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October-December, 2007

An Opportunity to Choose Peace

by Rev. Sharyn Zenz

One evening as I was driving along I realized I had not eaten dinner and it was 7 o’clock already, so I drove through the drive-thru at Taco John’s. Since it was not the rush hour, my order was taken immediately. When I got up to the window to pay, the girl took my money and left. Usually they give you whatever drink you ordered while you wait for the food order, but she didn’t.

After waiting what seemed like a long time, I decided to go to Spirit. I heard the words, “Now you have a chance to practice patience my dear.” Then the thoughts came to me that, after all, my only purpose here is to heal, so now I get a chance to practice.

As I sat there thinking about it I was wondering why I would be in a rush anyway. It seemed that my whole life up until recently I had been rushing around like a chicken with my head cut off! Where did I think I was going? And what is the rush for?

Then I thought about a course I had been doing recently that said, “What is time for, but to heal?” So I sat very patiently and thanked Spirit for reminding me of that. The girl came to the window and handed me my drink, but no food yet. She did say she felt bad that it was taking so long. I told her not to worry and that everything is fine. She came one more time to the window and apologized again for the long wait. I again told her not to worry. I was really just enjoying the silence in the car and thinking how lucky I was to have Holy Spirit with me all the time. Whenever I need him he is “Johnny on the spot”!

Boy, was I thankful that I had this chance to talk with Spirit and and be given the chance to bless the employees that were preparing my food. The girl was so kind and apologetic. Finally, when she handed me my food she also handed me a card that she had punched all the way around the outer edges, and told me to present that card and my next meal was on them!

When I left there I was so glad I had been given another opportunity to heal my mind and to find the peace that was always there. I just had to sit quietly in my car and feel it! I was feeling very happy and grateful.

Rev. Sharyn Zenz is a Pathways of Light minister living in Green Bay Wisconsin.

© 2007, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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October-December, 2007

What Is a Pirate?

by Linda Cosentino

What is a pirate? One who robs ships at sea. We have a pirate in our thoughts. This pirate is called the ego thought system that edges God out.

This is not an entity. This is not a real thing outside of you. This is a thought. This pirate is vicious and out to destroy our True Identity, if we let the thoughts control us.  This is our little self that thinks it is God.  It robs us of our treasures.

We are the treasures of God. We are created in the image (reflection in a mirror) and likeness (exact copy) of God, and we have all the attributes (distinguishing characteristics) of God. These attributes are Love, Peace, Joy and Happiness. Your ship is your vehicle to bring you back to God.  “Your ship has come in.”

These pirate thoughts try to make you think you are something less than what you are.

“Yo, Ho, Ho, and a bottle of rum.” Too, much rum makes you drunk and does not make you think clearly. These pirate thoughts will bring you all kinds of addictions instead of the peace of God that passes all understanding. Only God can fill the hole or void in your life. Our soul yearns and longs for us to be back in the arms of God forever in our thinking.

A person that is a robber is one that thinks he is deprived of something that you have.  What does it mean to rob?  Taking property unlawfully by force.

This is what the ego thought system does. It is like the drop of water that wants to be the ocean instead of all the drops together making up the ocean. Your little self or ego self can never be God. All of us together make up God. Without one piece (You) God is not complete like the picture is not complete with one piece of the puzzle missing. Every piece is very valuable.
 
Pirates are after treasure. The ego thoughts want your treasure. You are the treasure of God in an earthen vessel that is more precious than all the gold in the world.

God needs you to speak to all the world of His Love and Forgiveness. All of us are precious stones or gems with many facets (cuts or parts) of the whole jewel. You are like a diamond in the rough. Diamonds have much pressure and polish before they shine to have a great brilliance. You are like the pearl whose sand paper is needed from other people in order to make you a smooth round stone or pearl.

The way to get rid of the pirate (thoughts in our lives) is not to give these thoughts power. The ego thought system is afraid of you learning your True Identity. When you learn your True Identity, the pirate thoughts no longer exist. This pirate cannot deceive, rob, or kill you without the power you give it.

