Ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full. –John 16:24
Lord, help us let go, and be out of the way, so that we can receive as much of your love as we can possibly stand.
In your love we can find our shadows of doubt and darkness banished. In your illumination we experience the freedom from fears of death and all manner of earthly illusions.
Your loving forgiveness frees us from the burdens of judgment, anger, guilt and even stubbornness.
Help keep us on this path, in your love, to see and experience the Wonder, the Beauty, the Perfection in all of your magnificent creation.
Help us to walk this path together, knowing that your love is all that matters.
Father Paul, from class about Street Patrol:
“You can’t tell what happens, what is going to be the thing that is going to bear the fruit, because it is very subtle sometimes. And it is very subtle the way your thinking is going to affect the people in that area where you are going to work. Now, it’s a fine thing to sit in a
class, and you’ll agree with the teacher when he talks about the Law or when he talks about your thinking is real or you go into the Book of Activity and you say, ‘well, your thoughts, your acts are your prayer.’ Nice-sounding words and all that sort of thing, but do you know that
that’s true? and it is. You really know that’s true? Do you really know that if you go out on Market Street that your acts are really the saying of prayers, and they will be answered? Do you really know that the Host is many times with you out there? You probably aren’t conscious of it, maybe but they are. ‘Cause do you know this is the
first time that any group went out, in this area, that weren’t preaching on the street, or had their little ‘thing’ that they did, that were truly out there to help people?”… (end of lecture) “Alright boys, go to it. Get ’em! God bless you.
In June of 1848, army officer John C. Fremont submitted his “Geographical Memoir” to the US Senate. Fremont had a superb reputation as an explorer (his nickname was “The Pathfinder”) His report was eagerly read, and people saw his drawing and written explanation of where San Francisco bay opened to the Pacific. Fremont thought the site would be very well suited for commerce. Inspired by the rocky entrance to Constantinople in Asia Minor that carried the ancient description the Chrysoceras (“Golden Horn”), Fremont suggested the dramatic entrance to the American bay be called “Chrysopylae” (the “Golden Gate”)
Root words and their meanings:
“Believe” is rooted in the root “leubh” which denotes love or desire, as in the German Liebe.
Similarly, “creed” is rooted in the Greek “kardia” which means “heart,” and in English, “cardiac.”
At root, then, both “believe” and “creed” are matters of the heart, and of love, more than of the brain and intellectual systems.
Matt 5:21-48
Jesus said of personal relationships: not only keep the commandments to the letter, but examine oneself for even a hint of sin. Even a hint is enough to demand salvation in blood. He said, “But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court… therefore if you are presenting your offering at the altar, and then remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother and then come and present your offering.”
I am pretty sure I just laughed at this picture in my mind. What would the world look like if there were hastily abandoned offerings everywhere? Oswald Chambers’s morning meditation stressed the immediacy of doing what one must. No blathering around, no preparation, no rationalization: just GO, do it, and be done. (Note: he was actually referring to paying debts owed another, even if the debts are unjust, but I’m going to take the liberty of assuming that he wouldn’t mind my loose application.) How often do I put my “must do”s on hold while I flutter about, doing what I “should probably do sometime,” or what “might lay the groundwork for something that seems too hard or inconvenient to worry with at the moment”? Haste! Make haste!
What’s important to Christ in this picture: the newly slain offering? I think not. I love the light in which offerings are shown in several different places: Micah 6:6 being one. “With what shall I come to the Lord, and bow myself before the God on high?” God asks for the sacrifice of doing good, of doing justice, of loving mercy, and of walking in humility before him. No wonder we’d rather just stick with the lambs and doves for sacrificing: seems so much easier than obedience of the heart. I’m going to keep my eyes peeled for these sacrifices left behind. Kristen Green, author of Something Must Be Done About Prince Edward County
Did I mention that you’re lovely?
Eyes of innocence and wisdom
See me for what I am
You are Bright
You are Light
Master of my heart and soul
I bow to you in all my dreams
Lifting my mind to touch you
And raising my voice to praise you
Lord Jesus Christ, I love you! Diane Watts, Asheville, N.C.
