So What is a Miracle, Anyway? 

By Dennis Gaither

So what is a miracle, anyway?  There is something very compelling about the idea of miracles; something that engages our imagination, some deep part of us.  They have been the stuff of folklore and faith for millennia.  Whether curious, hopeful, disdainful or fascinated, few are neutral in their beliefs about what a miracle is.  In conversations and classes, study groups and workshops, I find that when people offer to share about their “miracle stories” what follows is usually about an unexpected and happy event in the world.  A lost pet is found.  An illness is healed.  A parking space materializes.  Unexpected help arrives to solve a problem.  There is a timely phone call.  The list goes on and on.  In traditional religion, miracles refer to supernatural physical occurrences that defy usually understood natural laws, and are performed by or through certain “special” or enlightened individuals.  They certainly are not something you or I could “do.” 

Now, in the face of all of this cultural lore about miracles, we have this strange book, A Course in Miracles, that purports to teach us how to bring forth miracles.  Most students quickly get the idea that by miracle the Course is not talking about walking on water.  It is about healing our mind; that an “event” in the world we perceive becomes a “grievance” or “problem” only in our mind’s interpretation of it and that by healing our perception we can radically change our subjective experience. 

So we are led from the idea that a miracle involves an unexpected change in outer circumstances, as in the traditional view, to a shift in our perception of the circumstances.  But is that all there is to it, change our mind and change our experience?  Hardly. 

Miracles are not simply a means to a more peaceful existence here in this world.  They are a path by which we awaken from this world.  With each miracle, we awaken a little more to Who we are in truth.  The key here is to recognize Who is actually “doing” the miracle.  The "problem" is made on the level of ego, of individual mind.  But it is not on that level that the problem is undone.  It is not a matter of “changing our mind” in the usual sense of the ego exchanging one illusion for another nicer one.  We, on the level of individual mind, can offer only our willingness for the miracle.  But that is enough, if we offer it truly: 

Trust not your good intentions.  They are not enough.  But trust implicitly your willingness, whatever else may enter.  Concentrate only on this, and be not disturbed that shadows surround it.  That is why you came.  (T-18.IV.2:1-5) [Italics mine – DG] 

As a seeming individual expression of One Mind, like all of us, I experience many reactions every day to the events around me.  I can, as that individual mind experience, choose to interpret my emotional reactions as having been caused by those events, that I am indeed a victim of the world I see, and try to control those events as best I can.  Most of the time, this is the first thing that happens.  “The ego always speaks first.”   

But I also have another choice.  To open the door to the miracle I can first recognize that whatever may appear to be happening in front of me, my experience of it is a product of my own mind.  That decision then begins a process.  I can allow the experience to flow upward through me, and not push it down or away, not deny it with distractions or right-minded sounding affirmations or formulas.  Thoughts and feelings of guilt, fear, unworthiness and attack need to be allowed, without resistance or holding on.  To have the courage to do this, I need to have an abiding trust that there is a Reality within that transcends the feelings of the moment.  That Reality tells me that I am Innocent, I am Safe, I am Love and that all else is not real. The beliefs that act as “props” for the emotions, the upsets, the sense of unworthiness or fear, the “evidence” my ego has gathered, need to be looked at and let go of.  (I appreciate the teaching of Regina Dawn Akers for her clarity around this process!) 

I find it helpful to imagine myself offering them, one by one, and very specifically, to Spirit, as I would a precious gift given to someone I love.  Sometimes this seems easy, and sometimes difficult.  The difference in difficulty is an illusion, not inherent in the issue at hand but in my own attachment, or unwillingness to let go.  That unwillingness in turn is related to my fear of losing some part my "identity," of who I think I am.  The more closely I identify with some form of illusion as being "me," the more fearful and less willing I am to let it go. 

Everything in “my” part of the miracle is about letting go, of surrendering, about trusting in my willingness.  I do not “do” anything, only let go of my “doings.”  And even this is an illusion.  It is the process of the miracle that teaches that the individual “I” is an illusion, not the specific forms that may result. 

We may seek the miracle because of a certain outcome that we desire, whether that be a healing of the body or a relief from an upset.  But if we attach to that outcome in form, we will miss the opportunity for an even deeper healing.  We will miss the opportunity to experience, deep inside, an abiding Presence that heals and comforts us and teaches us who we really are; that we are not that little “i” presence that we thought we were. 

Below are two excellent readings about what a miracle is, from two very different perspectives that nonetheless come together beautifully.  The first article, “What is a Miracle?” by Robert Perry, gives a very clear discussion about the many facets of miracles, from the traditional to the very radical notions of ACIM. 

The second, by my friend Judy Allen, “Using the Course to Find Healing from Cancer,” is an excerpt from her book, The Five Stages of Getting Well.  Judy is a living example of the courage of willingness.  In the early 1980's Judy received a diagnosis of metastases breast cancer and was told she had only 2 -3 years to live.  Judy made a decision not to cooperate with her doctors’ prognostications, and chose to get well instead.  The book is the story of her Journey with cancer and her Healing process.  The attached excerpt is about the very powerful, moving experience of surrender that led her to a profound healing of the mind, and the healing of her cancer that followed.  Judy makes it very clear that the healing of her body was the result of the miracle, not the miracle itself.  Twenty five years later, Judy continues to be alive and well, an inspiration and a hope for us all.  I highly recommend her book to you. Thank you Judy for sharing your story with us! 

