Transformation

“This transformation from a state of fear to Love, or from ignorance (the ignoring of truth) to enlightenment (the embracing and acknowledging of truth) occurs for each mind within the dream in a very specific way.  That is, it must occur according to what is required to release the patterns that have settled into that particular mind.  In a general way, those patterns are the same for everyone.  But in their expression, they take on a perfect uniqueness.”  (“The Way of Transformation,” The Way of Mastery, Lesson 22, Page 262)

We must be prepared for transformation through a cleansing of our innermost thoughts. Practically, this means that the subconscious mind gradually opens to those attitudes that need to be changed so that we are truly walking God’s way. Transformation, when following the guidance given in Jesus’ channeled works, is gentle and usually gradual.

We first get glimpses, called a satori in Eastern religion. And then these moment of extreme peace lengthen so that hours may pass in true peace. But there is a particular moment, which we will remember, when transformation comes upon us to stay. If we walk in Love rather than fear, this new state remains with us.

And life is never the same again.

Ecclesia

From Ann Glover O’Dell’s Midwifing the Soul:

Passing on the street

peering down from windows

pausing at a corner

familiar faces without names

a crowd of witnesses

thronging daily

testifying public

to each other

with scarcely uttered speech

community invisible

webbed from filament

routines casually incised

within the human habits

unconsciously repeated

while a smile appears

as mind plays hopscotch

with random minute thoughts

and though a stranger

conspicuously marked

by practiced eye

the vision of ecclesia

never resonates

behind the blinking lids.

Pondering a Life’s Work

From Celia Hales’ Images in a Reflecting Pool; a Journal. Copyright 1995.

On second-guessing my life’s work:  “What do I really want to do with the rest of my life?  Is it enough just to follow the Holy Spirit’s prompting on a daily basis?  Is long-range planning really a defense?  (A Course in Miracles suggests that it is.)  (W- pI.135.14:1) Could I do my writing as well as have a more successful library career?  

The key to the latter would be ever-better interactions with the people I encounter everyday.  Sometimes I think the job of librarian really doesn’t accomplish much.  All of us work so hard on meaningless things; I see it all the time on the reference desk among the patrons, and I try to be tolerant.  

Healing minds in the sense meant by the Course has really become my preoccupation.  Knowing that, is it any wonder that I’m still tied to my very social occupation even though I’d rather write?

The Holiness of Life

From Ann Glover O’Dell’s Midwifing the Soul:

The holiness of life

demands attendance

to a water purifying

for the outer

and a dietary purging

for the inner

cleansing

to make straight

the way through

wilderness and wasteland

on swift burning feet

while tears

seem helpless to relieve

the agony of white hot heat

eventually which sears

the soiled soul covering

revealing sacro-sanctuary.

How We Look upon Our Brother is How We Look upon Ourselves

“To look upon the fear of God does need some preparation.  Only the sane can look on stark insanity and raving madness with pity and compassion, but not with fear.  For only if they share in it does it seem fearful, and you do share in it until you look upon your brother with perfect faith and love and tenderness.”  (A Course in Miracles, FIP ed., T-19.IV.D.11)

Here we are encouraged to look upon our brother with forgiveness wrought of faith, love, tenderness.  He deserves no less, and neither do we, for how we look upon our brother is how we look upon ourselves.  There is no difference.

We see God as we see ourselves, and we are lost in insanity, and therefore we fear God, for somehow we think that He too is lost in insanity.  It is not true.  But we have to recognize that we need to be sane to see God clearly.  And we are heading in that direction, toward sanity.

We have long been insane, lost in madness.  It does not have to be so, it does not have to remain so.  We can step away from madness just as much as have wallowed in it for eons.  Now is our time.  Now is the time to turn away from insanity.  Then we will finally see God clearly as the God of Love that He truly is.

When we look on our brother with compassion, we also look upon ourselves with compassion.  Nothing else is right for either of us.  But as long as we are lost in egoic fear, the way will seem long and, indeed, impossible.

It is not impossible.  Just let a little love into our lives, and we quickly see that this other way, the better way, is what we have been looking for all of our lives.

Seek the love tomorrow, the compassion, the sanity.

We will be richly rewarded.

A Cup Of Water

From Ann Glover O’Dell’s Midwifing the Soul:

A cup of water is

mirage to one who

desert sweltering

wonders if his thirst

will lead to death

or will be quenched

by what he knows

will mean his life.

And we who run

our faucets heedlessly

to water needlessly

a prestige lawn

do we consider how

daily it must be

to thirst for what

the rains give down

in purest form

to all the earth?

to quite imagine

how we might provide

for him who suffers

body drought?

and further

how provide

the wellspring

to quench the thirst

of dry parched souls?

With the Holy Spirit

“Every obstacle that peace must flow across is surmounted in just the same way; the fear that raised it yields to the love beyond, and so the fear is gone.  And so it is with this.  The desire to get rid of peace and drive the Holy Spirit from you fades in the presence of the quiet recognition that you love Him.”  (A Course in Miracles, FIP ed., T-19.IV.D.5)

The obstacles to our peace are kept in place by our cooperation.  We would remove our cooperation from the equation, and then we will know love as we have never known it before.  We will no longer want to get rid of peace; we will know that we love our Guide, the Holy Spirit, and we will open ourselves, on a continuing basis, to His guidance.

This is the obvious way that A Course in Miracles is teaching us on almost every page.  Turn to the Holy Spirit, succumb to His guidance, and be healed.

We will be living in quiet now.  We will understand that guidance comes to us in quiet moments, normally, though sometimes the situation is urgent enough that the Holy Spirit gets through to us even when we are in turmoil.

We are in turmoil only when the ego has arisen in us.  We can turn aside just as easily as we welcomed the ego.  And turn aside we must, if we are to be saved from disaster.  We would not entertain disaster in any shape at all.  

We would know God’s peace today.  Let us pray for the establishment of a good mood, an uplifted mood, and in this mood, love comes in easily.

