We Live in New Times Now

“The time has passed when the forces of ego attacked the truth with all their ferocity.  There is no battle to win; it has already been won.  You live in new times now, times of the fullness of being.  Even though the world continues to look quite similar to that of yesteryear, the times now have nothing to do with what was previously.”  Choose Only Love, bk.7, 5:I

This quotation from the final book in the series, Choose Only Love, received by Sebastian Blaksley, will give us hope. Certainly when we look at our conflicted world, we are likely to doubt these optimistic words. But it truly is darkest before the dawn, and we are reaching the dawn shortly. The egoic triumph for our world is no more. Many people, even if not of a religious persuasion, are becoming aware of what works and what doesn’t. And egoic extremes fail miserably.

We are in the “fullness of being.” This is Mary’s way, heralded by A Course of Love and then followed up with Mirari and Memoria–as received by God’s servant, Mari Perron. “Being” as an ideal doesn’t mean we sit back and don’t do anything to improve our world. But our being in this world is primary; we don’t seek to be do-gooders without salvation ourselves.

“There is no battle to win; it has already been won.” This, about the ego, is wonderful news in and of itself. Much of this change has come about from the advent of A Course in Miracles, received by Helen Schucman and Bill Thetford as a team, with Helen taking down notes and Bill typing them up. The book was published in 1975. Much to the good has happened since. And most of us believe that A Course in Miracles was channeled by Jesus himself.

Let’s ask sincerely if we are on the right track, those of us of religious persuasion who seek only good in the world. Let our “being” flow, with actions that emerge from our being One with God.

This is the final step. Being One with God is the ultimate. And the illusory separation from God, fraught with the ego, is healed.

Welcoming the New / Leaving Behind the Old

“The old” is a construction.  What is constructed can be de-constructed, and it is in this time, that those perceived to be powerless will rise and begin to claim ‘unconstructed’ power, the innate power of the feminine that exist in all.”  Mirari

We are in changing times.  Of course the world has always been changing, but there seems to be speedup of change today.  The notes around A Course in Miracles indicate that Jesus has spoken of a “celestial speedup,” because our world is in dire straits and needs saving—right away.  We are right in the midst of this celestial speedup now.  Many channeled writings are coming to the forefront, even as the world descends often into chaos.  The celestial speedup will, when time is ripe, put an end to this chaos.  But the speedup needs all of us.

The power of the feminine emphasizes Mary’s way, which is the way of being.  We make changes simply by listening to our heart.  Indeed, if we don’t listen to our heart, we are likely to act unwisely.  We need discernment, as the Society of Friends (Quakers) has long counseled.

We will leave the “old” behind and head forthwith into The New, first heralded by A Course of Love.  Our New will allow a happiness that has eluded us previously.  Our New, extending to other people by our expressions of love, will transform us.

Let’s begin today.

Our Journey

“If you were to continue your reading, you would find many examples of the very odd, disturbing, and inexplicable signs that reveal The New.  Why?  Because each must discover for themselves, take the journey into the realm beyond what has been known, encountering the unknown in intimacy.”  Mirari

The tone of these words, believed to be from Mary of Nazareth, are comforting and enticing. Who does not want to take a journey into something better, which The New promises?

We also want intimacy with our God, our brothers and sisters, our own soul. Intimacy invites God’s Love, and we are comforted in intimacy as in little else.

We have to take our journey alone, though we do have lots of helpers, seen and unseen. Each of us, at base, is alone with our God. This does not have to be disturbing, because God’s support is always and forever present–even when we are in a dark night of the soul and don’t feel anything from Him.

Ask to take the right steps on our journey, the guided steps. When we walk a straight pathway back to God, we make a decision to follow His guidance.

And then our journey takes us Home quickly, to a Heaven on earth indeed.

The New

“Without trust in one’s own knowing, no matter how oblique or unspeakable, there will not be this advent of The New.

“What you are asked to do is to build anticipation for it, not to explain it.”  Mirari

We don’t know when The New will really get underway. But we will know our part in the New when we turn inward. No other way will answer our questions. No other way will provide the assurance that we are walking toward God in this pathway toward The New.

The New refers to a new world being created by love. We seem far from that now, but God can act swiftly when the time is right. He needs our co-creation, though; he needs our hands and feet. If we don’t act in the world, based on the inner knowing that we feel, there is nobody else to do it. God Himself looks to us to create the good world that we all want.

If all of us long for a new world, we are setting the stage for that new world to emerge. We might see things happening before its full advent that are mightily disturbing to us. We may not speak of these things, for speech tends to create the things being spoken of.

Go within for the knowing that we need. This inner knowledge is true guidance, for God dwells within all of us. We are immanent with Him. And if we will listen, we will always know what to do to make things better.

In the Flow in the New Age

“Not knowing what you know, is, in essence the way of The New.  When the unknown becomes the known, the solidity forms, and so in The New, what is known will be known in this fluid way, a pulsing in and out that will keep it free from being structured into knowledge ‘of.’”  Mirari

Basically, this quotation from a channeled Mary of Nazareth is a plea that we stay “in the flow.” We all know what this is, even if we haven’t given a name to it. Being in the flow means that we move easily from moment to moment, lost in the moment, a sense of easy grace filling our mind and heart.

This is the way we will live, ever more and more, when we move into the New. The New was first heralded by Jesus in his channeled work, A Course of Love.

Being in the flow is the most effective living, also the happiest. There is little else we need to know. We will be in the flow when we rest in God, living as He would have us live by not getting stuck on any one thing, in our thoughts or in our lives.

Dreams

“Dreams have often been the silent couriers of The New.”  Mirari

We know from the Bible that many people over long years have put credence in their dreams, their nighttime dreams, believing that they are encouragement, warnings, and the like, from God Himself. Since God is within, and our conscious mind is stilled, we too can see that a divinity is at work in our dreams. We would do well to heed the ones that we remember. And we might keep a record if a dream seems particularly illustrative.

Here Mary of Nazareth is talking of “The New,” which means the new world we will inhabit as the second coming of Christ takes hold. We have a role to play in the creation of this New. We must ask what that role is, for we do not know. We will be told, internally, all that we need to know of that role as events, inner and outer, unfold. We can be sure that God is not keeping secrets from us. A Course in Miracles says this.

Dreams are “silent,” but our own purpose may be to speak out when the time is right.

We have a bonanza of good things coming when we listen to our dreams. They are a potent help from Heaven itself.

Knowings

“Knowings that sometimes are fleeting—coming in a moment without thought—and that at other times are of a long-range nature, a knowing of the way that is unfolding in time.

“Every ‘knowing’ is God-given, so there is no need to distinguish from ‘where’ knowings come, but the ways in which they come are many and varied as they encompass the whole of life.”  Mirari

“Knowings” are a way that God reaches us. Previously, we may have relied on feelings to sense God’s guidance. But if we have been faithful, His presence is more certain in us now, and we don’t need the filter of feelings to know what He is saying to us. We just know.

Both A Course of Love and Choose Only Love allude to this matter of knowing, and Mirari is right in line with this new thought. Of course, we must be careful to ascertain if our knowing is accurate. An important test is the question of harm. If what we think we ought to do might harm another person, then we are thinking and perhaps feeling, too, awry. What God gives us as a knowing is always totally benign.

