Village Square III
In our AcimVillage, we have the plane tree that stands in the central village square. Its enormous branches spread out to cover an area wide enough to provide shade on a warm day for many a traveller or tradesman. Water bubbles and trickles from a stone fountain on the eastern side. It is under the plane tree and by the fountain that wandering sages have traditionally lead conversation with the local people, before setting off again on their way; it is here that the townspeople come to exchange views and thoughts on their beloved spiritual philosophy, learning from each other in kindness and wisdom.
Rules to ponder…
Study of A Course In Miracles benefits greatly from sharing our experiences in its practice. Here you can talk about what works, or doesn’t, for you, taking obvious care not to be ‘preachy’, please. We all learn best when someone talks from their own experience, rather than tries to tell us what we should be doing differently. Let’s take the position that none of us are teachers, we are all at the same point returning on the path Homeward. All of us will still be making mistakes for a while yet, so let’s be particularly humble and caring in how we deal with each other. Please keep in mind that this is a site dedicated to the approach Kenneth Wapnick takes to teaching ACIM. I shall certainly do my best to bring everyone back to the core principles as taught by him.
I would also like to point out that AcimVillage is the place to come to explore our judgments, but not to express them as judgments. If you feel you need to gripe, criticize and vent, even subtly, then contact me privately (at bernard@pauloandthemagician.com) where I will receive you with kindness and understanding. Please do not do so in the forums where I will inevitably moderate out this kind of post. Remember, you will feel better only when you are able to move past the investment in your judgments, not simply by unloading them for everyone to see. This means taking responsibility for your perceptions and acknowledging that ultimately no one has prevented you from feeling completely peaceful and safe, despite what might appear to be the unfortunate conditions of your life at this time. (I know, this is hard. Contact me if you’re struggling.)
So, two basic rules here. One, we avoid mention of other approaches to the study of ACIM (non-Wapnickian) as well as to other philosophies we might be studying. This is purely to achieve a stable, comfortable learning forum where we are all aiming at the same goal, using the same symbols and language to get there. This is not to cast any judgment on any other approaches or philosophies. ACIM is a sufficiently difficult path to undertake without bringing more confusion into our study than our minds already contain! If you have benefited from other paths and would like to share your thoughts, by all means do so. Just please do this in the privacy of your personal emails. It’s also my personal opinion (take it or leave it) that at some point a student of ACIM is much better off sticking with one set of symbols and one teacher, and working with these thoroughly, instead of getting too dispersed. Rule two, we try not to play ‘teacher’ with each other here, reminding ourselves to be humble and always equal with our brother.
Enjoy the discussion!
I am still in peace and watched the movie As it is in Heaven just now thanks to Michele. Thank you Michele for the recommendation. Joyous.
I have gotten lost in the everyday of my life.. I have forgotten how much you all mean to me, and how very much I Love you all. I could tell you all my woes but they are just smoke and mirrors. You all are very real to me.
How often have I thought that I am unworthy to be among you all I cannot say. Michele it breaks my heart that you have to go through this, but know this of a surety I Love you. Your life is so colorful, we need you to complete the rainbow.
And yes there is a pot of gold waiting for us all, riches we can only imagine. I haven’t been back to follow the posts and I will have a hard time forgiving myself for that. Playing hooky from school is one thing but making excuses to the only real friends that know my heart because they too are guided by and warmed by the light that is eternal.
Forgive me all for my childishness. I will make time for what is important, true friendship and Love and support where needed. I have spent too much time in “The Woe Is Me” kind of thought. I am confused and must spend some time in the next few days trying to catch up some.
I stoped by once not too long ago and just read a few posts and Nina asked if I could just write and tell you all I’m alright. I didn’t and that’s a hard pill to swallow.
I Love you all
God Bless Us Every One
Pappa lawrence
Lesson 155
I will step back and let Him lead the way.
Your feet are safely set upon the road that leads the world to God. Look not to ways that seem to lead you elsewhere. Dreams are not a worthy guide for you who are God’s Son. Forget not He has placed His Hand in yours, and given you your brothers in His trust that you are worthy of His trust in you. He cannot be deceived. His trust has made your pathway certain and your goal secure. You will not fail your brothers nor your Self.
