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Transforming Your Life

Here is a good question for you. Are you happy with your life? If you were to die tomorrow would you feel satisfied with what you have accomplished, with the way you have lived your life? It?s kind of funny, but one of the things that got me moving in my life was reading the obituaries, which, by the way, was a practice my kids thought was pretty morbid. As I tried to explain to them, at a certain time in your life this is as good a way as any to keep up with old classmates and acquaintances.

But anyway, one day while I was reading the obituaries, I wondered what my obituary would say, and realized it would be really short. I?m not saying I had not done anything with my life, but it did make me start thinking about how I would feel if I died today. What could be said of my life? I set an intention at that moment to do something about my obituary. I decided to live my life in such a way that I would leave a legacy when I went.

This was not a well formed intention, but it was an open door and I went through it. We are Sons of a Creative Force and therefore we are creative, as well. Our intentions are powerful, and if followed through, will transform our lives. Rev. Jack Boland said, ?March forth-and transform your life. Be the person God intends you to be.?

I can?t say that at the moment of the original intention I began marching forward. That was more of an intention to set an intention, but even that was enough to set my life in a new direction. The Universe wants us to succeed, and will conspire to assure our success with only the least invitation.

However, the Universe does not do it for us; It does it with us. Setting an intention is the important first step, but it is just one step. Once we decide to be the person God intends us to be, He provides us with all the support we will ever need. Previously closed doors open, but we must walk through them.

An important thing I learned was that transformation does not take place outside me; it is the work of the mind. Oh, I can learn to use the power of intention to manipulate my world; my job, my finances, my health, my home, all of that. But this doesn?t really change anything. It is like a child spending endless hours rearranging building blocks. It may be entertaining for awhile, and distracting, and even briefly satisfying. But at the end of the day, you just have building blocks. And after all the hard work, someone can just come along and knock them over.

The kind of change I am talking about is real. Change your mind and your world changes. Bring your thoughts in alignment with God?s plan for you, and the world sinks into insignificance. What is it that God wants for you? He wants you to experience yourself as He created you. He wants you to be like Him. He wants you to wake up from this bad dream you are having and realize that you are still as He created you and that you are still part of Him, and He is part of you.

I am not suggesting that there is anything about your true nature that needs to be changed. You are perfect the way you are. There is nothing about you that is wrong or needs to be fixed. We do not have to improve upon God?s creation. The change I am talking about is one of experience. If you are not experiencing yourself as God created you, then there is a way to change that experience. There is a way to awaken from the dream of lack and limitation, and to experience the abundance of God.

There are steps you can take to bring you to this awakened state. The first step is intention. I set an intention to wake up and know God. I didn?t know how to do this, but I did know I wanted to. It has been a stop and go process because this was not my only intention. When my focus is on God, my life begins to take that form. I am peaceful. I experience love, both in the giving and receiving. I am joyous.

When my mind wanders to other goals, things change. I spend my time and energy trying to make life conform to these new goals. I struggle and fight and work hard for little gain. Even when I do attain what I think will make me happy, I am inevitably disappointed.  It all seems so hard because I am fighting my own nature. When I acknowledge my Creator and thus my own true nature, I move back into the ease of being a child of God. Nothing else fits me like that role because nothing else is worthy of me as a Son of God.

Once I set my intention to live the life God has planned for me, I needed to develop some mind training. The problem is that my mind wanders. I intend to keep my mind on my goal, to make this my only goal, because a split mind in ineffective, but I get easily distracted. I chose A Course in Miracles as my vehicle for mind training. There are others to choose from, but this one suits me and offers a faster, surer way than most.

So the way this works for me, is that I designed a practice around the Course. The Course has three parts and one of them is a workbook with a lesson for each day of the year. I get up in the morning and make a cup of coffee. With my coffee in hand, I begin to read my lesson.  I plan carefully so that I have time to do this. If I have to be someplace early, I plan the night before to wake early enough to do this. I make time for God in my life. In fact, I make sure that God comes first in my life.

It is so easy to find excuses for putting this time off. Life intrudes with seemingly urgent problems. I choose not to respond to these. I put my trust in God. I know that if I give my attention to God first, everything else will fall in line. This is my trust and it does not fail me. I make my commitment and I show up for my commitment.

Rituals can be an important part of a spiritual practice.  Once practiced, they send a signal to yourself that it is time to set aside all distractions and begin your sacred work. Some people like an elaborate ritual with candle lighting and gentle music. Some incorporate yoga and lengthy meditations.  It is helpful to plan a quiet time that will not be interrupted and to use the same process everyday, a repeatable pattern of behavior that becomes an automatic call to your attention. Because I am often in different places when I wake up, I have created a very simple ritual, but I adhere to it daily.

My spiritual practice does not end with my daily lesson and meditation. My life is my spiritual practice. I practice being aware, that is paying attention to my life. It is through the stories of my life that I can see where my thoughts need correction. I don?t focus on changing the behavior because then I am back to playing with the blocks again. But particular behaviors signal a need to examine my thoughts.

So much of our life is spent in a fog of inattention. We say and do things without even noticing what is going on. Our life just seems to happen to us without our input because we aren?t paying attention, and are not examining our thoughts to see what caused our life to take that turn. Our life is not someone else?s fault, nor did it ?just happen.? Our life is the cumulative effect of our thoughts.

From the spiritual intention of the morning?s ritual, I open my mind to God?s Voice within me. Throughout the day I deliberately ask for guidance. It is not that God needs to be reminded, but that I need to remind myself to step back and let Him lead the way. Through my attentive focus, I notice when my thoughts are not leading me to peace, and I ask for correction. When I am uncertain what to do with circumstances in my life, I ask God how He wants me to use this. It is in this way that my life becomes my spiritual path.

