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January-March, 2013

Feeling Gateful Before Thanksgiving

by Rev. Larry Glenz, O.M.C.

I am grateful to A Course in Miracles, certainly. I am grateful that it taught me about the power of gratitude. It seems to me that gratitude comes so much more naturally to me than it used to. I most certainly give credit to the process of turning to Holy Spirit for guidance — a practice that has developed in me from participating in Pathways of Light courses, attending ACIM study groups, and spending time quietly with the intention of connecting with my Creator.

On Monday, October 29, Hurricane Sandy smashed into my home town with unprecedented force. Long Beach is a barrier island less than a half mile wide, located on the south shore of Long Island, just outside New York City. I live just across a quiet road from a fantastic white sand beach on the North Atlantic Ocean, protected by large stone jetties and a two mile-long boardwalk. I always feel like I live in one of the great places on earth.

A mandatory evacuation order was issued by the state and county governments. My home is on the lower level of a townhouse condo. We have two floors and the lower one received 4.5 feet of ocean water — making a mess of my home and a disaster for our city on the sea. The sand from the beach covered the island, the boardwalk crumpled, and the ocean and the bay rushed toward each other in a fury wiping out everything on the ground level. Homes, restaurants, stores, hospitals were all badly damaged. No power, no water for weeks, and enormous piles of garbage emerged as residents returned to start the clean-up. Cars that did not evacuate were totaled.  For some, it could not have been much worse — they lost everything. I feel fortunate that my upper floor, which is the main living place, remained untouched by sea water.

Incredibly, a powerful nor’easter followed the next week with snow and high winds causing further damage to already weakened structures, downing more power lines and sabotaging cleanup efforts. The gallows humor going around was that “an infestation of locusts should be coming next week.”

I have been able to feel grateful during this time. We stayed with my wife’s parents for 15 nights and I was happy to be living with people whom I love and who enjoyed helping us in a time of need. With little or no gasoline available after the storm, a good friend lent me a bicycle so I could exercise, get to work or run errands around town. People came out of the woodwork offering help to those of us who were dispossessed. Disasters seem to bring the best out of many people. We were allowed to feel the love of many people who reached out. When seen correctly, it was a great opportunity to practice forgiveness and express gratitude.

I have been able to focus on how lucky I am during this crisis. I didn’t really have to work on it too hard. People just seemed to show up. A neighbor’s son-in- law stepped up and organized the flood clean-up. Another neighbor had access to electricians and heating/AC compressors. Verizon brought in workers from around the country to Long Island to rewire for phones, TV, and internet access. Someone else found a good price on replacing garage and rear doors. Insurance companies offered help quickly in cash advances to those in greatest need.

Signs of renewal are taking place everywhere as huge piles of garbage get carted away from the front of resident’s homes. Recovery is uneven with some in worse shape than others but the signs of rebirth from this devastation abound. The attitude and actions of service to one another is an inspiring sign that people are strong and resilient when united in a common cause.

Gratitude is the appropriate response and solution to this crisis. We are helping each other out. Happy Thanksgiving everyone! ❦

Rev. Larry Glenz, O.M.C., is a Pathways of Light minister living in Long Beach, New York.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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January-March, 2013

Why Is God Laughing?

by Bobbie Montgomery

Workbook lesson 12 says, I am upset because I see a meaningless world. I see a world where a life ends — and then ends up in a vacuum cleaner bag (a spider). And then ends up in that bag forever, at the dump. A glorious life, forever in a vacuum cleaner bag, at the dump. This can’t be real. That kind of stuff can only happen in dreams.

Being concerned about a spider ending its life in a bag at the garbage dump is a viewpoint that could be considered fatalistic. I can go there sometimes! When things jump out and strike my consciousness and when I’m feeling unmanageable.

At those times I want to say maybe this world is more powerful than God! God doesn’t seem to have much power here. For goodness’ sake, I can’t even control my own self! My own actions aren’t even under my own control! From a dead spider to complete defeatism in 2.7 seconds. Just what the ego wants. It’s all according to plan.

Holy Spirit, how do I do differently when I can’t do differently? I don’t know what anything is for. I don’t even know what I am for. The queen is lost, has amnesia, and is wandering in the gutter. The kingdom is looting and pillaging. Like some crazy, kookie, cartoon carnival everything is running amok! A whirling vortex of insanity, a mirrored merry-go-round.

But into the middle of that whirling world, I can close my eyes, immediately stopping the projection and say, “Come, Holy Spirit. I need a miracle. Please heal my mind, and please show me Your way, show me Reality.”

The Holy Spirit, with laser-beam clarity, will say something like, Perception seems to teach you what you see. Yet it but witnesses to what you taught. (T-24.VII.8:8-9) Yet can perception serve another goal.

It is not bound to specialness but by your choice. And it is given you to make a different choice, and use perception for a different purpose. (T-24.VII.11:10-12)

Instant flip. Instant peace. Instant miracle, because I know that I have created this with an unhealed ego mind. It isn’t a problem — it isn’t even real. But it can be used by the Holy Spirit. Its purpose can change, and I can be healed — I can awaken, together with my Brothers and Sisters. And a dead spider in a vacuum cleaner bag can go down in history as a Dead Bug Healing, and I can understand why God is laughing, and I can laugh too. ❦

Bobbie Montgomery is Pathways of Light minister candidate living in Vancleave, Mississippi.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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January-March, 2013

Sickness Becomes a Spiritual Adventure

by Anne Mepham

I woke up early one November morning feeling very unwell. My head hurt, I was shaking and felt sick. I said nothing to my husband who brought me a cup of tea, as he has every day of our 20 year marriage, with just one exception when he was working abroad.