It is such a glorious affirmation of the path to know that Lawrence, and Kendall, and Al, and Hedda, and Michele, and Tex are always here. It helps me know that Pam and Winnie stay smiling at us. – giggling about the lake that is just around the bend!
I will step back and let Him lead the way,
For I would walk along the road to Him.
Dearest Lawrence,
you answered me in my heart, see – I knew you were still alive 🙂
Don’t waste precious time to listen to what you “should have” -spit that bitter pill out NOW
Please 🙂
It’s just lovely to hear from you. I wouldnt mind some woe-descriptions too – maybe it would clear the mindweb to write it out and know it will be shared.
Here. A secret stashed-away Pomegranate wine. Have glass, dear brother –
we love you so very very much
‘
I had such a great experience yesterday – Skyped with an English Course-friend, and talked about overwhelm. she said ( and I recorded it)
The overwhelm is not in you, you are The Kingdom – the overwhelm is in the ego. You made this, you can’t be overwhelmed really. And in your heart you remember this. The ego screams “I can’t handle this” – it is IN THERE – it is listening to itself. You take a step back from that – it’s like being a spectator at a baseballmatch. You’re not on the scene – the field – you are in the tilskuertribunen. It is all in the Bubble of the dream. You keep it separate from what you are – The Truth, the Way and the Life – you keep what you are watching separate from you – you are just watching the effects of it. So when the overwhelm is coming, we can say “WHO is overwhelmed?” It is certainly the person. And the person is not real, it is in the dream. But I am the Light of Christ, I can change all of this – it isn’t Me.
This – “I am the Kingdom” – instead of “I am the Christ” has such a wonderful effect on me. Somehow there is no resistance to being “The Kingdom” in my mind, but “Christ” oooo beware
“Tilskuertribunen” means Spectator tribune 🙂
(((( group hug from me ,too))))
YAY we all feel good when papa lawrence joins in !!
good to have al back too!!
hedda and katrina and kendall are bringing sooo much … thank you
michele, thank you for the movie recommendation, “As it is in heaven” … it is on netflix and mom and I are watching it … thnak you
nina … good reminder that we welcome lawrence or anyone to feel welcome to woe is me a bit in their sharings … it is all part of the energy and love of this place … thank you
anil … I love how you love and share and say things … brilliant … thank you
annie’s poem in the garden is a blessing and a prayer … I love it … thank you annie
tex, how are you and truckie doing these days … you have a way that delioghts and inspires me … thank you
bernard we all thank you for giving us this village home for our stories to exist and be shared … thank you … and I love your sharings too!!
this time with my 3 boys and 2 of my grandkids has been a blessing beyond measure
meeting my granddaughter for the first time … what I thought was the first time … I can tell by her eye contact that she knows me already and remembers our times together better than I do … she brought such wise deep calm and assurance with her … she’s 6 weeks old and looks right into my soul with the look of total assurance … wow
my heart and soul have been refreshed and rebooted and restored … I am so happy and thankful to have been with my boys … love them all so much
got mom out of the hospital the day before they began to arrive … she’s doing great and she’s had a wonderful time being home while everyone has been here
I am thankful for every word and prayer and offering that is shared here in our happy village … to all who are here visible and invisible I thank you
some of you may know that marianne williamson was running for congress in california … she came in 4th in the primary … only the first 2 go on into the election … she is a bright light and I am grateful to her for her prayers and hard work
it’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood
Just wanted to say Michele, that I resonated to the guilt and shame syndrome ‘post post’! Don’t think I’ve ever posted here and earlier in the monastery without suffering copious guilt shame, doubt and recriminations. Possibly why I had to disappear for a while – my ego couldn’t hack it. ( Thinking of my last post – so strident and patronizing – of Nina and her achievement with getting her book published – ) You seemed to move through the forgiveness lesson very quickly Michele with clear purpose and ease… I experience a need to slink off and berate myself for a bit and stubbornly cherish the angst before finally letting it go … and I always find it a relief and so much easier by far to read an angsty post like Tex’s than the nice supportive loving posts that seem more the norm here.