Peace and Blessings,  Dennis

Rev. Dennis Gaither, M.D., O.M.C.

[Ed Note]  Dennis Gaither was an attendee at the 2005 Conference in Salt Lake City.  Judy Allen and Robert Perry were both speakers.  These are such wonderful articles.  I hope you enjoy them as much as I did. 

Bio - Dr. Dennis Gaither - I am grateful for a very interesting life this time around.  I live in a beautiful part of northwest Washington State where I can commune daily with nature; the squawking geese, the howling winds, the stunning peaks, the soft whisper of rain through the cedars.  I have two amazing sons, a delightful daughter-in-law, a granddaughter that is truly a bright-eyed treasure, and an amazing partner and community of friends to share the Spiritual Journey with.  The Spiritual Journey has given many treasures, and its teachings have come in many forms over the years.  One that I value very highly is the profound yet loving wisdom of A Course in Miracles, the Practice of Deep Forgiveness, and the ever more palpable Presence Within that the Course leads one to. 

What Is a Miracle?

by Robert Perry   The Circle of Atonement e-mail: info@circleofa.com website: www.circleofa.com

What is a miracle? Obviously, to understand A Course in Miracles we must understand what a miracle is. By calling itself A Course in Miracles, it implies that its whole purpose is to educate and train us in the bringing forth of miracles. When one first encounters this title, it seems as if the Course is going to show us how to produce supernatural physical occurrences, like raising dead people or making food appear. But sooner or later we realize that a miracle is not an outer reversal of physical laws, but an inner shift in perception. And then the title seems to make more sense.

Yet I think we could take another look at what the Course really means by the word "miracle." For instance, if what the Course means by "miracle" is so unconventional, why does it use that word? What is the relationship between what the Course means by the word and what the word usually means? And finally, is a miracle really a "shift in perception"?

Miracles in the Ministry of Jesus

In trying to capture the Course's definition of "miracle" we should begin by looking at the more traditional meaning. I think it is no accident that the man whom the author of the Course claims to be—Jesus of Nazareth—was renowned for working miracles. In fact, if one compares his life to that of other religious founders—for instance, Muhammad and Buddha—Jesus comes out on the extreme end in terms of miracle-working. His miracles provided the basis for much of his reputation as recorded in the Gospels and even in early historical references (in the Babylonian Talmud there is a reference to the fact that he "practiced sorcery"). Further, miracle-working was one of the legacies that he left through his followers, whom he reportedly sent out to preach and to heal, and who continued this activity after his death.

In the ministry of Jesus, miracles had an important meaning. Let me try to sketch that meaning as I understand it based on my reading of modern scholarship. In those times, sickness was not seen so much as the result of natural law or even divine punishment, but as the expression of evil powers. The fact that suffering was so rampant was proof that the world was in the grip of demonic influences. Jesus came preaching about a God Who was so loving, compassionate and providential that He sought simply to make His children happy. He sought to be the perfect Parent, Who would chase away the demons, gather His children up in His arms, and kiss their tears away. This basic idea provided the center of Jesus' message. Above all Jesus proclaimed the coming of the Kingdom of God, by which he meant that the current rulership of the earth was and is being overturned; that a loving Father was coming to take over the world and wrap it in wings of healing.

Miracles were the concrete expression of this abstract idea. They were the proof, the living example, of God's coming rulership. They made the very vivid statement that 1) a loving God was intervening 2) to overturn the painful way that things normally work here, so that 3) sickness and suffering could be replaced with healing and happiness.

Just imagine the effect of being there in the time of Jesus. Imagine believing deeply that the world was in the grip of evil and seeing the torturing evidence of that everywhere. Then imagine this amazing man coming into town and proclaiming that a loving Father was overturning all that and replacing the rule of pain with the global rule of love. And imagine seeing the actual proof of his statements as miracles flowed from his fingertips as easily as light from the sun, reversing all the laws by which things seemed to operate, bringing hope where there was despair, life where there was death. The effect would have been exhilarating, life-changing; and apparently it was.

So if we look at the miracles of Jesus, we see several key elements. 1) They are acts of God; 2) they pass through a human instrument (Jesus) to another person; and 3) they heal the other person, overturning the existing order of things in the process.

A Shift in Perception

Now let us turn to the Course's definition of the miracle. Although, as I will attempt to show later, the Course's definition of the miracle has much in common with the more traditional image, there is one very critical difference. The Course has taken an event that has been primarily conceived of as physical and made it primarily psychological. The Course has psychologized the traditional miracle.

