I, too, recently recognized how much I cherish lack. Like a dog chasing its tail, and when my suffering was unbearable, I felt the truth of it. instead of just telling myself, “I am doing this to myself,” or any course maxim to try and feel better, I saw the truth—I want this! I want the pain, the suffering, the drama! What a beautiful thing to recognize! It brought me one step closer. It helped me to be able to recognize the figure in the dream, who is not the eternal awareness that I am, is just doing what figures in dreams do. Of course figures in the dream lack because it conceals hatred and gives permission for projection. It’s a perfect set up—to be an innocent victim or victimizer—is it not? It reinforces the one problem I believe I have—that I am a separate self and so are you!
Thank you for sharing and for your consistency in emphasizing relationship.
Thank you for sharing, Kimberley. This is very clear and helpful.
I particularly appreciate the going beyond Course maxims. Rather than comfort ourselves with a quote, it is important to really fully lean into the deep well of fear and guilt from which resistance - I don't want to heal! - springs. There is no substitute for it. Only when I see the interior horror show clearly can I begin to undo the fear and guilt that underlie it.
It is a mirage in the end, as you know. There IS no interior horror show, much less a separate self to be horrified, or learn how not to be horrified, et cetera. And yet it is only by facing the mirage - truly leaning into the dream - that we begin to realize the way in which it is NOT a dream.
First fear loosens its stranglehold on us and then we can start to learn what we are in truth. Fearfulness is a terrible learning state, so that seems to be where the Holy Spirits. Let's look at the worst of it and learn how not to be scared. And THEN we can start retracing our imaginary steps back to Love.
Thank you for reading and sharing, Kimberley. It's good to hear form you.
~ Sean
P. S. Yes - "the eternal awareness that I Am" to which Sean and Kimberley and all other selves are merely appearances, ripples in the cosmic brook, here and then gone.
Thank you so much Sean. This brought a warm gentle smile and strength in my heart, which I need so much on this journey. Finding this author, feels a long and painful journey sometimes (well, most of the times for me 😊). But as long as we remember not to forget that it is only painful to ego, all will be well, all is well😊
Oh it DEFINITELY feels like a long and painful journey sometimes!! What helps - for me anyway - is knowing that I am not journeying alone, that my experience of struggle (and also insight) are shared and not unique to me. Truly it is about what happens when we realize we are not traveling alone - something shifts inside when I remember this, and something lightens (in so many sense of the word).
Thank you for being here, Aysin. I'm very grateful 🙏🙏
Sean, I breathe a little safer having absorbed your generous insights. You have helped us all remember we are not really trapped inside our horror movies. It is always a choice. Our habits are needlessly creating new scary movies. We perversely keep the imprisonment of aloneness going. We survive because we occasionally create vacations and the drama
subsides a bit. This morning you have shown us all that we can repeatedly shake ourselves out of our bad dreams. We can choose to awaken to the only thing that is real. You created another opportunity for each of us to recommit to LOVE. For myself (one who definitely is still trapped in the illusion of separation) I've decided to give myself a 30 day challenge. I want tol remind myself daily that every thought or person in front of me is my mirror and opportunity. I can choose to remind myself to give the love that I am to every person and thought. I trust this practice will help me to actually start believing that I AM LOVE.
From a state of BEING LOVE we can only see, be and act that love. We're all tired of believing the very old story that we are separate, alone and gravely flawed. I'll report back in 30 days .. hopefully I will feel connected and safe enough to share with my fellow travelers. We all love YOUR bravery so much Sean.
The Mayans had a wonderful saying "In Lak'ech" - you are my mirror or I am you and you are me. Nothing is new, we are continuing to remember what we already know but life 101 here on planet has a lot of distractions in this movie we find ourselves in replaying itself over and over until the projector runs out of film. So "In Lake' ech" dear Susan
I love your 30-day challenge - please do report back. I sometimes think that using intentions to create learning spaces - like you are doing - is a neglected aspect of the course. What works? What helps? It's important to understand that, so we can avail ourselves of it. As I was saying earlier in a response to Kimberley, the Holy Spirit has to teach us how to bring the fear down so that we can learn. It's too hard to learn in a fearful state. Creating meaningful mini-classrooms can be a very powerful way of cooperating with the Holy Spirit. Thank you for bearing witness.
