Way Finding

From Ann Glover O’Dell’s Scripture Surplice:

On our way from Ur

to who knows where

we question our departure

from the ancient tribal birthplace

to an adventure quest.

Driven out by memories too painful to resolve?

lured by a deep longing

to find lost Eden which we think we once inhabited?

Our young feet move us westward

through large dense forests

over strange terrain

sometimes making camp

and owing to conducive climate

and abundant sustenance

we make sturdy furniture

and fashion pots and bowls

more than we need or use.

Then one day a strong storm comes

and wind and fire destroy

and we escaping

barely mortal wounds

journey on.

This story is repeated several times

until one day we meet a wizened man

made wise by time and place

who tells us of a journey

unlike any footstep travel time

and tells us that we know the way

we are the way

and deep within our souls

we’ll find the truth that’s always been there

the truth that knows that

no one can be or show the way for us

for we more than any proclaimed messenger

know the path to our abundant life.

We have inadvertently

left mile posts

all along our way

we’ve been but also

and surprisingly

to where we’re going

to the most important

holy destination

that is ours

plotted by the master cartographer.

Blessings in the Disguise of Problems

“The days go by and it  may seem that the problem has not been resolved, but then you realize that what you saw as a problem was a blessing, a blessing that you did not understand at the beginning.  It may have bothered you just as it bothers a child when a loving mother gives medicine that may taste bitter but is good for health.”   Choose Only Love, bk.3, 3:I.  Message from Jesus.

Problems are meant to be solved, and, as A Course in Miracles says, the solution is always with the problem.  Simultaneously, but we often don’t recognize this.

We are not meant to live from problem to problem, an agitated lifestyle if there ever was one.  Ask for help; don’t wallow in  misery.  And be patient.

We will come to see that our dilemmas are actually blessings.  And when the blessing is recognized, we express gratitude for the earlier confusion that ended so well.

Fear Is Meaningless

“How weak is fear; how little and how meaningless.  How insignificant before the quiet strength of those whom love has joined!  This is your ‘enemy,’—a frightened mouse that would attack the universe.  How likely is it that it will succeed?”  (A Course in Miracles, FIP ed., T-22.V.4)

We can keep this fear “mouse” in check by enough stillness and quiet.  If we run around as though our activities determined the progress of the universe, we will remain fearful when things seem to go awry (which they do often).

I think the assertion of Jesus in this quotation is quite important to our central problem, which has always been misplaced fear, trying to handle things that were beyond us, and not looking to the Diety for guidance.

Promise ourselves to be gentle with ourselves, and to still ourselves when events that come seem to overwhelm. The fear is meaningless, and in time it will dissipate.  Our brothers and sisters will help us cope.

God Rests with Us in Quiet

“In truth you and your brother stand together, with nothing in between.  God holds your hands, and what can separate whom He has joined as one with Him?  It is your Father Whom you would defend against.  Yet it remains impossible to keep love out.  God rests with you in quiet, undefended and wholly undefending, for in this quiet state alone is strength and power.”  (A Course in Miracles, FIP ed., T-22.V.3)

I have become very aware today of how important rest really is.  It is the stillness in which we find our inner spirit, our God who dwells within.  The final sentence of the quotation makes it clear:  We are to open to a “quiet state,” for this state alone gives us the strength and power to live well in this, our imperfect world.

God did not create an imperfect world.  But our God has given all of us free will, and our choices have sometimes been made in error.

Turn to God today, asking for the correct choices to be made known to us from our deepest Self.  God will answer, and we will know one step on the way back to selfhood under God, as part of our very being.

WITH LOVE TO MARY ANN BOWEN

In Memoriam – a sonnet from the past:

On Her 100th Birthday

The day hath come, my dear, the milestone day.

I say, “Rejoice!” and celebrate with thee.

Fantastic century ye spent, I say!

For sure thy life doth be well-lived, the “key”!

I love thee dearly, Mary Ann, I look

To thee as one to emulate.  If I

Live long on Earth, if written in God’s Book,

I hope to live as well: true choice (nay “sigh”)!

More time seems sure ahead for you indeed.

God’s favor looks complete–all good–my dear.

Thy family still need thy fulsome lead.

Thy work not over, ye in front–not rear.

May blissful day give happiness to thee.

God’s grace abounds upon thy soul, I see!

–Celia Hales Mabry

  July 25, 2023

IN MEMORIAM

Dear friend Mary Ann’s “work,” as mentioned in this sonnet, was over January 6, 2026 at age 102. Her hearing was good, her vision was good, her mind was good. She was richly blessed.

With much love to her and her family.

Celia and Celia’s husband Paul

January 9, 2026

Removing the Ego from Our Experience

Jesus does not mean that we need to share with others (unless desired) our attempts to leave behind the ego.  It is enough to recognize what has gone wrong in our thoughts or in our journaling, and in the process of introspection, we clear the way for Love to appear.  And Love with a capital letter is our God, hidden within but available to us when we turn inward.

“Denial or suppression, as they speak of it in your psychological language, is the very root of the creation of the ego.  That which has been hidden must be made known.  And in its being made known purification can occur.”  (“The Way of Knowing,” The Way of Mastery, Lesson 26, Page 305)

We will experience new miracles, new abilities that a secular person would term “psychic.”  These new abilities will, in time, clear the way for purification to occur.  Don’t let the word “purification” scare you away.  It is simply a choice to live with love of our fellow men and women and our God.  Once this love is all we really care about, we are very close to the final goal of a complete merger with God.  Then our very thoughts will be guidance (though we have to use common sense not to think that every negative thought is meant to be acted out).  

If we are not introspective at all, we are going without a tremendous blessing.  Introspection will attune us to guidance, and guidance will take us home.

Walking in the Garden

From Ann Glover O’Dell’s Scripture Surplice:

Walking in the garden

in the cool of evening

observing and enjoying all

God was pleased and

once again uttered

his ultimate critique

good

and sitting on a bench

began to wonder if

his just-made children

would walk the paths

in search of him with whom

twilight conversation

would bring congenial

ending to the day.

So waited he a while

until desire could not contain

the waiting any longer

and walked he then

in search of his beloved.

When all the paths walked fruitlessly

he called to roust the nappers

to the beauty of the sunset sky.

The wakeful ones

o’ercame timidity enough

to lead him to their hiding place.

With amateur leaf covering

reminiscent of a game of make believe

they showed themselves

admitting to their willful

rearranging of the

job description

given them to understand.

And looking long

and sitting down again

he wept.

“For us I made this Garden

for us to walk together

at such a time as this.

This was to be our Paradise.

I needed you.

Do you not want to be

my consort gardeners?”

