I picked up Kierkegaard in a second-hand shop for $1, and I am utterly amazed. I have never read him before and I am practically speechless by the beauty of this book.

It is Either/Or.

By Soren Kierkegaard:

“What portends? What will the future bring? I do not know, I have no presentiment. When a spider hurls itself down from some fixed point, consistently with its nature, it always sees before it only an empty space wherein it can find no foothold however much it sprawls. And so it is with me: always before an empty space; what drives me forward is a consistency which lies behind me. This life is topsy-turvy and terrible, not to be endured.”

“My view of life is utterly meaningless. I suppose an evil spirit has set a pair of spectacles upon my nose, of which one lens is a tremendously powerful magnifying glass, the other an equally powerful reducing glass.”

And this:

“Tested Advice for Authors: Set down your reflections carelessly, and let them be printed; in correcting the proof sheets a number of good ideas will gradually suggest themselves. Therefore, take courage, all you who have not yet dared to publish anything, even misprints are not to be despised, and an author who becomes witty by the aid of misprints, must be regarded as having become witty in a perfectly lawful manner.”

-Soren Kierkegaard, 1843

“Find what you love, do that and nothing else.”

- Max

I will be still an instant and go home.

My horoscope freaks me out a little today (yes, I get my horoscope - Taurus - by email every day, and yes, I love it)

TAURUS
See if you can stick with present-day activities today — you need to let the future take care of itself. Of course, eventually you’ll need to make a plan or two, but now is not the time for that.

This freaks me out because I really feel like I NEED to make a plan. On July 10, I fly back to Wisconsin and I don’t have a job or a place to live. I woke up this morning thinking “Okay, today’s the day I’m going to organize for something to happen in the future. I’m gonna make something happen.”

And then I open up my email and it says “Stick to present day activities today - you need to let the future take care of itself.”

Wow. Okay.

I will follow instructions and “stick to present day activities today.”

Which is really today’s lesson: I will be still an instant and go home.

“The world you seem to live in is not your home And somewhere in your mind you know that this is true. A memory of home keeps haunting you, as if there were a place that called you to return, although you do not recognize the voice, nor what it is the voice reminds you of. Yet still you feel an alien here, from somewhere all unknown.”

Boy, is that the truth!

I have always felt like an alien here in the world, ever since I was a little girl. Nothing has ever made sense to me. Sure, I have learned to adapt but that doesn’t mean that I ever thought anything was logical here. Death, sickness, sorrow, murders, war, pain, suffering, and anger never made any sense to me, and no one could answer any of my questions. I wanted to know WHY.

Why do people die? Why do people kill? Why do people get sick?

And no one could answer a single question.

Which also baffled me, because I thought the adults and teachers knew all the answers.

But no one could answer my questions. And then in the 3rd grade, I started going deaf. My whole life I have wondered about it, but it seems to me now that I made a conscious decision to shut out the noise and live in God.

Being deaf has not slowed my mind down. Instead it has made me more active. It’s made me more focused and aware. I have to really listen and pay attention, and that’s a gift.

Some people say they can do 5 things at once: watch television, type on the internet, have a conversation, smoke a cigarette and hear their kids in the next room, but I can only do one thing at once. ONE THING AT A TIME. I cannot have a conversation with music going on the background. Being in a room full of talking people is mass confusion for me. I can’t write and talk at the same time.

My whole life people have been saying to me: “wow, you’re a great listener” and I would think to myself: yea, that’s because I’m deaf. I HAVE to pay attention. I have to be face-to-face with you in order to hear you. I don’t have a choice.

But mostly, I wanted to be left alone in the quiet … where worlds upon worlds and universes upon universes would open up to me.

To this day I am more fascinated by what goes on in my own mind than what happens in the physical world. It’s far more interesting to me to “go home” than anything I could do here in a body: travel, make money, go to parties, etc.

So today’s lesson confirms what I’ve always known: there is a Child inside of me who does not belong here.

And the same goes for you.

“Yet there is a Child in you Who seeks His Father’s house, and knows that He is an alien here. This childhood is eternal, with an innocence that will endure forever. Where this Child shall go is holy ground. It is His Holiness that lights up Heaven, and that brings to earth the pure reflection of the light above, wherein are earth and Heaven joined as one.”

In Chapter 9 of the Text (audio is now posted in the right sidebar, on Talkshoe), there is a great sentence that says:

“The Second Coming is merely the return of sense.”

There is not going to be any physical reappearance because Jesus is in his resurrection proved that the body isn’t real and death does not exist. He’s not going to “reappear” because he never went anywhere and he’s here now. He didn’t die. He’s here now. There is not going to be an appearance in a body of flesh, because there is no such thing as a body.

There is ONLY the Mind of God.

Why would Jesus, who proved once and for all that life is eternal … why would he backtrack and show up in a body?? Why would he do that?? (he wouldn’t) His entire message is that life is eternal and that this world is not your home. You are the light of the world. You are the Son of God. You are Spirit. You are love.

What are you waiting for??

Everyone seems to be waiting for something to happen, which is what being trapped in time and space is! You are a prisoner here while you wait for something in the future to occur. Everyone is waiting for something to happen in the physical world - which is a contradiction of the whole message of Jesus! There is nothing in the physical world. There is only love, and it surrounds you now. What could possibly happen in the future that is not happening now?? You can be happy today. You can find God today. You can reach Heaven today. You can go there now.

The Second Coming, which is everyone is so terrified of is “merely the return of sense.” Which obviously can occur for you in this moment, or any moment.

It is the return to sense that this world is not your home. This world is not where you belong.

So my horoscope does make perfect sense. Thank you Yahoo for the great reminder.

I can forget about the future and be present today. If I do what is in front of me, the future will take care of itself.

