Draw Nigh to the Comforter

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

Seeking Wholeness    

Hungry

I find myself

for comforting

eternal words

sustaining this frail being

torn between two spheres

eager immortality

producing living words

to last beyond the grave

and worldliness accommodated

by constant cache of fiction facts

Thirsty

I am

for what would quench

and bring together both in

steady stream through daily pulsing life

Desperate

I stretch

 this empty frame

pleading for the great “I Am”

to root so resolute

transforming my attachments

and divinizing me.

---

Meditation from Celia:

Draw Nigh to the Comforter

“You will no longer resist the process of purification, by whatever means the Comforter uses for you.  It simply does not matter anymore:

“Why resist it?  All I want is God!

“If it is dissolved in the mind in a split second, and you do not even notice it—fine.  If it requires great tears and great experiences in the world—fine.  What is the difference?  They are really the same.  It is because you have relinquished—through allowing—ownership of your pathway home.  You have decided to let the Comforter take you home.” (“The Way of Transformation,” The Way of Mastery, Chapter 21, Page 255)

The Comforter, as we know, is the Holy Spirit.  He is always present, always giving us solace in a sometimes difficult world.  His emotional support will allow us to live through difficulties unscathed, even difficulties that are suffering and pain.

We have traveled far from our Maker.  We have made drastic mistakes that have colored our minds and perhaps even our hearts.  Drastic measures are sometimes taken by our souls to turn us back toward God and our home in heaven.  Only when we recognize, however dimly, that these drastic measures, chosen by our own souls, are sometimes necessary to bring a light into our deluded minds, only then will we know that all the suffering and pain were worth it.

God only loves.  Our souls make far more of the choices for us than we can know on this earth, in this world.  And at heart we are all One. 

Thank God that He did not abandon us in misery.  The Holy Spirit, our Comforter, will always lend a listening ear and a surcease to that which troubles us, whether immediate or down the road.  God does not abandon us.

My Present Happiness Is All I See

ACIM Workbook Lesson 290 – for Monday, October 17, 2011

Affirmation:  “My present happiness is all I see.”

“What I perceive without God’s Own Correction for the sight I made is frightening and painful to behold.  (WB442)”

Reflections:

1 – The Holy Spirit = God’s Own Correction

The Holy Spirit is God’s Own Correction.  He answered us (the solution is always with the problem, an ACIM tenet) at the moment that we forgot to laugh at our “tiny, mad idea” that we could separate from God.  The world that we see arose from this failure.  What we thought became capable of “real” effects, if only in what was actually illusion.

2 – The Holy Spirit = the Holy Comforter

Our world is indeed frightening when we do not invite the Holy Comforter, the Holy Spirit, to reinterpret what we are seeing.  We see pain and suffering, grief and disaster, and we fear that these tragedies will engulf us as well as our brothers and sisters, who are caught now in such unfortunate circumstances.  And these tragedies may touch us.  Will we lose our belief in guidance when they do?  Will we revert to an egoic view of a God who has abandoned us to ourselves, to our fate in an indifferent world?

3 – Our Way Is ACIM

We must not entertain such ideas.  They are so contrary to the tenets of our way, A Course in Miracles.  Our ideas are projected from within, and then our perception sees what we have projected.  If the internal is conflicted, the exterior will be as well.  If, on the other hand, we subscribe to ACIM tenets, we will make one decision, seeing that these things are not real.  We will recognize illusion for what it is.

4 – Let Us Help Our Brothers and Sisters

But we will not harden our hearts to our brothers and sisters in need.  We will rush to their aid, seeing their cries of distress as calls for help to which we are bound to respond.  We will offer the help that they are ready to accept, though we will not force our help upon anyone.  We will not share our ideas of salvation if they are not ready.  Jesus says that some are ready only for a smile (an ACIM statement).

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

May I give to my brothers and sisters today what they need to have for salvation.  If they do not want to hear words of salvation from me, may I pray for them and bide my time for the day that they will be ready.  Heaven is always there for all of us.  When is what we decide.

May I feel the comfort that the Holy Spirit brings today.  When trials come my way, may I thank God for the strength to meet them, and may I realize that I have been given a choice to “choose again,” that this time I will get it right.  I pray that I will “get it right” today.

Amen.