Love is at the heart of every spiritual practice because God is Love. And because God is Love, so are we who were created in His image. To live my life according to God?s plan I must live a life of love. This is not romantic love, though God?s love can be expressed in this situation, too. It is not a special love for a special person. God?s love is impersonal. It is the same for everyone. Nothing is outside God?s love because nothing is outside God. This is my model. I do my best to express universal love; loving without conditions or limits.

Universal love is expressed as patience because I know that God?s Will must be done and so I can afford to wait. It is expressed as compassion because I know that none of us experiences our true Self all the time. It is expressed as devotion because we are all one in God, and my brother deserves my devotion. It is expressed as service because service to my bother is service to the Creator of my brother.

So, am I happy with my life? Yes I am. I am not living a perfect life, but I do the best I can every day. I start and end my day with prayer and I look to God for guidance in all things. I am, more often than not, at peace. I am happy. I don?t know that my obituary will read any different, but I know that at the end of my life I will leave a legacy. I will have made a difference in the world. You won?t read about my contribution in any history books, but the people in my life know they are loved and appreciated. My legacy will be to have lived the life God planned for me to the best of my ability.

© 2006, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Pandora’s Box

Diversity is a great thing in theory, but in the practice of it, there are many challenges. Working and living side by side with people who are not like you in race, culture, sexual orientation, spiritual beliefs, politics, education or economic station can bring up a lot of garbage for us. It can bring up prejudices and discomfort that we didn?t even know we had.

Not that this is a bad thing. How are we going to experience a healing of these separation devices if we don?t look at them, and how are we going to look at them if we don?t know they are there? And please know that this healing is our purpose in life. Recognizing the unconditional nature of love is our function. Unity, the recognition that we are one in God, rather than many in the world, is why we are here, and we cannot know this if we think we are different. Galatians 3:28 says, ?There is no longer Jew nor Greek, there is no longer slave nor free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ.?

Every time we look at another person and think, ?This person is not like me,? we separate ourselves from our brother, and in our mind, this separates us from God. God knows us as He created us, not as we imagine ourselves to be. To know God, we must release our own creation and accept ourselves as He created us. If we do not know God?s creation, we cannot know God.

Separation is what was really in Pandora?s Box. In separation we move from one perfect and holy creation of God, to many different forms that exist in bloody competition with each other, fighting endlessly for their share of a limited supply. We don?t have to worry about going to hell, we put ourselves there already with our belief in separation.

Diversity sounds like a good idea at first. It is the idea of many different kinds living side by side peacefully. In the world, it is a lofty idea. In truth it is just another effort to keep our own version of creation in place of God?s. Being separate and constantly at war with each other over one thing or another is pretty wearing, so we?ll keep our individuality and just put up with each other. So, what are the chances of that working? How often has it worked in the past?

What really happens is that when I see someone as different from me I judge whether this is good or bad. Jesus warned us about judging. It doesn?t lead to wholeness. When I look at the person in front of me and I think they are in error, I know that I am the one in error.

I am reminded of something very wise that I read. It said, ?Do not worry about the condition of your brother?s mind. He has been given that part of the mind to heal, not you. And God?s Voice is with him intimately in that process.? So I step back from my judgment of my brother and know that he does not need my correction; he has God?s help.

How do I get back to remembering who I really am; to know myself as God created me? First I recognize that the self I am experiencing now is not the perfect creation of God. Then, I decide that I must have been mistaken and ask for correction.  At first it takes some practice to even recognize these mis-thoughts. After all, even in my mind I don?t turn to the one next to me and say ?You are different from me, and so I suspect you of being my enemy.? However, I may turn to the one next to me and think, ?That person is taking the chair I always sit in,? which is the first step toward guilt, hatred, war. Pandora?s Box has been opened.

Instead of being part of my One Self, this person with whom I came to join, is now my enemy, the person who took my favorite chair. I have made him guilty. I have made him my competitor, my enemy. Now we are at war; who can get to the favorite chair first becomes my objective rather than how can I love my brother and experience my unity with him. I talk about unconditional love, but my ?love? has a condition now; stay out of my chair!

Does this sound like a silly example? I read an article recently about a woman who killed her husband. They were going to watch television together and he took her chair, and wouldn?t give it back. She got their gun and shot him. Conditional love isn?t love. It is a bargain at best, and at its extreme it is war.

Perhaps you think that unvoiced thoughts don?t count. But they do count. We kid ourselves when we think we have private thoughts. Our thoughts are shared in a million little ways. If I think you are my enemy because you took my chair, you may not know what my problem is, but you will feel my withdrawal. You may not even be able to put your finger on what is wrong, but you will know, perhaps unconsciously, that something is not right.

We cannot think one way and act another. What we think is who we are, and while we have learned to put on a false face for civilities sake, the truth of our thoughts will show themselves in many ways. We move a few inches further away, our greeting lacks enthusiasm, our hug is half-hearted.

If we harbor our resentment long enough, our anger becomes more overt until it eventually becomes verbalized. It may come out as gossip rather than direct confrontation, and often we choose something unrelated to the original slight to actually verbalize, but it will show itself in some way. The slighted person feels the need to self defend, and the war escalates.

Even if we never saw the person again, if we harbor the resentment, that relationship is affected and we are affected. In truth we are one mind. How can my brother not be affected by what is in my thoughts. Hugh Prather, in an article on relationships, suggested sending silent messages of blessing to your partner. He said,“This practice is far more powerful than any spoken words could ever be… .” The same is true for unspoken words of separation. They are just as real as the spoken word, and have effects on the relationship.