Sean there was so much that resonated with me in this that I had to go back and re-read and now I'm going to go back and read again. "I need you to be a friend, so that our friendship might mirror, fractal-like, our forgotten connection to God." This was stunning. The themes of friendship and relationship have been looming large in my mind this week. I am struggling at the moment to know how to "be" with my best friend, 50, who told me three days ago that she has been diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer. She has 3 small children, one of whom is special needs. I feel like the earth has been pulled out from under my feet. I want to do something, but what? Of course I'll be there for her and her family, on call 24-7 from now on. My new normal will be taking care of 2 families. That's the easy part. But I feel so inadequate to help her face such a dire diagnosis and her own mortality. This tragedy is too huge, raw, impossible still. She is one of the true gifts of my life and selfishly I can't imagine life without her. But her husband and kids! I am so grateful for your unbelievably touching and profound reflections and guidance. These deep dives that remind me so much what is real and what is not. This all feels terribly real right now. I am grateful for the Course in Miracles, as it has completely changed my life/ physical path in a good way. Thank you again so very much.
I am sorry to hear about your friend - that's a tough diagnosis made tougher by the surrounding circumstances. Being present and supportive is a gift, truly.
It is - like everything else in our lives, whether we categorize them as big or little, significant or insignificant - a learning opportunity for YOU. You get to give attention to your own fear, your own guilt, your own grief, your own uncertainty.
In the end, the work is just over and over to bring everythin to the Holy Spirit. Regardless of what is happening outside of us, the work is always to do therapy with the Holy Spirit - show me the blocks to love, help me be patient and slow with my learning, help me to remember that the measure of my learning is my ability to teach others, et cetera.
As the course says very very early on, there are NO degrees of difficulty in miracles. The shift from fear to love addresses everything, no matter how apparently minor or life-changing.
Easy to say and hard to learn. But that is why we are here - to learn with one another.
Thank you again for sharing and for being here. I hope that your friend and her family are able to breathe and find peace.
I went back and reread what ACIM says about 'sickness' and in my practice as a healer,, etc., I have found that any form of cancer is unresolved 'anger' = FEAR. A very difficult conversation to approach with you friend - I cannot remember the East Indian Woman, I believe living in Australia who was also diagnose with stage 4 cancer and died and came back to speak her truth and a whole new approach to living as a human on planet earth - this may be of some help to you but if ACIM is our go to toolbox with answers, we call all fo this to us as a learning - therefore it is all in our 'mind' - change how we think and feel, rewrites the script of our current movie...just a thought...Stay in the Light and Love or who you truly are and simply project the love - keep the 'fear & negativity' at bay - this is an incredible time of applying all those incredible lessons we laboured over in ACIM and begin to live it and see how this scene may change...blessings and love always.
Thank you so much, Sandra, for your thoughtful response and reflections on this. So much to process right now. We and her whole circle are truly focusing on love and light. You gave me some more food for thought. I really appreciate it.
How lovely that you can write so openly and honestly about yourself. This takes a lot of willingness, authenticity and in some cases courage to look at those aspects of ourselves that we never looked closely at before.
If we all keep moving in the direction of our heart and if we show ourselves compassion for what we learn along the way, we start getting out of our way. We can then allow healing to occur, by allowing aspects of the illusion to be undone in the mind by the Holy Spirit.
Sometimes l feel that l take the process too seriously and l forget to 'lighten up'. If anyone has any suggestions on how to not take the dream too seriously, please share. I often forget it's a dream when l interact with others and all too often start 'making it real', only to remember later. Perhaps that's really okay, and part of the dance of life in this dream...
Those deep inner dives feel very healing but always when undertaken with the Holy Spirit. And it helps to go slowly, I have learned.
I'll be curious to see what others might say about your question. I definitely fall into the taking the dream seriously camp, which is not a crime against God or nature! We are all naturally oriented to being a certain way in the context of the dream and, paradoxically, it is being faithful to that certain way that facilitates the end of the dream.
But as you say, forgetting it's a dream is part of the dream - as is remembering it's a dream. The key issue for me is remembering to give attention to the effects; I have to remind myself that the stakes are always lower than I think, that nothing is ACTUALLY and, in truth, all I really need to do is nothing at all. I need - as you so clearly state - to just get out of the way.