Ceremony

From Ann Glover O’Dell’s Midwifing the Soul:

In white smocked dress

with entre deux and reembroidered

lace on cuffs and hem

and heirloom petticoat beneath

made of great-great-granddame’s

wedding gown

and fresh new bonnet

fashioned in the latest neo-classic

hand sewn French couture design

by the young mother

having bought the sewing lessons

just for the occasion

without a thought to

knowing that the ritual required

the bare head of the child.

As streamers fell away

and cap removed

by him whose hand dipped in the font

epiphany tears blurred vision

in the mother’s eyes.

The infant passed from one to one

and blinking under water

dripping in its eyes

will have no recollection of this day

but secretly she vowed that

if cataract comes crashing

she will tell the story

of the special sprinkling

that was precursor

of a later time

when womb waters break

to midwife life anew.

Where We Dwell Eternally

“Though we have said it unto you many times, we ask you to truly take pause and to consider this one statement:  We come forth to join with you, not from a place above you or beyond you, but a place in which you already dwell eternally.”  (“The Way of Transformation,” The Way of Mastery, Lesson 22, Page 261)

We are at home in Heaven, something we have trouble believing because bad things still happen to us.  When we decide that Heaven is what we want, and ALL that we want, we are on the way to eliminating the bad things.  Believe this.  Take it to heart.

This statement is coming from the lineage, the group of souls who are Jesus’ helpers in the endeavor to save this world.  Membership is open to us, too.  We just have to go God’s, and Jesus’, way.

Ask to be told more.  This will come to pass.  We are living in the Now in time, and, yes, in the Heaven of our awareness.  If we don’t fully understand, then ask to be enlightened about what we can reasonably believe.

Christ Will Have Come to Us, Recognized at Last

“The fourth obstacle to be surmounted hangs like a heavy veil before the face of Christ.  Yet as His face rises beyond it, shining with joy because He is in His Father’s Love, peace will lightly brush the veil aside and run to meet Him, and to join with Him at last.”  (A Course in Miracles, FIP ed., T-19.IV.D.2)

We are all a Christ in miniature.  Jesus shares his Christhood with us. And when we have learned to see the face of Christ in all our brothers, we will be home free at last.  This quotation shows the way in which Christ’s face in our brothers rises to meet us; the veil is lifted.  This is true pleasure in the moment, when we see Christ in our brothers.  We are being blessed in this moment.  It is a harbinger of better days ahead.

We can pray to see Christ in all our brothers.  It is a mystical experience that will not last for most people.  But in the happening do we see what we are to see in our better moments for the rest of our lives.  For Christ is behind the veil of physical form in everyone.

We will join with our brother, metaphorically, when we see Christ in him.  We will want to be one with him.  And it will be granted us, if only that for holy instant in time.

We will be at peace.  Christ will have come to us, recognized at last.

Love’s Gifts

“Loss of love comes from only one source.  Call it fear or call it separation but it is still the same.  For in your separated state you ask that love make you special to someone else, and that one special to you.  You think this is what love is for, and so you make of it something it is not and only call it love.”  (A Course of Love, C:14.22)

“If you do not believe you can reverse or ‘turn back’ to the state in which you existed before the original error, then you never shall.

. . .

“This space you can turn back to holds no judgment and no fear, and so it is the repository of all that has proceeded from love.  There it keeps all love’s gifts safe for you.  Love’s gifts are gifts of creation or extension, gifts you have both given and received.  Each act of love is added to the space in the universe that is yours and has become part of the whole along with you.  All that has proceeded from fear is nothing, and has no existence apart from your own thoughts.”  (A Course of Love, C:17.12, C:17.14)

Within the separation, the illusory separation from God that hasn’t actually happened, it is impossible for us to be contented aside from special relationships.  And, of course, these do not content us long, for we ask both too much and too little of them.  Special relationships are fraught with fear.  We fear being alone again, that this special one will love less (or leave), or that we (even though together still) do not love equally.

These concepts are all meaningless to a holy relationship, which seeks never to take, but always to give—though we know that giving and receiving are one in love.  We will be contented when we give up the idea of having special relationships.  Not that these relationships will be snatched away from us—no, never—but that we will never be happy on a continual basis until we have transformed our loves into holy loves.

Fear then will slip away.  We know that if we lose one form of love, another will take its place.  While we do not try to substitute loves for one another, we do recognize that it is our internal love that is most important.  And this means that all Selves are One, all loves are One.  Fear has no basis for gaining a foothold when ideas such as this are given sway in a life.

Holy Love

“The delights of our holy love will be given to all.  Thus, those who are most called to love can enjoy our beauty, and join our song of praise and gratitude.

“To give ourselves entirely will be the hallmark of our expression, serving love, the joyful fruit of our union.  By virtue of this, the world will have a new light.  Those who seek comfort will find it.  Those who long for truth will receive it.  Those who grope for love will stop looking, for because of our divine union, they will recognize that love is what they are, and that their being goes wherever they go.”

“The time of truth has come.”  Choose Only Love, bk.7, Prelude.

In the Prelude to the last book in the series, we are ushered into a new era, a new era that all of us reading will experience.  

We would not have gotten this far in Choose Only Love unless we were taking to heart its bounteous message.

Take our places in the great endeavor we are embarking upon–a new world on Earth.  We will succeed, for we have the Love backing us all the way.  The positive will win out in the end.  Negativism defeats itself, if not immediately, eventually.

Displacement of Love with Fear

“The displacement of the original intent, while it did not change the original cause, formed a false nature for the personal self.  This displacement of the original intent can be simply stated as the displacement of love with fear.  It is as simple as that.  Yet the way in which each of you have interpreted this displacement has come to seem quite complex.”  (A Course of Love, T4:3.4)

We think that we live complex lives, and, indeed, the ego has reveled in that thought.  But the only thing that happened, the detour into fear, was a shift from love to fear.  We may this transition as quite young children.  And we are led down a path toward living in fear that has always been hard to reverse.

Now we have a way, and it is simple in the extreme.  We simply learn to listen to what our heart is telling us.  Our heart always opts for the love that is hidden away deep within it.  Our heart always knows how to guide us.  In this time of Christ, the heart is our beacon, for the Christ-Self is within, like the heart.  Of course, we don’t mean the physical heart.  “Heart,” as used in A Course of Love, is a metaphor for the deepest feeling part of ourselves.  We feel rather than think, and in that shift, a shift in consciousness comes slower or later.

