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Teacher and the Learner: Serving as a Pathways Facilitator

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

I have learned from my study of A Course in Miracles “that to teach is to learn, so that teacher and learner are the same.”

I have been having a powerful experience from serving as a facilitator in the Ministerial Curriculum. Five years ago while studying these courses for ordination as a Pathways minister, I was consumed with the peril of my son Kevin’s drug addiction. Now I am reading my answers from that time and sharing them with my “student” Mike. More than two years after Kevin’s death, I realize how clearly I was being guided by Spirit and was being prepared to see the tragic results with a different vision. I was learning the power of true forgiveness.

A father/son relationship could be considered a classic “special relationship” by Course teachers/students. Resentments and grievances abound when one or both of the men involved see the other as not fulfilling his contract as father or son. Fear of disappointing the other leads to conflict, anger, and feelings of guilt. Projection causes perception and I projected enormous fear.

While Kevin struggled as an opiate addict, I was engaged in a mind-training process with my inner Guide through the Pathways courses. I was being guided through each course by reading the literature, listening to guided meditations, and answering questions on how these metaphysical concepts applied to my life. I was being trained in how to turn to Spirit, my Higher Power, to see the true innocence of my son despite his aberrant behavior as a heroin addict. But this understanding of his true innocence as a perfect Child of God was not coming easily for me during that period.

When meeting recently by phone with my student/teacher, Mike, we shared our answers to the questions and our comments on the processes from a ministerial course. I was actually reading Holy Spirit’s advice to me written by my own hand about reacting to Kevin. I did not realize that I was being spiritually strengthened for the hard road ahead. My role and Mike’s as teacher/learner or facilitator/student seem to reverse at times or they blend together so they are indistinguishable. This is the same with Sharyn Zenz, who serves as my facilitator for Miracles Practitioner Courses. We are mind healing partners; both of us are the teacher and the learner.

A student of A Course in Miracles sees the world as a classroom. Sometimes I see it as a weight room or a gym. I have to do the work to get spiritually stronger and more flexible. Repetition is effective in mind healing. I need to keep practicing in order to advance to higher levels. My role as a course facilitator and spiritual counselor is helping me to build mind healing strength and flexibility.

Practicing with a mind healing partner helps with Self revelation. It takes me deeper. It is the entrance to a holy encounter. The more I practice these concepts with a brother, the healthier my thinking becomes. These healing thoughts bring me a happier dream. I am able to receive and extend love more consistently. I am more able to let go of the darkness of my dream and to still keep all Kevin’s love in my heart. Certainly this is no small gift.

I give much credit to the process of serving as a facilitator for helping me to deal with great tragedy. I feel gratitude for the strength that has been the effect of this process. I am more ready to pause, step back, step aside, and let Inspiration guide. The result is healing. I feel the emotion of gratitude and I want to share it with my brothers. My experience confirms that the teacher and the learner are the same.

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

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Ghosts, Monsters, Dragons and Police Officers

by Joanne Kraenzle Schneider, Ph.D., O.M.C. and Don Carver, Ph.D.

Just one and one-half miles from my home, there is a parking lot where I meet my running buddies. I drive this street nearly every day. A couple of days ago I was on my way to meet two of my running buddies. The sun was shining bright and the temperature was moderate. I was singing Neil Young’s “old man take a look at my life…” with the radio. Life was good and then when I was just about at the lot, out of the corner of my eye, a police car pulled out of its parking spot. Yup, busted! I pulled into the lot as usual as he pulled in behind me with his lights flashing and my running buddies standing there in their florescent yellow jackets with big grins on their faces. Busted again!

You know how the rest goes. I got a ticket for doing 43 in a 30. The police officer was nice and didn’t bust me for not having my driver’s license. The police officer was all business and did his job. Then we took off for our run.

