A poem

Map

Begin Here.
Not there in the mirey clay of "where you came from"
Not there in the cloudy doubt of "where you are going"
but Here
Here on solid ground.

Begin Now.
Let go of that ancient millstone history;
Let go of that phoney lodestone future.
Begin Now
Now is solid ground.

"This is the way, walk ye in it"
says the voice of God.
"That was the way, too bad you missed it"
says the Liar.

"Now is the day of salvation"
says the voice of God.
"Someday, if you get lucky, maybe you'll be happy"
says the Liar.

The Liar is future tense anxiety past tense anguish
God speaks present tense "I love you"

But how do you know you are here?
Be still, and feel:
Here
is where Love loves you
Here
is where Truth speaks your name
Here
is where Spirit sings you a lullaby.
Right here is where you always are

How do you find now?
Be still, and listen:
Now
is when Mind accepts you
Now
is when Soul sings YES to you
Now
is when Life's arms hold you
Right now is when you always be

And being, suddenly you find your feet
on the holy ground of Principle.
And you know:
This -- right now! -- is the best time of your life.
This -- right here! -- is the best place to be.
There is no lie to fight
There is no lie to change
Because God is with you *here*
because God loves you *now*
Right where you are.

So take off those stiff shoes
and toss those cursed fig leaves
of cheated past and incurable future.

And, having nothing between
you and your Father-Mother God,

Look up!
Up there!
There's a Rainbow smiling over your head

Look down!
Right there!
There's solid Rock under your feet

And look around!
All around!
You actually are God's perfect child!

-- Here
and Now.

"Desire is prayer..."

"Our Father which art in heaven."
"Our Father-Mother God, all-harmonious."

Have you ever stopped to think where your yearning for "something better, higher, holier" comes from? Have you ever stopped to realize that it comes from God?

God speaks to us through our intuition, through our yearning, through our desire. "Thoughts unspoken are not unknown to the divine Mind. Desire is prayer; and no loss can occur from trusting God with our desires, that they may be moulded and exalted before they take form in words and in deeds."

God stirs you to yearn, to wake up to your personal inability, to need to trust your desires to Him.

Why? Because no matter what other solutions you try - drugs, sex, rock-and-roll (or whatever other substitute for real fulfillment you choose) - He alone can fulfill your desire. That is because, at its root, all desire is for that "something better, higher, holier," something powerfully good, something lasting, something more than you can get or make or steal on your own. It is your desire for your oneness with God. He is stirring you - right now - to awake in His likeness, to see yourself as He always already sees you, to be what He already "be's" you!

All desire - no matter how good or bad - is a form of prayer. And the outcome of that prayer is completely based on what - or who - you trust your desires to!

Try trusting them to God. God is always stirring you to want to wake up to Him, to seek so you can find Him, to knock so He can open your heart, to ask so He can tell you "My son... you are always with me and everything I have is yours."

Our Father which art in heaven.
Our Father-Mother God, all-harmonious

Seek Him. He's as close as your desire.

Rejoice in God's work today

"Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven."
Enable us to know, as in heaven, so on earth, God is omnipotent, supreme.

I'm grateful for the work I have to do today. Let "Thy will be done" in me. Let Thy Mind direct my steps, Thy purpopse be fulfilled today.

Or better: let me acknowledge that Your work is already done, that Your kingdom is already come because You are everpresent. Right now.

I rejoice to see Your work made manifest today! Enable me - and all of us to know, that, as in heaven, so on earth, Life is omnipotent, supreme.

God never sees sadness or loss or incapacity! God only sees you as His perfect image and likeness: joyous, upright, whole, free - without a single element of error or fear or loss. Why? Because "...nothing inharmonious can enter being, for Life is God."

Give us then this day our daily bread, our daily communion with You, our daily satisfaction and fulfillment, our daily yearnings / needs / dreams / and hopes-not-dared-hoped-for to be revealed as already here and now abundantly fulfilled. Nothing shattered beyond repair. No fear of loss or loneliness. No failed efforts or faithfulness neglected. No silent hopes repeatedly dashed. But only an awakening to You: Love being reflected in love - all Good reflected in goodness and all Soul in bliss.

This "grace for today" that our Father-Mother gives us, feeds all our famished affections, forgives all our debts and doubts, our losses and limitations, and leads us away from trials and self-denials, delivers us from tresspassing with evil - false seeing, false feeling, false being, into - what?

The awakening to the everpresence of Life. To the all-power of Truth. The glory of infinite Love. To the Father-Mother who is over all. To the Adorable One God - who is All.

