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October-December, 2019

Everything Serves the Purpose of Your Healing and Awakening

by Rev. Jennifer McSween, O.M.C.

I had been a smoker for the greater part of my adult life, and I really enjoyed smoking. Cigarettes were my constant companions, present in my life whether I was socializing or going about my daily life. I looked forward to lighting up with my morning coffee, and anytime I was on the phone — this was back in the day when we mostly used land lines. I also couldn’t wait to take a break from whatever it was I was doing to have a cigarette or, as I had convinced myself, to help me concentrate. After meals… well, for me, smoking was better than dessert. It was my dessert. I could never understand friends who would say they were “social smokers.” They smoked only when socializing. I remember thinking to myself, they must have serious issues with committing.

But my joy of smoking turned into agony as I found myself moving in the direction of what I called back then a “Spiritual Path” and felt that smoking was not in alignment with that path. Having judged it as being unspiritual, it felt wrong, even sinful, to continue to have smoking be a part of my life. But I still enjoyed it and wanted to continue doing it. I couldn’t even imagine myself not smoking.

At the same time, however, I was convinced that continuing to engage in this wrongful act was not only delaying my spiritual healing and awakening but was creating some distance between God and me — keeping God from expressing through me. So, though I still enjoyed smoking I felt that I should quit. But because I didn’t really want to, I thought that meant something was wrong with me. Judging myself so harshly, I began to feel very guilty, which only made me want to smoke more because I felt so bad about myself. Like I said, it was agony!

This was my state of mind in August 2002 when, along with a few other students, I went to Pathways of Light in Kiel, Wisconsin to attend the 10 Day In-Person session of the Ordained Ministerial Counselor Training Program. On the Pathways of Light Campus there was an atmosphere of non-judgment, yet respect for everyone’s individual preferences, so accommodations were made for everyone, even smokers like me.

There was a nice area in the shade of two trees, situated a bit of a distance and up-wind from the residences and the buildings where our classes were held. A wooden bench was placed there and was referred to as “the smoking bench.” If I remember correctly there was only one other student who occasionally smoked and joined me on the bench but most of the time, I would be alone on the smoking bench with my cigarettes and my guilt.

I found the in-person training to be a deeply healing experience right from the start. Being based on A Course in Miracles, the Ordained Ministerial Counselor Training Program, along with all the other courses and programs offered by Pathways of light, were designed to help you do what A Course in Miracles aims to help you do — remove the blocks so you can recognize the presence of love within you.

The in-person session offered a safe environment to engage in what I still describe as feeling like “Exploratory Spiritual Surgery” or going on a “Spiritual Recon Mission.” I had felt safe enough to allow the blocks in the form of my judgments about my smoking, along with everything else that was coming up at the time, to come up without restraint, so I was beginning to feel rather “spent” — like the fuel that had kept my resistance going was running low.

I noticed I was beginning to feel less and less guilty while I was on the smoking bench. One day during lunch break I was sitting on the smoking bench having my post lunch smoke. I believe it was around Day five or six and I literally felt like “Putty” or a “Ragdoll.” I was feeling no resistance to anything… no guilt about my smoking… no judgment or “shoulding” about anything. I was simply “be-ing” in that moment.

My eyes were gently looking around when something caught my attention. Just a few feet ahead of me there was an intersection where the brick walled side of a building met a patch of hard dry ground. There wasn’t even a blade of grass growing out of that patch. Jutting out of the intersection where the brick wall met the ground, looking like it was straining to get out, was a beautiful salmon coloured flower at the end of a stem about six inches long, and the flower had not yet opened fully. It was in the process of unfolding.

The thought that suddenly came to my mind was: “What a beautiful flower… and it was growing, blossoming and unfolding in a spot in which it doesn’t seem like anything should be growing.” This was followed by the thought, “Oh my, just like that flower I too I’m unfolding… even though it may feel that given the “place” I’m in, in my mind, I shouldn’t be.” I then had or experienced what felt like a revelation that there was nothing I could do that could keep God away from me or from expressing through me; and that regardless of what I had done, I was sinless, not guilty.

