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April-June, 2019

I Know You

by Rev. Michael Atkins, O.M.C.

I know you only when
there is no time.

And where there is nothing
and no empty spaces
And the only thing
that is real is my joy

I know your name
The only name that exists
Perfect, whole and complete forever
The why of what I am

I am the one you want
The only one that’s real
And I know what I was born to do
And for whom

Because you share my soul and you
and I are only at peace in each other
Resting in the arms of Love

I recognize you and I am Home
Where I know all there is to know

Rev. Michael Atkins is a Pathways of Light minister living in Georgetown, TX  
Email: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

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

This Course Is Simple

by Rev. Cathy Silva, O.M.C.

In working with clients and in my inner personal healing work I am a big fan for simplifying everything and finding the path of least resistance.

I’ve found that when I am feeling stuck with finding a solution to a problem, or moving forward with a project, or in healing a hurting relationship with a loved one, that it’s because, well… “it’s complicated!” At least it seems to be. It can be so tempting to drop kick the Course book into the corner, distance yourself from a lifelong friendship, disown your family, get divorced. Because sticking with it is just too hard.

“The Course is Simple.”

I have this circled and highlighted in my Course book. It’s on page 77 in the section titled, “Clarification of Terms.” I really needed this simple statement to be true if I was going to experience the healing I so desired. Because honestly I too found some of the ideas confusing, especially when I first began my journey with the Course. Even though there was much I didn’t understand and much that challenged my way of thinking, the Voice within prompted me to persist and push through my own resistance. Somehow I trusted that the Love and healing I longed for was to be discovered in my journey through the Course.

I believe that we are prompted to do the very thing that is most helpful and healing for us as we travel together but sometimes it seems counterintuitive and well, too scary and overwhelming to just dive in to something, even if at some level we know it is what we want and need and have called forth to us. I also believe that nothing happens by accident and the Course finds us and meets us right where we are, in the hole we’ve dug ourself into so to speak. Its message has shown up as the better way we’ve been searching for to heal the world.
The focus this year for many seems to be on healing relationships, especially relationships that seem to be the cause of our suffering. My highest intention for being of help in healing our relationships is to take the simplest approach to what “seems” really complicated.

The joy and connection I’ve experienced in practicing the Course to heal my relationships has been immeasurable. You may relate. Or you may be in one of two camps of “still struggling” Course students;

Camp A — You are a “Would Be” Course student — You would be if it weren’t so darn hard and confusing,

Camp B — You are an ACIM Dabbler- Now and again when it comes back to your attention you dip your toe in, maybe open up the book and read a bit, perhaps gain some insight then you put it back down because again — it’s too complicated.

I thought it might be helpful and perhaps necessary to offer some perspective and insights on how I found that path of least resistance in learning and applying the Course curriculum as a means to move from being at war with myself and others, to a more consistent sense of peace, happiness, and awareness of Love’s presence, especially in my closest relationships. The Course calls them “special relationships.”

You do not have to study or practice ACIM to grow personally or spiritually or for you to heal your relationships.

When it comes down to it you are an adult, and you make your own choices. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. But for some reason you are being led to its message and Holy Spirit is inviting you in.

The Course is not a religion, dogma, or theology. So, there is no absolute right or wrong way to practice the Course. It’s arranged as a teaching device to systematically help us undo the underlying thought system that made the complex mess we’ve found ourselves in. In other words, as it states in the Introduction, “remove the blocks to the awareness of love’s presence.”

It states that “a universal theology is impossible, but a universal experience is not only possible but necessary.” It also says that the Course is but one version of the universal curriculum and it’s different from other versions only in form. “They all lead to God in the end.”

This means to me that we all will eventually return to the experience of Love. What it doesn’t mean is that we all have to follow the same map. Wherever you are with ACIM and in your spiritual journey is absolutely perfect. What matters most for you is your willingness and desire for inner peace.

My willingness and desire for lasting peace and true happiness was ultimately what fueled my commitment to studying and then practicing the Course. My life and relationships were a mess! As hard as I tried, I hadn’t figured out how to make it better on my own.

The Course says that all you need is a “little willingness.” That “little willingness,” which is your deep desire for love, peace, and happiness, is what opens the door a crack and lets the Light in and gives you at least a glimmer of hope and remembering what that Light is like. The Light is simple, uncomplicated, Love. The Light is our true Identity. The Light is our Oneness with God and one another.

We are not meant to do it alone. What comes up as the door is open, though, is an unconscious fear in all its crafty forms — guilt, resentment, judgment, limiting belief, sadness, and loneliness.

Fear is referred to as the ‘ego’ in the Course. What are we afraid of? We are afraid of the Light. We are afraid of who we truly are. Why? Well, since I first began studying the Course that’s been a mystery to me honestly. I’ve often been puzzled that we could be so afraid of something so wonderful, so perfect. Something that we desire so deeply.