Seek to move into knowing today. We can know even when our feelings are overwrought and we therefore cannot seem to find God near.

Knowing is direct. And it is a new revelation.

Knowing

“I did not know to what extent Jesus was aware of who he was as he grew, and I knew it was not for me to tell him.  No one ‘told’ me this, but I knew, just as you know, without being told, of certain essential things.”  Mirari

If we can believe, we see that Mari (who received Mirari) and Mary (mother of Jesus) talked very intimately about Mary’s relationship to Jesus. In this revealing statement, near the beginning of Mirari, we see that Mary was very circumspect with her son. She knew he was the fulfillment of Scripture, but when did he know this? She let events unfold that would tell him; she did not mold her son to be what he perhaps he could not yet conceive of.

The words about a “knowing” are instructive, for knowing is how we come to understand guidance in A Course of Love. Early on, with the Holy Spirit, we let our guidance come by way, often, of feelings about what to do or say. But this way of perceiving guidance is overtaken by just “knowing” when the Christ-Self takes over our lives. Here we move easily through our days, sure of ourselves, sure of God. And Mirari and Mary’s words seem to be in the spirit of A Course of Love.

Guidance has long been a theme song of mine in my writing, for I seek to go God’s way, and His guidance is the way to do so. When certain of how to respond to a given situation, we are probably calling on guidance to help us.

Guidance, through knowing, helps us immensely in daily life.

It is our way back Home.

Care & Nurture

“For humankind to pass out of this survival instinct, the Mother laws of care and nurture—given to all—must come into their time of fullness.  This is part of what can create a new age and make way for The New.”  Mirari

Mary of Nazareth counsels “being” as opposed to “doing.” Being welcomes caring and nurturing; it is not a matter of “doing,” for it is a way of life.

We don’t actually cease doing, but doing is enveloped into a higher way of joining with God. He Himself is Being, and when we are being, we are walking in His shadow.

Mary’s way is a way for both men and women, something that a hasty reading of Mirari might miss. We have too long been simply existing in our world, just surviving, often missing out on the joys of life except in fleeting moments.

When we are in simple being, we do car and nurture. Nothing more is needed, because care and nurture are hallmarks of love, which is the highest and the best. We return to God, our separation from Him healed. We invite the joy of life and none of the worries. We are serene.

Ask today for this blessing of care and nurture, through being, to descend upon us. We all need it. We all will touch God when we ask for this blessing, which is surely something in His will.

Companions Along the Way

Mari:  “This word, lineage, came to me and so I share it as a question to you.”

. . .

Mary:  “Yes, there is a ‘line,’ a connection between those who know the truth. . . .This line holds love’s nature in suspension, a mantle ready to be draped upon every waiting shoulder.  As your Jesus said, ‘Take on the mantel of your new identity.  Your new Self.’  Those ready to ‘take on’ cannot go out to find and grasp this mantle for themselves but are to allow love to bestow this mantle of the true Self.”  Mirari

We all have companions, here and on the Other Side, who are joined together in an attempt to encourage our brothers and sisters to love, to move more fully.  To love in the most full way, one does need to acknowledge God’s place in a life, for His way is of Love for the reason that nothing else would be the glue to hold His universes in place. 

Ask today to find our true companions, those meant for us in the pursuit of happiness and the adoption of Love as our guiding force.  We all have companions who can help smooth the way.

Seek them out today.

Oneness

“Preparation is underway for oneness of form and content.  It begins in the imaginal and extends ‘into form’ through actions such as your own, that of many others, and the alignment of time and eternity in the cosmos.”  Mirari

This quotation is letting us know that the elevation of form is underway, an elevation that will take us who are in form to the next level—a oneness that extends to form, a oneness with God in form.  This is the “elevated Self of form” that A Course of Love extols.

We progress as separated souls, now healed, much faster on the earth plane, when we are in bodies, in form.  We need to keep coming back to save everyone.  So form is not denigrated, for when we seek to be out of form—on the Other Side, or heaven—we are a little removed from bringing about the salvation of our brothers and sisters.

May we not seek to escape from the earth precipitously.  We are needed here.  And not only will everyone needing us be blessed, but we will be blessed as well.

Time, which we experience on earth, and eternity, which we experience in heaven, are merging.  A new day is upon us.

The Body in This World

“Now, one of the reasons that I have had little to say through the ages, especially to those who revere the leaving of the body, is that I am Mother of the ‘body’ of Christ.  And I am deeply with you in the cause to bring ‘the body’ into the realm of the living.”  Mirari

This somewhat controversial statement by Mary of Nazareth, received by Mari, is controversial because A Course in Miracles enthusiasts, and many A Course of Love enthusiasts, do not believe in the material world.  The Workbook of ACIM says, famously, “There is no world!”  We are living in illusion as long as we are in the dream that God gave us when we separated from Him.  This too I believe.

Mary’s statement has something deeper, though.  The body certainly seems “real” to us, and it is this “real” nature of the body that may explain why Jesus worked with Mari to bring forth A Course of Love.  If read narrowly, A Course in Miracles makes our life here pretty dismal—until the Holy Spirit brings to us the “happy dreams” that he does bring.  But we may still get the impression from ACIM that life on the Other Side, as spirits, is better than life in the body.

If we all believe this, we won’t want to return to the earth in the future.  We will live out our lives, glad to be rid of this world.  But we are the hands and feet of God (and by extension, Jesus), and if we don’t save our brothers and sisters who are lost in attack and anger, who will?

Perhaps Jesus did not at first recognize in A Course in Miracles how dismal he was making this world sound.  So we have A Course of Love, and, now, Mirari, to celebrate the new world that we will be creating.  A new world in which reality blossoms.

To Mother the New into Existence

“The invasion is an intrusion of The New into the old, a force meant to quicken the passing of all that lingers of death in the living.  To end living death and welcome living life.  To end division and become one with what is being birthed.  To mother The New into existence.”  Mirari

Here Mirari, Mari’s new book, takes up where A Course of Love left off.  Still talking about The New, the new world that we will all create together, this new book goes a step farther.  It counsels that we do what we can to bring love into our world, big time, for there are still too many of us who are bringing negativity into this world.

We need to be sure that we don’t encourage negativity by our own actions.  We must stop feeding egos, and here I know Mari’s new book is preaching to the choir.  All of us who have discovered A Course in Miracles and A Course of Love know of the detrimental effect of egoic and egotistical thought.

Listen to our heart.  Mirari is also a heart-centered book, in this way like A Course of Love.

Being

“My son, your brother, spoke to you of an in-between time, of the twin circles of one way passing and a new way coming into being.”  Mirari

Here Mary is speaking of A Course of Love, received by Mari several years ago. That book indicated that we are passing from a time of “doing” to a time of “being,” that there is a time for both, but that we are seeing a transitional time now. Jesus’ way was seen as “doing,” and Mary’s way is seen as “being.” Soon all of us will see the advantage of “being” as a way of life.

This does not mean that we will not continue to achieve in this life. But it does mean that our emphasis will be different. God doesn’t ask extravagant and busy doings of us; He celebrates our being with Him and with others in Love, Love that He champions.

