Beautiful !🙏 After reading your article questions arose in me, "can I be in a body with whatever thoughts, feelings, and sensations arise and love them all, experience whatever is arising from a direct experience rather than from my thoughts about them?" You have inspired me to open to curiosity today. ♥️
Thanks for being here, Glenda . . . being curious is a spiritual practice!! I think the act of giving attention to those kinds of questions is itself a form of healing, regardless of what shows up in the form of an "answer" . . . 🙏🙏
Thank you, Nilsa 🙏. We are in this together, and the holiness we see in the other is merely own holiness remembering itself for all of us.
Whenever you heal a brother by recognizing his worth, you are acknowledging his power to create and yours. He cannot have lost what you recognize, and you must have the glory you see in him. He is a co-creator with God with you (T-7.XI.6:5-7).
This is a really beautiful newsletter, Sean. The theme of holiness running through and the imagery—especially of snowflakes bunching together like wool—are deeply moving to me. I appreciate you writing and sharing details of your practice and how you are currently practicing for many reasons, but a significant one to me is that it gives permission, in a sense, to change our practice as needed, to let it evolve as we change and are being changed. The course is very personal in that way and meets us where we are. Secondly, and importantly by you sharing, it asks me to articulate, explore, and evaluate my own practice, which is helpful. I love the concept of “practicing paradise.” Although I know very little about this specific phrase or idea, it seems to point to, but in a more expansive way, what I have called “cathedraling” which has been my practice of walking through this world as a cathedral where everything and every day is holy. Paradise feels like Eden, Heaven, or Love—if love were a physical place and recognizing that love is both everywhere and in everything where holiness is reborn and observed by holiness every instant. I’m grateful for how your words reached me.🌸
Thank you Kimberley. In early drafts I was focusing on the sound of the flakes - like angel wings brushing together - but I couldn't get the rhythm to work. The wool jives withe neighbor's sheep, so I went with it. I'm glad you liked it.
That is a nice way to frame the process: a permission structure to evolve, to be changed IN our relationship with God BY that relationship. It is personal - deeply so - although that "personal" does open up into something vast and IMpersonal, without in any way denigrating our sense of being "Sean" or "Kimberley."
Gjermundsen's article has been getting a lot of attention in the Catholic Worker circles in which I mean that that phrase - which comes from Doug Christie - is especially popular. Something about it really resonates. I'm hoping to focus a little more on their work in the next couple of months, especially their ideas about apocalyptic thinking/mindsets, which - once you get away from the global destruction idea - can be very empowering and instructive. Sapiential eschatology is a treasured phrase of mine, indicating not the destruction of the world but its wholesale transformation from a world of fear to one of Love.
I am very confident - I feel confided in - that this was how Jesus understood it as well.
I do love cathedral as a verb, and it's a fascinating word anyway. Thank you for sharing and being here, and helping me hold this little light up 🙏🙏
Thank you, Sean, for the synchronicity. When the student is ready (myself), the teacher appears (your Self).
Michael Singer conveyed this same teaching in a talk that I listened to last night. And now you continued to outline the same point.
This whole thing seems so tenuous. It's almost within my grasp but at the same time, isn't. I wish that I could say, I get it! But I don't get it.
So, I will sit in stillness once again, and endeavor to apply your suggestion of "giving attention."
I really appreciate that you are "there" or at least "getting there." I hope that you continue to help the rest of us to join your understanding, your knowing. Blessings and appreciation to you, Sean!
💞🙏
Here is a small snippet and link to/of Michael's talk if anyone is interested.
Enjoy!
He said:
"What is consciousness?
I just told you your consciousness, your awareness of being is that field that always was and will always be and is omnipresent. There’s no difference. The ripple in the lake is the lake. The ripple will fall back into the lake."
"Who’s back here watching the thoughts, who’s back here looking through the eyes? What is consciousness? And they let go and let go and let go and let go and pop merged. That’s what yoga means, union merger. You’re in that state right now. You’re just looking out. You’re looking down away from yourself at objects of consciousness. A thought is an object of consciousness, is it not? Do they come and go? Clouds come and go. Thoughts come and go. Do emotions come and go? Everything comes and goes.
You are aware of it because you’re conscious and it passed before your consciousness. So that’s what we’re discussing. You are back there. All you have to do is stop looking away from yourself and you will realize who you are. That’s how close you are to enlightenment right now. So what we’re saying, what I started saying to you is for your purpose of life and meaning of life is it is that consciousness that created all of creation that wants to experience this creation. Why? It’s a game."