We can hope for sooner, for those of us reading these words long for Christ-consciousness (if we have not already reached this).  We long to live serene and awakened lives, sure of ourselves, sure of our brothers and sisters, and sure of God.

When we occupied physical bodies, we made a mistake, a mistake that could not happen but did.  We opted for separation from God by feeling a tiny bit of fear that grew into an almost all-encompassing fear.  This situation does not have to go on.  We can retreat from fear into our real essence of love.  At any time.  

And the transformation will be arresting.

Love Overcomes the Ego

“When anything seems to you to be a source of fear, when any situation strikes you with terror and makes your body tremble and the cold sweat of fear comes over it, remember it is always for one reason; the ego has perceived it as a symbol of fear, a sign of sin and death.”  (A Course in Miracles, FIP ed., T-19.IV.C.11)

This quotation helps us to understand the dynamics of the ego.  The ego is a part of our belief about ourselves that will not rest until we are miserable, though it pretends to offer us the good.  It does not offer us the good.

Particularly poignant as a expression of fear, this quotation assures us that the terror that we sometimes feel is ego-generated.  Love would never treat us like this, and love never does.  We are “in our egos” when we quail in fear against this unnamed something that fills us with cold shaking.  The ego thinks that this something out there is a sign of “sin and death,” and so it encourages us to be fearful.

If, even for a moment, we bypass the bitter dregs of death, the stubborn and witchy attempts to handle this unnamed fear, we will be OK.  But the only real choice is love, a manifestation of love by forgiveness.  Give the angry deed over to the Holy Spirit and His judgment; He alone can handle what has aroused such strong negative emotions.

The ego thrills, and the ego dashes to the ground.  There are always oscillations, and there will always be.  It the way in which we come to see that the ego is not the way that we want to go.  The ego is constantly being undone.  And well that it is.

Love only satisfies; love only cools the overwrought emotions.  Dwell with God in the form of the Holy Spirit, and so the brittle and rigid emotions will subside.  God knows us best, of course, and the Holy Spirit will guide us out of even this abyss.

When Were We Blessed?

From Ann Glover O’Dell’s Midwifing the Soul:

When were we blessed?

we ask the ones who

now and then remind us

to be blessing as we

walk among the multitudes

who need a sacred gift.

When were we blessed?

we ask again in order

to be certain of the time and day

to mark it down to be

remembered in a book.

When were we blessed?

we ask because we are not sure

that we can say with certainty

a blessing has become

so intertwined with who we are

that holy we experience ourselves.

When were we blessed?

we ask with ripening hope

that blessing fresh and warm

might be bestowed in

tokened reminiscence

of a once forgotten one.

When were you blessed?

asks the One to whom all blessing

owes its origin.

I blessed you in

the blessing of the world

as good.

I blessed you in

the ancient ones

who multiplied the

sperm seed placed in them.

I blessed you as

I gave the essence

of myself that you might be.

Now kneel and be reformed

in warm wet clay

and feel my hot breath

on and in you

then go to lay

my hand

on those who feel unblessed.

Be my blessing.

Your Purpose Is Nursed by Angels

“The end of sin, which nestles quietly in the safety of your relationship, protected by your union with your brother, and ready to grow into a mighty force for God is very near.  The infancy of salvation is carefully guarded by love, preserved from every thought that would attack it, and quietly made ready to fulfill the mighty task for which it was given you.  Your newborn purpose is nursed by angels, cherished by the Holy Spirit and protected by God Himself.”  (A Course in Miracles, FIP ed., T-19.IV.C.9)

More beautiful words.  We are viewing the end of sin, when we forgive our brother and welcome him into our heart with love.  Overwhelming love that knows no opposite.  We are just now moving into salvation; it will be a while before that salvation reaches its ultimate in Awakening.  At least for most people.  But each path to salvation is unique to us as individuals.  The Holy Spirit does not have a cookie cutter approach to our life in this world.

This is one of the few times in A Course in Miracles when Jesus alludes to the Other Side, with entities that attend us.  Here he refers to angels; our purpose is “nursed by angels.”  And our purpose well needs to be, for we are infants in the business of salvation.  We may have been “saved,” in a traditional sense, long ago, but it is unlikely that we have forgiven fully.  And forgiveness is the means of salvation in ACIM.  We need to carve this into our hearts.  We forgive, then we come to understand, and then when the forgiveness is total, we have a holy relationship with our brother.

The totality of all that forgiveness holds out to us may reach us suddenly, but usually it reaches us more slowly.  We give up judgment gradually, listening to the Holy Spirit only in snatches.  

We need to listen always, for He is identifies our way out of the mire in which we have become embedded.  Ask for help in forgiveness today; this is our quickest route to a holy relationship with not just one, but all, our brothers.

The Time of the Truth of Love

“The delights of our holy love will be given to all.  Thus, those who are most called to love can enjoy our beauty, and join our song of praise and gratitude.

“To give ourselves entirely will be the hallmark of our expression, serving love, the joyful fruit of our union.  By virtue of this, the world will have a new light.  Those who seek comfort will find it.  Those who long for truth will receive it.  Those who grope for love will stop looking, for because of our divine union, they will recognize that love is what they are, and that their being goes wherever they go.”

“The time of truth has come.”  Choose Only Love, bk.7, Prelude.

I worry about people who have heard that love is the Answer so many times that they are numbed by it.  But love IS the Answer, and until we relinquish our egoic tendencies and welcome unconditional trust and love into our live, we will never know consistent peace.

This means to give up attack in any form.  Doing so makes a giant leap into the arms of God, and His Voice, the Holy Spirit.  When we are agitated and inclined to argue, we are indeed lost to God.  He can’t get through to us when we are agitated.  Pray today for a surcease of agitation, and give a welcome to the peace that supplants it.

