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October - December, 2008

Ghosts from the Past

Rev. Sharyn Zenz

In the stillness and the quiet is every prayer answered. It seems that when I have a problem or concern, the one and only way to handle it is to bring it to Holy Spirit for a miracle. My perception is automatically changed and I can go about my Father’s business.

The other day I had a situation with my daughter that I thought I knew what was best for her and her child. I thought if she did this or did things another way it would be better for her and her son. After realizing that I needed help with this stress I was feeling, I closed my eyes and asked Holy Spirit for His perception and asked to see it with His eyes instead of how I was seeing it.

I knew without going to Spirit I would be caught up in the yucky feeling all day and maybe tomorrow too! So I closed my eyes and asked to see it differently and here is what I learned!

I saw myself in a haunted house (I guess Halloween has gotten to me!) and there were eyes in the darkness looking at me. When I asked about them Holy Spirit was right there with me and said, “Sharyn, those are ghosts from your past.Sometimes they still get to you without you even being aware of it and you get caught up with those thoughts of the past.” Then I saw three signs hanging crooked in this haunted house that all said the same thing: judgment, judgment, judgement.
 
Then Holy Spirit said, “When you get caught up with thoughts from the past and think you know what is best for others, or yourself for that matter, you are judging. You need to leave those ghosts from the past and walk with Me. Remember when you think you know what is best for someone you are judging that the way they are doing it is wrong! You think your way is better.”

Well, let me tell you, this really made me think. Every time I talk over a perceived problem or situation with a friend or family member, and I listen to them, all I am doing is buying into their judgments about it! By me buying into what others thought about the situation, I was putting my trust in others instead of Holy Spirit!

What an eye opener that was for me. Now, instead of going to others and discussing any situations or problems, which only makes matters worse, I’d rather spend the time with the only One who knows the answer and listen to what He has to tell me.

I walked up some stairs in the haunted house with Holy Spirit and looked behind me at all the ghosts from the past just melting away. And when I reached the top step Holy Spirit raised His arms and the roof blew off the haunted house and the Light entered and filled the home. It was just beautiful.

Holy Spirit and I sat down. He told me to go have fun with my grandchildren and make friendly ghost signs. I can cut them out and hang them all over my office. He told me the messages to write on each ghost such as “You are beautiful and One with Me,”  “You are Love,” “My mind sees only thoughts of Love,” “There is no past, only the gift of the present,” etc. We had so much fun making them. Now when I see them I know that my ghosts from the past are gone and only Holy Spirit’s ‘ghosts’ with messages of Love are real.

Holy Spirit also reminded me that when I go to another to talk something over, I am making the problem real, and nothing is Real except Love.

Rev. Sharyn Zenz is a Pathways of Light minister living in Green Bay, Wisconsin. She serves as the Office Liaison for Students/Facilitators at Pathways of Light.

© 2008, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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October - December, 2008

Love Holds No Grievances

Rev. Barbara Brown Allen

Imagine we are in the lounge area of an up-scale restaurant in southern California. It is dark; lights are dimmed and table candles are glowing. The patrons are sitting around the tables or at the bar, drinking and smoking. Sitting at the bar, you face a wall of mirrors lined with shelves of whiskies, brandies, and colored liqueurs. The lounge opens every morning of the year at 7 a.m., and about 30 people gather daily. I come here every morning to meet these people. The booze is corked, and the people are drinking coffee, a lot of coffee. It might seem a little odd for these people to meet every day in a bar and drink only coffee, but this is a daily meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. This is where we tell each other our stories — what it used to be like, what happened, and what we are like now — and in so doing, help ourselves and others to get sober and stay sober.

I will call him “Jim C.” This is not his real name. AA teaches us that “anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions,” and that what we hear at a meeting and whom we see at a meeting stays at the meeting. But Jim C. was an old-timer who violated our tradition of anonymity again and again. He thought nothing of mentioning a fellow AA’s last name, or revealing where a member worked, or what s/he did for a living. And he would tell us who said what at other meetings. One time, a group of us went out for breakfast after the meeting, and Jim C. announced that our waitress was “one of us.” I questioned him about violating this tradition, but his answer was a little laugh along with, “Everyone already knows anyway.”

