It is one of my favorite lines from ACIM, where the material slips out of its dogmatic emphases and goes all in on love is the answer. Thanks for reading and sharing, Heidi!
Your post always makes me think. How much am I on the 'straight and narrow' path of ignoring ego and following the path of Jesus? How often am I switching back and forth? More than I would like to admit. Today I plan is to focus on Jesus!
Thanks for being here, Robyn. Switching back and forth is a familiar move - I hear this! Listening to Jesus - disregarding ego - gets a little easier in a fellowship. I'm really grateful to folks for sharing the way with me - thank you again for being here 🙏🙏
I’ve never really thought about it, but the idea that listening to Jesus and disregarding ego gets a little easier in a fellowship. I’d like to hear you expand on that more.
I think for me the other - the fellowship that arises when we meet and care - does two things that help clarify my relationship with Jesus AND the work that Jesus calls me to do.
The first is accountability. Sometimes I'll share some insight or idea about Jesus or the Holy Spirit or what it means to be in dialogue with them and someone else will say, that's not my experience. Or that doesn't sound right, can you clarify?
And something softens in me then. I remember that MY way is A way, not THE way. I remember that my addiction to THE way is the whole problem - that's what separation IS - and so I open up a little. Tell me more about YOUR experience. I'm humbled enough to keep learning. And learning forces me to clarify my thinking, which can always be corrected and, even when correct, can always be sharpened.
The second thing fellowship, or relationship, does is that it gives me a SITE of healing. The separation is always right here, it's always operating right now, and the way I see you - hear you, feel you, respect you, dismiss you, manipulate you, whatever - is the form separation takes. Giving attention to what I WANT from the relationship and asking Jesus is that also what he and the Lord want often produces very interesting conversations and exchanges. I find when I seek healing, truly and humbly, without insisting it look like this or that, the other meets me in a holy space where healing is revealed.
One of the risks for me - and I think it shows up in the writing all the time - is that I get poetic, dramatic, meta. Let's save the world! And there's no doubt the world needs saving, and no doubt I'm following a man who believed it could be saved and left pretty clear instructions for how to do that. But the application of the instructions is always local and usually kind of ordinary.
This morning, the neighbor's sheep got out. And it's annoying. They get into the horse's pasture, they eat food for the horses, they knock fencing down (their wool is impervious to the electric fencing), et cetera. And so we rallied some other neighbors and we all got together to help fix the sheep fencing and corral them. I could just complain - I could even get angry - and at different junctures in my life I would have. But now I look for help and try to be helpful, as best I can, and when it works I feel the hands of Jesus where my hands are, and the light of the holy spirit where my mind is, and God where my heart is. Just for a few minutes, but it's enough! And bombs still fall in Lebanon and kids are still sobbing in detention centers and some fresh hell is no doubt being contemplated somewhere but . . .
. . . here, for a few minutes, folks work together without rancor or judgment to be helpful. And it turns out that's enough.
So fellowship becomes both a means of accountability AND a site where the evolving relationship with Jesus, the holy Spirit and God can manifest.
A long and wordy answer :)
Thanks for being here, Denise. I hope all is well.
Several things to ponder here and I’m grateful for the spark of each one. Thinking about Luke Skywalker and the appeal of him and what he represents to so many and (and our egos?) in power to bring down “the empire”, including me. Being present, not leaving…. and how very hard this is to do in all the ways we can leave. It’s comforting and humbling to me to think about what “is possible right now in the life that is given to me”. My small, fantastic, limited, beautiful, powerless, pain-causing life. Staying with all of it. Happy Eastertide to you all.
Thank you for bringing Star Wars into it! I was talking to a colleague over the weekend and said to them that seeing Star Wars (e.g. a new hope) in the theatres was one of the most politically-charged moments of my life. It truly shaped my ideas about power and politics and what constitutes rebellion and all of that. Tolkien too though Tolkien emphasized ethics more (for me) and the virtues of collective action. But Jesus absolutely resisted empire - and empire has been a big human problem for thousands of years and Star Wars remains one of the most coherent and helpful contemporary views.
