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Study of the Text 4-15-13

4-15-13
5 The Bible tells you to know yourself, or to be certain. Certainty is always of God. When you love someone you have perceived him as he is, and this makes it possible for you to know him. Until you first perceive him as he is you cannot know him. While you ask questions about him you are clearly implying that you do not know God. Certainty does not require action. When you say you are acting on the basis of knowledge, you are really confusing knowledge with perception. Knowledge provides the strength for creative thinking, but not for right doing. Perception, miracles and doing are closely related. Knowledge is the result of revelation and induces only thought. Even in its most spiritualized form perception involves the body. Knowledge comes from the altar within and is timeless because it is certain. To perceive the truth is not the same as to know it.

Jesus says that we receive knowledge as a result of revelation. Revelation is information revealed. This means that we don’t get to knowledge on our own. We don’t get there through logic or judgment or reasoning or any kind of learning. We receive knowledge. It is revealed to us. It comes from the altar within. It is certain and unchanging because it is of God. It is timeless.

To love means to know. While I question God, that is to doubt or to not understand, I do not love Him. The same is true for myself and for anyone else. When I have been given knowledge and accepted that knowledge I am certain and there is nothing to ask, to wonder, to do.

Perception, miracles and doing are closely related. I am still at the stage of having my perception corrected so that it becomes true perception, that is, very close to knowledge. I do this through miracles, as miracles are a change of mind. I realize that my perception must not be true because it is not like what I would think with God, and so I ask for a miracle. I ask that my mind be changed. This is done and I am closer to truth.

The final step, from true perception to knowledge, is taken by God. He reveals Himself and then we know. There is nothing else to ponder. There is nothing to do. When we know God we know our selves and we know our brother.  I imagine (perceive) what this must be like, and though I cannot know for sure if I am right, I think it must be wonderful.

How blessed to know that God is Love and nothing else, to never doubt this and to know exactly what that means. How blessed to know that my brothers are Love and never a threat to me. How blessed to know my friend is Love and to never become confused about that, to never believe in her confusion.

How blessed to look at my son and see perfection, to never become confused by the suffering the body’s eyes show me. How blessed to never again forget that I am not living this life but observing my mind playing with ideas. It makes me cry to think that this unwavering certainty could be mine, and it makes me cry to realize that it is not mine yet.

Right now my perception wavers, sometime seeing truly and other times seeing with the ego. But I do the work and accept the Atonement as I am able. I get closer to true perception every day and I “know” enough now to trust that all will be revealed when I am ready to receive it. With knowledge all doubt and uncertainty will be gone and never again will I be confused. I will know that I am as God created me. I will know that there is only Love.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text 4-12-13

4-12
4 True vision is the natural perception of spiritual sight, but it is still a correction rather than a fact. Spiritual sight is symbolic, and therefore not a device for knowing. It is, however, a means of right perception, which brings it into the proper domain of the miracle. A “vision of God” would be a miracle rather than a revelation. The fact that perception is involved at all removes the experience from the realm of knowledge. That is why visions, however holy, do not last.

This paragraph explains why it is that I can have the most remarkable spiritual experiences, so vivid and real that I cannot doubt them, and so extraordinary that I cannot imagine losing them, and yet I do. They begin to fade and I cannot recover the feeling. Sometimes I have to go back and read what I wrote about them to even remember they happened.

I am happy for them anyway because I am encouraged that something is happening. They are like little gifts that foreshadow the real thing. It is like I am being reassured that I am on the right path. Some of these experiences have been… I don’t even have words to describe them… amazing certainly doesn’t cover it, so out of my experience of the world as I know it, but more than that.

I have felt Love, or as much of it as I can stand, and while I can’t bring that feeling back up, I will never forget it happened. So now I know that Love is real, and it is not what I have been feeling here in the illusion. And Jesus is telling me that this experience, as powerful as it was, was not the real thing. It is still in the realm of perception and there is something more.

As we are learning the difference between perception and knowledge, I have to laugh at all the time I think I knew something. Sometimes I was so certain that I knew something that I was willing to argue the point, and even when I did not open my mouth, my mind was busy building defenses against the other person’s point of view. I was deluded.

Perception is shifting and changing and uncertain. Perception would need defense, but then why defend something that is shifting, changing and uncertain? What would be the point? Instead of thinking that the other person is wrong, I am learning to ask the Holy Spirit to show me the truth in their words. Instead of defending what I think I know, I am learning to ask for ever more clarity, truer and truer perceptions.

