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My recent experience of the in-person training and ordination at Pathways of Light will always be one of the highlights of my life. And I must say that long before I made my trip from Massachusetts to Wisconsin on July 26, I had the felt sense of the journey’s imminent importance and a premonition that a long anticipated change in my perception would be facilitated by the whole event. This insight directed me to fully prepare for my week in Kiel so that I could accommodate the welcomed changes in the most graceful way possible. And one of the measures of preparation I took to prepare myself was to write my ordination speech before I arrived at the Pathways Center in Kiel, Wisconsin. In choosing what to say, I was directed to recall another very memorable occasion in my life and to apply its relevance to my present circumstances. I was guided to recount one night in 1962 at age eleven, when my mother and I saw the movie, The Miracle Worker together. I said that my mother and I rarely went anywhere alone together and so this was an unusual treat for me. But more importantly, the movie itself was an experience I was never to forget. As I embraced the ministry at Pathways of Light on August 2, 2003, the message of The Miracle Worker that I told the audience assembled for our ordination was one I had only just begun to fully understand that day. I have watched this movie many times. It is the story of Helen Keller, who was blind, deaf, and mute since infancy because of a severe case of scarlet fever. I knew even as a child that the story unfolding on the screen in front of me was a very special one. I had watched wide-eyed, taking in the remarkable journey of a girl my own age struggling just to reach the physical world I was able to move about in freely. But something more than that had spoken to me all those years ago. As I have watched again this story of determined will, persistence and above all, love, something much more has remained in the back of my mind regarding the extraordinary journey Helen Keller made from darkness to the light of understanding with her teacher, Annie Sullivan. When I spoke to those gathered together at Pathways of Light that Saturday afternoon, I shared what this movie had revealed to me as seven of us were brought together to embark on our own journeys as workers of miracles. When I was called upon at the ordination ceremony to share with those present what being an Ordained Ministerial Counselor meant to me, I read aloud my memory of this special movie. To those seated in front of me, I recalled the story about a little girl who’s inability to communicate had left her frustrated and violent, and had put her in danger of being sent to an institution by her terrified and helpless family. In their last attempt to reach Helen, they hired a graduate from The Perkins Institute named Annie Sullivan, who arrived at the Keller home to teach her. Annie made a very poor first impression on the family members, arriving travel worn after a long and exhausting train ride. She was also much younger than they expected, and was half-blind herself. To their further dismay, they discovered that all their hopes have been pinned on a teacher who had no prior experience. However, Miss Sullivan soon let them know that she had much experience in the world where those who cannot see are relegated. Orphaned and brought up in the kind of institution Helen faced, she told her employers that she had learned how to survive the hard way, enduring abuse and horrors she felt Helen would not be able to overcome. Determined to champion Helen’s cause, Annie demanded full authority and impressed upon her parents that Helen’s only chance was for them to fully surrender their daughter’s care over to her. In order to achieve the necessary physical separation to meet her goal, she appropriated a small cottage on the family’s estate and was given just two weeks to be alone with Helen. From the moment she had arrived, Annie had been moving her fingers into Helen’s palm with sign language. Bright and full of energy, Helen correctly mimicked every finger position shown her, but did not relate to its corresponding meaning. Distracted by her indulgent mother and the confusion she wrought in fits of frustration, Helen, undisciplined and perpetuating chaos, was in a world of her own. Now, cut off from her familiar surroundings, and placed intentionally into an environment that demanded her full attention, Annie Sullivan hoped she could teach Helen how to connect just one word, one thing, to the letters spelled out into her hand. Unsuccessful after the weeks had passed, Annie begged for more time alone with her student. She was refused and watched in horror as Helen was pampered and allowed to slip back into her old habits, raging in protest to any further attempts of discipline. The last straw was reached at the dinner table. When they had been alone, Helen had been taught to sit and eat with a fork from her own plate, neatly folding her napkin when she was finished. Now, safely back at home with her indulgent family, Helen resumed her former pattern of wandering around the room, eating with her hands from anyone’s plate and making an enormous mess in the process. In an effort to maneuver Helen back into submission, Annie forced her to sit in her place and she became violent. A struggle ensued and the water pitcher eventually was emptied all over the room. With a will to match Helen’s, Annie draged her outside to the well to refill it. Distressed, and out of breath, Helen started to pump water as violently as she had destroyed the dinning