As Jim C. continued to betray the anonymity of AA members, I began to develop a resentment against him to the point that I could not stay in the room when he shared. I would leave the meeting angry, and I would not speak to him. Then one day, I surprised myself. Rather than leave the room when Jim C. shared, I began to pray — for him! I prayed for his highest good. I prayed for his highest good every day, day after day for months. And on Easter Sunday, in front of everyone, he came to me with a little stuffed bunny, all pink and white, and said, “This is for you. Happy Easter.” And he threw his arms around me, hugged me, kissed me, and said, “I love you.”

What do you do when someone says, “I love you?” What can you say? With tears streaming down my face, all I could say was, “I love you, too, Jim.” And then, I was suddenly aware of the words from ACIM Lessons 68 and 69: “Love holds no grievances. I would wake to myself, by laying all my grievances aside, and wakening in Him. My grievances hide the light of the world in me, I cannot see what I have hidden; yet I want to let it be revealed to me, for my salvation, and the salvation of the world.”

My grievance, my resentment against my friend, which had separated us, was gone. I had hidden my own light. “This little light of mine” was shining again. I had prayed away my anger by praying for Jim C’s highest good. Jim C. and I resumed our friendship. And because of my new understanding of Oneness and the Presence of Love, and without any expectation of how Jim C. should behave — a miracle replaced my grievance, and Jim C remained my friend until the day he died.

Rev. Barbara Brown Allen is a Pathways of Light minister living in Dearborn, Michigan.

© 2008, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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October - December, 2008

What Is a Miracle?

by Dennis Gaither, M.D.

So what is a miracle, anyway? There is something very compelling about the idea of miracles; something that engages our imagination, some deeply yearning part of us. They have been the stuff of folklore and faith for millennia. Whether curious, hopeful, disdainful or fascinated, few are neutral in their beliefs about what a miracle is.

In conversations and classes, study groups and workshops, I find that when people offer to share about their “miracle stories” what follows is usually about an unexpected and happy event in the world. A lost pet is found. An illness is healed. A parking space materializes. Unexpected help arrives to solve a problem. There is a timely phone call. The list goes on and on. In traditional religion, miracles refer to supernatural physical occurrences that defy usually understood natural laws, and are performed by or through certain “special” or enlightened individuals. They certainly are not something you or I could “do.”

Now, in the face of all of this cultural lore about miracles, we have this strange book, A Course in Miracles, that purports to teach us how to bring forth miracles. Most students quickly get the idea that by miracle the Course is not talking about walking on water. It is about healing our mind; that an “event” in the world we perceive becomes a “grievance” or “problem” only in our mind’s interpretation of it and that by healing our perception we can radically change our subjective experience.

So we are led from the idea that a miracle involves an unexpected change in outer circumstances, as in the traditional view, to a shift in our perception of the circumstances. But is that all there is to it, change our mind and change our experience? Hardly.

Miracles are not simply a means to a more peaceful existence here in this world. They are a path by which we awaken from this world. With each miracle, we awaken a little more to Who we are in truth. The key here is to recognize Who is actually “doing” the miracle. The “problem” is made on the level of ego, of individual mind. But it is not on that level that the problem is undone. It is not a matter of “changing our mind” in the usual sense of the ego exchanging one illusion for another nicer one. We, on the level of individual mind, can offer only our willingness for the miracle. But that is enough, if we offer it truly: Trust not your good intentions. They are not enough. But trust implicitly your willingness, whatever else may enter. Concentrate only on this, and be not disturbed that shadows surround it. That is why you came. (T-18.IV.2:1-5) [Italics mine – DG]

As a seeming individual expression of One Mind, like all of us, I experience many reactions every day to the events around me. I can, as that individual mind experience, choose to interpret my emotional reactions as having been caused by those events, that I am indeed a victim of the world I see, and try to control those events as best I can. Most of the time, this is the first thing that happens. “The ego always speaks first.”