The whole sordid mess could be avoided if I recognize the signs and act on them immediately. Someone takes my favorite chair and I feel a twinge of resentment. I see it for what it is, and ask the Holy Spirit to give me another way to think of this. The war is over before it begins. I remain in peace and am happy. I am also much closer to God now. So are you, because we are one creation and so what lifts me up lifts you as well.

The diversity of any group is not laudable because many different people come together to remain different, separated into our own little worlds by our perceived differences. It becomes a holy encounter as we gather for the purpose of shedding our differences and recognizing our oneness in God.

We do not reach the peace and joy that God means for us by ridding ourselves of people who don?t fit within the walls of our self made world, but rather by using these encounters for healing, and thus allowing those walls to come down. Our walls do not protect us; they imprison us in our separation. As we reinforce our separation from each other, we reinforce our feeling of separation from our Creator.

We have all built up thick walls of separation which we believe are protecting us from each other. It requires great faith and much work to learn a different way. But in our beliefs, we have set that as our intention. If we keep our eye on our goal it cannot fail, because it is in alignment with the Will of God.

© 2006, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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What’s Your Plan?

I forget who said this, but I know it is true. The real test of intelligence is the ability to make ones self happy. No matter how smart, or rich, or beautiful you are, if you are not happy, then what have you got? Neither any of those things by themselves, or all of them together will bring happiness. It is a misconception that they will. Sure I would rather have money than not. But I don?t kid myself that money would bring happiness. Having money brings things into my life, not happiness.

So what is your plan for happiness? You have one rather you realize it or not. Your plan may be your parents plan, or some other plan you formulated without conscious thought as you grew up. The question is, is your plan working? Are you happy?

I had a plan most of my life that didn?t work. Now that I look back on it, I question my common sense in not noticing how ineffective it was. Ok, here was my plan in a nutshell. If I was unhappy, I looked around to see who or what was making me unhappy and blamed them for it. That?s it. Oh yeah, sometimes I would try to get them to change. I would write a book on how often that worked, but one page books don?t sell for much.

So how could I have been hooked into a plan that is so obviously flawed and why would I stay with it for such a long time? I think that it is because I never really looked at it. I just got used to being unhappy. I lost sight of the fact that I had a choice. Also, I didn?t know there was any other way to see it. Before I could even consider changing, I had to start really looking at what I was doing.

I started noticing my grievances. Who was I angry at and why? Who did I hold a grudge against? What did I expect from these people and what were my chances of getting it?  I was married three times. Each partner seemed very different from the others. Each marriage seemed very different from the others. But if I really looked at it, they were all the same.

I started out looking for something I didn?t have. I found someone who I thought could supply that need. Though I didn?t think of it, they were doing the same thing. Consciously, or unconsciously we made a bargain. You supply my needs and I?ll supply yours. We called this bargain a marriage.

Everything would be fine until one stopped meeting the needs of the other, or until one of us discovered that we had additional needs that were not being met. Then anger would be the inevitable result. I married this man so that I could be happy, and since I am not happy it must be his fault.

No problem, if he is the reason I am unhappy I?ll just trade him for someone who would make me happy. The problem with this plan is that I am looking for my happiness in the wrong place and so I will never find it. I look for my happiness in someone else, and choose a different person with new circumstances, and because it looks different, I think that it is different. But no, it is the same thing all over again, with the same results.

As long as I look outside myself for my happiness, I am never going to find it. What I will find, is somewhere to put my blame. These are my grievances, and they are like dark clouds hiding the light of the world from me. After a lifetime of collecting grievances, my world becomes dark indeed. It becomes a life filled with depression, anger, fear and guilt.

There is a way out of that darkness. God has a plan. Being God, he knew we would need one, and so He placed within us His Guide. This Guide, this Voice for God, the Holy Spirit, is there to help us get back to the light. He is there to help us choose a new plan for happiness.

We spend our lives collecting grievances. Something goes wrong and we look around for someone to blame.  These grievances collect like a thunder cloud and imprison us in our misery. The Holy Spirit?s plan is to help us release those grievances, and to reclaim our power in God. And indeed, our power in God is great! We can live in the light of God. We can live in joy and freedom, and this is God?s plan for us.  Like any good parent, God wants only happiness for us, his children.

God doesn?t need our help in designing a happy plan for our lives. We can trust that job to Him. What He does need is our complicity in accepting it. In order to see this glorious plan of His, we need to remove the dark clouds we have placed before it. We need to remove the grievances from our lives.

Some of our grievances are obvious. If you were to lose your job you might blame your boss, or the person who took your place. You are unhappy and you think it is their fault. As long as you keep the cause of your unhappiness outside of you, the correction will remain out of your grasp. You have just given your power to someone else. Even if you get a better job, if you are still holding that grudge, you still have that dark cloud obscuring your vision. You are still living in darkness. As long as you believe that someone else has power over you, you will live in fear that they will steal your joy again.

Know that this is not true. Withdraw your projections from the world. You don?t need to place blame. Look within for your happiness. Go to the Christ within and ask God for His plan for your happiness. Getting a new job is a good thing to do, but it isn?t what brings you joy. Forgiveness is the way to bring light into your life again. Release your brother from all blame in your life, and happiness is the inevitable result. This is God?s plan.

Part of God?s plan for happiness for us is abundance. Abundance is not the same as greed. Greed is the collecting of things in an effort to push the darkness back. It never works. You just wind up with more stuff to dust. You wind up spending your time earning money to buy more things that fail to satisfy. True abundance is knowing that what you need will be supplied when you need it. It is never fearing lack because you know that God is your source.

Until you accept your true abundance in God, you will spend your life greedily gobbling up whatever you think will finally fulfill you; special relationships, drugs, electronics, food, the list is endless and a waste of time. It is more than a waste of time, it is an assault on God?s plan for your salvation. It puts you in conflict with your brother.