I’ve read ACIM since it was published. Until just recently I realized I was intellectualizing instead of practicing. Recently I came to A Course in Love through a question on the Foundation for Inner Peace site. For me its simplicity has helped me understand my ACIM study tremendously. After reading ACIM for almost 50 years it’s like a light got turned on in my head.
There is a book called "A Year of Love" - the author is the one we know as Mirriam of Magdala aka Mary Magdalen. She speaks of her spouse 'Yeshua' being a man and a man has a different way of looking at the world than a woman. She has channeled the ACIM Workbook from a feminine perspective. It is truly brilliant and loving and personally engaging. It is a lovely companion when reworking Book 2 the Workbook of ACIM. Enjoy this journey of love...
Sean there is no other way but sharing honesty with others my reading has stopped there’s nothing more to read that I need. I have been given the directions For me following them is impossible without company and as you spoke above lack it was a revelation to me it was my favourite wooden leg my excuse for inaction. As I look back on my life on the course I have learned nothing but I’ve been taught a lot. Last night some nights ago it dawned on me to simply do this be still and lay aside everything let go absolutely. I’m trying to share with you and everyone my pathetic attempts to find the truth as you share with us your journey. This post has been different from others because it spoke volumes about my journey. Thank you so much for your time it’s been invaluable to us sean
You're welcome, Sean. Thank you for being here and for sharing. As you know, the form of the path changes for all of us - some of us need to change jobs or relationships, some of us need to learn how to BE in a certain job or relationship WITHOUT changing. But whatever the form is, the function is always the same: to remember our own innocence so that we can remind others of THEIR innocence.
I'm always so grateful for your presence here, Sean. Thank you. I hope all is well.
Sean of all things that that stole my peace ,lack was not one of them. How blinded I was. Sean i feel such warmth from your heart to me and all your brothers and sisters on this journey. I sincerely love you
Oh Sean, how amazing you are in sharing something so profound and what we consider "real" in our human understanding, and your ability to make it personal and still speak to me who harbours the same feelings of 'lack'. I would like your permission to share this in a little on line newspaper where I write a weekly column and push boundaries to allow some light to come in and awaken those who are ready to remember. This has a readership of over 40K in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. May I share your words with others? Thank you for once again touching my soul at such a deep and loving awareness.
Thank you for the kind words, Sandra. I'm glad the post was helpful. Please do feel free to share (and if you're able to share a link, I'd love to ready what you write) 🙏🙏
Thank you for being here, Sandra. I'm very grateful.
Thank you, Cheryl. It takes a full heart to know one ❤️
Your comment made me think of e.e. cumming's poem "i carry your heart." It's a love poem in the traditional sense (one lover praising the other) but like most good love poems it easily maps onto the deeper love that transcends (doesn't reject or diminish, simply evolves beyond) romance and bodies.
In part, it reads:
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
What I am learning - at what seems like a late juncture but of course is perfectly on time - is that there is a way of loving that transcends the personal and when we allow it to carry us into relationship, then we begin to glimpse the radical nature of the Jesus project - a human family living in harmony on the earth among all the other families, families of sunflowers, whales, cockroaches, rivers and mountains and seas.
THAT is the happy dream that precedes the final step, which is taken not by the individuated but by the One.
I imagine Jesus speaking the cummings poem to us - not as spouse or a lover or a player of any kind but as the spiritual brother who saw beyond the crude limitations of the human frame to what was and is and will always be divine in us.
He saw it in himself and knew it was not his but ours together. He carried our heart in his heart and the invitation is to realize that we carry his in ours.
The holy relationship is given and all we have to do is realize that we hold the heart of all life in our heart.
Anyway, you know possibly better than anyone reading this what a journey it is and how I have stumbled along it. To be honest, I imagine the folks who gather here to read and share do so at the behest of Jesus to help their brother Sean not get lost again.
For which, my heart is full of gratitude and love, impossible to put in words.
Thank you, Cheryl. I'm so glad you're here. One of these days we will share a cup of tea 🙏🙏
You would not know this, Sean, but that poem is a cherished link between Alaina and me. It is quoted in the high school graduation booklet I put together for her, and when she was in college (on 11/11/11 to be exact) we had matching tattoos done of feathers with a heart encased near the tip as a nod to that poem. A few years later, she gifted me with a little bird printed with lines from the poem and a heart around its neck that says C & A. So "i carry your heart" has never meant romance to me . . . but rather, as you so eloquently put it, the deeper that transcends romance and bodies."