“When you are still an instant, when the world recedes from you, when valueless ideas cease to have value in your restless mind, then you will hear His Voice.”

Nice, huh?

“This Child in you needs your protection. He is far from home. He is so little that he seems to easily shut out, His tiny voice so readily obscured, His call for help almost unheard amid the grating sounds and harsh and rasping noises of the world. Yet does He know that in you still abides His sure protection. You will fail Him not. He will go home, and you along with Him.”

I love it.

This Child in you trusts in you.

“He came because He knew you would not fail. He whispers of His home unceasingly to you. His patience has no limits. He will wait until you hear His gentle Voice within you, calling you to let Him go in peace, along with you, to where He is at home and you with him.”

“Rest with Him frequently today.”

The Child in you wants to go home. All He asks is that you give a few minutes during the day today and shut off all your plans, all your preoccupations, all your goals, forget everything … and go home. Be still. Remember God.

Be still an instant and go home with Him, and be at peace a while.

Another one of my favorite lessons:

“I trust my brothers, who are one with me.”

This can be a very difficult lesson until you learn that there is nothing outside of you.

Until you recognize that your brother is literally you, you will think that other people are doing things separate from you, acting in ways that are not in harmony with the way you think events & circumstances should go.

Look at it. How many times have you had an idea of how something should happen? You think someone should do something in a certain manner or act in a particular way.

And when it doesn’t happen in the way you have predetermined based on your own script … you get upset.

Then you try to manipulate (mostly in unconscious subtle, charming ways) in order to get your way.

But today’s lesson says: “I trust my brothers, who are one with me.”

Imagine doing this.

Imagine trusting your brother, even in all of his insanity.

Imagine trusting your brother, with all of his mistakes and wild ideas and madness.

Imagine accepting him exactly the way he is, without trying to change him.

Imagine allowing everything to be exactly as it is.

Imagine being in a state of acceptance.

Imagine not correcting other people.

I speak from deep personal experience. I will give you an example. I am an expert when it comes to organizing food events: weddings, parties, catering. I have worked in the food industry for over 20 years, and I have a degree in hotel/restaurant management. I am a certified food snob. I have worked with a company in NYC that caters to celebrity events. I was the head server at Mayor Guiliani’s wedding and was part of his personal catering staff for a year. I have served Donald Trump, Oprah Winfrey and Caroline Kennedy, along with hundreds of others who are used to first-class service. I have been trained by the best of the best: the most professional servers in the world. So I have it in my mind that that there is a certain (right) way of doing things when it comes to food service.

So, on the opposite end of the scale I have worked in regular places where the servers don’t know where the fork or the wine glass goes on the table.

This has caused enormous conflict in me over the years. I wanted everyone to do it my way … since I know the right way it should be done. I could never understand how servers could be so sloppy and careless in serving guests, especially when it comes to someone’s wedding.

And then one day - miracle of all miracles - I decided to start trusting my brothers who are one with me.

What I realized was that even though I was no longer working in the #1 catering company, I was still working with some really great people. The working conditions might have been a little more chaotic than I was accustomed to, and I always still felt there was room for improvement … but what I began to notice is that the job still got done and guests were happy.

And the biggest thing I noticed is that I regained my peace of mind.

I stopped trying to control everything.

I stopped caring if the dinner fork was exactly 1 inch away from the edge of the table. I relaxed.

From there I realized: ultimately, none of this matters.

That was my moment of freedom.

From that time on, I decided that the only person who needed to give 100% was me. I didn’t have to be concerned with what other people were doing. I only needed to focus on what I was doing, how much I was giving, how much care I gave in my actions. If the managers gave me 3 tables with 8 people at each table, then I focused only on those 3 tables and those 24 guests. I stopped worrying about the other 100 tables (and 800 guests) in the room.

I started trusting my brothers, who are one with me, to take care of their own tables and their own guests.

I trust my brothers to live their own lives, to make their own mistakes, to fall, to get up, to try, to fail and to succeed.

This is total freedom.

Now I focus only on what I am doing and I trust that everyone else is doing their part perfectly … and if my brother needs help, I help him.

But I don’t need to correct anyone anymore. I don’t need to control.

I can allow everything to be exactly as it is.

What I realized is that I was so focused on form (where the dessert spoon goes on the table) that I was blind to content (that is my brother over there, whom I love).

Everything I did was based on past and future goals (what I thought people should be doing based on things I had learned in the past, and what I thought the outcome was going to look like in the future - how the evening was going to go). I was completely absent from the present moment.

Now, years later, I can’t remember a single event, wedding or dinner although I do remember some extraordinary individuals I met along the way.

“A major hazard to success has been involvement with your past and future goals. You have been quite preoccupied with how extremely different the goals this course is advocating are from those you held before. And you have also been dismayed by the depressing and restricting thought that, even if you should succeed, you will inevitably lose your way again.”

“How could this matter? For the past is gone; the future is imagined. These concerns are but defenses against present change of focus in perception. Nothing more. We lay these pointless limitations by a little while. We do not look to past beliefs, and what we will believe will not intrude upon us now.”

This poem is great, except with one small change: that you were important in the life of another.

THIS SPEAKS FOR ITSELF (from A Course in Miracles):

Our next few lessons make a special point of firming up your willingness to make your weak commitment strong; your scattered goals blend into one intent. You are not asked for total dedication all the time as yet. But you are asked to practice now in order to attain the sense of peace such unified commitment will bestow, if only intermittently. It is experiencing this that makes it sure that you will give your total willingness to following the way the course sets forth.

