predencia

‘There is no cruelty in God and none in me.’

No one attacks without intent to hurt. This can have no exception. When you think that you attack in self-defence, you mean that to be cruel is protection; you are safe because of cruelty. You mean that you believe to hurt another brings you freedom. And you mean that to attack is to exchange the state in which you are for something better, safer, more secure from dangerous invasion and from fear.

How thoroughly insane is the idea that to defend from fear is to attack! For here is fear begot and fed with blood, to make it grow and swell with rage. And thus is fear protected, not escaped. Today we learn a lesson which can save you more delay and needless misery than you can possibly imagine. It is this:

You make what you defend against, and by your own defence against it is it real and inescapable. Lay down your arms, and only then do you perceive it false.

It seems to be the enemy without that you attack. Yet your defence sets up an enemy within; an alien thought at war with you, depriving you of peace, splitting your mind into two camps which seem wholly irreconcilable. For love now has an ‘enemy’, an opposite, and fear, the alien, now needs your defence against the treat of what you really are.

Funny how suddenly I get this one, after three days of struggle. I’m not saying it’s without challenge, but at least I get it. It’s back to seeing others as a part of me, and therefore if I attack them I must also be attacking myself. Like going around punching myself in the face, calling myself names, thinking unkind thoughts of others. Staying in the energy of love and holding back from attack still requires daily effort.

Despite a very early morning (awake at 5 a.m.to get to the airport) and a restless flight (on account of the wailing baby in the seat in front), I am feeling calmer. And I did not wish the baby (or its parents) ill, did not fume and wish them gone, but sent them love and remembered the times when I travelled with young children.

This is my third visit to Gran Canaria and I’m always taken aback by the stark landscape, the lack of greenery. I always expect it to look like theCaribbeanislands. EvenAntiguawhich used to be a little on the arid side is not lush and green, thanks to the volcanic ash fromMontserratover the past fifteen years.

As I strolled through the restaurant complex at AmadorresBeachone of the proprietors tried to encourage us into his restaurant. When I said, ‘not now, maybe later,’ he burst into the song ‘it’s now or never.’ Much to his surprise and delight I joined in with ‘come hold me tight, kiss me my darling.’ And we finished the song together, to bemused looks from the afternoon diners. On the way back be broke into ‘ebony and ivory’ and I duly joined him again, this time to applause from onlookers. He said I was a very ‘nice lady’ and I returned the compliment. It wouldn’t happen inBirmingham, would it?

‘By grace I live. By grace I am released.’

Grace is an aspect of the Love of God which is most like the state prevailing in the unity of truth. It is the world’s most lofty aspiration, for it leads beyond the world entirely. It is past learning, yet the goal of learning, for grace cannot come until the mind prepares itself for true acceptance.

Grace is acceptance of the Love of God within a world of seeming hate and fear. By grace alone the hate and fear are gone, for grace presents a state so opposite to everything the world contains, that those whose minds are lighted by the gift of grace can not believe the world of fear is real.

Forgiveness is the central theme that runs throughout salvation, holding all its parts in meaningful relationships. And now we ask for grace, the final gift salvation can bestow.

By grace I live. By grace I am released. By grace I give. By grace I will release.

Although I read the lesson twice I still can’t get my head around what grace is. I was too busy packing and running around doing last minute things to really reflect fully on the lesson. Usually I’d have looked up the meaning of grace and tried to make some sense of it that way, but I allowed time pressures to get in the way. So manic was the day that I turned up for a meeting at the wrong venue.

I feel very scrambled, and have done for the last few days. Hopefully a week away will help me to regain some semblance of calm. In the meantime I repeat the affirmations and trust they are working subconsciously.

‘Your grace is given me. I claim it now.’

God speaks to us. Shall we not speak to Him. He is not distant. He makes no attempt to hide from us. We try to hide from Him, and suffer from deception. He remains entirely accessible. He loves His Son. There is no certainty but this, yet this suffices. He will love His Son forever. When his mind remains asleep, He loves him still. And when his mind awakes, He loves him with a never-changing Love.

Today we ask of god the gifts 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. His gift of grace is more than just an answer. It restores all memories the sleeping mind forgot; all certainty now what Love’s meaning is.

God loves his Son. 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. To Him we pray today, returning but the word he gave 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.

