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.

The World

Jesus' words from ACIM:

• "The Holy Spirit begins by perceiving you as perfect. Knowing this perfection is shared He recognizes it in others, thus strengthening it in both. Instead of anger this arouses love for both, because it establishes inclusion. Perceiving equality, the Holy Spirit perceives equal needs. This invites Atonement automatically, because Atonement is the one need in this world that is universal. To perceive yourself this way is the only way in which you can find happiness in the world. That is because it is the acknowledgement that you are not in this world, for the world is unhappy.
• How else can you find joy in a joyless place except by realizing that you are not there? "

Before finding A Course in Miracles (a little over a year ago), I tried everything to find happiness. I tried career success and money, relationships, approval of authorities, monastic life, Harley Davidson, positions of trust in organizations, service work and the new age. I've travelled all over the world. My family had a ski cabin and I was an expert skiier by the age of 10. I read books about the art of happiness. I tried it all and always came up short. Finally I quit.

I had decided at the age of 22 that God was the answer. Even though I sought happiness in "things" for another 20 years, I constantly had God and meditation on a parallel path. God and meditation have never ceased to be a significant part of my life; even without the enlightenment experience that causes most people to be interested in God.

Reading the above quote, I am off the hook. About 3 years ago, I disenfranchized and marginalized myself. I quit participating in normal human society. I no longer cared about it. What others were doing seemed fake to me and I couldn't stand it. I ran long distances. Meditated for hours a day. Fasted for up to 19 days. I practiced "lectio divina" for an hour a day. I continue to pray with the ACIM Text twice a day. I didn't do these things as discipline or punishment. I did them because they were what I like to do and what makes sense to me to do. The result of my renuncuation of society was it became possible for me to embrace ACIM. I no longer had to worry about anybody's approval; and, believe me, the teachings of ACIM are not compatible with what most people believe. In the past year, I've read the ACIM Text 3 times.

For awhile, I felt guilty for renouncing society. I was told it was wrong to just walk away and be by myself. Through ACIM, I'm off the guilt hook for participating in human affairs. But I am happily on the hook for finding happiness in the abstract. The Christ Self and The Holy Spirit reside in each of us and all of us. God created each of us and all of us. My only happiness is in practicing this reality. Seeing Christ is the only blessing I have to give. I put my faith in this and not in the world. I am off the hook. I don't have to go out and get anything or win at anything or care about anything. Social programming is nonsense and I am off its hook. This world is an illusion and I do not put my faith in it.

I live in a world where career goals are programmed into us. They don't matter to me. I live in a world where watching TV and over eating are normal. I cannot allow this into my thoughts or energy pattern. You see, it is by walking away from all the social programming that it was possible for me to find something else, ACIM. Now, I stand outside the box. I refuse to go back in. But I have to learn not to hate the box and its contents. This is what Jesus did. He was outside the box and helped other to get outside it.

I just learn the new way of perceiving and practice it. Nothing else matters. In the ordinary sense, I don't "have a life." In the extraordinary sense, I am learning to BE ALIVE!

Your Own Relationship

• What you consider worth cultivating, you will cultivate in yourself.
• Give "it (fill in the blank)" therefore to the Holy Spirit because it does not belong in your mind, which is part of God.

Are you enjoying this blog? A word of caution: you can not know the meaning of a Course in Miracles unless you read it yourself. This little series of sound bites is not understandable by itself.

You can NOT know anything about a Course in Miracles from reading Marianne Williamson.

You can only know by reading it yourself. Read it yourself to find out what Jesus is saying to you, personally. Don't you want to know? Go to the source. Don't rely on the filtered, dumbed down version. Stop and listen to Jesus. Even if you get through only one word; do it. One word may be all you need to hear for this lifetime. One word may be all you need to instantly enter Heaven.

Do it yourself.

Running in a Warm Wind

• Whatever you accept into your mind has reality for you.
• Unnatural thinking will always be attended with guilt.
• Nothing the ego perceives is interpreted correctly.
• Guilt feelings show that you believe you can think apart from God, and want to.
• What you want you expect. What do you want?
• The Atonement is the remedy for disordered thought.
• ...you must learn to think with God.

Today's blog was a waste of time so I erased it.

This morning, at 4 am, I went for a six mile run. It was warm and windy. I am going in a marathon on Labor Day. I am excited.

I have five days off work this weekend. I hope to enjoy the silence.

Peace and Perception

What you perceive is a choice. I can realize that I am mainly perceiving the negative and ask for help with more positive, higher , loving perception. I can go back and re-interpret what I perceived earlier. What ever happened to me today doesn't mean anything until I assign it a meaning.

I can choose to assign peace. Transcendence is that simple.

I have the option of hating today; boy was today a bitch of a day! But why hate? Why assign a hateful meaning? I don't have to assign a meaning. Jesus, as I sit here, I think it is possible that I was walking in a new pair of shoes today which you gave me so I could walk along not assigning meanings. It is possible for me to not assign hateful and fearful ego meanings. I no longer want any ego meanings. Jesus, help me perceive love; something I've always denied before.

Heaven would look on "things" somehow different than I ever have with my ego. I refuse to give today to my ego to make into a hateful resentment. I want Heaven to look through my eyes and see something different. I'm willing to let Heaven be my consciousness. I will step out of the way.

Really

The hate is not real.

Inventory

Words of Jesus from ACIM:

• The Holy Spirit is the idea of healing.
• Being the Call for God, it is also the idea of God.
• It is strengthened by being given away.
• Your brother does not have to be aware of the Holy Spirit in himself or in you for this miracle to occur. He may have dissociated the Call for God, just as you have. This dissociation is healed in both of you as you become aware of the Call for God in him, and thus acknowledge Its being.
• See him through the Holy Spirit in his mind, and you will recognize Him in yours.

I talked with Jesus this morning. I want to see the Holy in my brothers; but I am very aware of how my ego consciousness actually hates them, totally. I am aware that there are hidden areas inside my consciousness where the ego sits with loaded guns, ready to fire away. As I entered meditation, I asked for help with these defensive areas. As I tried to meditate, the list bubbled up. I wrote down many names and things. I would try to stick the knife in several people's backs. I fear my unexpected hair trigger reactions.

Now, this is exactly why I am so enamored with ACIM. It is the only place where I hope to grow and heal out of my defenses. Going to daily Catholic Mass (for several years) didn't do it. The ACIM principles are completely different than standard denominational Christianity. I have help from Jesus and the Holy Spirit. I have Atonement. I have a practice of Christ Vision and forgiveness to use with others.

But, in ACIM physical bodies are illusions and don't matter except as learning devices. So, to practice ACIM, I don't have to join the group. My life will never be devoid of people, so I don't mean totally getting away from others. I just mean that I don't have to join your church or ministry in order to practice. This is a good thing. Almost no church goers are interested in the spiritual life and no ACIM church would be different. In fact, the ideas in ACIM about creation, Jesus, the body, and sin are so radical that hardly anyone wants to accept them. Hardly anyone dedicates themselves to deep studying and practice. So, I don't want to join a church where all these fakers are grouped and in my face.

Obviously, I have more healing to do. Don't think my hate is worse than yours. I've just uncovered my so I can see it.