In so doing, I am no longer interested in bending others to my way of thinking. In fact, I find this funny even to think about. On those rare moments when I forget and think I know something or that someone else needs to see things my way, I forgive it and then have a good laugh at myself.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text 4-10-13

4-10-13
2 All your difficulties stem from the fact that you do not recognize yourself, your brother or God. To recognize means to “know again,” implying that you knew before. You can see in many ways because perception involves interpretation, and this means that it is not whole or consistent. The miracle, being a way of perceiving, is not knowledge. It is the right answer to a question, but you do not question when you know. Questioning illusions is the first step in undoing them. The miracle, or the right answer, corrects them. Since perceptions change, their dependence on time is obvious. How you perceive at any given time determines what you do, and actions must occur in time. Knowledge is timeless, because certainty is not questionable. You know when you have ceased to ask questions.

Jesus starts this paragraph by telling me that I don’t know who I am. I understand this. I have thought I was Myron for nearly all of my life. Even now that I know I am not Myron, I still don’t remember who it is I am. Even the little bit I do remember, I forget and then must remember again. And though I accept the idea that I am the Son of God, I don’t really know what that means, nor do I really believe it. I believe Jesus when he says it is true, but I also don’t believe it.

If I truly believed it I would live it, and that isn’t happening. I am living a conflicted life, sometimes listening to the ego mind and sometimes laughing at the ego mind, but never am I simply living as the Son of God. I am making headway as I ask questions of the Holy Spirit and receive answers. I ask for healing of the mistaken thoughts in my mind and receive healing, and I can then ask better questions. My perceptions are being corrected, but corrected perceptions are not knowledge, a step toward knowledge, but not the same as knowledge.

Jesus points out that while I don’t recognize myself, recognize means to “know again” and that is encouraging because if I knew myself before, then I can know myself again. Right now my job is to continue to question my thoughts and accept Jesus’ plan for my redemption. While the correction of my perception is not knowledge it is bringing me closer to recognizing myself. I will do this until there are no more questions and what is left will be knowledge.

Jesus says that I don’t recognize my brother, either, and I see that this is true. Just this past week I have failed to recognize my brother in three of his disguises. I looked at my sister-in-law and saw a sick and failing body. My vision stopped at her body and I believed the illusion I saw with the body’s eyes. How could a fragile and sickly body be my brother, who, like me is the Son of God. I saw my daughter as suffering and endangered. How could this precious child of God suffer? I looked at the illusion and allowed my vision to stop there, so I did not recognize my brother in this one either.

I don’t recognize God either. If I recognized God, I could not believe in pain, suffering and death.  I would not believe in guilt or sin or fear. If I recognized God, I would never be drawn to any of these illusory beliefs. If I recognized God, I would never imagine I could actually be a body. If I recognized God, I would have no fear of Him and would happily return my whole mind to Him. But I once recognized Him and so I will again.

What I know so far: I cannot get to knowledge through thinking, because thinking is just the rearranging of perceptions. Perceptions must be healed through a miracle, that is, through my desire to be healed I accept the Atonement, and my mind is miraculously healed. I also have learned that no matter how healed they are, perceptions change and are not whole; they are uncertain and temporary and so are not knowledge. How I think determines how I act and all of this occurs in time which is an illusion and so not knowledge. So really what I understand about knowledge is what it is not.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text 4-9-13

4-9-13
III. Perception versus Knowledge
1 We have been emphasizing perception, and have said very little about knowledge as yet. This is because perception must be straightened out before you can know anything. To know is to be certain. Uncertainty means that you do not know. Knowledge is power because it is certain, and certainty is strength. Perception is temporary. As an attribute of the belief in space and time, it is subject to either fear or love. Misperceptions produce fear and true perceptions foster love, but neither brings certainty because all perception varies. That is why it is not knowledge. True perception is the basis for knowledge, but knowing is the affirmation of truth and beyond all perceptions.

I have thrown the word know and the word knowledge around a lot, but I would be more accurate to say I perceive. I think I know something, when, really, I have only a particular perception of it that I like a lot. I must be getting smarter because nowadays I seldom believe that I know anything.

Jesus says that before I can have knowledge I must straighten out my perceptions. The mind perceives and misperceives. Its misperceptions produce fear and its true perceptions foster love. When my daughter was upset with something in her life recently, I thought I knew what to do about it. This was a misperception, not a knowing, and the misperception threw me into confusion and fear. Then I perceived that I must be in error and so I asked for correction. When I accepted that correction, I felt love and peace.

This is how I am to straighten out my perception. True perception leads me to knowledge, but is not knowledge itself. Knowledge is power because it is certain and unchanging. It is not subject to variations. Knowledge is beyond all perceptions. When I was in the middle of my daughter’s ego story, my perception was wrong-minded, then I asked for clarity and saw it differently, but then something else would happen and I would again be uncertain and misperceive. When another ego story comes around I will apply perception to it and maybe it will be true and maybe not. This is typical of perception.