Our lessons now are geared specifically to widening horizons, and direct approaches to the special blocks that keep your vision narrow, and too limited to let you see the value of our goal. We are attempting now to lift these blocks, however briefly. Words alone can not convey the sense of liberation which their lifting brings. But the experience of freedom and of peace that comes as you give up your tight control of what you see speaks for itself. Your motivation will be so intensified that words become of little consequence. You will be sure of what you want, and what is valueless.

And so we start our journey beyond words by concentrating first on what impedes your progress still. Experience of what exists beyond defensiveness remains beyond achievement while it is denied. It may be there, but you cannot accept its presence. So we now attempt to go past all defenses for a little while each day. No more than this is asked, because no more than this is needed. It will be enough to guarantee the rest will come.

Review lesson from A Course in Miracles:

God is but Love, and therefore so am I.

(169) By grace I live. By grace I am released.
(170) There is no cruelty in God and none in me.

God is but Love, and therefore so am I.

These lessons are self-explanatory. They don’t need further commentary by me. By grace I live. By grace I am released. There is no cruelty in God and none in me.

That’s it!

This course is not complicated. It’s the simplest thing in the world when you decide to accept your perfection as God created you. There’s nothing to heal. There’s nothing to do. There’s nothing to forgive. There’s nowhere to go.

There is only now. God’s grace is given to me. I claim it now.

Which means, today is the day when everything happens.

The Lord’s Prayer

In The Ancient Aramaic Language

I like that this is in the present tense. Most versions suggest a future time in which God’s Will is done. When it fact, God’s Will is already accomplished.

Whatever ideas you have about a future time, they are contained in this moment, in this very day. There is only the Mind of God. Time and space do not exist.

Here is a great passage from Charles Fillmore:

“Man can never discern more than a part of the circle in which he moves, although his powers and capacities are susceptible of infinite expansion. He discovers a faculty in himself and cultivates it until it opens out into a universe of correlated faculties. The farther he goes into mind, the wider its horizon, until he is forced to acknowledge that he is not the personal, limited thing he appears, but the focus of an infinite idea.”

“God is life, and wherever the pulse of life beats, there God is.”

-Charles Fillmore, 1953

This is yesterday’s lesson … today. I got lifted and carried yesterday - out into the open sea - and there was no time for my feet to hit the ground.

God is but Love, and therefore so am I.

(167) There is one life and that I share with God.
(168) Your grace is given me. I claim it now.

God is but Love, and therefore so am I.

Come Sail Away

I am sailing away
set an open course
for the virgin sea
cause I’ve got to be free

free to face a life that’s ahead of me
on board I’m the captain
so climb aboard
we’ll search for tomorrow
on every shore

and I’ll try
OH LORD, I’ll try
to carry on

Wow. I can’t believe these message from all of you FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD. Oh my God. These letters are beautiful. Thank you. I am in a state of joy and wonder over here. Who would have guessed that giving could feel so good???

So climb aboard. Come sail away. We’ll search for tomorrow. On every shore.

If you ever feel like your spiritual tubes are clogged, they probably are, and the best way to unclog them is by giving something away. Open the channels. Open the windows. Let in some light. Let in some air. Throw some Drano down there.

All channels open. The light has come. There is but one life, and that I share with God.

Father, Your Grace is given me. I claim it now.

Today’s review lesson from A Course in Miracles:

God is but Love, and therefore so am I.

(165) Let not my mind deny the Thought of God.
(166) I am entrusted with the gifts of God.

God is but Love, and therefore so am I.

Great lesson for me today as I got my first cell phone ever yesterday. It came in the mail and I spent the entire day yesterday playing with it, reading the instruction manual, and setting it up. A good friend bought it for me and added me to her phone plan, as I would never have bought a cell phone for myself.

The reason I have resisted all these years is I like my freedom and quiet. I like disappearing for a week (like last week in Maine) and having no one be able to find me.

But I will admit: I am loving this phone.

It’s really cool.

Which is why today’s lesson comes at a perfect time: LET NOT MY MIND DENY THE THOUGHT OF GOD.

Last week, I got several messages from readers saying that the audio talk I gave on Chapter 8 of the text of A Course in Miracles (archives are in the right sidebar, in the blue Talkshoe box) is the best talk I have ever given, and that if this is the result of me being on a holiday, then I should stay on a permanent holiday.

LOL.

I agree. My best work is accomplished when my mind is relaxed and quiet and thinking with God.

I don’t want to become someone with a computer, cell phone, busy calendar schedule, etc . … although it seems to already be happening.

This is where vigilance is required.

Let me get out into nature, and leave all this behind. Let me unplug myself (literally) and be free in the heart of God.

Last week I found a great book in Goodwill for $1 called The 4 Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferriss. It was written for me. It’s all about cutting back on the electronics (emails, phone, meetings) and getting your mind focused and clear to do your best work. It’s about working remotely from wherever you are (getting out of 9-5) and starting to live the life you have imagined for yourself … starting now.

What he means by the “new rich” is having the freedom to travel and live your life now, without waiting for retirement. He’s not talking about money. He’s talking about freedom. Where you could just get up and travel to Jerusalem as part of your job, if you felt like it.

It’s about finding out how to do the work you love, anywhere in the world.

For many jobs, it is now possible to work anywhere with the use of computers and cell phones (unless of course you are in the hospitality business, people business, show business, or a health-care profession - doctors, nurses, nursing home, hospitals, etc.)

But for people who work desk jobs in an office, this is a great book.

For me, this is ideal as all I want to do is help as many people as possible find their way back to God - back to the peace and joy that is your inheritance - and the internet has provided me with a way to reach thousands of people that I would never have met otherwise.

On the opposite end of the scale, my mom and I were talking the other day and she asked what would happen if somehow we lost all connections with phones and internet, and if we could no longer travel because of some worldwide catastrophe … and she asked “what would we do then?” and I said, well then, it would just be me and you and this community here in Maine. We’d learn to go talk to that guy over there. We’d probably all get together at the church or town hall. I’d go back to paper and pens. Money would be meaningless. The guy with the food and water would suddenly become the “richest” man and we’d learn to get along.

