"A miracle is simply a shift in perception from fear to love." With that definition in mind, I am going to be much more conscious of all the miracles I see in my life - and to invite others to share the miracles they see in their own lives. What might we create - and allow - in 2007? This blog highlights the daily lessons from "A Course In Miracles."
Perhaps we are now ready for a day of undisturbed tranquility. If this is not yet feasible, we are content and even more than satisfied to learn how such a day can be achieved. If we give way to a disturbance, let us learn how to dismiss it and return to peace. We need but tell our minds, with certainty, "The stillness of the peace of God is mine," and nothing can intrude upon the peace the God Himself has given to His Son.
Father, Your peace is mine. What need have I to fear that anything can rob me of what You would have me keep? I cannot lose Your gifts to me. And so the peace You gave Your Son is with me still, in quietness and in my own eternal love for You.
Miracles I'm noticing:
As I read today's lesson, I imagined what a whole day of undisturbed tranquility would be like. I actually had a picture in my mind of biking through the fall leaves somewhere in Minnesota, all alone with nature on a crisp Sunday. Then I thought about what I have scheduled for today and got to the next part of the lesson that said "If this is not yet feasible ..." and realized that that is not possible today. However, when I continued to read, I see that I have the capability of returning my mind to peace, despite what may be happening around me.
So although I need to pack for an overnight trip to Minneapolis (and need to to that and be ready to go in the next 90 minutes) and then drive there and do everything that is scheduled for the trip, I can choose peace and stillness in the midst of everything else.
Father, the truth belongs to me. My home is set in Heaven by Your Will and mine. Can dreams content me? Can illusions bring me happiness? What but Your memory can satisfy Your Son? I will accept no less than You have given me. I am surrounded by Your Love, forever still, forever gentle and forever safe. God's Son must be as You created him.
Today we pass illusions by. And if we hear temptation call to us to stay and linger in a dream, we turn aside and ask ourselves if we, the Sons of God, could be content with dreams, when Heaven can be chosen just as easily as hell, and love will happily replace all fear.
Miracles I'm noticing:
This course really is about mind re-training. I'm noticing that awareness is the first step. When I become aware of the way I'm thinking and notice the results of that thinking, I then am able to choose a new thought or a new way of thinking. When I become aware of the illusions instead of the truth, I can choose not to be tempted by those illusions. It really comes down to how I feel. I never felt good when limited by religion and the rules and beliefs that were passed down for no reason except "that's the way it is." I feel so much more free to connect with Spirit by studying this course. And the best part is that I am studying it with a group. That's why this is so important to me. I learn what I learn on my own, but then have an opportunity to learn from my friends and fellow students. That's a miracle for me!
Christ is God's Son as He created Him. He is the Self we share, uniting us with one another, and with God as well. He is the Thought which still abides within the Mind that is His Source. He has not left His holy home, nor lost the innocence in which He was created. He abides unchanged forever in the Mind of God.
Christ is the link that keeps you one with God, and guarantees that separation is no more than an illusion of despair, for hope forever will abide in Him. Your mind is part of His, and His of yours. He is the part in which God's Answer lies; where all decisions are already made, and dreams are over. He remains untouched by anything the body's eyes perceive. For though in Him His Father placed the means for your salvation, yet does He remain the Self Who, like His Father, knows no sin.
Home of the Holy Spirit, and at home in God alone, does Christ remain at peace within the Heaven of your holy mind. This is the only part of you that has reality in truth. The rest is dreams. Yet will these dreams be given unto Christ, to fade before His glory and reveal your holy Self, the Christ to you at last.
The Holy Spirit reaches from the Christ in you to all your dreams, ad bids them come to Him, to be translated into truth. He will exchange them for the final dream which God appointed as the end of dreams. For when forgiveness rests upon the world and peace has come to every Son of God, what could there be to keep things separate, for what remains to see except Christ's face?
And how long will this holy face be seen, when it is but the symbol that the time for learning now is over, and the goal of the Atonement has been reached at last? So therefore let us seek to find Christ's face and look on nothing else. As we behold His glory, will we know we have no need of learning or perception or of time, or anything except the holy Self, the Christ Whom God created as His Son.
Today's Lesson:
Christ's is the vision I will use today.
Each day, each hour, every instant, I am choosing what I want to look upon, the sounds I want to hear, the witnesses to what I want to be the truth for me. Today I choose to look upon what Christ would have me see, to listen to God's Voice, and seek the witnesses to what is true in God's creation. In Christ's sight, the world and God's creation meet, and as they come together all perception disappears. His kindly sight redeems the world from death, for nothing that He looks on but must live, remembering the Father and the Son; Creator and creation unified.
Father, Christ's vision is the way to You. What He beholds invites Your memory to be restored to me. And this I choose, to be what I would look upon today.
Miracles I'm noticing:
I attended a 25th anniversary celebration last night for one of my clients' business - what a total blast! As I looked around the room it occurred to me how very fortunate I am to have clients like I do is a blessing - and to consider them friends (and their friends my friends) is a double blessing.
I think back to the me I was before I began to study this course and I don't think I would have been as confident as I am today. I would have looked around that room and questioned my worthiness to be in the company of such wonderful people. But I had such a great time with everyone I talked to and the new people I met.
We are all worthy - because we can choose to see through Christ's vision. What a miracle! And it was there all the time!
Father, Christ's vision is Your gift to me, and it has power to translate all that the body's eyes behold into the sight of a forgiven world. How glorious and gracious is this world! Yet how much more will I perceive in it than sight can give. The world forgiven signifies Your Son acknowledges his Father, lets his dreams be brought to truth, and waits expectantly the one remaining instant more of time which ends forever, as Your memory returns to him. And now his will is one with Yours. His function now is but Your Own, and every thought except Your Own is gone.
The quiet of today will bless our hearts, and through them peace will come to everyone. Christ is our eyes today. And through His sight we offer healing to the world through Him, the holy Son whom God created whole; the holy Son whom God created one.
Miracles I'm noticing:
I love the idea of today's lesson. What if there were only the eyes of Christ and not the body's eyes? What if that were all I could see with? How much more (and how much less) would I actually see? I'd love to see more good, more beauty, more justice, more peace, more happiness and less prejudice, less upset, less hatred, less jealousy, less anger. What if that is possible now? I do have other eyes through which to see everything. What if I consciously used that filter through which to see what my physical eyes see?
