What a hook!! Undeniably understandable…when I was 8 I made room in my bed for my Gardiam Angel…what would an 8 year boy see? Love to you Sean and thank you!
I love that Kristine! Making space in your bed for your guardian angel. Our minds are so pure when we are little - such grace just flowing and flowing. Thank you for sharing that! And love to you as well.
Shaun, I read that this morning and just almost knocked me off my chair from the catechism to the problem with alcohol to my quest for god of my understanding you covered it all buddy I love you you’ve been given to me as a gift. Thank you.
I love you too, Jack - always appreciate your honesty and integrity. Thank you for being here and seeing the light in me and others - there's no other way to remember it 🙏🙏
Thank you so much … prayers/listening. In the ACIM group I facilitate prayer would come up and I would remind the group what the course says. Do not decide in advance what the answer to your prayer will be… no preconceived idea of what idea will happen next…regardless of the form. I would share that I would ask then give it totally to the Holy Spirit and someway, somehow the answer will come. It may be a lyric in a song on the radio, a book may fall at your feet with with a title that is the answer or as I shared this experience that an answer for me came from a feral cat ( regardless of the form it takes) everything is connected. Also I would remind that Holy Spirit knows not of time. I shared the experience of the prayer answered 20 years later. ( apparently I was not ready to listen ) yet I knew when I knew…it was as if the clouds opened and was clearly in the light of Holy Spirt’s understanding was the answer. Apparently I was willing to listen as Robyn reminded us.
What did the 8 year old see…. Possibilities. They are invisible until you’see’ them. You said, ‘I would devote myself to following him’. Possibility and here you are sharing the Light of the Holy Spirit.
It is with a grateful heart and a thankful mind I say, Thank you 🙏
I do wonder how you deliver these pearls each week. How still you must sit to capture the word that bubbles up from the depths that will be the subject of Mondays discussion. I thank you my brother for sharing how your prayer for today’s consideration came into focus. Your frustrations from the past and the present paint a very familiar picture. I can see it , feel it and recognize the call to find another way. What I believe that eight year old boy saw/felt was the confirmation that this world is not right. That feeling of abandonment however, created the fuel for a life of deeper exploration.
A fire was lit 🔥
What came to mind while reading todays submission was the poem that Helen Schucman wrote called, A Jesus Prayer.
I believe the opening line is…
“ A Child, a Man and then a Spirit come in all Your loveliness. “
Thank you Annie! I appreciate that from Helen's poem very much. And I appreciate too your insight into the child's felt sense of not-rightness and the desire to somehow be part of its correction. Thank you for answering 🙏🙏
And thanks for the well wishes! I hope you have a lovely week as well. I'm glad we are still here sharing this path, Annie.
I have no idea what you saw because I truly know nothing but…. I can take a guess if you like. And that would be that you perhaps you saw an empty stairwell with the body’s eyes, but that with your inner eyes that you saw that your path was to interact with others, to commune with the children playing, or in fact all those in your life at the time, and to learn and teach free of the restraints of a dogmatic religion. After all to commune with others is to express love.
To commune is to love, as to attack is to call for love. This is the journey.
So perhaps you saw yourself stood at the top of the stairwell with your eyes of truth.
Please don’t give up your Monday writing and communing, we need you to communicate the words of love and to remind all of us the truth of love that is the only true reality. Jesus did not, not show up for you, He showed you through your writing the path that would help you, and others on the pathway Home. We cannot do this journey on our own.
Well just a guess I know and may be a long way from what you saw, but I think that maybe the end result of you as a teacher of communicating love is still true.
Sean i was that little boy to. The first I heard of Jesus was my teacher reading from the book of john,I was eight then and can still remember the beautiful warm feelings that it gave me. But from then on I was unaware of any kind of love neither in the church or my family. It was guilt and fear. I prayed intermittently but was totally alone I don't pray sean ,I've tried many times inwardly knowing my prayer was dishonest. I follow the course and i believe that it is prayer its logic gives me that warm feeling I had almost eighty years ago. I may yet pray but but I've no fear the driveness has gone driven out by the gentleness and logic of the course and it's teachers. Tell me Sean if I'm wrong just don't tell me what you think I would like to hear. And thank you for this post and all the others i so look forward to them
I do not think you are wrong. Whatever form prayer takes, we know it by its fruits, and if the fruits are "no fear" and no "drivenness" then it's prayer. And even if we call it something else - a practice, a study, a sharing, whatever - it's still "what works." I appreciate your witness here, Sean. Your honest about your struggles have always resonated for me, and I am happy to hear you talk directly about the end of fear. I love this phrase - "the gentleness and logic of the course and its teachers" and am grateful that it brings you peace. You deserve it Sean, truly.