So now, we know our True Identity — that we are created in the image of God, and we are already Perfect Spirit Beings. No thoughts can rule our lives in a lower realm (poor thoughts) of human thinking that is the pirate thoughts.

Aren’t you glad the pirate thoughts have no effect on you at all? We can change our thoughts. Don’t you want to change your thoughts to the Thoughts of God?  You can if you choose. You are a child of the King.

Linda Cosentino is a student and teacher of ACIM who lives in Hammond, Louisiana. She and Richie conduct classes in their home.

© 2007, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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October-December, 2007

God Is Famous too

by Rev. Georgeanne Medved

Through television, radio, magazines and other media I learn about many famous people, even heroic people. Many of these people have great qualities that I would like to imitate. A Course in Miracles, however, teaches me that I should always imitate God and walk His path in Love.

My highest calling and largest struggle in life is to open to God’s insight with my attitudes and actions every day of my life. Unlike the famous, unapproachable people I learn about, God knows me and really desires to have a personal relationship with me. He is a merciful and loving Father Who knows all of my shortcomings but still accepts me as His Child.

I know that if I love God and open up to obey God, the Holy Spirit will dwell in my heart and work with me to be more God like. I communicate with the Holy Spirit through prayer and meditation and as I struggle in my daily life, I hope to develop the positive character traits of thankfulness, humility and love and have them flow through me and mold me into a strong person who is able to be of service to others.

When I neglect prayer, which is the central place where I experience the Holy Spirit’s presence, I become confused and my faith is weakened. Then I backslide into my old, negative lifestyle and habits and once again must ask the Holy Spirit to help me right things with my merciful and loving Father.

Holy Spirit helps empower me to achieve my highest goals and to reflect God’s Love so that people around me may experience the radiance of their Creator.

Rev. Georgeann Medved is a Pathways of Light minister living in Columbiaville Michigan.

© 2007, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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july - September, 2007

A Holy Instant of Release

Rev. Linda Wisniewski

As a passenger on a seven hour drive, I had a chance to be still and go within. All of a sudden I noticed a lot of sadness coming up. “What is this about?” I asked Holy Spirit. It was as if a lifetime of unfulfilled dreams and fantasies were being projected on a screen right before me.

In my younger years, I considered myself a “romantic” and my fantasy was to find the perfect man who would fulfill my every need.  I have been married twice and each partner could not be described as the  “romantic” type.  My latest partner is teaching me that I don’t need him to fulfill my needs and expectations.  I need to learn to trust in my Self. Of course, before I started studying A Course in Miracles, I didn’t want to believe him and our relationship was very stormy because I kept projecting onto him my disappointment that he wasn’t a fulfillment of my expectation and fantasy of what a romantic relationship should look like.  I created in my separate mind, in opposition to God, what I believed to be perfect love.

In this ego thought system, perfect love meant giving to get and believing another had to give me love to make me feel special and worthy.  I truly believed that the source of perfect love was in another person outside of me. In the ego thought system, the source of everything i.e. love, value, safety, wellness, abundance, security, worthiness, seems to be outside of myself.

The ego thought system is very clever.  If we keep believing this, we will keep looking outside of our Self for security, love, peace, joy and value. We then will forget to remember to look within. And, we will forget to remember that God is our Source of Love, joy, peace, strength, safety, value, and worthiness. And we will forget to remember we never left our Source. Everything we desire will be given to us because we are as God created us. We are of Him.

The Course is teaching me that in one instant a thought entered that made me and my brothers believe that this Love wasn’t enough. In that one instant we were made to believe we could create a better kind of love, a special love more perfect than God. And, in that one instant, we forgot to laugh and realize it was a crazy insane thought. It seemed so real. And then one crazy fantasy led to another and another and pretty soon we forgot we were fantasizing and forgot where we were.

