predencia

Let me remember what my purpose is.

If I forget my goal I can but be confused, unsure of what I am, and thus conflicted in my actions. No one can serve contradicting goals and serve them well. Nor can he function without deep distress and great depression. Let us therefore be determined to remember what we want today, that we may unify our thoughts and actions meaningfully, and achieve only what God would have us do this day.

Father, forgiveness is Your chosen means for our salvation. Let us not forget today that we can have no will but Yours. And thus our purpose must be Yours as well, if we would reach the peace You will for us.

Today I also read the teacher’s manual (18) which reminds us that when we are true teachers we allow God to speak through us. I did two coaching sessions today, and on both occasions I felt I was able to move myself out of the way and let God speak. Such interesting words came out of me. It’s a process I trust more and more now, because it always delivers exactly what’s needed, and I don’t have regrets or recriminations about what I should or shouldn’t have said.

I shared the Marianne Williamson ‘It is our light, not our darkness that most terrifies us…’ piece with a friend today. I’m always amazed by the reaction when someone gets it for the first time.

Back to the belly dance practice today, in preparation for rehearsal tomorrow. I am so very rusty!

God is the only goal I have today.

The way to God is through forgiveness here. There is no other way. If sin had not been cherished by the mind, what need would there have been to find the way to where you are? Who would still be uncertain? Who could be unsure of who he is? And who would yet remain asleep, in heavy clouds of doubt about the holiness of him whom God created sinless? Here we can but dream. But we can dream we have forgiven him in whom all sin remains impossible, and it is this we choose to dream today. God is our goal; forgiveness is the means by which our minds return to Him at last.

And so, our Father, would we come to You in Your appointed way. We have no goal except to hear Your Voice, and find the way Your sacred Word has pointed out to us.

I saw forgiveness, and didn’t really take in that the heading of the lesson is that God is my only goal, until about four o’clock. My day wasn’t going according to plan. I was late for a meeting, and had then stayed too long at the meeting. I stopped to buy a piece of chicken and a dumpling (what should have been a five minute job), and ended up waiting for nearly twenty minutes. I ate while driving, not the most effective way to good digestion.

It was when I got home, feeling a little frazzled, that I looked again at the lesson. It was amazing how just being reminded that God was my only goal today, put everything else I was rushing to complete into perspective. Everything was being done in divine order, in divine timing, for my greatest learning and growth. This reminder brought instant peace.

I took some pictures today for publicising Caribbean Juices on the 13^th of October at the Harriet Tubman Bookshop and Development Centre, at 27 Grove Lane in Handsworth.

Due to the absence of our group leader tonight, (it’s her birthday), we watched the film Phenomenon with John Travolta. I saw in his character’s experiences something akin to what ACIM says may happen to us if we are exposed to truth instantly, instead of via the step-by-step approach of the course. There was an indication of what it would be like to be limitless, and how those around us would respond, because they are not yet aware that they too are limitless. I guess the ending is inevitable, given our current state of consciousness.

This day I choose to spend in perfect peace

It does not seem to me that I can choose to have but peace today. And yet, my God assures me that His Son is like Himself. Let me this day have faith in Him Who says I am God’s Son. And let the peace I choose be mine today bear witness to the truth of what He says. God’s Son can have no cares, and must remain forever in the peace of Heaven. In His Name, I give today to finding what my Father wills for me, accepting it as mine, and giving it all my Father’s Sons, along with me.

And so, my Father, would I pass this day with You. Your Son has not forgotten You. The peace you gave him still is in his mind, and it is there I choose to spend today.

After the head mash about fairness yesterday, it was good to be reminded that I can choose perfect peace whenever I want. It was physically and mentally a much more restful day, though the reflections about fairness still run like an undercurrent through my mind. I’m checking my thoughts and actions for signs of ‘specialness’ and expectations based on fairness. It’s amazing how frequently they pop up. Even as I’m writing this, one just flashed through my head.  Now I’ve been made aware of it, I’ll have to attend to those thought forms that would keep me from perfect peace.

A long soak in the spa at the gym helped with creating the perfect physical host for mental peace. I’m going back to belly dance for the first time in nine months, in preparation for my performance on October 9^th. I just hope the joints are still up to it.