I was having a discussion last Friday with a good friend of mine around this very topic. I find asking for specifics in my life to cause a lot of internal stress, which goes against my intuition of allowing whatever to happen and accepting whatever comes up.
Despite this, the temptation to ask for this person to act in this way , or this situation to turn out that way, at the time of my asking, tends to be my default model.
My friend offered me some beautiful words of encouragement and your Monday message came along at the right time. Just by coincidence... my current read through of the Text included Chapter 9 last evening. So thank you.
You're welcome, Martin. Thank you for reading and sharing.
And thanks too for the phrase "default model." That's a really good from for what ego is - our default (taught by the world, reinforced by the world) model of relating to one another. It's a substitution for creation and makes us miserable. What we are here to learn is - as you point out - counter-intuitive.
And yet the other way keeps gently insering itself in our lives 🙏
As I said in an earlier comment, synchronicity is a bright jewel in the void! I am always grateful for its light.
Hi Sean. Talk about synchronicity! After moving from penning thrillers to writing spiritual articles in a Course community about a year ago, I decided to make the move to Substack in 2024. Like you, I have committed to a weekly post, and each Monday, I struggle and send up a “can I get a little help here, or what?” I mentioned this to a Course friend just now and she said, “Did you read Sean today? He expressed the same sentiment.” So, I mosey over and WOW! First, I was that kid in catechism class, or “release time” as we called it in public school. I grew up to be a catechist and the workbook they handed me made me groan just as much as my former 8-year-old self had. I may have tweaked the lessons a bit. I taught the kids various ways to pray and meditate. We broke down The Lord’s Prayer so fifth graders could make sense of all those “arts, halloweds, and trespasses.” We set concepts they had to learn for their Confirmation to their favorite rap songs. We discussed their experiences with God. That class was alive! It reinforced the importance of meeting people where they are on the spiritual path. That is what I have felt guided to do with my new Substack account. The Course is my path today, but I recognize that truth exists on other paths as well and wouldn’t it be great if we could all compare notes on that and really listen to one another? By the time I got to section III of your post, I was one, big goosebump. The same thing had just happened to me minutes before. And here I am. I know what you saw, Sean, because I saw it, too. Peace and love to you, brother.
Thank you for sharing, Margaret. Synchronicity is a bright jewel in the void!
I suspect some of the parents involved in my Catechism days deployed what they considered helpful pedagogy, including arts and crafts and so forth. I am grateful to them; I do think they all meant well.
When I look back at that 8-year old I mostly feel sorry that anybody took him away from recess and from play with his friends! Religion can come later, right? We can grow up and decide, you know, I'd like to try the ritual mysticism of Catholicism or maybe Zazen or maybe I'll just stick with talk therapy and yoga or . . .
Even then a lot of the problems that religion and spirituality try to solve exist in the very structure of what Tara Singh called "the lovelessness of I get it and you don't." That tends to become behavior modification and/or reinforcement conditioning which inevitably produce shallow and temporary results.
In the deepest sense, God cannot be taught, only remembered.
All of which you know :) Thank you for helping me remember, too. I'm very grateful we share this path, Margaret, and look forward to reading your work.
HI Sean, thank you for your great post. I guess that I am in communion as long as I observe, question and correct my perception so that I see always either love or a call for help/love. 🙏
Thanks for being David, and thank you for reading. Yes indeed - I think that is it - we are in communion when we intentionally and gently give attention, reflect, and make correction as we are guided. You put it perfectly 🙏🙏
Sean, you hit the nail on the head again. "The Holy Spirit extends from your mind to his, and answers you. You cannot hear the Voice for God in yourself alone, because you are not alone (T-9.II.6:2-5)." I had to write this down because I always think I will hear a voice in my mind.... but it is not so. I will hear it through my brothers/sisters. Thanks again for another great post. I really do appreciate them.
Thank you for this beautiful reminder about prayer. One of my favorite Course quotes is “The Holy Spirit’s voice is a loud as your willingness to listen”, not sure where it is in the text. ❤️❤️❤️
What a hook!! Undeniably understandable…when I was 8 I made room in my bed for my Gardiam Angel…what would an 8 year boy see? Love to you Sean and thank you!
I love that Kristine! Making space in your bed for your guardian angel. Our minds are so pure when we are little - such grace just flowing and flowing. Thank you for sharing that! And love to you as well.
~ Sean
Shaun, I read that this morning and just almost knocked me off my chair from the catechism to the problem with alcohol to my quest for god of my understanding you covered it all buddy I love you you’ve been given to me as a gift. Thank you.
