I saw this template and just thought it was lovely. Don't like how it displays the post time, but I suppose beggars can't be too picky. If you hover, it tells you the whole date and time. I don't know if anyone cares about that but me, so I think I can live with it.
Switching templates meant a lot of rework. So some things that were here aren't here anymore. We'll see if I miss them.
It's been more than a year since I started this adventure. It's been an interesting ride.
Sometimes now I feel kind of like a stranger in a strange land, but I find that I don't mind too much.
I still get tired and cranky sometimes, and sometimes I have even been known to yell. But I don't tend to beat myself up about it too much. That feels like progress, even though of course I'd rather be, as Bridget Jones said, a "perfect saint-style person." (Of course, I think she was mostly referring to laying off the booze, or the cigarettes, or perhaps it was the calories?) But that's all part of wanting to carve up the world into good and bad, right and wrong. It's perfectly natural to do—to not do it is downright weird. But oddly liberating when you have some success.
The instructions for this week of lessons had an interesting departure from the ones that have come before: to not judge my failure to follow the recommendations perfectly, and to not let that derail me (as has been the norm—I try, I "fail", I try again the next day, or the next week, and next thing you know more than a year has gone by and you are still on Lesson 97).
Spirit am I, a holy Son of God, free of all limits, safe and healed and whole, free to forgive, and free to save the world.
That was today. I could have done better. But I have to trust it was enough for this day. That is my lesson to learn.
Friday, December 11, 2009
Sunday, October 25, 2009
On Church and Forgiveness
I've been struggling with an issue for some time, which is whether to join a church, and what church, and in what capacity.
After my departure from the fundamentalist, very controlling church of my early adulthood, I spent the next few years not really knowing what to do with that experience, and for the most part just trying not to think about it too much. Sometime in the mid 90's I read the transcript from an interview with the (now recently deceased) Forrest Church in Bill Moyer's World of Ideas. I'd known about the Unitarians because I had some in my family, but as a Christian I had mostly written them off as hopeless heretics. But this interview made me reconsider what I'd thought. He talked about how none of us really knew the whole truth; that the truth was like a light that we could only glimpse through a window, and the constitution of the window to a large degree determined what we thought we saw. He said that we shouldn't shirk the search for truth, but that we should always have some humility—that we should not believe that we had the Truth. Having experienced a group that very much believed it was privy to the truth and that people had to accept their version of the Truth or else, I thought this was a very appealing idea.
So I started attending a Unitarian church. I found the minister a little over-intellectual, but at least I was pretty safe there from hearing about Jesus, whose name at that time would cause my heart rate to soar and my breathing to accelerate. For some reason I could hear the word "God" without much of a reaction, but Jesus—that was a loaded word, a word I just couldn't deal with at the time.
After a number of years, a different church, various experiences, and much reflection, I was able to get to a place where I could hear that word without reacting, and I realized that I really didn't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, as they say. There was a lot that I appreciated about Jesus, and I didn't want to lose that.
I became more involved in a local UU church, and for the most part I was happy there. But then a series of events started to unfold which caused me to question whether it was the right place for me to be. My mind started to open to possibilities that I'd never really considered. I started to feel like the Unitarians, for all they said about being open minded, were only open to a certain range of ideas. Namely, things that could be definitively proven in a laboratory, things like that. I began to feel like that was too narrow a range for me.
So I went off in search of something else. Try as I might, I couldn't bring myself to go back to a Christian church, no matter how liberal their theology. For a while I went to a Science of Mind church. I liked many things about them. Their music was great. The minister was entertaining and smart. But in the end, I found the perspective there too narrow and too focused on manipulating the universe, à la "The Secret." Somehow my religious ideal fell more along the lines of a Gandhi or even a Mother Theresa than someone who was going to teach me how to manifest some car or something.