Personally, I think this is much more a correction for how history has viewed things, rather than a correction for what Jesus did back then. For, as I read the life of Jesus and the scholarship about him, it seems clear to me that what Jesus was really all about was what you could call "the inner miracle." This was the conversion from inwardly obeying the rulership of evil to surrendering to God's rulership of love. This inner miracle, just like the outer one, was sparked by something that flowed from Jesus' presence and was made possible by a choice, an assent of faith, on the part of the recipient. But, unlike the outer miracle, this inner miracle was the whole point of Jesus' ministry. The physical manifestations were just that: outer reflections of the real meat of things, the inner transformation.

Yet, even though I think Jesus understood that the mind, not the body, "is the proper aim of healing" (T-8.IX.1:5), the rest of us generally have not. We have an addiction to hoping that if we can merely rearrange our outer world, and leave our minds just the way they are, then everything can be better. And so miracles, as traditionally conceived, have fed right into that addiction. By saying, then, that the miracle heals the mind, or shifts our perception, the Course is dramatically reinterpreting the normal use of the word.

The Course's assertion is that everything stems from the mind. The mind's thinking provides the basis for everything that it experiences. Whichever way the mind chooses to look at reality, it will find itself surrounded by and experiencing a "reality" that is the precise mirror of that. The mind's fundamental belief-system first manifests as inner feelings, emotions, interpretations and perceptions; and then manifests as the "outer" reality in which the mind seems to live.

Our current human condition, then, including all of its sickness, pain, tragedy and limitation, is simply the outpicturing of a sick belief-system, which the Course calls the ego. This belief-system has blinded us to the eternal fact that we are God's Son and that we abide forever in Heaven. It has convinced us that we are tiny minds living in little bodies on a planet ruled by suffering and death. It has manifested inwardly as feelings of anger, guilt and fear, and outwardly in the form of sick and fatigued bodies, painful life circumstances, limiting physical "laws" and the overall confining structure of time and space.

Our healing, then, must be a healing of the mind, a healing of our fundamental perspective on reality. This is what the miracle does. It comes in a moment, a holy instant, when we decide to temporarily suspend our habitual perspective on things. As we momentarily loosen our grip on the ego, our minds are allowed to shift into a new way of seeing things. And since our thinking is the foundation for our entire experience, as our thinking shifts, so does everything else. Our whole experience of life is allowed to brighten from the bottom up, making this kind of healing more deeply liberating than being healed of even the most insidious and destructive physical disease.

Yet as much as the point of the miracle is to heal the mind, I would like to take issue with calling a miracle a "shift in perception." The terms "miracle" and "shift in perception" have become so synonymous among Course students that even raising this question feels a little bit like cussing in church. Yet I think there is an important point to be made here. True, what a miracle does is shift perception. But to call it "a shift in perception" tends to leave out aspects of the miracle that are critical in the Course's eyes. To be more specific, it tends to imply 1) that the miracle is a shift that we ourselves accomplish; 2) that it has nothing to do with any outer or physical healing; 3) that it is has nothing to do with others, that it is a strictly internal, as opposed to interpersonal, event.

As I will attempt to show in the remainder of the article, all three of these dimensions (which I would call the Holy Spirit dimension, the physical dimension and the interpersonal dimension) are critical aspects of the Course's definition of the miracle. Yet all three tend to be left out by the term "a shift in perception." And, further, it is these three dimensions that most obviously connect with what Jesus did 2,000 years ago, and thus throw light on why he chose the word "miracle" as opposed to some other word. All of this, I believe, is why the Course never calls a miracle a shift in perception. The closest it comes to doing so is when it says that the miracle "entails" (T-1.II.6:3) or "introduces" (T-5.II.1:3) a shift in perception—two words that leave a lot more room than saying that the miracle is a shift in perception.

An Act of the Holy Spirit

Just like the biblical miracle, the Course miracle is an act of the Spirit. The Course even at one point calls miracles "intercessions." The Course makes it very clear that it is the Holy Spirit that actually "does" the miracle, as we can see in the following montage of passages:

The Holy Spirit is the mechanism of miracles (T-1.I.38:1). I inspire all miracles, which are really intercessions (T-1.I.32:1). The power of God, and not of you, engenders miracles (T-14.X.6:9). You cannot be your guide to miracles, for it is you who made them necessary (T-14.II.7:1). ...the nature of miracles you do not understand. Nor do you do them (T-16.II.1:3-4). And since you are not relying on yourself to find the miracle, you are fully entitled to receive it whenever you ask (W-pI.77.7:6).

The miracle is thus a healing impulse from the Spirit. It is the event of the Spirit acting upon the thought-patterns of our minds: "A miracle is a correction introduced into false thinking by me. It acts as a catalyst, breaking up erroneous perceptions and reorganizing it properly" (T-1.I.37:1-2). In other words, the healing of mind, or shift in perception, is a result. This is why the miracle "induces" (T-3.II.6:7) a healing of mind or introduces a shift in perception, rather than is a shift in perception.

