Gentle ACIM Villagefolk,
During five years our Monk welcomed his monklings at his door and provided a joyous and thoughtful place for them to talk and study in an interactive community. The community continues, but the interactivity is shifting to another new home called the ACIM Village. I would just like to take a moment to thank the Monk from the bottom of my heart for being such a wonderful, generous host. Here’s a bunch of wild apple blossoms for you, brother! (Hope you don’t get hay-fever)We look forward to your continuing work in the freedom this is going to give you. We’re very happy for you, friend, in the new-found silence that we’re also enjoying. Just don’t be surprised if sometimes a horde of monklings runs up the path from the Village to tickle you and create a little mayhem!
Blessings to one and all.
Bernard Thank you.
… am so thankful to be able to join together while we practice radical acceptance … our home with acim and our monk are with us … bernard is graciously and abundantly appreciated for answering this calling … many bows of thanks … am so grateful and thankful to have this gathering place … kind people … friendly … am sooo happy to see pam all the many oh so familiar names here … much love …
” What changes “…….( Asked with mystical far away glazed expression)
Mr.Mayor,
how grateful I am to find your letter to us all today. I feel so safe as your village-wildlady (the one who dances, writes,sings, paints and make stories (and hats,to speed up learning and acceptance)to give expressions of love.
I am also so grateful that I/we got a chance to empty out the container of suspicions and nasty suspicions, and that there is no use to save that room, thank you. I am so grateful that the fountain water is tasting as champagne today, and the Oak was especially wonderful to rest by this early morning:only a sweet blackbird singing oh so longingly.
I am happy about my humble wooden abode in the hillside, with its garden with herbs and vegetables – and the old wild appletrees. I can even see the Monastery from here – it radiated a mild and gentle light, and I extend all my love to the Monk and Mother within it.
And Zafu, I am so glad you followed us here, and Richard, who I look forward to getting to know.
And soon we will have a wonderful new cook in our Taverna.
Bernard – I love you so much. I am so grateful to experience Zeph through you ( shivering all over when I observe this) – I LOVE to read what you write, and the FLAVOR of it, my dear brother.
Oh what a morning this is, children.
Nina wrote, I am so grateful that the fountain water is tasting as champagne today . . .
You’re DRINKING it, Nina? Darn, I probably shouldn’t have bathed in it then . . . didn’t it taste a little soapy?
Bernard: Thannk you for your beautiful letter. I wrote in my first comment that Monk knew you were the perfect host for the Monklings and as I said before you are.
I visited the Monastery last night, and it was really wonderful and full of love and joy. I invite all the Monklings to enjoy yesterday´s posts along with the music, the silence and the love.
Thanks again Bernard, Love, Lisi
Thanks for the laugh Gail. It is all just metaphor. It’s easier for me to see that now. Last week it wasn’t so easy I was struggling not to struggle…if that make any sense.
I am a newcomer to an ACIM site, so perhaps my view of the transition from the Monastery to here is a bit of an objective one. Yes, I did read that a few people were venting, but the lesson I really took from the posts was one of the love and joy and appreciation for what had been shared. And I saw hope, a willingness to continue the journey in another place, with another guide. Bernard’s post today was a gentle reminder to me to forgive myself and to find my “right mind.” Clearly there are many here who have loved the Monk, and if there was outrage it was merely a temporary expression of fear….one quickly resolved with the knowledge that choosing love would free us to experience more such moments. Thank you all for this safe place where I am reminded of my real purpose….and where I can experience yours.
Murril, You maybe a newcomer to an ACIM site but it sounds as though you have been studying the course for a good while.
Murrill, beautiful thoughts. Thank you.
Gail and Nina – I surreptiously snuck into the vineyard overnight and brought back several cases of champagne which I emptied into the fountain. I thought the poor thing needed a little help. That explains the bubbly effect on Nina, and Gail’s desire to throw herself in.
I hope you all know that I’m still the same ol’ Bernard, even if when I put the Mayor’s hat on I’m possessed by this autocratic fiend. I’m trying to use my split personality wisely, to encourage fun and laughter on the one hand, and gentle but firm discipline to ensure we keep aiming for right-mindedness and devotion on the other.
Many thanks for bearing with me during these challenging transition times.
Hugs to us all.
🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 … all that and more to share that I am happy and thankful that bernard has this acim village so welcoming and that so many have found it and are here … hopefully bernard doesn’t have to worry about taking care of the fountain as I’m hoping that our brownie carrying pool boy will take over all the care and maintenance … love that bernard welcomed us by putting champagne in the fountain … I love the balance that bernard is mindful of … practicing forgiveness and the principles of acim while still encouraging play … the heartfelt friendly sharings were/are such an essential and effective way of connecting and healing … laughter makes every day so very much brighter … 🙂 🙂 🙂 !!!