There is just so much money, stuff, and special love, and if your brother takes it that leaves less for you. That is the law of greed. While we are living under the law of greed, the dark clouds of grievances pile up as we blame our brothers for taking what is ours and condemning us to lack.

Abundance on the other hand is of God. It is perfect as He is; it is unending as He is. There is no need to feel in competition to ?get yours while the getting is good.? In fact the more you get the more there is. The more you give what you got, the more you have. Abundance is a thought, a belief. And a thought cannot be used up. It only grows and is strengthened as it is shared.

Our grievances block the thought of abundance from our consciousness.  As we forgive, the light of abundance becomes stronger and stronger in our minds.  At first faith in God?s abundance feels like walking on water, but as we forgive more and more and the light of God glows brighter in our mind, it feels like walking on rock. We are perfectly supported and perfectly protected in God.

When I checked into a hotel last week, I was disappointed to not get the room I wanted. The clerk was busy and didn?t want to talk about it. I felt my anger rise. I resented being put in that room which I judged to be lesser than the one I wanted. The angrier I became, the more I found to be angry about. After all, anger is based on thought and what I think about grows. I didn?t have a desk to work at in this room. The computer hook up was in an inconvenient place. Never mind, I couldn?t get on line because their set up didn?t allow for pop up blockers and I couldn?t turn off my blocker without going on line. Catch 22.

The more I thought about it, the angrier I got. I was angry at the hotel who messed up my reservation, the clerk who wouldn?t take the time to do anything about it, the person who got my room, whoever he was, and the computer system. The more I thought about it, the more things that seemed to be wrong with my life.  It was like there was a low lying dark cloud hanging over me.

But wait, I recognize that cloud! The problem is, when you allow your grievances to get so far out of hand, the cloud looks darker and feels thicker. It seems so much harder to get through to the light. I kept taking the whole thing to the Holy Spirit to heal. But then I?d change my mind. By golly, this was their fault. Why do I have to change my mind? I?m the one who was wronged.

I hate that feeling of being under a cloud. I wanted my peace back. But each time I started thinking about it, I got side tracked by angry thoughts. I finally got a pencil and paper because writing helps me focus on God?s answer. I started out by telling the Holy Spirit how amazingly hard it is to release a grievance when I let it get this far even though it doesn?t seem like an important issue. I know that this is just a hotel room, and that I am only going to be here a few hours. Why am I so upset? Sometimes these things hit me with the force of a tsunami, seeming to blow away my peace with no warning. It makes me feel like I am out of control. If I can be bowled over by such a small thing, what happens when it is something big?

Here is the answer I got: ?Myron, they are all the same. A grievance is an attack on God because it is an attack on His creations. It doesn?t matter what it is about. You think they are different grievances and divide them up into many categories in an effort to hide their true nature. But there is a part of you that knows what they are. You are not angry at the hotel clerk. You are angry at a god of your own invention; a god that seems to be bringing bad things into your life. That is how all grievances are the same. They change in form only; the content remains the same. You have invented a god of vengeance and you believe in him. That is why you are so angry. The hotel clerk was just a convenient place to project that anger and felt safer than putting it on your god of vengeance.?

?Myron your false idea of God does not hurt Him. He knows Himself and knows you. It does hurt you, though, by keeping you in hell. It robs you of your peace and makes you think that God does not love you and that you are separate from Him. That is hell. You don?t have to stay there. The light is just on the other side of this grievance. Release yourself by releasing God?s children from your grievances. When you know they are perfectly innocent, you will know that you are perfectly innocent as well.?

I thanked Holy Spirit for His words and His support, and I was finally able to release my grievances and step into my joy. God is so good!

So if you are still looking outside yourself for happiness; if you still think happiness can be found in another person, at circuit city, or at the bottom of a bottle; if you still think that you can get rid of your unhappiness by placing the blame on someone else, do I ever have a plan for you! I invite you to try God?s plan of forgiveness instead. I?ve tried it, and I?ve got to tell you, all of heaven is contained within it. Release your grievances and step into the light.

 

© 2006, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Resolutions

So it is that time of the year again; a time of new beginnings. While everyday is a new day and a new start, New Years day is symbolic of wiping the slate clean and beginning anew.  And so the mind goes to past transgressions, grievances held and changes of all sorts that I long to make part of my life. On the blank paper that is the beginning of a new year and another chance to do my life better, I want to write my life story differently.

This year I want to choose God first in all moments of my life. I want to be a better minister, a better friend, a better mother. I want to put more money in my savings account, and be more organized and lose weight. I?m not even going to waste paper adding exercise more and eat right, having some sense of reality!

Naturally the mind goes to past resolutions, which looked a lot like these, and I can see some progress, but also a lot of times when I did not live up to them.  I do want to look at these places in my life where I fell short of my goals, but only so that I can let them go. The Cherokee have a wise saying; ?Don?t let yesterday use up too much of today.?  It is very easy to be pulled into the quicksand of regret and once there, it is hard indeed to extricate yourself. And what forward movement can I make if I am stuck in my own past, unable to get loose?

And so I ask the Holy Spirit to join me as I take a quick, but honest look at last year. He helps me to see where I veered from my path, and how I might do better this year. He reminds me that He is not delayed in His teaching by my mistakes. He can be held back only by my unwillingness to let them go.

What comes to me clearly is that in making my resolutions, I need to make them with God. First I make all my decisions with God, and then I trust in His strength to keep me on course. And so I ask Him, ?What do You want me to do? Where do You want me to go? What would you have me say??  I don?t get an immediate answer, but I know that I have set the intention to put God in charge of my life, and I know that as long as I keep that intention foremost in my mind, the answer will be there when I need it.

