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:
By grace I live. By grace I am released.
Just an update: I am in New Hampshire now at my mom’s, and having a marvelous time. I go to Maine tomorrow for a week to be near the ocean and do nothing. My sister Leslie got married this past Saturday and it was a spectacular event. My sister is stunning (in person and as a bride) and I kept staring at her all night, in a state of wonder at how PRETTY she is. How come I never noticed it before?? She’s beautiful. The other thing I noticed is that she is in a state of GRACE.
When the hell did this occur????
LOL.
But there it was … I witnessed it with my very own eyes …. my pain in the ass sister Leslie in a state of beauty & grace.
You will get definite examples along the way in your practicing where you will see people/places/events transformed and that is how you know you are tranformed. Leslie didn’t change. I changed. She is as she has always been – perfect – except that I couldn’t see it.
But now I have eyes to see, and it’s right there in front me now.
(and soon I will find a scanner to upload the photos and then you will see it also)
“Grace is an aspect of the Love of God, which is most like the state prevailing in the unity of truth.”
“Grace becomes inevitable instantly in those who have prepared a table where it can be gently laid and is willingly received; an altar clean and holy for the gift.”
NOW WE HAVE WORK TO DO.
“Now we have work to do, for those in time can speak of things beyond, and listen to words which explain what is to come is past already.”
Amazing, right? What is to come is past already. What you think is a future, unknown to you, has already occurred.
“We have repeated several times before that you but make a journey that is done.”
“Yet what meaning can the words convey to those who count the hours still, and rise and work and go to sleep by them?”
“Suffice it, then, that you have work to do to play your part. The ending must remain obscure to you until your part is done. It does not matter.”
I love this. It’s true. I don’t know the specifics of the ending. It remains obscure. I have no idea what is next. I don’t know why I am in New Hampshire. I don’t have a single clue what this day will bring, but I know that there are no mistakes and no accidents. I am exactly where I am and it couldn’t be anything otherwise. If I was supposed to be somewhere else, I would be there instead of here, but I am here!
This is where I am! In this moment! In this location!
Here I am.
Work through me, Lord.
There is a Plan behind appearances. I don’t have to know the specifics of the plan, only the fact that I am part of it … and that there is work to do.
“For your part is still what all the rest depends on. As you take the role assigned to you, salvation comes a little nearer each uncertain heart that does not beat as yet in tune with God”
AND NOW WE ASK FOR GRACE, the final gift salvation can bestow.
We ask for grace, and for the experience that comes from grace. We welcome the release it offers everyone. We do not ask for the unaskable. We do not look beyond what grace can give. For this we give in the grace that has been given us.
Our learning goal today does not exceed this prayer. Yet in the world, what could be more than what we ask this day of Him Who gives the grace we ask, as it was given Him?
By grace I live. By grace I am released.
By grace I give. By grace I will release.
Your grace is given me. I claim it now.
God speaks to us. Shall we not speak to Him? He is not distant. He remains entirely accessible.
He’s right here. You should talk to Him. He loves you. He longs to give you everything.
It starts by recognizing God in your life. He’s not in the sky. He’s not off somewhere distant, taking care of “more important” things. He is closer than your heart. He is closer than your hand. He is in your mind.
Talk to Him.
He’s your Father. He loves you.
“If you but knew the meaning of His Love, hope and despair would be impossible.”
Isn’t that great? Even hope becomes impossible. Who needs hope when there is certainty?
God’s grace is yours by your acknowledgment.
Today we ask of God this gift He has most carefully preserved within our hearts, waiting to be acknowledged. This the gift by which God leans to us and lifts us up, taking salvation’s final step Himself. All steps but this we learn, instructed by His Voice. But finally He comes Himself, and takes us in His arms and sweeps away the cobwebs of our sleep.
His gift of grace is more than just an answer. It restores all memories the sleeping mind forgot; all certainty of what Love’s meaning is.
God loves you.
Request Him now to give the means by which this world will disappear, and vision will come, with knowledge but an instant later. For in grace, you see a light that covers all the world in love, and watch fear disappear from every face as hearts rise up and claim the light that is theirs.
What now remains that Heaven be delayed an instant longer?
This lesson used to scare me because it didn’t know what it meant that “the world will disappear.” I thought this meant death of the body. I was still wrapped up in old false ideas that I learned here. I thought this lesson means that I would die, the world would disappear and I would go to Heaven.
Since I was still trying to find happiness, joy and love while still in a body, I hesitated on lessons like this one. I didn’t want the world to disappear. I wanted only to be happy, and to have a nice life.
But this lesson -when you let go of all your ideas – will show you that Heaven is a condition of Oneness. This world of pain and suffering disappears. Fear disappears. The sick are healed. The dead arise. Problems dissolve. Confusion becomes a ridiculous notion. And you find yourself standing in Heaven, right here and now.
The world does disappear. All that you thought before gets erased from your mind.
“For in grace you see a light that covers the world in love, and watch fear disappear from every face as hearts rise up and claim the light as theirs.”
This is the gift that God has most carefully prepared for you.
It is a new and holy day today, for we receive what has been given us. Our faith lies in the Giver, not our own acceptance.
!!!
Ha.
Our faith lies in God. It does not depend on our own understanding or acceptance.
“We acknowledge our mistakes, but He to Whom all error is unknown is yet the One Who answers our mistakes by giving us the means to lay them down, and rise to Him in gratitude and love.”
“And He descends to meet us, as we come to Him. For what He has prepared for us He gives and we receive. Such is His Will because He loves His Son.
God loves you. His Will is perfect Happiness for you.
To Him we pray today, returning but the word He gave to us through His Own Voice, His Word, His Love:
Your grace is given me. I claim it now. Father, I come to You. And You will come to me who ask. I am the Son You love.
Lesson 167 has a paragraph that changed my life when I first read it years ago:
“We share one life because we have one Source, a Source from which perfection comes to us, remaining always in the holy minds He created as perfect. As we were, so are we now and will forever be. A sleeping mind must waken, as it sees its own perfection mirroring the Lord of life so perfectly, it fades into what is reflected there. And now it is no more a mere reflection. It becomes the thing reflected, and the light which make reflection possible. No vision now is needed. For the wakened mind is one that knows its Source, its Self, its Holiness.”
IT BECOMES THE THING REFLECTED, AND THE LIGHT WHICH MAKES REFLECTION POSSIBLE.
As we were, so are we now and will forever be.
Perfect as God created us.
I have posted this week’s 90 minute audio (on Talkshoe, in the right sidebar).
ACIM Text – Chapter 7.
The sound quality is not great. Accept my apologies. I need to buy a USB microphone, and hopefully that will fix the problem for future recordings.
My Macintosh has a built-in internal microphone, and it does not record well at all.
But the CONTENT of the message is good.
