Expressions of Love
We will now be doing our newsletter on a quarterly basis. This will be the last one for this year.
In This Issue
The Love of
Giving- Rev. Frank Arnold
Getting rid of
Ego - Rev. Sue Borg
Six
Big Fat Lies about Forgiveness-
Karen Bentley
B
y
Rev. Frank Arnold
Well here I am
having fun and all the while raising some money for a friend of mine who
has a grandchild with a traumatic brain injury. The family has
been stressed because of their medical bills and the care needed for
their child. In our last newsletter, there was information about
Kenner Johnson and you can still donate money if you care to.
I'd like to say thank you to everyone who sent donations, to everyone who gave prizes for the raffle, to everyone who purchased raffle tickets, to everyone who played in the tournament and to the love given to us and to this family. My gosh, when hearts open, they open wide. Thank you, thank, you thank you. That's little Kenner along with his family and, of course, my beautiful wife, Suzi.
The golf tournament opened our eyes to a new idea at The Miracle Center about a fund-raising event. We will more than likely do another golfing event next Summer to raise funds for the Miracle Center, so get ready to join in the fun.
For the past 10 years, we have wrapped Christmas gifts at the Mall as our only fund-raising event to create money to assist other non-profit organizations and to bring in the likes of Gregg Braden and Master Co. This golf tournament was way fun and created a fair amount of money for this family and was much easier than being at the Mall for an entire month. We will not be doing the gift wrapping this year.
I have said many times that having and showing gratitude for all the good I have received is what makes my heart happy. There really is no difference in giving and receiving and for that knowing I give my greatest thanks. Giving is Receiving.
As you, my friends, continue to support the things we do, life just gets better and better. I send my blessings of love to each and every one of you for all you have given to help us continue to give as well. Our joy comes from doing what we can to help others whenever we can. We will continue with this in mind: There is enough, you are enough and I am enough. Just remember that you are lovable, you are loving and you are loved by God and by me.
We will not be doing the gift wrapping this year at the Fashion Place Mall. We'll let you know what our next fund-raising event will be as soon as we know. We're open to receive.
Thank you to everyone who helped us the past ten years at the Mall. What a joy it was and what a joy it is to move forward and find another way to create funds to help others. That's our purpose and we'll let you know how you can help.
Have a wonderful Holiday Season. Be thankful on Thanksgiving and be thankful on Christmas. Enjoy whatever life brings. Life is Good!
By Rev. Sue Borg
Over the last 25 years I cannot tell you how many times I have heard someone say they just want to get rid of "their" ego. My first comment is to just call it the ego and give up the "My" ego idea. I think we often miss the idea of ego altogether. It is way more simple that we have tried to make it.
In the film The Princess Bride there is a character named Inigo who spends most of his life searching for the man who killed his father. When he finally finds the man and kills him, a friend asks, "So, now that you have avenged your father's assassin, what will you be doing?"
Inigo stops in his tracks, a blank look washes over his face, and he admits, "I don't know - I have been in the revenge business for so long, I don't think I will know what to do without it!"
Like Inigo, we have built an identity and called it ego and have been searching with that very same ego to find the truth. We have become professional patients, clients, students, seekers, and disciples. What we are really seeking is the knowledge that we are one with our creator and give up our desire to "kill" the ego. The ego is just another form of separation from our God self.
There is only one place where ego is not and that is within you, that place where perfect peace abides and allows you to quit holding your breath and realize the connection you have with creation, or God, and/or all that is. This is truth and truth cannot be changed ever in any way. Ego is forever changing, so we know it is not truth. You can easily identify ego because it is always associated with the body, mind, and senses. The ego always appears after an occurrence or activity as a particular thought, response, or feeling.
From The Course - The journey to God is merely
the reawakening of the knowledge of where you are always, and what you
are forever. It is a journey without distance to a goal that has never
changed. Truth can only be experienced. It cannot be described and it
cannot be explained. Truth is the experience of God.
....truth
will dawn upon you of itself.
The only thing we ever need seek (know) is the truth that we are one with God and this cannot be changed. Because it cannot be changed, we know it is truth. Truth does not change. Ego is always changing.
Truth is within, your natural inheritance, and is greater than anything in the outer world. Your peace, is in your own hands, where it has always been. You've had it all the time and do not need the idea of ego in any way, shape or form. Truth is Love and Ego is fear. You get to choose.
6 Big Fat Lies About Forgiveness"
by Karen Bentley
There's a difference between the more familiar social version
of forgiveness and the less familiar spiritual version of forgiveness.
This is because the purpose of the social version of forgiveness is to
assign or accept blame, whereas the purpose of the spiritual version of
forgiveness is to undo the hate you have in your mind for self or
another. As you can see, these two versions of forgiveness are not the
same. One enables you to feel good, and the other makes you feel bad.
The social practice of forgiveness leaves you feeling bad
because it does not undo hate. Many times, it makes hate stronger.
Therefore, it does nothing truly useful and it has nothing to do with
real forgiveness. The undoing of hate in the mind is very important
because it's the key to happiness beyond your wildest expectations.
Therefore, the little known and underutilized spiritual practice of
forgiveness is one of the great secrets of life. Keep that in mind as
you reconsider six of the biggest, fattest lies about the social way in
which we forgive.
Lie #1: Saying the words "I forgive you" or "I apologize" is an act of
forgiveness.
