Happy Sunday!
Friends, you have to stir up what God has put on the inside. – Joel Osteen.
For the last couple of weeks I have felt like I have come off the high of ‘enlightenment’. I find myself going back to judgmental voices filling my head. At least these days I do recognize this and try to be patient with myself. I realize that life is needing more of me lately but this has me feeling more stressed. The stress of writing last week’s article required pulling out tough memories: looking at my own role in judgmental behavior, and how that may have been painful to my siblings. I am also dealing with a heavy work load at the office that has been pulling my attention from my daily spiritual practices that I use to keep me centered and loving throughout my day. I have been struggling to get my God energy back and feel grace flowing through me again.
I feel I went briefly astray in my thoughts this week. I am currently reading Joseph Campbell’s “Hero with a Thousand Faces”, learning of the cycle of the Hero’s journey. After reading about the phase of the cycle after the transcendental experience, I thought that perhaps my current struggle was about this – trying to fit in again to the “real” world. I learned from the book that not every hero returns welcomed nor does the lesson he offers become accepted by society. I kept thinking of Jesus and the phrase “no prophet is accepted in his own hometown”. Was the high over for me? Had I come to the stage of re-joining the real world, my adventure now over? These questions sat with me for a brief half day.
The next morning my ACIM lesson cleared my mind for me. It directed me back to what I know to be truth, not to look outside my self for blame, don’t judge, that my perception is my own choice.
“It can be but myself I crucify.” – If I see other people as bodies, I am crucifying myself. If I make what their bodies do real, I am crucifying myself. What I make real in others is what I am making real in myself. Making anyone’s ego real is denying their true Identity and my true Identity and I will suffer for it. When I do not remember that I am connected with God, at some level I feel lost and alone.
As I do these lessons, I realize that this need not be. I can let my mind be changed. I can learn to consistently see the Spark of God in my brother. This helps me recognize that the same Spark of God is in me. We all have one real life and that is the life we live in God. If I deny this, I am attacking myself and attacking my brother. Letting go of the denial of the truth is forgiveness. It is my one purpose. As I practice forgiveness daily, I am learning how to be truly happy, how to be truly free. “I am not a body, I am free. I am still as God created me.” ~ACIM Lesson 216 Lesson Insights by Pathways of Light
I instantly recognized that I was misguided. I carry my LOVE and joy within me, as we all do. That in my returning to judgement of others I was thereby hurting myself.
Holy Spirit help me to see LOVE in everyone. Please teach me how to not let the daily stresses influence my being. Allow me to show LOVE, be LOVE, and feel LOVE.
Amen.