This week's topic is "The Future." We don’t talk much about the future in spiritual circles, but it's an important topic in the Course. What does the Course have to say about the future, and about how we should approach the future?
Entering the present (part 5 in series on time)
Posted in Class Archives, Member Class Archives
Tagged circle, course, future, important, part, present, spirit
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Thank you to the Community Sharing and Support Team
Back in the fall I put out a call for folks to join me in the Community Sharing and Support Team, and a great little group came together. We lost touch with each other for a while, but now we are getting back on track. I won’t list everybody here, since we are still figuring out who’s on board now, but please check out the member profiles of these kind CCC neighbors:
Brenda
David
George
Ellen
Joanne
Carole
Candace
And me!
You can reach the team by email at ccc-team@circleofa.org.
We’re happy to answer any questions you have about the CCC, help you find your way around the countless resources available to us as community members, or just lend a friendly ear if you want a fellow Course student to talk to.
We’ve also gotten together on the phone a couple of times just to get to know each other a bit better, and hope to be doing that again from time to time.
If you have an interest in joining the team, or want to learn more, please email me at amy@circleofa.org. Everyone is welcome, regardless of how long you’ve been with the Course or in the CCC. We’d love to have you join us.
Thanks!
Amy
Co-creating a beloved community
I’ve been thinking a lot about community lately, and have begun a list of some of the things I want for myself and fellow community members. What would be most helpful to me as I deepen my relationship with the Course and grow in my commitment to carrying its light to the world?
Here’s what I’ve come up with so far. Many if not all of these needs are met for me in the CCC through the programs and resources now in place, but I feel like we are really just at the beginning of understanding what is possible for us and what we’re capable of together. I’ve made a commitment to myself and to the Circle to be more intentional about devoting myself to this community and its stated mission: anchoring a Course tradition and carrying its light to the world.
I’ve even created a mission statement for myself, which goes like this: I devote myself to the co-creation of a beloved community.
So, here’s my list. I hope you’ll comment on it, add to it, let me know (here or in an email) of your interest in really making this a home for us as Course students and miracle workers in training.
Education
Support
Friendship
Inspiration
Help in a crisis
Example/models
Welcome
Appreciation
Safe space
Special function education, mentoring, and support
Sense of belonging
Sense of being valued
Sense of being a part of something that matters
Opportunity to make a unique and valuable contribution to a greater cause
Sense of being a part of a thriving organization
Love,
Amy
amy@circleofa.org
Thank you to our CCC Healing Prayer Ministry
“Help in prayer does not mean that another mediates between you and God. But it does mean that another stands beside you and helps to raise you up to Him.” (The Song of Prayer)
Hi all–Just want to remind you all of our CCC Healing Prayer Ministry, described here, and to thank Pari and her prayer team for all the care, blessing, and support they offer all of us through their prayers!
Love and thanks,
Amy
Members of the Prayer Ministry
Pari Hakimi
Pari co-founded the Circle’s Prayer Ministry in 2010, and is now leading its development as additional CCC members join in this service. She is very passionate about and grateful for her role in the ministry, and devotes much of her free time to praying for and communicating with those who have requested prayers. Pari’s Member Directory Entry
Marcella Morris
“I have always had a very strong desire to help others in times of difficulty, big or small. Truthfully, I love praying for others and just feel it fulfills part of my role to be a miracle worker for God.” Marcella’s Member Directory Entry
Darcy Polito
“I used to pray for others every night as a child. Then when I came to the prayer ministry for assistance with a dear friend, I felt so moved by their caring and I realized that I also have the capacity and desire to once again extend love through prayer.” Darcy’s Member Directory Entry
Amy Condit
Amy joined the Prayer Ministry in hopes of deepening her own connection with God by praying for others: “I feel this will help me to put the Course in practice, benefit others by extending love to them, and to help me perform my function as a miracle worker.” Amy’s Member Directory Entry
Muriel Dupuis
Healing has been a lifetime interest, being a retired family practitioner, and she felt called to healing with prayer based on ACIM principles. Muriel’s Member Directory Entry
How it works
Here is how our Healing Prayer Ministry works:
- Send your prayer requests to us at prayerministry@circleofa.org. Let us know what life situation of yours you would like us to pray about.