Thank you for this space and the opportunity to share your journey. We are, of course, all walking each other home. Truly hope we get to pause for tea time at some point along the way.
Your words today are some of the clearest I’ve read describing our shared human experience. They will help cement my forgiveness practice/foundation on our journey home. I too think in terms of me, me, me, instead of we, we, we, all too often. I have to remind myself daily that we are all in the same boat together.
Prior to reading this the article this morning I was journaling on how I truly feel deep lack and the fear opening to anything different. Lack and conflict seem to go hand and hand for me, I am in constant conflict with myself, and feel very separate from God. I feel very blessed to be able to even "see" my lack and need for conflict, it is the start of the healing processing with the relationship with myself.
Thank you for sharing, Glenda. Lack and conflict DO go hand-in-hand. Thank you for reminding me of that. Conflict feels like lack acting out. But you are right - when we can see the lack and our desire for conflict, then we can at least begin to ask WHY we are so invested in not healing. That's a good question for the Holy Spirit! And, in my experience, one that is readily answered. Dialogue with the Holy Spirit is the means of healing. It is a relief and a joy to remember this, not to mention availing ourselves of it.
I, too, recently recognized how much I cherish lack. Like a dog chasing its tail, and when my suffering was unbearable, I felt the truth of it. instead of just telling myself, “I am doing this to myself,” or any course maxim to try and feel better, I saw the truth—I want this! I want the pain, the suffering, the drama! What a beautiful thing to recognize! It brought me one step closer. It helped me to be able to recognize the figure in the dream, who is not the eternal awareness that I am, is just doing what figures in dreams do. Of course figures in the dream lack because it conceals hatred and gives permission for projection. It’s a perfect set up—to be an innocent victim or victimizer—is it not? It reinforces the one problem I believe I have—that I am a separate self and so are you!
Thank you for sharing and for your consistency in emphasizing relationship.
Thank you for sharing, Kimberley. This is very clear and helpful.
I particularly appreciate the going beyond Course maxims. Rather than comfort ourselves with a quote, it is important to really fully lean into the deep well of fear and guilt from which resistance - I don't want to heal! - springs. There is no substitute for it. Only when I see the interior horror show clearly can I begin to undo the fear and guilt that underlie it.
It is a mirage in the end, as you know. There IS no interior horror show, much less a separate self to be horrified, or learn how not to be horrified, et cetera. And yet it is only by facing the mirage - truly leaning into the dream - that we begin to realize the way in which it is NOT a dream.
First fear loosens its stranglehold on us and then we can start to learn what we are in truth. Fearfulness is a terrible learning state, so that seems to be where the Holy Spirits. Let's look at the worst of it and learn how not to be scared. And THEN we can start retracing our imaginary steps back to Love.
Thank you for reading and sharing, Kimberley. It's good to hear form you.
~ Sean
P. S. Yes - "the eternal awareness that I Am" to which Sean and Kimberley and all other selves are merely appearances, ripples in the cosmic brook, here and then gone.
Thank you so much Sean. This brought a warm gentle smile and strength in my heart, which I need so much on this journey. Finding this author, feels a long and painful journey sometimes (well, most of the times for me 😊). But as long as we remember not to forget that it is only painful to ego, all will be well, all is well😊
Oh it DEFINITELY feels like a long and painful journey sometimes!! What helps - for me anyway - is knowing that I am not journeying alone, that my experience of struggle (and also insight) are shared and not unique to me. Truly it is about what happens when we realize we are not traveling alone - something shifts inside when I remember this, and something lightens (in so many sense of the word).
Thank you for being here, Aysin. I'm very grateful 🙏🙏
~ Sean
Thank you very much 🙏🙏
Sean, I breathe a little safer having absorbed your generous insights. You have helped us all remember we are not really trapped inside our horror movies. It is always a choice. Our habits are needlessly creating new scary movies. We perversely keep the imprisonment of aloneness going. We survive because we occasionally create vacations and the drama
subsides a bit. This morning you have shown us all that we can repeatedly shake ourselves out of our bad dreams. We can choose to awaken to the only thing that is real. You created another opportunity for each of us to recommit to LOVE. For myself (one who definitely is still trapped in the illusion of separation) I've decided to give myself a 30 day challenge. I want tol remind myself daily that every thought or person in front of me is my mirror and opportunity. I can choose to remind myself to give the love that I am to every person and thought. I trust this practice will help me to actually start believing that I AM LOVE.
