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October-December, 2017

Reminding Myself Who I Am

by Rev. Peggy Rivera, O.M.C.

When I opened to A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson 56 for today I was so grateful that what I read was really what I needed to hear, “My attack thoughts are attacking my invulnerability.”

I had been feeling a little down because of some family misperceptions. I say misperceptions because I know from the Course that whenever I am unhappy about something I know it isn’t real, it is my perceptions from an unhealed mind.

If I get into the drama of picking apart all of the feelings of injustice that I feel, I can get lost in a dark and lonely dream. I have to remind myself who I really am and who we all are, and how we all get sucked in to the roles we play here on the earth plane.

When I remind myself that we make up these roles as we go along, but the truth of who we are as eternal Love is never changing, I can see there really isn’t anything to be upset about.

I realize that I have to go to Holy Spirit continually to help me see things differently. I need to let go of the image that I have created of myself so I can easily see the truth. As I let go of the image that I see in the world, I make room for seeing the reality of God and His Love for all of us. I see He doesn’t see the darkness I get wrapped up in because darkness does not exist in the light. In God’s Light there is only Love, joy, peace, beauty, creativity, etc. And He wants all of this for us. He gives all of this to us. When we get lost in the drama of the world, we don’t recognize God’s gifts. What a shame it is to miss out on all of His gifts.

I ask for my eyes to be opened to see only Love. I ask to be released from my fears and insecurity. I know that every time I begin to let myself fall back into the thoughts of the ego I will be judgmental of others and myself. It feels like being depressed and full of darkness. I love that, when I call on the help of Holy Spirit, my Higher Self, I am quickly and pleasantly reminded to see the beauty in everyone and everything. I know that I get to choose how I live — in peace and Love or in dark depression. I think that’s a no-brainer.

Rev. Peggy Rivera, O.M.C., is a Pathways of Light minister living in Palm Bay,FL 305-322-6610 Email:7seas@bellsouth.net Web: http://www.revpriveralifeministries 305-322-6610.

© 2017, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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October-December, 2017

Awakening Through My Special Relationships — The Happy Dream

by Rev. Linda LaCasse, O.M.C.

There are no words to describe the abundance of limitless peace, love and joy I am experiencing for having accepted the Atonement — the correction of my thoughts by Holy Spirit, but as a teacher of God I shall try.

The Atonement has been and continues to be the prayer and desire of my heart, my only goal, my only focus in this dream, which is truly a happy one now! I have no pain or conflict in my mind whatsoever; only peace, light, love and joy. True cause and effect as taught in ACIM.

In my last article published in Miracle News, I stated that my next article would be about my moving to the one state in the union I’d sworn all my life I’d never live, reflecting my vow to the ego to never live in a state of exquisite blissful peace and joy. This article contains my story about breaking my vow to myself to never move to Minnesota but it also contains a very unexpected, though much hoped for, happy surprise for breaking my vow to the ego.

In that last article, I’d also written of experiencing in my mind my unholy special love-hate relationship with a lover healed to a holy one. Since leaving that relationship in form and moving to Minnesota, I have never let go of the hope of one day being friends with this man, of seeing him beyond his body, for there is a connection that is so strong that I cannot forget him, no matter how often I have thought I wanted to. It’s not an obsession but simply the awareness that this man is always with me in everything I see and do and say; how I experience myself now as my Self. I’ve always known he is me and I am him and Spirit uses him to speak to me but now I am experiencing this truth on a much hoped for and grander scale than I could imagine.

Let’s start with my move nearly two years ago from Michigan, where I’d lived all my life of 53 years, to Minnesota. It had everything to do with my daughter, Stephanie who’d come here two years prior at age 22 to attend one of the world’s most renowned rehab facilities. She was in active addiction and heroin was her drug of choice.

In July of 2013, I put her on a plane to Minneapolis, not knowing when or even if I’d see her again. I’d already surrendered her to God, having let go and entrusting her journey to Him, for I’d come to completely accept that I did not know what her journey was to entail, where it was to take her or whether she was to continue in or release her body. I’d made peace with whatever it was to be.

I have zero doubt that my dedication to applying the Course’s teachings diligently and vigilantly and devoting my forgiveness work to Steph over the years is what saved her. Since her arrival in my dream, she has reflected my ego self from childhood into adulthood. But despite all the heartache, anguish, pain and suffering our relationship acted out for the both of us to see, never once did we hate each other nor banish the other from our love when so many other parents and children would have and did!

I believe it is because of applying the Course’s principles and accepting the Atonement for myself and all the world, and facing my darkness and allowing it to be healed that Steph is alive. She is not only alive, clean and sober for three years now and thriving, she is working her 12 Step program with willingness and dedication based on my demonstration of doing so with the Course.