The Seed of New Life

“This is the way the great ‘they’ of the physical world would have it be.  They live by removing themselves.  They desire for all to be so removed from the divine that they are comfortable with their own removal.  They preach the removal.  We will preach the invasion, the seed of new life, what can be neither run from nor removed.”  Mirari

I think it would be fair to say, along with Mari (who received Mirari), that Mary of Nazareth has a problem with our world.  She sees that we are on the wrong path, and she is eager and desirous to alter our direction by enlisting those people who are more gentle into her cause.

Surely we count ourselves among Mary’s faithful.  To follow her lead, we cannot remove ourselves from this world, nor would we want to.  We can offer new life to a dying world, if we will only step out on what we know.  We know a truth that is not of this world.  And it behooves us who follow both Jesus and Mary to do our best to lead in the direction of a new world.

We cannot, any of us, do this alone.  We need each other—men and women of faith—to step out on that faith and enact what we know to enact.  When we commune with our God, He will give us our marching orders.  He will guide and direct our steps along a pathway that—it is not too much to say—will save our world.

Elsewhere we learn that we are in the end times.  Of course, every generation since Jesus’ time has said the same thing.  And so I wonder if Mary has it right this time.  But I think one thing is certain:  We must act “as if” we are in the end times.  And that means we need to keep ourselves, and to enlist others, into a return to the way of our God. 

And this way is, and always has been, the way of Love.

Evolution of Humanity

“But there, in love outside of time, did time and eternity first meld into a potential for the evolution of humanity and the elevation of the self of form.”  Mirari

Here Mary is talking of the incarnation of the Christ as Jesus, her son.  The incarnation was planned in a realm far outside of the time and space in which the Earth is caught.  The Way of Mastery indicates that the planning originally began eons before the actual fact of the coming of Jesus 2,000 years ago.

Jesus masterminded a giant leap for humankind, an evolutionary leap that we are only just now, 2,000 years later, coming to actualize.  A Course of Love talks a great deal of the “elevated Self of form,” and this is the “body” we will occupy when we have awakened.  This Awakening is heralded also in A Course in Miracles and Choose Only Love.  It will be a comprehensive change, an alteration in the way we live life.  And our lives will be so much improved.  We can all hope that the actual fact of the elevated Self of form will come quickly.

A Course in Miracles says that the separation took millions of years to come about, and it may take that long, or longer, for all to make the decision to return to God.  The pathway is long.  But we don’t have to become demoralized by ACIM’s assertion.  Tiny steps make a difference, for us and for the world.

Let’s get quiet, heal the subconscious one bit at a time—as The Way of Mastery recommends.  This book, which many believe was also from Jesus, asks that we take a look at each subconscious fear, to release it.  And this is a worthy endeavor, leading to Awakening.

Mary’s words are comforting, believing as many do that they are genuinely from her.  Her love for Jesus surpasses our own, for she is on a par with him, and his love is beyond measure.

See what quiet moments can do for us today.  See if we can make progress on our evolutionary journey.

A Balancing Act between Male & Female

“Making the heart of Mother love, that natural duad to the Father love that has reigned, brings the rising of the feminine and the balancing, at long last, of the masculine.”  Mirari

We are in a balancing act as we head into future decades.  We are attempting to balance masculine and feminine into a new paradigm.

It is true that Mirari is a feminine manifesto, but with a difference.  The overall emphasis is on love between the genders, and within the genders.  And it is this emphasis on Love from God that allows us to realize that we are not in competition with each other, men and women.  In the future, according to Mary, we will cooperate much more, for it is also true that women have not had an equal role in our world.

Now we know differently.  But it would be a misreading of Mirari if women attempted to lord it over men.  That simply is not what Mary is saying.

We don’t need polarization. We need each other.  And when we really listen to Mary, this is what we will take away from her marvelous manifesto.

Together Now to Save This World

“My field is your field.  This is what I am helping you to see.  We are together now to save this world so that Heaven on Earth can come to be.”  Mirari

What a challenge this appears to be! But A Course in Miracles says that there is no challenge to the advanced teacher of God. When all of us have walked far enough on the road back to our healed minds and hearts, at home in God, we choose for all humankind whenever we make a choice. We do not choose by ourselves, but we take a cue from our guidance–and this comes directly from God, by way of the Holy Spirit or the Christ-Self.

When we together conspire to save the world, it will be saved. When our gathering of forces becomes a tipping point, then we will find ourselves in a new world, far removed from the conflict-ridden place we now occupy.

This word from Mary of Nazareth is encouraging and resourceful. We know what we are about. We may not have always known it, but now we have no excuse.

We take our place in this great mandate, inspired by our Deity. We move when our Deity says. We don’t attempt to make decisions from the personal self. Only the blessing of Deity can help us now.

And we will not be left without a Guide.

Seeking Wakefulness

“It is not stamina but wakefulness I call you to.  Think no more of depletion.  This is the old way.”  Mirari

This part of Mirari is building on Mary’s image of “wild dogs,” male and also female, who are threatening to take over the world. We can all recognize much hostility and anger in our world. Things seem to be culminating in a difficult way, a scary way. But the darkest part of the night is right before the dawn–an old concept but, I think, relevant here.

Good people, people of the faith, are realizing that we are at a turning point. An evolutionary leap is ahead in which more and more people are experiencing Awakening. This means a major change in the way we view the world and the way we view ourselves.

We need only to ask for the blessing of Awakening to begin to receive inklings of what is ahead, glimpses of the Divine that are called satori in Eastern religions. If we cling to our faith, these glimpses will elongate, and the day will arrive when we know more of God than at any previous time in our lives.

This is the “wakefulness” that Mary is asking us to embrace. This is the wakefulness that we all, sometimes desperately, need today.

Balancing in a New World

“Making the heart of Mother love, that natural duad to the Father love that has reigned, brings the rising of the feminine and the balancing, at long last, of the masculine.”  Mirari

This quotation concisely summarizes what Mirari is about.  Mary of Nazareth is writing primarily to women in Mirari, but here she uses an important word that might be overlooked in the call for female presence in this world.  The word is “balancing.”

Mary is not trying to exclude men.  She stresses the feminine so much because she is attempting to corral women into greater solidarity and greater activity in our world.  But she, of all people, with her close relationship to her soulmate, Jesus, knows that our world needs men and their contribution ever so much.  Men have dominated, sometimes harshly, for many long years, and her “balancing” is seeking to end this imbalance between the genders.

Ask what our task is to be.  Ask, whether we are men or women.  We need guidance in creating a new world—and we know that a new world was the call of Jesus in A Course of Love.  Mary echoes this desire in her manifesto, Mirari.  She is doing her part to join in the groundswell of change that Jesus is heralding.  She too is so heralding. Wait for God to speak to us, God to reveal our part.  Then act from the whispers in our mind and the calling of our heart.

Heaven on Earth

“My field is your field.  This is what I am helping you to see.  We are together now to save this world so that Heaven on Earth can come to be.”  Mirari

Mary is here speaking to Mari.  But Mary is also talking to all of us, especially women but not exclusively to women.  Our “field” is the one that we share, our field the Earth.  And we need to do what we can to make a new beginning.  All of us have handled badly the handiwork of our Earth.  We have made a hostile and aggressive place.  Now it is incumbent upon us to create a new world of peace and joy.