You're welcome, Jeannie - thanks for reading and sharing. Honestly, I think we just need to show up with an open mind and a willing heart and the rest takes care of itself . . . very hard to trust that! It always seems like there's something I should be doing 🙏🙏
What is near yet cannot be observed? What is Jesus talking about? Stillness and nature and yearning for God are all part of Heaven for me too, Sean. When my soul opens up and I forget all...with absolute clarity He is there. When I am empty of all except the present feeling, a movement from God is experienced. It lasts but a moment. I can't make it happen. As Thomas Merton wrote: "And he called out to me from his own immense depths." Love always answers. Thank you, Sean, for answering.
You're welcome, Gail - thank you for being here. Gjermundsen's article is pretty academic (which, for me, means about three times as long as it has to be) but I think his ideas are pretty solid. Also, Douglas Christie (also referenced but not linked) is an interesting Christian thinker these days. I'm hoping to write more about Gjermundsen's article in the next couple of weeks.
When I met Ken my ACIM study was a solo journey and he took time to talk to me when I showed up on a trip to California. He was very accommodating. We didn’t spend much time together. I was empressed.
My point is that the meeting started me in a more relaxed approach to ACIM. Much like finding you on Substack. So you have my attention. Keep sharing I like the idea on keeping an open mind.
Thanks, Jack. I didn't know Ken personally, though we traded letters - he said kind things about Emily Dickinson, so Ken will always be alright with me!
I try to be sensitive about my criticism of Ken and Tara Singh, both of whom had important influence on my ACIM study and practice. I think of them as fellow travelers who were especially helpful, but I know for others they were much more influential, and the relationship was more personal. I don't want to step on toes but I also want to be honest about where I'm at and what's going on.
Thanks for being here and for your kind words, Jack.
Giving (not paying, giving) attention has been a transformative practice for me. I first encountered the phrase in David Bohm's work on dialogue. It absolutely helps to slow me down and restore me to present-moment awareness, where thought really does lose its seeming importance.
“I sit quietly with my eyes closed and ‘take this very instant, now, and think of it as all there is of time’ (T-15.I.9:5). But ‘think’ has been replaced by ‘give attention.’”
“Nothing can reach you here out of the past, and it is here that you are completely absolved, completely free and wholly without condemnation. From this holy instant wherein holiness was born again you will go forth in time without fear . . .”(T-15.I.9:6-7).
“It is in the nature of receiving a gift, rather than laboring to achieve a goal.”
“My stillness practice involves aligning with the rhythms of Creation, from which I am not - nor are you nor is anyone - separate.”
“People say sometimes, I want to write, how do I write? And my answer is always a version of, don’t talk about it. Just write. The writing will teach you all you need to know. just be still. Be present. God will teach you all you need to know by attending the rhythms of the natural world, which include us.”
“The gift of the holy instant always is - I didn't need it to be anything else. Thus it was holy, and you were there too.
Fear has no haven here, for love has come in all its holy oneness.”
(S-3.IV.2:3-4)
“Thank you as always for being here. We are in this together and I couldn’t ask for better companions. My happiness is yours and yours, mine. In the holy instant, we offer ourselves to each other as the light in which the trail becomes clear. My gratitude has no end.”
Forgiveness will make the seeming world go away. Then we will just move through life in awareness. Our thoughts won't mean anything. We will just be still and know...I AM. I ache for that kind of knowing.
Thank you for being here, Michelle. I think the interesting promise of the holy instant is that we can have that knowledge any time we want - mostly because it's remembered, not gained. One thing that has been very helpful for me is reminding myself it's a gift from God - not something I have to earn or beg for or anything. It is inherent. When I remember that, my spiritual practice just relaxes. There's a kind of gentle confidence that it will all work out - I'll know when I know and if I never know, it's still okay. Also, caring deeply about others knowing seems to help, even prioritizing them over our selves.
Thanks for being here and helping me remember - I appreciate you 🙏🙏
Beautiful !🙏 After reading your article questions arose in me, "can I be in a body with whatever thoughts, feelings, and sensations arise and love them all, experience whatever is arising from a direct experience rather than from my thoughts about them?" You have inspired me to open to curiosity today. ♥️
Thanks for being here, Glenda . . . being curious is a spiritual practice!! I think the act of giving attention to those kinds of questions is itself a form of healing, regardless of what shows up in the form of an "answer" . . . 🙏🙏
~ Sean
Thank you Sean!!
You are the spirit in whose mind abides the miracle in which all time stands still. ( lesson 97)
Thank you, Nilsa 🙏. We are in this together, and the holiness we see in the other is merely own holiness remembering itself for all of us.
Whenever you heal a brother by recognizing his worth, you are acknowledging his power to create and yours. He cannot have lost what you recognize, and you must have the glory you see in him. He is a co-creator with God with you (T-7.XI.6:5-7).