That staying piece matters to me a lot. In another conversation with another friend we were talking about how there is a watch of detaching (without losing caring) that feels very productive right now. Like, we are aware of folks doing good work, and want to make sure we are not in their way and are supporting them in ways that they need. When we do this consistently, our own sense of our own responsibility changes - that was our sense. That suddenly, what is given - however apparently insignificant or ineffectual - becomes the very site of God remembering love, or love remembering God. Ego likes the drama - but, for me, too often drama has been a substitute for real presence. It's like the difference between performing presence and being present. That's a thin line some times, porous and hard to notice.
For me, getting out of the way really means aligning with another way that is simpler and clearer - and ego really really works hard to get me not to see this, much less act on it. Indeed, when I DO see it, the action follows basically automatically. We really do just want to love. But my God we fight ourselves . . .
Anyway, thank you for reading and being here. May the force that drives the revolution of love be with us all 🙏 🙏
Yes! I knew there was a lot more to the story of Star Wars and that people have written about it and there being classic elements of the hero’s journey and more. Thank you for reminding me of that and the resistance comparison with Jesus. The watch of detaching without losing caring rings true for me right now. It describes something I feel that gives me hope and lets things be ok right now on a level of “this too shall pass” while still being productive. Thank you!
Thank you. I need this reminder. You are giving me a most compassionate wake up message that I seem to remember and then slip back into forgetting. “Wake up and do it again.” Amen Thank you.💕
Hello Sean,When I read your writings I often feel moved by your poetic style and a kind of gentle innocence in your prose that moves me.
But I'm often thrown back to one of the most fundamental teachings of the Course, which is that the world we experience with our sense is not real, it is a reflection of our ego- dominated minds, an illusion.
You do appear to engage with the world you see/hear etc.
Do you believe we should be trying to heal the world I wonder, or at least make some contribution towards mitigating the darkness?
Remember the words: 'seek not to change the world but to change your mind about the world'.
Can we, do you think, feel at peace making our own world beautiful and peaceful- a happy dream- when pain and suffering are knocking catastrophically at our doors and windows- even if, like me you live in a wild mountain garden without tv or news media?
Thank you for reading and sharing. It's a great question.
Yes, I think we are called to respond to the world with love, not fear, and that this typically takes some form of justice-based activism. But that's a spectrum, and folks can locate themselves on it wherever it makes the most sense. For me, a kind of Catholic Worker ethic seems to be the sweet spot. Your mountain life certainly feels familiar.
For me, the emphasis seems to be on presence - am I here? If I am, then who to help and what to do are generally clear (though I can and do mess it up). So a lot of the work comes down to being present - and for that I need help. I need folks to hear that I'm struggling, I need to hear that others are struggling. I need relationship.
Relationships bent on healing are the light. All that matters is are we present. And we are. Right now - in the writing and reading - we are.
Thank you Sean. This is what I needed to hear today. What shocks me is not only the killing in this war, but also those who want the "killers" to die. I'd be lying if I didn't include my own ego thoughts in this regard. The ego is indeed a judge, jury and a soldier with the gun. But thank you God there is another way! I love your phrase, "resurrection disrupts my willingness to go along with evil." And what is to be done? My part (yes this, this) and I don't need all the answers. You referenced the text, if I may add to it: "You need not understand creation to do what must be done before that knowledge would be meaningful to you. ²God breaks no barriers; neither did He make them. ³When you release them they are gone. ⁴God will not fail, nor ever has in anything. ⁵Decide that God is right and you are wrong about yourself. ⁶He created you out of Himself, but still within Him. ⁷He knows what you are. ⁸Remember that there is no second to Him. ⁹There cannot, therefore, be anyone without His Holiness, nor anyone unworthy of His perfect Love."(T-14.IV.4:1-9)
Thank you Susan. I'm always so happy to hear your thoughts - Yes, those are helpful beautiful lines from the course, especially the last one - no exceptions to God's love has been very helpful to me. I can't love that way - certainly not on my own - and so it throws me back to reliance on God and on the folks around me who won't let me fall, won't leave me on the trail, et cetera. The course's emphasis on relationship continues to be one of its truest gifts - we really cannot do this alone, and we really can't do it so long as we believe, secretly or otherwise, that even one person or critter is unworthy. I have miles to go on this journey for sure, but the companions are good ones. Thanks again 🙏🙏
...to love in a loveless place. Thank you for this reminder. I needed it.
