July-September, 2023
Here is a song that brought me much enjoyment through the years and that I played for a Sunday school. As time went by the meaning of this hymn grew and brought me to a place of being ready to open to my true Self.
Song: “His Eye Is On the Sparrow”
Why should I feel discouraged,
And why should the shadows come?
Why should my heart feel lonely,
And long for Heaven and Home?
When Jesus is my portion,
A constant friend is He,
Oh, His eye is on the sparrow
Oh yes, I know He watches over me.
This past year I have been concentrating on opening to the Presence of Love, this real, genuine Presence that A Course in Miracles tells me about. It sounds so good and I’m told that I’m worthy and deserving of such a thing. So I’m surrendering every chance I have to this loving Presence.
July-September, 2023
Many of us have heard the phrase, “It’s 5 o’clock somewhere,” referring to “happy hour” at a bar nearby. Well, I am happy to have the perception of time, given by Holy Spirit, that it is 1:11 (One, One, One) at all times, everywhere and that no matter what a clock spells out, this is always the truth.
Time is now to return to the oneness that we all are — one Self, united with our Creator. It is a miracle to be aware of this and entails no effort or strain, only willingness to be inspired by Holy Spirit, Whose Voice we can count on 24/7.
I have been aware of so many miracles lately, and this morning Holy Spirit offered me an option. He said that I don’t necessarily need a grievance to reveal the miracle hidden within, but that I can be reminded of my miracle-mindedness (actually inherent in our One Mind of only Love and peace) in a new way. He suggested that I can let ANYthing and EVERYthing I might be aware of remind me of miracles, if I so choose.
July-September, 2023
Somewhere along the way, whether intentionally or unintentionally, we are taught that to get ahead, we must be shrewd, a shark, “at the ready,” cut-throat even, in order to make it to the top. Somehow, someway, this earthly mentality seeps in from the outside world.
For some, the idea doesn’t shape who they are and it doesn’t define or rule their way of being, but for others, it becomes heavily ingrained into who they are. They are scared to be vulnerable, associating it with looking weak. They always have their armor up, ready to defend and attack. To exert their power. To dominate.
But there is another way — a way that lightens our step, unburdens our gait and makes smooth our road. As we walk along this road… the Holy Spirit’s path for us, one that is softer and gentler, we are shown a whole new world.
July-September, 2023
I wanted to share about listening to the truth by listening to Holy Spirit. I’m not sure the truth can actually be put into words. In fact, I know it can’t.
One time my Muskogee Creek teacher told me that that’s why we call it the Great Mystery. But there’s a certain experience of Truth, isn’t there? We all know It when we feel It. And our experience is more important than our intellectual understanding.
There are two lessons from A Course in Miracles that stand out to me on this topic. Lessons 106 and 107 if you want to read them later. I like to put the two keynote ideas from these lessons together like this: “Let me be still and listen to the truth because the truth will correct all errors in my mind.” These lessons remind me of Psalm 46:10, “Be still and know that I am God.”
April-June, 2023
April-June, 2023
We have discovered over the years that whenever we think we are separate and alone, we are thinking with the mistaken ego mind. The ego is the false idea of being separate from our Creator. The ego mind always defends against Love’s oneness. It thinks that its job is to judge everyone and everything it sees.
A Course in Miracles has taught us to be mindful of when ego (false separate identity) thoughts come up and take these thoughts to the Holy Spirit to receive another way of seeing. The Holy Spirit sees the truth of everyone’s unity instead of the ego’s judgmental thoughts. The ego is never at peace because it is in a constant battle with Love’s oneness.
Because Jesus has already completed the journey Home, he knows that he is not alone nor is he separate from us. He asks us to join with him in God’s Love so we can learn we are not alone. As we join with him, we invite all our brothers to join with us, as Jesus does. Knowing that we are not alone, we offer all that we learn to everyone and our strength grows. We become aware that… “The whole power of God’s Son lies in all of us, but not in any of us alone.” (T-8.VI.8:5)
Jesus tells us we cannot return to the Kingdom alone because we cannot be alone. Thinking we are alone is a denial of God’s Will and makes us unaware of What we are. To return to the awareness of What we are, we need to accept our oneness with our brothers. “We begin the journey back by setting out together, and gather in our brothers as we continue together. Every gain in our strength is offered for all, so they too can lay aside their weakness and add their strength to us.” (T-8.VI.1:2-3)
April-June, 2023
Every morning as I do my lessons, I ask Jesus to give me clarity and then I write from that clarity. Here is the one I am doing today.