We are into the time of the Second Coming of Christ.  Nowhere in Jesus’ recent channeled writings are we told that this might be a physical incarnation.  But we ARE told that we ourselves are part of this Second Coming.  Jesus shares his Christhood with us.  

And when we respond rightly, in love, we respond with one accord to be better future.

Dancing into Light

From Ann Glover O’Dell’s Midwifing the Soul:

Dancing into light

she could not understand

why others silent stood

in shadows at the fringe.

Asking some to join her

they shook their heads’ reply

and she

contented not

presented query one on one.

They had no life they said

No life fulfilled enough to

spill into a rhythm moved to music

No life to know a joy that

could not be contained

within their flesh and frame

No life to fling wide portals

of their personality

and shun that shame

that inhibitions shape

No life that knows such

verve and drive

that energy must burst forth

in explosion

if not channeled

in some festive rite

No life to feel a spirit

they themselves

could not create

if ever there could be

Almost no life

to even wish

for what had not

by them allowed

the possibility

of shopping for some

dancing shoes.

There Is No Room for the Tempest of Rough Seas

“There is no room for madness here, nor for the tempest of rough seas.  Here there is only life, peace, and creation.  Nothing will disturb your mind or heart anymore, since everything that afflicted your soul has been forgotten forever, erased from the memory of your heart in love.  Now there will only be expressions of being, extensions of love, and unlimited giving serving the cause and effect of love.  Choose Only Love, bk.7, 1:I.  Message from Jesus.

Here is a fantastic promise from Jesus.  By Book 7 of Choose Only Love, if we have taken all seven books to heart, we are ready to experiment continuous peace.  Choose Only Love has cocooned us with love, given us insights by doing so that take us home to God.  We are not going to fail now unless we abandon our faith.  And who among us would do so at this late date?

We did entertain a “tiny, mad idea” of separation from God, something we first learned from Jesus in A Course in Miracles.  But now “There is no room for madness,” and we have walked by the direction pointed out, back to God.

We may still have certain patterns of thought, called “egoic patterns” by A Course of Love, that will occasionally give us pause.  But even this is very, very rare now–if it happens at all.  We walk humbly before our God, sure of His promises, sure of His guidance, sure of His love.

King

From Ann Glover O’Dell’s Midwifing the Soul:

Riding as a king

triumphal in my victory

o’er all I call

the enemies who thwart

my willful nature’s best intention

triumphal such that

others see my good resolve

and cheer me on

to greater goals of goodness

my mind has undertaken.

I hear the cheer—“Hurray for you!”

as friends and kinfolk recognize

assistance they have given

and cheering for themselves as well

participate in “Job well done!”

And we all name ourselves

good and faithful servants.

The greening branches move

as green confetti showers down

and all experience

the kingdom of righteous tasks complete.

Little do we sense

that we must be

betrayed by some Iscariot

the one most close

the one whose presence

seems to be the primal motivation

spurring us to holy tasks

that one within we know as friend

is friend indeed and

of him say ‘the blessed one

who comes from God’

for who can bless us more

who orchestrates

the death of good

to empty and then sanctify?

Love in the Quiet Garden

“Love, too, would set a feast before you, on a table covered with a spotless cloth, set in a quiet garden where no sound but singing and a softly joyous whispering is ever heard.  This is a feast that honors your holy relationship, and at which everyone is welcomed as an honored guest.”  (A Course in Miracles, FIP ed., T-19.IV.A.16)

Lovely passage, melodic in its choice of words.  This quotation is meant to lighten our attitude toward the holy relationship.  The holy relationship, unlike the special, is a place of calm and quiet (note the “quiet garden”).  The special relationship has flights of joy, but these are always followed by times of dashed hopes; we climb upward, only to dash our feet on a stone on the ground.

Note of these vicissitudes are present in the calm and peaceful, and joyous always, holy relationship.  This is a relationship that is permeated, through and through, with love.  We don’t have to strain toward some sort of unnatural high; we are cocooned in an ocean of love that knows no bounds.

And, once we have achieved the holy relationship, we would never go back to the unholy, or special, again.  As we make one relationship holy, we would want to make all of our relationships with brothers holy.

And we can.  Just put our minds to it.  It is not hard.  Forgiveness is key, as always.

Trust the Momentum that Seems to Be Shaping Your Life

“Above all, beloved friends, remember:  there are no mistakes!  You are free to trust the momentum that seems to be shaping your life.  For you are the one who has complied with it by inviting the Holy Spirit to take you home.  You are the one that has prayed for acceleration.  Therefore, also be the one who accepts the grace being offered unto you.”  (“The Way of Transformation,” The Way of Mastery,  Chapter 21, Page 260)

It is a startling idea that there are no mistakes! Even the “tiny, mad idea” that started us on the road to separation from God was not a “mistake,” per se. God let us go when we were lost in adolescent rebellion.

And now He is welcoming us home, again at our bidding. When things seem rough, realize that this is “acceleration,” guided by the Holy Spirit.

We need to remain compliant, flexible, in the hands of the Holy Spirit. Further rebellion will be counter-productive. Drop any rebellion, and decide today to come home to God, to be home in God.

Seeking

From Ann Glover O’Dell’s Midwifing the Soul:

I seek wheat within myself

among the heaping piles of chaff

I seek righteousness

amidst my bounding wantonness

I seek self-trust

beneath my inability to be

true to anyone including Thee

I seek goodness in my heart

even in the selfish evidence I’ve found

I seek ability to praise

displace my envy and my pride

I seek justice

in place of all the power

I hold so dear and can’t release

I seek solace

from the grinding guilt

that wears away all images

of wholeness in my soul.

Where have I heard

that seekers find?

Or is the seeking

as some say of journey

all there is

and I need entertain no more

an image of discovery

of something wonderful

at end of search?

My heart tells me “no!”

Surrender

“God is already here.  I am forever God’s.  I surrender.