Yesterday during the class I was teaching, one of the participants came up to me during a break and told me she felt she needed to know me better. I felt the same way based on some of her comments during the class and also her answers to some of the prework she turned in before the class. She was writing about intention, and she was the only one in the class who had seen The Secret. When I asked, her answer was, "of course."
So she and my business partner and the person who lined up the training went out for dinner last night and had a very deep and meaningful conversation about mirroring, oneness, accountability and Gandhi ("you must be the change your wish to see in the world.").
There are no coincidences. It was a fabulous conversation and I know I've made a new friend. She and her husband own a vacation home in Maine, and I fully intend to take advantage of her offer to use it sometime.
I'm excited to see what I'll see today on my drive home from Pierre, SD to Fargo (about 6 hours) as I consciously choose not to use my body's eyes. Where will I see the miracles?
I ask Your blessing on my sight today. It is the means which You have chosen to become the way to show me my mistakes, and look beyond them. It is given me to find a new perception through the Guide You gave to me, and through His lessons to surpass perception and return to truth. I ask for the illusion which transcends all those I made. Today I choose to see a world forgiven, in which everyone shows me the face of Christ, and teaches me that what I look upon belongs to me; that nothing is, except Your holy Son.
Today our sight is blessed indeed. We share one vision, as we look upon the face of Him Whose Self is ours. We are one because of Him Who is the Son of God; of Him Who is our own Identity.
Miracles I'm noticing:
There really are miracles all around, who are there to show me the face of Him Whose Self is ours. I'm going to be teaching creativity and innovation today, which allows me to see with new eyes. Today's prayer asks to surpass perception and return to truth. According to this course, perception is only what I think I see - it is seeing through the body's eyes and may not really be the truth. So today I will ask to see beyond my physical sight and see the truth as I'm teaching.
I trust I will see all kinds of miracles in the students I'll be teaching. I need only open the eyes of my heart.
Let me not be Your critic, Lord, today, and judge against You. Let me not attempt to interfere with Your creation, and distort it into sickly forms. Let me be willing to withdraw my wishes from its unity, and thus to let it be as You created it. For thus will I be able, too, to recognize my Self as You created me. In love was I created, and in love will I remain forever. What can frighten me, when I let all things be exactly as they are?
Let not our sight be blasphemous today, nor let our ears attend to lying tongues. Only reality is free of pain. Only reality is free of loss. only reality is wholly safe. And it is only this we seek today.
Miracles I'm noticing:
Wow this lesson really hits home. It reminds me of Byron Katie's "The Work" again (I suppose it should be no surprise that that would be at the forefront of my awareness since I listen to it at least once a week on CD). She asks the question there "Who needs God when you have your opinion?" If we are believing our thoughts, we are not open to what is because we've made something completely false act like the truth. She says more than once, "It is what it is, until it's not - that's the way of it."
If we don't even know what we don't know, it's probably because we're believing our thoughts. And if our thoughts are not producing joy and love and peace, they're not true thoughts because, as today's lesson reminds us, "Only reality is free of pain. Only reality is free of loss. Only reality is wholly safe."
If we aren't able to let all things be exactly as they are in all their perfect imperfection, then we are judging. Mother Teresa once said she worked with the poorest of the poor because in them she saw Jesus Christ in all his distressing disguises. She was a person who didn't fight against things the way they were, she believed that standing for something was much more powerful.
I notice my own judgments all the time, even though I want to believe I don't have prejudices. Awareness is the first step to artful action, which is mindful and deliberate and focused. Artful action then leads to transformation, which is when we really begin living what we're learning here in this Course.
Surrounding me is all the life that God created in His Love. It calls to me in every heartbeat and in every breath; in every action and in every thought. Peace fills my heart, and floods my body with the purpose of forgiveness. Now my mind is healed, and all I need to save the world is given me. Each heartbeat brings me peace; each breath infuses me with strength. I am a messenger of God, directed by His Voice, sustained by Him in love, and held forever quiet and at peace within His loving Arms. Each heartbeat calls His Name, and every one is answered by His Voice, assuring me I am at home in Him.
Let me attend Your Answer, not my own. Father, my heart is beating in the peace of the Heart of Love created. It is there and only there that I can be at home.
Miracles I'm noticing:
I definitely have my moments of peace; but there are still those moments of worry and doubt, which remind me that I am still on the journey and haven't reached the destination yet. It is in those moments of worry and doubt that today's lesson is so necessary for me.
Yesterday I had the opportunity to ride with a friend to a small town about 90 minutes away and the ride was quite peaceful, simply because I didn't have to drive. The leaves are turning color, and the day was sunny and hot. However, it was very windy, which caused my friend to have to really hold on to the wheel more tightly than normal. I knew this because of the big gusts that would grab the car and try to throw it off course. Although had all the makings of a peaceful drive for me, I found myself being just the slightest bit nervous because I wasn't in control of the car. I found myself at least once doing the mom gasp (I call it that because my mom did that all the time when she would ride with me - gasp and grab the dash when a car in front of us put on its brake lights or for many other reasons which were mostly unknown to me as the driver) and then catching myself and remembering that she is perfectly capable of driving safely.
When I remember that I don't have to be a back seat driver in my own life, I know that God's love calls to me in every heartbeat and every breath and peace fills my heart. My mind is healed, and all I need to save the world is given me.
This is a great reminder to me to just notice the miracles all around, because they're there all the time.
I'll be on my way to Pierre, SD in a couple of hours, and as I'm driving, I will keep today's lesson in mind. I'm sure I'll see many opportunities to notice my heart beating in the peace of God.
Father, You gave me all Your Sons, to be my saviors and my counselors in sight; the bearers of Your holy Voice to me. In them are You reflected, and in them does Christ look back upon me from my Self. Let not Your Son forget Your holy Name. Let not Your Son forget his holy Source. Let not Your Son forget his Name is Yours.
This day we enter into Paradise, calling upon God's Name and on our own, acknowledging our Self in each of us; united in the holy Love of God. How many saviors God has given us! How can we lose the way to Him, when He has filled the world with those who point to Him, and given us the sight to look on them?
Miracles I'm noticing:
Today's lesson reminds me that I can see God in everyone around me. I was reading the Sunday paper this morning, and if I keep today's lesson in mind, there should be no upsetting news. I remember thinking that the letters to the editor would go away if everyone saw their holy Self in God's Son - there would be nothing to complain about!
I'm certainly not at the point where I don't think about things to complain about, but I notice that I don't say things out loud anymore. I know that's not quite the same thing as achieving enlightenment, but it's a start!