From Father Paul Class (undated) excerpts
…Now, it’s a strange thing that most all of the great secrets are always in front of you. Actually the wise people that have gone before us knew human nature, and that there was only one place to put it if they wanted to keep it a secret, and that was to write it down and publish it, and they were sure that nobody would ever find it. That’s just about what they did, too…
… Your power, success and degree of attainment will depend upon this one condition: that you continue to maintain an open mind, a broad and tolerant aspect of life and those who live with you and around you, and permit no shackles, and no chains of creeds or dogmas or forms of narrow conventional thoughts to tie you to the earth—Your mind and heart must be as broad and as tolerant, as kind and generous, as considerate as that of the cosmos.
Your willingness to forgive, to overlook weakness, to condone error, to hold out your hand to those who seem to have fallen, must be equal to the spirit within you, within your heart, within your soul, of the great masters to whom you will never know how they have appealed and worked, and some you will never know who have helped you with many hours of work that you have never seen.
You must ever be conscious of the fact that the Law, that the love is the soul essence of all experience, the most dynamic force in the universe, and that the only rule and guide in judging, giving, receiving, viewing, reviewing, sensing, understanding, comprehending everyone and everything that exists. With this attitude you will remain powerful; otherwise, you will find your power weakening continually, and the law of response does not work. The law of cohesion will not work…
…Now there isn’t any way that you can figure it out any different because whether God was creating the world, or you are in the kitchen creating some sort of a concoction, it’s got to be done the same way, and you can’t get around it at all…And whether you’re selling a vacuum cleaner or God is creating the earth—and He did—it’s all the same deal, and it’s all done the same way. It’s done according to the same Law. But the difference between you and the Old Boy Upstairs is that He knew His Word worked, but you didn’t believe it. And sometimes you accidentally use it, and you think to yourself, “Well now, this isn’t such a complicated thing. This thing that I want, which is just____. He probably can get this together; He can probably do this” –I’m not even jesting, because I’ve read the thoughts of people’s minds enough…
…One of the toughest things to do is for a student to get rid of a headache that he’s got…to believe that anything could stop that head from aching… If you can look for some resentment that’s been demonstrating in the last 24 hours, if you can get rid of that, you’ll get rid of the headache…
Let’s go on a step further. The first manifestation was the Word, but before that could manifest, before there was any manifestation, there was conception. An ideal and thought of visualized creation which was carried forth from the Mind into space by the vibration of the Word. Thus the “lost word” was the Word which sent forth, which was sent forth into space. It became lost in the created world, in the world made manifest. It is lost into the complexity of things that are, by its vibration becoming widespread and diffused throughout nature. We may repeat the Word, duplicate it in sound, but we can never have the original Word again. This is the meaning of the adjective “lost.”
In other words, you can’t say it the way God did, but as long as you get close to Him, know Him, sense Him, then your word will work, if you have the confidence. It is lost in the complexity of nature, remember that. And we may repeat the Word; duplicate it in sound; we can never have the original word again. This is the meaning of the lost word. Hence we may say the word is lost. It is not lost, and can never be lost, but when that Word was breathed for the first time, if for experiment or purpose, that it is with the attitude of confidence in the supreme divine Mind. The omnipotent Mind in the beginning knew and had the confidence in the Spirit of Itself and the Source of Its power. Therefore it worked. The Word breathed forth the first time for purpose and experience.
And when we attain this, when we master the lost word, we will know why the mystics wrote that this was the lost word which must be attained. How often have you seen that phrase and wondered? It is not plain now, perhaps. Then let us look behind the symbol and see how confidence works, and thereby find and reveal this unto ourselves…
FORGIVE
Forgive, not just for the sake of the other person, not because you’re afraid of losing your soul, but forgive because it’s the most practical thing to do — it frees you! You feel the need to see that things are right — the responsibility that no wrong is done — but if they do wrong anyway, should you carry around the load that isn’t yours? Drop it, and be released.
You feel in all justice that they who do harm should get back their dirty deeds, not that you would do anything in retribution, or even speak to anyone of it, but you feel their acts must come back upon them. Ought you insist that they should? Isn’t that up to God? Did ever a sparrow fall without his knowledge?
In releasing someone you may have to give up the pleasure of seeing justice done, but you will be releasing a heavy, sorrowful load. Throw down the pack, if only for your own sake, for in releasing him you must release yourself. Our sins were forgiven in a perfect example of grace. God forgave all the sins committed in the last centuries. Should one begin at the date of his own salvation and once more chalk up what has happened since — but his own mistakes and the wounds caused by others?
