before I began the lessons again. Still, the authority of the Course changed me, gently. It gave me sight where I had been blind. 

Twenty years ago I tried to do it all. I tried to be the wife of a corporate executive and live up to the role that model called for; raise my kids according to society’s expectations; live according to my parent’s views and most of all, victimize myself in ways that only the worst abuser could think of. Finally, I had to stop. I was so depressed I couldn’t function. At that time, I didn’t know there was another way to live my life. I didn’t know that “ego” was hijacking me. I didn’t even know what the “ego” was. And then came the Course. 

My depression began to leave. I began to be less concerned with what other people thought of me. I began to feel at peace. I began to hear my children’s laughter rather than their whining. I began to have compassion for individuals I used to gossip about. I began to feel “love.”

And now, my grown daughter meets the Course at the exact same age as I was when it first found me. Now, she is the corporate executive. Now, she is raising two energetic boys, and now, she is trying to find peace. 

What is miraculous about this situation is that I never mentioned the Course to my daughter. Oh, I’m sure she has seen it lie around my house and has wondered about it, but I never preached the Course to her. Yet, the Course has found her.  And, she has asked me if we can begin our day, together, over the phone, with the daily lessons.

What a gift the Holy Spirit has brought to me and to my daughter. What a way to start our day. Still, as taught in Lesson 4, “These thoughts about my daughter do not mean anything.” While my thoughts are “good” they do not represent my real thoughts, which, according to the Course “...are covered up by them. The ‘good’ ones are but shadows of what lies beyond, and shadows make sight impossible.” 

And so, I give these thoughts to the Holy Spirit and ask that He do with them what He will. And, I experience the peace that only His love can give.

Rev. Barbara Eberle is a Pathways of Light minister living in Darnestown, MD.

© 2009, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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January-March, 2009

Are You Ready for a Miracle?

by Rev. M. Huckabay

I heard this question powerfully asked in a recent performance by a Musical Worship Ensemble a few weeks back and it has stirred my body, mind and heart deeply. My initial response was yes, absolutely yes!  I personally, locally, nationally, globally – long for a miracle! But later, in a silent pause, I heard the question more deeply in my heart and mind “Am I really ready?” As I continued to ponder this readiness question, I began to think of the scripture “As a man (or woman) thinketh in their heart, so is it.” In all honesty, even amidst my daily prayers, focus on miracle thinking and even more often… after reading the news or watching TV; my attention and the “thinking in my heart” has often focused on the “bad news.” 

I want to be “ready” in my body, mind and heart for a miracle, for many miracles!  Jesus brought us His Amazing Gracefilled message of the “Good News” and His Two Great Commandments. So, how have I fallen into paying too much attention to the “bad news.” It seems increasingly clear that my choosing to pay this “undue attention” to the abundance of “bad news” allows fears/worries to overtake my mind and heart. It also seems very clear this needs to change, now!

Jesus told us how to be truly “Ready for miracles.” He called us to “Love the Most High with all–time, attention, talents etc., “Love One Another”— as he loved us, unconditionally, and to focus on sharing the Good News — “that which is beautiful, right, pure and just.” So, I can see if I am to be ready for miracles and miraculous healing, I have conscious “loving now” choices to make. My ongoing hope is that wholly “embracing” Christ’s Perfect Love will cast out the fears in my mind/heart and that in “living out” His message of Unconditional Love… (that amazing purifying Love) will “resound” increasingly through my heart and offer a resonant blessing for all of our hearts creating a “concordia” (a re-sounding) union of hearts). Perhaps, this would be “the more perfect union” our forefathers dreamed of, I know, it would be a “miracle” to me and nurture an abiding hope for many more miracles to follow!

Rev. M. Huckabay is a retired Pathways of Light minister living in Shreveport, LA.