Cool to find yas all on a JTTWB. I’m on my 2nd lap (and probably fourth through the workbook proper ( not that I’m JUDGING of course – yeah right!) and taking it slowly – staying on one lesson for several days sometimes – just to absorb the extra teaching from Ken. Lesson 77 today – I am entitled to miracles.
Lovely to hear from you Lawrence! Still plugging away there eh?
As it is in Heaven – one of my favorites… and on that note I’m off to watch ’47 Ronan’ with JZ – a violent magical warriors versus warlocks and dragons in China kind of romp … I doubt I’ll be recommending it here though! xxx
Lesson 156
I walk with God in perfect holiness
There is a light in you which cannot die; whose presence is so holy that the world is sanctified because of you. All things that live bring gifts to you, and offer them in gratitude and gladness at your feet. The scent of flowers is their gift to you. The waves bow down before you, and the trees extend their arms to shield you from the heat, and lay their leaves before you on the ground that you may walk in softness, while the wind sinks to a whisper round your holy head.
When I am in my right mind, I see this happening all around me. I see my village friends dancing all about me. You looke right thru me and are dancing with Him, carrying me with you.
Lesson 157
Into His Presence would I enter now.
Your body will be sanctified today, its only purpose being now to bring the vision of what you experience this day to light the world.
Lesson 158
Today I learn to give as I receive.
**What has been given you? The knowledge that you are a mind, in Mind and purely mind, sinless forever, wholly unafraid, because you were created out of love. Nor have you left your Source, remaining as you were created.
(Good Morning, I’ve awakened very early today. All is still. So, if what I have been given is the knowledge I am in Mind, I guess that is what I am given to give away.)
**And this you give today: See no one as a body. Greet him as the Son of God he is, acknowledging that he is one with you in holiness.
This is such a beautiful lesson today! We practice seeing with the eyes of Christ today.
Love this classic Course lesson:
Time is a trick, a sleight of hand, a vast illusion in which figures come and go as if by magic. Yet there is a plan behind appearances that does not change. The script is written. When experience will come to end your doubting has been set. For we but see the journey from the point at which it ended, looking back on it, imagining we make it once again; reviewing mentally what has gone by.
You are up early Katrina!
“Christ’s vision has one law. It does not look upon a body, and mistake it for the Son whom God created. It beholds a light beyond the body; an idea beyond what can be touched, a purity undimmed by errors, pitiful mistakes, and fearful thoughts of guilt from dreams of sin…
‘This can be taught; and must be taught by all who would achieve it.’
” See no one as a body. Greet him as the Son of God he is, acknowledging that he is one with you in holiness.”
I want to believe I can see as Christ sees and I have no doubt it will happen one day…why do I feel so strongly it won’t be today!
I see you resistance! I ask only for a little softening -just a little.
Allow me to believe for just a moment I have Christ’s Vision!
One glimpse and I shall be a believer!
Lesson 159
I give the miraclesI have received.
Whenever you are tempted to blame anyone for anything, to see someone as enemy or savior, it is because you have made sin real, either in the other or yourself. Realize that making sin real comes from your decision – not from an inherent evil or sinfulness, but from your fear of being in the presence of God’s Love. You want to practice, therefore, becoming aware how often during the day you express such fear, which will allow you to choose again. Again, blaming others is not a sin, but a mistake that will not bring you what you want.
Recall Jesus’ comforting words:
Son of God, you have not sinned, but you have been much mistaken (T- 10.V.6:1).
(5:1) Christ’s vision is the bridge between the worlds.
Christ’s vision – our daily practice of forgiveness – enables us to shift identification from a dream figure whose only concern is being happy here, to a self happily outside the dream. The process is facilitated by the shift from seeking gratification through special relationships to seeing them as instruments of forgiveness. This shift in perspective is the bridge that will take us Home.
“Christ has dreamed the dream of a forgiven world. It is His gift, whereby a sweet transition can be made from death to life, from hopelessness to hope. Let us an instant dream with Him. His dream awakens us to truth. His vision gives the means for a return to our unlost and everlasting sanctity in God.”