Our Return to a Universe of Love

“This cooperation is natural when fear has been rejected.  You have long embraced fear and rejected love.  Now the reverse is true.  This reversal of truth has changed the nature of your universe and the laws by which it operates.  The laws of fear were laws of struggle, limits, danger, and competitiveness.  The laws of love are laws of peace, abundance, safety, and cooperation.  Your actions and the results of your actions in a universe of love will naturally be different from your actions and the results of your actions in a universe of fear.  You set the laws of the universe when you chose fear.  The laws of the universe of love are God-given.”  (A Course of Love, C:20.30 – 20.31)

We need love; it is our very nature.  We have lived for a long time in the “tiny, mad idea” (from A Course in Miracles) that gave us a universe of fear.  We were not at home there; we struggled mightily.  We listened to an egoic persona that did not mean us well, that tried to protect us by isolating us from each other in a cacophony of diverse sounds that spelled “fear” to us.  We never felt safe, because we never were safe.  Our “creations” had come back to haunt us.

But now all that can change.  Now we know better.  In a universe of love, we know peace abundance, safety, cooperation.  Our laws of struggle, limits danger, and competitiveness are not outdated.  What a joy to envision what awaits us in this new age!  We are safe because we are no longer “creating” with the ego; we are working within the laws of God, laws which complement our true reality.  We are homebound, safe in a universe where love reigns and where we have turned aside from the ego and its sad and forlorn dictates.

Naturally, we question all these ideas, for what we see in our world is conflict.  These conflicts are the last death throes of a world that has been dominated by ego.  Enough of us have changed to herald, in time, a new age.  When the tipping point is reached, we are on our way back to a land of milk and honey, a Heaven on Earth.

Peace Rather Than a Battle

“Yet how can peace be so fragmented?  It is still whole, and nothing has been taken from it.  See how the means and the material of evil dreams are nothing.  In truth you and your brother stand together, with nothing in between.”  (A Course in Miracles, FIP ed., T-22.V.3)

We were conditioned from our past learning to believe that there was some kind of cosmic battle going on between good and evil.  Jesus tells us here that evil is actually nothing, that our peace has not ultimately been destroyed by the conflict in this world.

When we view the news, we may find such an assertion, even from Jesus, to be farfetched.  But our peace is assured when we turn just ourselves–only ourselves–from conflict.  We are responsible for ourselves, and when our brother/sister stands with us, we are certain that all will be well.

Ultimately, there is no cosmic battle going on.  But we may think that there is, and when we “think” it, that is what we see.

The Journey without Distance that We All Must Make

“This journey will take you into the essence of what you do not know that you do not know.  That is what makes it unconscious.  For you have used the power of the mind to push down out of yourself your fears—where they actually gain power, but you do not need to confront them directly. (“The Way of Knowing,” The Way of Mastery, Lesson 26, Page 305)

If we are hampered by the suppression of our fears, how do we remedy this suppression?  How do we bring up to the surface the fears, where they can be dealt with, assimilated, and then forgotten?

Meditation and prayer are the great assimilators.  Elsewhere in The Way of Mastery, and also in Choose Only Love, Jesus tells us that what we have suppressed and repressed MUST be brought to the surface for healing.  We are being made ready for Awakening, once we have done this.  The process does not have to be a “dark night of the soul,” though it frequently is; why this is nccessary, we are not told by Jesus in any of his recent channeled works.  But as far back as the medieval mystics, we are told this by great spiritual figures, especially the women, many of whom were nuns.

Surrender the agony to our deepest being, where God dwells.  Then we will all have some measure of peace.  The angst can and will return, perhaps for a long time, but there is light at the end of the journey.

Determine not to turn aside from the thoughts and feelings that arise.  Welcome them, for they are healing us for the journey without distance, back to God and home.

Miracles Become Natural Occurrences

“You are a unique expression of the selfsame love that exists in all creation.  Thus your expression of love is as unique as your Self.  It is in the cooperation between unique expressions of love that creation continues and miracles become natural occurrences.”  (A Course of Love, C:20.30)

We are meant to live in a miraculous world, surrounded daily by a higher realm that meets our every need with miracles attuned to supply and demand.  We are unique individuals, each of us, but when we live in cooperation with each other, this uniqueness suggest that being different is not so much a fact as is our sameness.  We are all equally special, or, seen in the reverse, none of us are special at all.  We are simply entities of the creative endeavor of a limitless God Who knows no bounds to His loving of us, His creatures, of us, His Sons and Daughters.  We are One with Him/Her (for God has no gender), and the God whom we worship dwells deep within every creation.

We were born of His love, and when we extend the love that is at the core of our being, we soon live a life that is miraculous in the extreme.  We no longer take nature for granted.  We no longer take the dawn of a new day for granted.  We no longer take our health as a given.  We know that the love that sustains us also provides for us.  

And we know that that love comes from God Himself/Herself.

Transformation

From Ann Glover O’Dell’s Scripture Surplice:

Did not we wish that somehow

we could have talked in the

expectation of some word newly formed

from those who heard him speak alive?

Did we not wonder what new image

they would paint in witness words from their own eyes?

Do not we long to see repeated pictures of the cloud formations round

mirages on the mountain top?

Are not we mesmerizingly amazed

at sole-numb feet

that dirvish-whirl without enchanted shoes?

Will not we let the mythic powers

spin round our spirit bodies

until we too can shine with transformation glow?

Touching the Veil that Separates Us

“Standing before the veil, it still seems difficult.  But hold out your hand, joined with your brother’s, and touch this heavy-seeming block, and you will learn how easily your fingers slip through its nothingness.  It is no solid wall.  And only an illusion stands between you and your brother, and the holy Self you share together.”  (A Course in Miracles, FIP ed., T-22.IV.7)

We are ALL One.  Knowing that our significant others are one with us, as Jesus emphasizes in A Course in Miracles, is only the beginning.  He makes it easier for us, because in the beginning our love is limited, and our significant others play a large part.

We need to let our fingers slip through the veil that separates us from one another.

And this can be very easy, when we are open to it.

Let Miracles Abound!

“This veil you and your brother lift together opens the way to truth to more than you.  Those who would let illusions be lifted from their minds are this world’s saviors, walking the world with their Redeemer, and carrying His message of hope and freedom and release from suffering to everyone who needs a miracle to save him.”  (A Course in Miracles, FIP ed., T-22.IV.6)

Here we see a central theme of A Course in Miracles–that our brother or sister will save us, embodies our way to salvation.  We can always ask for a miracle.  And miracles are granted.  Don’t be shy in asking, for God delights in giving good things to the creations through whom He/She lives.  (God has no gender, and it is important we recognize this.)

May this upcoming year take us farther and farther into God’s bosom.  May our knowledge that we are One with God carry us far, for Jesus said many years ago, when he walked this Earth, that he and his Father were One.  That is a truth that we inherit, too.

Giving & Receiving as One

“Others represent the accidents waiting to happen, love that is not returned, the withholding of things you deem important.  This fear that you feel in relation to others is as true of those you hold most dear to you as it is of those you would call strangers.  It is the very independence of others that makes your own independence seem so important to you.  Dependency is not consistent with your notions of a healthy self.  What, then is the alternative?

