I don't know why it's been so hard for me to finish Lesson 26. I remember the day well that I started attempting it--election day, November 4. The lesson has you think about what you are afraid might happen, and then say "That thought is an attack upon myself". For me, that would seem like a pretty great day for that lesson. I was nervous about the election results, the economic situation was grave--in short, there was plenty to worry about. But for some reason I just couldn't get through all the 6 practice periods required. I don't even think I made it through 3!
I've tried periodically to start again, and each time I just got derailed, for one reason or another. Things were very busy at work, so that was part of it. But really, all the lesson required was 12 minutes or less of my time in the whole day. It should have been easy. But it was not.
At my last women's circle, we talked about how that could happen. One of the women in my circle, who's had more experience with the Course than the rest of us, said that's happened to her from time to time. She said sometimes she's just skipped, trusting that the lesson would come back around. I just couldn't bring myself to do it, though. Maybe it's just the rule follower that I am, but I felt like I needed to do it right. Just one day. Then I could move on.
Today I think I've broken through, and I'm so glad.
Earlier on, when I was listening to the CDs more regularly, and doing better with the lessons, I had this experience of feeling like I was hearing answers to my questions. I don't know what it was. I felt afraid for some reason to test it or to make too much of it. Maybe it was just a projection of myself, or some wishful thinking. But I had some moments, when I felt so keenly that I just wanted this to work. I wanted to get to the end of the game, I felt the desire so strongly--to end the separation. To come home to God. I remember a couple of occasions when I was just like, "What do I need to do? How do I get there? What will it take?" And quick as a snap, the answer came to me: "Do the workbook." Just like that. After it happened the second time, I stopped asking. I knew that I just had to do this first, that there wasn't going to be any way around it, any shortcut, for me. I just had to do the hard work.
And then I got stalled! Stopped in my tracks. But I have been reading Absence From Felicity, the story of Helen Schucman written by Ken Wapnick, one of her original helpers with the Course and a long-time friend (as well as one of the Course teachers that Arten and Pursah identified as teaching the Course accurately). It's been keeping my head in the game, although I felt like I'd lost my forward momentum.
At any rate, tomorrow I'm off to a new lesson. And the adventure continues.
Monday, December 1, 2008
Sunday, October 26, 2008
My Christian Problem
After I got kicked out of the fundamentalist church close to two decades ago, for being depressed, I was stuck in an odd place. I still was afraid that what they were teaching was true, which left me in a horrible spot, because they taught us that anyone who left the church was leaving God and was "worse than a unbeliever." Twice damned. Yikes!
There were a few things that helped me move on. One was the friendship of a lovely group of people from Honduras and a few other people from the "outside" who helped me make a transition back into some kind of life outside the church. Another was a woman I'd known from college who told me about growing up as a Jehovah's Witness, who said what finally helped her was the thought that if so many people were going to hell, at least she would be in good company. Another was a class I took about Judaism that helped me to see that there is more than one way to look at Christianity. One book we read was called The Christian Problem, and it talked about how Paul based his whole theology of Jesus on a faulty reading of a scripture in Deuteronomy. It surprised me to learn that the Jews didn't even believe in hell. And that the stuff about the Pharisees was likely revisionist history. This class gave me enough ammunition to leave Jesus pretty much behind for a long, long time.
However, as I've said before, that only worked for so long. I felt like there was something fundamental about the premise of the Christian religion that I couldn't quite believe, but thoughts about that Jesus guy just wouldn't go away. At some point I decided that I would consider myself a "fan" of Jesus. And that pretty much worked for me. It left me open to considering the things he said without being troubled too much by dogma. But one of the things about ACIM that has been so powerful for me is the thought that maybe, just maybe, I was right in some respects about Jesus. And that maybe there was a way to look at his teachings that would make sense in my mind.
