A Course In Miracles Workbook Lesson #298 - I love You Father, and I love Your Son.

 

Lesson #298

I love You, Father, and I love Your Son

We can choose the world of the ego or the world of the Spirit (Love.) Today’s lesson encourages us to choose the world of the Spirit.

In Alcoholic Anonymous, it is suggested, in step eleven, that we seek to improve our conscious contact with God through prayer and meditation. Nowadays, we call this mindfulness. We can ask ourselves continually “What would Love have me do?”

In Unitarian Universalism we covenant together to promote and affirm the inherent worth and dignity of every person which comes from their Divine essence created by the Source Of Life.

Today, we can say with confidence “I love You, Father, and I love Your Son.” In order to focus on this, we cast the things of the ego aside at least temporarily and hopefully as we continue to grow and mature permanently.

A Course In Miracles Workbook Lesson #297 - Forgiveness is the only gift I give.

 Lesson #297

Forgiveness is the only gift I give.

Forgiveness is when we give up making other people and circumstances responsible for our unhappiness. Forgiveness moves us out of the victim role and we rise above whatever hurt, sorrow, resentment, grievance, and fear that we feel. Forgiveness is a decision sometimes accompanied by behavior but the behavior is not necessary. Forgiveness is a matter of the mind and heart.

In Alcoholic Anonymous it is suggested, in step five, that we admit to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our mistakes after we have done our fearless moral inventory in step four. In step six we become willing to allow God to remove the guilt and pain that we feel as a result of these mistakes.

In Unitarian Universalism we join together to affirm and promote justice, equity, and compassion in human relations. A major tool for accomplishing justice, equity, and compassion is forgiveness. Practicing this principle leads to the awareness that there are no victims in the world of the Spirit while there are billions in the world of the ego.

Today, it is suggested that we remind ourselves continually throughout the day that forgiveness is the only gift I give to myself and to others.

The series of posts on a Course In Miracles and Unitarian Universalism.

 A fellow said to me, "All you have on your site is stuff about A Course In Miracles. I thought it was suppose to be about Unitarian Universalism?"

His comment made it clear he hadn't read many of the articles or he would have realized that every article does relate the lessons from the Course not only to Unitarian Universalism but also to the spiritual teachings of Alcohol Anonymous one of the biggest programs for spiritual development in the United States today.

The lessons of A Course In Miracles can be challenging in their seemingly intellectualized formulations. They don't make a lot of sense, often, unless the practitioner is familiar with the metaphysics of the Course. However, when the practitioner understands the metaphysics of the Course, the meanings of the lessons can be profound and inspiring and very practical in developing one's spiritual life.

If you have been regular reader and practitioner of the UU ACIM lessons here, I'd love to hear from you what you think of them and how you have used them. Send me an email at davidgmarkham@gmail.com.

Thank you for your consideration.

A Course In Miracles Workbook Lesson #296 - The Holy Spirit speaks through me today.

 Lesson #296

The Holy Spirit speaks through me today.

The question is easy to ask, “What would Love have me do?” It is harder to act on the answer we intuit. A corollary question is, “What would Love have me speak today?”

A friend said to me one time, “You know, being kind isn’t the same thing as being nice.” We had quite a discussion about that idea. You can guess how it went.

The Holy Spirit would always have us be kind, but that doesn’t mean we always have to be nice. Maybe being nice is not being kind, and being kind is not being nice.

In Alcoholic Anonymous we are encouraged, in step four, to do a searching and fearless moral inventory and in step nine it is suggested that we make amends where it would do no further harm. Having done step four we are ready to make amends which is the Holy Spirit speaking through us to repair the harm we have done.

In Unitarian Universalism we join together to affirm and promote justice, equity, and compassion in our human relations. In order to do this we ask the Holy Spirit to speak through us today.

Today, it is suggested that we turn our will over to God’s will for us and allow the Holy Spirit to speak through us today. It takes practice, patience, and persistence. We get better the more we mindfully enact this idea.