I lay there quite puzzled. I really shouldn’t be sick and really did not expect to be sick. Nevertheless, herewith I was struggling with it!

I forced the tea down and my husband went off to work, oblivious to my plight. He had a long day ahead of him beginning with a long drive to an important meeting, so he had enough to think about.

I was by now feeling much worse and was in and out of the bathroom and feeling very weak. When I heard my husband’s car pull away around 6:30 a.m., I began to pray in earnest. I have, for a long time now, relied on prayer to sort me out when needed and to guide me through my day. Prayer, for me, is going to God to hear about Her goodness, thinking about God’s goodness and then listening for what She would have me know.

The first thing I heard was Consciousness is What I Am. I felt immediate excitement, I thought, yes, the Christ Consciousness is my consciousness, is my Nature, and my Being. It is completely separate from the human picture.

The little ego, I thought, has no consciousness, has no power whatsoever to hurt or influence me in any way. The Christ is free and not imprisoned by decisions made by human will or mortal influence. God’s children are free, I thought, and not bound by the confines of materiality of any kind.

I thought about the physical body. Something I had read years before came to mind about how what we see as a human body has no intelligence and no awareness of what it is doing. It doesn’t know if it’s standing up or if its sitting down. Of course, I thought, neither does it know if it is sick or well, in fact neither can it be sick or well.

I was loving what I was hearing. I sank down into the covers, realising that I had so much to be grateful for. Here I was not well, but in such a comfortable bed with every comfort that I could wish for, my home, my husband, and my surroundings so pleasant. All, I reasoned, God’s wonderful way of caring for me.

It must have been around 8:30 a.m. by now so I decided to wash my face and go downstairs. I was still in my dressing gown, not feeling well enough to dress. I lay down on the settee.

Again I felt immense gratitude for all the comfort of my home. My thoughts went through some of the lovely ideas which had come to me a short while before.

The next time I looked at the clock it was 10:00 a.m. I was feeling fine, no pain, and no sickness. Just felt wonderful. I went upstairs to dress. I had a cup of tea and a couple of biscuits and spent the rest of the day until 4:00 p.m., working on Assignment 201: Adventure into the Sacred Life – Introduction to Spiritual Ministry.

I then remembered that I had no lunch, so I made up for that and then enjoyed a meal later that evening with my husband.

The day had been quite an adventure. ❦

Anne Mepham is a Pathways of Light ministerial candidate living in Howden, East Yorkshire, United Kingdom.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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January-March, 2013

Walk Lightly

by Rev. Mary Gerard Lenihan, O.M.C.

I am learning the lessons of not to be afraid of this journey through fear and not to judge the path or the point on the path, where I find myself or where I perceive another to be. For it is here I need to turn to Holy Spirit for help.

Peaks and valleys and everything in between we trek in this world. Remembering to not fret over desert landscapes, for in not judging the desert I will have no regrets and it will pass. For even in what appears as the greatest darkness there is an even greater Light. For though moments of separation may appear with trap doors and boarded up windows, behind, above, beneath and all around is God’s Love. Our awareness of this Love increases as we are willing to be His vessel. God is living inside all of us.

And so here we are, traversing the valleys of darkness and the mountaintops of Joy, all for the sole purpose of learning to love one another. Let me not judge myself or another for wherever we appear to be on our path.

The Christ speaks:

No one in one’s personhood can walk the Path of Great Light. It is not possible. You of your own accord cannot walk this Path. I say to you that whom you believe yourself to be is a false belief and a savior who cannot save. Yet you mistake it to be you and think you must save yourself so that you do not die! And every step feels like death because it is a step made in seeming self-fulfillment — the ego’s greatest temptation, greatest fear, greatest accomplishment and yet greatest disappointment. For it is not the false self that is fulfilled by that which I give you, for I give you to remember your True Self.

Joy is never the end, only a beginning. We will never come to the end of our True Self.  Recently during several days of awareness with Spirit clearly present in my mind, I witnessed “my” being. There is no death. Joy is not the end of the Path. Immersion in the Totality of Peace is the beginning, and yet this too will seem to end as the ego attempts to alter points in time and space. Let it be. Being is with this too. The cycle appears to be one of Love and death and so we experience it as such, and yet it is much more. I do not believe I know all about God. I have faith, however, that God knows all about me. This is my greatest joy that I am known and we are all known. I trust this is so.

Jesus’ words, “Love one another as I have loved you” may be received as,

“Be present to one another as I am present with you.” To be present is to be aware of God’s presence. To be present to another is to be aware of God’s presence in this one. This is true forgiveness for it brings with it an awareness of our true Being. In awareness of our Being, we come to know we are known, for this awareness is the experience of being known. Experiencing being known is the experience of True Love. Such is the meaning of “be present.”

I heard Spirit speak, “Walk lightly and carry a Big Love.” ❦

Rev. Mary Gerard Lenihan is a Pathways of Light minister living in St. Louis, Missouri. She is author of the books Visions of Illumination, The Mentor Within and the inspiring new CD Album WNYHOO Now!. Web site: http://www.pauseforinspiration.org

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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