When I come to a fork in the road and stand uncertainly wondering which way to turn, I remember my intention to make all decisions with God, and I ask for guidance. It may come as a mental nudge that when acted upon feels right and brings with it a sense of peace. God never fails to answer though I may fail to listen. Sometimes I come to Him with preconceived ideas of what His answer should be. If I want it my way, He will wait lovingly and patiently for me to choose again, knowing that I will ultimately choose for Him. He knows this because He knows His creations.

I am happiest when I recognize that my will is God?s Will. Then I can avoid some of those wrong turns that hold me in the illusion. I know I have chosen wrongly when I feel depressed, sad, guilty, anxious and fearful. I know I have chosen for God when I feel peaceful, joyful and loving. It is impossible not to know which direction I have taken. I have, however, spent some time in my misery because I was unwilling to admit my error.

Sometimes I need a clear and immediate answer to a problem. At those times I get quiet and ask for guidance. I give the problem to God, minus the solution I had in mind, and wait for His solution. Sometimes not telling God what His answer should look like is the hardest part, but I have had enough experience with my own answers to know that I don?t have enough information to know what is best. How could I? I can?t possibly know how anything will affect everyone involved now and in the future. And when God answers, He answers for everyone. My solution will never be one that will cause harm to anyone else.

Once I have decided that I want God?s answer, I wait quietly for it to come. Sometimes I write what comes to me, trusting that it will be what God wants me to hear. It took me a little practice to do this, and more practice to trust what I got, but it is a very helpful process and it is comforting to know that God speaks to me through His Voice, the Holy Spirit. He must love me so!  Sometimes the answer comes as a thought or an inspiration. I suddenly just have an idea that puts everything right, or suggests a course of action. It may come as I sit there in meditation, or it may come as I go about my day, but it always comes. God is consistent. His love and His care for me never waver.

So I have, with God?s direction set my goals. What must I do to see these goals through. How can I make this year?s resolutions meaningful over the entire year? At this time next year, I don?t want to review 2006, and find that I forgot my resolutions shortly after making them. The secret to accomplishing any goal is singleness of purpose.

If I have only one goal concerning something, then accomplishing it becomes easy. One of the goals I set myself for this year is the relinquishment of guilt in all its forms. What a terrific goal that is! I am excited at the thought of working on this. On the other hand, I wonder how I can possibly do this.

First let me look at how I offer guilt to others. If one of my children wants to do something that I see as a bad idea, I might intimate that this would hurt me. Oooh, the ego is a sly devil isn?t he? See how he slipped guilt into that situation? My goal changed. It started as the relinquishment of guilt, but now my goal is to control my child through the application of guilt.

I argue with God about this saying that it is because I love them and want to protect them. Surely in this case, my goal should be different. The Holy Spirit gently reminds me that my goal is the relinquishment of guilt. He asks me to put my trust in the strength of God, not in my own solutions. Can I trust God with my children? Well, maybe. Ok, yes I can. God always answers for the good of each person involved. My solution wouldn?t have worked anyway since long practice has made my kids immune to my manipulations.

When I choose guilt for myself, I am reminded of my resolution. Why would I choose guilt, anyway? What could be my goal in choosing guilt? All of my life I have been taught that guilt is the proper response to error. It is what keeps me from doing wrong. But do I need guilt to keep me in line? I know the difference between right and wrong. Anyway when ever did guilt keep me from doing what I wanted to do?

What is my real goal when I choose guilt? Is guilt what I do instead of correction? Have I decided that I would prefer to experience guilt rather than give up a particular behavior? I have seen people drink themselves into a stupor and then feel so guilty that they did it again! Well, that certainly worked. The goal became to have an excuse to get drunk.

I?ve done the same kind of thing with food. I promise myself that I am going to stay away from sweets, then somehow find myself in a bakery. I feel really guilty for my transgression, and figure what?s the point, I?ll just do it again. I may as well eat everything in sight. So my goal became to use guilt to allow me to continue my behavior. My guilt becomes the glue that holds me in the past, ensuring the future will never be any different.

I choose to make peace my goal in every situation. There are many other goals which want to pop up as I choose the goal of peace. If I want peace to be my goal, then I must have that as the only goal in a particular situation. I cannot also have as my goal to be right. It is easy to add the goal of being respected, listened to, cared about.

When I add those goals, it makes it impossible not to feel justified in anger, and there goes my peace. I have to decide what I really want; do I want peace, or do I want to be right? Do I want peace, or do I want to be treated differently? What is my goal?

Having decided on my goals, how do I accomplish them? Certainly it is not always easy to stay true to my decision. On my own, I would not be able to, but I am not on my own. I can depend on the strength of God. There is a prayer from A Course in Miracles that I often use when tempted to give up on a resolution is, ?God is the strength in which I trust.? I am wise not to trust in my own strength, but I can trust in God?s strength to support me.

Choosing resolutions for the New Year is a way of setting my intention. I make my choices with God, and I trust in Him to strengthen me as I practice them. There is a New Years prayer that a friend sent me through email that I would like to share with you.

Dear God,
In preparation for an incredible New Year,
we release the failures and successes of the past.
Everything that has gone before is now complete.
We empty ourselves of all our yesterdays.
In this moment, we are present with You.
Thank You very much.
Amen

 

© 2006, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Being Truly Helpful

I was thinking about my challenge around Sheryl and Archie. I want to tell her that she should not go back to Archie because she is happy now and she wasn?t happy while she was with him. I want to tell her that he is irresponsible and that going back to him will be hurtful to Julian. I want to tell her that wanting to return to him is probably just a part of her addictive disorder, and that she should look at this as if she were hearing the story from one of her clients, and advise herself as she would them. Lots of stuff that I want to tell her, and as I think of this, it becomes very clear that I am talking to myself.