It’s father’s day. There were many different experience of the day that I heard about from the fathers I know and contacted to wish a happy day. One was spending it on his own as he doesn’t believe in what he calls this ‘fabricated commercialised day designed to part people from their money in restaurants and gift shops’, another was going to his mother’s house for dinner as all his children lived in other cities, one was out for a meal in a restaurant with three of his five children, one was at home with his wife and three children, one was giving his five year old son a bath.

Is it a day designed to fleece people of their hard earned cash, to provide more opportunities to purchase mugs, socks and garden tools, or a time to appreciate the contributions fathers have made to our lives?

It’s also a time to remember those fathers who are no longer with us physically, and to maybe say a silent thank you to them for the way they helped to shape our lives. I didn’t appreciate the things my father did to make me strong until he was gone. I thanked him for those things today.

I hope you enjoyed your day, however you spent it.

‘There is one life, and that I share with God.’

There are no different kinds of life, for life is like the truth. It does not have degrees. It is the one condition in which all that God created share. Like all His Thoughts, it has no opposite. There is no death because what God created shares His life. There is no death because an opposite to God does not exist. There is no death because the Father and the Son are one.

You think that death is of the body. Yet it is but an idea, irrelevant to what is seem as physical. Death is the thought that you are separate from your Creator. Death cannot come from life. Ideas remain united to their source. We share one life because we have one Source, a Source from which perfection comes to us, remaining always in the holy minds which He created perfect.

I took part in the Writers Without Borders performance at the MAC as part of Refugee Week today. Although there were quite a few references to death, majority of the pieces were on making life better for refugees. My piece, although called Refugee, was actually a poem about leaving a violent marriage and being brave enough to venture into another more loving one. There were some very moving pieces and I was particularly moved and humbled when a member of the audience approached me at the end, gave me a hug, burst into tears and thanked me for telling her story. There are so many similarities between us, souls on this journey through life.

‘I am entrusted with the gifts of God.’

All things are given you. God’s trust in you is limitless. He knows his son. He gives without exception, holding nothing back that can contribute to your happiness. And yet, unless you will is one with His, His gifts are not received. But what would make you think there is another will than his?

God’s will does not oppose. It merely is. The gifts are yours, entrusted to your care, to give to all who chose the lonely road you have escaped. You are entrusted with the world’s release from pain. Betray it not. Become the living proof of what Christ’s touch can offer everyone. God has entrusted all his gifts to you. He has shared his joy with you. And now you go and share it with the world.

It’s the middle of June today and the weather is decidedly autumnal, with bucket loads of rain. I’m trying hard to hold on to the belief that all things are given me, because I definitely had feelings of lack, especially lack of love. How can that be? How does that sneak up on me and make me so fearful? If there is perceived lack, I only need to see things differently, to look through different eyes. But for some reason I could not do it without some help today. I am so very grateful for my girlfriends

‘Let not my mind deny the Thoughts of God.’

What makes the world seem real except your own denial of the truth that lies beyond? What but your thoughts of misery and death obscure the perfect happiness and the eternal life your father will for you?

Deny not heaven. It is yours today, but for the asking. Ask to receive, and it is given you. Ask with desire. Abundance dwells in him and deprivation cannot cut him off.

Practice today in hope. For hope indeed is justified. Your doubts are meaningless for God is certain. This course removes all doubts which you have interposed between him and your certainty of him.

This is the lesson we read all the way though at the support group tonight. All I kept thinking of was where Ester and Gerry Hicks got the title of their book Ask and it is Given from. (see bold quote above). I was way too tired to participate in any meaningful way, and only at the end when we read out to the group the cards we’d picked from the box, did I mention my week of reading David’s Icke’s book. Both my cards had reference to knowledge in different forms. Interestingly some people had never heard of him and those who had giggled or rolled their eyes, even though only one person had read anything he’s written. I guess his interviews must have been off putting enough. But when I mentioned that there were huge similarities between his work and ACIM there was a quiet scepticism and that look some people give you when they’re thinking ‘poor misguided fool.’

I’ve been unable to face the editing of Betrayed and have done no writing on the new novel for the week so far. I did, however bank a small cheque received in dollars fromBarbados. Every little helps.

‘Now are we one with Him Who is our Source.’