This is the biggest lie of all. While saying "I forgive you" or "I apologize" is a popular social convention for dealing with mistakes, it does not necessarily end the hate you have in your own mind or the hate that someone else holds against you. In fact, saying these words has the opposite effect of making the mistake more real and more serious rather than minimizing it. Remember when Tanya Harding publicly apologized to Nancy Kerrigan for having Nancy's knee whacked just before the winter Olympics in 1994? Even though Tanya said the right words and appeared to be sincere, the words did nothing to change Nancy's mind about Tanya's badness or wrongness. It most likely had the opposite effect of keeping Nancy's grudge alive rather than undoing it.
This is
not to suggest that you should never say "I'm sorry" or "excuse me for
making a mistake." Rather, it's to ask you to become more conscious of
why you are saying these words and what you are really doing. When you
give an apology or demand one from someone else, you are not choosing to
see goodness in self or another. Instead you are choosing to see the
worst. And you get what you see. Always. Is the worst what you really
want, dear reader? The spiritual practice of forgiveness develops your
spiritual vision, which is the ability to see self or other at the
highest possible level.
Lie #2: Forgiveness takes a long time and may involve many steps.
This is another popular social concept which is untrue. Many social and psychologically-oriented forgiveness practices involve several steps, stages, or degrees of forgiveness. First you think some more about the way you've been mistreated. Maybe you write down all the injustices. Then you get ready to forgive. Then you do this. Then you do that. Then maybe you write a letter or talk to a counselor about how badly you've been injured. Then you do something else. Yes, you can engage in this kind of angst and turmoil for as long as you want. And there's an advantage to it because your ego-based need for attention from others is fulfilled. But try to remember that this need does not make you happy, so ultimately there is no benefit. Wallowing in misery and delaying your joy is completely unnecessary.
Spiritual forgiveness is not hard, time-consuming, complicated, or
mysterious. It begins with the awareness of hate in your mind and ends
with the tiny willingness to give it up. You practice forgiveness the
very moment you change your mind about yourself or another being wrong
or bad. So here is the question to ask yourself, dear reader. How long
does it take to change your mind? Not even a second.
Lie #3. Forgiveness only needs to be done once.
In the social
version of forgiveness, you say the words "I'm sorry" or "forgive me"
once, and typically the deed is done. However, this doesn't really work
because the human mind is disorganized and untrained. Thoughts of
badness or wrongness keep coming back again and again. Because the mind
is so unruly, it's critical to approach forgiveness as a form of
spiritual fitness, something you do for yourself on an ongoing basis,
rather than a one-time event. Developing spiritual fitness is the same
as developing physical fitness. You cannot expect to grow a big,
beautiful bicep muscle by doing one repetition of a bicep curl.
Likewise, you cannot expect to develop a mind that's free of hate by one
small act of forgiveness.
Here's how it works: A loveless thought about self or another enters the
mind, and you notice it. Now you have a choice. It's always the same
choice. You can keep the thought and indulge it, or you can change your
mind and thereby undo (or transcend) the loveless thought. The loveless
thought gets undone over and over, every time it presents itself, maybe
several times a day. You just keep at it, like a diet. Eventually the
thought is dismantled because there is no fresh investment of energy to
keep it going.
Lie #4. Forgiveness is painful.
It's true that the social version
of forgiveness can be very painful because it always involves assigning
ownership for a mistake or admitting ownership for a mistake. Ugh! Of
course that hurts! No wonder forgiveness has such a bad name! However,
the spiritual version of forgiveness is not painful at all because it is
the complete overlooking of blame. Therefore, real forgiveness results
in joy, not pain.
Lie #5. Forgiveness means that you accept or condone certain acts and
behaviors as okay.
Forgiveness is not the overlooking of a problem. It's the overlooking of the blame and the judgment of badness or wrongness that typically accompanies the problem. If, for example, your house is on fire, you can't overlook it and pretend that nothing's happening. You have to solve the problem at hand, put the fire out, tend to processing insurance claims and salvaging your belongings. Your mission is simply to solve your problems and make life more functional without the dose of attack, guilt, or blame that usually goes along with it.
In our world, love (or special attention) is given or withheld based on the performance or non performance of certain desirable behaviors. But if you give or withdraw your love based on what people do or don't do for you, then your love is completely and totally conditional. What you're offering is actually a bargain - not love. Real love is unconditional and unshakeable. While it is more pleasing to have people in the world behave the way you want them to behave and value what you want them to value, love is not dependent on the behavior or value system of others. Love is dependent on your decision to be a loving being and that is all.
Lie #6. Forgiveness corrects errors.
The social practice of forgiveness often includes the provision that someone else must correct an offensive or inappropriate behavior. As you can by now see, this is yet another condition on love. Therefore, it cannot be love and must be hate. Since forgiveness is the undoing of hate, correction of another cannot be a form of forgiveness. Correction of another is God's job, not ours. Our job is to accept our brothers and sisters "as they are." The hardest thing we are asked to do on the spiritual path is to witness a behavioral mistake in another without judgment or correction. Can you do it? Of course you can. A more important question is will you do it? Will you refuse to be shaken by the insanity of another? That is the test of peace you must pass.
We want the people in our world to conform to our morally correct and uplifted standards, so it is always a challenge to remember that this is our fantasy about how the world "should be." This fantasy is the subtle way in which we all "dream" or "sleep." Because of this, spiritual forgiveness is a gentle way of awakening. Many of us give good lip service to wanting to awaken from our dreams and to become enlightened, but the bottom line is always the same. What we really want is for our brothers and sisters to awaken so that we don't have to do the work of being a loving being in the face of constant lovelessness. ©2003
Karen Bentley is America’s Spiritual Reviewer and the author of two ACIM-based books. For more information, go to www.spiritualreviewer.com and www.karenbentley.com.