If I knew instead of perceived, there would be no uncertainty and no variation in how I saw things. No matter how distraught my daughter was there would never have been an answering fear thought in my mind. I envision my mind as a crooked road and with the Holy Spirit’s help it is being straightened. That is my job now, to straighten out the road. Knowledge does not need my help and will come of its own.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text 4-8-13

4-8-13
6 The way to correct distortions is to withdraw your faith in them and invest it only in what is true. You cannot make untruth true. If you are willing to accept what is true in everything you perceive, you let it be true for you. Truth overcomes all error, and those who live in error and emptiness can never find lasting solace. If you perceive truly you are cancelling out misperceptions in yourself and in others simultaneously. Because you see them as they are, you offer them your acceptance of their truth so they can accept it for themselves. This is the healing that the miracle induces.

This is what I understand Jesus to be telling me. Often my eyes will seem to prove that there is something besides God, but this is untrue. In other words, don’t believe my eyes. And don’t bother trying to improve on the untrue, trying to make it true. This won’t work and will just keep me in hell longer. For instance, I know someone who is very depressed. I look at him and I see all the signs. I like this person very much and want to help.

The way I would help in the past is to see the problem, read all I could about it, looking for solutions, and then do what is most strongly recommended. Jesus is telling me that this is not going to work, that I cannot find solace by trying to make untruth true. What is untrue is that this person is depressed. He feels like he is depressed and acts like he is depressed, but he is in God and there is no depression in God, so he cannot be depressed. That is the truth about him.

To really help him I will know the truth. I will see him as he really is, free of his projections, and free of mine. I accept the truth for him because right now he cannot. If I hold to that truth it will help him to accept it for himself. Jesus says this is the healing the miracle induces. This can be very hard for me to do, by the way. I am used to believing what the eyes show me. I am not used to seeing past the illusions to the truth.

It helps me to remember that everything I see with the body’s eyes is a reflection of a thought. The mind believes something then projects that belief, and uses the eyes to show them what the belief looks like. What I am trying to do is to remember that the reflection is not the truth. The thought that made the reflection is not the truth. There is only one truth: God created a perfect Son and that Son remains in His Father, a perfect creation.

The truth is in all of us, a light that is never extinguished. The stronger my memory of the truth, the brighter that light shines. When my memory is strong the light shines so brightly that it strengthens the light in other minds, and reminds them of who they are. That is how we wake each other up.

Have you ever been in a storm or some circumstance where the electrical power would fade in and out? The light bulb would dim and then brighten, then dim again until the electrical source stabilized. That is the picture I get of the light in my mind. Right now I go through periods when the light shines brightly and I know the truth and have no doubts. Then something triggers the untrue thoughts that are still in my mind, and the light dims and flickers.

When my light is strong, I have no trouble realizing the truth about my friend. The depression he experiences seems very real to him, but it is only a thought form. When the depression causes him to do something scary, something self destructive, I begin to doubt the truth and my light flickers and fades and I start thinking there must be something I can do to help him, something I can say to him that will make it better, some medicine that will cure him.

Now I am in the dream with him trying to drag him to safety, but there is no safety in the dream. Truth is the only safety there is and there is no truth in the untrue. Sometimes when I am in this confused state I believe that if I try to give him the right spiritual direction that this will help him. But if I am telling him all the right words, but I am doing it because I believe in his illusion, then I am just allowing my ego to borrow the right words. It is still ego.

My depressed friend needs only one thing from me. He needs me to keep my Inner Eye on the truth so that I am not deceived by the body’s eyes.  And if some action of his triggers my issues and I see that my focus has wavered, then this is an opportunity to heal what is in me that needs healing. This is the dance of awakening.  I am grateful for the opportunity to shine a light for my brother, and equally grateful for the opportunity this relationship gives me to strengthen that light.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text 4-5-13

4-5-13
5 Nothing can prevail against a Son of God who commends his Spirit into the Hands of his Father. By doing this the mind awakens from its sleep and remembers its Creator. All sense of separation disappears. The Son of God is part of the Holy Trinity, but the Trinity Itself is one. There is no confusion within Its Levels, because They are of one Mind and one Will. This single purpose creates perfect integration and establishes the peace of God. Yet this vision can be perceived only by the truly innocent. Because their hearts are pure, the innocent defend true perception instead of defending themselves against it. Understanding the lesson of the Atonement they are without the wish to attack, and therefore they see truly. This is what the Bible means when it says, “When he shall appear (or be perceived) we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.”