“The alternative is believing in giving and receiving as one.”  (A Course of Love, T2:7.2 – 7.3)

We are in unity with others, but we often don’t encourage this unity because of our fear of these same others—even our most significant others.  We think that being independent of needing other people will serve us best.  We think being close with others will lead to an unhealthy dependency.  But is this in line with A Course of Love?

Absolutely not.  We give and receive in tandem when we follow the dictates of ACOL.  We know that independence is not so very healthy, that the opposite of independence is not dependency, but a heartfelt joining of ourselves to other people.  We give them our love; they return our love.  The giving up of our solitary nature is actually a most joyful undertaking—when we realize that we were never meant to be isolated and alone.  We are meant to share with others, to live in a partnership with others.  Why else would the world have so many people?

We are meant to join and to share, giving up our prideful isolation in a choice to give and receive as one with other people sharing our world.  This choice will give us joy.  Can it be so wrong to choose what will make us happy, avoiding the false independent nature that has failed us so many times?

Our Way Home

“Every mistake you and your brother make, the other will gently have corrected.  For in his sight your loveliness is his salvation, which he would protect from harm.”(A Course in Miracles, FIP ed., T-22.IV.5)

All of us have, or have had, very significant relationships in our lives.  A theme of A Course in Miracles is what a brother (or sister) can do for us.  In ACIM, he or she is our way home.

Let us envelop ourselves today in the peace that this love you feel, or have felt, is known.  Do not be afraid to share your thoughts about love with those you care about.  

Living in Unity, One with God

“In unity, all that you desired was participated in fully by a mind and heart combined in wholeheartedness.  You knew your Self to be the creator, and loved all that you created.  You did not desire and fear something at the same time, and your desires did not change from moment to moment.”  (A Course of Love, C:18.14)

We are now living eons past the time of “first” unity.  This first experience of unity cannot really be recaptured as a sense impression now, but it can be recaptured as we move farther along the pathway back to God.  We lived eons ago in wholeheartedness, knowing ourselves as a creator, a co-creator (if you will), of God Himself.  But because of something that couldn’t really happen, but did (the “tiny mad idea” that A Course in Miracles discusses), we fell from grace into an adolescent rebellion.  We weren’t patient enough to come into the fullness of our Being, our Self.  So we coalesced around a false persona, driven by an ego that we made ourselves, and we fell into deep despair as a result.

We can return to the unity that we have forgotten.  It takes patience and abundant willingness to capture what we have lost, but the recapture is God’s intention for us, and so he is right there helping us every step along the way.

Don’t get depressed that the way seems too long and tortuous.  It may be long, but the way is not tortuous at all.  Not with all the help that we are being given.  Our way back is assured—indeed, has always been assured, from the beginning.  God’s will only takes time in the working out, and time does not really exist, for we live in eternity.

Choose Joy / Shun Misery

“The search for joy in misery is senseless, for how could joy be found in misery?  All that is possible in the dark world of misery is to select some aspects out of it, see them as different, and define the difference as joy.  Yet to perceive a difference where none exists will surely fail to make a difference.”  (A Course in Miracles, FIP ed., T-22.II.2)

The “dark world of misery” is the world we experience when we have not yet let go of egoic and egotistical frameworks in our daily rounds. There is nothing good to be found if we insist on staying true to our ego.  It is an insane way to live.

When we divest ourselves of a longing to be perceived as better than other people, we are taking the first hesitant steps toward sanity.  The road may be long, but our foot is on the right pathway.

This we know.  But in living in a world that is very much with us, we sometimes forget.  Ask the Holy Spirit, dwelling in our hearts, to enlighten us with joy, and then make some comparisons.  God’s joy, Jesus has noted elsewhere, is the quickest and surest route to a transformation into Awakening, the sanity we want.

Spiritual Betrothal

“All are called to spiritual betrothal.  This is nothing peculiar. . . .Your union with God, the union of your being with the love that you truly are, is no exception.”  Choose Only Love bk2, 4:I.  Message from Mary.

It has been more than a couple of years since I realized my union with God.  I discovered this through trial and error, because I began to realize that my very thoughts seemed to be guidance.  My very thoughts seemed to be coming from God, and this, to me, seemed that union had occurred.

Mary says that this is spiritual betrothal, and that it is nothing peculiar.  I think many do not realize that their betrothal has been accepted by their innermost being, where our God resides in each of us.

The only caveat is to realize that what appears to be thoughts from a Higher Power might be misinterpreted–if what this inner, silent voice is saying to us is anything that would harm another person.

Ask for grace to descend into our hearts today.  This will be the evidence that Love has transformed our being, that union with God is indeed a reality.

Seek until We Find

“Think of the loveliness that you will see, who walk with Him!  And think how beautiful will you and your brother look to the other!  How happy you will be to be together, after such a long and lonely journey where you walked alone.”  (A Course in Miracles, FIP ed., T-22.IV.4)

My heart goes out to friends and family who have never experienced anything that let them turn into believers.  Here we see the loveliness of walking with “Him,” who is the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit is 100 percent accurate, though we do have to discover how He talks to us.  This may be through the words that others speak, our very thoughts, our intuitions, and sometimes though perhaps not often, locutions (inaudible words).

Years ago I needed what seemed to me to be evidence of an Other Side.   And this sent me on a journey to discover more.

Agnostics think they walk alone, and this can be, oh, so lonely.  But a Higher Power watches over them, seeking to see an opening that will heal their lonely hearts.

We Are ALL Brides of Christ

“Today we begin the path of spiritual betrothal, a path that will never end, because you are eternally the Bride of Christ. . . .[Y]ou have been eternally destined to be the perfect complement to the Son of God. . . .Did you forget that you were created to be the wife of the son of God?”  Choose Only Love bk 2, 3:III.  Message from Mary.

One does not have to be female in carrying out this dictate from Mary.  We are all meant to be “married” to Christ, and in this, we become One with him.  In fact, we ALL are Christs in the budding, and when we have joined true reality, we will know that.  We will no longer be making our home in illusions that comprise the way this world is set up now.

As a woman, though, I truly do identify with this passage.  Many years ago I had a nighttime vision that emphasized my pathway through life.  And this vision did include being a bride of Christ.  In that, I was like the many medieval women mystics who had the same belief.  You can experience it, too.  Jesus walks by our side, as a divine being who can be anywhere and everywhere, with all of us, simultaneously.  Thus he has many “brides.”

I believe that the tremendous number of us who have chosen Jesus as our mentor can discover, from him, in inaudible words, how to live.  Be grateful for this experience when it comes.  Do NOT be afraid of it.

“There Is Nothing You Will Not Be Told, if You Acknowledge. . .”