She has brought into my dream my prophecy I had when pregnant with her 26 years ago. I thought for sure I was carrying a boy who was to be named Derek. But it turned out that it was Steph whom I was carrying. As my learned trust in and dependence on Divine design and timing would have it, Steph met the one whom she’d been aware of missing all her life — a young man also in treatment whose name is Derek.

Their meeting was one of instant recognition and their union is something holy to behold indeed! The same held true for him and me before meeting in person three years ago. We first met on Facebook messenger a few months prior. Derek, too, is three years clean and sober and the first man I have ever felt truly safe being my authentic self with! He is the son I foresaw all those years ago. It was upon his insistence that I move out here to be with Steph and him that I felt safe enough to trust Spirit’s guidance to break my vow to never move to Minnesota. I had questioned Spirit incessantly for a solid year what I was to do regarding the man I was involved with and He’d responded consistently with, “Do nothing but trust Me.”

For good measure, Spirit spoke to me through this man yet again. Intuitively knowing that I was being guided to take flight away from the form of our relationship as it was. But having no clue beyond that of how it was to play out, I informed my lover that I was doing so. We agreed to meet and talk. He told me to go to Minnesota to be with my daughter when I broke down in tears, telling him of her magical and enchanting light and love when she’s clean and sober and that I was missing it. I stopped crying and began laughing as I told him of my vow to never live there. I had no way of knowing that day that it would be the last time I saw or spoke to him. Or that my move to Minnesota was already in the works per Spirit’s Divine design and timing. It was just a matter of a few weeks until I was on my way. Spirit so clearly spoke to me through my lover that day.

After making my decision to move, I intuitively knew I had to end all contact with this man for fear I’d not go if I saw or spoke with him. Or worse, that my ego’s fear of my choosing to listen to God’s Voice over it would bring an unnecessary forgiveness lesson by projecting onto this man my fear of letting go and being let go of and forgotten.

Shortly thereafter, without a home or job lined up in Minnesota, I quit my job and broke my apartment lease, costing me $2400 and I didn’t care! It was my biggest leap of faith into the unknown yet and all prior ones were huge! All I could do was trust in and depend on my Source, my True lover, my True friend — Holy Spirit.
I’m leaving out much detail for the purpose of keeping this as brief as possible. All that’s truly necessary to share is how truly safe we are to let go and trust, to listen to and follow the prompts!

Yet again, I have been abundantly blessed to see and experience how absolutely wrong I was to ever energize fear based on my beliefs and self-concepts. I feared living in Minnesota because of my belief that the winters here are longer than Michigan’s. In fact, the last two since moving here in Sept 2015 have been milder and shorter. I give thanks and praise to Spirit for this! I absolutely love living here. It is beautiful and a veritable vortex of vibrant, healing energy. I was so meant to be in this state for it is truly reflective of the state of my mind.

Not only am I living with Steph and Derek in the same house, which was Derek’s desire and the one Steph was so clearly guided to find, but it is the happiest home the three of us have ever known. Steph wanted me to move here to experience what love in the form of a healthy, happy relationship looks like and she missed me as much as I did her. I am witness to their holy relationship being free of ownership, possession, control. Theirs is a love I never knew was possible. And I am so blissfully peaceful and joyfully content being the observer, the witness to God in action through these two mighty companions, and being included in their love. I am blessed with the glimpse of how God feels about all of us when we love each other and include Him in our relationships.

This brings me to tell of my unexpected, happy surprise. As a result of my absolute willingness to let all things be exactly as they are without judgment and to trust, I was yet again receiving prompting to reach out to the man whose form I left back in Michigan, the state reflecting my entire past in my mind. After resisting it for a year and a half since moving here for fear of rejection (ego backlash), I have been given the answer to my prayer and desire of my heart since meeting him. I reached out to him 3 months ago via text for the singular purpose of being and extending love with zero thoughts of reciprocity, of receiving anything from him, trusting that all I give I am truly and ultimately giving to my Self.

The effect of the cause, my changed mind about my Self, about Love Itself-God, is my holy relationship with my Self being acted out in form with this man, my lover whom I see now without the past, without judgment of myself or him. Thus I am free to see only our innocence. Being two states apart, we are together in form only by phone and it is enough, thus perfect. It is his voice and laugh I’d longed to hear, and now I can and do. It’s exactly as it is with God. I can hear His Voice for God is always with me, in everything I see, say and do and Spirit is still using this man to show me that my hope with him is now my ever present and constant experience — that our relationship reflects my relationship with God.