- We will pray for you at least once a day.
- We will do so for thirty days or until you feel your situation is resolved, whichever comes first.
- During this period of prayer, we will be in regular contact with you via e-mail. We will share the specific prayers we are using, as well as any insights or possible guidance we feel we have received.
- During this same period, we invite you to stay in regular contact with us, and share your own insights, guidance, difficulties, and breakthroughs.
- If you want to keep your situation private, that’s fine. It will just be between you and us. But if you wish, we will also post your request on the CCC blog, and all CCC members who wish to join us can pray for you and share their insights and guidance.
How we pray
Of course, given the mission of the CCC, our intent is to pray for you in a way that is in harmony with the teachings of A Course in Miracles. We won’t use beseeching prayers like “Please, oh please, God, give Joe a job.” Rather, our aim is to pray in the spirit of this passage from The Song of Prayer:
The secret of true prayer is to forget the things you think you need.…In prayer you overlook your specific needs as you see them, and let them go into God’s Hands….It is to Love you go in prayer. Prayer is an offering; a giving up of yourself to be at one with Love. (S-1.I.4:1, 3; 5:4-5)
This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be specific about “the things you think you need” in your prayer requests to us. On the contrary, we encourage you to describe the specific situation you want prayers about in whatever terms you find emotionally meaningful. But it does mean that in our prayers for you, our emphasis will be on looking past specifics to the truth the Course proclaims: God is Love, everyone involved in the situation is His beloved, holy child, and He has a loving plan for everyone’s life. We believe that seeing this, and trusting in this, is the way to healing and happiness.
What to expect
Though prayer certainly can produce positive changes in external life situations, we do not promise any specific outcome for our prayers. That outcome is in God’s Hands. Rather, we hope we can help you get in touch with the loving Father in Whom, as Workbook Lesson 292 tells us, “A happy outcome to all things is sure”-even if that “happy outcome” is not what anyone expected. Our promise is to stand beside you as your mighty companions in prayer, and help to raise you up to Him.
Many of our prayer recipients have reported what they felt were the positive results of our prayers.
If you would like to use the services of our healing prayer ministry, or have an interest in joining the Prayer Ministry, we invite you to e-mail us at prayerministry@circleofa.org.
Entering the present (part 4 in series on time)
In this class, we will explore the Course’s major emphasis in regard to time: getting out of the past and truly entering the present.
Posted in Class Archives, Member Class Archives
Tagged course, part, past, present, will
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Praying for another person
Hi all– Mary Anne shared this exercise with me last night and I wanted to pass it along to you. Hope you find it as lovely and healing as I do.
Love,
Amy
PRAYING FOR ANOTHER PERSON
1. Invite Jesus or the Holy Spirit to be with you in your awareness.
2. Bring the person you are praying for to mind. Spend a moment reviewing the way you usually see them, which includes bringing to mind any specific problem you think they have.
3. Realize that the Holy Spirit does not see them this way at all. He sees them only as the perfect child of a perfect Father. Your role is to let His perception replace yours, to whatever degree you can.
4. Take a minute or so to focus on your intention. You need to desire this person’s healing, and you need to be as sincere as you can about letting your mind be changed. You may want to repeat a simple sentence such as, “Holy Spirit, I desire __________’s healing, and I am willing to see him (or her) the way You do.”
5. Now open your mind and let it be healed. You may want to try this visualization from Workbook Lesson 121:
“…see him in your mind, and look at him a while. Try to perceive some light in him somewhere; a little gleam, which you had never noticed… Look at this picture until you see a light somewhere within it, and then try to let this light extend until it covers him, and makes the picture beautiful and good. Look at this changed perception for a while…”
6. Try and feel your mind expanding to encompass the Holy Spirit’s perception. The person’s body fades in importance; any temptation to perceive them as a victim of circumstances fades away; you are even able to overlook their sick mind, which made the choice to experience difficult circumstances. Instead, you just see them as the Holy Spirit does––a perfect child of a perfect Father.
