09-06-20 – THE PRESENCE OF GOD

Dear Friends,

The Light of God surrounds me/you/us
The Love of God enfolds me/you/us
The Power of God protects me/you/us
The Presence of God watches over me/you/us
Wherever I am/you are/we are, God IS.

Unity Prayer for Protection, by James Dillet Freeman

From time to time, we have either sung this prayer as one of our hymns or recited it in our closing circle. I’ve known for a few years that when I move into my heart/mind space, I feel something wonderful – a smile that flows from there through my entire body, a desire to giggle, a deep sense of
Love, and sometimes just pure bliss. Yet, I have been unwilling (or unready?) to practice this with any frequency or regularity, to be willing to surrender to Love.

FROM MARIANNE WILLIAMSON:
The ways of the Lord are the processes of energy by which life moves forward. We move into this power through silence and communion. In the presence of God, we learn from Him His ways.

Throughout my adult life, Spirit has occasionally spoken to me during that time between sleeping and waking; the tone of each message is relevant to where I am in my life at the time. (Please note that, while I experience these as “personal” messages of Love, I believe that each is a universal truth, to be
received and shared by each of us in our own perfect time and manner.) Several years ago, I heard “I’m here and I love you.” I think there was also something about “I’ve got your back.” For a few years after that, I often heard “I’m here and I love you” in my mind. It seemed like I heard this so often that I couldn’t tell, any more, who was “speaking” to whom – God to me, me to God, Self or Holy Spirit to me. So, one morning when I heard the words, I asked who was speaking. There was a pause … I waited and listened … and then heard this answer … “How about Love?” Perfect! – no matter who was speaking. (Of course. All is the same One. All is Love.)

During this time of social distancing, like so many people, I’ve had almost no direct contact with others, and the only touch I’ve experienced – other than during a medical appointment – has been with my cat, Comfort, and I’m so blessed to have his companionship. I continue to remind myself that
our bodies are not real and, therefore, that love is not really a physical body experience. Nevertheless, I’ve been missing hugs and face-to-face connection beyond emails and phone calls. A little over a week ago, in my pre-waking time, I heard “I’m here. I love you. I’m holding you. And
that’s that.” I especially love the “and that’s that”  as in, “This is a given, Carol  ordinary, nothing to change, no need to fuss. It has always been and will always be.” I also love that Spirit keeps expanding on the original message, deepening it each time.

I RULE MY MIND, WHICH I ALONE MUST RULE. –

I have a kingdom I must rule. At times, it does not seem I am its king at all. It seems to triumph over me, and tell me what to think, and what to do and feel. And yet it has been given me to serve whatever purpose I perceive in it. My mind can only serve. Today I give its service to the Holy Spirit to employ as He sees fit. I thus direct my mind, which I alone can rule. And thus I set it free to do the Will of God.
Father, my mind is open to Your Thoughts, and closed today to every thought but Yours. I rule my mind and offer it to You. Accept my gift, for it is Yours to me.

ACIM Workbook 236

This past week, lacking library books for a few days, I pulled “Spiritual Economics, the prosperity process” by Eric Butterworth off of my bookshelf and have been reading and absorbing little bits throughout each day. As have so many of my other learning tools, especially this past year, this book
stresses that our thoughts create our experience, and it is our responsibility to choose them. The first chapter of Butterworth’s book focuses on the Presence of God as the allness, the substance (meaning “standing under”, the foundation or base) of all creation. We are within the Presence, and the
Presence is within us. He wrote “the practice of the presence means continually reminding yourself of the activity of God ever working in you.”

For the past few months, one of my aims has been to consciously experience and join with the Presence of God. I’m being guided in this journey  from Mike Dooley (www.tut.com) and my other daily readings (ACIM and Marianne Williamson) , through conversations with both like-minded and “unlike-minded” people, to this Butterworth book sitting on my shelf for 30-some years  I am being led to new awarenesses and encouraged to check into my heart/mind more frequently, with the goal
of living outward from that consciousness. As I push past my need for words, past my innate fear of being out of control, I am growing in trust and in comfort with my silent center. I’m checking in a lot more often, knowing that as I deepen my practice in the Presence of God, I am being led to knowing and living, from the inside out, that:

FEAR IS NOT JUSTIFIED IN ANY FORM.
… we are each a part of Love Itself.

ACIM Workbook 240

Love, light and peace, always
Carol

8-30-20 Peace & Justice

Greetings, all

My attention has been caught by yard signs that say, “Without justice, there can be no peace.”  In my  google search for the origination of the quote, most of the references were about individuals and groups who used this (or a similar) phrase as a rallying cry for racial justice, beginning with “no justice, no peace” in 1986.  The phrase often carries a real or perceived threat, an “if-then” statement.  A little more reading found that Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., made the original (?) statement in a speech outside a California prison where Vietnam war protesters were being held on December 14, 1967.  He was aligning protests claiming that the Vietnam war as violating the rights of the Vietnamese people for self-determination with protests against racial injustice in the USA.  Quoting Dr. King from that speech:

There can be no justice without peace and there can be no peace without justice.