I think most people would freak out without internet or phones. I know I would go through a period of adjustment, no doubt about it.

So then, today, Let not my mind deny the Thought of God.

I am entrusted with the gifts of God.

Let me remember the Source of all things.

Let me remember where my safety lies … in God … in this moment. It does not lie in the trinkets and the toys.

I am grateful that I have a constant connection with the Holy Spirit and nothing can ever break that connection. I am perfectly safe in every situation.

I am entrusted with the gifts of God.

God is but Love and therefore so am I.

(163) There is no death. The Son of God is free.
(164) Now are we one with Him Who is our Source.

God is but Love and therefore so am I.

I am at my dad’s house now in New Hampshire.

I took Sophia (my dad’s dog - she’s a Carolina Dog/an American Dingo) for a walk this afternoon near an old church and saw the most awesome sign with a passage from the bible James 1: 2-4

It was about staying in a state of joy, no matter what trials come your way.

I thought this was appropriate to today’s lesson which says “There is no death.”

“Death is the one idea that underlies all feelings that are not supremely happy.”

Amazing, right?

Death is: sadness, fear, anxiety, doubt, anger, faithlessness, lack of trust, envy, jealousy, concern for bodies. This is death.

But there is no death. The Son of God is free.

God created only life.

You should be joyful … no … matter … what.

There is no death. There is no sickness. There is no pain. These are false ideas in a delusional mind and they have no reality whatsoever.

You were created in light, as light, and only light. There is nothing else in you. I don’t care what your story is. You are the light of the world.

What an awesome way to live - to be joyful when everything is going wrong and to be joyful when everything is going right. To be joyful no matter what the circumstances.

I came home and tried to find the James passage online and found many different translations depending on which bible you look at.

So here’s a few translations for you, from James 1: 1-4

The King James version:

1James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting.

²My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations;

³Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.

⁴But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.

From The Message:

James 1: 2-4

^{2 -4}Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don’t try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way.

from New Living Translation:

² Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. ³ For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. ⁴ So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.

from the Amplified Bible:

²Consider it wholly joyful, my brethren, whenever you are enveloped in or encounter trials of any sort or fall into various temptations.

³Be assured and understand that the trial and proving of your faith bring out endurance and steadfastness and patience.

⁴But let endurance and steadfastness and patience have full play and do a thorough work, so that you may be [people] perfectly and fully developed [with no defects], lacking in nothing.

From The New American Standard Bible:

²Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials,

³knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.

⁴And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

To read the entire chapter of James (I highly recommend it!), click here:

James 1, Whole chapter from the King James bible

Ya’ll want to know what I look like????

Click on this link to watch a 12-minute video:

http://gorgeousforgod.com/media/lisa_natoli-1_1Mbps_Stream.mov

To order Gorgeous for God, click on the book cover and it will take you to Amazon.com:

 This article was just sent to me:

http://www.newciv.org/nl/newslog.php/_v405/__show_article/_a000405-000018.htm

I thought you might enjoy it.

Great practical advice on getting out of the 3rd dimension and raising your vibration.

Today is a review lesson from A Course in Miracles:

God is but Love, and therefore so I am.

(161) Give me your blessing, holy Son of God.
(162) I am as God created me.

God is but Love, and therefore so am I.

I went to a great church service in Maine on Sunday. The guest minister (Dr. Mar Imsong) was saying the church is a dying institution and that we cannot put new wine (the message of Jesus) into old wineskins (the church), that we need to put new wine in new wineskins and he said “which means we need to go back to the beginning - with Jesus with his disciples - and start there.” He said that young people are not coming to church, and probably will never come to church and what is needed now in the world is “passionate individuals with the Love of Christ in their heart who have a willingness to go out there and teach the message of Jesus to those who need it.”

He said we need to be like Jesus’ disciples 2000 years ago, and he said that we are all ministers, and he reminded us that Jesus’ disciples were not learned men, but fishermen, and that we are not to rely on the laws and practices of the church, but to lean on the message of Jesus and go teach that, and to be the demonstration of God’s Love in our daily lives.

He was saying we are going to see drastic changes in the way people hear the message of Jesus, because of the internet and cell phones and the way people communicate nowadays, and that we need to get creative and active, and stop thinking it’s going to come through the church, because it is not. And this was spoken by a minister in a church.

It was so awesome.

He’s right: We need new wineskins. The old way of doing business (and living life) is not going to work anymore. We need brand new wineskins to hold this beautiful wine that comes from the Tree of Life. We are standing smack in the middle of a global shift. If you think life is going on as it always has, then you are in for a brutal surprise. This world is changing, and fast.

Where are you?

It is impossible to do things the way we have done them before.

Here are some great quotes to consider:

“It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change. ~Charles Darwin~

“There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.” -Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince (1532)

“Whosoever desires constant success must change his conduct with the times.” -Niccolo Machiavelli

“Every generation needs a new revolution.” -Thomas Jefferson

“The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew.” - Abraham Lincoln

“In describing today’s accelerating changes, the media fire blips of unrelated information at us. Experts bury us under mountains of narrowly specialized monographs. Popular forecasters present lists of unrelated trends, without any model to show us their interconnections or the forces likely to reverse them. As a result, change itself comes to be seen as anarchic, even lunatic.” - Alvin Toffler

“The colossal misunderstanding of our time is the assumption that insight will work with people who are unmotivated to change. Communication does not depend on syntax, or eloquence, or rhetoric, or articulation but on the emotional context in which the message is being heard. People can only hear you when they are moving toward you, and they are not likely to when your words are pursuing them. Even the choices words lose their power when they are used to overpower. Attitudes are the real figures of speech.” - Edwin H. Friedman

“In times of change, learners inherit the Earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.” - Eric Hoffer

So, we are standing in the middle of tremendous change. It’s already occurring. We are witnessing it with our very eyes. Last night I was watching television (for the first time in over a year) and I can’t believe how dumb it all is. I also noticed on the commercials that they use a soothing woman’s voice (I feel like it’s the same woman, is it? does anyone know what I am talking about??) and it’s the exact same voice they use in the futuristic movies (like The Island, with Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson) to manipulate the masses on the gigantic movie screens that are in the streets, and in every building.