Still, I kind of missed being part of a church. When I found myself in a new community this summer, I started to think more about it. And as it happened, a number of people I work with are UUs. So I decided to give it another go, but not without some trepidation. Would they accept me? Would they think that I am a nut case? Would I have to conceal who I am and where my spiritual path has taken me?
So, to make a short story long, this is the background for my story.
Today's lesson was Lesson 83. My only function is the one God gave me.
As I was contemplating these questions and this lesson on the way to church this morning, I had an insight, that went something like this:
It does not matter if they accept you. It does not matter whether you agree with them, or they with you. It does not matter. If they trigger emotions for you by their failure to perfectly match up with what you wish they were, then it will show you the work you need to do in your own heart. If they trigger thoughts about how they are not measuring up to their own priciples, it is a forgiveness opportunity, and an opportunity for you to be the light of the world. Not in a holier than thou way, but in a way that says "You are not who you think you are, and I share the peace of God with you," without ever saying a word out loud.
So this is what I was thinking as I walked into church, and I felt a great feeling of peace. We sang "All God's Critters," and it undid me. Big tears, all over my cheeks. And then we sang "Bring Many Names," and it continued to cause all these wild tears to overflow. My neighbor took pity on me and gave me a napkin.
Now, I didn't manage to make it through the sermon without a number of thoughts about how I wished that it had been different here and there, and how it fell short of what I felt it could have been (it was about reclaiming words that have hurt us, like "God"—something that I feel like the Course has helped me to do in ways that I really feel are nothing short of miraculous). But when I had those thoughts I was able to recognize them for what they were and laugh a little to myself.
I have only one function, and that is forgiveness, and that function is my happiness. That was the lesson for today.
I don't think I've learned it perfectly yet. But I felt like this was a big step for me. I've had thoughts about how I "should" be able to regard the Unitarians since I started studying the Course. But today I was able to practice something that up to now has only been a thought of what might be good, if I could manage it. Today I felt like I took a little step closer to being able to do that in reality. And for that I feel very grateful.
After my departure from the fundamentalist, very controlling church of my early adulthood, I spent the next few years not really knowing what to do with that experience, and for the most part just trying not to think about it too much. Sometime in the mid 90's I read the transcript from an interview with the (now recently deceased) Forrest Church in Bill Moyer's World of Ideas. I'd known about the Unitarians because I had some in my family, but as a Christian I had mostly written them off as hopeless heretics. But this interview made me reconsider what I'd thought. He talked about how none of us really knew the whole truth; that the truth was like a light that we could only glimpse through a window, and the constitution of the window to a large degree determined what we thought we saw. He said that we shouldn't shirk the search for truth, but that we should always have some humility—that we should not believe that we had the Truth. Having experienced a group that very much believed it was privy to the truth and that people had to accept their version of the Truth or else, I thought this was a very appealing idea.
So I started attending a Unitarian church. I found the minister a little over-intellectual, but at least I was pretty safe there from hearing about Jesus, whose name at that time would cause my heart rate to soar and my breathing to accelerate. For some reason I could hear the word "God" without much of a reaction, but Jesus—that was a loaded word, a word I just couldn't deal with at the time.
After a number of years, a different church, various experiences, and much reflection, I was able to get to a place where I could hear that word without reacting, and I realized that I really didn't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, as they say. There was a lot that I appreciated about Jesus, and I didn't want to lose that.
I became more involved in a local UU church, and for the most part I was happy there. But then a series of events started to unfold which caused me to question whether it was the right place for me to be. My mind started to open to possibilities that I'd never really considered. I started to feel like the Unitarians, for all they said about being open minded, were only open to a certain range of ideas. Namely, things that could be definitively proven in a laboratory, things like that. I began to feel like that was too narrow a range for me.