“Surrender is the fruit of allowance.  Surrender is the fruit of forgiveness.  Surrender is the same as the atonement.”  (“The Way of Transformation,” The Way of Mastery,  Chapter 21, Page 259)

The idea of surrender is dear to my heart.  Before I discovered Jesus’ recent channeled works, I knew that surrender would be “my way.”  I knew that God was asking me to surrender to a plan for my life that seemed daunting

God is living through us.  He is not a “separate” deity.  His way works, when we listen and follow the prompts that harm no one else, and help us.  His sure guidance keeps us walking along the right pathway.

Here The Way of Mastery says that surrender to God is the same as atonement.  This I find a startling idea.  When we know what God is asking of us, and we follow, that is both surrender and atonement.

Our rebellion is over.

Pure Love Manifested

“Blessed soul, beauty of eternal life!  Here we are, united in a time and place that has merged into the eternal.  Together we are the light of the world.  United we are the sun of life.  From our relationship of pure love, a new reality has been born, a reality pure and holy.  We are one mind, one heart, one holy being.  In our unity we are as we have always been–the immutability of being, expressing itself forever in glory.”  Choose Only Love, bk.7, 1:I.  Message from Jesus.

Jesus’ words are comforting.  He is reassuring us that we have never left the arms of God–and of himself.  He blesses us with his words.

If we have ever felt “not enough”–and all of us have–then we need feel insufficiency no longer.  In the midst of this quotation, we find that our saving grace is in our unity one with another and with God.

We have not changed–not in reality.  We took a detour that we now regret, though because everything is actually perfect, we know that God also, with us, made the decision for separation.  It was first our choice as free beings of free will, but He “let go” because we were so eager to experience all that could be experienced.  

Now we come home, never to leave again.  We are wrapped up in a cocoon of love, and lest we forget, we have God’s promptings to keep us in the know.

Buddha Teachings

From Ann Glover O’Dell’s Midwifing the Soul:

The Buddha teaches

wisdom to be found

in nothingness–a space

within that moves

into the world beyond the cave

and back again to feed itself

from inner calm

so that detachment from

the trappings traipsing round us

denies imprisonment to things

and liberates the soul

to glide and swim

through multiple experiences

without the need to own

or justify the lack

of action or production

but unencumbered flies

through space and time

constant consorts

abundancing its life.

Would that monotheists all

might free the soul

from dogma

and the need to do.

Resistance

“All suffering is the resistance of reality.  All awakening and healing is the letting go of resistance.  Forgiveness.  Allowance.”(“The Way of Transformation,” The Way of Mastery,  Chapter 21, Page 259)

What we resist becomes stronger, and when we resist pain, turning it in suffering, we are on the wrong track.  

Acceptance is the way for suffering to be eased, though this is  a hard teaching to wrap our minds/hearts around.  But healing is in its wings.  A healing of emotions, perhaps, or maybe a healing of the physical pain as well.

God will answer.  Remember that the pain is at least partly mental, and this mental healing is what will transpire first.  Then ideas will come about healing the physical pain as well.

Relax into the pain.  Let it come.  This is true allowance.

Invitation

From Ann Glover O’Dell’s Midwifing the Soul:

Gathered at the riverside

  we question

    mandatory participation

      in penance preparation

         as a voice tells us to turn

and face the dry and lifeless land.

With no ranting

  on the wrath of God

    we hear reiteration

      of continued invitation

        and silently assent

to a journey to the new unknown.

Then we turn slow

  to see the water surface

    undulating ever slightly

      and sense a beckoning

        by unseen finger

to respond.

Water wading moves

  from shallows to the deeps

      and though we have

        no swimming skills

the transport to the womb occurs

  as if we had stood still.

Choice for a Physical Self

“Let’s return a moment to the choice that was made for the human experience, the choice to express whom you are in the realm of physicality.  You were not ‘better’ or more ‘right’ before this choice was made than you are now.  You made a choice consistent with the laws of creation and the steps of creation outlined above.  From this choice, many experiences ensued.  Some of these experiences were the result of fear, some the result of love.  The choice to express who you are in physical terms was not a choice made of fear but made of love.  A physical self is not inconsistent with the laws of God or of creation.  It is simply a choice.”  (A Course of Love, T3:12.8)

A Course of Love reassures us that physicality is not a second-best choice.  It is purely within the laws of God, though the way in which this choice worked out for us was flawed.  We developed the ego, and in so doing, our physicality took on a role that has hindered our full development in this world.

Now w e are faced with a new choice:  an elevated Self of form, form without the ego.  And, indeed, the latter half of A Course of Love indicates that we have given up the ego as a bad idea.  And the Self of form will know God in an intimate way that the egoic self never did, never could.

This blessing ought to give us reason to be thankful.  We are not trapped by bodies at all, though we might have once viewed our life on earth in these terms.  We can live well and happily in the flesh.

Let’s set about doing so today.

“Soul, You Have Arrived”

“Soul, you have arrived.  Before time began, I conceived you in my heart to be the beauty of my being.  Before the wind could blow–since movement of matter had not yet been created–you were in my divine mind as a perpetual lover.  My joy was to wait for this time, a time like no other, to come, a time when the light of glory would begin to shine as never before, through you, my soul in love, my divine child.”  Choose Only Love, Book 7, Prelude.  “A message from the Voice of Christ through a choir of Angels, in the presence of Archangel Raphael and Archangel Gabriel.”

This is not specifically said to be from Jesus, but perhaps from the Spirit of Christ, whom we all share.  It is a glorious praising of God for where we have arrived today in this world.

We are in Book 7 of Choose Only Love, the book that is the culmination of all that has gone before.  We can take unto ourselves whatever seems right about this message.  If we think that we are still ego-driven, then we will postpone this message for a future time.  If the ego has indeed been banished, we will rejoice that our future will be unlike anything that has gone before.

Rest a while in these words, for they are an affirmation of just how far we have traveled along the road back to God.  The praise that this passage reveals is shared by the cosmos.  We ought also to share that praise.

