Marathon Eve

• This is the way in which you must perceive God's creations, bringing all of your perceptions into the one line the Holy spirit sees. This line is the direct line of communication with God, and lets your mind converge with His.

On March 9, I was running in a park, thinking about running a marathon June 10. Then I tripped and fell on frozen ground and my arm went crunch. I thought that was the end of marathon training for a good while. In the emergency room, I lost it in tears. All my hopes dashed. They gave me morphine. On March 11, I had surgery. On March 27, I had surgery again. March 28. I lay in a hospital bed all day. I couldn't tear toilet paper. Two weeks later, I got the splint off and was put in a brace. I joked to the doctor about going running. He said that would be totally stupid. It hurt too much anyway. 6 weeks later, I got the brace off. I made a Bee-line from the doctor's office to the park and ran a lap.

I am crying right now as I write this. It was so powerful to run again. In June, I ran a half-marathon. In July, I ran a trail 25K. Now here I am in September, really gonna go in a marathon tomorrow.

I picked up my number and got interviewed by a reporter dude from the local paper.

I pray with the Text of ACIM using a technique learned in the Roman Catholic, Benedictine, monastery called lectio divina. Most people use this technique with the bible. I use it with ACIM. You can google it to find out what it is.

It is a way of listening directly to God. It is a way to get beyond words.

This evening, I was praying with the above bulleted text. I don't read commentaries for ACIM because I don't want someone else's impressions to mar the surface of my own listening. Like when I go out on to the beach or into a Zen garden, I don't want to see someone else's footprints in the sand and I certainly don't want to go the same way as everyone else.

The hardest thing is to just listen; letting go of expectations that some voice will come blasting out of nowhere. People read commentaries because they don't think they hear God or understand what God is saying. This is only impatience with the fact that God communicates with non-words and silent joy.