I Can Escape from the World I See by Giving Up Attack Thoughts

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

Sacred Font

Forgetting that we come from holy water,

            that we once were the river,

                        we soon are frightened of its power, its depth

                                    and what might lie within.

Mammals we think ourselves to be

            and use the river to our own chief ends

                        unmindful of our once connectedness.

Rites of cleansing followed still religiously

            in ways prescribed by ancients who

                        perhaps knew something of the mystery

                                    but knew not how to give the secrets hidden there.

Dare we risk ourselves to plumb our

            inner ocean?  to let the whale devour

                        without assurance we’ll survive?

                                    to dream there might be life too deep to fathom

                                                and being tossed on shore we’d breathe again?

Perhaps the frequent washing of our souls

            that tears provide

                        might also give a glimpse

                                    of living water yet reserved

                                                for us alone within the sacred font.

---

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

Why do I seem to need to have permission to be happy—never to spoil it by worry?

–

A Course in Miracles says, “I can escape from the world I see by giving up attack thoughts.” (W-pI.23) Jesus means that the “real world,” a dream granted by the Holy Spirit, is without the conflicts that most of us experience in the modern, work-a-day, world.  The miracle comes about because of inner changes in a person. 

Even the most conflicted day loses its punching power when one looks out on the chaos from a soft and warm heart.