The world of spell check has ‘unlost’ underlined in red. It doesn’t find that option plausible in the world we live in. But I am assured that it is True. And there is something about typing out these lines and lessons that assists me in removing the blocks to love. And there is something even more beneficial when we do this together.
Just like the lilies, I “require the light and warmth and kindly care Christ’s charity provides.”
So that I can “give the miracles I have received”.
Peace I leave with you my Friends.
Lesson 160
I am at home. Fear is the stranger here.
Fear and grief are YOUR guests..
Walk in light and do not see the dark companions, for they are not fit companions for the Son of God, who was created of light and in light. The Great Light always surrounds you and shines out from you.
…for the light is here and the way is clear. (T-11.III.4:4-10)
Notes from a Ken W. seminar —
What your ‘guests’ demand — is darkness. Ike clowns of darkness and gore, they demand you darken the room to hide from God’s vengeful search and attack. And they pull out the action figures and write a script — but give you the starring role of the madonna protecting the little child. (What good would I be if I’m not the madonna?)
NO! Dumb play in darkness.
Throw open the skylight. This is MY home, this is MY skylight, and it is going to be OPEN!!!
Lesson 163
There is no death. The Son of God is free.
As I read todays lesson in the JTTWB, I could still hear Ken proclaiming-he is “not dying”.
And of course back in December, I interpreted that as his body. And even today I go back and forth btwn the ego and the Holy Spirit-btwn my body and my mind. At best I may have a hint of what a Mind is and so the concept is experienced as a flash of recognition. I think I get where He (J) is leading but I definitely don’t own it. Yet still the fact that I wish to know without a doubt gives me a sense of peace and assurance that one day I too can hold it fully and feel that freedom.
Michele, I think your friend Willow- more specifically the letter she wrote to her dearest friends captured what this lesson is all about. He words and actions were a final gift and I wish that when my time is at hand I can come from that expansive state of Love.
I must include this passage that Ken referenced in todays lesson and he most definitely was the perfect example of. (S-3.II.2:1;3:1-4)
This is what death should be: a quiet choice, made joyfully and with a sense of peace…
We call it death, but it is liberty. It does not come in forms that seem to be thrust down in pain upon unwilling flesh, but as a gentle welcome to release. If there has been true healing, this can be the form in which death comes when it is time to rest a while from labor gladly done and gladly ended. Now we go in peace to freer air and gentler climate, where it is not hard to see the gifts we gave were saved for us.
Lesson 164
Now are we one with Him Who is our Source.
This is the day when vain imaginings part like a curtain
I love all references to vain imaginings. Imaginings for no good reason, as in ‘in vain’, and imaginings for puffing up my vanity. I love Big J when he plays double entente’. I get it and feel so smart, or at least I vainly think I do. It always helps me put my ego world in perspective when I hear that phrase.
I have a piece of paper, now nearly antique, from when i started the Course where i list all my shattered dreams (things i’d thought i wanted from early adulthood) and all my vain desires (stuff i do when i want to make myself happy). It is funny to see the constructs and conditions i put on being happy. Completely contrived from society values. Some things worked out, other things fall to the wayside.
Mick Jagger’s commentary for today — You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you might find, you get what you need. My son good glower at me when i sang that to him. Now, he says, he sings it to his daughter. And my older granddaughter now says, I know, I know, I get what I need.
Good one Katrina! Not all the commentaries for the Lessons need to be from Ken’s Journey through the workbook (JTTWB) Mick Jagger does just fine! Those youngens catch on quick (:
Lesson 165
Let not my mind deny the Thought of God.
“Practice today in hope.”
Back in my youth, age 17 – I participated in one of those pyramid like schemes disguised as a self awareness seminar, it was called “LifeSpring” -a knock off of EST; although I was unfamiliar with what it was all about- I trusted a friends recommendation and signed up with her. Back in 1979 ~ $350 bucks was a lot of money especially when I earned only $2.00 hr and worked part time. Anyhow, the point I wanted to make was that they had this one liner repeated throughout the weekend…”There is No Hope”. I can still recall how I found the concept mean spirited…the idea they wanted to drive home was that you make your own reality and to get off the victim mentality…I got what I needed at the time to look at circumstances honestly however, I could never totally accept there was no hope.