Webster's Dictionary says a miracle is "an extraordinary event manifesting divine intervention in human affairs." So central in the word's definition is this element of divine intervention, that if the Course left that out there would not be much point anymore in using the word. This also helps explain why the Course has chosen to use the words "miracle" and "magic" as opposites, when in common parlance they are sometimes interchangeable. For even in normal parlance, magic is usually conceived of as a power that humans wield, while a miracle is something that somehow comes above. As such, magic can be "white" or "black." Yet no one would talk about a "black miracle." In the Course, then, magic is the attempt to solve things through an outer change effected by our own power; while a miracle is a healing of the mind effected by the Holy Spirit.

A Healing of the Body

Even though we all know that a miracle is primarily aimed at healing the mind, the Course nevertheless makes it clear that a miracle also heals the body. This is, I perceive, a controversial subject among Course students, but the Course is very clear on this point. It routinely talks about miracles as if physical healing is a natural—though not a central or necessary—part of what they are. For instance: "If the mind can heal the body, but the body cannot heal the mind, then the mind must be stronger than the body. Every miracle demonstrates this" (T-6.VA.2:6-7). Or, "Thus is the body healed by miracles..." (T-28.II.11). Or "...miracles violate every law of reality as this world judges it. Every law of time and space, of magnitude and mass is transcended, for what the Holy Spirit enables you to do is clearly beyond all of them" (T-12:VII.3:2-3). Further, it is implied more than once that miracles can and should substitute for any sort of physical medication (T-2.IV.4, M-5.II.2); that is, unless one is too entrenched in fear to accept a miracle.

Even though the Course is extreme in saying that any sort of physical limitation can be easily removed by the miracle, it is equally extreme in saying that this will only happen if you focus your attention elsewhere, not on the body. For instance, we are urged to "not ask the Holy Spirit to heal the body" (T-8.IX.1:5). For seeing the body as the goal of healing and the center of life is part of the sickness that made the body ill in the first place. Thus, the Course would not agree with approaches that teach the mind to direct healing energy to the body, or that imply that the mind should be healed so that the more important physical healing can then follow. The way to heal the body, from the Course's standpoint, is to stop identifying with it, to realize that it is not who you are, that it has no power over you, either to make you sick or to make you happy; that it is "little more than just a shadow circling round the good" (T-31.VII.3:3).

An Extension of Healing to Others

Perhaps more surprising than any of the above is the fact that most of the Course's (over 550) references to the miracle talk about it as an interpersonal act of extension, rather than an internal shift in perception. This, in fact, is where I think the "shift in perception" phrase falls most short. Surprisingly, what this means is that when the Course calls itself A Course in Miracles, it is more calling itself A Course in Extending Healing to Others than calling itself A Course in Shifts in Perception. Certainly both meanings are implied in the title, but the emphasis is on the first, for that is how we shift our perception.

I do not want to take too much space documenting this, but a few quotes are in order. In the miracle principles that begin the Text we are told that miracles are "the maximal service you can render to another;" that "they are performed by those who temporarily have more for those who temporarily have less;" that through them we accept "forgiveness by extending it to others;" and that "They bring more love both to the giver and the receiver." At one point the Course says that the whole purpose "for which the miracle was intended" (T-2.VII.2:3) is hampered if the miracle worker needs a miracle to set his own mind straight. Later we are told, "You cannot perform a miracle for yourself, because miracles are a way of giving acceptance [to others] and receiving it. In time the giving comes first..." (T-9.VI.6:3-4). Again: "Offer [to your brother] the miracle of the holy instant through the Holy Spirit, and leave His giving it to you to Him" (T-15.I.15:11).

Yet how do we reconcile all this with the fact that the miracle is also talked about as an internal healing of our own minds, a usage which becomes prevalent in the Workbook? In other words, what is the relationship between the healing of our own minds and the extension of healing to other minds? This is a large and complex issue in the Course, but there are some simple things we can say about it here. To begin with, the Course repeatedly refers to a three-stage process of accepting, giving and receiving.

1. Accepting. First you accept healing into your own mind. You accept the Atonement for yourself. You cannot give it to another unless you first have it yourself.

2. Giving. Then you give this healed perception to another. This giving can be very conscious and overt, or it may simply be something that radiates from your overall attitude and body-language; then again it may be just a feeling of your mind going out to someone not physically present.

3. Receiving. Once you give it to another, you become aware of the true magnitude of what you originally accepted. Or, as the Course puts it, "To give is how to recognize you have received" (W-pI.159.1:7). "We will not recognize what we receive until we give it" (W-pI.154.12:1).

As you can see, this is a process that is dedicated to both your healing and the healing of the other. In fact, it is even more mutual than the above stages would indicate. For the first stage seems dedicated to yourself, the second stage to the other and the third stage to yourself again. Yet in actuality each of the three stages is dedicated to both of you. For instance, you accept healing into yourself through your own change of mind, yet the most catalytic change of mind is a change in how you see others. Further, you accept healing into your mind so that you can give it. And you give it in order that you may receive it. In other words, you accept the miracle into yourself for both of you; you give it to your brother for both of you; and you receive IT back into yourself for both of you. At each point along the way the miracle transcends the loser-gainer mentality of the ego and refuses to acknowledge anything but oneness.