7. Let the love, which comes from this perception, grow in your awareness. See this person as deserving only perfect love and perfect appreciation.
8. Repeat these lines from Workbook Lesson 78, very slowly:
“Let me behold my savior in this one You have appointed as the one for me to ask to lead me to the holy light in which he stands that I may join with him.”
9. See the person extending love and healing to you, and receive it gratefully. Repeat to yourself this from Workbook Lesson 87:
“You stand with me in light, ____________ [name).”
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5 Responses
How we spend our days now
In conversation with Kathy the other day I was talking about being back at work in an office and wondering what people would think if they knew what was going through my mind all day…Workbook practice that is… that I’m reminding myself I’m holy the Son of God, and blessing people and calling them brother before answering the phone or going into meetings. That sort of perfectly normal thing. 
Kathy (who is a palliative care nurse and a member of the Circle’s Teacher of Pupils Training Program) has been presenting the Love Cannot Be Compromised workshop for the last few weeks (the overview of the Course that Robert developed and which several of us were trained to present when we were in Sedona last year). She had just presented the session about Workbook practice, so it was fresh on her mind–how essential it is for bringing our relationship with God and the truth of who we are into the day with us.
Here’s some of what she said:
“I’m thinking of the pyramid of practice, where the point goes into the day, the point of the pyramid, where the response to temptation is, and the frequent reminders. The foundation of the whole day is the quiet time in the morning. And then there are the hourly remembrances. So the bottom, the foundation, gives us a sense of being where we are really, it reminds us, so that we are in the spiritual realm, rather than our normal understanding of who and where we are.
“And so every hour if we do our remembering, that reminds us again that that’s where we are. And then the frequent reminders bring us back there. Each one of those forms of practice is getting smaller in duration but it is taking us more and more into the world. And so those frequent reminders and the response to temptation, we’re really right in the middle of a whole physical thing.
“Those are what keep us remembering exactly what we remembered in our quiet time. And hopefully those are what keep us bringing those concepts into the world, into everything we end up encountering.
“It’s great though. Because even though it seems as if it is a cumbersome vehicle to carry around, it’s just that way until we get into the rhythm. And then it is easy to remember to bless somebody just before you walk through the door or just before you pick up the phone. It’s just about being really disciplined.”
Way to be a cheerleader for the pyramid of practice, Kathy!
I couldn’t agree more though. I feel like I’m more grateful than ever for this practice and feel like it gives me what I really want–to learn how to live in the world gently.
I hope you’ll check out Kathy’s profile in the membership directory, and maybe connect with her by sending an email through the directory or posting something here. Perhaps you are already a member of her fan club. I know I am. xox
Posted in Amy Speach
Tagged bless, care, cause, circle, compromise, day, encounter, hope, quiet, ready
4 Responses
This is how we spend our days now
In conversation with Kathy the other day I was talking about being back at work in an office and wondering what people would think if they knew what was going through my mind all day…Workbook practice that is… that I’m reminding myself I’m holy the Son of God, and blessing people and calling them brother before answering the phone or going into meetings. That sort of perfectly normal thing.
Kathy (who is a palliative care nurse and a member of the Circle’s Teacher of Pupils Training Program) has been presenting the Love Cannot Be Compromised workshop for the last few weeks (the overview of the Course that Robert developed and which several of us were trained to present when we were in Sedona last year). She had just presented the session about Workbook practice, so it was fresh on her mind–how essential it is for bringing our relationship with God and the truth of who we are into the day with us.
Here’s some of what she said:
“I’m thinking of the pyramid of practice, where the point goes into the day, the point of the pyramid, where the response to temptation is, and the frequent reminders. The foundation of the whole day is the quiet time in the morning. And then there are the hourly remembrances. So the bottom, the foundation, gives us a sense of being where we are really, it reminds us, so that we are in the spiritual realm, rather than our normal understanding of who and where we are.
