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Lesson 142: My mind holds only what I think with God
Review of Lessons 123: I thank my Father for His gifts to me, and
Lesson 124: Let me remember I am one with God.

The central theme for all of these reviews in the coming days is simple: “My mind holds only what I think with God.”

That’s hard to remember because we allow the ego to delude us – to lie to us – and convince us that it thinks our thoughts. And, oh, what thoughts it thinks! Thoughts of judgment, hatred, greed, fear, competition, superiority (even inferiority, when it serves its needs), anger, lust, covetousness. Our egos are a mishmash of constant thoughts that work to distract us from this present moment, because the ego knows that if we can fully be present, even for one moment, we will never trust its thoughts again.

That’s the essence of this lesson’s review of the phrase from lesson 124: “Let me remember that I am one with God.” That’s the whole reason we’re here – to remember that we are one with God. We have never left God’s presence. We are eternally one with God and with one another.

Continue reading “AYoMW: May 21, 2020 — Don’t forget, we are one”

Lesson 141: My mind holds only what I think with God
Review of lessons 121: Forgiveness is the key to happiness, and
Lesson 122: Forgiveness offers everything I want.

Grievance is a part of our every day lives. Turn on the news or read through your social media feed for five minutes and you’ll get your fill. From top leaders to your neighbors, everyone has a grievance, a complaint about the world and how things are not as they should be.

Forgiveness seems to be in short supply.

It is, of course, because forgiveness – true, divine forgiveness – doesn’t exist in this world of ego. The ego likes to use forgiveness as a weapon to make ourselves feel better, and better than, others. We forgive because we’re so “spiritual” and we deign to overlook the terrible, no good things you’ve done to us. Rest assured, we may forgive, but the ego’s form of forgiveness never forgets.

Continue reading “AYoMW: May 20, 2020 — Becoming true peace”

Lesson 140: Only salvation can be said to cure.

I write today’s lessons the morning after President Donald Trump emerged from the White House after days of unrest, protests and violence on the streets of America over the murder of George Floyd at the knee of a Minneapolis police officer.

Trump, after being mocked the day before for hiding out in his official bunker while protesters circled the People’s House, was desperate to repair his image. He believed he could do this by using tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse a peaceful crowd of protesters in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church across from the White House. He then proceeded to hold up a Bible in front of photographers at the historic church and give a militaristic-style speech about “law and order.”

Instead of projecting strength, the move was seen by many as a weak man shoring up his cowardice with a pandering photo opportunity. Strong leaders would be comforting the nation right now. Strong leaders would be seeking to unify us in the face of our national shame of hatred and racism. Strong leaders would seek to understand and not turn to brute force to get their way.

Continue reading “AYoMW: May 19, 2020 — Saving the world is your function.”

Lesson 139: I will accept Atonement for myself.

Check out any bookstore (perhaps online these days) and you’ll find shelves full of “self-help” books that promise to help you live a purpose-filled life, figure out who you really are and what it is you’re supposed to be doing on this earth. If you believe this lesson, and take its message to heart, you can save yourself a lot of money and time. You don’t need a self-help book, this lesson tells us, you simply need to make the only choice truly available to any of us: remember who you truly are.

You are a child of God. You are not your body. You are not your career. You are not your relationships. You are not your family. You are not anything in this world of illusion. You are in your body, your career, your relationships, your family and whatever else is occurring in your life for one reason: to remember who you are.

Continue reading “AYoMW: May 18, 2020 — Toss out your self-help books”

Lesson 138: Heaven is the decision I must make

We choose hell all the time. Every moment that we worry. Every moment that we assert our personal preferences over what the universe is offering us in the present moment. Every time we judge, every time we complain, every time we perceive something is wrong with the world. We choose hell because that’s all we know, and the ego wants to keep it that way.

In this world of form, we are convinced we are separate from others and it’s every man, woman and child for themselves. The ego convinces us that resources are limited and we must compete with one another for even the most basic needs for our survival. We’re good at this game, so good we do it without thinking.

This is the problem. We spend most of our lives unconscious – following the egoic game plan that we have collectively created and called “proper society” or “how things work in the world.”

Continue reading “AYoMW: May 17, 2020 — Seriously?”

Lesson 137: When I am healed I am not healed alone

Today’s lesson is trying to remind us of who we truly are – one within the Mind of God. We are not these bodies. We are not our ego. We are not the mind that sees only other bodies and creates categories to separate and divide the world around us.