I had such a feeling of elation and liberation and, though it must have only lasted a few seconds, it felt much longer. As I tuned in to my experience, I realized that had I not been smoking I would not have been on the smoking bench to see that flower growing out amidst what seemed to be “blocks” to its unfolding. And, had I not stopped judging myself, I would not have been available to receive this revelation.

What stood out most to me though, was the awareness that the very same thing that I thought would keep God away from me, served to heal me. I walked away from the smoking bench with the absolute knowing that wherever I find myself, literally or figuratively, is exactly where I needed to be and that nothing comes to hurt me. And everything can serve the purpose of my healing and awakening if I hand it over to the Holy Spirit.

Rev. Jennifer McSween, O.M.C., is a Pathways of Light Minister living in Montreal, Canada. You can listen to her Weekly Podcast at: http://www.revjennifermcsweenpodcast.com
Email: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

© 2019, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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October-December, 2019

Pause to Encourage

by Mary Gerard Lenihan

The Pause Practice holds possibilities! One possibility in the Pause is encouragement. We never know just how lifted up we can be until we lift up someone else. Who doesn’t need encouragement? Who cannot benefit from being encouraging?

To “encourage” is to literally instill courage in another. A student was feeling disheartened the other day because her goals appeared to have fallen apart in her hands. She was given the space to simply be with her experience, to pause. In the pause she shared that new possibilities were showing up in her mind; life wasn’t over after all.

Encouragement creates an environment of connection. We realize that we are all in this together. What I like about practicing Pause to encourage, is that I don’t have to figure out ahead of time how I am going to encourage someone. Rather, I find myself simply raising someone’s spirits in some way that is spontaneous and enjoyable… all in moment. And don’t you love when out of the blue someone raises your spirits in an unexpected way? This happens at Job Corps all the time. The other day I walked into a Pause class and one of students had a beautiful smile on her face — what a lift!

Pause to encourage yourself too. Discouragement is like forgetting the light is on — encouragement can always be found in your Inspired Mind — where the light is. Imagine walking into a light-filled room with your eyes closed, feeling around your closet and looking for your white shirt. Hmm. Instead of rumbling around in the dark closet, falling into the closet, knocking things over, getting hit on the head by junk falling off the top shelf, tripping over the stuff at your feet, busting your toe on the edge of the chair as you walk out with what you are guessing is your white shirt — only to find that you grabbed your plaid pajama top! Clear up the confusion . . . Pause. Choose to use the light that is fully at your disposal in your Inspired Mind! Flip the switch ON. How? Pause, and Let your Inspired Mind step forward.

One thing is sure — every time I am at the St. Louis Job Corps campus, I see someone encouraging another. And in this, I pause.

Pause to encourage another. Pause to encourage yourself. Otherwise:

Something gets left undone that needs to be done. Someone is left unloved who needs to be loved.

Learn about the practice of Pause. Visit:  PauseForInspiration.org. Mary Lenihan is the Co-Founder of Pause For Inspiration, a nonprofit public charity.

Mary Gerard Lenihan, is from St. Louis, MO. Email: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) Website: http://www.pauseforinspiration.org    Find the 4 Decisions pocket-sized cards: Kids Can Pause, Parents Can Pause, Teachers Can Pause. Also a new book, “Kids can Pause for Help …and Parents too!  Get to Know Your Helpful Self”

© 2019, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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October-December, 2019

Freeing the Children

by Rev. Barbara Goodman Siegel, O.M.C.

Like so many of you, I was shocked and deeply saddened to see little children torn out of their mother’s and/or father’s arms and put into cages. “What have we become?” I thought. ”How low can we go? When is enough, enough?”

I was haunted by my thoughts about these children. I kept imagining how alone and afraid they must feel. I expected to see thousands of people in the streets protesting this action, but to my great surprise, that didn’t happen. I went to a vigil to bring attention to what to me was an atrocity. The vigil was sponsored by a large, local church and less than a hundred people showed up. Again, I was shocked and dismayed. Have we so insulated ourselves that even this doesn’t get through?

I felt that I had to take my sadness into meditation, a place where I often go to ask Mother Shekhina (a.k.a. Holy Spirit) for an answer to something I just can’t wrap my mind around. I hope the answer I got will help those of you who are also struggling to understand this seemingly inhumane and un-American turn of events.

Barbara,

“The immigrants at the border are an illusion. Unfortunately, it is an illusion that many share and so it seems real.