Summary

Hopefully, this discussion has revealed the miracle to be a much broader and more multi-faceted event than one might at first suspect. And hopefully we now can see why the Course has chosen to use the word "miracle." For the Course has not thrown away the miracle's traditional shape—that of the Spirit acting through a human instrument to bring healing to another. It has kept that basic frame, and simply given it a whole new set of psychological guts. Instead of an outer Deity that intervenes physically, the Holy Spirit is an inner Presence dedicated to psychological healing. Instead of a healer who may possibly be giving what he does not have, the healer must first accept the healing into himself. Instead of freeing a brother from the rule of evil spirits that have injured his body, he frees a brother from the ego's enslavement of his mind; the healing of the body is merely a symptom of the awakening of the mind. And instead of healing someone else and remaining unaffected himself, the healer gives the gift apparently outside himself, but does so in order to claim the gift more fully and to realize that he is one with all living things. And now we know what Jesus was really doing 2,000 years ago. All that we saw on the outside was a man going around and changing bodies. Now we have the report on what was really happening on the inside.

Using the Course to Find Healing for Cancer 

       by Judy Allen

Cancer: My Reason for Seeking Healing

Many of us have had occasion to seek healing from a serious illness. A Course in Miracles has much to say about healing, and much help to offer those who seek it. I tell my story of healing for one purpose: to give hope and help to those who have a similar need, and who have come to A Course in Miracles to show them the way.

In 1979 I had breast cancer, a walnut-sized tumor which was removed in a partial mastectomy. In 1983 the cancer returned, in the form of a quite large tumor inside the chest wall which doctors said was not a simple "local recurrence," but a metastasis, which meant that cancer had spread to that location via the blood or lymphatic system. Further metastases, they believed were sure to follow. The surgeon, the radiation oncologist, the oncologist, and the "second opinion" all agreed that I had a 5% chance of survival at this point, although most felt that the magnitude of the recurrence made that probability closer to zero. My oncologist told me he would not recommend radiation and chemotherapy, because he didn't believe it could help.

Nevertheless, I had surgery and six weeks of radiation therapy, followed by chemotherapy with a new oncologist, who expected the treatment to continue to the end of my life, no more than three years. When we mutually agreed to end chemotherapy after two years, he was surprised that I had survived so long. But, he told me, he expected what he called a "rebound recurrence" within a short time, probably no more than six weeks. The expectations of my doctors had been clear to me from the beginning: If I survived treatment, which was unlikely, I was certain to start a long downward slide to recurrences which would eventually end my life. Other women in my situation, they told me, had survived less than three years from diagnosis. Only a very small number had taken longer than that to die, and their recurrences had been very tiny. My second tumor had been the size of an orange (Why do they always use food metaphors?).

I had no recurrence at six weeks, or two months, or three or four or five months. I felt fine. My former energy was returning and I was beginning to feel "normal"--for two years I had adjusted to a different definition of normal, and had forgotten what "regular" people felt like every day. Now the future looked very bright indeed.

Best of all, I knew that I had survived because I had discovered my own rich and limitless spiritual resources. I had not done it alone--I had been given a set of books called A Course in Miracles, which became my tool for self-discovery and finally for self-healing. The Course has been described as "a form of spiritual psychotherapy that is self-taught." No one can really "teach the Course" to you. It is your Course, to be learned privately and in your own way and in your own time. Discussing it with others in study groups or one-to-one was helpful to me, but in the end I had to find my way through it in an intensely personal, intimate struggle. It is a Course I am still taking, still trying to live, and still learning.

Six months after chemotherapy ended my surgeon and my radiation oncologist each independently found a new tumor the size of a kidney bean. Both recommended an immediate biopsy. They believed, because the tumor was hard and immovable, that it could not be a cyst. And, because it had grown quickly, it could not be scar tissue. As the oncologist stated in his letter to the surgeon: "IMPRESSION: recurrent adenocarcinoma of the lower inner quadrant of the right breast." And the surgeon wrote in my chart notes: "Small area right medial breast suspicious for recurrence." This was the rebound recurrence they had been expecting, and it meant the treatment had not been successful. There was one more "last-chance" chemotherapy drug that had not been used because of its toxic effect on the heart, but that was the final option. More surgery, of course. But no hope. My doctors had seen such recurrences before, and they saw my future, however brief they believed it to be, very clearly.

I was in shock. Not so much because of another recurrence, but because this meant that I had not, after all, found the healing I had sought and believed I had achieved. What had gone wrong? Wasn't I "taking the Course?" I was up to lesson 130 in the Workbook already. Hadn't I healed my life, my attitudes, and my spirit? Why, then, hadn't my body been healed? Something was very, very wrong.

I bargained with my surgeon for time. "Give me a month," I asked. I was going to give this Course one last shot--it was August of 1985, and I was ready to start a month of vacation between teaching in summer school and fall term. Jack and I were planning to spend that month in the Grand Tetons. Now I would use that time in the Tetons to immerse myself in the Course and discover what was missing in my healing. "O.K.," Dr. Mac grudgingly agreed, "but the day you get back, you get in here for that biopsy!"