The subtitle of Mirari, “the way of the Marys,” does include the way of all women.  But I don’t want to leave men out.  We are all the body of Christ.  And it will take women and men working together to turn this world from the lamentable place it is now to a glorious new creation blessed by God.

We have not seen how Heaven can come to Earth.  If we don’t know (and we don’t), it is up to us just to ASK.  God does not keep secrets from us.  When we have been prepared, we will be ready to hear His new revelations.

We all have work to do in the field.  This world.  Our newly created world.

Be ready today to do our part.  Ask today that each step of the new world be revealed to us—each part that is ours to accomplish.

The New Feminism

“You need not call me ‘mother’ unless you so choose.  We are in solidarity, in the new ‘feminism’ as you put it.”  Mirari

This is Mary talking to Mari.  This is an example of a time when Mirari comes down right on “feminism.”  Yes, Mirari is a new manifesto, though it is not a strident manifesto.  Mirari is imbued with the love of the divine, but throughout the book we discover that more and more women in the spirit of Mary herself will take a more leading role.

This does not have to be a threatening idea.  Many men welcome a larger role for women, for I think these men who welcome such a role for women know how much both genders are needed for our world.  All men have had mothers, and most loved their mothers deeply as the first bond in this world.  Remembering that bond, and what it gave to them, can help men realize that there is no reason to be threatened by women’s emergence in the new world.

Let us bond men and women in a lasting, mutual relationship that will solve, oh, so many problems.  The nurturance for which women are well-known will give our world a humanizing quality as women come into their own. 

We need each other.

That is the message that I most take away from reading Mirari.

Feed No More the Wild Dog

“And so, the hand that feeds the wild dog must do so no more.  Feed the meek.”  Mirari

In Mirari, the “wild dog” is characterized as male more often than not.  But also in Mirari, we know that some women can be wild dogs as well.  The “wild dog” metaphor is an apt description of the subconscious hostility that has engulfed our world.

Here we see that we are to feed the “meek.”  I think this is a harkening back to the New Testament, and Jesus’ words about the meek inheriting the world.  “Meek” never meant “weak,” though in our language we often equate the two.  “Meek” is more akin to “gentle,” and it is a characteristic of those who are shorn of anger and hostility. 

A Course in Miracles indicates that anger is never justified, though it is the expression of anger that we really have to watch.  The meek do not express anger, even if they feel it.  Nowhere is it said in Jesus’ channeled writings that we will get to a place where anger is non-existent.  But we will learn, and then discover, how to transmute our anger into socially acceptable ways.

The “wild dog” metaphor is very arresting.  Our unconscious hostility has taken us to the brink of annihilation.  We need to realize this, and, as Mirari counsels, feed no more the wild dog in us.

Miracles

“There is no order of difficulty in miracles.  One is not ‘harder’ or ‘bigger’ than another.  They are all the same.  All expressions of love are maximal.”  (A Course in Miracles, FIP ed., T-1.I.1)

The first sentence in this quotation is of paramount importance to understanding A Course in Miracles.  Jesus, the one who channeled ACIM, knows that there is no order of difficulty in miracles.  We don’t, for we think that we can point to many things in our world that would be hard to change.  We need to open our minds ever so slightly, and consider that we are wrong.  Miracles light our way, will light our way.  As an expression of love, miracles transform us and our world.

What does it mean to be an “expression of love”?  Jesus expresses his love for all of us by checking on the miracle-readiness of all of our brothers, and sending those of us whom he selects to effect the miracles that he and he alone points out.  We do not select certain circumstances to effect miracles.  We don’t effect miracles at all, in fact, for miracles are of God and the Holy Spirit, and, on a more practical level, of Jesus.

Jesus is in charge of the Sonship.  And, as such, he dictates to us what our part in salvation really is.  We don’t have to guess about these matters.  When we open our minds to possibilities, the way to effect salvation—through miracles—will develop as well.  We need fear nothing.  We can’t but be in the right place at the right time.

So let us think a bit on miracles, and the miraculous nature of a deed that is done without range of difficulty.  Can we open our minds to this possibility?  Wouldn’t it be a wondrous truth—IF there were no range of difficulty in miracles.

Let us take Jesus at his word.  Ask him today if you are ready to effect any miracles, under his guidance, for your brother.  He will answer, for he holds our hand as we walk along the pathway toward home.

Love Will Offer Fulfillment

“This is why once I said:

“If you do not bring forth what is within you, what is within you will destroy you.  If you bring forth what is within you, what is within you will save you.

‘If you do not bring forth what is within you—and what is within you is Love, is Christ—you will feel burdened and unfulfilled.  Usually, most human beings go through their entire life with a sense of unfulfillment, lamenting what the world has done to them, lamenting the decisions and choices they have made in the past.  They become burdened by what is on the outside, along with what is in the past.  An eventually the body dies, the Spirit withers on the vine.”  (“The Way of Transformation,” The Way of Mastery, Chapter 17, Page 212)

This is Jesus speaking in Jayem, who channels live. Jesus is quoting the Gospel of Thomas.

I think we don’t really understand how love, and only love, can cure all our problems. As our attitudes change, we walk a green earth. When we meditate, often love comes to the forefront; we make alpha waves, and we sense love more than most times.

If we are feeling unfulfilled, I know of no better way to experience the love that we want and need than to find a quiet corner and become “perfectly calm and quiet” (as A Course in Miracles encourages us to do).

Without a good dose of love–given and received–our lives play out with unfulfilled longings and grieving about lost love. We may not always get love from the one person we want it from the most. But the world is filled with people who can supply this essential need. And the feeling of love is essential to our well-being.

Even pets, companion animals, can supply the need to a degree–and often a great degree.

When we find a quiet corner, something that elicits calm and quiet in ourselves, we will sense God. And when we sense God, we will know that there is a Force Who loves us. He first loved us, and the experience of being loved then allows us to give love. He had to first love us, or we would have no basis for experiencing the giving of love. And the giving often prompts others to give back, though we don’t want to make this a quid pro quo.

Banish the sense of unfulfillment today by opening to the true and real experience of nothing more important to our lives than simple love.

Future Waiting to Be Birthed

“You ask of meaning, but this is not about meaning in the way you look at it.  You seek a description of a new way, a new time, as if it is a future that is already written.  It is a future waiting to be birthed.”  Mirari

Here Mary is speaking, internally, to Mari Perron.  Mari has asked about the meaning of what is transpiring, but Mary lets her know that the future is yet to be written—and it is to be written by us.  In Mirari, we learn that women are meant to take more of a leadership role.  Women have often taken a back seat to men, but this is not the wave of the future. 

Much that A Course of Love said about “being,” the way of Mary, is coming into play here.  Our men have often championed “doing,” and indeed Jesus himself did also.  But our new way in our newly created world will be a way of relationships in that world, and for this change, being is simply more appropriate.

We also heard a great deal in  A Course of Love about a new world, just waiting to be created by us.  We are coming into this new world now, though the birth pangs are severe, and we are experiencing much turmoil as we live through these times.

But there is hope in what Mary says in Mirari.  It is darkest before the dawn, and just on the other side of turmoil is peace.

Let us do what we can to hasten that peace.

