We have all experienced times when we feel worried, anxious, afraid. It may be about something we think may happen in a few minutes or hours or days. Or it may be about something we don’t have a timeframe for, like an earthquake or a terrorist attack. It might be something we feel there is no way to avoid, or it may be something we rationally know should never happen, but could.
The Philosophy of A Course in Miracles
Monday, March 7, 2016
Thursday, December 18, 2014
New Book Release - Practicing Forgiveness
I have just released a new book called Practicing Forgiveness. It's available at Amazon and all other ebook retailers and in print. Here is the description,
“To err is human; to forgive, divine.” Though it may be
divine, forgiveness is seldom easy. When we look out into the world, our first
reaction is often anger and resentment toward those we believe are guilty. Even
when given time to understand the facts better, it seems almost impossible to
release all this anger and resentment. Wouldn’t we be letting the guilty get
away with something?
Saturday, November 8, 2014
Finding the Holy Spirit
One of the implications of the idea of separation is the
illusion of a split mind. We believe, imagine, dream that there is a part of
our mind that is separate from God. This part is the ego, and as we live in
this imagined world, we listen to the ego as we make our day-to-day decisions.
We believe the ego has our best interest at heart, and we believe that without
the ego, we would not be able to survive in this world.
Saturday, September 6, 2014
The Four Aspects of God
As we look out on our familiar everyday world, God can seem
to be a little hazy at times, like a far off distant memory or a vague image of
a possible future. There doesn’t appear to be much of God in this world we
believe is our home. Though we hear of others who say they have experienced God
directly, most of us rarely, if ever, have this experience. What should we
think of this God that seems so far away from our everyday life?
Thursday, July 3, 2014
Loving Everyone
How does one go about loving everyone?
In most cases it seems as if we must force ourselves somehow to express this
love. We need to repress all the anger and fear and guilt we feel toward
others, and then turn love on when the occasion arises. It’s a small wonder
that people have to work so hard at this. We tend to view the ones who really
seem able to completely express this selfless love as saints or great people,
not like us ordinary people who must struggle with it.
Wednesday, April 30, 2014
Why Did God Put Us Here?
For most of us, life seems to
follow a simple trajectory. We were born some years ago, an event we don’t
remember very well. We inhabit a body through which we interact with the world,
a world of other bodies all living within the confines of this planet earth. At
some time off in the future, at a time unknown to us, we are fairly sure we are
going to die. What happened to us before we were born and what happens after we
die are both a bit hazy. What purpose there is to all of this is hazy as well.
Lost in this haziness, we ask, Where can we find answers to our purpose on this
earth?
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
The Ego and the Monkey Mind
(This essay is an excerpt from my new book, Miraculous Ideas: Thoughts on A Course in Miracles, which contains expanded versions of
some of these blog essays, as well as several new essays, in a convenient book
format.)
The ‘monkey mind’ is a popular term that refers to the
seemingly endless monologues going on inside our heads. It’s called the monkey
mind, because like the activity of a monkey jumping from one thing to another,
our thoughts seem to randomly jump around no matter how much we try to
concentrate and control them.
Tuesday, December 24, 2013
Justifiable Anger
You’re walking down a quiet
street minding your own business when someone jumps out in front of you, points
a gun at you, and demands all your valuables. You give up your ring, your
phone and your wallet, and the robber takes off. Your first emotion is one of
raw fear at the sight of a gun pointed at you. Once that begins to subside,
there’s a sense of relief that it was only objects that you lost. But finally
there's a feeling of deep anger at the audacity of this person to do that to you.
You know you are completely justified in this anger.
Thursday, November 21, 2013
Can We Really Be Guiltless?
When we look at the world
outside our eyes, we see guilt in every direction. We see those who are guilty
of inflicting pain on us and those who inflict pain on others. We know some
people are more guilty than others. We identify with the ones we perceive as
the victims in the world, and feel triumph when the guilty are finally
punished.