Lesson 326: I am forever an Effect of God.
1. “Father, I was created in Your Mind, a holy Thought that never left its home. I am forever Your Effect, and You forever and forever are my Cause. As You created me I have remained. Where You established me I still abide. And all Your attributes abide in me, because it is Your Will to have a Son so like his Cause that Cause and Its Effect are indistinguishable. Let me know that I am an Effect of God, and so I have the power to create like You. And as it is in Heaven, so on earth. Your plan I follow here, and at the end I know that You will gather Your effects into the tranquil Heaven of Your Love, where earth will vanish, and all separate thoughts unite in glory as the Son of God.
2. Let us today behold earth disappear, at first transformed, and then, forgiven, fade entirely into God’s holy Will.”
“As You created me I have remained. Where You established me I still abide.”
Wow! What an incredibly beautiful lesson! This is the absolute and only truth of what we are. We are forever an Effect of God. What God creates is always as He created it. This is how we know that our present experience is just that, an experience. These bodies are not what we are and this world is not where we are. We only dream of this.
April-June, 2023
There is a river that flows just beneath the conscious mind. It is a river of thoughts, feelings and emotions. Within this river lies the storage of the remembrance of all that we experience.
It contains our hidden pain which can often surface in times of duress. The instances in which we feel an inappropriate reaction to a situation is often the connection of remembrance of a long ago wound that has not been resolved.
With love, we can connect with the Source of all Love, the unconditional Love of our Creator.
We ask for Guidance to heal us from this wound, and in allowing ourselves to listen and truly see and understand ourselves we learn the true meaning of forgiveness. Forgiveness allows us to see not only our own pain but the pain of others. It reminds us that all pain comes from fear.
To have compassion for another, I believe, is perhaps one of the greatest gifts of our sojourn here — when we can listen to another person’s experiences and have empathy and compassion, no matter what.
April-June, 2023
“Be in my mind, my Father, when I wake, and shine on me throughout the day today. Let every minute be a time in which I dwell with You.” (W-232.1:1-2)
Every day is an adventure for me. I have no idea how this day will unfold, or what waits for me around the corner. But I know that I am never alone. The voice for God is always with me, holding my hand and guiding me.
“Be glad today, in loving thankfulness, your Father has not left you to yourself, nor let you wander in the dark alone.” (W-123.2:2)
I had coffee with a couple of friends, and we were talking about a Netflix film series about Harry and Meghan. I shared how much I enjoyed hearing Harry and Megan’s story, but my friends were so negative about it, saying they were damaging the Royal family.
I tried to explain that it was just the news blowing it out of all proportion, but my friends weren’t going to budge. I wanted to attack their take on the film and convince them I was right, but instead I went to the toilet, quietened my mind, and asked the Holy Spirit, “How would you have me see this?”
April-June, 2023
In May of this year, 2022, I received the “Dreaded Diagnosis,” the “Big C,” as a biopsy confirmed that the cells of the 2.7mm lesion on my upper left lung was cancerous. I say the “Dreaded Diagnosis” because as the world teaches… whether it’s within the context of religion, spirituality, philosophy, or the secular world… “cancer” of any sort is one of the things in the world by which we seem to be most victimized. This is partly because despite our best efforts, we can’t seem to prevent it… we have not yet found a cure… and it is still among the leading causes of death.
The world therefore teaches that “cancer” is something to be feared and fought against so… most of the time receiving a cancer diagnosis begins a cycle of worry, fear, and fight. It’s common to hear people who have been diagnosed with cancer and/or who have been cancer-free for some time, talk about how hard they are fighting against the disease and describe themselves as “Cancer Survivors.”
For me though — from the first time I heard the diagnosis up to the time of this writing, which is six days after having surgery to remove the entire upper lobe of my left lung — I have been totally at Peace. I remember feeling extremely calm as the two Pulmonary Specialists discussed the results of the first CT Scan with my husband and me, in April. The results showed a clearly defined “spot” on my upper left lung and they suggested a series of further scans, tests and exploration over the following four to six weeks to determine the exact nature of the ‘spot.’
After they left the room, I turned to my husband and asked, “So how do you feel about all this?” He responded by saying, “Never mind me… how do ‘you’ feel?” I shared that I was feeling quite calm and at peace despite the possible diagnoses.
April-June, 2023
When I was an athlete in high school and college, my coaches often stressed a concept that is best expressed in a quote attributed to Henry Ford:
“If you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.”