It doesn’t really matter if I understand the Holy Trinity so I won’t dwell on that part. But I did find it interesting that he speaks of it as “They” and “levels” and perfect integration, which establishes the peace of God. He says it’s their single purpose that does this. This feels different than the idea of One that I have had.

The One is a They. Also, the “single purpose” attracted my attention because the Course emphasizes that we must join in a single purpose, and I now see why. The Holy Trinity are in perfect agreement within Itself. They share a single purpose. This is the peace of God. When we, you and I, share a single purpose we experience a holy instant and the practice brings us to the memory of the peace of God.

I do not experience the peace of God even though it exists uninterrupted by my dream of separation, because only the innocent remember peace. As long as I perceive guilt, I am blind to what is in me and all around me.  This brings us to the part of this paragraph that is of greatest interest to me, because it is something I can understand and use. Guilt is the block that keeps me from the awareness of who and what I am. It keeps me from awakening. Guilt keeps me from remembering my Creator.  So allowing guilt to be undone in my mind is my purpose while I imagine I am here.

The first sentence, “Nothing can prevail against a Son of God who commends his Spirit into the Hands of his Father,” brought tears of relief to my eyes. As it echoes Jesus’ final surrender to His Creator, it awakens the desire within me to surrender. It reminds me that surrender to God is not a sacrifice. Surrender to my Father is an act of strength. If you think it does not take strength, try it while in the throes of an ego storm, while deeply mired in fear. And you need only do this once to know there is no sacrifice, but quite the opposite. To go from terror to peace in a single moment is not sacrifice.

Jesus says, the innocent defend true perception instead of defending themselves against it. I have a current example of this. Last night my daughter was upset and feeling very hurt. If it were myself that was feeling hurt and upset, I would move more easily into surrender, but when it is my kids, I have a harder time with it. I still do the work, but it takes me longer to get past the appearance and to the truth.

Within my mind was a true perception of the situation, but standing before me was my precious daughter who was apparently in pain. The part of the situation that was encouraging is that I recognized all of the ego thoughts for what they were. I felt bad (guilty) because I could not fix her problem. I felt helpless (guilty) because I did not know what to say and all of my wisdom was useless because she doesn’t believe in it.

I saw my mind going constantly to the world looking for a way to fix this problem. Boy, was there ever the desire to find a way to manipulate the world so that it was kinder to my daughter! I recognized this for what it was; defending against true perception, and so let it go each time. I guess the strongest defense against true perception was my belief that something was wrong and I needed to do something about it.

True perception showed me a daughter who was experiencing her wishes, and from that experience moving closer to awakening to the peace of God, but instead of defending that perception, I kept defending against it by sinking into her fear and believing in that. I also noticed that her fears triggered the same fears in me, fears I thought I had let go long ago.

All the time this was happening and later when I got home and sat with it, I was asking for the Atonement in this situation. I said that I accepted it, and yet I stayed in fear and uncertainty. Finally, I just gave in and cried about all the things that this situation brought up for me. I heard myself say, “This is how these thoughts make me feel.” Then I realized my error.

At first I was asking for the Atonement, but what I really wanted was to feel better. I was still defending against true perception and was not interested in letting go of what I believed. I was asking out of fear, or another way to say it, I was asking Jesus to take my fear away. He tells us that he cannot do this.

But he also says he can help us with the beliefs that cause the fear. Obviously, though, I will have to stop defending against him doing this, that is, I will have to be willing to let go of the beliefs that are causing the fear. This is when I become willing to commend (surrender for safekeeping) my Spirit to God. This is the moment of trust and faith.

The reason crying and telling Jesus how I felt was so helpful to me is that it was the moment I stopped trying to heal myself and really surrendered the problem. The Course says that we need to look at our thoughts with the Holy Spirit and let Him heal us. Before that moment I was trying to bypass the part where I really looked at them. I was apparently telling myself that I could just jump right to the healing without looking. I had looked in an intellectual way, but I didn’t want to feel the pain. Kind of like looking at a mess from a distance so I didn’t get my hands dirty. ~smile~

That moment of crying and really acknowledging how it feels to believe the ego (and so support the belief in guilt) and then asking for healing was what was required of me to truly receive the healing. I went from saying, “Yuck, this is awful. Take it away,” to saying, “Here is what it feels like to believe this false idea. I see this is not something I want to keep believing. Please heal my mind.” It seems a subtle difference but it is very different.