So I went off in search of something else. Try as I might, I couldn't bring myself to go back to a Christian church, no matter how liberal their theology. For a while I went to a Science of Mind church. I liked many things about them. Their music was great. The minister was entertaining and smart. But in the end, I found the perspective there too narrow and too focused on manipulating the universe, à la "The Secret." Somehow my religious ideal fell more along the lines of a Gandhi or even a Mother Theresa than someone who was going to teach me how to manifest some car or something.
Still, I kind of missed being part of a church. When I found myself in a new community this summer, I started to think more about it. And as it happened, a number of people I work with are UUs. So I decided to give it another go, but not without some trepidation. Would they accept me? Would they think that I am a nut case? Would I have to conceal who I am and where my spiritual path has taken me?
So, to make a short story long, this is the background for my story.
Today's lesson was Lesson 83. My only function is the one God gave me.
As I was contemplating these questions and this lesson on the way to church this morning, I had an insight, that went something like this:
It does not matter if they accept you. It does not matter whether you agree with them, or they with you. It does not matter. If they trigger emotions for you by their failure to perfectly match up with what you wish they were, then it will show you the work you need to do in your own heart. If they trigger thoughts about how they are not measuring up to their own priciples, it is a forgiveness opportunity, and an opportunity for you to be the light of the world. Not in a holier than thou way, but in a way that says "You are not who you think you are, and I share the peace of God with you," without ever saying a word out loud.
So this is what I was thinking as I walked into church, and I felt a great feeling of peace. We sang "All God's Critters," and it undid me. Big tears, all over my cheeks. And then we sang "Bring Many Names," and it continued to cause all these wild tears to overflow. My neighbor took pity on me and gave me a napkin.
Now, I didn't manage to make it through the sermon without a number of thoughts about how I wished that it had been different here and there, and how it fell short of what I felt it could have been (it was about reclaiming words that have hurt us, like "God"—something that I feel like the Course has helped me to do in ways that I really feel are nothing short of miraculous). But when I had those thoughts I was able to recognize them for what they were and laugh a little to myself.
I have only one function, and that is forgiveness, and that function is my happiness. That was the lesson for today.
I don't think I've learned it perfectly yet. But I felt like this was a big step for me. I've had thoughts about how I "should" be able to regard the Unitarians since I started studying the Course. But today I was able to practice something that up to now has only been a thought of what might be good, if I could manage it. Today I felt like I took a little step closer to being able to do that in reality. And for that I feel very grateful.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Tripping and Stumbling Along Toward the Goal
It's been a long time since I've posted anything here, which does to some degree reflect that I haven't made a lot of progress in the last, ahem, 7 months or so since the last post. Progress has been slow, coming in fits and starts, and it's been a bit of a shock to realize that it's been more than a year now since I started the lessons and that I could have finished them by now.
I don't feel guilty about that, exactly, as I have learned something by doing as much of the Course as I have. But I have started to feel a sense of urgency; that I need to finish this thing. I don't know where that is coming from, but I really started to feel it about a week ago.
A lot has happened in since I last posted—lost a job, got a new one; moved to a new place in a new town. So I have not been at a loss for distractions. For many months after our move, which I found utterly exhausting, I hardly even attempted to pick up the lessons where I'd left off.
But now I'm back. I feel a growing conviction that this is exactly the right thing for me to be doing now. I do not know where it will lead but I feel a growing desire to surrender to the will of God, which I am told is my own will.
I have entered the second review period. Today is Lesson 81. Forgiveness is the key, the key to everything. And it is not just for me alone that I do this work. It is for the whole world. It gets less and less hard for me to believe that this is true.
I am so grateful that this is so.
I don't feel guilty about that, exactly, as I have learned something by doing as much of the Course as I have. But I have started to feel a sense of urgency; that I need to finish this thing. I don't know where that is coming from, but I really started to feel it about a week ago.
A lot has happened in since I last posted—lost a job, got a new one; moved to a new place in a new town. So I have not been at a loss for distractions. For many months after our move, which I found utterly exhausting, I hardly even attempted to pick up the lessons where I'd left off.