I am blessing you in every way, you, who is reading this. I love you. You are as God created you. Do me a favor, please and rise above the nonsense, okay? Refuse to participate in the dumbification of the masses. Okay? Please. Do it for me. Do it for Jesus.

Watching that crap on television last night, I could begin to see why people have difficulty seeing things clearly. I can see why there is confusion and muddy thinking.

Plus every other commercial is about prescription drugs, telling you to call your doctor to get a prescription.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!

All I could think was: holy crap, people sit in front of this box every night?? And listen to this crap?

I woke up this morning, feeling drugged and disoriented.

I suppose I sound like your great grandmother giving old-fashioned advice from the stone age, but whatever. Be aware of what you allow into your mind and be conscious of how you spend your time.

Going on all around you is the creation of God. You can tap into this power and it will disrupt all your old patterns, knock out your problems, heal all sickness, and catapult you into Heaven where miracles occur naturally.

But first, you must have a willingness to change your patterns. If there is something in your life that is not working, then that is an indication that something needs to change. Move the energy in other ways than just sitting on the couch or in front of the computer every night.

Please give me your blessing, holy Son of God.

Please join with me in the resurrection.

Please be part of the solution with me, as we usher in dramatic changes.

We are no longer part of the sleeping dead, Instead we take our place with Jesus by our side and we spring to life, transformed entirely.

Like the minister on Sunday church service said: “What this world needs is passionate individuals with the Love of Christ in their heart who have the willingness to go out there and teach the message of Jesus to those who need it.”

Amen, Lord Almighty.

Would you also do me a favor and email this post to your friends, coworkers, and family? Magazine & newspaper editors. Chat groups. Community leaders.

Let’s start spreading the word.

I appreciate your help.

We are on Review Lesson 175 from A Course in Miracles:

God is but Love, and therefore so am I.

(159) I give the miracles I have received.
(160) I am at home. Fear is the stranger here.

God is but Love, and therefore so am I.

Every single day for the past 2 weeks I’ve been saying one phrase, several times a day:

“Home, sweet home.”

I say it every time we arrive “home” and home for me these past 2 weeks has been several different locations: my dad’s house, my mom’s house, my mom’s camper in Maine, and the Atlantic ocean.

Starbucks is home to me.

A chair with me in it reading A Course in Miracles is home to me.

More and more, I can just close my eyes and go home.

This is spectacular to me. I am at home wherever I go. For me, the feeling of home is the place where I can rest. It is the place where there are no cares and no worries.

Presently I do not have a house home … in the usual sense of a place where all my stuff is with a street address. All my things are in boxes in a storage closet in Wisconsin and I definitely would not call a storage closet home.

If you look at it closely, home is NOT the place where all your stuff is.

Home is anyplace where you breathe easily.Where all your problems disappear. It’s the place where you can stop putting on a performance for the world.

Do you notice that much of your life is a performance? Are you aware that you act a certain way when you are out on the street or at your job or with other people? It’s a fact that you have learned to wear several different faces and several different hats depending on who you are with and where you are at.

But home is the place where you take off the mask and you take off the hat, and you are finally yourself. You rest. You put on old comfortable clothes and no one is there to judge you.

Here, you do not worry what people think about your appearance or your behavior. This is home. You take off the social layers.

And as you find yourself more and more comfortable in your own skin - IN GOD - you will find that you are at home anywhere and everywhere.

You can close your eyes, and go home now.

Which is great advice because … there’s no place like home.

We are on review lessons from the workbook of A Course in Miracles.

Today is Lesson 174:

God is but Love, and therefore so am I.

(157) Into His presence would I enter now.
(158) Today I learn to give as I receive.

God is but Love, and therefore so am I.

This morning I woke up (here in Maine, in my mom’s camper) from a chaotic intense dream. I’ve dreamed twice (three nights ago, and this morning) that my black cat Sam has returned. In the first dream, I was in my old place making my bed and Sam came in through the window and jumped on the bed and I went crazy with excitement like, “Oh my God! Sam! You’re home! You made it! You’re such a good cat! I know it! I missed you too!”

Etc.

Then Enzo walked through the window and jumped on the bed, and the two of them went bananas to see each other again.

In this morning’s dream, I was back in the Dells and I decided to go to my old place to find Sam. There was a huge party going on there, like 200 people. The whole academy was there. I was walking outside by myself, calling Sam and he came running to me. I went crazy again with excitement. Then I was trying to borrow someone’s car to bring him home.

In the dream, there were so many people. There were many more details but I won’t bore you with them.

What I will tell you is that I woke up this morning in a fog, completely disoriented and feeling an intensity (density?) of time and space. I was still thinking about the dream. I woke up thinking about my life. What will happen next? What happens now?

And in that instant, I remembered to get out of that frequency of energy. It’s a low frequency when you are thinking of things in time and space. In actuality, you are a prisoner, trapped in physicality, thinking it is real.

When you are thinking about things in the world, your mind is actually blank and you are thinking about nothing.

Once you have recognized the thought (that you are thinking of your problems, of your life, of what you want, of what you are doing), you are free to change your mind. The RECOGNITION OF THE THOUGHT is the turning point. Here is your whole way out.