And here, today’s reminder; to “practice today in hope”, brings me much comfort. “For hope indeed is justified.” And like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, “Sureness must abide within you who are host to Him.”
Everyday I strive to be a better host to Him than I was the day before.
Lesson 158 Today I learn to give as I receive…JTW commentaries on the video library viewing we do…so helpful. I have to give-up with accompanying you on the date for the lesson.
Michele, I think it makes these lessons richer if each of us contributes where she or he is at. Reality is not linear. This is the no-rules tickle feather waltz and pirouet thru the lessons. When I learn to give as I receive, I will stop denying the Thought of God.
I was awake early and did a big entry, and looked upstream at something, and bam, it was all gone.
Some of my favorite lines included by Ken today–
The Holy Spirit needs a happy learner, in whom His mission can be happily accomplished. You who are steadfastly devoted to misery must first recognize that you are miserable and not happy. The Holy Spirit cannot teach without this contrast, for you believe that misery is happiness (T-14.II.1:1-3).
Lesson 166
I am entrusted with the gifts of God.
The gifts of God are not acceptable to anyone who holds such strange beliefs. He must believe that to accept God’s gifts, however evident they may become, however urgently he may be called to claim them as his own, is to be pressed to treachery against himself. He must deny their presence, contradict the truth, and suffer to preserve the world he made.
Here is the only home he thinks he knows. Here is the only safety he believes that he can find. Without the world he made is he an outcast; homeless and afraid. He does not realize that it is here he is afraid indeed, and homeless, too; an outcast wandering so far from home, so long away, he does not realize he has forgotten where he came from, where he goes, and even who he really is.
Yet in his lonely, senseless wanderings, God’s gifts go with him, all unknown to him. He cannot lose them. But he will not look at what is given him.
Today this is so true of my resistance. I totally forgot to do a lesson or even that i was doing any lessons. No real reaon why, just blanked out till this idley internet browsing minute. To forgive me or to — well, what else would it be for?
Lesson 167
There is one life, and that I share with God
Lesson 168
Your grace is given me. I claim it now.
This the gift by which God leans to us and lifts us up, taking salvation’s final step Himself. All steps but this we learn, instructed by His Voice. But finally He comes Himself, and takes us in His Arms and sweeps away the cobwebs of our sleep. His gift of grace is more than just an answer. It restores all memories the sleeping mind forgot; all certainty of what Love’s meaning is.
Lesson 169
By grace I live. By grace I am released.
Gosh, Anil, I wish you felt more released. Please comment on.
We say “God is,” and then we cease to speak.
Lesson 170
There is no cruelty in God and none in me.
A whole day in which i will check myself for cruelty. But i guess the cruelest thing would be to see myself as guilty of being cruel. Hmmm. Maybe i’ll check back with HS when i think someone else is being cruel.
I so follow you there, Katrina. The very top of insanity is the judgment of it
Lesson 171
God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
(151) All things are echoes of the Voice for God.
God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
(152) The power of decision is my own.
God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
Yay – The Course bus is rolling again ! (:
June 22nd.
Lesson 172
God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
(153) In my defenselessness my safety lies.
God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
(154) I am among the ministers of God.
God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
Oops, that should be June 21st.
Unless we are no longer on a lesson a day plan ! (:
Lesson 173
God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
(155) I will step back and let Him lead the way.
God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
(156) I walk with God in perfect holiness.
God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
Lesson 175
God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
(159) I give the miracles I have received.
God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
(160) I am at home. Fear is the stranger here.
God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
Annie sent me sweet pictures of my mountain (Mt Hood). The mountain was out to greet her visit. Very auspicious, and the river let the rain know that it had enough water. Oregon in perfect balance.
This lesson brings back the symbol of having a visitor who wants you to darken your skylight. Sorry, our house has lots of light!
Michele, i heard of a-kind-of Course teacher, kind-of 12 stepper in your area, Paul Hedderman. Do you know of him? I think he was a recovery, started doing the course so 12 step can’t have him.
