I sent a newsletter out today which explores the second principle of miracles. Although the early parts of the text can be choppy, the section outlining the fifty principles has always felt clear and helpful to me.
The second principle asks us to look beyond the miracle to its Source, reminding us that what matters is not how the miracles functions in our lives in the world but rather the Source from which that miracle flows, which is always love.
This is an important insight. Healing is not having our problems fixed but rather making contact with our true self which has no problems. This is a simple but powerful way of living that entirely upends our traditional understanding of self, world and other.
It is possible to be deeply and seriously happy, and to know a peace which surpasses understanding.
Feel free to sign up if you like.
Some housekeeping items:
First, it was recently pointed out to me that my contact page was not working and hasn’t for months. If you tried to reach out to me that way and did not receive a reply, please know that it reflects a technical error rather than any deliberate ignorance on my part. I’m really sorry.
Please do feel free to reach out to argue, ask questions and so forth. I am always happy for be in dialogue with fellow students.
Also, lately I’ve been reflecting on a recent dialogue in the comments to this old post, which I keep wanting to rewrite or convert to a post in their own right, but maybe it’s okay to just point to the exchange. I am very grateful for it.
Finally, I scrap a lot of writing when writing here, and recently started a kind of ACIM notebook site where those scraps might find a home. It’s less formal, less polished, less cohesive but perhaps still interesting.
I hope your winter and its various holy days and shifts in light has begun in a quiet and gentle way. I’m so glad you’re here.
Love,
Sean
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“Healing is not having our problems fixed but rather making contact with our true self which has no problems.” Can you ever have enough of such reminders when living/dreaming in this world? I need them like fresh air! I think I will make a painting with this quote of yours.
Can’t wait to read more of your previous posts. Your explanations of ACIM are so helpful to me. Thank you Sean. Blessings and deep gratitude.
Thank you Jurgita . . . I’m glad you’re here 🙏
Love,
Sean
🙏 Sean, have you written any articles on ACIM and parenting? I am having a very challenging time seeing how my husband’s parenting style is negatively affecting our child. I pray day and night that I am able to let go of any agenda… I know the undoing is taking place (and like you said above, our true self never has a problem), yet this is the most difficult challenge among the many I had so far yet…
Hi Jurgita,
I wrote this post many years ago but it’s more biographical. It doesn’t really address the challenge of disagreements with respect to raising children.
In a sense, all disagreements are learning opportunities – to see love in the other, to remember the love in our own selves, and to be guided in the exchange accordingly. So the ones with whom we disagree are both fellow students and teachers.
But this doesn’t mean that we don’t still have to work things out, and that that working out can be messy and challenging. Marriage and parenting are major sites of learning for me.
For example, we homeschool our children. Two of our three kids took longer to learn to read than public schools would consider acceptable. This caused me a lot of stress; my wife, Chrisoula, was much more relaxed about it. We had some very intense discussions about how we were teaching, whether we needed to make changes and what those changes ought to be. It was hard.
In the end, we followed Chrisoula’s intuitions and teaching methods and everything turned out fine, exactly the way she had said it would. But we really had to work at it, and the work wasn’t always pretty.
The “lesson” for me was not about homeschooling so much but about being a good listener, trusting my partner, speaking my truth, arguing in a mature rather than a desperate way, being willing to forgive, knowing when to let go and walk away and so forth.
It was – because it is always – about learning how to love (and how to trust love), little by little, step by step. I am always a beginner; I am never wrong when I say that.
Sometimes it unfolds differently. We bought a horse for our daughter long before Chrisoula felt it was a right move but she agrees now that my instincts around what our daughter needed and was ready for in that area were correct. It was a big but positive change in our lives.
So the point is never really about the issue we’re working through, or even how it turns out in the world, but rather the spirit in which we’re working through it, which always has to do with willingness and open-mindedness.
I know that’s not especially helpful. If you want to ask more specific questions or talk via email or something, let me know.
Sean
I’d like to add that parenting can create a special kind of ACIM tension because we tend to love our children in such intense ways. They’re our kids. There is so much beauty and generosity in those relationships, but there can also be a lot of projection and pressure. Just ask my son about how laid-back I am with his music. Parenting brings up how we were parented (the good and the bad), and how our partner was parented, and how the dominant and sub-dominant cultures around us parent, and so on and so forth. It’s a very tangled web.
My point is: this stuff isn’t easy and thus provides some amazing learning ACIM opportunities.
~ Sean
Thank you for your generosity Sean. I really appreciate you taking the time to consider my question and to respond in such a heartfelt way.
I agree with what you are saying. I have no doubt that the greater the challenge, the greater the lesson and opportunity of becoming the highest expression of love. Everything is a blessing and God makes no mistakes.
My situation is quite complex to describe it here fully, but I pray I learn to accept my husband’s lack of desire to change his patterns and to become a responsible parent. We both come from dysfunctional families, so there is a lot to be healed. I pray that I learn to see with Holy Spirit and let go of fears. Because therein lies my lesson. The hard truth is, however precious the children are to us, they are not really ours…and we are not in control as much as we want to believe…
Thank you again Sean. I will definitely keep in mind your kind offer to ask more questions. What a blessing. My deepest gratitude.
I hear all of this.
💙 🙏