Two miles into the run, when ticket experience crossed my mind, I was surprised by such a heavy feeling in my chest. I wasn’t able to immediately label this emotion but I described the feeling to my running buddies who proceeded to ask questions. Responding to the questions I recognized that I valued money and that I was going to waste about $125. Getting the ticket also symbolized to me that I was not a good girl, not perfect.

I finished the run and drove home (slowly), showered, and decided to sit with the emotion for a while. But by then it had dissipated enough that I could not recreate it.

The next evening I discussed this situation and the emotion involved with a Course friend. He reminded me about the dynamics of the ego and referred to that section in the Course. “No one can escape from illusions unless he looks at them, for not looking is the way they are protected. There is no need to shrink from illusions, for they cannot be dangerous. We are ready to look more closely at the ego’s thought system because together we have the lamp that will dispel it, and since you realize you do not want it, you must be ready.” (T-11.V.1:1-3)

My Course friend pointed out that the Course encourages us to look at our illusion, hold it in the light, put it on the table, and look at it. In my situation, I needed to ask myself what was under this heavy feeling. My running buddies were instrumental at helping me do this. I said aloud what was under the heavy feeling. “And how else can one dispel illusions except by looking at them directly, without protecting them?” (T-11.V.2:2) My Course friend went on to point out that any feeling that comes up is an opportunity to examine it or it will come up again and we must first look at it to undo it. “Let us be very calm in doing this, for we are merely looking honestly for truth. The ‘dynamics’ of the ego will be our lesson for a while, for we must look first at this to see beyond it, since you have made it real. We will undo this error quietly together, and then look beyond it to truth.” (T-11.V.1:4-6)

Then, as good friends do, he challenged me by reiterating with emphasis, “We will undo this error quietly together…” (T-11.V.1:6) Whoa, that was eye opening to me, my second lesson from this experience. Only then was I aware that I had not immediately turned to Jesus (or the Holy Spirit or God) to ask for a change in my perception. “The Bible tells you to become as little children. Little children recognize that they do not understand what they perceive, and so they ask what it means. Do not make the mistake of believing that you understand what you perceive, for its meaning is lost to you. Yet the Holy Spirit has saved its meaning for you, and if you will let Him interpret it, He will restore to you what you have thrown away. Yet while you think you know its meaning, you will see no need to ask it of Him.” (T-11.VIII.2:1-5) That is where I was. I believed I had figured it out and dealt with the emotion. Therefore, I had no need to ask for help. I had dissipated the emotion and moved on.

“Children perceive frightening ghosts and monsters and dragons, and they are terrified. Yet if they ask someone they trust for the meaning of what they perceive, and are willing to let their own interpretations go in favor of reality, their fear goes with them. When a child is helped to translate his ‘ghost’ into a curtain, his ‘monster’ into a shadow, and his ‘dragon’ into a dream he is no longer afraid, and laughs happily at his own fear.” (T-11.VIII.13:1-3)

Holy Spirit, help me trust that you will change my perceptions.

Reinterpret how I see this experience and help me learn the lessons YOU want me to learn.

Joanne Schneider is a Pathways of Light minister living in Festus, Missouri. Don Carver is an Interfaith New Thought Minister living in San Diego, California.

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

by Rev. Veronika Wilcox, O.M.C.

I have a planner
that is full of my plans.
Plans for this and plans for that.

I am fond of my planner.
It keeps me secure in the knowledge
That all is well in the future for me.

Where would I be without my planner?
Indeed, I might feel quite lost.
I might feel too free!

But soon I notice that all is not well.
There is somehow some tension.
My peace is not here.

I quiet my mind. I go within now
And ask Holy Spirit,
What I am to do now?

He smiles — one of His really
big smiles, and gently He says:

The future is Now.
Your thoughts in each moment
Are all you need watch.
Love or fear is all there is.

Only Love is real.
Only Love is present.
Therefore give Me your fear.