From a state of BEING LOVE we can only see, be and act that love. We're all tired of believing the very old story that we are separate, alone and gravely flawed. I'll report back in 30 days .. hopefully I will feel connected and safe enough to share with my fellow travelers. We all love YOUR bravery so much Sean.
The Mayans had a wonderful saying "In Lak'ech" - you are my mirror or I am you and you are me. Nothing is new, we are continuing to remember what we already know but life 101 here on planet has a lot of distractions in this movie we find ourselves in replaying itself over and over until the projector runs out of film. So "In Lake' ech" dear Susan
Thank you, Susan. I'm glad the post was helpful.
I love your 30-day challenge - please do report back. I sometimes think that using intentions to create learning spaces - like you are doing - is a neglected aspect of the course. What works? What helps? It's important to understand that, so we can avail ourselves of it. As I was saying earlier in a response to Kimberley, the Holy Spirit has to teach us how to bring the fear down so that we can learn. It's too hard to learn in a fearful state. Creating meaningful mini-classrooms can be a very powerful way of cooperating with the Holy Spirit. Thank you for bearing witness.
And, again, please do let us know how it goes 🙏🙏
~ Sean
Sean there was so much that resonated with me in this that I had to go back and re-read and now I'm going to go back and read again. "I need you to be a friend, so that our friendship might mirror, fractal-like, our forgotten connection to God." This was stunning. The themes of friendship and relationship have been looming large in my mind this week. I am struggling at the moment to know how to "be" with my best friend, 50, who told me three days ago that she has been diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer. She has 3 small children, one of whom is special needs. I feel like the earth has been pulled out from under my feet. I want to do something, but what? Of course I'll be there for her and her family, on call 24-7 from now on. My new normal will be taking care of 2 families. That's the easy part. But I feel so inadequate to help her face such a dire diagnosis and her own mortality. This tragedy is too huge, raw, impossible still. She is one of the true gifts of my life and selfishly I can't imagine life without her. But her husband and kids! I am so grateful for your unbelievably touching and profound reflections and guidance. These deep dives that remind me so much what is real and what is not. This all feels terribly real right now. I am grateful for the Course in Miracles, as it has completely changed my life/ physical path in a good way. Thank you again so very much.
Thank you, Heidi. I'm glad it was helpful.
I am sorry to hear about your friend - that's a tough diagnosis made tougher by the surrounding circumstances. Being present and supportive is a gift, truly.
It is - like everything else in our lives, whether we categorize them as big or little, significant or insignificant - a learning opportunity for YOU. You get to give attention to your own fear, your own guilt, your own grief, your own uncertainty.
In the end, the work is just over and over to bring everythin to the Holy Spirit. Regardless of what is happening outside of us, the work is always to do therapy with the Holy Spirit - show me the blocks to love, help me be patient and slow with my learning, help me to remember that the measure of my learning is my ability to teach others, et cetera.
As the course says very very early on, there are NO degrees of difficulty in miracles. The shift from fear to love addresses everything, no matter how apparently minor or life-changing.
Easy to say and hard to learn. But that is why we are here - to learn with one another.
Thank you again for sharing and for being here. I hope that your friend and her family are able to breathe and find peace.
~ Sean
I went back and reread what ACIM says about 'sickness' and in my practice as a healer,, etc., I have found that any form of cancer is unresolved 'anger' = FEAR. A very difficult conversation to approach with you friend - I cannot remember the East Indian Woman, I believe living in Australia who was also diagnose with stage 4 cancer and died and came back to speak her truth and a whole new approach to living as a human on planet earth - this may be of some help to you but if ACIM is our go to toolbox with answers, we call all fo this to us as a learning - therefore it is all in our 'mind' - change how we think and feel, rewrites the script of our current movie...just a thought...Stay in the Light and Love or who you truly are and simply project the love - keep the 'fear & negativity' at bay - this is an incredible time of applying all those incredible lessons we laboured over in ACIM and begin to live it and see how this scene may change...blessings and love always.
Thank you so much, Sandra, for your thoughtful response and reflections on this. So much to process right now. We and her whole circle are truly focusing on love and light. You gave me some more food for thought. I really appreciate it.