I love you too, Jack - always appreciate your honesty and integrity. Thank you for being here and seeing the light in me and others - there's no other way to remember it 🙏🙏
~ Sean
Thank you so much … prayers/listening. In the ACIM group I facilitate prayer would come up and I would remind the group what the course says. Do not decide in advance what the answer to your prayer will be… no preconceived idea of what idea will happen next…regardless of the form. I would share that I would ask then give it totally to the Holy Spirit and someway, somehow the answer will come. It may be a lyric in a song on the radio, a book may fall at your feet with with a title that is the answer or as I shared this experience that an answer for me came from a feral cat ( regardless of the form it takes) everything is connected. Also I would remind that Holy Spirit knows not of time. I shared the experience of the prayer answered 20 years later. ( apparently I was not ready to listen ) yet I knew when I knew…it was as if the clouds opened and was clearly in the light of Holy Spirt’s understanding was the answer. Apparently I was willing to listen as Robyn reminded us.
What did the 8 year old see…. Possibilities. They are invisible until you’see’ them. You said, ‘I would devote myself to following him’. Possibility and here you are sharing the Light of the Holy Spirit.
It is with a grateful heart and a thankful mind I say, Thank you 🙏
Thank you Janice. This is such a thoughtful and generous reply - truly, thank you 🙏🙏 I'm very grateful to share this path with you.
~ Sean
PS - I disliked Catechism too 😅🥰
lol :)
I do wonder how you deliver these pearls each week. How still you must sit to capture the word that bubbles up from the depths that will be the subject of Mondays discussion. I thank you my brother for sharing how your prayer for today’s consideration came into focus. Your frustrations from the past and the present paint a very familiar picture. I can see it , feel it and recognize the call to find another way. What I believe that eight year old boy saw/felt was the confirmation that this world is not right. That feeling of abandonment however, created the fuel for a life of deeper exploration.
A fire was lit 🔥
What came to mind while reading todays submission was the poem that Helen Schucman wrote called, A Jesus Prayer.
I believe the opening line is…
“ A Child, a Man and then a Spirit come in all Your loveliness. “
Your loveliness is a gift to us All.
Have a Blessed Week ❣️
Annie
Thank you Annie! I appreciate that from Helen's poem very much. And I appreciate too your insight into the child's felt sense of not-rightness and the desire to somehow be part of its correction. Thank you for answering 🙏🙏
And thanks for the well wishes! I hope you have a lovely week as well. I'm glad we are still here sharing this path, Annie.
~ Sean
Well Sean,
I have no idea what you saw because I truly know nothing but…. I can take a guess if you like. And that would be that you perhaps you saw an empty stairwell with the body’s eyes, but that with your inner eyes that you saw that your path was to interact with others, to commune with the children playing, or in fact all those in your life at the time, and to learn and teach free of the restraints of a dogmatic religion. After all to commune with others is to express love.
To commune is to love, as to attack is to call for love. This is the journey.
So perhaps you saw yourself stood at the top of the stairwell with your eyes of truth.
Please don’t give up your Monday writing and communing, we need you to communicate the words of love and to remind all of us the truth of love that is the only true reality. Jesus did not, not show up for you, He showed you through your writing the path that would help you, and others on the pathway Home. We cannot do this journey on our own.
Well just a guess I know and may be a long way from what you saw, but I think that maybe the end result of you as a teacher of communicating love is still true.
Love and Blessings as always, Suzy x
I love you Suzy. You are such a gift. I am so glad we share this path. Thank you 🙏🙏
Love you too, and love sharing the path with you my love. X
That was brilliant Sean, exactly what I needed to hear !! AMEN 🙏
Amen!!
Sean i was that little boy to. The first I heard of Jesus was my teacher reading from the book of john,I was eight then and can still remember the beautiful warm feelings that it gave me. But from then on I was unaware of any kind of love neither in the church or my family. It was guilt and fear. I prayed intermittently but was totally alone I don't pray sean ,I've tried many times inwardly knowing my prayer was dishonest. I follow the course and i believe that it is prayer its logic gives me that warm feeling I had almost eighty years ago. I may yet pray but but I've no fear the driveness has gone driven out by the gentleness and logic of the course and it's teachers. Tell me Sean if I'm wrong just don't tell me what you think I would like to hear. And thank you for this post and all the others i so look forward to them
I do not think you are wrong. Whatever form prayer takes, we know it by its fruits, and if the fruits are "no fear" and no "drivenness" then it's prayer. And even if we call it something else - a practice, a study, a sharing, whatever - it's still "what works." I appreciate your witness here, Sean. Your honest about your struggles have always resonated for me, and I am happy to hear you talk directly about the end of fear. I love this phrase - "the gentleness and logic of the course and its teachers" and am grateful that it brings you peace. You deserve it Sean, truly.