A Course In Miracles Workbook Lesson #295 - The Holy Spirit looks through me today.

 Lesson #295

The Holy Spirit looks through me today.

Comedian Flip Wilson, when he did his Geraldine routine, would have her say, “What you see is what you get!” This statement is more correct if she were to say, “What you think you see is what you get!”

Today’s lesson reminds us that we can look through the eyes of the ego or the eyes of the Spirit. The choice is ours. Today, we ask to look through the eyes of the Spirit and thereby save ourselves and the world.

In Alcoholic Anonymous it is suggested, in step eleven, that we seek to improve our conscious contact with God through prayer and mediation. We might add that we can ask the Holy Spirit for help. It is suggested, in step two, that we come to believe that there is a Power greater than ourselves that can restore us to sanity. In step three, we are encouraged to decide to turn our willfulness over to the care of God as we understand God.

In Unitarian Universalism we join together to affirm and promote a love for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part and when we do this we transcend the world of the ego and see the world with more loving eyes of the Holy Spirit.

Today, it is suggested that we remind ourselves that the Holy Spirit looks through me today. All we have to do is to ask ourselves, “What would Love have me see?”

Mission creep leads to UU enervation.

Mission creep leads to enervation. 

In the second essay entitled “I want a divorce” in his book of three essays, The Gadfly Papers, Rev. Dr. Todd Eklof discusses the history  of Unitarianism, Universalism, their merger in 1961, and the resulting “identity crisis” which has plagued the denomination ever since.

Our common quest for the elusive “elevator speech” to explain what Unitarian Universalism means is but one symptom of our own organization’s identity crisis. After more than five decades since the merger, many Unitarian Universalists still don’t know how to adequately describe their religion to themselves, let alone to others. Some find it with so little meaning of its own that they feel compelled to add other traditions to the mix, describing themselves as Buddhist UUs, Christian UUs, Pagan UUs, Humanist UUs, etc., etc.

Eklof, Todd. The Gadfly Papers: Three Inconvenient Essays by One Pesky Minister . Kindle Edition. 

The passage above is humorous and sad. Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote seven principles which flow from six sources. They are easily summarized on  a colorful bookmark sold by the UUA bookstore. It is easy to describe the UU religion if one is properly educated and trained which most are not. The mystery is why not?

The failure to properly educate Unitarian Universalists in the fundamentals of their faith is because they are too easily captured by social justice special interest groups who want recognition for their grievance rather than a deeper understanding of the spiritual nature of their existential dilemmas. 

UU has lost its way because of the failure of its clergy and lay leaders to pursue a spiritual journey rather than a secular quest. UU has been enervated by its mission creep. What it needs is a spiritual revival so that it can regain its mission in the world and its vision of the fulfillment of what it might become: a conduit of spiritual solace to a weary world.

A Course In Miracles Workbook Lesson #294 - My body is a wholly neutral thing.

 Lesson #294

My body is a wholly neutral thing.

Are you a body with a soul or a soul with a body? Today’s lesson teaches that we are a soul with a body and the body is just a neutral tool with which we communicate with our brothers and sisters and the world.

In Alcoholics Anonymous it is suggested, in step eleven, that we decide to improve our conscious contact with the Divine from which we have emerged and to which we will return if not commune with while we inhabit a body in the world of the ego. It is necessary, though, if we are to improve our conscious contact with the Divine that we recognize that the body is neutral. It is merely a tool. It will, when it is worn out, be discarded if not sooner through accidental or intentional elimination.

In Unitarian Universalism we join together to recognize the interdependent web of all existence of which we are just a part. It is our spirit, our energy, which vivifies the world, not our physical bodies.

Today, it is suggested that we acknowledge that what matters in life is not our bodies but our spirit. It is spiritual health which enriches us, not physical attributes. The body is a wholly neutral thing.