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October-December, 2012

Healing Trust with Love

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

There was a time in my life that I could not trust anyone. I was so afraid to open up to people.
Through the Holy Spirit we can learn to trust in Him and through Him we learn to trust ourselves.

Living in fear is one of the greatest ploys the ego has to keep us locked into our need to be in control of the world we create. As long as we listen to the ego we will not be able to find the peace and joy that it takes to heal our ability to trust.

On page 55 of the Text it says, “The ego is afraid of the spirit’s joy, because once you have experienced it you will withdraw all protection from the ego, and become totally without investment in fear. …Listen only to God, Who is as incapable of deception as is the spirit He created. Release yourself and release others. Do not present a false and unworthy picture of yourself to others, and do not accept such a picture of them yourself.” (T-4.I.10:1,5-7)

When I listened to the antics created by my ego, I became fearful and defensive. I thought, to survive in this body on this planet I need to do whatever it takes to do so.

This starts forming early on in our lives and we learn survival skills as children. We react to our world through the projections of those around us. We begin to lose touch with our Creator, our Source, and we start to become bound by an invisible force that winds us tighter and tighter in the darkness of despair. Before you know it you wonder how you got to such a place.

When I quiet my mind and ask God to help me find my way back to His Love, I can hear the sweet kind voice of the Holy Spirit leading me back to the awareness of Who I really am and Who my brothers are. I realize that they also were enmeshed in the ego fears and I could see them differently.

I could pray for them instead of judging them. I could project Love instead of hate. I could see them as our Father sees us — Whole, Love, Joy. Now as I look upon my brothers, I see my reflection. I trust in them as I trust in God.

On page 135 of the Text it says, “The Holy Spirit is perfectly trustworthy, as you are. God Himself trusts you, and therefore your trustworthiness is beyond question.” (T-7.X.6:1-2)

Our Father wants only joy for us. If we are experiencing anything else, it does not belong to us because anything outside of Love does not exist.

Rev. Peggy Rivera, O.M.C., is a Pathways of Light minister living in Palm Bay, Florida. Websites: http://www.rev.priveralifeministries.com and www.peggyrivera1mt.com

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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October-December, 2012

My Latest Teacher Is a Dog

by Rev. Susan Lewis, O.M.c.

When I get up this morning, our dog is whining in her crate in the dining room, a pan of rice is on the stove and there’s a note from my husband on the table. “Have taken Katy out 2X and fed her rice. Sorry to leave you the (poopy) mess on dog cushions, now in garage. Ran out of time.”

Sigh. The body’s senses report that our two-year-old rescue dog obviously had to go again after my husband left, which is why she’s standing up in her crate, whining and wagging her tail guiltily (my projection). I clean it up, pop the cushions in the washing machine and take her outside.

Did I mention that we had to purchase a rug cleaning machine last month because this messy drama has played out so often since Katy came to us six months ago? Ugh. This should not be happening again… I cannot do this anymore, I think for the umpteenth time in months.

I notice that I am arguing with form and remember that this never brings peace. Sitting down, I take a deep breath, close my eyes and soften my body. I repeat Lessons 5, 6 and 7 from the Workbook, as I am often guided to do these days: “I am never upset for the reason I think. I am upset because I see something that is not there. I see only the past.” Once again, Holy Spirit returns me to peace by reminding me that I am making this illusory drama real.

I call my husband (who’s also a Course student) to say good morning. He apologizes, saying he thinks Katy must have eaten something “bad” when he was walking her and he didn’t pull her away fast enough. I remind him that no one is to blame for this ongoing ego drama and that we will never resolve it by taking on the guilty cloak of responsibility. He agrees and we let it go.

As I write this, the helpful reminder from the Opening Preparation of the Pathways courses comes to me: I am willing to look at my life circumstances as helpful feedback that tells me where there is still a need to heal my mind.

Katy, who came into our lives through Holy Spirit’s gentle invitation, has certainly been a catalyst for healing my mind. About six months ago I was in the car with my son when the words came out of my mouth: “We’re going to get a dog.” Nobody was more surprised than me to hear these words. I hadn’t planned to say them but as soon as they were out I knew it was true and had a feeling that we were in for one of those ‘sorting out what’s real and what isn’t’ lessons.