Seeing your life through the spiritual sense of the Lord's Prayer

"Give us this day our daily bread."
Give us grace for today; feed the famished affections.

What if you accepted - right now - that you have a perfect life? that you have perfect work to do, perfect love to share, a perfect home to live in, a perfect relationship to enjoy?

OK so you're thinking "what? are you nuts??"

And yes, to the "normal" sense of things, accepting something like this is probably ludicrous if not downright nuts.

But intuitively, you know that there is something more to Life than just what your circumstances currently look like.

You know that things aren't always as fixed or final as they seem. You know that, even when things are dark, that there's always a little light somewhere, that there is something more, something good going on.

And you know that if you quiet the fear down, you can feel it intuitively.

And that is because we all have more than just our senses to tell us what's going on in the world. We also have spiritual sense.

"Spiritual sense, contradicting the material senses, involves intuition, hope, faith, understanding, fruition, reality."

Spiritual sense leads you to see things in a different way. It leads you to see openings. Inituitively you know there are good things going on. Your expectancy - hope - sensitizes you to every glimmer of good. Your faithfulness to that expectancy let's you act in positive helpful ways. And that faithfulness awakens you to understand where your life and love really live. You begin to taste the fruits of your prayer and your labor. You begin to wake up to what really matters. You start to see Life as a blessing.

And this is exactly how God sees you:

• Already blessed.
• Already happy, pleased, content.
• Already whole, healthy, and holy.
• Already complete.

In other words, already His image and likeness!

So how would you feel if you accepted this as true? How would you act? What would you do? How would you think about your life - right now - if you accepted God's view of it?

And what if you understood that God's view of you is the only view that is actually correct!

OK so that is hard to accept sometimes. Maybe all the time. And yes, you can refuse to accept this and act according to what your material senses are telling you.

But you actually have a choice.

• You can accept God's view of you.
• And you can act according to what your spiritual senses are telling you.

It is always your choice. And it is always just a mental switch:

• from looking at all the lack you see, to feeling gratitude for even the smallest goodness
• from feeling separated from love, to actively living Love
• from thinking you're all on your own, to awakening to your existing likeness to God

Practice doing this and see how it changes the way you see your life and your world and the way you "live and move and breathe" in it.

Remember, God sees you as already supplied with every good idea, as greatly needed and dearly loved.

"Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?
If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.
If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea;
Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.
If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me."

This is more than just poetry. And it is certainly more than just another blog entry. This really is how much God actually loves you.

Let God reveal His love to you. Open your eyes to what is possible, to what He has prepared for you, to what His holy purpose is for you.

It may be that your circumstances won't change much. Or it may be that they will change a lot. Either way, a wonderful preacher once said: "keep your eyes off your circumstances and keep them on the Lord."

And your intuition will guide you to where you need to be and what you need to do. The love in your heart will awaken you to the good already around you. And your spiritual senses will never fail you, but always lead you to exactly where you will grow the most.

Mrs. Eddy poem "Feed My Sheep" says it this way: "I will listen for Thy voice, lest my footsteps stray. I will follow, and rejoice all the rugged way."

The path may be rough and rocky, but that means you are at a point of great growth and opportunity. Listen to your honest intuition and hasten to follow it. Blessings will flow as naturally as flowers bloom after rain.

Give us this day our daily companioning with You Father, our daily communion with You, our daily experience of You.

And give us grace for today - not only Your unconditional Love, but Your peace and joy and power! And feed our famished affections that we may feed the famished affections of those around us. That we may be Your image and likeness in deed and in Truth.

God's will done in you as it is done in Heaven

"Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven." Enable us to know, as in heaven, so on earth, God is omnipotent, supreme.

Enable us to know, as in Heaven so in us, God sees His omnipotent supreme will being done.

Right here where you are, you have the ability to see the universe as it really is, as under God's complete control, as all-harmonious, under God's perfect care and revealing. His will is done in earth - in your present state of consciousness - just as it is done in heaven - His state of consciousness, which yours reflects.

To the extent that you awaken to this, you experience God feeding your need of Love, forgiving all dreams of debt or lack or loneliness, leading you and delivering you from any nightmare of sin, sickness or death, revealing in you His kingdom, already present, already complete, already all-harmonious.

So you see that this is not mind-over-matter, or even Mind-over-matter. It is an awakening to the fact that you are, in fact, completely spiritual! That you are actually already - here and now - God's perfect image and likeness, without a single material (i.e., limited / mortal) element.