Where are you noticing yourself becoming more enlightened? Where are your behaviors adjusting? Where are you seeing your holy Self in others? That's the miracle!
I have indeed misunderstood the world, because I laid my sins on it and saw them looking back at me. How fierce they seemed! And how deceived was I to think that what I feared was in the world, instead of in my mind alone. Today I see the world in the celestial gentleness with which creation shines. There is no fear in it. Let no appearance of my sins obscure the light of Heaven shining on the world. What is reflected there is in God's Mind. The images I see reflect my thoughts. Yet is my mind at one with God's. And so I can perceive creation's gentleness.
In quiet would I look upon the world, which but reflects Your Thoughts, and mine as well. Let me remember that they are the same, and I will see creation's gentleness.
Miracles I'm noticing:
Today's lesson reminds me of Byron Katie's "The Work" which I listen to at least twice a week in my car. That Work asks us to question our thoughts instead of just blindly believing them. Whenever we notice a thought that makes us frustrated (like "I am sinful and unclean," for example) we are to ask ourselves whether or not that is actually true. If we can determine that our thoughts are not really true, we can see that we have been deceiving ourselves and not really living in Truth.
Today's lesson reminds us that what we fear is not in the world, it is in our minds alone. And if we can learn to question those thoughts and realize they are not even true, we can see that there is only gentleness in God's creation.
Notice for yourself where you are believing your thoughts. I'll bet miracles will start showing up instead!
Father, You stand before me and behind, beside me, in the place I see myself, and everywhere I go. You are in all the things I look upon, the sounds I hear, and every hand that reaches for my own. In You time disappears, and place becomes a meaningless belief. For what surrounds Your Son and keeps him safe is Love itself. There is no source but this, and nothing is hat does not share its holiness; that stands beyond Your one creation, or without the Love which holds all things within itself. Father, Your Son is like Yourself. We come to You in Your Own Name today, to be at peace within Your everlasting Love.
My brothers, join with me in this today. This is salvation's prayer. Must we not join in what will save the world, along with us?
Miracles I'm noticing:
I don't think there is anything else that needs to be said today. Let's join in salvation's prayer and watch the miracles unfold.
Father, Your Mind created all that is, Your Spirit entered into it, Your Love gave life to it. And would I look upon what You created as if it could be made sinful? I would not perceive such dark and fearful images. A madman's dream is hardly fit to be my choice, instead of all the loveliness with which You blessed creation; all its purity, its joy, and its eternal, quiet home in you.
And while we still remain outside the gate of Heaven, let us look on all we see through holy vision and the eyes of Christ. Let all appearances seem pure to us, that we may pass them by in innocence, and walk together to our Father's house as brothers and the holy Sons of God.
Miracles I'm noticing:
I spent Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning with an amazing group of people - the staff of Trollwood Performing Arts School at a beautiful resort in Minnesota. It was so great to work with these wonderful people! We actually held our first session on the beach, complete with the flipchart in the sand.
What I noticed from working with this group and also from my three mastermind groups on Tuesday and Wednesday (one on Tuesday before I left for the retreat and two on Wednesday after I got back) is how hungry people are to talk about things that matter and how dedicated they are to challenging their old thoughts and moving ahead.
The mastermind groups are studying the 1937 Napoleon Hill book Think and Grow Rich! and it's been a total joy to learn from them. I'm currently conducting four different study groups and I'm having a blast. I'm not sure exactly what it is about this book that is so appealing to people that causes them to form mastermind groups to study it - unless it is that concept; the concept of creating a mastermind to support each other in the endeavor.
We had our final study session last night for the group in which I am a participant and the conversations were outstanding. I had a lengthy and very substantial conversation with one of the participants who I hadn't really talked to all that much before and it was clear from our conversation that studying this book had really changed his way of thinking.
I'm finding that the circle of people I'm with may change from time to time, whether that is client circles or social circles, but they always provide me with additional learning and growing. Could that be because I know my genius to be "Inviting Dialogue"and that's what I'm seeing everywhere now?
As I realize more and more that "My holy vision sees all things as pure," I can't not see it that way anymore. I realized just recently that my biggest hangups with anything are about exclusion. Having to pick a political affiliation or just one service club or a religious denomination just aren't comfortable for me anymore because I want to be inclusive, not exclusive.
That's my miracle for the past two days! I'm BLESSED and GRATEFUL!
Father, You have one Son. And it is he that I would look upon today. He is Your one creation. Why should I perceive a thousand forms in what remains as one? Why should I give this one a thousand names, when only one suffices? For Your Son must bear Your Name, for You created him. Let me not see him as a stranger to his Father, nor as stranger to myself. For he is part of me and I of him, and we are part of You Who are our Source, eternally united Your Love; eternally the holy Son of God.
We who are one would recognize the truth about ourselves. We would come home, and rest in unity. For there is peace, and nowhere else can peace be sought and found.
Miracles I'm noticing:
I am posting this a day late as I was at a resort facilitating a retreat for a client, and there was no internet access. I'll write about that experience in today's lesson (see next post).
The body is a fence the Son of God imagines he has built, to separate parts of his Self from other parts. It is within this fence he thinks he lives, to die as it decays and crumbles. For within this fence he thinks that he is safe from love. Identifying with his safety, he regards himself as what his safety is. How else could he be certain he remains within the body, keeping love outside?
The body will not stay. Yet this he sees as double safety. For the Son of God's impermanence is "proof" his fences work, and do the task his mind assigns to them. For if his oneness still remained untouched, who could attack and who could be attacked? Who could be victor? Who could be his prey? Who could be victim? Who the murderer? And if he did not die, what "proof" is there that God's eternal Son can be destroyed?
The body is a dream. Like other dreams it sometimes seems to picture happiness, but can quite suddenly revert to fear, where every dream is born. For only love creates in truth, and truth can never fear. Made to be fearful, must the body serve the purpose given it. But we can change the purpose that the body will obey by changing what we think that it is for.
The body is the means by which God's Son returns to sanity. Though it was made to fence him into hell without escape, yet has the goal of Heaven been exchanged for the pursuit of hell. The Son of God extends his hand to reach his brother, and to help him walk along the road with him. Now is the body holy. Now it serves to heal the mind that it was made to kill.
You will identify with what you think will make you safe. Whatever it may be, you will believe that it is one with you. Your safety lies in truth, and not in lies. Love is your safety. Fear does not exist. Identify with love, and you are safe. Identify with love, and you are home. Identify with love, and find your Self.
