Month: April 2020

Lesson 101: God’s will for me is perfect happiness

Hello, my name is Candace and I’m a Sinaholic.

Honestly, we need a good 12-step program to help us break our addiction to sin. If you were raised in a religious tradition such as the Southern Baptist church or Catholicism, you came by your addiction honestly. You may even have a genetic disposition to this disease as it has been passed down through the generations. Sin and guilt are the stock and trade of many religions.

I have seen a glimmer of hope, though. Several years ago, when I taught religion at a local community college, I had students in my comparative religion class create their own religion from scratch. Teaching here in the deep South I was ready to hear a chorus of objections, especially from my Christian students about the blasphemy of “inventing” a religion. Only one student, however, ever complained and he walked away in a thoughtful way when I asked him who had invented Christianity, since it didn’t drop from the heavens as a fully formed belief system.

My students created a bunch of funny and thoughtful religions which centered around everything from shopping, to money, to football. Interestingly enough, the one feature that every single one of those new religions lacked was a doctrine of eternal damnation. There literally was no hell in any of the systems the students devised.

Continue reading “AYoMW: April 10, 2020 — Addicted to sin”

Lesson 100: My part is essential to God’s plan for salvation

When I read this lesson, I feel a sense of resistance arise within me, especially when I read that our part in God’s plan for salvation is to be “happy.”

All of my fraudulent religious bells go off when I read that. I was raised, of course, in a religion that viewed happiness with suspicion. Happiness, I was taught, was not our purpose here. We are born into a fallen world of sin and as “stinking bags of worms,” as Martin Luther calls humanity, we are to toil sadly through this world in hope of landing in the promised land of heaven. There, and only there, will we find happiness, this religion taught me. Until then, look dour and do your work.

My suspicion concerning happiness comes honestly then. I was taught happiness was a byproduct of living “right” and not the goal of this life. Happiness was created by things outside of yourself – money, power, relationships, jobs. Find the right things out in this world and they will bring happiness.

Certainly, we have all experienced the happiness that new things outside of ourselves can bring, but it’s always fleeting. We trade the new car, the new house, the new job the new relationship when it no longer makes us feel the euphoria of the first few months or years that we possess it.

Continue reading “AYoMW: April 9, 2020 — Resisting happiness”

Lesson 99: Salvation is my only function here

We all come into this world with a sense that we’re here for a reason. Many of us spend our entire lives searching for something that will give our lives meaning, whether it’s through a job, a relationship, a thirst for power or wealth, or even a drive to do as much good as they can in the world. We fully believe that our purpose in this world is to do or be something that “makes a difference” in the world.

Could it be, though, that what we do out in this world isn’t really the key to finding our purpose? What if what we do, no matter how lowly or highly it is thought of by society, isn’t the point? What if the ultimate lesson of this life is to learn that no matter what we do or become in this world our purpose is only found in the spirit with which we do everything instead of finding the one thing we believe is our reason for living?

Success in this ego world is often judged by how much power, wealth and material toys we accumulate over the years. We climb the corporate and social ladder, and maybe somebody puts our picture on the cover of an international magazine to celebrate our creativity, wealth and power. What’s wrong with that? Nothing, unless the spirit you infuse that wealth and popularity with is one of fear, narcissism or selfishness. There are plenty of materially wealthy and powerful people in the world who remain miserable even as they are surrounded by a plethora of possessions.

Continue reading “AYoMW: April 8, 2020 — Fulfill your destiny”

Lesson 98: I will accept my part in God’s plan for salvation.

As I’ve noted before, students of A Course in Miracles, and other metaphysical paths, have been accused by others as being nothing more than spiritual navel gazers – unconcerned with the world, just sequestering themselves away to think happy thoughts. The reality is, it’s often not easy for us to accept our part in God’s plan for salvation. Ego fights us at every turn and tells us we’re wasting time that we could be using to DO something about the situation in the world.

Author and spiritual mentor Michael Singer – as well as the Course – see things a bit differently. Instead of engaging in frantic “doing” in the world, when anxiety arises, we must surrender our allegiance to the ego and its plans and accept our part in God’s plan for salvation. “We need do nothing,” the Course tells us – which means we’ll be guided to right action if we remain as we are – spirits in the material world who are seeking to bring about its salvation of by remembering who we are and accepting our function!

Singer says instead of engaging in spiritual navel gazing, our acceptance of our part in God’s plan for salvation is our duty. He says: “You have a responsibility to reach a state where you are calm, clear, open and filled with good energy so that you can come forward and do the best that you can with the moment that is unfolding in front of you.”

This is not a feel-good, happy slappy endeavor. It is our responsibility to do our inner work, not just for ourselves but to the world. We don’t do this kind of work to “gain” anything in the world, we do it to remember who we are – the calm, clear, open, good-energy filled center that can bring peace, love and joy into the world. It is through our clarity that we find what Buddhists call “right action” – the thing we are called to do (or not do) to be the most effective in every situation. Singer urges us to live this way so that every moment that passes before us will better because it did.

Continue reading “AYoMW: April 7, 2020 — Responsible navel gazing”

Lesson 97: I am spirit

Sometimes, when people tell me the truth about myself, I am startled. I had no idea that they thought of me in some way as maybe talented, or honest, or reliable or magnificent in some way. I begin to demur and say, “No, I can’t be that great. You must have me confused with someone else.”

The thing is, they don’t. Those who truly compliment us are simply seeing who we are and helping us see our real Self, which is infused with God’s magnitude, according to A Course in Miracles. My protestation of their compliment isn’t me being humble, the Course says, it’s me choosing my littleness – my ego over my real, Divine Self.