“It is but the first few steps along the right way that seem hard, for you have chosen, although you still may think you can go back and make the other choice.  This is not so.  A choice made with the power of Heaven to uphold it cannot be undone.  Your way is decided.  There will be nothing you will not be told, if you acknowledge this.”  (ACIM, FIP ed., T-22.IV.2)

“There will be nothing you will not be told, if you acknowledge this,” and to acknowledge is to gratefully accept the guidance that comes.  Always gratefully, for a full heart discovers much.

Note that the first few steps may seem hard.  We may be lost in confusion.  And that is because our heart is seeking to guide us, rather than an overworked brain.  The heart is meant to lead, directing the mind, but always in conjunction with the mind.  We are not asked to believe things that seem not to be true; that is a mistake that churchgoers reciting creeds often make.

Sink into stillness.  Be open to surprises as God (if you can open your mind and realize there is a Higher Power) soothes our souls.

The Way Back Home

“No one who reaches this far can make the wrong decision, although he can delay.  And there is no part of the journey that seems more hopeless and futile than standing where the road branches, and not deciding on which way to go.”  (A Course in Miracles, FIP ed., T-22.IV.1)

The way to go is to be determined to follow God’s way.  I knew that when I was nine years old, wrote it on a scrap of paper, and put this piece of paper in my grandmother’s Bible.  She left it there for many years, and it was only after her death that my mother found the paper, and showed it to me.

I know I was nine years old when I wrote it, because I know what my handwriting looked like when I was first learning cursive.

This was all a long time ago, and there have been many twists and turns in my journey since.  What I have discovered so far is that listening to God in my mind and heart takes me farther along the pathway to Awakening.  Listening to God, we will receive guidance–whether this is telling us what book to order and then read, what to ask Jesus to help us with (a very present help, for his divine nature allows his spirit to be with anybody and everybody simultaneously, in my belief), and when to slow down and relax and rest.  An overwrought mind and heart does not understand guidance readily.

Get quiet within, perfectly calm and quiet, and rest in that stillness.  If you hear God “speaking” to you, however it comes, prepare to follow the guidance that seems real to you.

This is the way back home.

Micah’s Vision

From Ann Glover O’Dell’s Scripture Surplice:

Micah 6:8b:“and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”

Micah’s message echoes in our ears.

Melodies of verb and noun

easily remembered and enjoyed

quoted in a quiet, reverent voice.

Moving

from the do and love and walk

slipping

to climax “with your God.”

Chronology could be reversed

a case might well be made

that walking with our God

our egos lost in wonder

in ecstatic harmony

our wills subsumed in His

needs be the foremost cause

with the doing and the loving coming forth

putting mercy before justice

so all is in reverse

and walking, running, leaping

we dance the dance with Him

that cannot help but be the pivot point of life.

But Micah was a poet with license to be used

in framing holy picture-words so that the three

form circles round each other

without beginning, middle, end.

When We Come to the Branch in the Road

“When you come to the place where the branch in the road is quite apparent, you cannot go ahead.  You must go either one way or the other.  For now if you go straight ahead, the way you went before you reached the branch, you will go nowhere.  The whole purpose of coming this far was to decide which branch you will take now.  (A Course in Miracles, FIP ed., T-22.IV.1)

Yes, we are at a crossroads, and often a crossroads appears in our pathway back to God.  Even when we have united with God, there still is the matter of Awakening, a certain shift that will be evident in our experience; then we will know that we are truly home.

Along the way back to God, there are many, many points in which we could let the ego rule, and then we would have lost the pathway once again.

Right now, this very minute, determine to drop egotism from one’s life.  If we have traveled far in the past, we know that egotistical decisions always end in a dead end.  The fleeting happiness that might ensure from getting something we want in an egotistical manner then dissipates, and we are dropped in a hole from which we need escape.

Union with God is the first answer, and at first we may not recognize that our unity with Him/Her (for God has no gender) has occurred.  When we realize that our very thoughts are appearing as guidance, then we can know that we are thinking with God.

From here it is a quiet walk into Awakening, when simultaneously everything changes and nothing changes.  Because the ego has been left in the dust, we don’t know Awakening as euphoria.  We just see more clearly, recognizing and understanding things that have long eluded our thinking mind.

Let our heart lead.  That is one of the secrets that makes everything come right again.  At home in God with Awakening.

Magdalen’s Gift

From Ann Glover O’Dell’s Scripture Surplice:

The Magdalen

in pouring out the flask of oil

was pouring out

her rarest treasure

essence of herself

a giving that forever since

a metaphor becomes

of most complete outpouring

of one’s personality

the willful letting go

of all accumulations

of a life lived out

as all are lived

as best as can

given circumstance and temperament

and whatever one inherits

to be dealt with

in whatever way one can.

The witnesses

condemned

extravagance representing

many days employment recompense

camouflaging shame

and lack of generosity

to one who gave to them

projecting on the poor

in glib self-righteousness

condemned

that which they

in calculated summing

of their work

could not imagine

gifting without statistics

ledger noted

but not prodigious waste

like oil bath on one man’s feet

in wasteful liberality.

Scandalized no doubt

were those there

who saw the unbound hair

fall as in boudoir privacy

prefiguring the loosening of garments

that worldly dress confines

the loosening of inhibitions

as hair pins fall

unbinding tresses

tightly coiled

for social more sake

a moment intimate

away from prying eyes

yet here the eyes see movement

and the mouths give testimony

judgment on the liquid spilled.

But words don’t flow

responding to the loosened tresses

and such sensual act

as wiping feet with hair.

Instead

condemned audacity

of entrance to the space

reserved for men

by such blatant show

beyond decorum limits

by a willful wanton woman

condemned presumption

in tending to the washing

of the dusty feet whose

job was purview of the

servant host.

And we who never felt

the lush outpouring of extravagance

in something more than monetary goods

wonder what response we’d make

to some surprise intrusion in our orderliness

with embarrassing potential

scandalized at some dream character

entering where our door is barred

to all but those invited and expected

Can we discover some expectancy

or deep desire

that somewhere

sometime

somehow

something

would lavish

some extravagance

in such a way

that we would never lose

the fragrance

or the memory

that we were singled out

for joy?

Perhaps some day

our deepest soul

will lavish

the anointing oil

on us.

Repeatedly Acknowledge Awakening and the Spaciousness of Our Heart Will Increase

“The spark plugs have been changed. The oil is new. The tires have the right amount of air in them and the ‘Rolls Royce’ of the body carries only the awakened Son of God. Awakening is not difficult. It requires only your willingness to acknowledge that you are awake. You don’t have to believe it. You merely need to acknowledge it. And each time you do so, each time you do so, the spaciousness of yourheart will increase. The willingness to be wholly vulnerable with one another will blossom. And the Light of Love that has been held under a bushel made of only an erroneous thought, will shine forth in all of its splendor and glory.” (The Early Years:  Healing the Illusions of Hurt, Paragraph 65.  From Jesus in live channeling through Jayem.)