My central Christian Problem was the idea of sin and punishment. If God was so all-knowing and everything, why would God create a world where he knew most people weren't going to follow him, and hence be doomed to everlasting torment? I mean, I would understand that if God were sadistic and mean and scary, but the Christians also wanted me to believe that God was Love. I just could never get that work for me. I could understand being scared of a scary, creepy God like that. But not feeling love and gratitude. If God created me sinful, and then is going to punish me for my sins, how can that God be loving? I know the arguments, because I've been around the Christian block. How they try to make this work in this logic that says God created us because he didn't want to be alone and it was OK that he did that knowing that most of us were doomed because he was going to have this dude show up in the Middle East 2000 years ago and get tortured and killed and that would make everything OK just as long as we could believe the whole story without much proof. Also, if you were like the people I used to go to church with, you had the extra added burden of thinking that grace would only go so far--I heard one guy say that "You are only as good as your last day on earth," to try to scare us into going out and relentlessly trying to "save" (or, more accurately, recruit) people. I just had a hard time buying that story, although I was afraid it was true for a long time.
What A Course in Miracles has offered to me is a way of integrating what I've discovered into a kind of comprehensive Theory of Everything. Now, I know a lot of Christians probably think that ACIM is of the Devil, telling us what our itching ears want to hear. But I don't think it's that simple. ACIM doesn't let anybody off the hook--far from it. But it also says that mainstream Christians are--let's just say confused. About the nature of Jesus, the nature of reality, the nature of redemption, and the nature of the world. That Jesus came to show us how to overcome the world by understanding its nature, not to offer payment for our sins. And that the only important message of the crucifixion was that Death can hold no power over Life.
I don't mean to pick on Christians in particular. If it's a path that is working for you, and if you aren't using it to hurt others, I don't have a problem with it (and I guess part of this path is learning to forgive you, even if you are using it to hurt others). I only mean to share something of the path that I've traveled in case it might be useful to someone else.
I don't think I'm anywhere close to "there" yet, wherever "there" is. All I know is that I feel a great gratitude to God for his (her/its) faithfulness in bringing me this far. Brings to mind an old Amy Grant song, Look What Has Happened to Me:
Link:
The Christian Problem by Stuart A. Rosenburg, on Amazon.com
There were a few things that helped me move on. One was the friendship of a lovely group of people from Honduras and a few other people from the "outside" who helped me make a transition back into some kind of life outside the church. Another was a woman I'd known from college who told me about growing up as a Jehovah's Witness, who said what finally helped her was the thought that if so many people were going to hell, at least she would be in good company. Another was a class I took about Judaism that helped me to see that there is more than one way to look at Christianity. One book we read was called The Christian Problem, and it talked about how Paul based his whole theology of Jesus on a faulty reading of a scripture in Deuteronomy. It surprised me to learn that the Jews didn't even believe in hell. And that the stuff about the Pharisees was likely revisionist history. This class gave me enough ammunition to leave Jesus pretty much behind for a long, long time.
However, as I've said before, that only worked for so long. I felt like there was something fundamental about the premise of the Christian religion that I couldn't quite believe, but thoughts about that Jesus guy just wouldn't go away. At some point I decided that I would consider myself a "fan" of Jesus. And that pretty much worked for me. It left me open to considering the things he said without being troubled too much by dogma. But one of the things about ACIM that has been so powerful for me is the thought that maybe, just maybe, I was right in some respects about Jesus. And that maybe there was a way to look at his teachings that would make sense in my mind.
My central Christian Problem was the idea of sin and punishment. If God was so all-knowing and everything, why would God create a world where he knew most people weren't going to follow him, and hence be doomed to everlasting torment? I mean, I would understand that if God were sadistic and mean and scary, but the Christians also wanted me to believe that God was Love. I just could never get that work for me. I could understand being scared of a scary, creepy God like that. But not feeling love and gratitude. If God created me sinful, and then is going to punish me for my sins, how can that God be loving? I know the arguments, because I've been around the Christian block. How they try to make this work in this logic that says God created us because he didn't want to be alone and it was OK that he did that knowing that most of us were doomed because he was going to have this dude show up in the Middle East 2000 years ago and get tortured and killed and that would make everything OK just as long as we could believe the whole story without much proof. Also, if you were like the people I used to go to church with, you had the extra added burden of thinking that grace would only go so far--I heard one guy say that "You are only as good as your last day on earth," to try to scare us into going out and relentlessly trying to "save" (or, more accurately, recruit) people. I just had a hard time buying that story, although I was afraid it was true for a long time.