This is how God knows you. This is how God sees you. This is how God creates you. And it is your divine right to know, see, and be His exact image and likeness. In fact, it is more than your divine right. It is your actual present state of being. And it is the actual present state of being for everyone and everything around you: your neighbor, your community, the world, the universe.

Mrs. Eddy put it this way: "Jesus beheld in Science [just like God does], the perfect man where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man, the Saviour saw God's own likeness [God actually being made manifest], and this correct view of man healed the sick [awoke the "sick" to their already-present perfection as God-being]."

And God's will leads us not into trials or temptation - dreams of sin, disease, death - but His omnipotent will always delivers us from every wilfull, uncomfortable, limited sense of ourselves. Because His kingdom is already come, and His kingdom is already "within you."

God's gift of contentment

"Give us this day our daily bread."
Give us grace for today; feed the famished affections.

The meal that God, divine Love, prepares for you, is not just three times a day. God gives you His daily bread moment by moment.

His bread is the daily inspiration He gives you, the daily ideas He sends you, the loving intuitions that feed your deepest need. It is this continuous communion with Him, as shown in the Lord's Prayer, that awakens you to realize that you actually already have all that you need:

You have an adorably loving Father-Mother
You have a safe place to live (His kingdom)
You have sure training and guidance (His will)
You have all your needs met (His daily bread)
All your mistakes corrected (His forgiveness)
Deliverance from all evil (His leading and deliverance)
And so you have confidence to go forward (under His supremecy)

Keeping your eyes on Him - and off your human circumstances - takes practice. But it opens you up to actually experience the blessings He has already prepared for you. And as you awake to those blessings, and act on them, you find you can be content right now, right here.

This may be the greatest awakening there is: contentment - accepting what Love is giving you right now, actually receiving what Love is already providing and acting on it. You could say that the grace of contentment is the "peace, and joy, and power" of God being made manifest in your thoughts, your actions, your life.

As John Greenleaf Whittier's beautiful hymn says:

"Dear Lord and Father of us all, forgive our foolish ways;
Reclothe us in our rightful mind; in purer lives Thy service find,
In deeper reverence, praise.

"In simple trust like theirs who heard, beside the Syrian sea,
The gracious calling of the Lord, let us like them, without a word
Rise up and follow Thee.

"Breathe through the pulses of desire Thy coolness and They balm;
Let sense be dumb, let flesh retire; speak through the earthquake, wind, and fire,
O still small voice of calm.

"Drop Thy still dews of quietness, till all our strivings cease;
Take from us now the strain and stress, and let our ordered lives confess
The beauty of Thy peace."

Being delivered by recognizing Christ

To recognize a song, you have to have heard it before.

To recognize a face, you have to have seen it before.

To recognize Christ, means you already have a relationship to the Christ. Christ in already your heart.

And what is amazing, is that everyone is already capable of recognizing the Christ, no matter who they are, or what kind of life they've led. Everyone has an intuitive sense that awakens when you recognize something spiritually good. And that can only happen because the Christ is already within you, already known in your heart-of-hearts.

When Mary Magdalene (see Luke 7) barged univited into Simon the Pharisee's house to wash Jesus feet with her tears, dry them with her hair, and anoint them with perfumed ointment, she was proving this very thing. She recognized the Christ because that Christliness was already within her. Had that not been the case, she would have never acted like she did. Fear or shame or ignorance would have kept her out. But her impulsive actions acknowledged something that even the priestly Simon couldn't: that Jesus was the Christ. Mary knew it.

Her devotion and love of Christ was "Love being reflected in love" - her debts, her sins, being forgiven - forsaken - in the awakening of her native state, her original Christliness, her natural likeness to God. The tears she shed were her painful past being released in the joy of her awakening to her true relation to God. And she received the blessing that Simon missed, because "she loved much" because much was forgiven her. While Simon clung to his pride and position, Mary dropped her mistaken sense of self (ego) in her love for the Christ.

She entered that house - not as the prostitute (though that is all Simon saw) - but as the daughter of God. And to paraphrase Mrs. Eddy: "Jesus beheld in Science the perfect [woman], who appeared to him where sinning mortal [woman] appeared to [Simon]. In this perfect [woman] the Saviour saw God's own likeness, and this correct [Christly] view of [her healed and sealed her own Christly awakening].

Mary Magdalene continued to sit at Jesus feet the rest of her life. That was her true life purpose. She recognized the Christ because it was already within her, and she went on to live and to learn and to love much.

This Christ is also already within you. Right this moment. May you seek"...Truth, Christ ... like Mary Magdalene, from the summit of devout consecration, with the oil of gladness and the perfume of gratitude, with tears of repentance and with those hairs all numbered by the Father.