One definition of “acknowledge”is to receive with expressed gratitude, and I think this is the meaning of this word in the context given above. Gratitude is especially important, for it opens the floodgates of God’s heart, and all manner of blessings pour forth.  God likes to interact with us, but for eons we have not known this.  Until Jesus came 2,000 years ago and put a “Father” face on God, we did not even know that God is Love, just Love.

Is it really possible that we can awaken without being fully aware of what has transpired?  Elsewhere Jesus says that we WILL know, but he has also said that Awakening can be gentle, when we are prepared for it.  First we become aware of our union with God, I think.  Feelings, thoughts, intuitions, “coincedences”(though there are not really any), guidance in any of its forms–all find a place in our world when we recognize that we are One with God, that we are united with Him.  Union is sometimes spoken of as a consciousness of Christ, but not always (at least in what I have read).

I would like to think that Jesus’ assertion, in live channeling through Jayem, is absolutely accurate.  If we express gratitude for the glimpses of Awakening that occur, if we acknowledge them, then these will lengthen, and we will know a sustained Awakening.  This is acknowledgment.  It tells us what to expect, even when we are in disbelief that we are fully ready for such a blessing.  It opens our heart, as we acknowledge repeatedly, and this swelling, greater spaciousness, of our heart is pivotal.

Let There Be

From Ann Glover O’Dell’s Scripture Surplice:

The booming voice said, “Let there be…!”

And there was.

Into being there came

more than man could dream

in great and tiny

wet and dry

cold and hot

that man cannot

exhaust by study or invention.

But in the mind of God

a still small voice said, “Let there be…

in our image!”

And what became of

that injunction clear

now shapes and defines

and consecrates for all time

the mandela of spirit

circumambulating round

eventually to circle left in willful movement

as God makes a halo of each life.

Embodying the Presence of Love Removes All Trace of Rings of Fear

“But there’s one quirk about me. I can’t seem to get rid of it. I am addicted to having a lot of friends. Friends who will choose to dance with me. Friends who will choose to sing with me. Friends who will choose to put aside the perceptions of the world and say, “The heck with that. I think I’d just rather be the presence of Love.” And each moment that you choose that, the Light in you shines brighter and brighter. Brighter and brighter and brighter, and every ring of fear that you think still surrounds you, you will walk through with perfect ease, because it is the extension of your Love that shines so brightly that melts that ring of fear, and no obstacle will be found in your path for it will be removed before you ever reach it, if you choose to walk the wide and open and gentle path of Love.”  (The Early Years:  Healing the Illusions of Hurt, Paragraph 40.  From Jesus in live channeling through Jayem.)

When Jesus takes over the body of Jayem and speaks to us, Jesus has a distinct sense of humor, a refreshing sense of humor that is appealing to me.  Here he introduces this paragraph by telling us that he likes to have many friends, and I think his underlying message is that he wants us included in those friends.

If we choose to be the presence of Love, we can remove fear at its source.  Is not this grand?  Of course, we have long known that Love is the Answer to anything that is amiss.  This paragraph is the most concise statement of that truth I have ever found.  We walk through our ring of fear (first described in A Course in Miracles), obstacles to our peace of mind and heart are removed, and we walk the “wide and open and gentle path of Love.”

Awakening Does Heal

“Understand well, fatigue has nothing at all to do with the body.  It has everything to \o with the mind.  It has everything to do with the mind.  And when the mind is awakened and chooses only Light and tolerates never again error in its own perceptions and gives every moment over to the Holy Spirit, then indeed, that mind is enlightened because the heart is awakened, and the body will leap up like a bunch of little soldiers that have been sleeping on guard duty and say, ‘Oh, my God, there’s been a change here,’ and the cells become active.  And they begin to realize that you are going to send the infinite Light of God to them and therefore they have to relearn their job.  No longer will they be able to tolerate extending sickness to you because you have been sending sick thoughts to them.  Do you understand what I am saying?  The body is your perfect servant and if you know depression or disease, it is because over a long period of time you’ve trained the cells of your body to conform to the dis-eased perception in the mind.  And when you have healed that perception, the body must follow suit.  Jesus, speaking through Jayem, live channeling, and published in The Early Years, Volume II.

This is not an indictment of us.  We were not consciously choosing sickness, but there is an unconscious part of us that cooperates with sickness when we are not thinking aright.  And who among us can claim to be thinking, mind and heart, aright all the time?

None of us, though, once awakened, we function better.  But this still does not mean we will never know illness in our physical bodies or our emotional bodies.  We must then just realize that we are dealing with illusion, and certainly not make the mistake of blaming God for doing this to us.

God is wholly loving and does not visit sickness on anyone.  The mystery of suffering cannot be explained away by anything we know while living in bodies in the world.  But what I do know is that we function better when we remain, so far as possible, in a loving frame of mind and heart.

Love heals far more than we know.

Love Is a Power that Will Guide Us

“What is a miracle?  It is not really a change at all.  It is merely the recognition of what has always been—that there is a Love, a power, that would live through you, that would guide you in all things, that you need not be the captain of the ship, you need only be willing to take the cruise.”  (“The Way of Knowing,” The Way of Mastery, Lesson 26, Page 304 – 305)

Be willing to take the “cruise” of love.  This is what is being asked of ourselves.  Unfortunately, in this world of illusion, we come up against negatives all the time, and we are attempted to feel anger about some of them.  Anger and attack will keep us so occupied that these fears will prohibit us from hearing the guidance of the Holy Spirit.  When the mind is preoccupied with fear, we are diminished in how much we can reach to Love as the panacea.

Ask for miracles!  Miracles are our due as children of God.  If we don’t seem to recognize that we are receiving miracles, perhaps we don’t know where and how to look.  If we keep a “miraculous mindset,” the everyday occurrences of life hold a myriad of joyful and unexpected good things–all of which can be seen as miracles of God’s goodness.

It is important that we not become control freaks in our lives.  Turning as many decisions as we can bring ourselves to turn over to a Higher Power is the best way to live.

And a miraculous way.

Unholy vs. Holy Relationships

“In an unholy relationship, each one is valued because he seems to justify the other’s sin.  Each sees within the other what impels him to sin against his will.  And thus he lays his sins upon the other, and is attracted to him to perpetuate his sins.  And so it must become impossible for each to see himself as causing sin by his desire to have sin real.  Yet reason sees a holy relationship as what it is; a common state of mind, where both give errors gladly to correction, that both may happily be healed as one.”  (A Course in Miracles, FIP ed., T-22.III.9)

Jesus rarely uses the word “sin” in A Course in Miracles.  He says that sin is somehow, insanely, attracting, but “mistakes” we view as something to be corrected.

But here, in regard to relationships, he does use that ugly word, “sin.”  I hope that none of us find attraction in “unholy” relationships, but are eager to turn all of our special relationships into holy ones.

A Course in Miracles sees love of our brother (and sister, for this book was scribed in the sixties and early seventies, and “brother” is inclusive of both genders) as our way home to God, in special relationships turned holy by the dedication of the relationship to God.