The Course teaches that I can only remember God, His love for me and mine for Him, by remembering my brother, his love for me and mine for him. And so it is with this man. I have learned that I never left him in his mind as he hasn’t mine, that he’s always loved me and is happy to welcome my return to him. It’s why I couldn’t forget him because God would never let me forget Him.

Of all the words in the Course, the ones I learned early on to value and hold near and dear are these paraphrased: True forgiveness is remembering all the thoughts of love I ever gave and were given me and all else must be forgotten.

This is my experience now of my world. It is the happy dream. I hold all the world in my thoughts of peace, light, love and joy and want this experience for ALL my brothers.

Praise be to God for keeping His promise via Holy Spirit that once I accept His plan for salvation, there will be nothing else Holy Spirit will not arrange for me without my effort… that I need take thought for nothing and am to be careless of everything except the only function I would fulfill — forgiveness, for it truly is the key to God’s will for you, me, us — happiness!

I have no way of knowing if my lover and I are to be reunited in form beyond the phone but it doesn’t matter. The fear of not knowing is just gone!

Though we hope to be at some point and trust that all things are possible with love, we are in complete agreement that the love we are and are one with is eternal and can never be taken from us. And for us, the awareness that love is all there is is enough!

Rev. Linda LaCasse is a Pathways of Light minister living in Eagan, MN. Email: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

© 2017, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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October-December, 2017

Egoland

by Rev. Maura Williams, O.M.C.

Once in a while I hear a fellow Course student say something like, “This is all a dream, so it doesn’t really matter.” For whatever reason, that thinking doesn’t work for me. If I think I’m a body and I’m experiencing a problem, I can’t just dismiss it with a statement like that. It does matter because healing takes place on an ego level. I must bring my illusion to Truth. I can’t just cast off my illusion as unreal and be done with it.

Sometimes it feels like life requires too much of me. Sometimes I want to get away from everyone and everything in my life. Sometimes it feels like everything is spinning out of control and I’m lost in a disconcerted state of confusion. I suddenly realize, I am trying to protect myself, defend myself or in some other way, trying to avoid dealing with a perceived enemy or problem.

It’s times like these I begin to realize exactly what I’m doing. I’m fighting. I’m resisting. I’m shaking my head, “No” and pounding the air with my fists. I’m stomping my feet and throwing a fit and I’m wasting an horrendous amount of time and energy and I am stuck in egoland.

There is a better way. It has taken me a long time to learn this way. It is a gentle way, a quiet way, a way of letting go.

First, I remember I am the only one who can control my thoughts. My thoughts are totally up to me. Then I remember the world I see is the ego world and if I’m upset I’ve been using the ego thought process. I remember everything outside of me is not who I truly am. And then I remember who I am. I may need to close my eyes to get a break from all of the visual stimulation. It only takes a minute and I’m reassured of who and what I am. I am created in the image and likeness of God. God is love. I am a part of His Love. This is the truth about me.

Now I’m able to bring the crazy world I see to Truth. Nothing has changed outside of me but inside I’ve remembered something important:  I won’t find peace or comfort outside of me. “The Comforter of God is in me.” (ACIM, T-11.II.7:8) I can allow the Holy Spirit to help me bring the the error I see to Truth by remembering this. This is a change of mind. This is the gentle, quiet way of letting go of the world. This is a miracle. I’m very grateful and I’m at peace.

Holding on to peace in ego land is why what happens here matters. The Course asks me a very important question: “Would I rather be a hostage of the ego or Host to God?” (T-11.II.7:1)

As much as I would like to deny my experience here, egoland is where healing happens. Healing is not necessary anywhere else but here.

Maybe I’ll get to the place someday that I can easily discount what’s happening before my physical eyes, but for now, learning to let the Holy Spirit help me see things differently is what works for me. Remembering my brothers and I are Hosts to God is what helps me walk in peace through ego land. 

Judgment

Living in the world without judgment is just about impossible. I judge everything my senses sense. I make my judgments very sweetly sometimes. A friend recently commented that she sometimes dresses her judgments up, and calls them opinions.

We think we use our judgments to organize our lives and ourselves. This world is a dualistic world. It would be impossible to survive here without judgment, but we need to recognize how faulty our judgments are, how wrong we are sometimes. Accepting this as true allows me to form opinions, make choices and otherwise judge without taking myself too seriously. I try not to cling too tightly to my judgments. This way I can allow the Holy Spirit to work with me and through me showing me the way I see things is not always the way they are. My judgments of others are nothing more than my projections of my judgments of myself.