I am expressing my fears for myself. I am reliving my relationship errors and projecting them onto Sheryl. In other words, I think I am looking at Sheryl?s life, but really I am looking into the mirror of my past, and the fear that my future will be like my past. I am angry with Sheryl for showing me this. I resent her for this. And all the time, this has nothing to do with Sheryl. It is all about me.

I think that this is always true about everyone in my life. They reflect for me what I need to see, and I do the same for them. No matter how fearful or painful the reflection, I owe them my eternal gratitude for their part in my spiritual growth. My spiritual growth is all that matters. So no matter what is happening to me in the illusion, the only part of it that has value is how I use it to awaken. The same is true for them.

Once I understand that I am projecting my life onto them, I can more easily withdraw those projections. Now I can see my daughter as she is; holy and beautiful and perfect; the Christ. All this stuff that she is doing, all this practice, all this trauma drama that seems to be her life is nothing. It is just the illusion she is temporarily lost in; the play acting that she became so deeply involved in that she forgot it was just play.

There is no chance that she will not find her way out, and I would not slow her down in that journey by trying to remove the very circumstances that she is using to get out. I will not hold her more deeply in it by believing that these circumstances are the truth. I will not become part of her ego dream by joining her in it.

By believing only the truth about her, I am teaching myself the truth about myself. As I see the Christ in her, I recognize that Christ in myself. This is another way of releasing the past so that it doesn?t become my future. It is the perfectly designed method of salvation through joining. I join my Christ Self with her Christ Self and we are both saved. When I look at the illusion and see something different, I recognize it as the ego deception it is. If I have trouble doing that I ask Holy Spirit for help in reinterpreting what I think I see.

There is nothing for me to do in her situation. There is nothing for me to say to her. My job is to recognize my projections and withdraw them so that I can see the truth of her, and then to hold that truth until she sees it herself. Everything is done on the level of the mind where all real work is always done. When I find myself playing around in the illusion, trying to manipulate what doesn?t exist, I know that I am wasting time. I go right back to the cause-my thoughts, not hers, but mine. This is the only way out for either of us.

I want to be truly helpful to my daughter, but the fear that she can?t help herself and so needs my help is counter productive. God believes in her. He created her so He knows the truth of her. He never loses sight of her perfection and His knowledge of her is perfectly unaffected by her actions. This is my job as a parent/friend/partner in any relationship. What they need from me is my certainty that they are as they were created by God, like Him, perfect in every way, perfectly unaffected by anything they say or do in the illusion. My faith in my daughter is my gift to her and also to myself. If I teach her that she is lacking in any way, that is what I am teaching myself

© 2005, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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HOW AM I VICTIMIZED?

Thanksgiving was more meaningful to me this year than it usually is. I have so much to be thankful for. That I am still here after the hurricane seasoning is top on my list. In fact, my life is one blessing after another. My home is undamaged, my family safe, my town getting back to normal. My life is so good that you would think I would have trouble finding things to complain about, but not so. In fact, I was thinking about something just the other day.

I have a new vehicle. Having a new car is good, but I really don?t like the process of buying one. This time it wasn?t all that bad, though. However, after the purchase was complete, I realized that they had not included a package that was supposed to be part of the deal.

I wasn?t really that upset about not having the package which was designed to protect the vehicle long term, and I seldom have a car long term, but I was charged for it and felt like I had been taken advantage of. As I sat there fuming over the situation, I realized that I felt like I was a victim of an unscrupulous dealership.

Hearing myself think the word victim brought me up short. There is a lesson from ACIM that I have found very helpful. It says, ?I am not a victim of the world I see.? Since I started working with this idea, I have seen the value in it over and over. When I hear the word victim, my mind sends up a red flag, as it did this time. As I sat there thinking about how I had bought into the idea that I am a victim, I realized that I have done this too often lately. I laughed at myself as I thought. ?How am I victimized? Let me count the ways.?

Well this promised to be a long list as I recognized that I often feel victimized even though I don?t always think of it that way. Take the dealership victim story. I felt like a victim because I paid for something I didn?t get, and it certainly looks like this is the case. It did actually happen, after all. However, there is a difference in what happens, and how I feel about it. Sometimes I don?t have a lot of control over what happens. I do have absolute control over how I think about it, and how I think about anything determines how I feel about it.

Knowing this is true, I could try to change how I feel by changing the world. For instance, I could call the dealership and complain until someone did something about it. But changing the world doesn?t always work, does it? Maybe they would comply, and maybe they wouldn?t. It is not something I can depend on. I cannot have peace around anything if I cannot depend on it.

So a better way to do it is to work with the only thing that I do have control over, and that is my own mind. I can always change my thoughts. What I chose to do about the dealership was to forgive the whole situation. I had to do this more than once because at first, I didn?t mean it. I wanted peace of mind, but I also wanted to be angry with them. I can?t have both, so I had to choose. Finally, I decided that I wanted to be happy more than I wanted to be right.

This does not preclude taking action, but it does mean that I can act from a place of empowerment, and of love rather than of victimhood. If I am peaceful when I take action, I will make better choices. Since my goal in life is to extend peace and love, I have already succeeded regardless of what happens with my car.

There is definitely an attraction to victimhood. I always prefer that my problems be someone else?s fault. It requires vigilance on my part just to be mindful of when I do this. I am not going to take each individual instance and try to convince myself that I am not a victim. I choose to know that I am never a victim.

An interesting thing happened after I chose forgiveness in this case. A couple of days later, I received a phone call from Honda taking a survey on my buying experience. As part of the survey I told them about the package. They assure me that I will be getting a phone call from the dealership about having it installed. If they do, it would be great. If they don?t, I am not going to waste any of my life worrying about it. My goal is to have peace and happiness, and that is my only goal. I have no desire to be a victim.