Surely we realize that we discover much from our relationships.  And if finding our way back to God is the principal effect, we have indeed found great value in our holy relationships.

If specialness still attracts, know that specialness will fall away as we walk farther down God’s pathway.  Holiness is our due, and our brothers and sisters are the light that lits up our way.

Holy Spirit Reshapes Our Moments

“When there has been the desire for healing and awakening, rest assured, that already your Farther, through the Holy Spirit, is working to reshape every moment of your experience—every single moment.  So that the correct teachers, the correct lessons, the correct books, even the correct weather can come to force you to look at your edges of unhappiness, your edges of judgment, your edges of fear-based definitions of what Love is, what it should look like, and what its effects should be.

“In other words, the entire world that you have made in error must be brought to the surface of the mind for correction.”  (“The Way of Knowing,” The Way of Mastery, Lesson 26, Page 304)

Isn’t this reassuring, that the Holy Spirit is dealing with us individually, and bringing into our lives exactly what we need to heal?  

Of course the second paragraph sounds daunting, that everything must be brought to the conscious mind from the subconscious for healing, all bad thoughts, all anger, all attack, all judgment, and, mostly importantly, all fear.  But elsewhere in Jayem’s channelings, we are told that when we heal one idea, we have healed all ideas like it.  This simplifies our chore.  And remember that the Holy Spirit will take charge of our minds and hearts whenever we trust enough to ask Him to do so.

Our lives are arranged for us once we really want Awakening–by God through the Holy Spirit.  We have surrendered, and this is the single most important change we need to make.  And make again and again as we walk through our days:  Just surrender to our Maker, over and over if need be.

And we will know when we have slipped and need to resurrender to God.

Value of A Course in Miracles

“The ego’s whole continuance depends on its belief you cannot learn this course.  Share this belief, and reason will be unable to see your errors and make way for their correction.  For reason sees through errors, telling you what you thought was real is not.  Reason can see the difference between sin and mistakes, because it wants correction.”  (A Course in Miracles, FIP ed., T-22.III.2)

A careful study of A Course in Miracles speeds us on our way back to God.  The rationale for the ego simply dissolves.  We give up egoic thinking just as we give up attack and anger.  We learn how to live better in our world.  While ACIM does not always take us into Awakening, close attention to what it says does mean that we are on the right pathway.

Don’t give up our reason, even as we listen to inaudible words from the Holy Spirit.  He may speak to us through locutions (those inaudible words), intuition, feelings, other people speaking Truth to us.  The Holy Spirit will find a way to get through to us when we open to His guidance.

If something we “hear” would harm another, then we are listening to a voice that is not geniunely from God.  God’s ways are wholly benign.

Use reason, still, but also open to mystical insight that will appear and blossom when we take to heart the wonderful words of A Course in Miracles.

How Healing Will Happen

“And it is very possible–and you are going to see it happen upon this plane; many of you are going to live to see this happen in these bodies–that when there is a moment’s disease or sickness in the body, that very mind will simply choose Light, will transfer Light from the infinitude of Heaven and express it on Earth, and the very cells of the body will instantly be healed.  That is what a master can do, and you have come not to be slaves to the world but to demonstrate mastery in all regards.”  Jesus, speaking through Jayem, live channeling, and published in The Early Years, Volume II.

Loving Freely & Without Fear

“You who do not know how to trade your separated state for that of union have still done so when you have loved freely and without fear.  In this state your memory returns to you of who you are, and you are innocent and joyous and one with love itself.  That this memory does not last, and these feelings seem unsustainable, is the result only of that which does discard and replace.  As we have said before, there are but two emotions.  One is love, the other fear.  Fear, through your own choice, replaces and discards love.  Fear is always strongest when you value something that you feel may be threatened.  Love threatens most your specialness.  Before your conscious mind has any awareness of what is happening, your memory of love, of innocence and of joy, threatens your specialness, your ego, your separated self who quickly rushes in with love’s replacement.  Nothing but fear could take the memory of love from you, or replace so quickly the glory that is your nature with the specialness that is not.”  (A Course of Love, C:14.28)

Fear is of the ego, and fear is a game changer in the hope of reaching Christ-consciousness.  We cannot, in fact, reach enlightenment when we still entertain fear.  But, the rub, how to stop the fear that so often threatens to engulf us?

Prayer is one answer, in all likelihood the best answer that we could ever devise.  And it is not our idea, but an intuition and an experience that comes from God.  Our prayers put us in alignment with something greater than we are, and this Someone has the power to right our little world immediately.  We don’t have to suffer anxiety any longer; it just dissipates when we start to pray.

Meditation is similar, of course.  We go into a zone-type of thinking that eases our minds.  We don’t actively think at all; we focus on a sacred word or our breathing.  And the miraculous effect takes over.

Talking with a treasured friend is yet another solution to fear.  Others have known the same fear that we dread, though often we think that we are all alone because they haven’t told us about their anxieties, wanting to appear strong and solid to us.  This is a fallacy, of course, which we will come to see when we converse intimately.  All short of enlightenment are victims of the fear mongrels that rob us of peace of mind.

Think a bit of the practices that have given us peace of mind in the past.  Of course, like all things, this fear, too, shall pass.  But there are a myriad of practices which can speed fear along its way, never to return in quite the same way again.

Trust that guidance will lead us out of the darkness of our anxieties and our fears.  Trust that choosing to be unity one with another will be an almost magical solution to an intractable problem.

A New World

“In your souls is where the divine and the human become one.  Within you will the new world be born.  It is in your hearts that the new Adam becomes as Jesus Christ and the new Eve becomes as Mary Christ.”  Choose Only Love bk2, 3:II.  Message from Mary.

We have been told in recent channelings that we are both human and divine, an occurrence that certainly has happened when we realize that we are One with God, in unity with our Creator.  Mother Mary is speaking here, and elsewhere we have learned that she and Jesus are twin souls, and that she experienced Awakening in her lifetime, as did he.  Jesus has portrayed Mary as his equal in all respects in these other channelings.

We are moving into a new era, and the old era dwelled much on the depiction of ourselves as the offspring of fallen parents, Adam and Eve.  We are revisiting this concept, which appears in Genesis in the Bible.  We are now encouraged to model ourselves after Jesus and Mary, though Jesus is quick to say that we do not need to die to resurrect.  We will resurrect in life, and life is never the same after one realizes that this is exactly what has happened to our mortality.  This change gives us the divine and human as one, just as Christianity teaches about Jesus.

Our soul is our real Self.  When we access the soul, we move into perfect peace.  And this is a harbinger of a coming Awakening.

Are We Shattered?

“Your being is not a smashed vessel of \fine crystal whose splinters are scattered and must be gathered and reconstructed.”  Choose Only Love bk2, 1:VII.  Message from Archangel Raphael.

Has anyone of us ever felt that we were shattered, like glass, by the circumstances of life?  If we have, then Archangel Raphael tells us here that we are in illusion.