~ Sean
I was having a discussion last Friday with a good friend of mine around this very topic. I find asking for specifics in my life to cause a lot of internal stress, which goes against my intuition of allowing whatever to happen and accepting whatever comes up.
Despite this, the temptation to ask for this person to act in this way , or this situation to turn out that way, at the time of my asking, tends to be my default model.
My friend offered me some beautiful words of encouragement and your Monday message came along at the right time. Just by coincidence... my current read through of the Text included Chapter 9 last evening. So thank you.
You're welcome, Martin. Thank you for reading and sharing.
And thanks too for the phrase "default model." That's a really good from for what ego is - our default (taught by the world, reinforced by the world) model of relating to one another. It's a substitution for creation and makes us miserable. What we are here to learn is - as you point out - counter-intuitive.
And yet the other way keeps gently insering itself in our lives 🙏
As I said in an earlier comment, synchronicity is a bright jewel in the void! I am always grateful for its light.
Thank you again, Martin.
~ Sean
❤️
Hi Sean. Talk about synchronicity! After moving from penning thrillers to writing spiritual articles in a Course community about a year ago, I decided to make the move to Substack in 2024. Like you, I have committed to a weekly post, and each Monday, I struggle and send up a “can I get a little help here, or what?” I mentioned this to a Course friend just now and she said, “Did you read Sean today? He expressed the same sentiment.” So, I mosey over and WOW! First, I was that kid in catechism class, or “release time” as we called it in public school. I grew up to be a catechist and the workbook they handed me made me groan just as much as my former 8-year-old self had. I may have tweaked the lessons a bit. I taught the kids various ways to pray and meditate. We broke down The Lord’s Prayer so fifth graders could make sense of all those “arts, halloweds, and trespasses.” We set concepts they had to learn for their Confirmation to their favorite rap songs. We discussed their experiences with God. That class was alive! It reinforced the importance of meeting people where they are on the spiritual path. That is what I have felt guided to do with my new Substack account. The Course is my path today, but I recognize that truth exists on other paths as well and wouldn’t it be great if we could all compare notes on that and really listen to one another? By the time I got to section III of your post, I was one, big goosebump. The same thing had just happened to me minutes before. And here I am. I know what you saw, Sean, because I saw it, too. Peace and love to you, brother.
Thank you for sharing, Margaret. Synchronicity is a bright jewel in the void!
I suspect some of the parents involved in my Catechism days deployed what they considered helpful pedagogy, including arts and crafts and so forth. I am grateful to them; I do think they all meant well.
When I look back at that 8-year old I mostly feel sorry that anybody took him away from recess and from play with his friends! Religion can come later, right? We can grow up and decide, you know, I'd like to try the ritual mysticism of Catholicism or maybe Zazen or maybe I'll just stick with talk therapy and yoga or . . .
Even then a lot of the problems that religion and spirituality try to solve exist in the very structure of what Tara Singh called "the lovelessness of I get it and you don't." That tends to become behavior modification and/or reinforcement conditioning which inevitably produce shallow and temporary results.
In the deepest sense, God cannot be taught, only remembered.
All of which you know :) Thank you for helping me remember, too. I'm very grateful we share this path, Margaret, and look forward to reading your work.
~ Sean
Thank you now I know where it is in the text!
It's a great section - thank you for sharing it!
Priceless!
🙏🙏
HI Sean, thank you for your great post. I guess that I am in communion as long as I observe, question and correct my perception so that I see always either love or a call for help/love. 🙏
Thanks for being David, and thank you for reading. Yes indeed - I think that is it - we are in communion when we intentionally and gently give attention, reflect, and make correction as we are guided. You put it perfectly 🙏🙏
~ Sean
Sean, you hit the nail on the head again. "The Holy Spirit extends from your mind to his, and answers you. You cannot hear the Voice for God in yourself alone, because you are not alone (T-9.II.6:2-5)." I had to write this down because I always think I will hear a voice in my mind.... but it is not so. I will hear it through my brothers/sisters. Thanks again for another great post. I really do appreciate them.
Thank you for the kind words, Robyn. I'm glad it was helpful. And yes, holy relationship is the answer!
~ Sean
Thank you for this beautiful reminder about prayer. One of my favorite Course quotes is “The Holy Spirit’s voice is a loud as your willingness to listen”, not sure where it is in the text. ❤️❤️❤️
T-8.VIII.8:7 . . . and yes, that is a PERFECT sentence. Thank you Ginny 🙏🙏
~ Sean