During that month, I did the most intense spiritual study and questioning and struggle of my life. And I did find the answer--the answer that had, of course, always been there waiting for me. As the Course assures us, in one of many comforting promises:

It is possible that His answer will not be heard. It is impossible, however, that it will be lost. There are many answers you have already received but have not yet heard. I assure you that they are waiting for you (T 152-153). [2^nd ed. T-9.II.3:4-7, “The Answer to Prayer”]

I finally heard it, and the tumor disappeared, literally, overnight. Here is how it happened:

The Cause and the Cure

Most people who knew me before 1979 probably saw me as successful, lucky, at the peak of my career and happily married. My "fast-track" lifestyle took me regularly on trips around the country and the world for speeches and consulting. I was well-paid and was married to a professor who apparently was totally supportive and tolerant of the demands of my career. My children were nearly grown, all healthy and happy. I apparently had everything I wanted, including good health and energy. And it was true. I did feel unusually lucky. I enjoyed the work, the status, and the money. My marriage, if not a union of soul mates, was at least egalitarian and comfortable.

There was no time in this busy life to be on the mountaintop. It was a life lived in the marketplace. There was competition, excitement, pride, enjoyment, anxiety, fear, anger, attack, defense and guilt, but seldom inner peace or joy or serenity.

In the nine months before my first cancer diagnosis, I had a major career setback which I experienced as a humiliating failure, my marriage disintegrated, and my last child left home. I contemplated the ruins of my life and sank into an unyielding depression, which culminated in breast cancer. At that point, it did not come as a surprise.

Whenever you are sick, it has been suggested, you should ask yourself:

·     When did it start?   ·  What was going on in my life at that time?  ·   Who do I need to forgive?

I did recognize the major conflicts in my work and personal life as the roots of my first cancer, and made some major life style changes. Two years after my divorce, I married Jack, a widower I had known for some years as a colleague and friend. We moved to a farm 60 miles from town and commuted to work. I cut back on travel and took the vacation days that had accumulated over the years. I began to look for, and in 1983 accepted, a university teaching job that would be less demanding and less exhausting, and would allow me more freedom to decide when and where I would work.

Nevertheless...a recurrence.  A Course in Miracles came into my life after that second cancer during a period of rage, helplessness, fear, and fierce determination to prove the doctors' bleak prognoses wrong. I would survive this! During that same period, a nurse advised me gently that it was time for me to "get out of Denial" and begin to move on through the five stages of dying. My anger at this suggestion propelled me to search for an alternative to those five stages. I knew that the power of my belief--"self-fulfilling prophecy"--would make the last stage inevitable as soon as I moved out of the first stage. If I expected to die, and began to work on death instead of life, I would no doubt experience all five stages of dying, and would most certainly die. Denial seemed to me to be the only sane response to a death sentence.

I began to work on the stages of healing instead. The first stage became true Denial, as the Course defines it: "to deny the denial of truth" (T 203). [2^nd ed. T-12.II.1:5] With the third cancer, I learned about the final stage: Acceptance. But in healing, this stage is not Acceptance of death, as it is in Elisabeth Kubler-Ross' Five Stages of Death and Dying. It is Acceptance of God's Will for you--even if it means dying. Because only when you totally accept God's Will do you realize that God's Will for you is not that you die--God's Will for you is perfect happiness. God does not will that you be sick, suffer, and die.

The month that I dedicated to healing that third and final tumor "just happened" to be the month I was studying Lessons 131-140, which focus on healing. The first morning of that month, I opened the Workbook to this promise:

"No one can fail who seeks to reach the truth." (W Lesson 131)

And the next morning, struggling to pray, I clearly heard an inner voice tell me, "Your prayer was answered before you spoke it."

With these promises, I felt like a person who had come in at the end of the movie, saw "how it comes out," and then had to sit through two hours of conflict and trauma to see how it evolved into the happy ending. I knew I was healed, in spite of the unyielding lump I could still feel in my chest.

By the end of the month, my understanding of true healing, permanent healing, had increased immensely. But the tumor was still there, and seemed even larger than before--I couldn't resist checking it constantly. We returned from the Tetons, and the surgeon called that same day, to tell me the biopsy was scheduled for the following day. I was beginning to feel desperate.

I went for a long walk in the hills above our farm, and became aware of a Presence walking with me. Not visible, but just a "sense" of a Presence, always facing me as I walked. I argued, accused, challenged and demanded to know from this Presence, which I experienced as God, why I was not healed when I had done everything I knew to do. I had forgiven. I had given up judgment and attack. I had become defenseless. I had accepted God's Will.

The response came: "Have you really accepted My Will?"

"Of course I have!" I insisted.

"Oh."

"But I have accepted Your Will!" I insisted again, and again.

"Have you really." Not even a challenge, just a calm response.

There was a long period of silent walking. Finally, the Presence asked me a question.

"Would you accept My Will if it meant that you would die?"

Fear asserted itself immediately. "Of course not! That's what this whole struggle has been about! Getting well! Not dying! Of course I wouldn't accept that!"

"Oh."