Ordinary Moment Provides the Doorway

“My goodness, I don’t have to go anywhere.  It’s right here in front of me.  This ordinary moment provides the doorway to the transformation of consciousness itself.  All I have to do is bring a little willingness to it.  And guess what?  I have all power under Heaven and Earth to do just that!  Nobody can take it from me!  Nobody can change the freedom in which I live!  I am the one who can bring that little willingness to this moment and let the raindrops hit the window.”  (“The Way of Transformation,” The Way of Mastery, Chapter 21, Page 258)

This quotation is an imaginary conversation that we might have when we realize that all is well in our little world.  We can relax.  ALL that is asked of us is a little willingness to listen to guidance.  A “little.”  And this makes all the difference.

We are in charge of our little world, what we see and what we experience.  WE!  This sounds unbelievable, but there it is.  By the law of attraction, what we focus on materializes.  A quick thought will not make materialization happen, and of course this is good.  But that which we dwell upon becomes our lot in life.  What we focus upon over the long haul is the very stuff we will live through.

If we want to improve our lot in life, we simply have to raise our sights to God and listen to His Voice, the Holy Spirit.  We know that we don’t do well when we seek to walk through this world all alone.  But there is a Power within us that solves the whole problem.  Turn to that Power, and watch the chains of life experience transform into golden light.

Desert Places

From Ann Glover O’Dell’s Midwifing the Soul:

There are those who choose

to visit desert places

who revel in the solitude as

seeking for some unpredicted beauty

find blossoms there

and color

and enchantment in the arid wastes.

But we avoid the barren lands

needing

so we think

oases of variety

and fecund warmth of kindred souls.

We have seen the wilderness

and heard the mournful howl of brazen beasts

whose names unspoken

strike a paralyzing fear.

And we have been alone

in deserts desolate of all

except the gritty sand

that wears our feet

and lodges long within our mouths

that stings our tears

that burns our skin

and sings the solemn unpitched note

that seeks to deafen us.

We know a wilderness

where nothing blooms

where sorrow’s sobs can sprinkle nought to life.

Is there a hand to give us hope?

Is there a voice to tell us this will pass?

There Is Nothing Outside You

“There is nothing outside you.  That is what you must ultimately learn, for it is the realization that the Kingdom of Heaven is restored to you.”  (A Course in Miracles, FIP ed., T-18.VI.1)

This passage puzzled me for a long time.  I think it is a statement of a holographic universe:  Each part contains the whole.  So we are a part of the All, the One, that is God—and therefore there is nothing outside of us.  We and our brother—all of our brothers—are One.  Everything is alive with energy, the stuff of the universe.  

We return to Heaven when we realize that we never really left at all.  What leaving we did was all a mirage, an illusion, something that never happened in actuality at all.  The separation never occurred!  The separation could not have occurred because we are a part of God, and so we can be “separate” from him only in illusion, not reality at all.

These ruminations reflect the theology of A Course in Miracles.  We will read further on, and then we will see the theology becoming all of one cloth.  There is no strain.  We will wake up to find ourselves at home in Heaven, the Oneness that we never really left at all.

Truth

From Ann Glover O’Dell’s Midwifing the Soul:

Is there truth so palpable that

once known

effects a freedom heretofore

unknown

unknowable

and further

unimagined?

So what

and where

and why

is truth?

Is there an entity

as powerful

as Holy Writ describes?

What motivates

gigantic games of searching

all possiblities

for ambrosia for the mind?

Great minds and small

have followed

rocky

tangled

paths of question

often coming round

to the beginning place

with question asking multiplied

and still no closer closure comes.

Might our preoccupation

with this noun

if substantive it is

be labeled imbecile attempts

at rank omnipotence

because we

after all

seek ranking with the gods?

Is this a foreordained

conundrum

maddening maze

of constant fruitless questing?

Or is there somewhere

a reality that

we were born to know?

To know in such a way

that moving us

to joy abundant

truth becomes a verb?

God Illumines His Way

“Nothing will be hidden anymore.”  (Choose Only Love, Book 7, Prelude)

What a startling assertion!  By the time we have read through to the seventh volume of this magnificent series, we hear from the angels, Jesus, and Mary a great deal that will encourage us.  We are walking a pathway that many in this world have never even dreamed about.

Because of the fact that we have relinquished the ego, we are not prone to be mindful of egotism in our journey.  God can share with us the greatest blessings in His heaven, no longer mindful that we will misuse his gifts.

We will know, where before we only had inklings.  This is akin to what Jung said years ago.   He indicated that he did not have to have “faith,” because he knew.  

We may not want to give up faith, but we too do now know.  We can proceed easily and peacefully through this world without fears of taking up the nefarious ego again.  No longer is that a great threat.

Our way is clear.  Let us do God’s work in this world, thankful that we have walked far along the pathway back to Him.  To whom much is given, much is required.  That is the only warning we need.

Memory

From Ann Glover O’Dell’s Midwifing the Soul:

A strange phenomenon

memory

that without which life

would not be worth

the trouble to sustain

say some.

Puzzling

how together

some can witness

an event

retaining bits and pieces

perceptions and reflections

so different in recall.

The remembering almost makes

an individual

as multi-faceted as all

whose lives with that one intersected

and each left wondering

how recollection

so differing came to be.

Perhaps the psyche soul

unique to each

magnetically attracts

the details mandatory

for spirit evolution

beatifying each and all.

Happy Dreams that Compose Our Lives

“Happy dreams come true, not because they are dreams, but only because they are happy.  And so they must be loving.  Their message is, ‘Thy Will be done,’ and not, ‘I want it otherwise.’”  (A Course in Miracles, FIP ed., T-18.V.4)

Happy dreams come to us from the Holy Spirit as we loose the world of the ego for something infinitely better.  As our minds began changing, we look out on a forgiven world, and in that forgiveness do we see a better world.  We project from within, and the within is not so dark as it once was, so fraught with egoic madness.

The Holy Spirit knows that we will not be happy until we listen to guidance from His Higher Power.  Until we say, “Thy Will be done.”

We do not have to imagine that our free will is being contradicted.  Actually, our free will is enhanced, for in the whole process we learn that the Holy Spirit actually speaks for us.  He chooses that which will make us the happiest, and that is always the real will that we have heretofore not known how to exert.  We have made many mistakes as we sought to create a comfortable environment for ourselves in this world.  We have not created anything that remained comfortable for very long, to our chagrin.