What time but now can truth be recognised? The present is the only time there is. And so today, this instant, now, we come to look upon what is forever there; not in our sight but in the eyes of Christ. He look past time, and sees eternity as represented there. He hears the sounds the senseless, busy world engenders, yet he hears them faintly. For beyond them all he hears the song of Heaven, and the Voice of God more clear, more meaningful, more near.

There is a silence into which the world can not intrude. There is an ancient peace you carry in your heart and have not lost. There is a sense of holiness in you the thought of sin has never touched. All this today you will remember. Faithfulness in practicing today will bring rewards so great and so completely different from all things you sought before, that you will know that here your treasure is, and here your rest.

Let not today slip by without the gifts it holds for you receiving your consent and your acceptance. We can change the world if we acknowledge them.

The only real bit of silence I got today was the hour or so on the massage table receiving reflexology and massage. There’s always a point in the treatment when the therapist presses the area of my feet representing my solar plexus and I’m instantly calmed, like a Mr Spock from Star Trek touch. So calming as well as revitalising was the treatment that I’ve booked an hour and a half for next time.

I didn’t really contemplate the lesson much throughout the day as it (the day) began with a run in the park and some resistance training at home, followed by lunch with a friend before heading for the massage. A long phone conversation and another visit by a friend took up the time till I was due to go to my Ceroc class. All that was left them was to go to bed.

I trust that my higher self had ample opportunity to practice today’s lesson.

‘There is no death. The Son of God is free.’

Death is a thought that takes on many forms, often unrecognised. It may appear as sadness, fear, anxiety or doubt; as anger, faithlessness and lack of trust; concern for bodies, envy, and all forms in which the wish to be as you are not may come to tempt you. All such thoughts are but reflections of the worshipping of death as saviour and giver of release.

All things but death are seen to be unsure, too quickly lost however hard to gain. For it will come with certain footsteps when the time has come for its arrival. It will never fail to take all life as hostage to itself.

Would you bow down to idols such as this? The idea of the death of God is so preposterous that even the insane have difficulty believing in it. For it implies that God was once alive and somehow perished; killed apparently by those who did not want him to survive.

God made not death. Whatever form it takes must therefore be illusion. This is the stand we take today; we look past death, and see the life beyond.

For some reason I woke up full of doubt about a family member keeping a promise. It was my intention to send an email expressing my concern. The idea that thoughts of death can take the form of doubt was like a slap across the face, and there I was thinking I don’t believe in death. I read the lesson, reflected on it and sent the email anyway. It been a very heavy day, don’t know how else to describe it. I did very little. Even the order for four copies of Dare to Love from Birmingham Central Library only produced a momentary lift to my spirits. I hope tomorrow is better.

‘I am as God created me.’

This single thought, held firmly in the mind, would save the world. From time to time we will repeat it. It will mean far more to you as you advance. These words are sacred for they are the words God gave in answer to the world you made. There are no dreams these words will not dispel; no thought of sin and illusion which the dream contains that will not fade away before their might. They are the trumpets of awakening that sounds around the world. The dead awaken in answer to its call. And those who hear and heed this will never look on death.

We honour you today. Yours is the right to perfect happiness you now accept. Who could despair when perfect joy is yours, available to all as remedy for grief and misery, all sense of loss, and for complete escape from sin and guilt?

You are as God created you. These words dispel the night and darkness is no more.

Yes, these words have more meaning at this stage in the course than they did when I first encountered them. I dipped into both David Icke’s book and into Bruce Lipton’s The Biology of Belief today, and was staggered by how much synchronicity there is between them. They’re all screaming at me ‘you are amazing, you are so much more than the physical body, if only you would remember who you are and trust your intuition you could achieve astonishing things.’ And although I listened, my one major achievement for today was learning how to use Wondershare to make albums with my photos from theCaribbean. I was amazed with the results of a few hours, and was eager to share it with the world – especially as I used one of my son’s songs as a backing track. But there my amazingness ended, as I couldn’t upload it to YOUTUBE!!! I’ll try again tomorrow when my head’s a little more clear.

I think the time has come to focus on editing Betrayed, as the proofread script was returned to me today!! Tons of red marks, but nowhere near as many as Dare to Love. The new book’s going on hold for a while. I’d like to get Betrayed done and dusted by the end of this month.

Pics are some used in the Wondershare album, that I can’t share with you yet. 🙂