UU & ACIM - Who am I to know what is best for the universe?

The fifth principle of miracles is:

“Miracles are habits, and should be involuntary. They should not be under conscious control. Consciously selected miracles can be misguided.”

This is another hard principle to understand if you do not understand the philosophical framework of  ACIM. Miracles are a way of thinking and a matter of intention not forms or specific behavior. Are you loving are not? When you are loving, miracles happen without your knowing it. To live and act in a loving way becomes natural after a while. It takes great training and discipline but after practice it happens without thinking. It is like learning to play the piano or ice skate. At first it takes great effort and seems very awkward and maybe even impossible, but with ongoing effort and practice we become more proficient and it just comes naturally. Miracle thinking where we seek to do the will of God and not gratify our own ego inclinations and desires takes determination, persistence, and practice and then gradually becomes natural and we do it without be consciously aware.

Miracles, as ACIM uses the term, is not magic. They are not manipulation, they are born of loving intention to allow God’s will to extend itself to the situation and people we interact with. We have choice to react or to respond. Reacting is when we get our buttons pushed and our bodies are triggered. Responding is a conscious, thoughtful, deliberate and purposeful action governed by turning it over to our Higher Power or in the terms ACIM, the Holy Spirit. In AA the second step is turning our lives over to our Higher Power and this is what this fifth principle is describing. We have turned our lives over to the Holy Spirit to use as a conduit of God’s loving grace. This most often happens when we are forgiving. It is a humbling experience for us to forgive ourselves are escapades into egoistic drama, and to forgive other people for the imagined injustices and hurts we perceive them to have perpetrated on our bodies and our pride.

Unitarian Universalism asks us to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person. When we intentionally do this with love for ourselves and others we are working miracles, and ACIM is telling us that this intention and action should be habitual and not under our conscious control because we trust in our Higher Power, the Spirit of Life to guide us because our HP and SL knows best. When we try to guide and pick and chose miracles we are in danger of becoming judgmental and projecting our own desires, resentments, drama onto other people. ACIM teaches that we can’t work miracles by ourselves because of our egos it is too easy to make mistakes. It is better to turn ourselves over to our HP and SL for guidance. This is easier to do when we remind ourselves of the seventh UU principle which is that we are just a part of the interdependent web of all existence and who am I to think that I know what is best for the universe?

Second principle practice - American gulag part one

From "Captive Market" by Michael Ames in the February, 2015 issue of Harper's Magazine:

The United States currently holds about 2.3 million men, women, and children inside secure concrete and metal boxes from which they will almost certainly not escape. 

Our nation is exceptional in this way, with incarceration rates that far surpass those in Russia, Iran, or any other country on earth. 

One in twenty-eight American children has a parent in jail. African Americans have for decades been arrested for narcotics at more than three times the rate of white Americans, despite using drugs at roughly the same rate. 

There are more black men in the prison system right now then there were male slaves in the antebellum South. 

Counting parolees and probationers, the corrections system controls the lives of nearly 7 million people. Half of all federal inmates are in prison for drug offenses, and post-9/11 immigration roundups have provided a new human- inventory stream. Between 2001 and 2011, the number of detainees held each year by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) more than doubled—from
209,000 to at least 429,000—making foreign migrants one of the largest demographics in federal custody.

Unitarian Universalists covenant together to affirm and promote 7 principles and values. The second principle is "Justice, Equity, and Compassion in Human Relations" There is a huge values gap between what we, as Americans say we believe in and value, and our practices what we actually do. How can be close this values gap and bring our values more into alignment with espoused values.

UU & ACIM - God cannot take responsibility for what you've done

The fourth miracle principle in A Course In Miracles is:

All miracles mean life, and God is the Giver of life. 2 His Voice will direct you very specifically. 3 You will be told all you need to know.

This principle is confusing because it does not seem to describe our experience. We do not hear God's voice specifically and being anxious and lost most of the time we don't feel and believe we are told what we need to know. The reason for this bafflement is that we are thinking about the principle on the ego plane and not on the spiritual plane.

The ego believes it has certain problems which the Course teaches us aren't real, we have created them in our heads. Indeed, we do create our own hell because of our attachments, our grasping, our sense of lack and scarcity. Our ego then screams, gimme! gimme! gimme!. Our fears and our anger over what we perceive as deprivation blocks our awareness of Love's presence. A small shift to the spiritual plan changes all that. We realize that we are part of God, part of the All, and in this cosmic consciousness we realize that fundamentally we have every thing we need, because as the Universalists have taught us, God loves us unconditionally even if our ego is distressed that it doesn't have everything it wants. Whose fault is this? It is certainly not God's fault. God didn't make the ego, you did. God cannot take responsibility for what you've done. God gives us free will after all and you can do as you please.