Today's Lesson:
God is my refuge and security.
I will identify with what I think is refuge and security. I will behold myself where I perceive my strength, and think I live within the citadel where I am safe and cannot be attacked. Let me today seek not security in danger, nor attempt to find my peace in murderous attack. I live in God. In Him I find my refuge and my strength. In Him is my Identity. In Him is everlasting peace. And only there will I remember Who I really am.
Let me not seek for idols. I would come, my Father, home to You today. I choose to be as You created me, and find the Son whom You created as my Self.
Miracles I'm noticing:
I just got off the phone with a very good friend who lives in Chicago. We have only seen each other in person three times, but we talk at least once a week. What I'm learning from this friend is how much I am learning from this Course. Everything that comes up in our conversations has something to do with fear vs. love or ego vs. Spirit. It's amazing to me how much this Course has become a foundation for everything I am and everything I believe.
We talked today about authenticity and the challenge for us who are perfectionists in not trusting our own authenticity because there must be A right answer out there. When I live what I'm learning here - which, fortunately, happens much more often than not these days - I find that life is so much easier.
I love Bob Proctor's statement: "What other people think of me is none of my business." They draw their own conclusions based on their own levels of awareness, and that should have nothing to do with who I really am and what I really stand for.
God is my refuge and security, so there should be no need for defense in the form of a fence or wall or anything. I've heard it said many times that defense is the first offense. We say in our country that we have a great defense system, yet that makes us subject to attack where we then become the offenders. I'd like to do more research about what makes Switzerland the place where there is no war. I've heard that they never get involved in wars because they have no defense system in place. Switzerland cannot physically be attacked because they are non-violent.
If I put a wall in place to shield me from love, what is the victory? I will identify with what I think will make me safe. If I put my faith and trust in the wall or in the national defense, I will believe that that is one with me. But love is the true safety. Fear does not exist.
Father, I did not make myself, although in my insanity I thought I did. Yet, as Your Thought, I have not left my Source, remaining part of Who created me. Your Son, my Father, calls on You today. Let me remember You created me. let me remember my Identity. And let my sinlessness arise again before Christ's vision, through which I would look upon my brothers and myself today.
Now is our Source remembered, and Therein we find our true Identity at last. Holy indeed are we, because our Source can know no sin. And we who are His Sons are like each other, and alike to Him.
Miracles I'm noticing:
I've really started realizing that as I give up ego, everything falls into place so much more easily. It seems my phone has been ringing a lot more recently, which means I've been a lot busier growing my business. I'm learning - and am hearing from others in the form of feedback - that people can relate to me as I tell my own story of awareness which has led me to using what I'm learning and now teaching. I believe and am passionate about everything I teach, even though there are times it seems to be easier to backslide and not live what I'm teaching. It's really not easier - that is the illusion of sin and guilt. It is now much easier to give up ego and live in the light but it has taken practice and commitment because that ego is pretty strong.
God really does want us to succeed - and each step we take closer to Him and away from our ego gets easier and easier. It's almost like we've got the Holy Spirit as our own personal coach, cheering us on as we make the decisions for God. It's simply a matter of waking up to those cheers. They've been there all along, but we've allowed ego to drown them out.
Whose side are you playing for - God or ego? If we choose ego, it's really Edging God Out - EGO. I choose God. What a difference it's making in my life!
Sin is the only thought that makes the goal of God seem unattainable. What else could blind us to the obvious, and make the strange and the distorted seem more clear? What else but sin engenders our attacks? What else but sin could be the source of guilt, demanding punishment and suffering? And what but sin could be the source of fear, obscuring God's creation; giving love the attributes of fear and of attack?
Father, I would not be insane today. I would not be afraid of love, nor seek for refuge in its opposite. For love can have no opposite. You are the Source of everything there is. And everything that is remains with You, and You with it.
Miracles I'm noticing:
I must admit, guilt has been a big part of my religious upbringing. Everything I ever learned about God and the church had sin and guilt as the foundation. Feeling guilty for my sins was really the justification I had for being a sinner. They just went hand-in-hand, and forgiveness for those sins was something someone else could grant me, whether that be God or someone whom I had wronged by my sin. I remember never feeling good enough because I was, by nature, sinful and unclean, according to the creed we said in church every single Sunday.
Today's lesson is so freeing and so joyful for me. What can I be allowed to be and do when I am freed from the burden of sin and guilt? I don't think today's lesson is asking us to just blow off "bad behavior" (I had a hard time coming up with what to call that) ... but as we fight against anything, what we resist persists.
I'm reminded of something one of my spiritual teachers said one time about right and wrong, good and bad. She said if we judge actions - by ourselves and others - as right or wrong, good or bad, we then become people who believe there is right and wrong, good and bad in the world instead of just seeing everything as just what it is, without a label. The only person I can choose for is me, so instead of judging what others do, I can make choices for myself. If I deem another's actions as bad or wrong, then I attract into my space people to whom those types of actions happen.
If we can simply keep in mind today's lesson, "Let me remember that there is no sin," it will be much easier to remain joyful and focus on abundance and love. God does not want our lives to be difficult and guilt-ridden!
All that is needful is to train our minds to overlook all little senseless aims, and to remember that our goal is God. His memory is hidden in our minds, obscured but by our pointless little goals which offer nothing, and do not exist. Shall we continue to allow God's grace to shine in unawareness, while the toys and trinkets of the world are sought instead? God is our only goal, our only Love. We have no aim but to remember Him.
Our goal is but to follow in the way that leads to You. We have no goal but this. What could we want but to remember You? What could we seek but our Identity?
Miracles I'm noticing:
I'm working on creating and then delivering a 6-hour class called The Goal Achiever, which is part of my Bob Proctor certification. This course is all about determining exactly what the goal is that participants want in their lives and their companies. When I read today's lesson, it becomes really clear that as awareness grows, the goals actually become much more focused, and are no longer about material things in this world, but simply God.
The lesson says that God's grace shines in our unawareness - even though we may not be aware of it, it still is there. We are focused on the things of the world when we really have no aim but Him.
I'll look forward to having that conversation as part of the awareness of the class. I'll keep my goal on God and allow the class to evolve as it needs to. As we begin to realize, together, that setting the goals based on purpose will yield better results, we will get to this point.
I'm blessed and grateful that my awareness continues to grow. Awareness leads to true happiness, but happiness is not a goal. It's the result of realizing purpose.