© 2009, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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January-March, 2009

Change — The Ego’s Trick, the Holy Spirit’s Treat

by Rev. Jim Armfield

Fall is the season of change. Nature, in all its forms, senses naturally its own response to the consistency and necessity of change. Beautifully without effort, change occurs. There is no resistance, no fear and in the consciousness of a tree, it accepts change by giving the world a harvest of autumn colors as its gift.

But can we face change with such grace? How does the ego use change? What is its interpretation of this natural occurrence?

The ego uses change as evidence of a fearful world. “Change is always fearful to the separated.” (T-4.I.2:2) The ego plays tricks with change — enticing with the glamour of new and better, the desire to keep up with everything material, the things of the world. But as with all the ego’s processes, duality appears — the good the bad. So this allows fear to enter and is then associated with change. Change becomes scary. It becomes hard, something to resist. Your very identity is thrust into jeopardy. This is the ego at work.

The ego does not care if your situation is mundane, dark or uninspired; the ego informs you that it is safe. This is the way your circumstances are and will be, because to change would bring a loss of who you are, and the illusion that you cannot change what you are. Time is then employed to imprison you to the past and here lies all the reasons why you cannot accept change.

Can it be as simple as thinking, “When you change the way you look at things the things you look at change”? “Learn to change your mind about your mind.” (T-7 V.7:8) Can we face change, knowing that “Whatever is true is eternal, and cannot change or be changed?” (T1.V.5:1)

Can we realize that true change is available to us? “Change in motivation is a change of mind, and this will inevitably produce fundamental change because the mind is fundamental.” (T-6.V.B.2:5)

Can we remember to… “Retain your gifts in clear awareness as you see the changeless in the heart of change; the light of truth behind appearances”? (W-122.13.4)

As you may have guessed, the subject of change has floated in and out of my thoughts recently. Some situations could have brought the flow of these particular thoughts. For example, I am experiencing a search for a different career. I have lots of extra time, but I have found myself confused. I feel tormented by my ego. It shows up in my trying to be constantly busy so I avoid the chance to be aware of this non-career phase. It is making me nervous and uncomfortable and recently suspicious with anger overtones. The feeling then comes in with unworthiness, and lack of selfness, separateness.

It has been very interesting how my ego has so distracted me with tricks and fear. Lost in this distraction, I have moved away from my Source and the Holy Spirit’s counsel. This is indeed the ego’s version of change that I am experiencing.

My wife’s mother has just passed and I find myself experiencing this with my wife as an opportunity to be of service and a peaceful presence. But again the ego finds the opportunity to involve the past and I find myself dwelling on the many of my family who have also passed. Torments, distractions, the ego brings them all. I can remember that here are all the ego temptations and then ask the Holy Spirit for guidance. “And He [the Holy Spirit] will reinterpret all temptation as just another chance to bring him joy.” (T-25.III.6:8)

How can I have become so lost, so mesmerized by the ego’s tricks? Well, I should have remembered that we forget to remember better. And now, with the funeral at hand I have been given another chance to remember that, “Every chance given him to heal is another opportunity to replace darkness with light, and fear with love.” (T-14 III.6:2)
Seasons change with consistency and beauty shared. How then can we accept change or better yet, be aware that change is the opportunity to experience anew? How can we face what we perceive as unsettling and a threat to ourselves with the grace of nature?

As with everything God has offered us, the answer lies within us, easily reached and amply given. Our soul yearns for new true experiences so it may experience itself, its God Self. It yearns to experience itself as compassionate in the face of hatred, to experience itself as peaceful in the face of stress, to experience itself loving in the face of fear, to experience itself whole in the face of separateness.

From this place of true changelessness of who we are, can we not see change as a gift to experience that which we are truly meant to be? “The world will change through you; no other means can save it.” (W-125.2:1)

I will ask for the beautiful awareness, as with the trees, to experience change and to give to the world the beauty of this experience; being secure in the changelessness of my true identity, my true self, one with God.

Rev. Jim Armfield is a Pathways of Light minister living in Fargo, North Dakota.

© 2009, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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