However, if we set aside our ego desires, hates, resentments, God is there for us and will direct us specifically to love as God loves and that is, really, all we need to know. In shifting to the spiritual plane from the ego plane we become aware that we, like everyone in the world, have inherent worth and dignity and in this inherency there is no lack but eternal life. The first principle of Unitarian Universalism brings us home once again to the Source of our lives.

What Universalists know - that the way to be happy is to do good.

Rev. Richard Trudeau writes in his book, Univeralism 101 that the way to be happy is to do good.

"The loving God of Universalism wants people to be happy in this life, too. To use Hosea Ballou's wonderful coinage, God wants to 'happify' people now. So, God has given us such a nature that we find doing good to be deeply and lastingly satisfying.

In Universalism, the reward for doing good is not salvation in a possible next life but happiness in this one." p. 20

Increasingly these is social science research which has proven this point over and over again that the happiest people are givers not takers. The giving is not so much for the beneficiary but for oneself.

Rev. Kaaren Anderson at First Unitarian in Rochester, NY has said, and I am sure it is not unique to her, that UU is not so much about getting people into heaven but heaven into people.

Are you a generous tipper? Do you give a compliment when you see something done well or you appreciate something as a result of another's efforts? These actions of generosity make us all richer both giver and receiver. This way of thinking is antithetical to the myth or scarcity and the fear of lack.

As Tracy Chapman sings all that you have is your soul and your soul is expanded by its generosity of spirit.

UU & ACIM - Miracles are the awareness of Love's presence

A Course in Miracles begins with the first chapter entitled "The Meaning of Miracles" and this chapter begins with the first section which enumerates 50 miracle principles which can be somewhat off putting unless the reader has some understanding of the philosophy of ACIM.

First, the meaning of the word "miracle" in ACIM refers to a shift in normal perception and a change in heart from the world of the ego to the world of spirit. "Miracle" in ACIM does not mean magical alteration of the mechanics of the physical world but rather a change of heart, of attitude, of appreciation, of apprehension. Here are the first three of 50 miracle principles:

1. There is no order of difficulty in miracles. 2 One is not "harder" or "bigger" than another. 3 They are all the same. 4 All expressions of love are maximal

.2. Miracles as such do not matter. 2 The only thing that matters is their Source, which is far beyond evaluation.

.3. Miracles occur naturally as expressions of love. 2 The real miracle is the love that inspires them. 3 In this sense everything that comes from love is a miracle.

The "miracle" in ACIM is an expression of Love and as such there is nor order of difficulty or achievement. Love is simply Love and it is always the best that it can be when it is pure, authentic, honest, genuine. The sixth principle of UU  is the goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all. When we experience this world community or get a glimpse of it we feel it as a miracle because it is so awesome and different from the usual hellish world of egos that we live in. UUs like to say that our aim is not to get people into heaven but heaven into people and when we create that experience it feels like a miracle.

ACIM is clear that the shift in perception and the change of heart really doesn't matter because what matters is the Source of this Loving awareness which is beyond "evaluation", understanding, experience. The "miracle" is being present in the now, being embraced in the flow, and so enthralled that at the moment the miracle is occurring we are not even aware of its happening, all we are aware of is the enlightened consciousness of being one with everything. It is orgasm. It is being so involved that time stands still. We are lost to our ego and have become one with the experience. We are filled not only with respect but with a genuine awareness of the interdependent web of all existence.

When we are loving miracles occur naturally. They are our inheritance. Jesus tells us in Matthew 17:20 ""You don't have enough faith," Jesus told them. "I tell you the truth, if you had faith even as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it would move. Nothing would be impossible." And yet, we don't have that kind of faith usually. We search for it which UU encourages with the affirmation and promotion of the responsible search for truth and meaning and yet we look for it externally, out there, when it resides internally, in our own hearts. As Tina Turner's great song says, "We are looking for love in all the wrong places."

Universalism teaches us that God loves us unconditionally which is very different from what the ego world teaches us. Shifting our perception from the world of the ego, to the spiritual plane makes miracles happen and this miracle thinking is based on the awareness of Love's presence in our lives.

Third principle stuff from Stephen Gaskin back in 1970 before there even was a third principle

There's no final enlightenment until everybody can get off. You can only go so far, and then you've got to stop and help everybody get off, and that means everybody. So it's immoral to mess up folks' heads- anybody's. I try to leave everybody's head a little better than I found it; it doesn't matter who he be.

Stephen Gaskin. The Caravan

The new Universalism

To access Rev. James Ishmael Ford's article "Embracing the New Universalism" in the Fall, 2014 issue of UU World click here.