What A Course in Miracles has offered to me is a way of integrating what I've discovered into a kind of comprehensive Theory of Everything. Now, I know a lot of Christians probably think that ACIM is of the Devil, telling us what our itching ears want to hear. But I don't think it's that simple. ACIM doesn't let anybody off the hook--far from it. But it also says that mainstream Christians are--let's just say confused. About the nature of Jesus, the nature of reality, the nature of redemption, and the nature of the world. That Jesus came to show us how to overcome the world by understanding its nature, not to offer payment for our sins. And that the only important message of the crucifixion was that Death can hold no power over Life.
I don't mean to pick on Christians in particular. If it's a path that is working for you, and if you aren't using it to hurt others, I don't have a problem with it (and I guess part of this path is learning to forgive you, even if you are using it to hurt others). I only mean to share something of the path that I've traveled in case it might be useful to someone else.
I don't think I'm anywhere close to "there" yet, wherever "there" is. All I know is that I feel a great gratitude to God for his (her/its) faithfulness in bringing me this far. Brings to mind an old Amy Grant song, Look What Has Happened to Me:
Look what has happened to me,
I find it hard to believe.
His love has taken my life
This far, so far....
Link:
The Christian Problem by Stuart A. Rosenburg, on Amazon.com
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Stumbling down the rabbit hole with The Disappearance of the Universe
In the interest of full disclosure, I thought I'd get this one out of the way. I hadn't been studying the Course too long before I went online to see what people were saying about it. I was just kind of curious–I'd been listening to the CDs that we got from the library and was finding them quite fascinating. So I poked around here and there on several occasions, and kept running into this book called The Disappearance of the Universe, by a guy named Gary Renard. Now this guy had kind of a crazy story, about how in 1992 these two people, two "Ascended Masters" who claimed to have been disciples of Jesus back in the day, just showed up out of nowhere on his couch.
Now, I've read and experienced some things that some people (including probably myself in my earlier days) would think were pretty nutty in the last–let's just say 6 years or so. So while I wasn't sure that I believed this guy, I thought it might be worth checking out. So I found a used copy online and ordered it. And I have to say, I think this book is very much worth a read. I think it did a great job of putting the message of the Course into an easy to understand form. It also offered an explanation for something that had confused me, about the subject of enlightenment. I've spent a goodly amount of time pondering the question of a) what enlightenment is, and b) whether it is a worthy goal, not just in general, but for me. Like, why should I bother trying for something that apparently so few people succeed at?
I've felt this kind of awe for the person of Jesus for a long time, even after the church I was involved with filled me with so much fear that for years after they kicked me out for falling into a depression, I couldn't hear the word "Jesus" without my heart rate and breathing accelerating out of leftover fear. I didn't think too much about him as a miracle worker–more about Jesus as this dude who had many wise things to say about life. But I started thinking more about the reported miracles of Jesus in recent years, and started to wonder if there might really be something to them. And I began to suspect that maybe at least some of those stories weren't just made up. So then, what set apart a person like Jesus from some of the gurus running around claiming they were enlightened? I felt like there was some difference there that was important.
To make a long story short, The Disappearance of the Universe offered an interesting and compelling explanation, by contrasting what they called "non-duality" and "pure non-duality." In the book, they explain that what we think of as enlightenment, "non-duality," is more like a step on the path to true liberation, which comes with true knowing of our unity with God, which the Course says is our real state. The Course says that this life is a dream of separation from God, from which we will one day awaken. The Course bills itself as a way to "save time" (which it says is also part of the illusion) so that we can wake up faster, instead of staying stuck in the dream.
I have now also read Gary Renard's book Your Immortal Reality, and was especially touched by what Pursah, one of the Ascended Masters, said was the true form of her gospel, The Gospel of Thomas.
I think these books are well worth checking out. They are fascinating, and I think they make the Course more accessible.