What he is saying is that we are still whole and complete in our being, the being that has never left Heaven and resides temporarily on Earth.  Our being is our very Self, the Christ Self that Jesus tells us we share with him.  This Christ Self can never be hurt.

We are living an illusion, something we first learned when we read A Course in Miracles.  With a little help from the Holy Spirit, our Comforter, we can reclaim the Self whom we never really left, and walk a smooth pathway back to our God, in unity, always in unity with God, for we are part of Him/Her (God has no gender).  As time passes, and our illusion starts to drop away, we will experience that we are in unity with God.  And then, when we decree it, we will know Awakening, for we awaken to our own call (said elsewhere in Jesus’ channelings).

We do not have to reconstruct anything.  Our intrinsic wholeness will blossom when we drop the antagonisms engendered by this world.  

We are merely retracing an ancient path away from God (from A Course in Miracles).  We are already at home in God, a lesson now learned that we do not create apart from God.  We only make illusions, not the real world at all–for the real world is Heaven itself, a reality we can experience when we love in true depth.

Love Is Welcome

“You exist, quite simply, because of your relationship with love.  Love is the unity you seek.  In having chosen separation over unity, you but chose fear over love.  When you let go of fear and invite unity to return, you but send out an invitation to love and say you are welcome here.”  (A Course of Love, C:11.18)  

Being welcome is an attribute of friendship, and being “friends” with love is something that we all can do.  We need to realize that we are one (unity), with God as well as other people, and in this realization we are inclined to love more than fear.

Of course, we can’t always banish fear.  We are particularly prone to fear’s ravages early in the morning, when the whole day looms and we are apprehensive about what lies ahead.  At such times we need to make a determined effort to calm ourselves down.  Over time, we have developed some of these techniques:  writing in a journal, meditation, deep breathing, quiet conversation with your significant other (if time permits), petting a beloved animal.  All will make small increments to erode fear.  And, as time passes, fear will become more of a stranger in our lives.

We feel ourselves separate and alone when we face the day with apprehension.  We are leaving our comfy homes for a sometimes terrifying outside that seems to wish us no well.  These are the types of thoughts that replace love with fear.  And it need not be so.  The outside world is as much in need of our love as are our nearest and dearest.  Give a helping hand to those we meet outside our homes.  And then they will seem much less the bearers of bad tidings, or, at the last, uncertain tidings that give us cause for fear.  Love with a whole heart, knowing that we actually are safe when we set our minds to creating a beloved world.

Heaven vs. Hell

“Reason will tell you that there is no middle ground where you can pause uncertainly, waiting to choose between the joy of Heaven and the misery of hell.  Until you choose Heaven, you are in hell and misery.”  (A Course in Miracles, FIP ed., T-22.II.7)

This assertion sounds at first glance to be a little extreme.  After all, haven’t we known flights of happiness throughout our lives?  But did these flights of happiness last?  And were they fueled by the ego, which gives highs and then plunges us into despair?

Only Heaven works.  And Heaven is accessed by Love.  Love is the only way that the universe would ever sustain itself.  Anything else would disintegrate eventually into total chaos.

This is a personal assessment, not part of A Course in Miracles or my other readings.

When we are not living in love, we don’t have the wherewithal to live successfully. Any success is fleeting, although we do know that God shines upon the good and the evil–His children all. Choosing ways of living that are self-centered is a turnoff even to our nearest and dearest.  We can’t love others well if we are turned inward to ourselves.  Instead, love others as we love ourselves.  And sometimes this takes some doing, because we, trapped by the ego, do not truly love even ourselves.

Our only hope of assured happiness is to put our feet on the pathway to God.  When we do this, the Holy Spirit speaks to us, and we are given the guidance that saves.

What Did She See?

From Ann Glover O’Dell’s Scripture Surplice:

How could she see in darkness

that the stone door was no more?

And how anoint the corpse

without some lamp to aid her work?

But came she did and purposely

brought helpers to assist in spice embalming.

The opened entrance frightened so

that running back to tell the men

they quite forgot the mission of their travel.

Then John and Peter went to see if

there were any truth in what the women said.

John simply looked and turned aside

in pride that he was first arrived.

Through the door went Peter

to close observe the empty articles

and noted for posterity

the where and how of folded and discarded.

Having satisfied themselves of

story facts first hand

they left

and once again the woman

perhaps with spices in her hand

and realizing fully that her

token extreme unction could not be

and no final tribute could she give

began to weep

for all that had not

would not

could not

come to be

and in her one last look

at emptiness personified

finds in her pain

the question and

a message for her heart

and then once more

the question asked

and startled

hears the answer

to all questions

that can ever be.

Finding Satisfaction in Our Wants

“Therefore, we will end this lesson with one question that we ask you to live within:

“Beloved friend, oh holy One, what do you want?

“And is that wanting generated by the freedom of Love or by the ridiculous creation of a useless fear?  Want only from freedom and you will have your desire.”  (“The Way of Knowing,” The Way of Mastery, Lesson 25, Page 302)

Desire motivated by Love is pivotal in our spiritual journey.  But we have been taught (badly) to question our desires as perhaps coming from a lower part of our self, maybe the ego itself.  This may have been the case when we were trapped by the ego, but most of us who read this blog have moved beyond the ego, though there may be egoic patterns that linger in our thought processes.

When we are motivated by our love for others and ourselves, we are in line to receive what we beg for in our prayers.  Many long for Awakening, though we may not fully understand what we are in for, for it is an upheaval.  When we imagine that Jesus is holding our hand, we are less frightened by the mystical experiences that frequently follow on this pathway, and we awaken in full joy that has no down side.

Take a few minutes to truly question our true “wants.”  We may surprise ourselves, for what we have thought we wanted may turn out to be a pipe dream best avoided.  Ask for Awakening, and follow the thoughts and feelings that filter through the mind and heart, and the wish will know fulfillment in time.  It is a process more often than a sudden change.

Want what is good always.  The material world is here for our enjoyment, but wanting material goods does not long give pleasure.  We seek and seek, and never find.  

Turn inside to the intangibles of peace, hope, wonder, love.

These hold the real satisfactions in life.

God Wept

From Ann Glover O’Dell’s Scripture Surplice:

God wept

as they

the androgynes

created from his womb

turned to exit Eden

ashamed of who

they saw themselves to be.

God who

yearned to run

o’ertake them

and embrace once more

as in their birth

wept instead

knowing they would not

allow themselves

to receive grace

just now with minds and hearts

in pain with what they knew

and wished they did not know.

God wept

in knowledge that

whatever other offspring

he should sire

would  therefore follow

those who first

had tasted

bitter birthing

from innocence

to shame

and all the consequences

of claim to know

the essence of the one

who gave them life.

God wept

in anguish

as one who

yearned for

holy children all

to know themselves

to be his own.