IDLE THOUGHTS

Published in Miracles magazine (Jon Mundy, publisher).

by Celia Hales

There is no more self-contradictory concept than that of “idle thoughts.”  What gives rise to the perception of a whole world can hardly be called idle.  (ACIM, W-16.2:1-2)

You are much too tolerant of mind wandering, thus tacitly condoning your mind’s miscreations.  (ACIM, T-2.IX.5:6)

You who have so filled your mind with senseless wanderings and thoughts that think of nothing that is real, rejoice that there is a way to end this chaos.  (ACOL, C:5.2)

It is a decision to choose to discipline the mind in each moment, to teach only Love, to hold only loving thoughts, and to recognize that there is no such thing as an idle thought, since each thought or perception held in the mind immediately generates your experience.  (WOM, Lesson 20, Page 239)

            When we let our “monkey mind” (as they say) rule us, we are lost indeed.  We recognize that what we focus upon tends to materialize.  And when we lapse into idle thoughts, Jesus is telling us that we are veering off track in a major way.

            I often say Jesus’ words almost as a mantra when my busy mind won’t slow down, “You are much too tolerant of mind wandering.”  I say this when I am trying to go to sleep, and just can’t quite drift off.  But the actual damage begins during daylight hours, when we focus on things that are substandard and not worthy of us.  These substandard things come to pass because even social scientists know that a self-fulfilling prophecy is at work here.

            We might best remedy this situation by a deliberate attempt to bring mindfulness into our daily round.  In my estimation, mindfulness means deliberate action, not necessarily slow, but definitely not rushed.  I find mindfulness most often in the kitchen.  (We all have our favorite places, and cooking is a hobby of mine.)  Actually, mindfulness is necessary in every situation.  It is easier than meditation, for in mindfulness we can give our minds something to hold on to, the actions that we are undertaking.  Meditation, at least traditionally, is particularly hard to practice if we are frenetic Westerners.

            But meditation has its place, and stilling the mind, letting the heart speak, is healing.  We certainly aren’t letting idle thoughts rule us when we are meditating. 

            Listen to Jesus’ words, said in all of his best-known channeled works.

            Let him speak to us, and our mind will slow down enough so that we listen with our heart.  Idle thoughts will diminish, peace will reign.

Joy Calls

The universe exists in reciprocal relationship or holy relationship, rather than special relationship.  This is the nature of existence, as unity is the nature of existence and cannot be changed and has not changed, although you believe it not.  It is a joyful relationship, as the nature of relationship is joy.  Once you have given up your belief in separation this will be known to you.  (A Course of Love, C:29.17)

Once we give up our belief that we could actually separate from God, and have done so, much good will result.  We will know that holy relationship is the nature of the universe(s), and we will realize that holy relationship does not take anything away from our nearest and dearest.  Holy relationship will expand our love to meet the whole world.  We will not know the separatism that has characterized our various special relationships, relationships that have often ended badly.

My friend Carol knew what it is like to suffer special relationship, and “suffer” is the salient word here.  As mentioned, she once fell very hard into a love that was strong on ego, though she did not realize it at the time.  If the special love had ever been transformed into holy, then her sense of desolation at the end of the “relationship” would have saved her from needless regret. 

There was something eminently good about the love that Carol felt.  It was not a love that would be easily surpassed.  That was the clue that something else was going on here.  She was being led, ever so gently and before A Course in Miracles was published, to give up her interest in being special (and having someone else be special as well).  In retrospect, holiness is the transforming key to relationship that goes sour.  And there doesn’t have to be any continuing contact with the other at all to effect a holy relationship.  Relationship that is holy is thus seen to be mystical.

We are meant to enjoy joyousness is our relationships.  Special love invites the highs and lows of drama, and egoic drama at that.  A holy relationship is one that has been dedicated to the Almighty, a Source beyond just our little personality.  And this dedication to Something bigger than ourselves is what makes all the difference.

When we feel united with all other people, our brothers and sisters, we know a peace that is not of this world.  We are meant to live in unity, and of course, we can see that seeing one small part as more special that another would make this joyous unity impossible. Ask to see with a greater vision today.  Ask to comprehend as never before what a special love transformed into a holy one can really mean.  There is no comparison, but until each of us has seen the difference for ourselves, we will remain skeptical that we aren’t losing something in the transformation.

Nothing Real Can Be Threatened. Nothing Unreal Exists

“This course can therefore be summed up very simply in this way:

     Nothing real can be threatened.

     Nothing unreal exists.

Herein lies the peace of God.”  (A Course in Miracles, T-in.2)

What is real?  Do we have any idea?  What is unreal?  Do we know that either?

At the start of A Course in Miracles, we know neither, for we cannot tell the real from the unreal.  And a firm definition would not be helpful in the beginning.  It is enough to know, right now, that we want the real and we do not want the unreal.  Glimpses of which is which will emerge as we read the Text, and, especially, as we do the Workbook lessons.

We can say a few things at the outset, though.  The real is what is of God, and we know immediately that the intangibles of love, harmony, peace, joy, are real.  These cannot be threatened by anything other than an insane mind, and the insane mind can really do nothing, ultimately.  The insane mind is run by the ego, which is a part of ourselves that we have made in an attempt to be separate from God.  An attempt that could never succeed, but which we have thought could succeed.  Yet the ego is the first concept that we can understand is unreal, and therefore does not really exist.

A Course in Miracles is written on several levels, none of which conflict with each other.  On the ideal level, we know that what the above quotation tells us is true.  On the more practical level (which most of ACIM embodies), we are not so sure.

We would invite into our lives today all that is real, eliminating, with the Holy Spirit as our Guide, those aspects of our made-up world that are unreal.  We want the peace of God, and we cannot have inner peace when we are anguishing over the ego’s machinations.  So let us think today of what we know will bring us peace, and let us concentrate only on that, for that only is real and therefore cannot be threatened.

Prayer

“True prayer consists of living in the truth.  Every time you connect with the truth of who you are, you are praying, for prayer is love, and love is union.”  Choose Only Love bk.3, 8:III

Here we see, from Jesus, several words that actually mean the same.  These words are prayer, truth, love, and union.  And when we are engaged in any of these ultimate values, we are being who we are.

No longer do we have to feel guilty that we don’t pray enough.  When we seek to tell the truth just always, not only when it is convenient to ourselves, we (Jesus says) are praying.  And then we are living in love, and we are living in love with All that exists.  That All includes Jesus, of course, and it also includes our Creator.  When we sense love from Him, we are set for a good day.

Union is where we are all headed, though this does not necessarily mean an absorption into the Deity.  We are One, and this is the real meaning of union.  We have relationship with diverse entities, but together we are united in God.

When we live in love, truth, union, we are praying.  And our prayer life will then transform everything else.

Traveling the Path of the Living Christ

“I traveled the path of the living Christ because that is what I am.  It is exactly the same path you travel.  Yours may not include portentous miracles.  You may not be famous.  You may not transform water into wine for humanity to begin to see a power not of this world.  You may not heal the sick, externally speaking.  None of that matters.  None of that is essential.”  Choose Only Love bk.3, 8:III

I think Jesus is here giving us a context for believing that we can one day be equals of him.  Of course, those of us of faith don’t usually think in these terms.  Yet Jesus says things like this repeatedly in various received (channeled) works from the recent past.  We don’t have to perform the miracles that he did, though elsewhere he says that we will actually do more than he—certainly a startling assertion.