There are many opportunities to reject victimhood. When my computer got a virus, I felt like a victim of the malicious actions of the person who created the virus. I could have stayed there blaming that person for my anger and frustration, but I chose not to be a victim. I gave my feelings to the Holy Spirit and asked Him to join me in this forgiveness process. I forgave the writer of the virus, the person who inadvertently sent it to me, and myself for my brief foray into victimhood. Asking the Holy Spirit to join me in my forgiveness process allowed any unconscious guilt I might be harboring to be healed at the same time.

There are clues to let me know that I am falling into the victim trap. If I blame someone else for what has happened to me, or for how I feel, then I am setting myself up to be the victim. That someone did do something to me is not the issue. I cannot change what people do. The issue is that what I feel or do is in my control.

Forgiveness is the process given me by God to awaken from the dream that I am at the mercy of the world. I am not. In the crucifixion in which Jesus forgave his tormentors, he was showing us that, even in the most extreme of circumstances, forgiveness is the answer. Did Jesus choose victimhood by blaming the Romans for crucifying him? No, he used it to teach that our only answer to attack is forgiveness.

Of course the hardest thing about giving up the victim stance is that I am left with no one to blame. Who is responsible for how I feel if the other person isn?t. Oooh! It must be me! No wonder I would rather be the victim. Who wants to be at fault? And how unfair is that? Someone does something to me; I feel bad; I am at fault? That?s not right! And yet, I cannot be happy as long as I am a victim. I get some small satisfaction from seeing someone else at fault, but that hardly makes up for my lack of peace, and lack of happiness.

So if victimhood isn?t the answer, why do we so often choose it? What?s the payoff? Well, for one thing, if someone else is responsible, I don?t have to do anything about it. If I am in pain because you treated me badly, then what am I supposed to do about it? You are the one who is to blame. You have to apologize, or in some way make up for your behavior for me to be happy again.

Isn?t this a common reaction in many relationships? Your partner takes her bad day out on you. You, of course, feel abused, and the victim of her bad temper. So what is more natural than to be angry with her until she apologizes? You have just put your feelings into her hands, and made her responsible for your well being. Not being responsible is the hook that pulls you into victimhood. And not being responsible is the pay off. If you are not responsible, you don?t have to do anything about it.

On the other hand, not taking responsibility for your own feelings is also the cost of victimization, because it leaves you in misery with no way out. Oh, you may have developed a system to manipulate her into accepting responsibility for your feelings. Probably a liberal application of guilt will get you what you think you need. But now you owe her because the guilt you seemed to have placed on her is making her miserable, and of course now you?re at fault. She is now the victim of your actions. What a vicious circle! And where does it end? The whole thing is insane.

It ends when one of you is sane enough to see what you are doing. Whichever one is most sane in the moment decides that the payoff of victimhood is not worth the cost. One person in the relationship decides to take responsibility for him or her self. This breaks the cycle. When anyone calls on the Holy Spirit to join them in forgiveness, then it is done. No more victim, no more perpetrator. No more need for someone to blame. It is never a question of who is really to blame. It is always a question of what do I really want? Do I want to be a victim? Do I want to find someone to blame, someone to make wrong, and so avoid the responsibility of taking action? Or do I want to be happy? What is my goal here?

If I choose happiness, the next step is easy. I decide that I am never the victim, and that forgiveness is always the answer. I form the habit of forgiveness, always inviting the Holy Spirit to join me in that process. After that, it is just a matter of making this my new way of doing things.  Like all habits, it only requires practice, and believe me, life will supply me with plenty of chances to practice.

We all play the victim sometimes, and we all play the victimizer at other times. What I propose is that we give up both roles. The only way for me to give up the role of victim is to forgive your role as victimizer. The only way for me to relinquish my role of victimizer is to stop seeing you as victim. I gladly forgive us both, because forgiveness through the Holy Spirit is my only ticket out of this mess. Because this solution is a ?God solution? it will work for both of us and it will work every time. Halleluiah!

© 2005, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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No Compromise!

Salvation is simple, and when it starts sounding complex, a wrong turn has been taken. The ego thought system likes complexity because it confuses things and keeps us bogged down in the world. Simplicity keeps things clear, and makes it easy for us to choose the direction of our spiritual life. I have some few beliefs which hold true for me, and are important to my spiritual life. It is not important that I list my beliefs for anyone else. What is important is that I live by the ideals that I have chosen; that I not compromise those ideals.

The ego loves compromise because it keeps me from accomplishing my purpose. Compromise dilutes what would save me, and leaves me awash in a state of confusion about what is important, and guilt that I did not live up to my beliefs. Keeping my beliefs simple and keeping them forefront in my mind, helps prevent this.

The most basic of my beliefs has to do with love. God is love. While nearly all Christian theologies teach this most basic of tenets, do they stay true to it? Or do they dilute the message as they add more and more rules which must be followed-or else. Or else what?  Or else God will have to enforce, punish, do things which are unloving? If God is love, He cannot be unloving or He is not being Himself.

Soon even the very nature of God is called into question by followers who have, in their own minds at least, twisted reality to suit their vision of it, then reinvented God to reflect this false image. Instead of learning to see ourselves as an image of a God of love, we have tried to make Him into a God of hate; a punishing God intent on vengeance.

How do we get back to basics? How do we get free of this web of deceit we have accepted as truth? I choose to identify the few truths I know and to refuse to compromise on them. God is love. God is perfect love. God is perfect. I refuse to compromise on that. I will not see God as a punishing God because that would make God something that is not Love. It would make God less than perfect because it would mean that, in creating me, He made an error. God does not punish me because He knows He cannot make an error and so He knows I am perfect as well. Anything that shows me something that doesn?t look like this is a lie. God is perfect love. I will not compromise on this belief.