Let every voice but God’s be still in me.

Father, today I would but hear Your Voice. In deepest silence I would come to You, to hear Your Voice and to receive Your Word. I have no prayer but this; I come to You to ask for the truth. And truth is but Your will, which I would share with You today.

Today we let no ego thoughts direct our words or actions. When such thoughts occur, we quietly step back and look at them, and them we let them go. We do not want what they would bring with them. And so we do not choose to keep them. They are silent now. And in the stillness, hallowed by His Love, God speaks to us and tells us of our will, as we have chosen to remember Him.

In the silence I created today to listen to God’s voice, I did a lot of reflecting. I read the course text (page 451) on Faith, Belief and Vision, and was hit with what felt like a Bazooka as one of the corner stones of my beliefs was shaken to its core. It was the way in which we use ‘fairness’.

All special relationships have sin as their goal. For they are bargains with reality, toward which the seeming union is adjusted. Forget not this; to bargain is to set a limit, and any brother with whom you have a limited relationship, you hate. You may attempt to keep the bargain in the name of ‘fairness’, sometimes demanding payment of yourself, perhaps more often of the other. Thus in the ‘fairness’ you attempt to ease the guilt that comes from the accepted purpose of the relationship. And that is why the Holy Spirit must change its purpose and make it useful to Him and harmless to you.

I have always prided myself on being ‘fair,’ and have a measure of fairness, which has generally worked for me. Its one of the adjectives people use about me, ‘Predencia’s fair’ the children I used to work with used to say. It was a standard I held high. Now here I am being told that it’s an expression of hate, that its merely a way of keeping score and demanding payment to ease guilt.

I don’t mind admitting that I was rocked, and read the whole section to find some solace, some mitigating exclusions when my fairness would be acceptable. And yet, looking deep inside, I had to admit that I have kept score. When I’ve done so much, I expect something back. Here’s the irony, not from strangers, but from those closest to me, from the special relationships. It was so distressing; I had to hand over all my special relationships to the Holy Spirit, in case I descended into self-flagellation.

Many small opportunities came up today for me to reflect on my issues of ‘fairness’ Its one part of the course I would have liked to slide by, but as I’ve decided to accept it in its entirety there is nowhere to hide from this. I need a miracle here, for this one goes deep.

My Self is ruler of the universe

It is impossible that anything should come to me unbidden by myself. Even in the world, it is I who role my destiny. What happens is what I desire. What does not occur is what I do not want to happen. This must I accept. For thus I am led past this world to my creations, children of my will, in Heaven where my holy Self abides with them and Him Who has created me.

You are the Self Whom You created Son, creating like Yourself and One with You. My Self which rules the universe, is but your Will in perfect union with my own, which can but offer glad assent to Yours, and it may be extended to Itself.

I decided after reading this lesson that I was going to have a good day. Its not often I get a chance to have an in depth discussion with someone about the lesson. It’s actually quite hard to explain this concept even when you’ve not come through the process of the course. It is still the one I find most challenging.

I spent a lot of time trying to work out how to use my new phone. For a while I lost contact with the world via my phone. Still don’t know how to send texts, but I can make and receive calls. It feels like one step forward two steps back…a bit like the course feels sometimes.

All in all, I had a good day, as I planned.

I am in need of nothing but the truth.

I sought for many things, and found despair. Now do I seek but one, for in that one is all I need. All that I sought before I needed not, and did not even want. My only need I did not recognise. But now I see that I need only truth. In that all needs are satisfied, all cravings end, all hopes are finally fulfilled and dreams are gone. Now have I everything that I could need. Now have I everything that I could want. And now at last I find myself at peace.

And for that peace, our Father, we give thanks. What we denied ourselves You have restored, and only that is what we really want.

After a very late night I was happy to have brunch with my friend at Oddballs in Chorlton, scrambled eggs, smoked salmon and hash browns, washed down by a large pot to Earl Grey tea, in the sparkling sunshine. Some days are just built for bliss. And to top it all off, the drive home was a dream. Is this peace? Is this what I’ve been searching for. Today I found it. Determined to make it last.