Jesus wants companions, not subservient individuals who idolize him.  He can be an ideal for us, of course, but that is not the same thing as idolatry.  He has pointed out the way, 2000 years ago, and he continues to be available to us in a mystical fashion that our finite minds and hearts cannot fathom.  Many of us believe that he indeed did channel A Course in Miracles, A Course of Love, and The Way of Mastery.  Now in Choose Only Love there are numerous portions coming from him as well.

Jesus doesn’t want us to assert things that we don’t quite believe.  Even if we doubt the practice of channeling or receiving from a discarnate being, we still can read the words and be inspired.  Much of what we read has a basis in traditional Christianity.  This provides continuity from Jesus that is tremendously reassuring.

Ask today how we might emulate Jesus.  Ask what our contribution might best be.  Set up a dialogue in a journal, with questions and answers, and see if there doesn’t seem to be a way out there for all of us to experience directly.  Ask to know what our mission is.

We will not be disappointed in what we “hear.”

Hope for Transformation in This Decade

“We are close now, close to a time in which a new choice can make true living available here and now.  This is the decade in which transformation proceeds, and the time in which the mother’s heart enters to show the way to care of the living, and the end of what does not need to be.  This is time of Mirari:  The Way of the Marys.”  Mirari

The “mother’s heart” is Mary herself, but she extends this to all mothers everywhere.  “The Way of the Marys” is the way of women everywhere.  And this decade Marys will be coming into their own.

One cannot adopt the name Mary without being overcome with love for all beings, all creations of God, all people everywhere.  But when we do adopt this name for our own, we are proceeding into a transformation that will affect all life.

The patriarchal society will be influenced more and more by women, and if women choose love, that change will be a good thing.  Women have historically cared for the living, especially their own children.  But now the female aspect of God is moving to a new level of Being, and the female in our societies will be asked to take a more leading role.

If women succeed, we will have greater harmony throughout the world.  Women have historically been close to intuition, and intuition is of the heart.  It is the way that we hear from God—all of us, men and women.

THIS decade is when all this New will be born, for Mirari was received just in the last few years.  We are fortunate indeed to live in a time of hope, when so much around us seems to be crumbling. 

The old is making way for the New, first announced in A Course of Love.

Discovering Love

“This is a course in miracles.  It is a required course.  Only the time you take it is voluntary.  Free will does not mean that you can establish the curriculum.  It means only that you can elect what you want to take at a given time.  The course does not aim at teaching the meaning of love, for that is beyond what can be taught.  It does aim, however, at removing the blocks to the awareness of love’s presence, which is your natural inheritance.  The opposite of love is fear, but what is all-encompassing can have no opposite.”  (A Course in Miracles, T-in.1)

The emphasis here is on “miracles.”  And the fact that what we are taking in A Course in Miracles is a required course.  Is it required for everyone in the world, eventually?  That is an open question, for Jesus does not take a stand on reincarnation.  And Jesus has also said that there are other teachers in this world, teachers other than him.  But we have chosen that he be our teacher, because his words come to us in a manner that we can recognize and love.

We are trying to dislodge the ego; that is “removing the blocks to the awareness of love’s presence.”  We give up struggle in this task.  Jesus and the Holy Spirit will show us the way effortlessly, step by step.  If we take one situation today and choose once again that we respond in a wholehearted manner, bereft of ego, we will have done well.  Just for today, seek to choose by altruistic means, not egoic.  And your time will be well spent.

Love actually has no opposite of fear, for fear is nothing—a manifestation of illusion, of dreams.  We live in dreams until we choose once again.  Sooner rather than later the Holy Spirit will replace our fearful dreams with happy dreams.  And then the way is smoothed to lead us, ultimately, to Awakening.  If the way seems long, we are encouraged not to fret, that the end is certain.  We have chosen God’s way, and the Holy Spirit is a guide Who cannot fail.  Revelation may occasionally reveal the end to us, but to get there the means are needed, and the means are being revealed in this course.

God would not withhold the rest, when what we ask—Awakening—is His Will for us.  In the meantime, we need just to be patient.  The way is being shown.  Let no fearful thought of the ego hinder your way.

Release at Last

While one special relationship continues, all special relationships continue because they are given validity.  The holy relationship of unity depends on the release of the beliefs that foster special relationships.  (A Course of Love, C:25.11)

We don’t need special relationships, “special” in the sense that they are egoic and different from all other relationships out there in the world. 

Of course, we don’t believe this.  We think that there is nothing wrong with seeing our significant others, our family and friends, as “special.”  But what are we really saying here?  We are setting them apart as being more “worthy” of our love than other people.  Is this not judgment?  And haven’t we been warned not to judge?  Judging keeps us from Christ-consciousness.  Moreover, judging makes us unhappy, for when we point a finger at another, three fingers are pointed back at us.  We damn ourselves when we judge another.

I was once rather judgmental, and I projected these ideas onto Jesus, seeing him as a figure of judgment.  Indeed, traditional Christian theology invites this interpretation.  When I visited the Baptistry in Florence, Italy, where a large mosaic of Jesus looms far ahead on the high ceiling, I saw judgment in Jesus’ eyes.  Or thought I did.  After years of studying A Course in Miracles, though, my judgments had softened, and when I looked overhead on another visit, I saw a blank slate in Jesus’ eyes, ready and willing for me to write my projection there.

There was no judgment in the second visit.  And so there was no “specialness,” even in regarding Jesus.  And this was a giant leap forward.

We are seeking to be united with all of our brothers and sisters on our earth.  We want unity with them, and we can’t have that if we divide others up into separate little parcels.  We can’t fully appreciate all others if we are judging them as less worthy of our love than our nearest and dearest.

Of course, our nearest and dearest have taught us how to love.  And now we extend (not project) this love on everyone.

We don’t make distinctions between worthiness and lack of worthiness.  We know that all are equal in the sight of God, and that all ought to be equal in our sight as well.  Our beloveds will not lose anything.  We will be so love-conscious that they will see a new persona in us.  They will know a love from us that has been heretofore veiled.

Specialness is a limited love.  Holy love knows no limitedness, knows only inclusion.

Unveiling the Inner Self

“The Self That God created needs nothing.  It is forever complete, safe, loved and loving.  It seeks to share rather than to get; to extend rather than project.  It has no needs and wants to join with others out of their mutual awareness of abundance.”  (Preface, A Course in Miracles, FIP ed., “What It Says,” 7^th paragraph)

The Self is the inner essence, the part of our Being that recognizes oneness with God.  It is the Christ Who is within.  We do not have to feel that to think like this is arrogance; instead, it is supreme good sense.  The Self is “complete, safe, loved and loving.”  What more could we want?

We need to realize that sharing and extending are functions of the Son of God, our real Self.  The little self who is dominated by the ego is really nothing, a travesty of reality.  We ought to avoid “getting” and “projecting.”  And when we share and extend, by definition we are deemphasizing the ego in our experience.  The ego gives only to get; it seeks to aggrandize self at the expense, sometimes, of others.  Even when we seek to aggrandize ourselves with no expense to others, we are still thinking amiss.  And it is this wrongful thinking that is nailing us to our little crosses.