Quoting an article titled “There Can Be No Peace without Justice” from The Overcast – Newfoundland’s Alternative Newspaper, May 19, 2017, by “Public Post”:

There; is a beautiful elegance to Martin Luther King, Jr.’s, words … What can be difficult to put into action is how we actually own our responsibility for the social justice and change we purport to champion and support. Not just for the few, but for the many. Sometimes the solutions have to be hard-won, other times, they can be beautifully simple.

As Dr. King pointed out – and to quote a line from one old song – “You can’t have one without the other.”  I believe that everything that matters is an internal matter … it’s all an “inside job”.  What could be more “beautifully simple” than that? 

From Marianne Williamson:

The experience of peace comes only from the mind.  “Peace of mind,” says A Course In Miracles, “ is clearly an internal matter. 

Those who are seeking racial (or any other) justice in the world appear to be focusing on the second part of King’s quote:  “There can be no peace without justice”, believing that justice must be won on the outside, whether by fighting or, as Dr. King taught, some more peaceful external means.  In my view, those of us on a committed spiritual path will be best served – and will serve best – by following the first part of King’s quote:  “There can be no justice without peace.”  Our “inside job” requires us to turn within, to our spiritual Source. 

Peace to my mind. Let all my thoughts be still.

ACIM Workbook 221

Father, I come to You today to seek the peace that You alone can give.  I come in silence.  In the quiet of my heart, the deep recesses of my mind, I wait and listen for Your Voice.  My Father, speak to me today.  I come to hear Your Voice in silence and in certainty and love, sure You will hear my call and answer me.

Now do we wait in quiet.  God is here, because we wait together.  I am sure that He will speak to you, and you will hear.  Accept my confidence, for it is yours.  Our minds are joined.  We wait with one intent; to hear our Father’s answer to our call, to let our thoughts be still and find His peace, to hear Him speak to us of what we are, and to reveal Himself unto His Son.

God has condemned me not. No more do I.

My Father knows my holiness.  Shall I deny His knowledge, and believe in what His knowledge makes impossible?  Shall I accept as true what He proclaims as false?  Or shall I take His Word for what I am, since He is my Creator, and the One Who knows the true condition of His Son?

Father, I was mistaken in myself, because I failed to realize the Source from which I came.  I have not left that Source to enter in a body and to die.  My holiness remains a part of me, as I am part of You.  And my mistakes about myself are dreams.  I let them go today.  And I stand ready to receive Your Word alone for what I really am.

The Course says that forgiveness, which is our only function here, is the key to peace, our only goal.  And forgiveness, as the Course explains it, means recognizing that there is no guilt … not in me, not in you, not in anyone.  We cannot change what God created.

Love, which created me, is what I am.

ACIM Workbook 229

I seek my own Identity, and find It in these words: “Love, which created me, is what I am.”  Now need I seek no more.  Love has prevailed.  So still It waited for my coming home, that I will turn away no longer from the holy face of Christ.  And what I look upon attests the truth of the Identity I sought to lose, but which my Father has kept safe for me.

Father, my thanks to You for what I am; for keeping my Identity untouched and sinless, in the midst of all the thoughts of sin my foolish mind made up.  And thanks to You for saving me from them.  Amen. 

Now will I seek and find the peace of God.

  ACIM Workbook 230

In peace I was created.  And in peace do I remain.  It is not given me to change my Self.  How merciful is God my Father, that when He created me He gave me peace forever.  Now I ask but to be what I am.  And can this be denied me, when it is forever true?

Father, I seek the peace You gave as mine in my creation.  What was given then must be here now, for my creation was apart from time, and still remains beyond all change.  The peace in which Your Son was born into Your Mind is shining there unchanged.  I am as You created me.  I need but call on You to find the peace You gave.  It is Your Will that gave it to Your Son.

But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.  Matthew 6:33

As children of our Creator, forgiveness (letting go of our illusions of guilt) is our only function, and peace/love/oneness (the kingdom of God) is our only goal.  When we commit to peace (or any other of the qualities of God) as our one goal, we open to experiencing all of the qualities of God, all of our inheritance as God’s children.  As we become more rooted in our own inner peace and innocence, our words and actions, even our very presence, extend them into our outer world.  When we no longer see guilt in anyone, there will be no need to seek justice.  We will be just. 

Peace and love to you always,

Carol