But all of this will change as we start following intuition that is divinely inspired.  The Holy Spirit points out the best way for us, the way that we will be happiest.  And only a very conflicted person would fail to see this after a short while.  Give guidance time to act in our lives, and we will quickly see that the divine way is what we have really wanted all along.  Every decision will be made for us; we will not have to struggle at all.  And peace and joy will become emblematic of our new lives.

God’s Gifts for Us Redeemed

“Thoughts from Heaven feel like light and breath; they are full of certainty, can never be forgotten, and they bring a great ‘amount’ of truth in the blink of an eye.”  Choose Only Love, Book 7, A Message from Sebastian, II.

Thoughts from Heaven are manna to our spirit.  When we enjoy a true revelation, the gist of it stays with us, never to be completely forgotten and often changing our lives in drastic ways.  “Light and breath,” Sebastian says.  We might ask, Can this type of revelation really happen to us?

Yes!  A resounding yes!  Revelation is always from God to us, and is more lasting than a miracle in our hearts.  Revelation is the way of the future, for those of us reading this far in Choose Only Love have, it is said in its pages (in different words), that we have traveled far along our pathway back to God, and He is able to get through to us quite remarkably.  Our struggles have been greatly reduced, and we are ready for revelation in our very being.  We live a peaceful life, marred only temporarily by those things that cause us regret.

Does this sound too good to be true?  It is truly not too good to be true.  God trusts us to keep His universes going through our expressions of being, our Love for all that is.  He could not gift us with all He would wish so long as we were recalcitrant.  But He can now.

And He does.

Living without Fear and Embracing All

“The mind then, that becomes the one who is no longer in fear, no longer in resistance, is the mind that has forgiven all things, including itself.  The mind that can embrace all phenomena that arise and pass away with passion, with joy, with aliveness, with innocence, with simplicity, that mind cannot taste death.  It literally transmutes death, even as death seems to be passing by.”  (“The Way of Transformation,” The Way of Mastery, Chapter 21, Page 257)

When we are no longer afraid of death, death will seem to be passing us by–even at the point of the end of our time on earth.  We will thus not taste of death in our thoughts for long years prior, as well as when the time comes.  Our hearts will be free of fear.  We will accept all things, even this, being willing to “have it so.”  This type of relinquishment is a secret of how to approach life at any time, and not just when life is ending.

“Be willing to have it so.”  This is acceptance brought to the forefront of our lives.  This is the acceptance that lets God know that we are at last in His fold.  We have tried everything else, and now we know that His is the best way.

Decide for Him today.

Character

From Ann Glover O’Dell’s Midwifing the Soul:

Dim foreshadowings afford us

early glimpses of what later

might be called good character

the strength of which was hewn

from hard fine granite

chipped away in slow

painstaken labor

certainly

not self- designed

nor requested

nor desired.

No

this surgeon artist scalpel

reconfiguring as prisoner

one who would if breaking

chains invisible were possible

bolt and leave a fiery trail

as hastily escaping such ordeal.

How daring the Designer

who mined the blocks

then saw unique form buried there

waiting to be born

and as the Master Sculptor

took full advantage of

his expertise without

apprentices employed

but in his own worn practiced hands

the ancient tools

began their sacred work.

Work Musings

From Celia’s Images in a Reflecting Pool; a Journal

Colds or “bugs” are a form of seeking outside ourselves, convenient crutches we use when we are very weary from walking in the world.  One then has an excuse to sit down.  Written a couple of days before I succumbed to a succession of mild but debilitating viruses:  “What do I really want to experience in my world?  I don’t want to be hassled constantly to do more-more- more.  I need to say ‘no’ to things for a month and then some.”

–

On the work complexities of modern life:  “I desperately need to learn how to pace myself.  If ever I get ahead at work, I immediately ‘fill my plate’ with a dozen things that are sure to swamp me eventually.” Four days later, the dawn of a solution:  

“I sensed today that I make things too hard.  I have too much a sense of responsibility.  I should let go and let God.  Life lived from moment to moment ‘listening’ (to the Holy Spirit) is much more interesting.  I can be much too work-oriented, so much that I become a drudge.”  

Stigmata

From Ann Glover O’Dell’s Midwifing the Soul:

I listen with my ear

my mind

my heart.

I strain to hear

I know not what

but something from beyond

the dailyness of dull routine

where unpredictability

no audience desires

The catechesis memorized

as well as hymns and creeds

parade despite my plaintive plea.

I meditate on verb and phrase

and hope for some

resounding redolent reconfirmation

of oral apparition rare

enough to scar my brain

or stigmatize my hands and feet

to prove whatever words

some holy voice might tell me.

Perhaps if I but see or hear

or have imprinted as tattoo

a sacredness no need to prove

I would not need the sermonette

“be doers…”

 for the doing

would already be.

TINY MAD IDEA

Note: Published in Miracles magazine, September – October, 2022 (Jon Mundy, publisher; Glenn Hovemann, editor)

“Into eternity, where all is one, there crept a tiny, mad idea at which the Son of God remembered not to laugh.”  (A Course in Miracles, COA ed., T-27.X.6:1)

“To access true knowledge of yourself and thus end all madness, you must go to knowledge in the right way, which is through love.”  (Choose Only Love, “Wisdom,” bk 4, 5.II)

We can’t remember any of this, but when we failed to laugh at the idea that we might attack God, making an illusion we would like better than the reality He provided, separating from our brothers and sisters, we chose madness.  And in madness is how we will stay until we discover truly how to love.  Love rights everything.  Unfortunately, we have become so accustomed to hearing that love is the Answer, that we don’t fully comprehend the import.

Perhaps if we try to discover how to love, we will make some progress.  We first forgive our brothers and sisters for what they have not done to us.  We have been living in a dream, because that is the only way that we could experience the madness that we chose.  We must drop judgment of our brothers and sisters, and we do this by recognizing the illusion.  A Course in Miracles says that fear is judgment. (T-29.X.9:3) Fear is the opposite of love, and when we drop the judgment that fuels fear, we are left with love.  Then, in love, we are safe in God’s arms once again.