And may you recognize your own Christliness, be awakened by it, redeemed by it, changed by it, impelled by it, and in so doing, awaken that Christly recognition in everyone you meet.

Awakening

All the mistakes I've made, all the people I've hurt, all the lies I've told, all the love I've taken for granted or (worse) completely neglected, all the failures to live up to what I know is right, all the bad things that have happened in my life, and even just my day today -- all this history, it is all being washed away by glimpsing that "Love is reflected in love."

To the extent I put aside my ego, the debts, the failures, the separation, the personal sense of myself and of others - of the dream - and take even just a small soulful step in awakening to what I really am as God's, Love's, likeness by being loving, to that extent forgiveness washes over me, washes me clean of the dream of being a "personal author and privileged orginator" of heart-break and hurtfulness. And that Love awakens me to intuitively sense that all real being is actually the emanation of the Great I Am, of God, of Love itself.

Ituitively I sense that Love is the only real power. Love being reflected in love, is a "law of annihilation" to everything unlike itself - to all sense of forgetting, failure, mistakes, hurtfulness, hate, malice, indebtedness, evil. And as this intuition takes hold, the light of Christ begins to dawn and the nightmare begins to disappear. I find myself begining to wake up.

Wake up to what?

To what has always been true: that Love actually is powerful and real. Good actually is the foundation of our authentic nature. We actually are capable of living out a life of love. In fact, we're more than just capable of that. We're made for it.

Forgiveness is always an awakening. Forgiveness is Love, God, kicking over our complacency and idle human do-gooding. Forgiveness demands that you snap out of it! and get your life more loving. Forgiveness shakes you up! Forgiveness makes you think about what's right and wrong, what's good and evil, and most importantly: what's a lie and what is true, what is a dream and what is reality.

Forgiveness never leaves us where it finds us. It forces us to discover what's true - both about ourselves as well as our "debtor." It requires us to repent - to re-think - about what we assume is our perfect little lily-white life.

And in that cold sometimes uncomfortable self-examination, we must become humble before God. We realize that our personal sense of love - of being a nice forgiving person, a self-sacrificing little human, or even a stubborn old goat - that we can of ourselves do nothing. Our words of forgiveness may be well-intentioned but too often are hollow and self-serving. And they alone cannot right any wrong. They cannot heal the hurt.

And so you may find that only on your knees do you finally wake up.

And forgiveness is always an awakening. Awakening from what? From the dream of many big egos and little minds, of good and evil, of separation from God, divine Love itself.

And what does this awake you to?

To the only thing that really matters: Love is All-in-all.

Forgiveness forces you to reconsider everything so that you can wake up to the fact that Love really is actually All-in-all. Your debt to others - and your so-called debtors' debts to you - cannot survive this awakening. Why? because Love forces you to confront your true nature: that you are just like God: loving. And your debtor's true nature? Yes. Also just like God: loving.

And it is this awakening that annihilates the dream of good and evil, of separation, of personal egos in debt. And by accepting this awakening - actually living out loud the love that forgiveness requires in your thinking and in your daily life - true forgiveness happens. In fact, spiritually speaking, the only thing anyone ever really "owes" - is in debt for - is to love.

Living as Love's, God's, loving reflection, is completely natural for you. In fact, it is (believe it or not) your only authentic state of being and (believe it or not again!) the only authentic being of everyone around you. Love is the only real state of being there is. Love is always reflected in love. Feel it. Accept it. Act on it. This is the practice. Get busy.

"Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors."
And Love is reflected in love.

Aspects of Forgiveness, Part 2

"Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors"
And Love is reflected in love.

Jesus prayer requires something more of you than just generic "forgiveness." He requires you not to just forgive, but to actually love your enemies. To bless them that curse you. To do good to them that hate you and pray for those who would dispitefully use you and persecute you. (See Matthew 5: 43 - 45)

This may seem like a very difficult teaching. It's one thing to forgive, but another to actually love someone who hurts you, curses you, hates your, dispitefully uses you. It may even seem more difficult if it's you yourself who needs forgiveness.

But consider this: forgiveness never really happens until there is love. Forgiveness without love is not forgiveness. It is just one personal ego saying "I forgive you" to some other supposed personal ego. Maybe your saying is heartfelt and sincere. Maybe not.

But without love, even that heartfelt forgiveness leaves a taint. And that's because you still harbor the belief that the evil happened to you (or them) in the first place. And as long as that belief remains, the dream remains, and so the forgiveness is not yet complete. The dream of good and evil, of human wills, of multiple minds, of more than one power, more than one God, still goes on.