How lovely that you can write so openly and honestly about yourself. This takes a lot of willingness, authenticity and in some cases courage to look at those aspects of ourselves that we never looked closely at before.
If we all keep moving in the direction of our heart and if we show ourselves compassion for what we learn along the way, we start getting out of our way. We can then allow healing to occur, by allowing aspects of the illusion to be undone in the mind by the Holy Spirit.
Sometimes l feel that l take the process too seriously and l forget to 'lighten up'. If anyone has any suggestions on how to not take the dream too seriously, please share. I often forget it's a dream when l interact with others and all too often start 'making it real', only to remember later. Perhaps that's really okay, and part of the dance of life in this dream...
Jayney
Hi Jayney.
Thanks for reading and sharing.
Those deep inner dives feel very healing but always when undertaken with the Holy Spirit. And it helps to go slowly, I have learned.
I'll be curious to see what others might say about your question. I definitely fall into the taking the dream seriously camp, which is not a crime against God or nature! We are all naturally oriented to being a certain way in the context of the dream and, paradoxically, it is being faithful to that certain way that facilitates the end of the dream.
But as you say, forgetting it's a dream is part of the dream - as is remembering it's a dream. The key issue for me is remembering to give attention to the effects; I have to remind myself that the stakes are always lower than I think, that nothing is ACTUALLY and, in truth, all I really need to do is nothing at all. I need - as you so clearly state - to just get out of the way.
Thanks again for being here, Jayney.
~ Sean
“ In the beginning was the Thought, and the Thought was with God, and the Thought was God.” T-3.VII.16:2
Amen 🙏🙏
I’ve read ACIM since it was published. Until just recently I realized I was intellectualizing instead of practicing. Recently I came to A Course in Love through a question on the Foundation for Inner Peace site. For me its simplicity has helped me understand my ACIM study tremendously. After reading ACIM for almost 50 years it’s like a light got turned on in my head.
❤️
There is a book called "A Year of Love" - the author is the one we know as Mirriam of Magdala aka Mary Magdalen. She speaks of her spouse 'Yeshua' being a man and a man has a different way of looking at the world than a woman. She has channeled the ACIM Workbook from a feminine perspective. It is truly brilliant and loving and personally engaging. It is a lovely companion when reworking Book 2 the Workbook of ACIM. Enjoy this journey of love...
I'm glad it's helpful, Gary - getting to the application, or practice, is the sweet stuff indeed.
~ Sean
Sean there is no other way but sharing honesty with others my reading has stopped there’s nothing more to read that I need. I have been given the directions For me following them is impossible without company and as you spoke above lack it was a revelation to me it was my favourite wooden leg my excuse for inaction. As I look back on my life on the course I have learned nothing but I’ve been taught a lot. Last night some nights ago it dawned on me to simply do this be still and lay aside everything let go absolutely. I’m trying to share with you and everyone my pathetic attempts to find the truth as you share with us your journey. This post has been different from others because it spoke volumes about my journey. Thank you so much for your time it’s been invaluable to us sean
You're welcome, Sean. Thank you for being here and for sharing. As you know, the form of the path changes for all of us - some of us need to change jobs or relationships, some of us need to learn how to BE in a certain job or relationship WITHOUT changing. But whatever the form is, the function is always the same: to remember our own innocence so that we can remind others of THEIR innocence.
I'm always so grateful for your presence here, Sean. Thank you. I hope all is well.
~ Sean
Sean of all things that that stole my peace ,lack was not one of them. How blinded I was. Sean i feel such warmth from your heart to me and all your brothers and sisters on this journey. I sincerely love you
I love you as well, Sean. Thank you for sharing this path with me.
Sean
Oh Sean, how amazing you are in sharing something so profound and what we consider "real" in our human understanding, and your ability to make it personal and still speak to me who harbours the same feelings of 'lack'. I would like your permission to share this in a little on line newspaper where I write a weekly column and push boundaries to allow some light to come in and awaken those who are ready to remember. This has a readership of over 40K in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. May I share your words with others? Thank you for once again touching my soul at such a deep and loving awareness.
Thank you for the kind words, Sandra. I'm glad the post was helpful. Please do feel free to share (and if you're able to share a link, I'd love to ready what you write) 🙏🙏
Thank you for being here, Sandra. I'm very grateful.