Thank you for helping me find the way 🙏
~ Sean
You’re getting pretty good at this.
🙏🙏
This is a really beautiful newsletter, Sean. The theme of holiness running through and the imagery—especially of snowflakes bunching together like wool—are deeply moving to me. I appreciate you writing and sharing details of your practice and how you are currently practicing for many reasons, but a significant one to me is that it gives permission, in a sense, to change our practice as needed, to let it evolve as we change and are being changed. The course is very personal in that way and meets us where we are. Secondly, and importantly by you sharing, it asks me to articulate, explore, and evaluate my own practice, which is helpful. I love the concept of “practicing paradise.” Although I know very little about this specific phrase or idea, it seems to point to, but in a more expansive way, what I have called “cathedraling” which has been my practice of walking through this world as a cathedral where everything and every day is holy. Paradise feels like Eden, Heaven, or Love—if love were a physical place and recognizing that love is both everywhere and in everything where holiness is reborn and observed by holiness every instant. I’m grateful for how your words reached me.🌸
Thank you Kimberley. In early drafts I was focusing on the sound of the flakes - like angel wings brushing together - but I couldn't get the rhythm to work. The wool jives withe neighbor's sheep, so I went with it. I'm glad you liked it.
That is a nice way to frame the process: a permission structure to evolve, to be changed IN our relationship with God BY that relationship. It is personal - deeply so - although that "personal" does open up into something vast and IMpersonal, without in any way denigrating our sense of being "Sean" or "Kimberley."
Gjermundsen's article has been getting a lot of attention in the Catholic Worker circles in which I mean that that phrase - which comes from Doug Christie - is especially popular. Something about it really resonates. I'm hoping to focus a little more on their work in the next couple of months, especially their ideas about apocalyptic thinking/mindsets, which - once you get away from the global destruction idea - can be very empowering and instructive. Sapiential eschatology is a treasured phrase of mine, indicating not the destruction of the world but its wholesale transformation from a world of fear to one of Love.
I am very confident - I feel confided in - that this was how Jesus understood it as well.
I do love cathedral as a verb, and it's a fascinating word anyway. Thank you for sharing and being here, and helping me hold this little light up 🙏🙏
~ Sean
Thank you, Sean, for the synchronicity. When the student is ready (myself), the teacher appears (your Self).
Michael Singer conveyed this same teaching in a talk that I listened to last night. And now you continued to outline the same point.
This whole thing seems so tenuous. It's almost within my grasp but at the same time, isn't. I wish that I could say, I get it! But I don't get it.
So, I will sit in stillness once again, and endeavor to apply your suggestion of "giving attention."
I really appreciate that you are "there" or at least "getting there." I hope that you continue to help the rest of us to join your understanding, your knowing. Blessings and appreciation to you, Sean!
💞🙏
Here is a small snippet and link to/of Michael's talk if anyone is interested.
Enjoy!
He said:
"What is consciousness?
I just told you your consciousness, your awareness of being is that field that always was and will always be and is omnipresent. There’s no difference. The ripple in the lake is the lake. The ripple will fall back into the lake."
"Who’s back here watching the thoughts, who’s back here looking through the eyes? What is consciousness? And they let go and let go and let go and let go and pop merged. That’s what yoga means, union merger. You’re in that state right now. You’re just looking out. You’re looking down away from yourself at objects of consciousness. A thought is an object of consciousness, is it not? Do they come and go? Clouds come and go. Thoughts come and go. Do emotions come and go? Everything comes and goes.
You are aware of it because you’re conscious and it passed before your consciousness. So that’s what we’re discussing. You are back there. All you have to do is stop looking away from yourself and you will realize who you are. That’s how close you are to enlightenment right now. So what we’re saying, what I started saying to you is for your purpose of life and meaning of life is it is that consciousness that created all of creation that wants to experience this creation. Why? It’s a game."
https://resources.soundstrue.com/podcast/e67-life-as-your-teacher-embracing-growth-in-every-moment/
You're welcome, Jeannie - thanks for reading and sharing. Honestly, I think we just need to show up with an open mind and a willing heart and the rest takes care of itself . . . very hard to trust that! It always seems like there's something I should be doing 🙏🙏
~ Sean
What is near yet cannot be observed? What is Jesus talking about? Stillness and nature and yearning for God are all part of Heaven for me too, Sean. When my soul opens up and I forget all...with absolute clarity He is there. When I am empty of all except the present feeling, a movement from God is experienced. It lasts but a moment. I can't make it happen. As Thomas Merton wrote: "And he called out to me from his own immense depths." Love always answers. Thank you, Sean, for answering.