“You have no idea the tremendous release and deep peace that comes from meeting yourself and your brothers totally without judgment. When you recognize what you are and what your brothers are, you will realize that judging them in any way is meaningless. In fact their meaning is lost to you precisely because you are judging them. All uncertainty comes from the belief that you are under the coercion of judgment. You do not need judgment to organize your life, and you certainly do not need it to organize yourself. In the presence of knowledge all judgment is automatically suspended, and this is the process that enables recognition to replace perception.” (T-3.VI.3:1-6)

I don’t always know what’s best. Admitting I don’t know helps me suspend my judgments in whatever pretty costumes I’ve put on them. The world is constantly changing. Truth never changes. God is still Love. Every man is still my brother and we are still one.

Rev. Maura Williams, O.M.C., is a Pathways of Light minister who lives in Hot Springs, Arkansas. Email: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

© 2017, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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October-December, 2017

Remembering We Are Being Carried

by Robert and Mary Stoelting

We would like to share our journey with Holy Spirit holding our hand through our recent hurricane “Irma” experience:

Because we live in Ormond Beach, Florida, (which is just north of Daytona Beach) we tend to keep a watch during hurricane season of the potential weather patterns that would give us advance notice so we could prepare for any hurricanes coming our way.

As we were told that hurricane Irma was a category 5 and was going to come up through the middle Florida, we started to pay attention. We became concerned because when we went through hurricane Matthew last year, we evacuated to Tallahasee and were glad that we were able to find a room before everything filled up.

This year there are five of us living here plus four pets that needed to be cared for. And we knew that most hotels do not take pets. Because we know that every “perceived problem” needs to be taken to the Holy Spirit, we needed to do this ourselves and as a group, again and again throughout this whole process.

In A Course in Miracles we are reminded that to heal we need to remove our barriers to the awareness of Love’s Presence. The hurricane experience was excellent “lab time” to practice bringing all our fears (which came up frequently) to the Holy Spirit to receive His vision in place of the ego’s fearful perceptions.

It was also a wonderful opportunity to keep going to peace and receive inspiration for each step as peacefully as we could through the experience. The more we were willing to practice opening to peace, the easier pieces fell into place.

As we watched the hurricane move towards Florida, we observed fear thoughts as they came up for healing. The changing projected direction of the storm meant that we needed to go to Higher Wisdom to be guided what to do in the dream.

The five of us (Debra, Colleen and Deb Fee, Robert and Mary — plus three dogs and a cat) came together and went to peace. We each shared inspiration we received from Spirit. Even though early projections showed the eye coming directly over our location, we were guided to stay rather than evacuate. The final outcome showed the value of Holy Spirit’s Wisdom.

We were consistently reminded throughout the experience that we are always being carried. Our main job is to pay attention to Holy Spirit’s inspiration in each present moment. When we found ourselves getting wrapped up with the intensity of the hurricane story, we practiced stepping back and asking Holy Spirit for guidance. This helped us keep our focus on what was truly helpful in the moment for the five of us here.

Some examples of how we were inspired in the moment were:

1. Early on we were inspired to email our neighbor to tell him that we were going to stay and ride it out instead of leaving. He emailed us back telling us that he was going to board up his windows by Saturday. We had not thought that we would ever need to board up our windows so far inland and so far north here in Florida. He came over and showed us what we needed to buy and how to do it correctly so that it would be secure.

All the big box places like Home Depot and Lowes were already out of plywood and hurricane supplies. By being quiet and asking Holy Spirit’s perspective, the idea came that there was a lumberyard just four blocks from us that contractors used. We went there immediately and found that they had everything we needed. (The next day they were closed because they were sold out.)

2. Our generator wouldn’t start, no matter what we tried when we got it out to test. We contacted every generator repair place we could find. Colleen then was guided to go to a lawn mower repair shop nearby and the clerk there told her of an excellent repair man who would tell her how to fix it herself and what to buy if needed. Colleen called him and, after describing the problem in detail to him he told her exactly what to do and it worked. We were helped when needed many times.

At 10 p.m. Sunday night, the electricity went out. As the intense wind and a foot of rain passed through overnight, fear thoughts again came up about a tree falling on the guest house. Holy Spirit reminded us again and again that we were being carried and that, in reality, we are safe.

We got our electricity and Internet back on Monday at 9:30 p.m. We all cheered! We are in good spirits and looking forward to getting back to normal soon.

In a nutshell, no big trees came down, but a big branch came off a tree that went through the screen on our back patio and landed in the pool. Lots of big and small tree branches litter the grounds, but no serious damage. Colleen pulled the big oak tree branch out of the pool and hauled it to the street. What a treasure she is! We have appreciated Debra, Colleen and Deb being here so much.

Revs. Robert and Mary Stoelting are co-founders of Pathways of Light over 28 years ago. They reside in Ormond Beach, Florida, where they, along with a Pathways of Light team, continue to operate the office and publish the quarterly Magazine .
E-mail: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

© 2017, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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