What a great lesson for me to keep in mind as I design this class!
If I forget my goal I can be but confused, unsure of what I am, and thus conflicted in my actions. No one can serve contradicting goals and serve them well. Nor can he function without deep distress and great depression. Let us therefore be determined to remember what we want today, that we may unify our thoughts and actions meaningfully, and achieve only what God would have us do this day.
Father, forgiveness is Your chosen means for our salvation. Let us not forget today that we can have no will but Yours. And thus our purpose must be Yours as well, if we would reach the peace You will for us.
Miracles I'm noticing:
Today's lesson reflects what I'm talking about in my master mind group with the company I'm working with this week. We've been talking about setting goals and achieving goals and the distinction is that when you set goals based on a purpose, you have an incentive to achieve them. Most people set goals based on what they already know they can achieve, so there is no growth.
If we can remember our purpose - whether that's individually or at a company - there is much more inspiration around the journey toward the goal, and it seems much less daunting to achieve it.
I'm noticing how often certain words come up when I'm in the space of inspiration. Purpose is the word today - but it's so fun to be awake to all the miracles that are always present!
The way to God is through forgiveness here. There is no other way. If sin had not been cherished by the mind, what need would there have been to find the way to where you are? Who would still be uncertain? Who could be unsure of who he is? And who would yet remain asleep, in heavy clouds of doubt about the holiness of him whom God created sinless? Here we can but dream. But we can dream we have forgiven him in whom all sin remains impossible, and it is this we choose to dream today. God is our goal; forgiveness is the means by which our minds return to Him at last.
And so, our Father, would we come to You in Your appointed way. We have no goal except to hear Your Voice, and find the way Your sacred Word has pointed out to us.
Miracles I'm noticing:
I am teaching this week in another town in Minnesota and what I'm noticing most this week is how much the members of the class reflect my attitude as the instructor. If I go in to class at all distracted, I lose the focus of the class. But when I'm directed and ready to share great information, the class takes it in much better. It's obvious to me because I'm conducting two different groups - one in the morning and one in the afternoon. It's the exact same content, but the two groups are completely different in their demeanor. Instead of getting frustrated about the lack of structure I'm finding in the first group (they are much more independent and I find them chatting amongst themselves a lot more than the afternoon group), I have stopped to see what my energy is in that first session compared to the second.
Today I'm going back with today's message in mind and I'll see how I can alter the group's attention with only my intention and my energy.
It does not seem to me that I can choose to have but peace today. And yet, my God assures me that His Son is like Himself. Let me this day have faith in Him Who says I am God's Son. And let the peace I choose be mine today bear witness to the truth of what He says. God's Son can have no cares, and must remain forever in the peace of Heaven. In His Name, I give today to finding what my Father wills for me, accepting it as mine, and giving it to all my Father's Sons, along with me.
And so, my Father, would I pass this day with You. Your Son has not forgotten You. The peace You gave him still is in his mind, and it is there I choose to spend today.
Miracles I'm noticing:
It really is that simple to just declare how I want to spend my day. Our minds work toward things, not away from them so whatever we set our mind to we can have. If I am intending to spend this day in perfect peace, so be it.
We make things more difficult than they have to be because that's the way we've always done it. It's difficult for us to believe life could possibly be easy but that's the reality of it. It can be whatever we choose.
So today, I choose perfect peace. I can create my day and all my experiences right now.
Father, today I would but hear Your Voice. In deepest silence I would come to You, to hear Your Voice and to receive Your Word. I have no prayer but this: I come to You to ask You for the truth. And Truth is but Your Will, which I would share with You today.
Today we let no ego thoughts direct our words or actions. When such thoughts occur, we quietly step back and look at them, and then we let them go. We do not want what they would bring with them. And so we do not choose to keep them. They are silent now. And in the stillness, hallowed by His Love, God speaks to us and tells us of our will, as we have chosen to remember Him.
Miracles I'm noticing:
I'll be teaching all week this week at a company in a neighboring town, and yesterday we talked about how we each have 60,000 random voices going through our heads at any given time. And most of those thoughts are the same thoughts we had yesterday, and will be the same thoughts we have tomorrow. It is possible to quiet those thoughts, and today's lesson shows us how to do that.
There are no coincidences - it is no accident that this lesson came up today as I'm preparing for a brand new speech I'm giving tonight when I get back from today's training. I'll meet with the classes again and remind them of the 60,000 random thoughts - and then will remember today's lesson for myself as I prepare this new speech. May God's Voice come through me today and tonight as I allow myself to be the vessel and get out of the way!
It is impossible that anything should come to me unbidden by myself. Even in this world, it is I who rule my destiny. What happens is what I desire. What does not occur is what I do not want to happen. This must I accept. For thus am I led past this world to my creations, children of my will, in Heaven where my holy Self abides with them and Him Who has created me.
You are the Self Whom You created Son, creating like Yourself and One with You. My Self, which rules the universe, is but Your Will in perfect union with my own, which can but offer glad assent to Yours, that it may be extended to Itself.
Miracles I'm noticing:
I just spent a wonderful weekend at WomanSong, a celebration of women and art on the prairie in a campground in south central North Dakota. Although the weather took a North Dakota turn - from 95 degrees on Friday to 45 degrees on Saturday with rain and wind, it was a great event with wonderful camaraderie and spirit.
Weather doesn't matter - and doesn't dampen the spirit of people here, and this weekend was a great example. It would have been easy to be upset about the weather, and I heard some people complaining about being cold. But it is what it is - and complaining about the cold doesn't make it warmer. I noticed that when people were joyful, the weather didn't matter, and that was what was the most fun.
On Sunday the sun came out and the wind died down and everyone was taking off layers and sitting in the sun listening to music and speakers and playing in the "playshops" and it was beautiful. The woman who had the hula hoop booth was especially busy on Sunday as people were hulaing all over the grounds. We took three of the custom-made hoops back in our RV as three people in our group purchased them.
I'm grateful that my Self is ruler of the universe and that I know that I rule my destiny ... but I am not my self - I am my Self. There is a difference.
My Self is holy beyond all the thoughts of holiness of which I now conceive. Its shimmering and perfect purity is far more brilliant than is any light that I have ever looked upon. Its love is limitless, with an intensity that holds all things within it, in the clam of quiet certainty. Its strength comes not from burning impulses which move the world, but from the boundless Love of God Himself. How far beyond this world my Self must be, and yet how near to me and close to God!