Why weep one day at your own errors committed after Grace, and another day for the wounding words and acts of another, which could pile up and accumulate to become a ridiculously confused picture?
If you do not insist on justice but forgive now — “for they know not what they do” then you may also be freed from the endless burden of remembering the sins of others, of having to remind them at a later day what they did amiss, that today you tried so hard to overlook but couldn’t quite.
If you seek forgiveness from God, you must first forgive man. And then henceforth react not to man, but to God.
Forgive; if you can’t love your enemy, at least reason about it. Be not too anxious to “see justice done”, nor insist that another suffer exactly in accordance with the pain he caused you.
For should it come about that you must watch him grieve as he made you do, there comes a sudden recognition that not only are you experiencing the pain twice, but there is no merit in it, and the Grace or reward which could have been gained from forgiveness and the natural laws of Cause and Effect which would have brought you recompense for the undue suffering either “here or there” has now been canceled out. For he is now in the clear; he has paid, and you have been left with the debt of your own unforgiveness still to pay. Has anyone gained?
So let us try that forgiving “70 times 7” as Jesus asked. It’s not easy, but an all-out-effort is easier than almost-doing, or the dread that goes with putting something off. Wash your hands and heart clean, and let God take it from there. If you’re worried about the ultimate justice, none ever gets off without paying, now or then. It’s a cosmic Law. “Avenge not yourselves, therefore, I will repay, said the Lord.”
But you ought not to ask that he be made to pay, even elsewhere, for that would involve you. God is capable as a Judge with a much vaster perception than any human, and he sees what you had and have “coming”, perhaps from the dim past, as well as the other man. He also knows what is needed to teach both you and him a lesson that will become engraved in the consciousness so neither can ever make such a mistake again. But let God handle it, for He will anyway, and why should you get burned with interfering? There’s another angle. If you don’t forgive a person, you forge a tie between you and him that cannot be broken until you let go of it. So if you release him from indebtedness to you, you are released from him. If you bind yourself to him by insisting on his punishment, that doesn’t mean you will have your way — the Cosmos works in ways unpredictable, but the “mills of the gods” grind more exceedingly fine than most people could ever dream.
If you don’t want to spend your next lifetime in an uncomfortable relationship, living inescapably close to someone you are forced to adjust to, forgive him now, and let him go. Neither would you choose to be an earth-bound entity unable to rise above the earth plane after transition, bound by your own passions. You are responsible for your sins (errors), not for his.
This does not deny an attempt should be made to straighten things out on this plane, nor does it refer to matters of earthly law and business which can be taken care of at their own level, but it refers to sense of personal injustice or inner hurt. So do what you can to rectify; clear yourself, and then let go.
FORGIVE: Fore-give, give before it’s earned really, as we give thanks to God before the manifestation of what has been asked.
We hope God takes no note of the times we fall away, and the mind starts up with criticism or judgment of a wrong. We trust He’s still there full strength when we come back to Him in consciousness, whether or not one may have recognized the mistake and asked forgiveness. How dreadful would it be if I reached up to Him with all my heart, to find Him not there, unaware of my need? How difficult for those who love us, to find a stony heart because of some sin or error they may not even be aware of having committed?
Even if they are aware, as we too are aware when we smolder with resentment, and in imagination “tell off” someone in bitter terms until the point comes where we can hardly speak to him — in so doing we are putting a distance between ourselves and God, yet we must always return to Him. And the only way we can do so is to remove all condemnation toward others from our hearts.
Remember that every time we slight anyone in thought, as well as in word, we are stepping down from the nearness to God, and relinquishing that blessed relationship; so it takes an extra struggle to get back there again. No, I must be with Him, though it should mean relinquishing that precious opinion and judgment which seems so right, while the other person seems so wrong.
Nothing, not a breath, must come between me and God — between God and me. Not a space. He promised, “Closer am I than breathing — nearer than hands and feet.”
I’d rather stand here with God and nothing, than way down there nursing a precious, however righteous, grudge without Him.
Lord, help me to disregard the omissions and commissions of others which may have been to my hurt. For I know that as Jesus said, He forgives us as we forgive others.
–Rev. Mother Ruth Blighton The Golden Nuggets