Mrs. Eddy had this startling insight into how Jesus was able to break that dream: "Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God's own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick. Thus Jesus taught that the kingdom of God is intact, universal, and that man is pure and holy."

Jesus saw things differently. He had a Christly view. Jesus knew what others did not: that the human view of reality - with its sinning, sick, dying, evil, mortals - was incorrect. That in the Christly, true, spiritually scientific view - God's view - things are very different. Jesus saw wholeness, holiness, and Life where everyone else saw just the opposite. Jesus saw divine Love at work. Where everyone else saw sick and sinful humanity, Jesus saw healthiness, wholeness, holiness. That's because Jesus had a higher - spiritual - perspective. Jesus looked out on the world with the loving eyes of God.

And the result was always healing. It was always forgiving. It was always Love-made-manifest. The result was a demonstration of what is really spiritually true. What is always really going on: God's will being done in earth just as it is already done in heaven.

That is why this verse of Jesus' prayer is so important to study and understand. Mrs Eddy's spiritual sense of its Christly meaning alerts you to the complete healing of all sense of being wronged that Jesus is offering you when you pray this verse.

"Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors." And Love [God] is reflected in [your] love - your beholding in Science the perfect man (or woman, or situation, or circumstance) where sinning mortal man (or woman, or situation, or cirumstance) appears to mortals (personal egos, evil people, human history).

But moving from mere human forgiveness to actually loving your apparent enemies with the power of divine Love, takes some practice (to put it mildly!).

So look to Jesus' example.

To love as Jesus loved is to start with what is spiritually true about God, about you, about your so-called enemy, and about God's complete creation. It is to acknowledge that God is your Father - and the Father of your apparent enemy. "Our Father." That He is in complete control. That His name and nature are completely Good - and the only reality there is. "Hallowed be Thy name." That you - and everyone (including your "enemy") are perfectly made in His image and likeness - are His perfect creation right where "sinning mortal man" appears to you.

This higher, spiritual perspective has a powerful healing effect. When sincerely felt and acknoweldged, you can't help but rejoice that God's kingdom is here now - and that His presence is the only real presence there is. "Thy kingdom come."

His will is being done right here, right now, right where you are - and where your so-called enemy appears to be - just like His will is done in heaven. And God's will is always good - always a blessing for both you and what appears to you as your enemy. "Thy will be done in earth [right where evil appears to be] as it is in heaven [the true Christly view of God's creation].

This statement from Science & Health will help you understand how to move from forgiveness to Love: "Truth has no consciousness of error. Love has no sense of hatred. Life has no partnership with death. Truth, Life, and Love are a law of annihilation to everything unlike themselves, because they declare nothing except God."

Rejoice that God's Love is a law of annihilation to everything unlike itself. This is not the good-and-evil dreamland of little egos trying to hurt each other - or forgive each other. This is the bright shining power of God filling the universe!

Just as light annihilates darkness, so Love annihilates all hate, spitefulness, manipulation, persecution, all evil. Why? Because Love is real, is light, is presence, and evil is actually unreal, is darkness, is absence. And where Love is present, there is no darkness at all.

Acknowledging this truth helps wake you up to actually experience it in reality, in your daily life.

Jesus could give us the command to love our enemies because he knew the power of divine Love. He knew that, though the human dream seems to see enemies everywhere, being awake to God - to Truth, Life, and Love - destroys that dream. Just like light destroys darkness.

When you practice living this powerful love of Love, you begin to "behold in Science" that there actually is only God's creation. You start to understand that Love's omnipotent goodness sees no enemies, that Love is real, that Love is the only real power there is. The sense of being hurt or hated is more than just eliminated. It is annihilated by the light of Love.

What seems like someone hating you, spitefully using you, manipulating you, persecuting you - is actually only an absence - a darkness - of thought that the light of Love annihilates. Love frees you from a personal sense of evil. Love is always - and only - reflected in love. When you yield to this possibility, you begin to see as Jesus did, to see your "enemy" in a new light, see "the perfect man where sinning mortal man" used to appear, and to love that perfect reflection of God.

Then you feel the bright fresh awakening of the holy Love that wipes clean any sense of hurt or pain or loss or evil. You're awake to Love. There is no dream of evil. There is no enemy.

"Forgive us our own dream of indebtedness as we forgive those who we think are in debt to us."
And Divine Love is always reflected in love that restores, fulfills, awakens.