Father, You know my true Identity. Reveal It now to me who am Your Son, that I may waken to the truth in You, and know that Heaven is restored to me.
Miracles I'm noticing:
Stay tuned for an update when I return from WomanSong about all the miracles I witnessed there!
NOTE: Unfortunately, Blogger does not allow me to pre-date my posts to publish at a future date, so I'm posting for tomorrow and Sunday since I'll be out of town. This is Saturday's post.
4. What Is Sin?
Sin in insanity. It is the means by which the mind is driven mad, and seeks to let illusions take the place of truth. And being mad, it sees illusions where the truth should be, and where it really is. Sin gave the body eyes, for what is there the sinless would behold? What need have they of sights or sounds or touch? What would they hear or reach to grasp? What would they sense at all? To sense is not to know. And truth can be but filled with knowledge, and with nothing else.
The body is the instrument the mind made in its efforts to deceive itself. And now the body serves a different aim for striving. What it seeks for now is chosen by the aim the mind has taken as replacement for the goal of self-deception. Truth can be its aim as well as lies. The senses then will seek instead for witnesses to what is true.
Sin is the home of all illusions, which but stand for things imagined, issuing from thoughts that are untrue. They are the "proof" that what has no reality is real. Sin "proves" God's Son is evil; timelessness must have an ed; eternal life must die. And God Himself has lost the Son He loves, with but corruption to complete Himself, His Will forever overcome by death, love slain by hate, and peace to be no more.
A madman's dreams are frightening, and sin appears indeed to terrify. And yet what sin perceives is but a childish game. The Son of God may play he has become a body, prey to evil and to guilt, with but a little life that ends in death. But all the while his Father shines on him, and loves him with an everlasting Love which his pretenses cannot change at all.
How long, O Son of God, will you maintain the game of sin? Shall we not put away these sharp-edged children's toys? How soon will you be ready to come home? Perhaps today? There is no sin. Creation is unchanged. Would you still hold return to Heaven back? How long, O holy Son of God, how long?
Today's Lesson:
I am in need of nothing but the truth.
I sought for many things, and found despair. Now do I seek but one, for in that one is all I need, and only what I need. All that I sought before I needed not, and did not even want. My only need I did not recognize. But now I see that I need only truth. In that all needs are satisfied, all cravings end, all hopes are finally fulfilled and dreams are gone. Now have I everything that I could need. Now have I everything that I could want. And now at last I find myself at peace.
And for that peace, our Father, we give thanks. What we denied ourselves You have restored, and only that is what we really want.
Miracles I'm noticing:
I'm on my way to an amazing weekend retreat called WomanSong in the middle of North Dakota. This will be my third time there and I'm actually going to be reading from my book there tomorrow, so I'm pre-posting for the weekend.
I love the "What is Sin?" conversation! SIN IS INSANITY!! Yes, how long will we hold Heaven back??? I'm reminded of my dad's funeral, nearly two years ago now. The first thing I remember coming from the pastor's mouth that day was something like "we are gathered here today because of sin." How comforting! As if death were a punishment for being sinful!
Sin is the home of all illusions ... issuing from thoughts that are untrue. Yet we've been conditioned to believe our thoughts, so we exist in a reality that is NOT TRUE!! I listen to Byron Katie nearly every day as she does "The Work" with people live on stage and she challenges them - in the most loving way - to ask themselves whether what they believe is actually true. Is it true that your brother should be responsible with his money because you are responsible with yours? NO!! His job is to be who he is, and, in this case on the CD, his job is to be irresponsible with money. Katie reminds us - who needs God if we've got our opinions?
Here's a clip of Katie in action. The subject matter hits very close to home for me. How totally wonderful that this work is changing the world of 4- and 5-year-olds!! It's magical!
How long will we maintain this game of sin??? We need nothing but the truth. We have everything we need and everything we could want. The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, really will - and does - set us free.
Question those thoughts that are running your life. Are they true? Can you be absolutely certain they are true? What is your reaction to those thoughts? Who would you be without those thoughts? I'll bet you would be free. And the TRUTH is, you already are! That's the miracle!!
Let me behold the Son of God today, and witness to his glory. Let me not try to obscure the holy light in him, and see his strength diminished and reduced to frailty; nor perceive the lacks in him with which I would attack his sovereignty.
He is Your Son, my Father. And today I would behold his gentleness instead of my illusions. He is what I am, and as I see him so I see myself. today I would see truly, that this day I may at last identify with him.
Miracles I'm noticing:
It's amazing to me how much I see when I open my eyes. If I walk through my life with blinders on, believing I am limited and seeing only what I expect, that is all I see. But when I open myself up to seeing things I don't already know, that's when miracles show up. They're always there - it's just that we can't see them if we aren't open to them. Awareness is such a great gift - and is the first step to seeing more clearly. Are you ready to see more? Just look with different eyes.
It's no accident that I saw two movies this morning which I'd love to share. They really show that the world is ready to move and shift and pass it on. I'm blessed and grateful to be alive - and waking up - in the world today. Check out these two movies and you'll see that each of us has the ability and the capacity to make a HUGE difference in our lives and the world ... it's just a matter of which kind of difference we want to make: a positive one or a negative one.
What can we do together today? Don't wait - BE the change you wish to see in the world! Miracles ABOUND!!
Forgiveness paints a picture of a world where suffering is over, loss becomes impossible and anger makes no sense. Attack is gone, and madness has an end. What suffering is now conceivable? What loss can be sustained? The world becomes a place of joy, abundance, charity and endless giving. It is now so like to Heaven that it quickly is transformed into the light that it reflects. And so the journey which the Son of God began has ended in the light from which he came.
Father, we would return our minds to You. We have betrayed them, held them in a vise of bitterness, and frightened them with thoughts of violence and death. Now would we rest again in You, as You created us.
Miracles I'm noticing:
I'm thinking this morning again of Gary Renard's book Disappearance of the Universe. In that book I really started to understand the power of forgiveness by the way he described his experiences with this Course. He reminds us to forgive our brothers for what they didn't do, which to me is a reminder that everything I perceive as "wrong" with anyone else is something I made up.
As I listen over and over to Byron Katie doing "The Work" with audience members in the CD recording of a live lecture she did with Wayne Dyer, I also see how forgiveness - of ourselves as well as others - is so freeing and powerful. We have this belief that the way we see things is the way they should be, and so we see others (and ourselves) as flawed and wrong. Katie reminds us to question those thoughts and see whether or not it's really true that anyone should be any way except the way they are. "He should be more respectful." "She should be better with her money." Really? Who says? Maybe they are perfect the way they are and we need to forgive them for not being perfect in our eyes.