About a month later, Katy arrived. She’s a two-year-old “rescue” who is sensitive, sweet-natured and wants very much to please. She can also be fearful and anxious. (Gosh, she sounds a lot like me!) Katy’s forgiveness invitations that have challenged every member of our family, including the cat, and have included cat chasing, car chasing, leash pulling, jumping up on people, growling and barking at strangers, getting on furniture when nobody’s around, squeaking her toys when I’m on the phone, interrupting me when I’m trying to meditate, and this loose bowels situation, which feels like a real deal-breaker to the ego.

Yet the gift Katy has opened up for me is to help me see how the guilt of separation continues to play itself out in a fantasy of personal responsibility on my part. I get hooked whenever I imagine that I am in charge of Katy’s well-being or that she can affect mine. When “I” can’t figure out how to make her do what I need her to do, I believe I’m justified in getting frustrated and angry. To top it off, I feel ashamed for getting angry at the innocent dog who is just doing what she’s doing. And because I decided that “I” am in charge and not Holy Spirit, the idea that giving Katy back to the rescue organization unearths another limiting belief: Good people don’t abandon those in need. So I’m damned no matter what I try to do — the ego’s creed of ‘seek but do not find,’ as the Course puts it.

It’s now one week later and I see clearly that Holy Spirit is using Katy’s presence in my life to invite me to bring every guilty, angry limiting belief to Him so that I can deepen my commitment to choosing peace in all circumstances. He has made it possible for me to let go of needing to decide how to survive this canine whirlwind and just take it moment by moment. As I look in Katy’s beautiful brown eyes, I feel very deeply the great gift of healing that she has made possible, and I am so grateful. I don’t know where our family and Katy will end up, and I no longer need to know. Today we had a beautiful walk and a ride in the car. It wasn’t perfect but it was good. Right now Katy’s taking a snooze behind my chair and I’m glad she’s here. That is enough. All is well. Thank you, Holy Spirit.

Rev. Susan Lewis, O.M.C., is a Pathways of Light minister living in Hiram, Maine.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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October-December, 2012

Forgiveness

by Rev. Georgeann Medved, O.M.C.

Lesson 249 of A Course In Miracles says, “Forgiveness ends all suffering and loss.” This is true as spiritual destruction is the act of hanging on to grudges and old resentments. There is no spiritual release and relief until I release myself from the harmful, negative, get even and grudging feelings I harbor. There is also no way I can overemphasize the spiritual vulnerability that comes from hanging on to resentments. Resentment is my most perilous enemy.

The one word I should always clutch close to my divine heart (my care) is that I free myself spiritually for healing and health.

As a spiritual abuser I resent myself and therefore resent my divine core, which is God. It is pertinent and cleansing to remind myself that if I don’t forgive myself for my shortcomings and I don’t forgive my brothers as God lovingly forgives, my heart is not open to receive my brother’s forgiveness. Therefore, I am stuck in the muck of negative spiritual attitudes that can destroy my spiritual foundation.

I must daily remind myself that, “to err is human and to forgive is divine,” and that forgiveness comes only through forgiveness and, “ends all suffering and loss.”

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

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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October-December, 2012

What Lies Beyond

by Rev. Sherry Jonckheere, O.M.C.

Who are we? At the surface we are a conglomeration of feelings, emotions, experiences and unexplainable coincidences. Day by day we move through a world rocketing back and forth between an assortment of thoughts and feelings. Fear and love; life and death; God and ego. Fear thoughts bring us to those places within us that say, “Stop — do not go any further!” These are instantaneous glimpses at the death of the ego. The ego shrouds this fact with a worldly fear of some kind, but when I take it to truth, it is revealed that a fear thought is nothing more than the ego’s survival mechanism — it says, “This is too scary for you. Only I know what’s best for you. I’ll take control here and tell you what to believe and keep you safe.”

But if we are willing to take a non-judgmental look at the fear thought and feel the feelings that arise in us, truth would be revealed and “the jig would be up” for the ego. The light of truth would expose this experience to be nothing more than an illusory signal from the ego.