It seems i may have to improve my diction before siri can take my dictation. There was a whispered rumor in my childhood about a lisp. I forgot it and never heard it, but it seems to be all siri hears ~
Hedda, i wonder if your noisy visitor has a tone that you could harmonize with. Something in the Tibetan ranges? Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Rhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. A third harmonic might join in and you could ‘pretend’ it is the Holy Spirit.
I got to watch As It Is In Heaven this past week. At the end I thought it was the best movie i had ever seen. So many course thoughts interwoven and acted out in normal small town relationships.
Bless us every one.
Lesson 176
God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
[161] Give me your blessing, holy Son of God.
God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
[162] I am as God created me.
God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
Katrina, do you man the swedish film?
AWESOME – I have seen it so many times♥
Yes, Nina, it was so symbolic on so many levels – a Christ story, a love story, an inner child story. In the end you are just tearing for joy while listening to the sounds of heaven. I Loved the power of the part where they are practicing in a mill wheel formation and the older couple have a quick kiss. Can’t wait to see it again.
Lesson 177
God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
[163] There is no death. The Son of God is free.
God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
[164] Now are we one with Him Who is our Source.
God is but Love, and therefore so am I.
Thank you, stalwart Annie, for getting in our lesson so early in the morning. I know your new system will be in better perspective when HS is working those screens at work. It was a super great time to take a break — while the ego was trying to convince you that the old ego face was being usurped by a new ego face, and the demanded worship amped up!
I was reading the review V again and these lines just kept holding me. He is … wanting us to recognize our investment in the ego thought system, how stalwart we are in maintaining it, and how unhappy it makes us.
… continually strive to be clearer about the distinction between his thought system and ours.
This is an indicator of our progress on the journey: not so much the extent to which we still have ego attacks, but the extent to which we try to justify them.
Yesterday, going into a store, I signed a petition for a righteous cause and when the next lady didn’t want to sign, I was ready for ’game on’. I had such a need to convince her that she was wrong, and I was right. I had big, important justifications. And for the rest o the day my mind reformed and remolded her unworthiness and justified and justified and justified her badness. I felt horrible all afternoon and evening — still saying my lesson in its intervals, but not able to love her beause of the reasons she represented the bad people. But i did keep asking for help to do it.
Then, this morning I read this ‘extent i try to justify them’ and remembered Ken saying to listen for my list of WHY I’m sad, or hurt, or anxious, or … And STOP there. It’s okay to have the feeling, even express it. But the justifications are where the ego is telling its lies. It exhausts you using its tricks of reasoning.
It is strange how nothing in the world or person is changed, but the anger is popped like a bubble when i don’t feel like going thru the litany of righteous indignations.
🙂
That’s right Katrina. My job is to look at my ego without judgment, realize the cost of choosing the ego (it hurts!) and ask for help from HS/Jesus.
Thank God I don’t have to change the world, i.e, stop ego stuff or fix it or do anything with it.
Love and hugs, Kendall
Yep…linking like minds with you Katrina and Kendall on the STOP choice we can make at any moment…. the sane alternative to the never ending story extent our ego’s judgements would prefer to bind and make us blind with their “hold” on us.
“And our love for everyone we look upon attests to our remembrance of the holy Self Which knows no sin and never could conceive of anything without It’s sinlessness. We seek for this remembrance as we turn our minds to practicing today. We look neither ahead nor backwards.We look straight into the present. And we give our trust to the experience we ask for now. Our sinlessness is but the Will of God.This instant is our willing one with His.”
I’m up at my usual time but my eyes are still heavy wanting to sleep. However, I need to get to work earlier than usual to fix something from Friday’s mess. How to stay in present time when my thoughts are moving way to fast? The coffee is not so much to be enjoyed but a necessary element to getting me to where I need to be. I tell myself – do the lesson first-it is better and more reliable than ‘Seattle’s Best’. I see how much faith I have in coffee. Do I give my trust to the “experience we [ I ] as for now?
This calls for a FULL STOP!!