After another mile or so of inner turmoil, I realized that reserving out one area in which I would not, could not, accept God's Will meant that I had not accepted His Will at all. I saw what I had to do. Accept God's Will, surrender totally to God's Will, even if it meant that I would die. It meant, after six years of fiercely battling cancer, that I had to give up control, give up the effort, and allow God's grace to heal me, or not heal me, and be at peace either way. I couldn't heal myself, no matter how hard I worked.

Finally, I accepted. It was, for me, totally out of character and awfully difficult to do. I had resisted with all my strength. And finally, I yielded to that Presence and accepted His will for me, even if it meant that I would die. The peace and sense of lightness, freedom, and joy that immediately followed that surrender was indescribable. And that was when I understood the truth that permanent healing is, first, healing of the spirit. Healing of the body may follow, and often does.

But even if physical healing has not occurred, to die with a healed spirit is a happy death. It didn't matter anymore if I died soon, or later. While death of the body might be a part of Holy Spirit's plan for me at this time, I knew that God's Will for me would never be death, inner death, but rather a passage to "freer air and gentler climate, where it is not hard to see the gifts we gave were saved for us" (Song of Prayer, "False versus True Healing" p. 16).

I didn't check the tumor that night. It didn't seem important any more. And the next morning when the doctor examined me, the tumor was gone. Completely gone. "There's nothing there," he said, puzzled and disconcerted in spite of his happiness for me. The joy nearly wafted me off the table, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to drive home the lesson.

"What could have happened to it?" I asked. He and my other doctors regarded my trust in spiritual healing as hopeless, but harmless as long as I also continued conventional treatment.

"Well," he pondered, "it could have been a cyst."

"Hard and immovable?" I prodded him with his own words.

"Well, then it might have been scar tissue."

"Does scar tissue go away? Overnight?"

"Well, no. Of course not." He was getting testy.

"What could it have been, then?"

"I don't know what it was. I just don't know. I just don't know." He clearly wanted to drop the subject, so I let him off the hook. Now, nearly seven years later, he finally uses the "C" word with me: Cure. He still doesn't understand it, but he shares my joy, and celebrates my continued wellness.

God's Will for me is perfect happiness. Now I understand the final stage of healing.

 (Ed note)  If you would like to contact Judy, let me know and I will put you in touch with her.     

Back to Top Home | About Us | Principles | Newsletters | Wedding Information
Membership | Miracle Links | Networking Links

               The Edge Retreat - Fruitland, Utah

   A Course In Miracles Retreat and Gathering

                                May 16, 17, 18, 2008,

Our next A Course In Miracles gathering and retreat will be on May 16, 17, 18, 2008,
at The Edge Retreat. 

These gatherings are presented by Rev. Sue Borg and Suzanne Sullivan, who is the owner of The Edge Retreat.  Please see her website at www.theedgeretreat.com for registration and information.  Her phone number is 1-435-548-2479.

Suzanne and I have been doing quarterly retreats for about two years and have found them to be one of the most exhilarating and fulfilling things we do.  If you have a desire to delve deeper into the truths taught in The Course, please call and register today.  These retreats fill up fast, so don't hesitate too long.

Cost is $175.00 and includes the retreat, lodging and delicious meals. 

The Quantum Leap            

 
By Scott Kalechstein

"Give up your lust for growth."  ~ White Eagle


My whole life I have been a seeker, a student of truth, wisdom, and healing. Seeking helped me get to a certain point, but eventually it became my identity, a hiding place, a wheelchair that I was sitting in to avoid walking my talk and expressing my Highest Self powerfully in the world. A pair of crutches serves beautifully while someone's legs are gaining strength, but at some point they need to be discarded for the journey to proceed.

I began to question my status of seeker-hood at a Course In Miracles Conference I was singing at in 1993. I had gone to my room to take a nap, and I was awakened after ten minutes by a powerful urge to go straight down to Tom Carpenter's workshop. Tom serves as a channel for Jeshua Ben Joseph, more popularly known in this culture by the nickname "Jesus". I was excited! At that time I didn't often receive what felt like inner direction to go somewhere. I assumed I was going to get some pearls of wisdom at the workshop to assist me in my life. I walked into the room, and Tom/Jeshua/Christ was fielding questions. I held my hand high, and he met my eyes immediately.

"Do you have a message for me?" I asked. "I was wakened in the middle of my nap and told to get down here. What guidance do you have to offer me?" I waited, opening my heart and mind for some pearls to come forth. His gentle answer shook my soul and rocked my world: "Why do you assume that you were guided to come here because you had something to receive? Perhaps you were awakened from sleep because you had something valuable to give."

His invitation to a shift in perception floored me. I had been seeing myself as someone who was broken, and on a quest to be successfully repaired. Jeshua saw me whole and complete, here on a mission to give my gifts. He invited me to make a quantum leap - to give up this business of seeking and, instead, be about my Father's Business.

Releasing the perception of myself as damaged goods has been a process for me. My ego is so quick to jump in and present evidence in the courtroom of my mind that makes a case for my inadequacies. When I lend the power of my belief to such self-prosecution, I am motivated to become a seeker, and, like a fish going off on a search for the sea, I journey near and far to find something that isn't lost and fix something that isn't broken. The world is full of seekers, people operating from the mistaken premise that there is something wrong with them. As Swami Beyondananda is fond of saying, "There's a seeker born every minute!"