room, while Annie, undaunted, continued to spell out the word “water” into her hand. Suddenly Helen stoped, as her teacher looked on. Struggling to speak, Helen made a strange sound and repeated it over and over, banging on the mouth of the pump, indicating that she has at last awakened to the connection between the water and the word. Witnessing the moment of transformation, Annie screamed out, “She knows! She knows!” Helen’s family ran out to join them and Helen was swept up into her mother’s arms. She explained with tears in her eyes that before the scarlet fever, as young as she was, Helen had already learned the word “water.” This one word, finally remembered broke through the wall of darkness for Helen. She connected once again to the outside world, a world she had briefly known before she had lost her hearing and sight. She had remembered, and she knew. The miracle was always there, I had discovered. Its presence was not caused by Helen’s vision; its absence was not the result of her failure to see. It was only her awareness of the miracle that was affected. Helen finally ‘saw’ the Light. And miracles are seen in Light. The miracle Annie Sullivan worked for Helen Keller was to facilitate awareness — the shift in perception that allowed her inner knowing to take hold. This lesson is central to my learning and teaching. Annie’s job was not to teach Helen to physically see, but to bring Helen into the awareness of Light. That is where the miracle took place for Helen Keller. As a mind healing partner, my role is the same as Annie Sullivan’s was, to facilitate the awareness of Light, and the recognition that the Light is within us, not without. I have learned that God is the Light in which I see. In the introduction to A Course in Miracles it says that the opposite of seeing through the body’s eyes is the vision of Christ, which reflects strength rather than weakness, unity rather than separation, and Love rather than fear. The opposite of hearing through the body’s ears is communication through the Voice for God, the Holy Spirit, which abides in each of us. Perhaps Helen Keller was graced with her disability in order to more fully understand her body as the instrument of communication it truly was. She has been quoted as saying, “The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt within the heart.” As the organ of love and divine communication, the felt sense of knowledge Helen refers to is Truth, the law of God. We are also taught that Truth “is unalterable, eternal and unambiguous. It can be unrecognized, but it cannot be changed. It applies to everything that God created, and only what He created is real. It is beyond learning because it is beyond time and process. It has no opposite; no beginning and no end. It merely is.” Then, to the assembled guests and Ministers, and to the six other women I was being ordained with, I revealed the message that The Miracle Worker gifted to me so long ago and only fully understood this day. It is held and felt in my own heart, where there are no opposites. No conflict or separation. Within my heart no thoughts exist apart from the Thoughts of God and it is there that I share His Will. Within my heart is the Light of God in which I see. I discovered that the gift and truth of Helen Keller’s life has brought the Llight of God closer to us all. I have returned from the Pathways of Light in-person training with a renewed perspective and a changed heart. I have deepened my faith and trust, and I have gained a whole new capacity for Love. In many ways I am no longer the same person I was before I left. I want to deeply thank Mary and Robert Stoelting for their wonderfully inspired program and tremendous generosity of Spirit. And I’m sincerely grateful for all the staff and Ministers who have put their heart and souls in service for the good of us all. Joy Champion is a minister, living in Ipswich, Massachusetts. Email: joymcompton@aol.com |
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Autobiography in 5 Short Chapters I. I walk down the street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I fall in… I am lost… I am helpless. It isn’t my fault. It takes forever to find a way out. II. I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I pretend I don’t see it. I fall in again. I can’t believe I am in the same place. But it isn’t my fault. It still takes a long time to get out. III. I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I see it is there. I still fall in… It’s a habit. My eyes are open. I know where I am. It’s my fault. I get out immediately. IV. I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I walk around it. V. I walk down another street. |
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My Father is lying in the bed, peaceful and quiet, except for the sound of the machine that was breathing for him. He looks so healthy… glowing… as though any moment his eyes will fly open. Maybe this is just a deep sleep and he is healing… but his eyes never do any more than just flutter. I feel the thoughts of those around me. They think he is already gone; but that is just an illusion… and their eyes deceive them. Hours tick by and days… I talk to him of the things we will do, once he is better. There is no sign that this is real. My heart is sinking… waiting for any small sign. The machine says he is healing… but will he ever be the same? Will he even be able to breathe on his own? This morning I realize that in listening to the machine, I am doing just what I have disdained in others. I am listening to technology over God… science over Spirit… And I remember, “Thou shalt have no other God’s before