March 2019: Housekeeping

This little post is more in the nature of a long-winded housekeeping note than anything else.

1. I sent out a newsletter (correlating a little poem of Emily Dickinson’s with ACIM principles of love and service). If you’re interested, you can sign up for the newsletter.

2. I have been rewriting old lesson posts. I began writing them back in 2011; my sincerity and devotion to that project were sound but the writing itself was rushed and a bit more biographical than necessary. Hence, rewriting.

Rewriting is not merely editing what has already been created. It is creating again. It makes something new. The process has been helpful to me, particularly in the way it has reminded me of Tara Singh’s observation that any one lesson of the course can awaken us from the dream of separation.

This is not to deny the lessons’ cumulative effect, nor to urge anyone to abandon a traditional linear approach to the curriculum. What works is what’s helpful! I merely testify to an ongoing experience of the richness of the material. It retains the viability of living scripture.

The rewrite has reached the first five lessons, if you are curious:

Lesson one
Lesson two
Lesson three
Lesson four
Lesson five

3. I would like to begin an ACIM dialogue group. My preference is to meet physically, perhaps once a month or so, for a sustained course-related sharing. I envision something along the lines of a Bohm dialogue-inspired workshop, with folks who share my approximate approach to and intensity with course material (which approach, Lord knows, is not for everyone).

I wonder if there are folks in an approximate radius to me who would be interested? I live in western Massachusetts. I am happy to travel a little (a few hours drive, say), and to be responsible for organizational details and coordinating.

If you’re interested, feel free to drop me a line or comment. Sometimes a sustained community can be a helpful resource in terms of insight and application.

4. Finally, I was going to add this material into the newsletter, but keeping that project simple matters, so I’ll post it here instead. It’s a couple of paragraphs from Eleanor Rosch, a scholar and writer whose work (especially when it comes to the nexus between religion and psychology) I find both challenging and nurturing.

To try to isolate and manipulate single factors that actually operate only systemically is like killing a rabbit and dissecting it to look for its aliveness. This is . . . a question of the kind of mind with which one perceives the world, whether in life or in science.

Opening to the wisdom in not knowing may be even more important than opening to experiences within knowing. Acknowledging not knowing is what evokes the genuine humbleness prized by every contemplative and healing tradition.

(from More Than Mindfulness: When You Have a Tiger by the Tail, Let It Eat You).

The emphasis here is primarily on epistemic humility – that is, beginning with what we don’t know, and what we don’t know we don’t know. Secondarily, it observes that what we perceive as distinct and separate tends to be an integral aspect of a system, and cannot be meaningfully considered apart from that system (nor, really, exist apart from the system – this includes, by the way, our self).

Given those premises, how shall we gaze at the world? With what sort of mind shall we approach our loving and living?

Thank you, as always, for reading and sharing with me.

Love,
Sean