So I am lying in bed, and I caught myself worrying, thinking, planning, plotting and I simply became aware that I was worrying, thinking, planning, plotting …. and I made a decision TO SNAP OUT OF IT.

Just like that.

How simple.

I changed my mind. I said “that’s enough of that, Lisa” and I started thinking about God.

And instantly, in that moment, I felt great and alive. I came to life. The fog lifted and I was back to myself again. There was clarity again. There was certainty. And there was joy.

And that’s today’s lesson: “Into His Presence would I enter now.”

You begin to enter into God’s presence.

It’s the holiest place on the earth … the place on which you stand right now … where “an ancient hatred becomes a present love.”

That’s this moment, now.

The place where you are trapped in dreams, where there is hate, rage, sickness, loneliness, doubt and confusion gets transformed to love … with one little twist of your mind.

You have the ability to flip any thought, any time.

You have the power to raise yourself out of a low frequency of energy into a high frequency where there is only love.

You have all power, given to you by God Himself.

It’s not difficult. Just change your mind. Be willing to see things differently.

Let go of your tight grasp on reality.

Be reasonable: what does thinking about dreams accomplish?? Nothing. I had a dream, and now I am thinking about it??? Something happened in my life and now I am thinking about it??? That doesn’t make any sense.

Of course, you will think about things (I have perfect memory recall to the point that it is scary, and I can remember events in specific details that happened years ago - I can remember the kind of soda someone was drinking 5 years ago at a ballgame) but what is the content that you are retaining?? Are you remembering events to worry or feel guilty? Or are you remembering and becoming happy?

What is it for?

It is important to remember that ALL OF IT is meaningless.

I have finished recording Chapter 8 and it will be played today on paltalk.com in the ACIM GATHER room at 2:00pm EST. I will post the audio here on this website later today. One thing I said, that thrilled me when it came out of my mouth, was that Atonement is a total commitment. You can’t just do this “a little” and expect consistency. While you fluctuate back and forth between the ego and Spirit, your life will be in fluctuation.

And what I said was that as you begin to practice being in a relationship with God - as you make a commitment to the eternal - you will still fluctuate, but the gap will start to get bigger. In the beginning you will be 50% ego and 50% Spirit. Then as you learn to be present in the now, to make new choices, to change your mind, to remember God, to remember your love for your brother, it will be 60% Spirit and 40% ego.

then it will be 70% Spirit and 30% ego.

then 80% Spirit and 20% ego.

And you start to realize that you are associating less and less with the ego, and more and more with the Spirit.

Then it will be 90% Spirit and 10% ego.
Then 95% Spirit and 5% ego.
Then 96%% Spirit and 4% ego.

Then it will be 97% Spirit and 3% ego.

Then it will be 98% Spirit and 2% ego.

And what I want you to be aware of is 2% ego is more painful than 50% ego.

As you get closer and closer to 100% commitment, the smaller percentages will kill you. They will be far more painful now than when you were oblivious and didn’t realize what you were doing.

And many people stay in 5% ego for a very very long time. They are highly spiritual loving people, who give and love, and are kind … but there is still that little 5% that worries, feels guilty, and still hangs on to the humanness.

And finally, you have to give it up if you want to experience your full inheritance.

Atonement is a total commitment.

“You cannot be totally committed sometimes.”

Either you are in entirely in God 100 percent … or you are nowhere.

Being 97% Spirit and 3% ego is what hell is.

Until you are 100%, you will fluctuate between love and fear, between joy and depression, between wellness and sickness.

While you still retain 1%, you will still feel the totality of hell.

But you can make a better decision now: Into His Presence would I enter now.

When you enter into the presence of God - 100% - you will have no problems. All sickness disappears.

This is the transformation of yourself back to Self: to the Self that God created as perfect. The illusion disappears, and all false ideas about yourself are undone.

Here … you know your perfection as light.

You are God’s Son, complete and healed and whole, shining in the reflection of His Love.

I want you to experience this. It requires your active participation to let go of your agenda, and to be in a space where your body is a means of communication for the Light of God. Don’t worry about how it is accomplished. Just have a little willingness to know the Will of God.

So, that’s Chapter 8 of A Course in Miracles and today’s Lesson 174.

Into His Presence would I enter now.
Today I learn to give as I receive.

Chapter 8 will be playing on paltalk.com in ACIM GATHER at 2:00pm EST. (if you have a macintosh, you can go to http://www.paltalkexpress.com and search ACIM Gather and that will bring you to the room)

I will post the audio here on Gorgeous for God later today.

I love you. Thank you for all your comments, messages, and mostly for your dedication to join Jesus in the resurrection.

If you need anything, ask. Write.

lisanatoli2@gmail.com

The audios and this daily blog are free - and it is my ultimate joy to express this message - and if you would like to make a donation it would be greatly appreciated.

God is but Love, and therefore so am I.

(155) I will step back and let Him lead the way.
(156) I walk with God in perfect holiness.

God is but Love, and therefore so am I.

These lessons become absolutely positively true when you have the willingness to stop your routine for a minute/a day/a week.

This trip to Maine/New Hampshire is so amazing to me. I have interrupted my schedule in the most dramatic way possible and a new level of peace is enveloping me. I feel happy in this slower pace of life. I have no telephone for a week, and I am only on the computer now in the morning to blog and check emails, and I realize that I’m not missing anything important at all.

I used to sit on the computer all day long “working” (and thinking that every email was an emergency that needed my immediate attention) but now I see that nothing was getting accomplished and that I am actually more productive as I can disconnect myself from the world and all the electronics.

Creative ideas are coming to me as I sit on the beach with my toes in the sand. They come in the silence and quietness as God speaks to me.