You're welcome, Susan - thanks for being here. I hope all is well on your end. Love DOES always answer, doesn't it? So happy I can remember that . . .
🙏🙏
~ Sean
Thankyou ,you have given me food for thought and I will enquire into the works of those you referenced
You're welcome, Gail - thank you for being here. Gjermundsen's article is pretty academic (which, for me, means about three times as long as it has to be) but I think his ideas are pretty solid. Also, Douglas Christie (also referenced but not linked) is an interesting Christian thinker these days. I'm hoping to write more about Gjermundsen's article in the next couple of weeks.
Thanks again for being here 🙏🙏
~ Sean
Thank you, Sean! Very beautiful and deeply appreciated.
🙏🙏
Thank you.
You're welcome, Deborah. Thank you being here and sharing 🙏🙏
~ Sean
Thanks Sean
Perfect timing for where am at, even though this was posted a month ago.
Practicing paradise speaks volumes to me.
Thanks for being here, Mike 🙏🙏
~ Sean
Thank you! Wonderful! Beautifully written!
You're welcome, Pat - thank you for being here and sharing 🙏🙏
~ Sean
Sean
When I met Ken my ACIM study was a solo journey and he took time to talk to me when I showed up on a trip to California. He was very accommodating. We didn’t spend much time together. I was empressed.
My point is that the meeting started me in a more relaxed approach to ACIM. Much like finding you on Substack. So you have my attention. Keep sharing I like the idea on keeping an open mind.
❤️ as always
Jack T
Thanks, Jack. I didn't know Ken personally, though we traded letters - he said kind things about Emily Dickinson, so Ken will always be alright with me!
I try to be sensitive about my criticism of Ken and Tara Singh, both of whom had important influence on my ACIM study and practice. I think of them as fellow travelers who were especially helpful, but I know for others they were much more influential, and the relationship was more personal. I don't want to step on toes but I also want to be honest about where I'm at and what's going on.
Thanks for being here and for your kind words, Jack.
~ Sean
I like, "give attention to". Perhaps the 'I think' is overused? This post reminds me to take time with my practise. Thank-you.
Giving (not paying, giving) attention has been a transformative practice for me. I first encountered the phrase in David Bohm's work on dialogue. It absolutely helps to slow me down and restore me to present-moment awareness, where thought really does lose its seeming importance.
Thanks for being here, Robyn 🙏🙏
~ Sean
Thank You Sean!
My takeaways from your post today:
“I sit quietly with my eyes closed and ‘take this very instant, now, and think of it as all there is of time’ (T-15.I.9:5). But ‘think’ has been replaced by ‘give attention.’”
“Nothing can reach you here out of the past, and it is here that you are completely absolved, completely free and wholly without condemnation. From this holy instant wherein holiness was born again you will go forth in time without fear . . .”(T-15.I.9:6-7).
“It is in the nature of receiving a gift, rather than laboring to achieve a goal.”
“My stillness practice involves aligning with the rhythms of Creation, from which I am not - nor are you nor is anyone - separate.”
“People say sometimes, I want to write, how do I write? And my answer is always a version of, don’t talk about it. Just write. The writing will teach you all you need to know. just be still. Be present. God will teach you all you need to know by attending the rhythms of the natural world, which include us.”
“The gift of the holy instant always is - I didn't need it to be anything else. Thus it was holy, and you were there too.
Fear has no haven here, for love has come in all its holy oneness.”
(S-3.IV.2:3-4)
“Thank you as always for being here. We are in this together and I couldn’t ask for better companions. My happiness is yours and yours, mine. In the holy instant, we offer ourselves to each other as the light in which the trail becomes clear. My gratitude has no end.”
This says it all for me. Thank You🙏
Namaste,
Cathy Ray
You're welcome, Cathy. Thank you for being here and sharing 🙏🙏
~ Sean
Forgiveness will make the seeming world go away. Then we will just move through life in awareness. Our thoughts won't mean anything. We will just be still and know...I AM. I ache for that kind of knowing.
Thank you for being here, Michelle. I think the interesting promise of the holy instant is that we can have that knowledge any time we want - mostly because it's remembered, not gained. One thing that has been very helpful for me is reminding myself it's a gift from God - not something I have to earn or beg for or anything. It is inherent. When I remember that, my spiritual practice just relaxes. There's a kind of gentle confidence that it will all work out - I'll know when I know and if I never know, it's still okay. Also, caring deeply about others knowing seems to help, even prioritizing them over our selves.
Thanks for being here and helping me remember - I appreciate you 🙏🙏
~ Sean
Thank you! Wonderful! Beautifully written!