We do have abundance.  Abundance is our inheritance.  And as soon as we have taken steps to avoid egotistical leanings, just choosing to stop such thinking in its tracks, we will be taking the first step toward unveiling the inner Self.  When we have taken this first step, God moves to supply the rest forthwith.  He only waits on our invitation, and that invitation can come as soon as we recognize what we really need is Him.

Join in Love

“Beloved friends, peace be unto you always, and always I am with you.  I come to you not alone, but with many who have delighted in creating a resonance with me, and I with them, for no other reason than that power expands exponentially when  minds join in love from a foundation of wholeness and not neediness.”  (“The Way of Transformation,” The Way of Mastery, Chapter 13, Page 168)

Jesus comes to us in The Way of Mastery by way of Jayem, who channeled “live,” and these three books of The Way of Mastery are the result.  Often in these books, Jesus stresses that he comes with others who join forces to help us all.  He calls his particular group, a very large group, simply “the lineage.”   Their work has been going on for a long, long time; their work is what led up to Jesus’ life 2000 years ago.

When we join with others, our power too is expanded, as Jesus says, “exponentially,” when we are joined in love.  We don’t join with others strictly out of our need, for we will soon come to know that we are whole beings residing in God.  We don’t have to look to others out of this neediness.  We join others because we come to love them.

Right after this passage, Jesus asserts that he and Mary, who are bonded together, do not join because they “need” each other.  He and Mary are joined in love and the result of a common purpose—to save us.  And we might also realize that there are many of us on earth who share that common purpose—though being finite and in physical bodies, we don’t know all that will be known in the cosmic realm.

Join with others of like mind (and heart—as A Course of Love says), if there is love as the overarching feeling.  When we let love lead the way, our ratio of mistakes to truth changes drastically.  We let go of many of our old ways, and walk into a new world being created even as we speak.

True Communication

Note: With this post, I am returning to a consideration of Choose Only Love, Bk. 3. On future days, I will consider passages from all received writings covered in this blog, weaving them into synthesis.

“True communication occurs from heart to heart, from self to self.  Only in the truth can there be true communication.”  Choose Only Love bk.3, 7:III

We all want intimacy in our lives, and I think this quotation from Choose Only Love implies how we might have it: heart to heart brings “true communication” and the truth brings “true communication.” To allow the truth of our heart to prevail, though, we must not be afraid of showing our true self. And often we hesitate to do this, because we think if people knew the real person who we are, they might not accept us.

This fear that we might not be accepted for who we are comes from what A Course in Miracles calls a “shabby self-perception.” A Course of Love highlights the importance of letting the heart inform the mind, and when we follow this advice, we are leading with the innocence that is within. When we speak the truth, we will reassure ourselves also that we are innocent.

We are not “bad,” though all of us have done bad things. A moment spent in reflection will assure us that God still loves us, and we are entirely acceptable in His sight. Let’s give our friends and family the same leeway, believing that we are entirely acceptable in their sight as well.

With this done, true communication is assured. And with it, intimacy.

Heart of Our Humanity

The heart of your humanity is your greatest asset, not your downfall. Mirari

We grew up hearing about our sinful flesh, how it betrays us and keeps us from accepting God and doing His will.  But the “heart” of our humanity is an asset in this world.  When we listen to our heart, which is the same as listening to intuition, we seldom make mistakes about what we are “hearing.”   And our heart is part of our humanity, part of our form, our flesh.

Of, we can let our own desires overrule what we are hearing from our depths.  But we can’t fool ourselves for long, and that is the blessing.  We know when we are off course, and then if we acknowledge the mistake we are making, and trust ourselves to forgive ourselves for the lapse, we are well on the way back to God’s bosom.

Know that living in this world with our form is an asset, but only when we listen to the heart of our humanity.  This turn of phrase, “heart of your humanity,” is new in received writings.  We can emphasize “heart” or “humanity,” but I think the best way to read the phrase is to give equal weight to both words.

Remember that what we see as basic to our humanity is actually the great asset which Mary is pointing out.  We don’t need to downgrade our humanity, our physical forms.  They will be transformed in the New, and we will live with Spirit fully present as well.

I think one reason that Jesus and Mary have channeled these new writings of A Course of Love and Mirari is that too many of us just wanted to get this earthly life over with after we had read and assimilated A Course in Miracles.  Jesus’ downplaying of the physical in ACIM was counterproductive, and I think he came to realize that.  Who would want to save the world if we all want to just leave it?

Jesus and Mary need us here.  We have work to do.  Let’s let the “heart of humanity” inform our choices of what to do and what to say.

Live the Life that You Love

What you love enough to give your life to, is what will give life.  Mirari

Our life is what we make it.  How often we have heard those words!  And when we choose out of love what our daily activities will be, we choose aright.  Then we truly have a life that is worth living.

What we have settled upon as our purpose, choosing out of love, will manifest the life that we most want and the life that we most need.  Matters like this ought not to be chosen in a hurried manner.

Others’ choices are not for us.  What we devote our time to should be our decision, and only our decision.

When we live like this, we come to know what “life” is all about.  Life in this sense is the enlivenment of the daily round, the aliveness with which we live. 

Choose carefully, in prayer, and life will bless us abundantly.

Gentle Mary

The words of the feminine are literally heard in a different way. Mirari

I think the reason that the words of the feminine are heard differently is because we remember our mothers, the first evidence of love we ever encountered.  A mother nurtures in a soft way, a way that invites reciprocation.  There is a special mother-child bond that is unlike anything else we will encounter in our lifetimes.

If this bond is not well-formed or is broken, we have scars.  This is how important maternal love really is.

Women speak differently from men, regardless of how hard a man might try to be nurturing.

This is the advantage that women have in this new era.  Women’s voices are ready to be heard now.  Mirari tells us this.  We are ready to BE more often than DO, for the way of Mary is to “be.”  May we ask in the privacy of our thoughts what this means for our world, and respond as we come to understand.

A Natural Way

You may even begin to envision the feminine as the acceptance of all that is natural, and a rejection of all that is unnatural. It is very akin to “accept the new, deny the old,” but the tone of it is different . . . literally.  Mirari

Mari Perron’s experience is that it is Mary of Nazareth who is speaking to her in Mirari.  Mary’s emphasis on the feminine is easily explained, because she is coming from being a woman.  The word about “natural” suggests to me that the female is more likely to be close to nature in her assessments.  After all, it is she who births the next generation.  And that is about as close to nature as one can get.

The tone of the feminine IS different—warmer, more all-embracing, sometimes more loving even.  Our small bit of testosterone is not enough to provoke aggression, at least not usually.

Turning to the feminine in experiencing God is a radical idea.  But we all know intuitively that He/She is both genders.   Our patriarchal society has limited our viewpoint.

Ask what the feminine in God can lead us to discover.  After all, ask to see God’s loving, present in our world in a new way.

Coming of the New

You are ripe now, and the world is ripe for the coming of The New and its abundance.  Mirari

We are looking at new days.  The conflicts that we see in our world are the final throes of conflict, and our way will smooth in due course.  We have sustained discord as long as we can; we need something better now.

Our “New” is the herald of a new world and a new age.  We will be creating a new world, a world that listens to God.  Oh, we may not call Him “God,” but our emotions will ease and we will recognize a Force for good that has been silenced by our own rebellion against that good.  A Course of Love announced this new age, and now Mirari—received by the same writer—is carrying forth the same message.  Let us be glad that there we are getting a heralding of better times ahead.