My seeking has led me to all kinds of teachers, methods, practices, books and workshops. I regret none of these life experiences, for they all have broadened me as a person. But there came a time when all of them seemed to be saying the same thing: "Give up seeking. Stop searching for truth, and start living it. Stop fixing yourself, and start giving your gifts."

The problem with seeing yourself as a seeker is that no one ever comes along and says, "OK, you have officially graduated from the school of seeking. You now are a powerful being, whole and complete, with permission to extend your gifts and uplift the world." Or, if someone does say that, you may have gotten so comfortable in the identity of seekerhood that to just believe them and discard the role is too threatening. But we all discard it eventually. The call to awaken is far too compelling to nap forever.

I used to only set goals for what I want to achieve, receive, manifest, and accomplish. Now I set goals and my focus on the gifts I want to give. With my sights set on giving, I magnetize all that I need from the universe to take the next step, and each step after that. I love watching how life supports those who support life.

I used to believe that I must become perfect, or close to it, before I can offer myself to God and to the world. Now, although I still have a pesky inner critic occasionally trying to talk me out of self-acceptance, I have fired him as my guidance counselor. I have learned to listen to a wiser and far more loving guide within me. Now I can say, "Hey, I am not perfect, and I probably won't become so in the near future. I choose to give of myself anyway, warts and all. God, use me thoroughly, all of me, including my apparent weaknesses. In fact, let my warts serve as an inspiration so that others might see me and say, "He's out there sharing his gifts wholeheartedly, and with such obvious imperfections! Maybe it's time to offer myself wholeheartedly as well."

It may seem outrageous and maybe even a little arrogant to behold yourself as whole, capable and good enough just as you are, but there is no humility in the comfort of a wheelchair when you have been given the power to walk. I challenge you, if you have been sitting on your assets, to rise up and walk, dance, serve and give of yourself with all of your heart and soul. If you are waiting till you are perfect, you will put it off forever. If you dare to start living as if there is nothing wrong with you, life will meet your dare and put you to work. And in doing God's work, you will be far too busy and happy to spend another moment trying to fix yourself.

We have been napping, you and I, and we have been dreaming a frightening dream. In our nightmare it seemed that we were broken and guilty, and now we are waking up to the truth that we are quite whole and holy beings, warts and all. This is the quantum leap, the end of the illusion of original sin and the opening of the gates to heaven on earth. Please do not wait another moment for permission to enter. It's your own consent you have been waiting for.

Described as a cross between John Denver, Eckhart Tolle, and Robin Williams, Scott Kalechstein has been a full time inspirational speaker, musician, writer, traveling reverend and transformational humorist since 1990, with nine CD's of his being distributed internationally. He has spoken and sung and given concerts and workshops at over two hundred New Thought Churches over the years, including Agape, Mile High, and at Unity Village. Scott has provided music at the lectures and workshops of Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Deepak Chopra, John Gray, Ram Dass, Byron Katie, Joan Borysenko, Alan Cohen, and Marianne Williamson, among many others. A pioneer in the field of music improvisation, Scott creates therapeutic "Song Portraits", original compositions of voice and guitar, recorded onto CD's, spontaneously composed for people wishing greater clarity or guidance on specific issues. His entertaining website is at www.scottsongs.com.
 

ACIM Group Meeting - SPRING QUARTER -  Starts February 4th

 Details will be at www.reconnecttospirit.com

Celeste Cohorn is the creator of a class for the study of A Course in Miracles.  The class will be the 1st and 3rd Monday of February, March, April and May.    There will be different teachers for each presentation.  We will be studying the first 7 chapters of the Text.  Below is a list of the teachers.  Please see her website for more information www.reconnecttospirit.com

I want to give a huge note of thanks to Celeste Cohorn for her dedication to the Course and to learning it.  Her Love of God is so pronounced and inspiring.  The Monday night classes she has been hosting have had full attendance every class and  have been great fun. 

Here is the lineup of teachers for the Spring Quarter. 

February 04   Chapter 8   -Bonnie Henderson and Rodney Henderson
February 18   Chapter 9   -Bonnie Nack
March 03       Chapter 10 -Deb and Bret Whiting
March 17       Chapter 11 -Patricia York
April 07         Chapter 12 -Sue Borg and Frank Arnold
April 21         Chapter 13 -Jayanne Sindt & Brenda Larsen
May 05          Chapter 14 -Sue Borg & Frank Arnold
May 19          Chapter 15 -Suzanne Sullivan
 

Community

Somewhere, there are people
to whom we can speak with passion
without having the words catch in our throats.
Somewhere a circle of hands will open to receive us,
eyes will light up as we enter,
voices will celebrate with us
whenever we come into our own power.

Community means strength that joins our strength
to do the work that needs to be done.
Arms to hold us when we falter.
A circle of healing.
A circle of friends.
Someplace where we can be free.

      ....Starhawk  www.starhawk.org