But now I'm back. I feel a growing conviction that this is exactly the right thing for me to be doing now. I do not know where it will lead but I feel a growing desire to surrender to the will of God, which I am told is my own will.
I have entered the second review period. Today is Lesson 81. Forgiveness is the key, the key to everything. And it is not just for me alone that I do this work. It is for the whole world. It gets less and less hard for me to believe that this is true.
I am so grateful that this is so.
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Into the first review lessons...
OK, I finally broke into the 50's. Whew!
I actually had something kind of odd happen with Lesson 52. I was having the worst, most terrible time of it. I was in a stew, a terrible stew, about a particular situation, feeling that I had been maltreated, fantasizing about ways to communicate all the ways in which I had been wronged...and I don't usually do that, I don't usually live in that kind of state, but it was very bad, and very persistent. And while I felt a certain sense of self-righteousness, I also felt pretty miserable.
One of the lessons up for review was I am upset because I see what is not there. And I see only the past. And variations thereof. I felt so much resistance to these ideas that it was palpable.
At some point, after a couple of days of this, I sort of felt like I got a tap on the shoulder, metaphorically. It was like "OK, Rebecca, have you had enough pain yet? Do you see what this does to you? You can choose to live there, but you have to know it is your own choice."
I can't say that everything just got all better after that, but I did feel a shift, and things have been somehow different since.
I hesitate to use the word "magic," after the way it's used rather derisively in the Course. But sometimes this stuff does feel a little bit like magic. It's not always fun. But sometimes I guess a little pain can serve to get your attention.
I actually had something kind of odd happen with Lesson 52. I was having the worst, most terrible time of it. I was in a stew, a terrible stew, about a particular situation, feeling that I had been maltreated, fantasizing about ways to communicate all the ways in which I had been wronged...and I don't usually do that, I don't usually live in that kind of state, but it was very bad, and very persistent. And while I felt a certain sense of self-righteousness, I also felt pretty miserable.
One of the lessons up for review was I am upset because I see what is not there. And I see only the past. And variations thereof. I felt so much resistance to these ideas that it was palpable.
At some point, after a couple of days of this, I sort of felt like I got a tap on the shoulder, metaphorically. It was like "OK, Rebecca, have you had enough pain yet? Do you see what this does to you? You can choose to live there, but you have to know it is your own choice."
I can't say that everything just got all better after that, but I did feel a shift, and things have been somehow different since.
I hesitate to use the word "magic," after the way it's used rather derisively in the Course. But sometimes this stuff does feel a little bit like magic. It's not always fun. But sometimes I guess a little pain can serve to get your attention.
Friday, February 6, 2009
Moving Right Along...to Lesson 40
I haven't done the calculations yet, but at the rate I've been progressing through these lessons, it may well take a decade or more to finish the Workbook! I spent a number of days trying to tackle Lesson 39 -- "My unloving thoughts about ___ are keeping me in hell. My holiness is my salvation." It's a good one, I admit. Even when I'm not feeling very holy--maybe particularly when I'm not feeling very holy. But I struggled to meet the requirements. A couple of nights ago, as I considered what to do, I felt like the message to me was that it was OK to move on. I still wavered a bit after that, but today I moved on to Lesson 40: "I am blessed as a Son of God." Every 10 minutes was the recommendation.
I don't know if it's just me, but even with the timer, I missed a lot of intervals. I would forget to reset the timer, or I would accidentally reset it wrong, or something like that.
I liked it, though. It's been kind of a stressful time at work, and I think that thought was a good antidote for me. Yes, I struggled a teensy bit with the whole "Son" thing. Like, why wasn't the author of the Course a little bit more forward thinking and gender-neutral and all that? But when I think those thoughts, I realize that the challenge for me is to elevate myself, as it were, above thinking of myself too stringently as a gendered being. After all, isn't gender just part of the story? Isn't trying to protect ideas of gender all about protecting the ego and our identification with it?