“And so every hour if we do our remembering, that reminds us again that that’s where we are. And then the frequent reminders bring us back there. Each one of those forms of practice is getting smaller in duration but it is taking us more and more into the world. And so those frequent reminders and the response to temptation, we’re really right in the middle of a whole physical thing.
“Those are what keep us remembering exactly what we remembered in our quiet time. And hopefully those are what keep us bringing those concepts into the world, into everything we end up encountering.
“It’s great though. Because even though it seems as if it is a cumbersome vehicle to carry around, it’s just that way until we get into the rhythm. And then it is easy to remember to bless somebody just before you walk through the door or just before you pick up the phone. It’s just about being really disciplined.”
Way to be a cheerleader for the pyramid of practice, Kathy!
I couldn’t agree more though. I feel like I’m more grateful than ever for this practice and feel like it gives me what I really want–to learn how to live in the world gently.
I hope you’ll check out Kathy’s profile in the membership directory, and maybe connect with her by sending an email through the directory or posting something here. Perhaps you are already a member of her fan club. I know I am. xox
Thank you Workbook teachers and students
Just want to put in a good word for the Circle’s morning Workbook class, which was led by George this morning. How generous everyone was with their sharing. Thank you!
The Workbook class is taught by a team of CCC teachers every weekday morning via conference call at 10 a.m. Eastern. The quality of the teaching is always wonderful, and it’s been so nice to put voices with the names we see here in the CCC, and to get to know people better through their stories about how their practice is working in their lives. And especially during the lessons when we were practicing for five minutes at the start of every hour, it was great to stop and think about how many of us are in this together!
For those who can’t make the live calls, a recording is available for each day’s lessons. The classes are based on the Circle’s Daily Workbook Recording Program, which as many of you know is an amazing support for understanding the lessons and gaining the benefits of the practice.
If you’d like more information, send an email to workbook@circleofa.org.
The Holiest and Noblest of Desires
Janet shared with Kathy and me yesterday about two pupils she is mentoring in their work with the Course. “They may be getting jobs soon that place them in the role of taking part in helping with political campaigns at a local level [in Mexico],” she says. Another of her pupils is beginning to offer workshops that, as Janet explained it, “bring opposing sides together so the two sides can get to know how the other side is feeling and what their thoughts are. So it is no longer so much ‘them and us.’” As an example, she offered a workshop on AIDS prevention in a prison in Vera Cruz.
In helping her pupils bring their best Course understanding to these roles, Janet looked to one of Greg’s Q&A articles: “Political Involvement.” It answers the question: How may a student of ACIM be involved in political issues and remain within the framework of the Course?
http://www.circleofa.org/question/political-involvement/
Here’s a brief excerpt: “One can certainly get involved with political issues while remaining within the framework of the Course, as long as that involvement is truly motivated by love and guided by the Holy Spirit. This is the Course’s basic rule for all behavior, including political action,” Greg says. Later in the article he affirms: “I truly believe that the Course considers the desire to help others…to be the holiest and noblest of desires.”
Janet’s pupils speak Spanish, so she translates the Circle’s resources to make them available to them. “I’ve gone through the article orally, making a summary of it, to at least three of my pupils, because it is all about how you can participate in a political campaign and in a social justice movement within the framework of the Course. As you know, Greg’s articles are very clear. You can see the three parts. He always has a short answer and then he elaborates on the short answer, going through each point very clearly. So it wasn’t difficult to summarize.”
I hope you’ll check out Janet’s profile in our CCC membership directory. You can connect with her by sending an email through the directory, or by posting a comment or question for her here. She’s one of 13 CCC teacher-level members enrolled in the Circle’s first Teacher of Pupils Training Program–which is led by Robert, Greg, and Mary Anne–and hopes to be in Sedona again in October for our Third Annual CCC Gathering.
Thanks for sharing this with us yesterday, Janet, and for letting me pass it along to the community here. I think it’s such a great example of the ways our study and practice–and the mentoring and teaching we give and receive here–are making powerful differences for us and for all of those whose lives we’re connected to.