From a healed perspective I lost all desire to attack. I did not see the world as guilty of hurting my child and so I did not want to “attack” the problem in the world. I remembered the simple truth and now I hold that truth for her. I am defending true perception and no longer defending against it. Whew! It feels so freeing. Thank you, God. I love you, God.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Study of the Text 4-4-13

4-1-13
4 You are afraid of God’s Will because you have used your own mind, which He created in the likeness of His Own, to miscreate. The mind can miscreate only when it believes it is not free. An “imprisoned” mind is not free because it is possessed, or held back, by itself. It is therefore limited, and the will is not free to assert itself. To be one is to be of one mind or will. When the Will of the Sonship and the Father are one, their perfect accord is Heaven.

A Metaphorical Fable

As I read this paragraph I imagine myself as an unlimited being wondering what it would be like if I were not unlimited. Visually, I imagine Self as existing in every direction with no ending. (Yes, I know, there is no direction outside the illusion, but bear with me here. I am working from within the limitations imposed by the illusion as I do this.) So here I am, existing everywhere at the same time and in my desire to imagine something different, I draw a box around a small part of Self and pretend there is nothing outside the box.

Ok, now I have set my parameters and I can allow the experience to unfold. And, oh boy, does it unfold! There are quickly billions of little boxes within the box and within each of the tiny boxes experiences unfold and unfold and unfold. Organic is a word that comes to me. Changing and shifting and growing into something I had perhaps not anticipated. As it gets out of hand I begin to feel something entirely new to me. I begin to feel claustrophobic. How could I be so small? This can’t be right. What have I done? This new feeling is guilt and it is followed closely with fear.

I decide the best thing to do is to hide out in the strange and awful world I have made until I figure out what to do. There are so many new experiences and if I focus on them I can temporarily forget how small and confined I feel in this little box. I can also forget the guilt and fear. But now that guilt and fear are in this mind of mine, I see it everywhere within my little prison.

Guilt and fear and all its effects are the stuff of “creation,” the material I use to build this world, so to speak. As I think of what I have “created” I feel more fear because deeply buried in my mind is the certainty that this is not creation at all, and the fear is that to create outside God is defiance. Yikes!

I use it to make a world filled with guilty people doing guilty things and isn’t that handy. “Look, God, it was him. His behavior is so much worse than mine. Punish him.” My world is so far out of reality now that I have forgotten who I am and who God is and even that I am not really imprisoned at all, just thinking about all this.

If it were real, all would be lost, but it cannot be real.  Remember, all that happened is that I wondered what it would be like. My wondering took the form of drawing a box around an unlimited Self and within that box allowing a world of impossibilities to grow. But it is still only wondering, imagination, pretend –like.  I am not guilty of anything and there is nothing to be afraid of. In fact there is no guilt and no fear except in my little box.

There is an escape route, of course, a way out and a Guide to help me find it. I cannot be held captive to my imagination. My captivity is part of my play and is self-imposed. The feeling of being trapped, of feeling cramped within my story is the awakening of the memory of who I am. The path out is one small step at a time which seems to take forever, but what is time to an eternal being? And remember, we are utterly free, and it is only a thought within this holy mind that we are, which imagines imprisonment.

I used to envision the path out as being lovely white stones, one in front of the other, going on and on, out of sight. I just trusted that they would lead me Home. I saw myself studying and practicing and with each effort moving forward to the next stone. Now I see it a little differently. I see that the path is made up of two stones side by side. One for each foot? No, silly, one for me and one for you. We go home hand in hand.

Our imagination made a world of separate beings and to undo this world we must rejoin. In the world of illusion that looks like me and you recognizing that we are in agreement on a single thing. I was mad at you and you were feeling offended. Still separate. I am getting a glimmer of the path out and that I want out.

I decide that more than I want you to be wrong, I want to be free of this confining existence. I accept the Atonement in this situation and Love heals my mind. I take your hand and we move forward a step. We don’t care about the disagreement anymore. We don’t care who is right or who is wrong. We don’t even need someone else to be guilty and so the entire situation shifts. Instead of standing in fear and guilt, our willingness, our true desire, drew us together and forward.

It is so simple that the mind mired in complexity tends to overlook it. But practice has brought it to the forefront of my mind and now it occurs to me more and more often. Each time I make that simple and obvious choice, I get closer to Heaven. As we make this journey we are preparing our minds for the ultimate undoing, the moment we take God’s Hand (metaphorically speaking) and the memory bubble bursts.

The world we made and all the dramas and the pain and suffering we take so seriously dissolve like a dream on awakening. How we will laugh to realize we did this to our selves, and that we did nothing at all. We were not taking a journey to Heaven, we were remembering that where God and His Son join, Heaven is. We could never have been separate from God because that is not His Will or Ours. We were only dreaming of separation and the dream is over.

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