I am stepping back and letting Him lead the way.
I walk with God in perfect holiness.

I had to shut off the noise of my life (my routine, my habits, my ideas) to see this is true. I had to physically move away from my habitual schedule and change direction.

Chapter 8 of the text of A Course in Miracles says “The first change to be introduced is a change of direction. The curriculum of the Atonement is the opposite of the curriculum you have established for yourself, but so is it’s outcome. If the outcome of yours has made you unhappy, and if you want a different one, a change in the curriculum is obviously necessary.” 

“The first change to be introduced is a change of direction.”

I love that.

If you want something to be different, it is obvious that you cannot keep doing what you’ve been doing and expect change to occur.

You have to introduce an interruption in your life - a change in your thoughts, habits, routines, patterns and all that you have made for yourself.

It is easier to do than you think.

Step back.

And let Him lead the way.

I didn’t really know a change was necessary till I forced one upon myself. I thought I was happy sitting behind a computer all day, but now I see I prefer to be outside and active.

I prefer to be still and quiet.

The thing that makes me the ABSOLUTE HAPPIEST is thinking about God - His love, His grace, His goodness - and forgetting about all that I think should be done here in the world. Nothing needs to be done here in the world, except my active remembrance of God.

I need do nothing. All that needs to be accomplished happens through me … as I step back and let Him lead the way.

“We walk to God.”

“Pause and reflect on this. Could any way be holier, or more deserving of your effort, of your love, and of your full intent. What way could give you more than everything, or offer less and still content the holy Son of God.

We walk to God.

“And now He asks but that you think of Him a while each day, that He may speak to you and tell you of His Love, reminding you how great His trust; how limitless His Love. In your name and His Own, which are the same, we practice gladly with this thought today: 

I will step back and let Him lead the way,
For I would walk along the road to Him.

I walk with God in perfect holiness.

I walk with God in perfect holiness. I light the world, I light my mind and all the minds which God created with me.

God is but Love, and therefore so am I.

(153) In my defenselessness my safety lies
(154) I am among the ministers of God.

God is but Love, and therefore so am I.

I’m in Maine now at a camper at the ocean with my mother. I’m loving it.

Review V seems to me to be about BECOMING the message. There comes a point when you stop “trying to understand” what A Course in Miracles is saying, and you simply BECOME what it is saying. You become the Love of God. You become a channel of communication for the Light of God. You stop trying to “figure this out.”

How simple is this line from the Introduction to Review V, from Jesus:

“You are my voice, my eyes, my feet, my hands through which I save the world.” 

There is nothing to understand. You are a channel of communication for the Love of God. There is nothing to figure out. A Course in Miracles is so simple that it is astonishing. You become what you always were: the Light of the world. You stop being a body, with all your attributes of old, fat, lonely, sick, worried, scared, and limited.

And instead you associate only with the eternal in you and you respond only to the eternal in everyone else. You focus your attention on God-given attributes like grace, innocence, peace, joy, love and happiness.

I am in Maine now with my mom at the ocean. Last night I went to an AA meeting and we read the whole chapter Step Eleven, which is absolutely my favorite Step:

11. Sought though prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

Step 11 contains the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi:

Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace!

That where there is hatred,
I may bring love.

That where there is wrong,
I may bring the spirit of forgiveness.

That where there is discord,
I may bring harmony.

That where there is error,
I may bring truth.

That where there is doubt,
I may bring faith.

That where there is despair,
I may bring hope.

That where there are shadows,
I may bring light.

That where there is sadness,
I may bring joy.

Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort,
than to be comforted.

To understand,
than to be understood.

To love,
than to be loved.

For it is by self-forgetting that one finds.

It is by forgiving that one is forgiven.

Here is the original prayer:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury,pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Amen

God is but Love, and therefore so am I.

(151) All things are echoes of the Voice for God
(152) The power of decision is my own.

God is but Love, and therefore so am I.

Now we review again.

Now we are ready to give more effort and more time to what we undertake.

We are preparing for another phase of understanding. We would take this step completely, that we may go on again more certain, more sincere, with faith upheld more surely. Our footsteps have not been unwavering and doubt have made us walk uncertainly and slowly this course sets forth. But now we hasten on, for we approach a greater certainty, a firmer purpose and a surer goal.

I love it. If you are following along with A Course in Miracles, and sincerely practicing the lessons, you will notice that Jesus does not allow you to meander along comfortably. He always nudges you along, pushing you into a deeper commitment.

He is the best teacher of them all. He starts you off gently, with practically no structure and a lot of encouragement, and he slowly asks you to give more time and effort. You can handle a challenge now. He’s not going to let you slide along doing kindergarten homework when you are in the 12th grade. Good teachers will piss you off initially because they will push you past your comfort level, but in the end: you will be most grateful for those that did not let you slide along with the bare minimum.

So we are hopping up the program now.

You can handle it.

We are on the 171st day today. We’ve been together for 6 months since January 1st and we are halfway through the year now, so don’t stop now. Usually around this time is where a lot of people start drifting. They start to get lazy in their practicing. They start to slack off. Suddenly they skip a day, and make excuses. And next thing you know a week passes before they remember to do the lessons again.

So, I’m here to ask you to keep going. Don’t wander off. Be vigilant for God and the Kingdom. Remember to practice these lessons every day.

Review V is a reminder to practice and a remembrance of our goal.

“Every step we take brings us a little nearer. This review will shorten time immeasurably, if we keep in mind that this remains our goal, and as we practice it is this to which we are approaching. Let us raise our hearts from dust to life, as we remember this is promised us, and that this course was sent to open up the path of light to us, and teach us, step by step, how to return to the eternal Self we thought we lost.”

See that?