As a younger man, I did not necessarily believe that to be true. But I wanted to know how to get myself to believe I can. That statement began to resonate in my brain and heart from the repetition of being told that by my coaches over the years. Then later, I became a high school coach of football, wrestling and lacrosse. I repeated that statement many, many times to hundreds of players.
As a Course student, I have found that the statement has spiritual truth. I have been devoted to A Course in Miracles for almost 30 years. The Workbook of ACIM teaches in the earliest lessons:
• “I do not understand anything I see.” (W-3)
• “My thoughts do not mean anything.” (W-10)
• “My thoughts are images I have made.” (W-15)
“My thoughts” referred to here, are my ego thoughts. That is not really thinking; it is image making. And it is all illusion.
April-June, 2023
“Nothing is ever lost but time, which in the end is meaningless. For it is but a little hindrance to eternity, quite meaningless to the real Teacher of the world. Yet since you do believe in it, why should you waste it going nowhere, when it can be used to reach a goal as high as learning can achieve?” (T-26.V.2:1-3)
“To you who still believe you live in time and know not it is gone, the Holy Spirit still guides you through the infinitely small and senseless maze you still perceive in time, though it has long since gone. You think you live in what is past. Each thing you look upon you saw but for an instant, long ago, before its unreality gave way to truth. Not one illusion still remains unanswered in your mind. Uncertainty was brought to certainty so long ago that it is hard indeed to hold it to your heart, as if it were before you still.” (T-26.V.4:1-5)
I wake up this morning. I am free of thought. Everything I look upon is new. There is no past.
I walk into the kitchen to make coffee and it is as if I am doing it for the first time. I know how to do it. The smell of the coffee grinds is a surprising gift. I am grateful I am making coffee. It is the perfect thing to do. It is the only thing to do. When I close the top of the coffee maker, the smell of the grinds diminishes then is gone.
April-June, 2023
The text tells us light, joy and peace abide in me. I came to admit that I did not believe these words. To “spiritual people” they sound good and thus I enjoyed saying them. Yet the problem remained that I could not believe them entirely.
Due to my split mind, I am engaged in a daily struggle to see myself as an ego body or as pure spirit.
Jesus has instructed us that this body, the world and our special relationships are all made to conceal the beliefs in sin, guilt and fear. I know this is true from observing my projections. Too often I see my brother as my enemy; conflict, competition and strife are present. Now I understand it is the belief in guilt in my mind that is the cause of my upsets.
A quote from the Song of Prayer says, “Praying for others, if rightly understood, becomes a means for lifting your projections of guilt from your brother, and enabling you to recognize it is not he who is hurting you. The poisonous thought that he is your enemy, your evil counterpart, your nemesis, must be relinquished before you can be saved from guilt.” (-1.3.1:4-5)
April-June, 2023
One of the best things about the used bookstore near me isn’t the books. It isn’t the lovely couple who own it or the warm, welcoming space they’ve created. It’s the puzzles. Row upon row of used jigsaw puzzles that you can rent for a full month.
Not everyone enjoys doing puzzles. I happen to love it if there is a pretty picture and not just some mind-boggling challenge. I don’t feel the need to prove myself in that way. But, as I sat the other evening, pouring out the contents of another 1,000-piece puzzle box, I couldn’t help wondering what the fascination is with cutting a photo into many pieces only to put them back together again. Why would anyone do that? It somehow felt important to have an answer.
I asked Holy Spirit to explore this with me because I suspected that puzzle-making might be a metaphor for life. A Course in Miracles tells us over and over that we are whole, complete, and perfect, that we are One. But we are experiencing ourselves as billions of separate individuals trying to rejoin, to see where we fit into the bigger picture. Again, why would we do that?
April-June, 2023
One of the most beautiful lessons that I learned through my journey at Pathways of Light is that I always have the opportunity to choose my path; dwell on the past, or move forward into peace and joy with Holy Spirit. Reset every morning — no need to regret or ruminate yesterday. This has become my mantra.
I want to be the tide that moves forward collecting shells of experience by latching on to activities that contribute to my goals and create waves of purpose. In the past I can think of so many times when I would ruminate on my thoughts over and over in my mind in hopes of grasping a perspective that I could make sense of in my false state of ego. Sometimes that circulating of mind thoughts would take the form of going over my encounters and almost rating them on a scale of 1 to 10. I was thinking from a state of worry instead of self-trust.
Knowing that I have a lifelong partner in Holy Spirit and my own Internal Wisdom, I now live in the joy of awakening when I choose the path of peace. I can always trust myself to be my authentic self in any situation to revitalize myself in a state of Love, not ego.
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