Me.” Now I quiet myself and, instead of talking, I listen, and in the silence, my father is with me and he is saying ever more insistently… Would you want to stay here? Would you want to stay here? Would you want to stay here? I see him frustrated and angry… He is at the door to Bliss, and we are pulling him back. I realize that I am being selfish to want him to stay, when he is so close to the arms of his own Father. Yes, that is it! The burning intensity I feel to have him stay must be at least as great as the intensity with which he must want to go. Of course he wants to be in the arms of his Heavenly Father. How can I deny him that… Slowly, my body trembling, I open my hand and I release you my beloved father… back to Oneness… Knowing you have reached eternity and are waiting for me there. Martha Firnschild is a Pathways of Light minister living in Whisler, Michigan. Email: rev.martha@comcast.net |
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Each morning I start with the daily Workbook lesson from ACIM. I was on Lesson 242: “This day is God’s. It is my gift to Him.” After reading the lesson, I quieted my mind of all worldly thoughts and listened. The following is what came to me. It helped me because I was finding myself believing in the illusions of the ego and I knew I needed to take these thoughts to the Holy Spirit to be transformed. Where do I live? What is the truth? I live in God and nowhere else. I am Mind and only Mind. I am Love and only Love. I am peace and only peace. There is no division in God and no division in me. I live in God’s Mind. I am part of God’s Mind, which has no separation. God’s Mind is one. That is where I live and have my Being. In Reality, I do not live in a world where separate entities appear to be real. That is not my Home. My Home is in God. This Home where I reside is eternal. It is changeless. It is one. I cannot leave God’s Home. I reside there forever. I remember my Home in God by opening to the truth and accepting my Home in God. Wandering away from Home happens only in hallucinations. Hallucinations of separate bodies are not real. As I open to the truth, I remember that the physical world, the world of separate bodies, is only an hallucination that comes from the desire to be different from my true Identity. These hallucinations reflect my choice to separate from my Self. These hallucinations make it appear that I really separated from Love’s oneness and became a separate individual with a will of my own. These hallucinations keep my mind very busy so that I will not remember where I really live. These hallucinations make my world of individuality seem very solid and sure. Through the body’s eyes, I see separation very clearly. Through all the body’s senses the things I see, hear and touch appear very solid. Believing what the body’s senses show me only strengthens my belief that this world of separation is very real. My belief in the reality of this world of separation is reinforced every day as I continue on this illusionary journey in my mind of being independent, separate and having a separate mind with a separate will. In my illusionary journey, I forgot that there is only one Will, one eternal Reality. I forgot that Love is one and cannot be divided. I forgot that I am a part of the one Mind, the one Will of Love. This illusionary journey of forgetting where I live is losing its appeal. I feel a readiness to be done with believing in the hallucinations of having a separate will from my one Self. I feel a readiness to give up hallucinating and remember where I really live in eternity. I feel a readiness to still my mind of ego or separation thoughts. They only bring fear and the experience of not feeling peaceful and safe. They bring a steady supply of conflict and turmoil. They bring the experience of feeling weak and being vulnerable to outside forces. They bring experiences of being a victim. They bring experiences of feeling guilty or seeing others as guilty. These hallucinations do not bring eternal happiness, they only bring pain and belief in death. This is not what I really want. I can let go of these hallucinations by taking the time to be quiet. I can learn a new habit of opening my mind to the truth of where I really live. I can learn to relax and soften. I can learn to see the hallucinations for what they truly are. I can learn to not take them so seriously. I can learn to go to that quiet place in my mind and rest from the ego’s mindless clamoring to make the hallucinations real. I can learn the habit of choosing peace instead of conflict. I can learn to see the truth of oneness behind all forms of separate identities. I can open to the truth that they are really hallucinations. They are not real. They are not true. I can ask for the truth of where I really live instead of hallucinating separation. I can remember that I am safe, no matter what the body’s hallucinations look like. I can learn to laugh at the scary stories of death that the belief in separation conjured up. I can learn to detach from the seemingly endless stories of individuality and recognize that they are hallucinations. I can learn to step back from them and open my mind in quiet to the truth. I can remember where I really live. I can remember the life I live in God. This is my choice today. I was then guided to read Text, Chapter 12, Section VII on pages 233-235 of the 2nd edition of A Course in Miracles. It was so appropriate. Read it and you will see what I mean. Mary Stoelting is cofounder of Pathways of Light living in Kiel, Wisconsin. Email: office@pathwaysoflight.org |
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