Link:
The Official Gary Renard Website
Wikipedia article on The Disappearance of the Universe
Now, I've read and experienced some things that some people (including probably myself in my earlier days) would think were pretty nutty in the last–let's just say 6 years or so. So while I wasn't sure that I believed this guy, I thought it might be worth checking out. So I found a used copy online and ordered it. And I have to say, I think this book is very much worth a read. I think it did a great job of putting the message of the Course into an easy to understand form. It also offered an explanation for something that had confused me, about the subject of enlightenment. I've spent a goodly amount of time pondering the question of a) what enlightenment is, and b) whether it is a worthy goal, not just in general, but for me. Like, why should I bother trying for something that apparently so few people succeed at?
I've felt this kind of awe for the person of Jesus for a long time, even after the church I was involved with filled me with so much fear that for years after they kicked me out for falling into a depression, I couldn't hear the word "Jesus" without my heart rate and breathing accelerating out of leftover fear. I didn't think too much about him as a miracle worker–more about Jesus as this dude who had many wise things to say about life. But I started thinking more about the reported miracles of Jesus in recent years, and started to wonder if there might really be something to them. And I began to suspect that maybe at least some of those stories weren't just made up. So then, what set apart a person like Jesus from some of the gurus running around claiming they were enlightened? I felt like there was some difference there that was important.
To make a long story short, The Disappearance of the Universe offered an interesting and compelling explanation, by contrasting what they called "non-duality" and "pure non-duality." In the book, they explain that what we think of as enlightenment, "non-duality," is more like a step on the path to true liberation, which comes with true knowing of our unity with God, which the Course says is our real state. The Course says that this life is a dream of separation from God, from which we will one day awaken. The Course bills itself as a way to "save time" (which it says is also part of the illusion) so that we can wake up faster, instead of staying stuck in the dream.
I have now also read Gary Renard's book Your Immortal Reality, and was especially touched by what Pursah, one of the Ascended Masters, said was the true form of her gospel, The Gospel of Thomas.
I think these books are well worth checking out. They are fascinating, and I think they make the Course more accessible.
Link:
The Official Gary Renard Website
Wikipedia article on The Disappearance of the Universe
Stumbling upon Miracles
My first real exposure to A Course in Miracles came in the late spring or early summer of this year; my women's circle was kind of looking for a direction to go in, and one of the members suggested that we study the Course together. I didn't know much about it, other than it had some association with Marianne Williamson, and my feelings about her were kind of spiky after she'd vehemently lectured us about a spontaneous emotional reaction we'd had to some political gossip at a conference I attended a few years back. That and let's just say some other gossip about her that I heard that didn't really leave me full of warm feelings for her. At any rate, we decided to do it, but I hadn't really done much except look it up online and spend a couple of minutes looking at it. But then at a meeting early in the summer, I was lent a copy of Journey Without Distance, by Robert Skutch, and that really changed my level of interest in the Course.
Journey Without Distance is the story of the scribing of a Course in Miracles, the Helen Schucman, who heard a voice asking her to write something down. This is the introduction to the Course:
After reading this book, I knew I needed to find out more. And, some months later, I wanted to find a way to chronicle my adventures with the Course, which have only just begun.
There is more backstory to fill in, and I will endeavor to do that. But you have to start somewhere, so here I start.
Link:
Official Course in Miracles website
Journey Without Distance is the story of the scribing of a Course in Miracles, the Helen Schucman, who heard a voice asking her to write something down. This is the introduction to the Course:
This is a course in miracles. It is a required course. Only the time you take it is voluntary. Free will does not mean that you can establish the curriculum. It means only that you can elect what you want to take at a given time. The course does not aim at teaching the meaning of love, for that is beyond what can be taught. It does aim, however, at removing the blocks to the awareness of love's presence, which is your natural inheritance. The opposite of love is fear, but what is all-encompassing can have no opposite.
This course can therefore be summed up very simply in this way:
Nothing real can be threatened.
Nothing unreal exists.
Herein lies the peace of God.
After reading this book, I knew I needed to find out more. And, some months later, I wanted to find a way to chronicle my adventures with the Course, which have only just begun.
There is more backstory to fill in, and I will endeavor to do that. But you have to start somewhere, so here I start.
Link:
Official Course in Miracles website
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