The Course asks, in Chapter 15, “Would you be hostage to the ego or host to God?” When we remember that we are spirit, and nothing more – not this body, this job, this relationship, this identity – then we become a host to God and free ourselves from the bondage of ego.

“You are the spirit lovingly endowed with all your Father’s Love and peace and joy,” this lesson says. “You are the spirit which completes Himself, and shares God’s function as Creator. He is with you always, as you are with Him.”

Continue reading “AYoMW: April 6, 2020 — Smells like team spirit”

Lesson 96: Salvation comes from my one Self

Minnesota singer and songwriter Peter Mayer sings in his song World of Dreams:

In the smallest measure of anything at hand
Entities of energy are alive in a whirling dance
Even our own bodies are not as we perceive
But made of the same stuff our thoughts are made
In this world of dreams

It’s an echo of today’s lesson that asks: “Who can resolve the senseless conflicts which a dream presents?”

Continue reading “AYoMW: April 5, 2020 — A world of dreams”

Lesson 95: I am one Self, united with my Creator

“Unless you are reminded of your purpose frequently, you tend to forget about it for long periods of time,” today’s lesson notes. It’s absolutely true. We get so wrapped up in the ego’s direction for our days that we forget who we truly are. The ego tells us we must go into the world and do things, achieve things, buy things, own things, sell things, maneuver around others to get to where we want to go. It’s a world of competition, lack and is simply “a ridiculous parody” of how we’re truly supposed to be living, says this lesson.

The ego has convinced us that all we are is our small “s” self. We see ourselves as “weak, vicious, ugly and sinful, miserable and beset with pain,” this lesson says, divided into many selves and convinced we are separate from God, praying to a “maker” that doesn’t exist, since it is one and the same with our ego.

We want to learn. We want to do better. We employ all the spiritual tricks our ego says will work. We feel like we make progress and then … we forget. The shiny objects of the ego begin to sparkle and we’re back where we started – listening to the ego’s version of reality that tells us all this spiritual stuff is for the birds anyway. Besides, those who reach “enlightenment” either die for their cause or become sequestered gurus. Who wants that, anyway?

Continue reading “AYoMW: April 4, 2020: Sign, sign, everywhere a sign”

Lesson 94: I am as God created me.

We in the LGBTQ community are often told that we are “intrinsically evil” by religious institutions – that we were not created by God to love someone of the same gender or feel that we must change our gender identity. I lived for years with the soul-crippling idea that something intrinsic to my life as a human being was a “mistake” or that I was created somehow “less than” others around me.

Today’s lesson sure would have helped all those years ago – that I am as God created me. However, this lesson isn’t really about any sort of bodily identification such as gender or sexual orientation. Indeed, it calls us beyond our bodily labeling to discover the Divine Self that transcends the physical in every way.

Of course, it’s okay to be LGBTQ, just as it’s okay to not be. The ego loves to keep us confused and off balance about who we really are. We are not these bodies or gender identities. We are not our thoughts, we are not our past, and we are not our future. This world of time and space is an illusion, a classroom of our own creation so we can experience this life and learn to see, once again, who we truly are – innocent beings of light created by God. When we remember our true nature, we can allow it to shine through our physical manifestation to remind others of their true Selves. We are here to learn from each other and to teach one another.  

Continue reading “AYoMW: April 3, 2020 — Break your fragile ego”

Lesson 93: Light and joy and peace abide in me.

I was taught, from infancy, that I was born with something called “original sin.” Even as a tiny baby, there was stain on me, passed down from Adam and Eve in the garden after that evil temptress Eve gave poor, innocent Adam that apple (which I later learned in seminary that it wasn’t an apple at all). This is the legacy of my religion – an ingrained belief that I am intrinsically evil because of what two imaginary people did in some book a bunch of people say is “holy” and “inerrant.”

Theologian Matthew Fox writes at length about the damage done to humanity by following such a line of logic (bullshit, really) that was concocted by a guy named Augustine back in the 4^th century. Fox notes that the deeper tradition, before we patterned our lives and religious doctrines after Augustine’s sexual hang-ups, were based on something he calls “original blessing.” In that paradigm, we are all part of the creation that God called, and continues to call, “very good.”

“Goodness,” Meister Eckhart says, “is the proper name of God the Creator.” Buddhist monk Pema Chodron echoes saying: “This is our birthright – the wisdom with which we were born, the vast unfolding display of primordial richness, primordial openness, primordial wisdom itself.”

Continue reading “AYoMW: April 2, 2020 — What’s so original about sin?”

Lesson 92: Miracles are seen in light, and light and strength are one

There is an entire self-help industry out there trying to get us to think positive thoughts and offering us tools to optimize our lives and live into our “authentic” self. Some of the prescriptions of these programs can be helpful and allow us to see the world in a new way, but most of them are simply the ego’s ways to make us feel better within its prison walls of competition and separation.

A Course in Miracles has been accused of being just another one of the ego’s tools to keep us isolated from one another while we work on our weaknesses and be the best people we can be – always happy and upbeat, looking on the bright side of life. However, it’s just the opposite. Yes, the aim of the Course is to help us discover how to be happy, but it isn’t some happy-slappy feel-good program that plasters over our current feelings by just thinking positive thoughts.

The Course invites us, in every word of the text and workbook, to consider where it is our thoughts come from and how we can train ourselves to rely not on the ideas of our ego, but to truly hear the Voice for God that will bring us into true joy, even if everything else in our lives appears to be in chaos and decay.

Continue reading “AYoMW: April 1, 2020 — Take the long way “om””