Finally Relinquishing the Ego

“This is a crucial period in this course, for here the separation of you and the ego must be made complete.  For if you have the means to let the Holy Spirit’s purpose be accomplished, they can be used.  And through their use will you gain faith in them.”  (A Course in Miracles, FIP ed., T-22.II.6)

We DO have the means to let the Holy Spirit’s purpose be accomplished, though we will find that some parts of the ego (called “patterns”) may stay with us for a long time; this is nothing but habit, and can be overlooked when we allow our faith to run us.

We know that the ego gives only to take away; we know that the ego does not mean us well.  If we give in to egoic and egotistical leanings, we know from experience that we go through both highs and lows, and the highs never last long.  Then there is a devastating drop into a low, and it may take some time for equilibrium to become reestablished.  This dynamic is not something we want.

Make a determination to relinquish the ego.  Make a promise to God.  This is the first step, and from it follows ultimately a joy that knows no bounds.

There is a pathway back to God, and we are on it.

What Trying to “Possess” Really Means

“Because love cannot be contained, because love is life in all its abundance, then we can easily understand that behind the desire to possess objects is the desire to possess love.”  Choose Only Love bk2, 1:I.  Message from Archangel Raphael.

I have known many people throughout my days who were very, very interested in acquiring material objects.  This reading was my first introduction to what is really going on in that dynamic.  

But love isn’t to be possessed, so seeking satisfaction in material objects is twice removed from reality.  The reality behind love is that love is meant to be showered on our brothers and sisters with abandon.  We love, not because it is a good thing to do (you cannot reason yourself into love), but because our heart is filled to overflowing.

When we share the abundance of love that is our birthright, we stop seeking substitutes in the illusions of this world.  And we know the real thing:  Love of our Maker who showers love upon us, and, in turn, hopes that we will feel led to shower love on our fellow men and women, boys and girls.

When we open ourselves to receive God’s love, many problems in our lives dissipate.  We stop contemplating “what if’s” of the future, with the suffering of uncertainty that this brings.  We know a miracle when we awaken each morning with God in our minds and hearts, and the presence of that Love caressing us.

Escape from Misery

“Reason will tell you that the only way to escape from misery is to recognize it and go the other way.  Truth is the same and misery the same, but they are different from each other in every way, in every instance and without exception.”  (A Course in Miracles, FIP ed., T-22.II.4)

We know from other places in Jesus’ channeled works that negativism creates depression, and what can be more negative than the misery that we allow — yes, we allow — to find a place in our minds and hearts from time to time.

I also know from personal experience that negativism flips one out of Awakening.   Negativism is a forbidden thing.

Misery is overcome when we open up to love and dispel attack and anger.  Attack and anger are forms of fear, and fear stands opposed to love in every particular.  

We know from elsewhere in A Course in Miracles that anger and attack are actually calls for help and calls for love.  ACIM tells us that everything in our experience is either a call for love, or it is love itself.  Forgiveness becomes prominent when we realize that the anger and attack that we sometimes perceive in other people are actually a fervent hope that we will turn and love them enough to take them out of their anguish.

Love needs only a decision.  And when we fail in loving, and ask for another chance, we are given another chance.

This is the hope that A Course in Miracles engenders in us.

Saying “Yes” to Love

“Thank you, daughters and sons of God, for your Yes to love.  You have chosen the best part and it will not be taken away from you.”  Choose Only Love bk.I, Final Words.  Message from a choir of angels.

If God is Love, and we have been taught that in our upbringing as well as the reading we are considering now, then it stands to reason that our part is to emulate our Maker.

Loving is the only sane way to live.  I suspect that the cosmos would fall apart if its entities, known and unknown, did not constitute a tipping point for Love.  Some of the earliest myths about God and creation say that God first felt fear, because He was alone, but then realized that none could harm Him if He were all there was.  Then He felt desire, “I wish there were another.”  God then differentiated His Being to form creation.  This myth from India has meant a lot to me since I read it in Joseph Campbell years ago.

We love our offspring, our children, and if we are made in the image of God, as our spiritual texts tell us, then it is evident that God would love His offspring, too, a part of whom is us.

I said “yes” before I knew what I was saying, because I was in my early twenties.  But that “yes” to life and what it would bring has stood me well for over 50 years now.

I hope that your saying “yes” to life and love can also bring great blessings.

Direct Relationship with God

“Illusions carry only guilt and suffering, sickness and death, to their believers.  The form in which they are accepted is irrelevant.  No form of misery in reason’s eyes can be confused with joy.  Joy is eternal.  You can be sure indeed that any seeming happiness that does not last is really fear.”  (A Course in Miracles, FIP ed., T-22.II.3)

We can be lost in illusions, as we have been when we have believed in a separation from our Maker, for this world is a place of illusions.  As we follow the Holy Spirit, He gives us decisions, which, if chosen, lead to happiness.  We may still be in illusions if we haven’t awakened, but the means of following guidance help to take us into joy that lasts until we change our minds again.

The happiness expands as we move farther along to the truth that we are a part of God, we have never been separate from Him, and we have a direct relationship with Him that saves us from despair when we repeatedly turn to Him for solace and communion.  God loves us, as we know, but we might have chosen lip service only to this truth. Take this truth of Love from the Creator into our hearts, and we will indeed move an inch closer to Awakening.

We have believed ourselves to be separate from God for eons.  It takes some time to get used to the real Truth, that we are One with Him.  When we take this Truth unto ourselves, our lives smooth out and we are truly on our way Home.

Gifts of the Spirit

From Ann Glover O’Dell’s Scripture Surplice:

Gifts of the spirit

named and firmly scribed

for all time

hidden in some epistle

written by some apostle

present unanswered questions

of limited authenticity

as if the spirit had only

so many talents in his

windy grab bag

to dole out to those

who whistled loudest

and danced the dervish

and took mouth loosening lessons

for receiving glossolaliac tongues

and studied with a sideshow shaman

and bought protective garb

‘gainst fiery demonstrations

of important visitations

by some random-moving god.

Think of God First in the Morning

“Seek first the Kingdom. . . .[B]efore the eyes open. . .remember God. . . .[C]hoose Love. . .[C]ultivate feeling it [Love] as it penetrates your soul, your mind, your emotions, your personality, and even the tissues and cells of the body. . ..[M]ake sure that what is going to move the body that day will not be fear but Love.”   (The Early Years, Volume 1, Jesus channeled through Jayem.)

Jesus goes on to say that it would be good to keep a tally by our bed, that his recommendation to think first of God is difficult to achieve.

It doesn’t sound difficult, though, does it?  But the mind is very wily.  

Jesus’ recommendation does give a fearless day, something I have come to find.  I say to myself just “God,” and then I remember that God is Love, and what we are to do is to choose only love in each day.  I seek to feel Love in that moment.  And the feeling can be everything in what we are trying to do.

We are in a body, though it is unreal and an illusion.  If we suffuse our body with the feeling of love, we will be one step nearer a fearless day.

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