I will not see God as an abandoning God. The analogy presented in the Garden of Eden story has been used to prove that God abandoned His children; kicked us out; is mad at us. This interpretation sees us as guilty and in trouble, and no clear way to get out of it.

Let us re-examine this interpretation. This story, as interpreted by mainstream Christianity, suggests that Love created man as a flawed creature and then punished him for it. Where is the sense in that? Is God love? Is He perfect love? Did He create me like Himself? To accept this interpretation I must either believe that God is flawed, or I must believe that the popular interpretation of the Garden of Eden story is flawed. I will not compromise on my beliefs. God is love and I am created in His image.

Looking at my life, it is obvious that I have often chosen to believe I am something different from my reality as a perfect creation of a perfect God. Because that is where I put the power of my belief, my experience is one of an imperfect creation, as if I am really this vulnerable body, living in fear. Because God is perfect love, He allows me to dream this absurd dream for as long as I can stand the pain of feeling like I am separate from Him.

Yes, God so loves me that he created me with free will. I am free to will a hellish experience, but I am not free to make it the truth. What God created perfect cannot be undone by me. I am not my own creator. Because He is perfect love, God placed in me His Voice that calls me back to my Father and the reality of Who I really am, His holy child.

It is the Voice of God, or the Holy Spirit, Who reminds me that in order to remember who I am, I must start acting like who I am. I am love, just as is my Father. So, in spite of all the chaos that my insane thinking has caused, there is this compelling Voice which calls me to love. This is not the kind of love the world offers. The world would have me think that love is a bargain. You act in a way that validates my thoughts about myself, and I will love you. That is the world?s view of what love is. But God?s love is completely unconditional. Nothing I can say or do will affect God?s love for me.

God doesn?t need my validation. God doesn?t want anything from me, because God is complete and doesn?t need anything. This is the kind of love I need to practice. This kind of unconditional love, if put into practice, will awaken my mind to my reality. So this is what I am trying to do in my life. I am trying to practice unconditional love. The only way I can make this work, is if I refuse to compromise. The moment I start to compromise, my love becomes conditional, and so loses all meaning.

For love to be unconditional, it must be universal. In other words, I must love everyone in exactly the same way with no one left out. I cannot love your children less than I love my children. I cannot love my best friend in a way different that I love a total stranger. I cannot love you when you meet my conditions and then not love you when you ?sin? against me. I must love Saddam Hussein. I must love Hitler. I must love rapist, and killers, and thieves. I must love Buddhists, and Catholics, and all the people in every other sect. I must love them all equally.

Perhaps even harder than that, I must love my boss when he fires me, my husband when he is unfaithful to me, my children when they abandon me. I must love the one standing before me, no exceptions. If the person before me is loving me, then the only response would be to love him back. If the one standing before me seems to be attacking me, that person is just calling out for love, and the only response to a call for love, is love.

I was thinking about a time when Toby was just a toddler. He had a very volatile temper, and would lash out when he became frustrated. One time in particular, I remember him becoming frustrated with circumstances he did not understand. He tried to hit, scratch, bite, whatever he could do to express his anger. I knew that he wasn?t angry with me, and in spite of how it looked, he didn?t want to hurt me. He just didn?t understand what was going on around him and so he was expressing his fear of the unknown through anger.

This is something we all do at times. We tend to express our fear as anger and we lash out either physically or with words. Sometimes we bring it inward and it feels like depression. When Toby expressed his fear through physical attack, I didn?t hit him back. I wasn?t even angry. I knew that he was just asking that someone love and comfort him. The form of love he needed at that moment was for someone to put things right.

The only response for a child of God asking for love, is to love him. This is the same response appropriate for any child of God. This does not mean that one should accept abuse. I stopped Toby from hurting me, and then I addressed his needs.
If someone were physically attacking me, I would do what was necessary to protect myself, but then I would address the need.

I would love that person in whatever form would be appropriate. Sometimes it is an understanding word, an offer to correct what seems to be wrong, or just silent and intent listening. So often, people just need to be heard. It may be that the only loving response needed is that I not judge. Judgment is just as much an expression of fear as is attack.

What happens when we respond to attack with attack? War happens. It happens in our lives just as it does in our political world. War is not love and love is the only response I am interested in. I accept no compromise on this.

This would seem to be impossible, except that I am not inventing love, or manufacturing this love. I do not have to make myself feel this kind of love, I only have to learn how to allow it to come into my awareness.

Love is who I am. It was how I was created. There is nothing in me but love. If it seems otherwise, it is because I have put up blocks in my mind that keep me from being aware of who I am. My job now, as it says in A Course in Miracles, is to remove those blocks to my awareness of love?s presence. Once I remove the blocks, love will flow unimpeded without any additional effort on my part.

The way I remove the blocks is to practice forgiveness. I bring each and every unloving thought to the Holy Spirit and express my willingness to forgive. I ask Him to correct my thought. I simply want love, more than I want this grievance. I want love and the peace that love brings, more than I want the drama of the moment. I want love more than I want the other person to be wrong. I want love more than I want to be right.

It isn?t hard to do. It isn?t complicated. It does require great vigilance. But then, if I am not practicing love, what else do I have to do with my life except to live in misery, sprinkled with moments when I am not so miserable. It is said that Heaven is being with God, and hell is feeling separate from God. That means that I don?t have to be afraid of going to hell. It means I am in hell, right now. The way out is to awaken to my true reality. I awaken by listening to the Voice God gave me for that purpose. Awakening to my place with God, awakening to Heaven; is this something on which I can afford to compromise? I don?t think so.

 

© 2005, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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