“Sunlight is the best disinfectant” -Justice Louis Brandeis

When we find ourselves at the edge of fear, we have so many rote responses that the ego has habituated in us that we don’t even think — we believe the thought, react and flee back into the darkness from whence we came. But what if in that instant of panic we stop and become willing to look at what is really going on? What if we consciously choose to slow down the process and our response to fear and look again, and then choose again? What if at the edge of the abyss we just keep walking forward and move beyond? What if?

If we are willing to see that the dark frightening place we find ourselves in is not that scary after all but merely a thin veil of darkness that is blocking the light of truth, then we open ourselves to another possibility. Beyond the blackness is a place the ego ceases to exist. The ego knows this and gives you every scary bodily sensation and dark thought to keep you from moving into the light and past its scope of reasoning and control.

“Yet God can bring you there, if you are willing to follow the Holy Spirit through seeming terror, trusting Him not to abandon you and leave you there. For it is not His purpose to frighten you, but only yours. You are severely tempted to abandon Him at the outside ring of fear, but He would lead you safely through and far beyond.” (ACIM T-18.IX.3:7-9)

So what happens when we move beyond the edge of darkness and find ourselves in the light of truth? Do we let Love reign or get sucked back into the ego’s game?

If we choose the journey of awakening, then the responsibility is ours. The onus is on us to stay open in every moment and become consciously aware of our thoughts and feelings, and what we are choosing to believe about the experiences that come up in our day to day lives. We have a responsibility to believe in ourselves and learn to love ourselves through anything.

If we don’t know how, we can start by loving those parts of us that we are trying to keep in the dark. We can love ourselves for hating ourselves. We can love ourselves for losing a job and love ourselves for feeling like a failure. We can love ourselves for feeling ugly and unwanted. We do this by simply saying, “I love myself for not knowing how to love myself” or whatever we find we are dealing with in the moment. Own it and love it. See it and shine light on it.

When we resist experiences that bring up feelings of fear, insecurity, or anger we close down and these feelings become trapped and hardened in our reality. We play these stuck feelings out over and over again — bringing the past into the present — until we can look on them with awareness and love them and let them go.

Linear time allows us to learn, to experience and to awaken to truth. If we try to avoid the pitfalls and seeming prickly places of life, we find that our road is a long, winding, terrifying ego ride that never ends. We will ironically find that around the next corner is another terrorizing experience that looks very similar to the difficulty we thought we had just escaped. There it sits — the hardened, immovable, reoccurring boulder in the middle of the road — and the opportunity to choose again. So go for it! Love the boulder. Love the journey. Love your temporary amnesia, and love your remembering and your reawakening to truth once more. What was once a boulder but now given space, acceptance and love is now in reality only a speck of dust, and easily dissolved in the light of truth and let go.

When we own our experiences and become willing to open our hearts and free our minds from what we thought was, we come to know ourselves and see “what is.” We feel the infinite moment and come Home again. And, every time we forget and find ourselves back in the dark, we only need love ourselves for forgetting, and then love ourselves for remembering again.

“When you approach the edges you feel insecurity, jealousy, fear, or self-consciousness. You pull back, and if you are like most people, you stop trying. Spirituality begins when you decide that you’ll never stop trying. Spirituality is the commitment to go beyond, no matter what it takes. It’s an infinite journey based upon going beyond yourself every minute of every day for the rest of your life. If you’re truly going beyond, you are always at your limits. You’re never back in the comfort zone. A spiritual being feels as though they are always against that edge, and they are constantly being pushed through it.”
—The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself by Michael A. Singer

Our function is to awaken to Love, to share Love’s Presence and come Home. Living in the world while waking up takes linear steps, and we will find that the first, second, and even third step is a doozy. But having the courage to stay open, try again, keep walking through, and remember to love ourselves along the way while we laugh, play and dance makes the journey a joyful one, and ultimately reveals to us that we are, in fact, already at our destination. We are Home — safe and sound, as always.

Rev. Sherry Jonckheere, O.M.C., is a Pathways of Light minister living in Brighton, Michigan.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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