Fair enough on deleting the unhappy bunny page Mr Mayor. I guess honest venting – ie crys for love – can be scary and offensive when not in one’s right mind (most of us 99% of the time!). Certainly don’t want to make this a scary and offensive place. I thought the Screamatorium in the monastery served a useful purpose though … and I bow to your discretion as to whether something similar will/will not evolve here. I love that we’re here at the foot of the path to the monastery and can commune within site of the loving light of it’s walls.
Hugs of warm welcome to zafu, murril, sarah, lisi, kendall, laura, anil, wild lady Nina, winnie, Pam, ruth-anne – and all migrants from the monastery. i hope others will come too as/if they feel the need. I can’t imagine not having Mom/debbie around sometimes at least.
I’m off to dog walk through the fields – that’s if they’re not too woozy from lapping at the fountain!
Hi Al, Thanks for the hugs and welcome and I do feel welcome and grateful as all get out to be here. I have been making time each day to go within and “look with Jesus” at my darkness and choose again, etc. Making time for this looking sure leads to more peace. I can easily let the whole day go by without making that time which I know we can all do because of our fear of love. Hope to write and read and wander more around here during this weekend. Hugs,
Hi Kendall {{{hugs}}}Let’s go have a cup of tea be the fireplace.
Pam, Yes, that is the perfect place…the fireplace. There was a big smile on my face when I read your invitation (((Hug))). Right now, at my “day job” I am writing a report documenting over 10 years of a client’s life who is disabled. Fireplace and tea and you and me would be a nice break. See you there and everybody else!
it seems that I dozed off by the fire and missed the unhappy bunny post(s?). there is always a part of me that loves drama, but i guess this one was meant to fly over my head.
I’m glad Monk and Bonnie and Mom are getting some peace and quiet. If he needs to do something else with his time and energy, then that’s what he’s got to do. I can now see that he and Ken and Bernard were preparing for our transition for awhile. It still pretty much fits into “the more things change, the more they stay the same.’
I’ve been quiet for a long time. I just have the ‘big family’ sydrome this lifetime around, and feel comfort in the sounds of friends and family laughing and being nearby, even if I’m too tired to play, or so tired of my projections that it seems to bore me to recant them.
Back to the fireplace, heh, heh . . .
Ah ha! Katrina thank-you! You wrote ‘or so tired of my projections it seems a bore to me to recant them.’Yes! That’s what’s been simmering in my unconscious lately … and connected to the recent Monastery changes. For me, feels like I’ve come to a place in my process where everything is same old same old … and listening to others process is more same old same old … like: “yep that’s de ol’ego again, yep and again… and again here we go J lookin’again…” and I’ve had less inclination to ‘whisper’ because it’s just a repeat of whats gone before… BUT here I am partaking and it’s got to do with being there for those who aren’t at that point in process and get a HELL of a lot from sharing with others. And I’m thinking wow – best of both worlds now … Monastery silence and deep contemplation … and here, sharing and availability to others. Perfeck! Bravo Jamie and Bernard – bravo my beautiful brothers.
Katrina, just great, like Al said. Me, too. A little tired of my projections… It’s all in here, nothin’s out there. Just nothin’.
That’s it, Al. Exactly. We can have our cake and eat it, too. (That’s the other advantage of everything being our projection – we get to make it up as we go along!) We get our wonderfully meditative Monastery, our spiritual retreat, AND we get to hang out in the village around it, in its cafés and terrasses. Then when we’ve had enough of our chatting and socializing, we get to head up the hill again for more quiet. Perfect!
Wish I could “believe” that it’s all “in-here”. I can get it intellectually, but it remains just that.
The world seems terribly real these days – my happiness seems to yo-yo with the ups-and-downs and the mood-swings of all my special relationships that I’ve cultivated so carefully these 41 years…
Guess I need to interpret it differently… but how stubbornly the old interpretations cling….
(:
I think I really like Bill (Thetford)’s articulation –
apparently, towards the end of his 80-odd years he was on this planet, he developed an attitude to dealing with world’s challenges with the following phrase:……
“It’s hopeless, but it isn’t serious”
🙂
Yeah, Anil, when I saw that line from Bill Thetford, I so laughed, and thought, that’s just it. I went around the whole day telling myself that. This is such a weird course sometimes. “It’s hopeless, just not serious…” So, so funny. Trying this again: 🙂
That is a good line to remember. I am grateful that I was in the middle of rereading Absence Of Felicity during my ego attack last week. It helps to know that Bill and Helen had difficulties applying the Course in their lives also. Helps me to Not see myself as a hopeless spiritual screw-up.