One reason I have come up with is that it’s too overwhelming, too bright in our current capacity. God knows that it would be too fearful for us to open that door wide open all at once. Fortunately, we have patient and gentle help in the form of a loving Inner Guide. You might call your Guide Holy Spirit, Jesus, or whatever term is meaningful to you currently.

Lean In.

The Course is Simple

Healing is Simple

Truth is Simple

Simple Uncomplicated Love

I learned that it was only complicated because I was trying to approach it from a need to understand it instead of a willingness to experience it as the bridge and path to healing that it is.

I wanted so badly to experience Love’s presence and I wanted it for everyone. So, I tapped into my burning desire to experience Love’s presence and became persistent, (tenacious really) about identifying and letting go of all that was blocking me and keeping me stuck and entangled in the illusory ego BS. The beauty of the Course curriculum is that it gently guides us through that process.

Simply put if you continue to approach the Course (and your relationships) with fear and judgment, it will continue to seem complicated and confusing and you’ll probably want to give up. If you step back, open your mind and then lean in to the Course’s loving message and process with self-compassion, patience, and willingness, it may begin to open up for you and your pathway to healing will be revealed step by step.

Rev. Cathy Silva is a Pathways of Light minister, Spiritual Relationship Counselor, Life Coach, and Author of the upcoming book “Loving One Another — There Must Be a Better Way!” living in Punta Gorda, FL. Email: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) Website: CathySilva.org

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

My Holiness Blesses the World

by Joyce Peebles, Ministerial Candidate

This is the lesson for today. I know I have seen this lesson many times over the years, because there are underlined sentences, different colors of markers, and notes in the margins from previous years. Yet today the lesson and thought for the day seem fresh and new, as if I had not seen it before. The focus of this lesson is my thoughts.

Chapter 27 of the Text, Section VII, tells us “of one thing you were sure: of all the many causes you perceived as bringing pain and suffering to you, your guilt was not among them.”

I don’t want to be guilty! Nobody does. We are taught as little children if we are guilty, we will get punished. ACIM does not appeal to the ego. The ego does not want us to look at the idea of guilt in ourselves. Its strategy is to project the guilt onto someone we perceive as outside of us.

We know the ego is not our amigo and certainly not interested in our highest good. For years the separation idea and guilt ideas did not feel real. They do now. Jesus says until we look at what we think we did, we cannot get out of the mess we made.

As an earlier student of the Course, I liked to quote the lesson, “I am not a body, I am free, I am as God created me.”

This sounded comforting, I was also deceiving myself because what I believed was mirrored to me by what I was seeing in the world I projected. Observing myself above the battleground, I certainly acted like I believed I was a body and with all my judgments, certainly not free. I did not see that every time I judged or made someone “out there” wrong, I was attempting to get rid of unconscious guilt and thereby keeping it. How could I be free when I was keeping my guilt intact and making myself a victim?

I thought I understood that I needed to resign my ego as my teacher. It is my habit to start the day with “The rules for Decision” as described in Chapter 30 of the Text, putting the Holy Spirit as my teacher. I guess I forgot that I now wanted the Holy Spirit’s guidance as it was not long in the day before I was judging and trying to throw off more guilt.

Today’s lesson tells us we are holy. I cannot believe this unless I choose to see myself and everyone else as innocent, no exceptions. If I believe, “I am as God created me,” I know I cannot ever be a victim because I am not a body. I choose to believe the separation is impossible. Again, I remember this is all happening in my Mind. I now ask the Holy Spirit to take away these distressing thoughts as they have not served Me.

One of the biggest benefits of studying A Course in Miracles is the gratefulness I feel as I practice forgiveness. Simply put, forgiveness looks at the “world” differently, judges it not, and sees me and others as innocent, reminding us who we really are. This is how our belief in guilt is dissolved. This is also the only way I believe I am Holy.

Joyce Peebles is a POL student from Hot Springs, AR .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

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

I Remember God’s Gifts to Me

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

A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 142 is a review of two previous ones.
“I thank my Father for His gifts to me” and “Let me remember I am one with God.”

As I sat with the first lesson, I closed my eyes and began to think about this.  Deeply. What are God’s gifts to me?  And they began to rise to my awareness; as I said them out loud to myself, I began to feel each one.  They are so many, and so good.  I realized that focusing and feeling these consistently can keep me in a state of fulfillment and oneness with God. The ones that were popping up like a water fountain and stood out more were these:

Peace, joy, power, grace, love, abundant good, security, happiness, purpose, eternity, communion with God all the time, connection, wholeness, truth, innocence, light, wisdom, vision, guidance, freedom, oneness.

I spent a few seconds with each of them realizing these gifts are more a state of being than what any object or person can provide me.  They cannot be taken away from me, but only I can renounce or seem to forget them.

To sit with this lesson and practice in stillness what God’s gifts can feel like is to remember who I am and to find what is already mine. I realize that I already have and am all of these and it’s my choice, moment to moment, to step into my true identity and experience the peace, the joy, the love… all of God’s gifts. And then I remember that I am one with God. I have it all.

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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