In the illusion, the children being taken away from their parents and put into cages are the symbol of our own abandonment and helplessness when we were children. For many of us, they are a symbol of being imprisoned in a childhood where there was neglect, lack, and little to no love. Most importantly, they are a symbol of our separation from God and all that is holy, pure, and innocent. It strikes a chord so deep in our own wounding that we cannot (and should not) turn away, but we want to turn away because it is so very painful.

Look on this as an opportunity to heal your own childhood wounds, whatever they may be. Let the pain come up and surround it with love. Tell that child within over and over: “I am sorry, please forgive me, thank you, I love you” (The Ho’Oponopono prayer). By doing this, you are giving the child a voice and thanking it for allowing you to receive healing. You are asking it to forgive you for ignoring it, and you are loving it with all your heart and soul (literally). When you heal this child, you heal the world.

Now, from this place of love, send love to all children and do whatever you may be guided to do in the world with love, not with attack or anger. Love is the balm that heals all wounds no matter how deep. No one needs to tell you what love is because you know in your heart what it is. Books, songs, poems, can but point the way. You know and you have always known. So go forth in and with love. That is the answer. Love will always and forever be the victor.”

In my book: Finding Your Self in the Mirror: Awakening Through Mirror Affirmations for the 365 Lessons of A Course in Miracles, I give affirmations and a text quote for each of the lessons of the Course. Following that model, I would like to end this article with the affirmations and text quote that are in my book for ACIM Lesson 46: God is the Love in which I forgive. I hope by using these affirmations you will strengthen your own healing and the healing of all God’s children:

1.  I am willing to release my illusions of guilt and blame.

2.  I am willing to see things differently.

3.  I see with the light of God.

4.  With the Love of God, I forgive my brother.

5.  With the Love of God, I forgive myself.

6.  With the Love of God, I love myself.

7.  God is the Love in which I am blessed.

“Perhaps you do not see the need for you to give this little offering. Look closer, then, at what it is. And, very simply, see in it the whole exchange of separation for salvation.” (T-21.II.6:1-3)

Rev. Barbara Goodman Siegel O.M.C., is author of “Finding Your Self in the Mirror: Awakening Through Mirror Affirmations for the 365 Lessons of A Course in Miracles.” She also is a Pathways of Light minister living in St. Louis, Missouri. Email: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  Web: Barbaragoodmansiegel.com

© 2019, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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October-December, 2019

The Way Back to God Is to Practice Forgiveness

by Rev. Savina Cavallo, O.M.C.

Forgiveness is the central idea and message of A Course in Miracles. I have been reading the book, practicing its principles for 12 years now. Forgiveness as the Course teaches it has been a challenge for me to understand and apply.

Forgiveness is defined as follows: “Forgiveness recognizes what you thought your brother did to you has not occurred. It does not pardon sins and make them real. It sees there was no sin.” (W-pII.1.1:1-3)

And sin is defined as a false idea about God’s creation.

In order for me to really understand its meaning, I had to write down this definition and read it repeatedly, and really take it in. I asked Spirit to help me practice this, for it’s completely different to what I’ve always believed forgiveness to be.

Forgiveness was about me being a victim of someone or something. It was the belief that someone had done something bad to me, and by forgiving, I was pardoning them. But this still made them guilty and what they did real. And me their victim.

According to the Course, only illusions (what is not truth) need to be forgiven. To make it simple, this world is not real, it is an illusion made up and experienced because I believe (at a subconscious level) that I am separate from my Creator. Most of what I perceive is really coming from my own mind, my beliefs and what I hold as true. 

When I began to really apply this new way of seeing the world, as a dream, and seeing myself and others as innocent (over and over….it’s a practice), the sense of being a victim and making others bad started to loosen. I feel more compassion and am not as swift to judge anymore as I used to.

To be honest, I still read the definition of forgiveness to remind me of its true meaning because I forget and fall back to thinking someone is guilty of what I believe they have done to me. And, since my desire and only real goal is to return to God, and forgiveness is the way my mind returns Home, I’m all in with this!

Rev. Savina Cavallo is a Pathways of Light minister living in Sunrise, Florida.
Email: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)  Website: http://www.savinacavallo.com

© 2019, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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