A Required Course



Jump, by P Bralley

 For some time now, I have been uninterested in posting anything here. Something seems to have broken inside, which I actually take as a good sign. However, I find I really want to share these words:
This is a course in miracles. It is a required course. Only the time you take it is voluntary. Free will does not mean that you can establish the curriculum. It means that you can elect what you want to take at a given time. The course does not aim at teaching the meaning of love, for that is beyond what can be taught. It does aim, however, at removing the blocks to the awareness of love’s presence, which is your natural inheritance. The opposite of love is fear, but what is all-encompassing can have no opposite.

This course can therefore be summed up very simply in this way:
Nothing real can be threatened.
Nothing unreal exists.
Herein lies the peace of God.
ACIM

My nephew, when he was little, one day suddenly realized, “Life’s a lot of work! Why do people do it?” To this day, his words are something of a family joke.
But, isn’t this what A Course in Miracles is saying? It is required.
Your only choice is if you want to accept the challenge now or later.

When will I remove the blocks to love’s presence?
And how - How to let love in?
I find I can only aim at discovering what deeply moves me. And then, resist nothing.
Today, it was these words.
“Read ‘em and weep” … because then, I open up to Love.

Love will immediately enter into any mind that truly wants it.
Truly? Why not go with that?

You are free to believe what you choose, and what you do attests to what you believe.
A Course in Miracles

And less you think this is simply airy-fairy and not for the practical, gritty challenges of life, let me introduce you to two remarkable women:

Helena – who should by now be dead from rectal cancer.
And
Corinna Borden– who has refractory Hodgkins lymphoma.

A Lover's Tale

One day, one of God’s lovers goes to the home of his shaikh.  The shaikh begins to speak to him about love.  Little by little, as the shaikh speaks, the lover begins to melt, becoming more and more subtle until he just flows like a trickling stream.  His whole physical being dissolved in front of the shaikh, until there was nothing but some water on the floor.
                Just then a friend of the shaikh enters the room and asks, “Where is that fellow who just arrived?”  The shaikh points to the water on the floor and says, “That man is that water.”
               This kind of melting is as astonishing transformation of state.  The man lost his density in such a way that he became what he originally was: a drop of liquid.  Originally he had arrived at human form from water, for as God has said: “We created all of life from water.”
               This lover merely returned to his original essence, the water that is the source of life.  And so we may draw the following conclusion: A lover is that being by whom everything is brought to life.
A story attributed to Shaikh Ibn al-Arabi,  as told by Kabir Helminski in The Knowing Heart.

I read this story and broke down in tears and as I mopped my face dry a whole new appreciation for what tears represent came to mind.  They reflect our opening to our true essence, our Beingness, our Love.
And immediately a song arose from somewhere deep in memory, just this fragment, out of context and yet so fitting:
We lay down and wept
And wept for thee Zion
We remember, thee remember
Thee remember, thee Zion

There was grieving heartbreak and yet there seemed to be some hope within the song, which to my surprise was sourced not in psalm but rather science fiction and American Pie.

 

And after humming for some time another classic came to mind regarding love and water, evil and melting:  I’m melting!  I’m melting!  ... Who would have thought a good little girl like you could destroy my beautiful wickedness!

Yes, who would have thought?  Enjoy your tears and melting heart... 'cause we are each our own wicked witch and we do not die so much as melt back into our original essence. 

When I was a Young Man

Bralley kids Christmas Card 1954, a photo by Seeking Tao on Flickr.

This morning as I sat to meditate, or simply just to be, since I had no intention to even close my eyes,  my body seemed to want to settle and I thought I’d give that a chance.

To my surprise, my mind became filled with these old Biff Rose lyrics:

When I was a young man
I ran away from home
I went to join the circus
I went to see the cotton candy world
And make me lots of money
On my own
For Molly oh my pretty Molly
She's waitin' all alone
Someday soon I will return to her…

Well, he never did, not in the song.  (Please listen to the whole song)
But, yesterday, my brother "made him lots of money" and retired.   And I find it very moving to see the broad sweep of his story: the searching, seeking, and the coming home.  His son-in-law said, “Woo Hoo! Hard work does pay off!”  But, the journey wasn’t all about the money.  It is not even always couched in terms of money.  The journey was and is about love.
We all leave home and join the circus, in one way or another, hoping to prove our worth, hoping to prove to ourself and others that we have earned and deserve love.  Some of us eventually make it home and others seem to get lost along the way.

It starts out all for Molly, in her many forms: parent, partner, child, friends, and self.  What an amazing discovery to realize, “She loved me all along.”  At least, that is one thing I have learned through sharing in my brother’s journey.  It’s what I’m learning in my own rather cash strapped journey.

Real love is unconditional.  That's the first lesson I learned from my brother. (What better definition for the very word - my brother.)  Love is simply given, not just by God or Spirit, but often by those around us.  It seems we’re always given a second chance.  And we’ll need it! Because, apparently, we have to make the journey and hopefully we’ll come full circle. 

And there are songs along the way that say it better than the words.  In my meditation there was another lyric preceding the words from Molly.  That tune is lost in the fuzziness of past transcendence.  But, perhaps they were from this song:

And yes, I know this is incredibly and unrepentedly "SO the 60's" ... let's just call it roots :)