Here is where I am pulling in my “new computer program” from work and I’m starting to see the Holy Spirit doing its magic. (thanks Katrina for reminding me to see it thru the eyes of HS)
Now when placing a Doctor’s order there are certain fields that are called “hard stops”- we get the red stop sign symbol and there is no move to the next screen till its filled out period. These hard stops seem to be everywhere!.. and where once I could fly thru sending a patient off to do their pre-op tests now feels like walking thru molasses.
It’s hard to let go of how it “used” to be…which translates to “mindlessness”.
These daily lessons are like…Hard stops…set up every hour or every minute for me to choose again.
And so here we are in our little Village. The sun rising and setting from East to West and the daily lessons like a living tidal wave surfing the web calling the One Son of God to come on home (:
I say today will be a good ride.
xoxo
Annie
*Do I give my trust to the “experience we [I] ask for now”?
Lesson 182
I call upon God’s Name and on my own.
“Say His Name, and you invite the angels to surround the ground on which you stand and sing to you as they spread out their wings to keep you safe and shelter you from every worldly thought that would intrude upon your holiness.”
Lesson 183
I will be still a moment and go home.
The gentle call – the constant call to go home fills my eyes with such longing.
I’m dumbfounded by my paralysis…how can I long for something so deeply yet be so afraid to let go?
His gentleness and patience are forever included in my nightly prayer of Gratitude.
I asked Big J about which order the last 2 lessons are supposed to be in. Was i supposed to be sure to be still and at home before calling God’s name and my own? And my mind’s eye saw Susan Dugan’s (and our) sandaled Friend peering over the sunglasses. He nodded and smiled. I asked am I ok if i did them switched? I heard Him answer “Excellent!” He rolled his eyes, although in the kindest and gentlest possible way.
I love Susan’s reminder of a teacher who is always there with constant and present forgiveness – in sandals and sunglasses. (I’m looking at her 4/06 and 4/13 Forays’s in Forgiveness.)
Looking in Ken’s JTWB, i see a loved reference at the end of his L.181 comments. It is from Helen’s poem, The Real World.
… and the rays from every living thing reach out to find all other living things, and on from them to their creator; … here everyone will come to rest, his journey almost done, and hears God’s Voice acknowledging His Son.
I love the Rays references. I guess i need the almost tangibleness – something i can imagine seeing – to describe the realness of the intangible. Baby steps. I hope it is okay to put in a comment that was part of L.181 when we are on L.182-183ish. Sort of ambling up the steps like children do, holding the rail, letting go and going down one to sit on it and look at the wood grain.
There’s that evaluation again, “Excellent!”
Lesson 184
The Name of God is my inheritance.
Father, our Name is Yours. In It we are united with all living things and You Who are their one Creator. What we made and call by many different names is but a shadow we have tried to cast across Your own reality. And we are glad and thankful we were wrong. All our mistakes we give to You, that we may be absolved of all effects our errors seemed to have. And we accept the truth You give in place of every one of them. Your Name is our salvation and escape from what we made. Your Name unites us in the oneness which is our inheritance and peace. Amen.
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I wanted to confess that I take the time to write out excerpts from the blue book because it helps me better integrate the message. I hope that it doesn’t come off as being preachy.
In reference to lessons 181 & 182 being transposed – it was a mistake – its true!
And I wonder if that has been brought to the attention of the “Course in Miracles Society”?
I used their Workbook for Students – Pocket Edition 2006 when I quoted the above lessons.
When I referred back to my Blue book by the Foundation for Inner Peace, it was as you Anil and Katrina noted.
There is a handy dandy email address noted on the second page…I shall send them a note. I also noticed that their mailing address is in Nebraska…which naturally has me remembering our Pam and Corey. ♡
Todays lesson makes me feel like I need to sit still and try if just for a moment forget about this body and astral project far enough into space where there is nothing that appears specific… I imagine I need to be in some Unifying field of light. That scares the bejesus out of me and its probably why I need to attempt to do it.
I shall try to embrace the baby step, along with the Rays reference- thank you Katrina. ( and shout out to Laura-the Toddler Student.) And I will let you know how it goes tomorrow.