It is one of my favorite lines from ACIM, where the material slips out of its dogmatic emphases and goes all in on love is the answer. Thanks for reading and sharing, Heidi!
~ Sean
Your post always makes me think. How much am I on the 'straight and narrow' path of ignoring ego and following the path of Jesus? How often am I switching back and forth? More than I would like to admit. Today I plan is to focus on Jesus!
Thanks for being here, Robyn. Switching back and forth is a familiar move - I hear this! Listening to Jesus - disregarding ego - gets a little easier in a fellowship. I'm really grateful to folks for sharing the way with me - thank you again for being here 🙏🙏
~ Sean
I’ve never really thought about it, but the idea that listening to Jesus and disregarding ego gets a little easier in a fellowship. I’d like to hear you expand on that more.
Hi Denise.
I think for me the other - the fellowship that arises when we meet and care - does two things that help clarify my relationship with Jesus AND the work that Jesus calls me to do.
The first is accountability. Sometimes I'll share some insight or idea about Jesus or the Holy Spirit or what it means to be in dialogue with them and someone else will say, that's not my experience. Or that doesn't sound right, can you clarify?
And something softens in me then. I remember that MY way is A way, not THE way. I remember that my addiction to THE way is the whole problem - that's what separation IS - and so I open up a little. Tell me more about YOUR experience. I'm humbled enough to keep learning. And learning forces me to clarify my thinking, which can always be corrected and, even when correct, can always be sharpened.
The second thing fellowship, or relationship, does is that it gives me a SITE of healing. The separation is always right here, it's always operating right now, and the way I see you - hear you, feel you, respect you, dismiss you, manipulate you, whatever - is the form separation takes. Giving attention to what I WANT from the relationship and asking Jesus is that also what he and the Lord want often produces very interesting conversations and exchanges. I find when I seek healing, truly and humbly, without insisting it look like this or that, the other meets me in a holy space where healing is revealed.
One of the risks for me - and I think it shows up in the writing all the time - is that I get poetic, dramatic, meta. Let's save the world! And there's no doubt the world needs saving, and no doubt I'm following a man who believed it could be saved and left pretty clear instructions for how to do that. But the application of the instructions is always local and usually kind of ordinary.
This morning, the neighbor's sheep got out. And it's annoying. They get into the horse's pasture, they eat food for the horses, they knock fencing down (their wool is impervious to the electric fencing), et cetera. And so we rallied some other neighbors and we all got together to help fix the sheep fencing and corral them. I could just complain - I could even get angry - and at different junctures in my life I would have. But now I look for help and try to be helpful, as best I can, and when it works I feel the hands of Jesus where my hands are, and the light of the holy spirit where my mind is, and God where my heart is. Just for a few minutes, but it's enough! And bombs still fall in Lebanon and kids are still sobbing in detention centers and some fresh hell is no doubt being contemplated somewhere but . . .
. . . here, for a few minutes, folks work together without rancor or judgment to be helpful. And it turns out that's enough.
So fellowship becomes both a means of accountability AND a site where the evolving relationship with Jesus, the holy Spirit and God can manifest.
A long and wordy answer :)
Thanks for being here, Denise. I hope all is well.
~ Sean
Several things to ponder here and I’m grateful for the spark of each one. Thinking about Luke Skywalker and the appeal of him and what he represents to so many and (and our egos?) in power to bring down “the empire”, including me. Being present, not leaving…. and how very hard this is to do in all the ways we can leave. It’s comforting and humbling to me to think about what “is possible right now in the life that is given to me”. My small, fantastic, limited, beautiful, powerless, pain-causing life. Staying with all of it. Happy Eastertide to you all.
Thank you for bringing Star Wars into it! I was talking to a colleague over the weekend and said to them that seeing Star Wars (e.g. a new hope) in the theatres was one of the most politically-charged moments of my life. It truly shaped my ideas about power and politics and what constitutes rebellion and all of that. Tolkien too though Tolkien emphasized ethics more (for me) and the virtues of collective action. But Jesus absolutely resisted empire - and empire has been a big human problem for thousands of years and Star Wars remains one of the most coherent and helpful contemporary views.