As Shakespeare once famously wrote, "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts..." I think that trying not to take any of that stuff too seriously is key.
40 seems like a milestone. Yea for me, and onward to tomorrow and Lesson 41!
I don't know if it's just me, but even with the timer, I missed a lot of intervals. I would forget to reset the timer, or I would accidentally reset it wrong, or something like that.
I liked it, though. It's been kind of a stressful time at work, and I think that thought was a good antidote for me. Yes, I struggled a teensy bit with the whole "Son" thing. Like, why wasn't the author of the Course a little bit more forward thinking and gender-neutral and all that? But when I think those thoughts, I realize that the challenge for me is to elevate myself, as it were, above thinking of myself too stringently as a gendered being. After all, isn't gender just part of the story? Isn't trying to protect ideas of gender all about protecting the ego and our identification with it?
As Shakespeare once famously wrote, "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts..." I think that trying not to take any of that stuff too seriously is key.
40 seems like a milestone. Yea for me, and onward to tomorrow and Lesson 41!
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Stumbling forward...
OK, well, after getting stuck at that one lesson for...a long time, it happened again. It hasn't been quite the same type of stuckness, but progress has been slow. The next lesson to get me really stuck was the very next one, Lesson 27, because it asks that you repeat the message throughout the day--at least every half hour, and more if possible. "Above all else, I want to see." This one, although it seems easy on the surface, was a huge problem for me! I would do it once, and then it might be several hours before I remembered to do it again. I tried all sorts of things--posting notes, writing little reminders on my fingernails--all for naught. I guess I could have given myself a pass on it, because the lesson says this:
I felt like I should be able to do better though. Was that just my ego? Oh, probably!! But I was doing so poorly at remembering that it was very discouraging to me. I felt like I needed something to help me remember, so I started to look around. I ended up buying this little timer, which vibrates and/or flashes a light (thinking about having it at work, I didn't want to have an audible alarm!!). It's a pretty neat little gadget--you set it for a certain amount of time, and it remembers that time interval for you so you can easily reset it.
Is this cheating? I don't know. After I got my timer, it still took me several days until I felt like I could move on from this lesson--because you have to remember to reset the silly thing and that turned out to be harder than I thought.
I guess it points to the fact that I tend to sleepwalk through my days a lot--occupied with this and that, the tasks at hand, the thoughts about whatever that fly through my mind. The timer isn't a magic bullet, but it does work to wake me up a little bit.
Today I started on Lesson 31--"I am not the victim of the world I see." Seems like a pretty good lesson to start off a brand new year.
The real question is, how often will you remember? How much do you want today's idea to be true? Answer one of these questions, and you have answered the other. You will probably miss several applications, and perhaps quite a number. Do not be disturbed by this, but do try to keep on your schedule from then on. If only once during the day you feel that you were perfectly sincere while you were repeating today's idea, you can be sure that you have saved yourself many years of effort.
I felt like I should be able to do better though. Was that just my ego? Oh, probably!! But I was doing so poorly at remembering that it was very discouraging to me. I felt like I needed something to help me remember, so I started to look around. I ended up buying this little timer, which vibrates and/or flashes a light (thinking about having it at work, I didn't want to have an audible alarm!!). It's a pretty neat little gadget--you set it for a certain amount of time, and it remembers that time interval for you so you can easily reset it.
Is this cheating? I don't know. After I got my timer, it still took me several days until I felt like I could move on from this lesson--because you have to remember to reset the silly thing and that turned out to be harder than I thought.
I guess it points to the fact that I tend to sleepwalk through my days a lot--occupied with this and that, the tasks at hand, the thoughts about whatever that fly through my mind. The timer isn't a magic bullet, but it does work to wake me up a little bit.
Today I started on Lesson 31--"I am not the victim of the world I see." Seems like a pretty good lesson to start off a brand new year.
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