Today I will look at everything and everyone with forgiving eyes. That will be my miracle!
I have disowned the truth. Now let me be as faithful in disowning falsity. Whatever suffers is not part of me. What grieves is not myself. What is in pain is but illusion in my mind. What dies was never living in reality, and did but mock the truth about myself. Now I disown self-concepts and deceits and lies about the holy Son of God. Now am I ready to accept him back as God created him, and as he is.
Father, my ancient love for You returns, and lets me love Your Son again as well. Father, I am as You created me. Now is Your Love remembered, and my own. Now do I understand that they are one.
Miracles I'm noticing:
It becomes much easier to love everyone when I remember today's lesson. Even people who frustrate and upset me are children of God - and who am I to doubt God's work? There is no reason at all not to love the Truth, even though people might do things I don't think they should do or say things I don't think they should say. Who needs God when I have my opinion (I'm thinking sheepishly)?
There really is nothing that should frustrate or upset me if I really get this lesson. As I grow in my own awareness, I see things from a new vantage point, and it really should look different. If I'm seeing everything the same way I always did, I'm not growing.
Last night at our Course gathering, we started, as we always do, with a few minutes of silent meditation. Most of the time when we do that, I get a song in my head and last night was no exception. The song was "Open The Eyes of My Heart, Lord." There aren't a lot of words to the song, just "Open the eyes of my heart, Lord. Open the eyes of my heart. I want to see you, I want to see you" but maybe that's all I needed last night.
The text we read last night really hit me after that meditation. The part that especially struck me was this:
"We have already said that wishful thinking is how the ego deals with what it wants, to make it so. There is no better demonstration of the power of wanting, and therefore of faith, to make its goals seem real and possible. Faith in the unreal leads to adjustments of reality to make it fit the goal of madness. The goal of sin induces the perception of a fearful world to justify its purpose. What you desire, you will see. And if its reality is false, you will uphold it by not realizing all the adjustments you have introduced to make it so."
So if I have the eyes of my heart opened to see God, I will be able to trust that what I desire, I will see.
Notice all the "coincidences" that happen around you today. What are you seeing? Where are your eyes fixed and what are they open to? You might be surprised what you'll see if you just look up - and let your eyes adjust to the light.
Sin is the symbol of attack. Behold it anywhere, and I will suffer. For forgiveness is the only means whereby Christ's vision comes to me. Let me accept what His sight shows me as the simple truth, and I am healed completely. Brother, come and let me look on you. Your loveliness reflects my own. Your sinlessness is mine. You stand forgiven, and I stand with you.
So would I look on everyone today. My brothers are Your Sons. Your Fatherhood created them, and gave them all to me as part of You, and my own Self as well. Today I honor You through them, and thus I hope this day to recognize my Self.
Miracles I'm noticing:
I really do need to be around people. I didn't do much yesterday outside the house as I'm working on updating my company website and also putting together a new website for my Life Success workshop registration, so spent all day in front of the computer. What I notice in that case is that it's difficult to notice miracles. I am an extrovert, which means I gain energy from people, so when I don't see people, I notice an energy drain.
I'm excited for two meetings today and also to get together with my Course in Miracles gang tonight. I missed them last week as I was training in Minnesota. It's always so great to meet with them and read the text together, because 1) I get so much more out of it when we read out loud and 2) it's great to have others to talk about it with.
Let me not think that I can find the way to God, if I have hatred in my heart. Let me not try to hurt God's Son, and think that I can know his Father or my Self. Let me not fail to recognize myself, and still believe that my awareness can contain my Father, or my mind conceive of all the love my Father has for me, and all the love which I return to Him.
I will accept the way You choose for me to come to You, my Father. For in that will I succeed, because it is Your Will. And I would recognize that what You will is what I will as well, and only that. And so I choose to love Your Son. Amen.
Miracles I'm noticing:
Today's message is really very simple. It also reinforces what I'm reading in Wayne Dyer's new book about the Tao Te Ching. If we want to get into the flow of life, we have to realize that we are already there - we may just be struggling upstream. There is really nothing to have to get to; we are already there.
Here's an example from yesterday. Each year on the Sunday of Labor Day weekend, my dad's family gets together at my dad's brother's hunting cabin. I knew they were eating at 1:00, and I fully intended to be there by 1:00, but I went downstairs to print some pictures of my cousins' families from when I visited them in Florida and in Arizona earlier this year. It took a lot longer than I anticipated, and by the time I got gas, got a quick car wash, and stopped by a grocery store to get some fruit to take along, it was already 1:00 (it takes about an hour to get where I needed to go).
At 1:23, just as I was getting out on the highway, my phone rang and it was my cousin calling at the request of my mom. She wanted to know where I was. That really set me into a tailspin and I had a mini meltdown. It really didn't make me want to be there at all.
It just so happened that I was listening to a Wayne Dyer and Byron Katie lecture on CD, which is all about questioning our thoughts. Any thought I have that upsets me, I'm supposed to ask whether or not it is true and turn it around. It caused me to rethink my upset.
When I got to the cabin, I saw that my mom was talking with my aunts so I went over where they were. It occurred to me that maybe my mom wanted me to be there because there was no one else from our immediate family there - my sister and her family weren't there, and I wonder if it's tough for my mom since my dad died (it is his family's gathering). It gave me a new perspective instead of blaming my mom for checking up on me.
I have to admit I still get stuck on issues involving my mother, but the awareness allows me an opportunity to make new choices. As I make those new choices, I allow new results. That's the miracle!
Your peace surrounds me, Father. Where I go, Your peace goes there with me. It sheds its light on everyone I meet. I bring it to the desolate and lonely and afraid. I give Your peace to those who suffer pain, or grieve for loss, or think they are bereft of hope and happiness. Send them to me, my Father. Let me bring Your peace with me. For I would save Your Son, as is Your Will, that I may come to recognize my Self.
And so we go in peace. To all the world we give the message that we have received. And thus we come to hear the Voice for God, Who speaks to us as we relate His Word; Whose Love we recognize because we share the Word that He has given unto us.
Miracles I'm noticing:
The community where I spent last week training is apparently a very strict Apostolic Christian community and several of the people I met go to the same church. I told a couple of different people about the master mind groups I'm forming to study the book Think and Grow Rich, and was told that I need to be careful in telling people that they can achieve any goals they set their minds to. I looked up this church and here is a little bit about what I found. This information sheds a lot of light on why they may not look kindly on gaining "riches" as they would define them.