It all seemed too real, like Alice in Wonderland falling through the rabbit hole into the land of magic. We fantasized first that we created a body and that this body was our new home; a solid place in which to make believe we were special. We created in that instant a separate family believing they would give us special love. When this didn’t happen, we became angry with them because we convinced ourselves that they weren’t fulfilling our magical wishes and desires to be loved in a special way.  So the more we fell into the dream, the more we looked for a special relationship and created images of Cinderella and Prince Charming as the embodiment of this special fantasy. And, when our special partner didn’t turn out to match this fantasy, we dumped them and kept searching for that special love. And not only did we search for a special love, we also created a special world that would ensure we were special. 

The more we forgot reality and forgot our true nature, the more we fantasized about what we needed to be special.  Maybe we could become the CEO of a large company; or, maybe we could write a book and become famous and go on the Oprah show; or maybe we could go on an adventure and do daring things that would give us pleasure; or maybe we could find a way of making so much money we would never have to worry about not having all the goodies that money could buy. If we did these things, we became certain that we would finally feel safe and secure and never have to worry. We would be happy and fulfilled. 

Well guess what? In my fantasies, I managed to find romantic love but it never lasted and every time a relationship ended if felt devastating because what I believed was the source of love left and since I forgot it was in me, it felt excruciatingly painful. When my special love left, I was left feeling loveless and alone, or so I believed.

I once had money and lost it mostly by giving it away and later would feel devastated because I believed the source of my safety and security was in the money. When the money was gone, I experienced feelings of panic and terror. I believed the source of wellness was in the body I created to separate from God and when I didn’t feel well, I felt scared because I felt certain I was going to die and lose everything especially myself. I would be a nothing.

If I lived in less than a perfect body, I also was scared because how could I function and be special unless this body could run in perfect order. I never wrote that book that would have made me famous and never became a CEO that I believed would have given me a sense of importance and I never became well known in anything. I did become depressed because I believed I wasn’t of value in this world of my making. I believed I was useless. 

In the ego thought system value is equated with doing because its only in our body doing something specific that we realize our specialness and uniqueness. And while my illusory life seemed to flash before me in the car, I asked Holy Spirit to look with me and help me see this life differently.
I started experiencing a deep gratitude and thanking God for His Infinite Wisdom. I thanked God for placing Holy Spirit in my mind and the mind of my brothers so that, when I  believed I was lost and alone and feeling depressed and unworthy in this world of unfulfilled dreams and fantasies,  Holy Spirit could help me remember the truth. 

It was at those times when I felt most lost and desperate, that I humbled myself and called out to God, “Help me see this differently.” It was at the times I experienced busted illusions that I turned within and heard the quiet voice of Spirit whispering His Love and Will for me.
It is in the silence that I experience the peace I so truly desire. The more I listen to the gentle Voice within, the more peace and joy I experience. The more I am learning to trust this Voice, the more I am allowing myself to be guided by His Will, and, the more I am willing to surrender my fantasies and dreams. 

“Father, it is today that I am free, because my will is Yours. I thought to make another will. Yet nothing that I thought apart from You exists. And I am free because I was mistaken, and did not affect my own reality at all by my illusions. Now I give them up, and lay them down before the feet of truth, to be removed forever from my mind. This is my holy instant of release.  Father, I know my will is one with Yours.” (Workbook Lesson 227, This is my holy instant of release.) 

I am so grateful to be learning that Who I Am is not of anything I made in the separate mind. I Am of God not man. I am learning that when I attack a brother it is because I expect this person whom I made in separation to fulfill a expectation I made up in this fantasy mind.
I am learning that the sadness, depression and fear I experience is because I forget that the Source of everything of Real Value is of God. I am learning that my loving Father knows my holiness and perfection and innocence and as His Child I Am of Him. I am learning the Source of Love, peace and joy I was so desperately seeking does not lie in my fantasies but in joining with HIm.

“Father, I was mistaken in myself, because I failed to realize the Source from Which I came. I have not left that Source to enter in a body and to die. My holiness remains a part of me, as I am part of You. And my mistakes about myself are dreams. I let them go today. And I stand ready to receive Your word alone for what I really am.” (Workbook Lesson 228, “God has condemned me not. No more do I.”)

Rev. Linda Wisniewski is a Pathways of Light minister living in Plymouth, Wisconsin.

© 2007, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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