What does it mean to be “ripe”?  We are ripe for change, and change for the better.  We are ready for it.  Our trials have let us know that we can’t go on the way we have been going for untold ages.  When enough of us have experienced Awakening—that enlightenment for which we all long—the tipping point will have been reached.

And that time fast approaches.

Devotion

Let us look at the real act that makes manifest: devotion. Heart and soul working together to fulfill destiny. “Knowing” where you are meant to be and what you are meant to be doing. Mirari.

Not all of us are ready for such certainty as Mary expresses in this quotation.  We may not yet understand where we are meant to be or what we are meant to be doing—much less “know” it with any certainty.

But Mary does not leave us hanging.  She tells us the secret to “knowing”—and it is devotion.  Listening to our heart and soul.  Listening to God in the silence that speaks to us.  We are never left bereft.  God beckons, “Come to Me,” and then He opens the floodgates of love that transform us.

We all have a destiny to fulfill.  Or we may have several different purposes over our lifetimes.  Purpose is everything.

Ask for our destiny today.  God does not keep secrets from us.  We will know all we need to know when His time to reveal arrives.  And for this time to be now, we only need devotion—and to ask Him for a knowing.

Tenderness

Do not seek for stoppage or for a lessening of the flow that is life, no matter how tender it causes you to become. Exalt your tenderness. Do not let tenderness stop you from the way opening before you now. Let it take the lead. – Mirari.

When we feel especially tender, we are open to new ways of being.  We feel deeply, and we discover much from that deeper feeling being experienced.  The time of tenderness, as explained in A Course of Love, is a time of reflection, a time when tears flow easily and freely.  We come to know ourselves in a new way.

Here, Mirari tells us to let tenderness take the lead.  We are softened in tenderness, and our reactions to others and to the world around us will seem especially keen.  Our strident ways will be eliminated, and we will walk into the sunlight as the meek who are to inherit the world.

Living Extraordinary Lives

This is to be a quiet movement at the borderline. A movement that gently normalizes the extraordinary as ordinary, as natural, and as a return of the feminine.  Mirari

Mary here seems to say that we can live extraordinary lives as naturally as the sun rises every day.  A Course of Love says something very similar about “extraordinary” lives, that when ordinary people are seen to be living in an extraordinary way that others will be encouraged to do likewise.

Mary goes farther, though, to say that extraordinary can become the norm.  We are allowing the feminine to rise in importance in our world, and it is the mother/wife/sister/daughter in cooperation with men, too, who will accomplish much in this new world.  It is natural to women to be nurturing, and now we can see that women are going to nourish things that have been out of reach before.

Ask what we—both women and men—can say and do today that will make a lasting difference in our world.  We need meaningful change, reconciliation with our brothers and sisters, loving attitudes to inform all our ways.

Be among the pioneers.  There is room for all.

Wonder

“Here, in our time of bringing the miracle to mystery, we come as the feminine, bearing the way of Mirari—the way of wonder.”  Mirari

“Mirari” means “wonder,” and in this newly received book from Mary of Nazareth, Mari Perron talk intimately with her and shares Mary’s revelations.  We are entering a time when the feminine face of God will be more evident.  His two faces, the masculine and the feminine, will join together to assist us in creating a new world.

We often want to explain away every miracle.  This is just not possible, and it is to our benefit that it is not.  Wonder is a legitimate way to interact with the world.  Keeping the mystery alive is good for the soul.

When we are skeptics, we don’t see miracles.  They are just not there for us.  But when we open the mind and heart, our understanding deepens, and we don’t cast aspersions on what we are viewing that we don’t understand.

Let us open our mind and heart today to let God speak to us in mystery.  Let Him have His way with us.  Even seek to let Mary talk to us.

Healing

“Grieve your dark days only to awaken from them with greater depths of compassion, with greater awareness of love’s many expressions, and let them rise from you, and with you, into time free of the concreteness of the past.”  Mirari

We all need to let the past go as we walk through life’s onward passages.  But all too often we don’t do this; we cling to what has been the past, often clinging even to what pained us the most.

Yet when we walk farther along, living in love, we find that we can relinquish the past.  Our love has healed us.  And we are happy.

Let the past go.  We will hold in our subconscious the teachings of the past that have healed.  But let the healing of the present proceed unencumbered by our past pain.

TO MANIFEST LIKE UNTO THE STRENGTH OF GENTLE MARY

 An Appreciation of Mirari: The Way of the Marys

Mirari, Received by Mari Perron

Review by Celia Hales

Previously published in Miracles magazine (Jon Mundy, publisher).

            In Mirari, Mary of Nazareth, Mother of Jesus, returns to one of God’s faithful to herald the feminine face of God.  Mari Perron announces in a dialogue with Mary a new beginning in which newly empowered feminine voices join with enlightened masculine voices to transform what we experience as “life.”  This new life is brought about solely by the power of love in the hand of the one who rocks the cradle. 

            For too long women have been seen as victims in a world dominated by men.  This is due to change, as the meek inherit the earth.  Women are naturally seen more easily as the “meek,” for their role in the background and also their genes have given them a gentleness that men have not often manifested in their own makeup.  So women now step forward to take their part in the world as the second coming of Christ is heralded.  Jesus in A Course of Love first announced the comprehensive change; he said that the “way of Mary” was gradually coming into focus. He contrasted his own contribution, one of doing, saying that there would be a period of overlap now, but eventually all will walk the way of Mary.

            In my understanding of Mirari (a word that means “wonder”), now women everywhere are the “Marys” of which Mary of Nazareth speaks.  We must assume a leadership role in which we do not feed egos, for egos are the province of a time fading away, a time of unconsciousness.  And egos have brought us to the desperate straits in which we find ourselves.  Mary talks of male egos as “wild dogs,” but also says that there are plenty of female “wild dogs” as well.  Mary would have us turn aside from feeding all egos, and presents this as the only way that we can hope to occupy a new world, to bring in the New (the “New” first heralded by Jesus in ACOL).  She says that those individuals still possessing of ego need “training,” but that there are not enough trainers, will never be enough trainers.  So we who are women, in assuming a new role, must cease feeding egos.  We nurture others through what love has taught us because we are ideally suited for this new female face of God.  We have known, of course, that the Divine is both male and female, for divinity is composed of both genders.  But we have not lived that truth, and we are on the cusp of a new age in which this truth will be lived.

            Mari Perron’s faith in God and her trust in both Jesus and Mary shine through everything she has taken down, typing on her computer.  The words are absolutely beautiful, flowing and endearing.  Often Mirari takes the form of a dialogue between Mary and Mari, a dialogue in which Mari unveils her insecurities with an honesty that is disarming and moving.  She usually writes in solitude as the dawn is breaking, the sun seen through a window in her cabin, a cabin located out back of her home.  The dawn becomes a motif throughout the book.  It is a fitting metaphor for the dawn of new beginnings.

            If read narrowly, Mirari would be perceived as a new feminist manifesto, but Mirari is saved from this secular fate by its divine truth that love will inform every new direction taken. We are to unite the masculine and the feminine in a union that will transform our world, a union in which women will be more evident than previously in all the years of our Earth.  Women in this new feminism are seen as necessary catalysts for the transformation that must occur if we are to save our world.