There are 93 congregations of this denomination across North America (and one in Japan). Three of those are in Minnesota. Here are some other facts from http://www.apostolicchristian.org/
The life of a Christian reflects the light of Christ in everyday discipleship, both inwardly and outwardly. The Word instructs to avoid costly and immodest clothing. Gender distinction in attire and in general appearance is respectful to God's order of creation. Women are exhorted to portray a chaste appearance with long hair gathered in a modest style, without cosmetics and jewelry. Men avoid long hair and are to maintain an outward demeanor that is consistent with the themes of humility, moderation and sobriety. Unedifying worldly entertainments are avoided, as believers are to be good stewards of all resources including their hearts and time.All aspects of the service are intended to draw worshippers nearer to God and to deepen human appreciation of His ways. Thus, all worship procedures (i.e., reading Scriptures, preaching, singing and praying) are intended to give God, not man, supreme recognition and to glorify His name.
Ministers are not trained at seminaries or Bible colleges. The church believes that one's faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. If preaching was done with wisdom of words, "the cross should be made of none effect."
Ministers are chosen from among the congregations and serve open-ended terms. They are men of good report, with a good understanding of and devotion to Scriptures, and are loyal in supporting the doctrines of the church. They serve without salaried compensation. More than one minister serves a church, the average being three to five.
Singing, too, is simple, joyful and solemn in "a cappella" fashion. All music is intended to focus on God. The intent of worship is not to entertain but to edify, and to glorify God. All parishioners sing. In the sanctuary, prayer is offered to God while kneeling. This position symbolizes fallible mankind "bowing" in heart and mind before an all-powerful, merciful, and infallible God and Father. Female members wear a veiling over their head during prayer and worship according to Scriptures. Male members pray with their heads uncovered.
Men and women sit separately during regular worship services. This is sometimes relaxed, however, during special occasions such as weddings and funerals. Although no Scriptures reflect this practice, both Jewish and Christian tradition do. This practice was universally observed in both faiths beginning with temple worship until the late 1800's. Separate seating during worship contributes to better "a cappella" singing, and it helps widows, widowers, and single members feel more comfortable by sitting with believers of their own gender.
Brothers and sisters in the church are to love one another as Christ loved us. They are to submit one to another in the fear of God. They are to respect each other's conscience. Further, they are asked via Scriptures to encourage (exhort) one another and, if ever necessary, to correct (admonish) each other. This is all done in love and gentleness with the intent of strengthening the individual member and the entire body.
Likewise, believers are to be "perfectly joined together" in a tightly knit church family." They are to keep the same spiritual judgments, and walk according to the same understanding and application of biblical principles.
This information is very helpful to me as I teach and train in this community. I wonder how I can determine who is a member of this church before I go there to sell other training, since I would tell about the effects of the classes in different ways. I believe what I'm learning from this Course, and that is quite different from what these people believe; consequently my zeal for them living their lives to the fullest as a reflection of the love and light of God might be mistaken.
However, I did have a conversation with one gentleman there who was very honest with me about what he heard me say while we were talking. He said when he hears about information based on a "program" or a "training manual," he is very skeptical. But when he heard me talk about my beliefs without referring to something else, he said he liked what he heard.
So to me that is an indication that the light shines through no matter what obstacles it is having to go through. The light is the light regardless of who is defining it in human terms. As I can be honest and authentic in my beliefs, I think that will come across however I teach.
And the miracle is that this gentleman actually took the book Think and Grow Rich and was interested in reading it, even though he was initially skeptical because he thought it is focused on worldly goods (and he'll find that it is, on the surface). After he reads it, he will let me know if he'd be interested in a master mind group to study it.
As I reflect on today's message - Your peace is with me, Father. I am safe. - I see that God's peace is the light I reflected to this gentleman this week. When I do speak from my heart I don't have to worry about what I say or how it is interpreted because the light and peace will shine through.
Your Son is safe wherever he may be, for You are there with him. He need but call upon Your Name, and he will recollect his safety and Your Love, for they are one. How can he fear or doubt or fail to know he cannot suffer, be endangered, or experience unhappiness, when he belongs to You, beloved and loving, in the safety of Your Fatherly embrace?
And there we are in truth. No storms can come into the hallowed haven of our home. In God we are secure. For what can come to threaten God Himself, or make afraid what will forever be a part of Him?
Miracles I'm noticing:
How much does it free up my thinking and my creativity when I remember that there is no danger from which God cannot (and does not) protect me? I wonder how much time and energy people spend in worry and fear. I know I've been there. As an independent business owner and sole (or "soul") proprietor, if I don't work, I don't pay the mortgage. There have certainly been some sleepless nights in my past where I've worried about the HOWs in my life.
But today's lesson assures us that we are safe - we cannot fear or doubt or fail to know we cannot suffer, be endangered, or experience unhappiness - when we know we belong to God.
As we are freed from our own fearful thoughts, we have so much more capacity to create and that, in turn, leads us to more productivity and availability for our work as well as for our families and loved ones.
As I'm learning from my Proctor studies, when the WHY is big enough (the PURPOSE) for anything I really want, the HOW will take care of itself. That's God at work to help me fulfill my purpose. When I am mindful and do things ON PURPOSE, that's where I can be free of my limiting beliefs.
I'm also reminded of the 22-year-old young man from my town who was killed in Iraq on Wednesday. I'm sure people who have loved ones in the war - or anywhere there is strife - have reason to fear that danger. But if we can remember that there is a divine plan for everything and everyone, and that there is no danger God will not protect us from, it does help ease the fear. If everyone had faith that God is really at the helm, and that we are all Children of God, it would help us accept the realities of life and death.
I'm reminded again of two books I read that helped me before and after my dad's death. One is Home With God In A World That Never Ends by Neale Donald Walsch and the other is Your Immortal Reality: How to Break the Cycle of Birth and Death by Gary Renard. If we focus more on the tragedy of death, we aren't celebrating the effects of that person's life. That's what I choose to remember about my dad. I know it's different when people die young, but we are the ones who put judgment to how long or how well someone "should" live.
That awareness has really given me a new way to look at what I might previously have judged as wrong, or bad, or fearful, or dangerous.
Conversations With God
The Four Agreements
A Course in Miracles
The Disappearance of the Universe
A Return to Love