~ Sean
Thanks Sean ❤️
You're welcome, Mike. Thank you for being here.
~ Sean
What a beautiful and loving community you have nurtured in this space, Sean. How full your heart must be. Gassho, my friend.
Thank you, Cheryl. It takes a full heart to know one ❤️
Your comment made me think of e.e. cumming's poem "i carry your heart." It's a love poem in the traditional sense (one lover praising the other) but like most good love poems it easily maps onto the deeper love that transcends (doesn't reject or diminish, simply evolves beyond) romance and bodies.
In part, it reads:
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
What I am learning - at what seems like a late juncture but of course is perfectly on time - is that there is a way of loving that transcends the personal and when we allow it to carry us into relationship, then we begin to glimpse the radical nature of the Jesus project - a human family living in harmony on the earth among all the other families, families of sunflowers, whales, cockroaches, rivers and mountains and seas.
THAT is the happy dream that precedes the final step, which is taken not by the individuated but by the One.
I imagine Jesus speaking the cummings poem to us - not as spouse or a lover or a player of any kind but as the spiritual brother who saw beyond the crude limitations of the human frame to what was and is and will always be divine in us.
He saw it in himself and knew it was not his but ours together. He carried our heart in his heart and the invitation is to realize that we carry his in ours.
The holy relationship is given and all we have to do is realize that we hold the heart of all life in our heart.
Anyway, you know possibly better than anyone reading this what a journey it is and how I have stumbled along it. To be honest, I imagine the folks who gather here to read and share do so at the behest of Jesus to help their brother Sean not get lost again.
For which, my heart is full of gratitude and love, impossible to put in words.
Thank you, Cheryl. I'm so glad you're here. One of these days we will share a cup of tea 🙏🙏
~ Sean
You would not know this, Sean, but that poem is a cherished link between Alaina and me. It is quoted in the high school graduation booklet I put together for her, and when she was in college (on 11/11/11 to be exact) we had matching tattoos done of feathers with a heart encased near the tip as a nod to that poem. A few years later, she gifted me with a little bird printed with lines from the poem and a heart around its neck that says C & A. So "i carry your heart" has never meant romance to me . . . but rather, as you so eloquently put it, the deeper that transcends romance and bodies."
Thank you for this space and the opportunity to share your journey. We are, of course, all walking each other home. Truly hope we get to pause for tea time at some point along the way.
I love that!
It's such a beautiful poem - and that's a lovely connection with Alaina. Thank you for sharing.
Yes, we are absolutely walking each other home. It's a good feeling.
Thanks again for being here, Cheryl.
~ Sean
There was so much good stuff in that ... it read like poetry, felt ... so beautiful. Thank you Sean
You're welcome, Amanda. Thank you for reading and sharing 🙏🙏
~ Sean
Thank you 🙏
An absolutely beautifully written article Sean, as always 🪷
Thanks, Tricia - I appreciate the kind words - hope all is well on you're side of the sea 🙏🙏
~ Sean
All good Sean, there's lots of blue sky ☘️
Thanks Sean,
Your words today are some of the clearest I’ve read describing our shared human experience. They will help cement my forgiveness practice/foundation on our journey home. I too think in terms of me, me, me, instead of we, we, we, all too often. I have to remind myself daily that we are all in the same boat together.
Thanks Again ❤️
Gary
You're welcome, Gary. Thank you for the kind words. I'm glad you're here and we get to share the boat 🙏🙏
~ Sean
Prior to reading this the article this morning I was journaling on how I truly feel deep lack and the fear opening to anything different. Lack and conflict seem to go hand and hand for me, I am in constant conflict with myself, and feel very separate from God. I feel very blessed to be able to even "see" my lack and need for conflict, it is the start of the healing processing with the relationship with myself.
Thank you for sharing, Glenda. Lack and conflict DO go hand-in-hand. Thank you for reminding me of that. Conflict feels like lack acting out. But you are right - when we can see the lack and our desire for conflict, then we can at least begin to ask WHY we are so invested in not healing. That's a good question for the Holy Spirit! And, in my experience, one that is readily answered. Dialogue with the Holy Spirit is the means of healing. It is a relief and a joy to remember this, not to mention availing ourselves of it.
Thank you again for sharing and being here 🙏🙏
~ Sean