That staying piece matters to me a lot. In another conversation with another friend we were talking about how there is a watch of detaching (without losing caring) that feels very productive right now. Like, we are aware of folks doing good work, and want to make sure we are not in their way and are supporting them in ways that they need. When we do this consistently, our own sense of our own responsibility changes - that was our sense. That suddenly, what is given - however apparently insignificant or ineffectual - becomes the very site of God remembering love, or love remembering God. Ego likes the drama - but, for me, too often drama has been a substitute for real presence. It's like the difference between performing presence and being present. That's a thin line some times, porous and hard to notice.
For me, getting out of the way really means aligning with another way that is simpler and clearer - and ego really really works hard to get me not to see this, much less act on it. Indeed, when I DO see it, the action follows basically automatically. We really do just want to love. But my God we fight ourselves . . .
Anyway, thank you for reading and being here. May the force that drives the revolution of love be with us all 🙏 🙏
~ Sean
Yes! I knew there was a lot more to the story of Star Wars and that people have written about it and there being classic elements of the hero’s journey and more. Thank you for reminding me of that and the resistance comparison with Jesus. The watch of detaching without losing caring rings true for me right now. It describes something I feel that gives me hope and lets things be ok right now on a level of “this too shall pass” while still being productive. Thank you!
Thank you. I need this reminder. You are giving me a most compassionate wake up message that I seem to remember and then slip back into forgetting. “Wake up and do it again.” Amen Thank you.💕
🙏🙏
Hello Sean,When I read your writings I often feel moved by your poetic style and a kind of gentle innocence in your prose that moves me.
But I'm often thrown back to one of the most fundamental teachings of the Course, which is that the world we experience with our sense is not real, it is a reflection of our ego- dominated minds, an illusion.
You do appear to engage with the world you see/hear etc.
Do you believe we should be trying to heal the world I wonder, or at least make some contribution towards mitigating the darkness?
Remember the words: 'seek not to change the world but to change your mind about the world'.
Can we, do you think, feel at peace making our own world beautiful and peaceful- a happy dream- when pain and suffering are knocking catastrophically at our doors and windows- even if, like me you live in a wild mountain garden without tv or news media?
Thoughtfully,
Lia
Hi Lia,
Thank you for reading and sharing. It's a great question.
Yes, I think we are called to respond to the world with love, not fear, and that this typically takes some form of justice-based activism. But that's a spectrum, and folks can locate themselves on it wherever it makes the most sense. For me, a kind of Catholic Worker ethic seems to be the sweet spot. Your mountain life certainly feels familiar.
For me, the emphasis seems to be on presence - am I here? If I am, then who to help and what to do are generally clear (though I can and do mess it up). So a lot of the work comes down to being present - and for that I need help. I need folks to hear that I'm struggling, I need to hear that others are struggling. I need relationship.
Relationships bent on healing are the light. All that matters is are we present. And we are. Right now - in the writing and reading - we are.
Thank you, Lia 🙏🙏
~ Sean
Thank you Sean. This is what I needed to hear today. What shocks me is not only the killing in this war, but also those who want the "killers" to die. I'd be lying if I didn't include my own ego thoughts in this regard. The ego is indeed a judge, jury and a soldier with the gun. But thank you God there is another way! I love your phrase, "resurrection disrupts my willingness to go along with evil." And what is to be done? My part (yes this, this) and I don't need all the answers. You referenced the text, if I may add to it: "You need not understand creation to do what must be done before that knowledge would be meaningful to you. ²God breaks no barriers; neither did He make them. ³When you release them they are gone. ⁴God will not fail, nor ever has in anything. ⁵Decide that God is right and you are wrong about yourself. ⁶He created you out of Himself, but still within Him. ⁷He knows what you are. ⁸Remember that there is no second to Him. ⁹There cannot, therefore, be anyone without His Holiness, nor anyone unworthy of His perfect Love."(T-14.IV.4:1-9)
Thank you Susan. I'm always so happy to hear your thoughts - Yes, those are helpful beautiful lines from the course, especially the last one - no exceptions to God's love has been very helpful to me. I can't love that way - certainly not on my own - and so it throws me back to reliance on God and on the folks around me who won't let me fall, won't leave me on the trail, et cetera. The course's emphasis on relationship continues to be one of its truest gifts - we really cannot do this alone, and we really can't do it so long as we believe, secretly or otherwise, that even one person or critter is unworthy. I have miles to go on this journey for sure, but the companions are good ones. Thanks again 🙏🙏
~ Sean