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
It Used to Be Nice to Feel Special
As a young child, I remember
times when my Mom or Grandma would come up to me and give me a big hug, and
say, “You’re really special.” It felt great being special. Later in elementary
school, I received some awards for ‘special achievement’. These were for doing
something above and beyond what was expected. I was very proud of those awards
as were my parents.
Friday, August 30, 2013
There Is Only One Mind - And Only One Ego
It is fundamental in the Course
that God is Pure Oneness and God is Mind and only Mind. Any thoughts of duality
or of any kind of reality outside of God is an illusion, a wayward thought. It
is through the idea of separation that we have become enmeshed in what seems to
be a haphazard, sometimes insane reality. And it is the ego that keeps the
separation illusion going.
Monday, July 1, 2013
Nothing Is Unforgivable
There are some things in the
world that are just too terrible. Things that make us cringe and feel sick.
Things that fill us with anger and maybe even hatred. Sometimes we hear about
them from the news and sometimes they are very personal. When it’s personal, we
may want to hide it so no one knows about it. It’s just too terrible.
Friday, May 31, 2013
Original Guilt and Original Fear
There is a concept in Christianity
called original sin. The idea varies depending on what branch of the faith you
belong to, but in essence it says that Adam and Eve sinned by disobeying God in
the Garden of Eden, and that sin is passed down to one’s offspring so everyone
enters the world already in a state of sin, the original sin.
Sunday, March 17, 2013
New Book Release! - The End of Guilt
I have just released a new book, The End of Guilt: Realizing Your Innocence through A Course in Miracles. It’s available at Amazon and other major retailers.
“The End of Guilt is a very well-written, thorough treatment of one of the most important concepts in A Course in Miracles. The end of guilt opens the doors of Heaven.” - Jon Mundy
Here is the description,
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
Getting What You Deserve
What do we deserve? We often
talk about people deserving what they get in life, which can be seen either
positively or negatively. We believe that someone who behaves a certain way and
follows certain rules deserves to be rewarded. We believe someone who hurts
others and goes against those rules deserves to be punished. In either case
there is a sense that we should receive something, positive or negative, based
on what we do and how we behave.
Sunday, December 16, 2012
On the Death of Children
Somewhere in the world, children
die every day. It may be through illnesses like dysentery, cancer or a failed
heart. It may be from the conflicts of men in Syria, the Congo, or on the
streets of an American city. It may simply come from an everyday accident like
the intersection of a car and a bicycle or a pedestrian. Somewhere a child dies
every day.
Or so it seems.
Monday, December 3, 2012
"He's A God-Fearin' Man"
Growing up in West Virginia in the
heart of America’s Bible Belt, I frequently heard statements like “He’s a
God-fearin’ man” and “That’ll put the fear of God in him”. Though my upbringing
was middle-class and my church was middle-of-the-road Protestant, most of the
kids I went to school with and people on the local TV shows we watched used
such phrases when talking about their fundamental religion.
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Looking for Love
At its core, A Course in
Miracles is about love. It’s about a state of peace where all you feel is
love toward everything and everyone, and all you see in the eyes around you are
feelings of love. One of the things that draws so many people to the Course is
this message of love and that this love is our essence and our right and our
destiny.
Saturday, September 29, 2012
A Course in Miracles and the Borg
Ok, for all you Trekkies and former Trekkies out there, I
know you’ve been looking for that fundamental link between A Course in Miracles
and the voyage of the Starship Enterprise. At long last I believe I’ve found it
in, of all places, the Borg. I know, I know, the Borg seems to be the true
opposite of anything spiritual, but give me a minute to explain.
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
The Practice of Forgiveness
“Practice?!” To most of us, the word
practice elicits thoughts of drudgery and repetition, images from childhood of
sitting for hours practicing scales on the piano, or standing at the foul line
shooting hundreds of free throws, or yet one more pliƩ at the ballet barre. We
are taught that through practice we’ll get better at something, and once we’re
good at it, it will ultimately be fun and rewarding.
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