Rev. Veronika Wilcox is a Pathways of Light minister who lives in Merimbula, NSW, Australia.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Moving Our of the Darkness into the Light: It’s Called Awakening

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

I don’t know if you ever experience this, but after faithfully practicing ACIM lessons, giving my willingness to Holy Spirit to look at everything that didn’t bring me peace, I suddenly went into a deep funk. Call it disillusionment, despondency, crashing. It felt horrible, lonely, scarey and disorienting to say the least. I went into a panic. What if all that I am learning is not the truth? What if God isn’t real? What am I to do?

I’ve been so diligent in my practice and have been giving my willingness to Spirit, and look at me. What’s the use? Nothing seems to be working. Poor me. If I can’t trust Holy Spirit and I learned not to put my trust in the illusion, then what?

Well this is how I felt, but not for long. I thought that no matter what I am experiencing in the present, Holy Spirit has been my Guide. Why would I think Spirit would abandon me in this darkest of moments?

So I did the only thing I could and cried out, “Help me Spirit. I feel so lost, so alone, so confused, so unsettled.”

And I waited. What else could I do? Oh sure, I could find something to distract me. But I knew from past experience that would only delay the awakening process and probably end up sending me into a deeper funk.

Then I seemed to get an inner prompt to go to the section in the Manual for Teachers on Trust in the section titled, “What are the Characteristics of God’s Teachers?” So I did and lo and behold my eyes focused on the seventh stage of Trust in the Development of Trust on page 11 of the Manual for Teachers:

“…’A period of unsettling.’ Now must the teacher of God understand that he did not really know what was valuable and what was valueless. …Yet his own sorting out was meaningless in teaching him the difference. The idea of sacrifice, so central to his own thought system, had made it impossible for him to judge. He thought he learned willingness, but now he sees that he does not know what the willingness is for. And now he must attain a state that may remain impossible to reach for a long, long time. He must learn to lay all judgment aside, and ask only what he really wants in every circumstance.” (M-4.7:1-8)

Believe it or not, this was comforting for me and got me out of the funk. The development of trust section in the Manual seems like a blueprint for the awakening process — the stages of awakening from the dream. For the past few years I have been, with the help of Holy Spirit, sorting out the valueless from the valuable and have been relinquishing the valueless.

Did I really think I was done? Am I free of judgments and attachments to all that is not real? Not yet. I am still mindful of the judgments I have toward a brother and the attachment I have to holding onto this body. There is still much fear to the thought that I have to one day let this body go. And I have a choice; I could either fight it all the way and suffer or, I can also ask Holy Spirit to work with me on this, my greatest fear.

Again, I was comforted by Section 12, paragraph 5 in the Manual for Teachers titled,
“How many Teachers of God are needed to save the World?”

“The central lesson is always this; that what you use the body for it will become to you. Use it for sin or for attack, which is the same as sin, and you will see it as sinful. …Use it to bring the Word of God to those who have it not, and the body becomes holy. Because it is holy it cannot be sick, nor could it die. When its usefulness is done, it is laid by, and that is all. The mind makes this decision, as it makes all decisions that are responsible for the body’s condition. Yet the teacher of God does not make this decision alone. …God’s Voice will tell him when he has fulfilled his role, just as it tells him what his function is. He does not suffer either in going or remaining.”

Reading this was also so helpful and comforting in letting go of the attachment I have had to making the body my home. I see how I have used it for attack and how that made me sick. I see that I can use it for Holy Spirit’s purpose — to extend God’s Word into the world and serve in the awakening of the Sonship. What a holy function that is.

Because my only purpose is to awaken from the dream and return to my true Home, I can wait with patience and without anxiety because I am promised by Spirit that the outcome is certain. And the period of unsettling is only another stage in the awakening process before the period of achievement. This is cause for joy, not fear. Thank you, Holy Spirit.

So the next time I am in a funk, I will know not to panic; it’s only another period of unsettling which gives me another opportunity to give up what’s valueless and know that I am waking up.

Rev. Linda Wisniewski is a Pathways of Light minister living in Plymouth, Wisconsin.

© 2012, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice and website address are included.

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