You are being led, step by step, lesson by lesson, day by day, to your inheritance given to you by God Himself.

I walk with you. We walk together. We take this journey together.

Jesus says:

“I am renewed each time a brother learns there is a way from misery and pain. I am reborn each time a brother’s mind turns to the light in him and looks for me. I have forgotten no one. Help me now to lead you back to where the journey was begun to make another choice with me.”

LET THIS REVIEW BE YOUR GIFT TO ME.

That’s from Jesus. He says: “Let this review be your gift to me.” What could be simpler?? Your practicing these lessons is a gift to Jesus.

He says:

“Together we review these thoughts. Together we devote our time and effort to them. And together we will teach them to our brothers. God would not have Heaven incomplete. It waits for you, as I do. I am incomplete without your part in me. And as I am made whole we go together to our ancient home, prepared for us before time was and kept unchanged by time, immaculate and safe, as it will be at last when time is done.”

Hallowed your name.

You are God’s Son, completing His extension in your own.

God is but Love, and therefore so am I.

We place faith in the experience that comes from practice, not the means we use. We wait for the experience, and recognize that it is only here conviction lies.

There is no cruelty in God and none in me.

I watched a horrifying movie last night: The Kite Runner.

I can’t get the details out of my head. It is about Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Taliban. I thought when I rented it would be some sweet coming-of-age story between two boys. I had no idea it was about the cruelty and atrocities in this world. Entirely devastating and shocking.

It is good to be remember these things. This world needs help. People are in terror right this very minute, scared for their safety and life.

This world is healed through the healing of your own mind. The terror in the world is the terror in your own life. What you fear in your personal private life is being played out in a larger grander scale that affects everyone.

If you have been having difficulty letting go of anger, rage, attack, fear, defense … not really seeing a valid reason to do so … maybe now you will think of the people being raped, beaten, torn, jailed and executed around the world and you will think twice.

As you remember God (which is to remember love), the world is healed.

This is the reason for responsibility. You start taking responsibility for what you see (think and do) in your relationships, in your job, in your life … because the world is in hell because you continue to allow yourself to remain in hell.

“This moment can be terrible. But it can also be the time of your release from abject slavery. You make a choice, standing before this idol (the god of cruelty), seeing him exactly as he is. Will you restore to love what you have sought to wrest from it and lay before this mindless piece of stone? Or will you make another idol to replace it? For the god of cruelty takes many forms. Another can be found.”

Yet … why would you do this to yourself ?????? Why would you hold the world in chains when you have been told exactly how to release the world from its slavery and chains?

This lesson is so great. You rise up out of the ashes. You let go of cruelty and fear.

“You have reached this place before, but you have chosen that this cruel god remain with you in still another form. And so the fear of God has returned with you. This time you leave it there. And you return to a new world, unburdened by its weight; behold not in its sightless eyes, but in the vision that your choice has restored to you.”

So, there you have it. You have come to this place before, and yet you wandered off again to serve fear. Now you have another choice to let fear go forever. It doesn’t take time. All it takes is choice and decision that you will be as God created you, and relate only to that which is eternal.

This is not difficult.

A Course in Miracles says: “The way is not hard, but it is different.”

Now do your eyes belong to Christ, and He looks through them. Now your voice belongs to God and echoes His. And now your heart remains forever at peace. You have chosen Him in place of idols, and your attributes, given by your Creator, are restored to you at last. The Call for God is heard and answered. Now has fear made way for love, for God Himself replaces cruelty.”

We choose again, and make our choice for all our brothers, knowing they are one with us.

We do this for Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, and for everyone else who lives in this world of terror. We dedicate our minds to salvation -which means to restore our minds to the memory of God -and we do this for the homeless, the lonely, the afraid, the sick, the dying, and the fearful.

We give thanks to all of them who render us complete. In them we see Your glory, and in them we find our peace.

Holy are we because Your Holiness has set us free. And we give thanks.

Amen.

Emerson is the Master.

I’ve been reading his book of essays. My God! That mind! He’s brilliant.

Compensation is the original “The Secret.” The essay is about cause and effect. Seed and fruit. Crime and Punishment. Good deed and reward. About how every part is contained in the whole. About how the whole world is contained in a grain of corn. Emerson came long before Napoleon Hill. He came before Emmet Fox. He came before A Course in Miracles. He came before Einstein. My guess is that Einstein’s quote “God does not play dice” comes from Emerson’s quote “The dice of God are always loaded.”

Here are a few of my favorite passages/sentences from Compensation:

“Put God in your debt.”

“These appearances indicate the fact that the universe is represented in every one of its particles”

“The world looks like a multiplication table, or a mathematical equation, which turn it how you will, balances itself.”

“The death of a dear friend, wife, brother, lover, which seemed nothing but privation, somewhat later assumes the aspect of a guide or genius; for it commonly operates revolutions in our way of life, terminates an epoch of infancy of youth which was waiting to be closed, breaks up a wonted occupation, or a household, or a style of living, and allows the formation of new ones more friendly to the growth of character. it permits or constrains the formation of new acquaintances, and the reception of new influences that prove of the first importance to the next years, and the man or woman who would have remained a sunny garden flower, with no room for its roots and too much sunshine for its head, by the falling of the walls and the neglect of the gardener, is made the banyan of the forest, yielding shade and fruit to wide neighborhoods of men.

“There is a third silent party to all our bargains. The nature and soul of things takes on itself the guarantee of the fulfillment of every contract, so that honest service cannot come to loss. If you serve an ungrateful master, serve him the more. Put God into your debt. Every stroke shall be repaid. The longer the payment is withholden, the better for you; for compound interest on compound interest is the rate and usage of this exchequer.”

To read the full essay, click here:

http://www.emersoncentral.com/compensation.htm