We all want true knowledge of who we are.  And this true knowledge of self and others arises when we love, ourselves and others.  A tiny amount of love can be “milked” for all that it is worth.  And when we do so, we are enhancing that which is our heritage, and that heritage is love.  God’s Love.

When the fear dissipates, we are no longer afraid of what others will do to us. Because now we don’t fear or judge our brothers and sisters, we are free to love them—possibly for the first time.  

When overwhelmed with love, thank God for this blessing.

Fire

From Ann Glover O’Dell’s Midwifing the Soul:

What fascination this with fire

that causes gods to give and then withhold it

making theft a necessary crime?

And what of ancient ones who labored long

or perchance in purely accidental flinting action

discovered they could so create?

And what theology espoused an evil entity

where flames engulf perpetually the damned?

Sacred writ is filled with references

from Eden’s entrance guardians

to  apocryphal revealing

where now and then emerges an image

so profound it lingers long for pondering

and many meditations may invoke.

Need we a myth of stealing fire from God

to warm our snow-cold  souls?

Need we the confidence that flinting of our wills

can cause the man-made miracle?

Need we to cast aside in our enlightenment

the burnt-out notion of a purgatory flame?

Or is there truth within the stealing, flinting, damning

for us who nurse burned fingers from

the flames that stolen matches lit

that speaks more plain to us of holiness and purging

than all the burning bushes of all time?

Planning Our Lives

From Celia’s Images in a Reflecting Pool; a Journal.

I think we plan our lives before we are born.  If so, given that I have always spent much time in thinking about what I should do next, I’m sure I planned carefully on the other side.  

I once had an intuition that my growing-up years went just as intended.  I wanted to emphasize working hard on academic pursuits and developing the impetus to achieve.  Now when I question the advisability of all that, surely some balancing act is taking place.

–

All of us enter life with a script that is filled with challenges and hurdles meant to build Character in the highest sense possible.  But, as Wordsworth says, we forget about this intention (“. . .Shades of the prison-house begin to close/ Upon the growing Boy, . . . .”  Consequently, we attend alumni reunions with a bright smile, making conversation that lies about a successful life with rarely a cloud in the sky.  Instead, we should drop our masks and admit that life has been tough.  After all, we planned it that way—each and every one of us.

Who Heard God Say?

From Ann Glover O’Dell’s Midwifing the Soul:

Who heard God say

“let us make man”?

Can we be sure

that “in our image”

was not addendum

for enjoyment of

imagination of an ego

eager for some status

in the face of fearful

existential angst?

Who learned of angels

and the guarantee that

we can almost match

them in God’s hierarchy?

Is this a fable poised

like all such stories

to smudge  

the universal question marks

and make us rank ourselves

more highly than we ought?

Or set a standard of perfection

dangling always right above our reach?

There must be some fast truth

imbedded in the tale told throughout

the rounds of galaxies

and baby weaning days.

There must be more than make-believe

to stir the heart’s awakening

to a melody mysteriously

making sure we don’t

forget the humming tune

and lyrics long repeating

“fearfully…wonderfully.”

Holy Instant

“The holy instant is the result of your determination to be holy.  It is the answer.  The desire and the willingness to let it come precede its coming.  You prepare your mind for it only to the extent of recognizing that you want it above all else.  It is not necessary that you do more; indeed, it is necessary that you realize that you cannot do more.  Do not attempt to give the Holy Spirit what He does not ask, or you will add the ego to Him and confuse the two.”  (A Course in Miracles, FIP ed., T-18.IV.1)

Jesus here gives instructions for inviting a holy instant.  We don’t “prepare,” which would merely be a case of our ego trying to make us think, momentarily, that we are purer than before we started to prepare!  We just need a little willingness to experience the holy instant, a sense that we really do want this great blessing above all other blessings (at least at a given point in time).  The holy instant will come when invited in just this way.  It is a blessing that the Holy Spirit doesn’t ask us to prepare, because we surely would botch the job if we tried!  (This is what the ego is attempting to get us to do.)

We need determination only, an intense desire and will that is our part in the whole process.  And that is all.

The Holy Spirit will do the rest.

A New Response

“While God is nothing but the Source of Love, you have, in your doubt, made of God the source of fear.  Pause a moment here and let the enormity of this confusion sink in, for this is the reversal in thinking that will pave the way for all the rest.  Because of this confusion you have responded to Creation with fear.  Is it no wonder a new response is asked of you?”  (A Course of Love, T1:4.26)

We fear many things, but we don’t often realize that what we fear most is actually God.  Or our concepts of God, which are misguided and inaccurate.  He is Love—as we know—but still we forget, even when we pray daily.  We think that maybe He doesn’t have our best interests at heart, our best interests as we view them.  We think that what we want for ourselves would be better.  And when we realize that God is in the depths of our spirit, then we can realize how very confused we have become.

God means us well.  Our Depths mean us well.  We don’t have to fear God at all.  It is not He Who punishes us, if indeed we are punished at all.  (And the ego does punish, though we are trying to get away from this concept, this deluded concept.)  Once we are able to fully believe that God is “for us,” then our love for Him can blossom, and our egoic fears will soon drop away.

Explanation

I abandoned posting so abruptly because my computer was hacked. Am awaiting new. Everything was backed up.

Have a good day. Will be back in touch in a couple of weeks.

Love, Celia

These Least

In the alleys and the byways

we can find the outcasts

often self-imposed as

they

grown weary of

the uphill climb

they daily trudged

saw their energy

slip back

and felt defeat

despair

and desperation

so intense that

effort could not be born

within embrace

of gnawing pain of hunger

cold

and even more

the knowledge

that they

are the forgotten friendless

for whom no portals open

to welcome commensality

with those who

strangers

yes we be

live out

the Lord’s injunction

to feed

and wash

and clothe

and warm

those ones for whom

life lingers long

in shadows of

a dim drab dream

and harsh reality.

And we who have

the means to purchase

and provide for

some small number

of these least

and shun

responsibility

of offered hospitality

can muster

a water cup

of gentleness

in the form

of smile or touch

or one kind word.