Healing is simply remembering that we are all one – and in that oneness we are whole – no healing is required. If we are not “healed” alone, then we are never alone in the first place, no matter how our senses tell us that I am over here and you are over there. Our minds are joined in oneness as they always have been.

When we are driven by our ego, however, our minds become sick. We are convinced that the world we can experience with our bodily senses is the real world and the spiritual world we can only sense with our true, Divine Self is an illusion. Healing puts us in our right mind – back in the oneness that we share with one another whether we are consciously aware of it or not.

Continue reading “AYoMW: May 16, 2020 — We are never alone”

Lesson 136: Sickness is a defense against the truth

I used to get sick on a regular basis. A change in the weather from cold to warm or vice versa: head cold. Fall hits: sinus congestion and possibly a chest cold. It happened with regularity. I could tell you what time of the year it was by whatever illness I was experiencing.

That doesn’t happen to me these days, and hasn’t since one turning point in my life: my ability to finally forgive my father. It was like, well, a miracle. When I was in an unforgiving state over my father’s perceived abandonment of our family, I was angry. I was cynical. I was living in such negativity, you could almost see the cloud of anger, cynicism and turmoil swirling around me like the Peanut’s character Pig Pen.

I got sick a lot, and while A Course in Miracles has been poo-pooed as so much New Age, spiritual-bypass claptrap, science proves that our emotional state can most definitely take a toll on our bodies. Anger is linked to all manner of illnesses from high blood pressure, to migraines, to strokes and of course heart attacks.

Continue reading “AYoMW: May 15, 2020 — Be healed!”

Lesson 135: If I defend myself I am attacked

I am rereading Michael Singer’s book, The Surrender Experiment. I read it a few years ago and it truly touched my heart. In the book, he describes how he came to lead what he calls a life of surrender.

The rules of this experiment, he writes, are simple: “If life brought events in front of me, I would treat them as if they came to take me beyond myself. If my personal-self complained, I would use each opportunity to simply let him go and surrender to what life was presenting me.”

Seems simple enough, right? Singer struggled with his experiment, though, as the book chronicles, but he learned what today’s lesson seeks to teach: stop planning your life and let it unfold.

Continue reading “AYoMW: May 14, 2020 — This was not the life I planned”

Lesson 134: Let me perceive forgiveness as it is

One of my favorite techniques to use when I get caught up in feeling offended, hurt or otherwise slighted by the people around me is a phrase Brene Brown talks about using when she has a conflict with her husband: “The story I’m telling myself is …”

We all get caught up in our “somebody done me wrong” stories. Our ego eagerly fabricates all kinds of reasons why someone would treat you badly and tells you how right you are to be offended, to hate them, to scold them for being such awful humans and why they should come groveling back to you begging for your forgiveness.

Ah, forgiveness. The ego uses it as a powerful weapon. We deign to forgive others to show how spiritually superior we are to them and we beg others to forgive us because we feel they are spiritually superior to us. Such forms of “forgiveness,” this lesson tells us, are a distortion “that entails an unfair sacrifice of righteous wrath, a gift unjustified and undeserved, and a complete denial of the truth.”

Continue reading “AYoMW: May 13, 2020 — Weaponizing forgiveness”

Lesson 133: I will not value what is valueless

As I write today’s reflection, my 7- year-old German Shepherd dog, The Lord, (because, “The Lord is my shepherd), is undergoing surgery to remove a dead tooth. I have been an anxious fur-baby mama all day, on pins and needles until I heard from the vet. The extraction is underway, but I will still be a bit of a wreck until I have her back safe and sound at home.

I turn to write today’s lesson and my ego gets in a bit of a pique. “Are you calling my dog valueless, you snooty excuse for a spiritual teacher?” it snorts. “My dog is valuable to me. Priceless, even.”

Of course she is, but not because of her form. Instead, her value turns on the Love I carry for her – the love that is eternal, the Love that gives birth to compassion and joy within me – two more eternal qualities that are priceless. My Love for her, and for all my other precious pets, gives me a window into the eternal nature of Love. I still Love all the pets that have preceded her. What I feel for them has not died or even wavered for one minute in its strength. They are not here in form, but they remain with me because my Love for them was real and continues to be real.

Continue reading “AYoMW: May 12, 2020 — Only empty hands can be filled”