But I also have another choice. To open the door to the miracle I can first recognize that whatever may appear to be happening in front of me, my experience of it is a product of my own mind. That decision then begins a process. I can allow the experience to flow upward through me, and not push it down or away, not deny it with distractions or right-minded sounding affirmations or formulas. Thoughts and feelings of guilt, fear, unworthiness and attack need to be allowed, without resistance or holding on. To have the courage to do this, I need to have an abiding trust that there is a Reality within that transcends the feelings of the moment. That Reality tells me that I am Innocent, I am Safe, I am Love and that all else is not real. The beliefs that act as “props” for the emotions, the upsets, the sense of unworthiness or fear, the “evidence” my ego has gathered, need to be looked at and let go of. (I appreciate the teaching of Regina Dawn Akers for her clarity around this process!)

I find it helpful to imagine myself offering them, one by one, and very specifically, to Holy Spirit, as I would a precious gift given to someone I love. Sometimes this seems easy, and sometimes difficult. The difference in difficulty is an illusion, not inherent in the issue at hand but in my own attachment, or unwillingness to let go. That unwillingness in turn is related to the fear of losing some part my “identity,” of who I think I am. The more closely I identify with some form of illusion as being “me,” the more fearful and less willing I am to let it go.

Everything in “my” part of the miracle is about letting go, of surrendering, about trusting in my willingness. I do not “do” anything, only let go of my “doings.” And even this is an illusion. It is the process of the miracle that teaches that the individual “I” is an illusion, not the specific forms that may result.

We may seek the miracle because of a certain outcome that we desire, whether that be a healing of the body or a relief from an upset. But if we attach to that outcome in form, we will miss the opportunity for an even deeper healing. We will miss the opportunity to experience, deep inside, an abiding Presence that heals and comforts us and teaches us who we really are; that we are not that little “i” presence that we thought we were.

Dennis Gaither, M.D., O.M.C., is a Pathways of Light minister living in Mt. Vernon, Washington.

© 2008, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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October - December, 2008

From the Classroom to the Street — Literally

Rev. Carol K. Springer-Witfoth

The Course teaches us to see the Christ in everyone. Everyone. In the beginning it was a challenge and a joy to see the Light in as many people as possible. When I couldn’t, I simply acknowledged that Christ was there. Bare in mind that I did not remember to look for or acknowledge that in everyone. Sometimes I still don’t. I am a beginner among beginners. Holy Spirit provided the following, unexpected, beautiful lesson.

Recently a lesson in seeing the Christ in others presented itself. In need of groceries, I headed to a mall near my home. At the entry way to the mall a young man stood holding a sign, which I could not see as I approached from his back. I clearly remember thinking, “I never give money to these people.” I purchased my groceries and left the mall by the same entrance. I don’t recall if the man was there. I do recall remembering I should have stopped at the religious bookstore to pick up an order. The next day being Saturday I could pick up the order.

Saturday morning I ran all my errands leaving the pick up until last. Approaching the intersection I saw the man again. This morning I noticed his hair shined and for some silly reason I thought, “He must have washed his hair.” After browsing through the store, I left with my bags and went to my car.

Again, I saw the man and thought, “I never give money to those people.” I was actually trying to figure out how to get out of the mall without using the lane closest to the concrete island where he stood. I wanted to avoid him. I was drawn to him. Without thinking I reached into my billfold and got out a bill. I knew how much it was because I had organized the bills before I left home. It did not matter the size. Ego was still functioning guiding my thoughts but Spirit was guiding my actions. I was mentally negotiating how to avoid being close to the man while being guided to do what Spirit knew was good for both of us, most especially me.

I was comfortable when I saw that I would be third in line, the line closest to the man and there were two cars that would be ahead of me. This would keep me in a place where I could avoid contact. So I pulled into the left turn lane. The light turned red so we all had to stop. The man picked up his sign which said, “Anything will help. God bless you” and his backpack. He walked passed the two cars ahead me as if they did not exist and directly to me. I looked into a face that I recognized and loved. As I recall the experience, his face glowed. In a melodious voice, he said, “Thank you.” So caught up in the love I could barely reply, “No, thank you.”

The man walked lightly across the incoming lanes on the other side of the concrete island. I had to move on as the light turned green. I looked for him along the street but he had disappeared. Would that I could see the Christ so clearly in all! Or, maybe our lesson is to know it is there without having to see it! Whatever, I am grateful for the lesson.

Carol K. Springer-Witfoth, O.M.C., is a Pathways of Light minister living in Lincoln, Nebraska.

© 2008, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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