Sweethearts,
I am in New York. It is drizzling. A great thaw peels back quilts of snow along the side of the mountain. Mt. Pisgah looks in the window to my left. Yesterday I ran the road alongside her brown shoulder — made me dizzy jogging the rolling hills, and here and there the forest dropping to faraway vistas.
This is the Be Farm, true to its name, a place given to chilling, to meditation, to healing, feeling and sorting through the haystack of heart collections to find the needle, the knowing that you find when you leave your grind and enter the presence of fields and chickens, fat lap cats and a crackling wood stove. I stoke it, welcoming fire.
It is the third week of lent. I thought maybe I would forgo this letter, but here I am, as regular as the hen’s eggs. I hope these words are as generous.
It seems that everything around me here is giving. The chicks give their eggs, the trees provide our fire wood, an underground stream offers the most delicious water I have ever tasted. Nature is indescribably selfless.
Still, there is something unsettling about this selflessness. It’s all well and good for a tree to become fire, but what about the squirrel who gives its life for the Red-tailed Hawk or the hawk who is food for the Bob Cat? What about the cow whose babies and milk become veal parmigiana? Why do possums eat mosquitoes? It’s as if giving has gone viral and the joy of receiving morphed into the arrogance of taking. Survival casts a pall on the goodness of God’s creation, exposing a world of kill or die.
Years ago, I remember running through the woods. I felt as if I had wings on my feet. It was a good thing too, because a huge black snake was lying directly across the trail. I had to jump over it or …well yikes! As I leapt, I heard a creature screaming. I turned back. The snake was swallowing a mouse. Horrified, broken hearted, I complained to Jess of the unspeakable cruelty. I could not believe a loving God would create life dependent upon the death of another life.
A Course in Miracles suggests the source of my horror is a shared view of the world through the lens of an insane thought system. Its perception is fueled by deprivation, violence, and murder, byproducts of the belief in separation from God and the demand for special privilege. Ego is lord in this dog-eat-dog drama. Threats and self-preservation are the ramparts of its justice. Here, creation fears it will fall prey and lives by becoming itself, predator.
Above all else, I want to see differently, (ACIM WB-28) truly, consistently. I long for the promised new world, heaven on earth. I loathe the noose of my illusions. Perception’s laws must be reversed, because they are reversals of the laws of truth… truth (turned) upside down… this must be corrected where the illusion of reversal lies. ACIM T-26:5
This morning, at the third contemplation of lent, and on the rise of a hill beaming with sunlight, I find my turning place. I ask how to pierce the illusion. How do I live to reverse the perception of death, loss, misery, predator, and prey? I want to see only the love of God. I want to know God’s Law of Infinite Beneficence.
Jesus points to His crucifixion. Forsaking every attachment to the world, including the attachment to His body, He let go of life, of self-preservation. His entire journey was a flow of selfless-giving, fulfilling a sacred contract to humanity that seemed sacrificial and yet surprised us. Something about his sacrifice wasn’t sacrificial. Loss wasn’t loss. Death wasn’t death. He lives to tell…
The illusion of sacrifice and loss is turned upside down in Jess, Who is the revelation of resurrection, proof of eternal life and seal upon our separation from God. The crucifixion ignited an alchemy we could See, Christ Risen, human-God. HIs humble generosity fulfilled the true nature of every human being to realize the perfect Love of God, for God and His children. In that Love, we cannot be harmed and wield harmlessness as power.
Sometimes Jess’ choice for the cross and its brutality seems like insanity… It’s hard for me to get a handle on the suffering, the giving up of the body. But that is only when I am in the mindset that my body is what I am. Freedom from attachment to a finite body is truly freedom from death.
Does all of nature know this? Is it too, part of the resurrection, selflessly demonstrating God’s love for the world, the child, and all creation? I love the part of scripture that prophesizes, the lion will lay down with the lamb. How then is it possible that Farmer Billy and his good wife are raising baby lambs for slaughter?
Only when I am mindless to the generosity of the entire spectrum of life, forgetful of God’s equal and abundant provision for all is it possible to conceive that God would choose one aspect of creation over another, pitting parts of Creation, (His Self), against each other in a war for survival.
This little poverty and fearful perception is the gift (I)offer to the Holy Spirit for which He gives (me) everything; …the tiny change of mind by which the crucifixion is changed to resurrection. ACIM T-21:2.1
Morning has become afternoon. I am still here pondering, praying, grateful for the shelter of this old house, aware of the gift of vegetables in my omelet, moved by the unstoppable affection of the dogs. I appreciate each breath filling these human nostrils with tree-sweet oxygen. Creation’s perfect purpose ripples into awareness. It’s gifts, giving’s and personal service is overwhelming grace.
During this third week of lent, I am thinking about selflessness, not as a sacrifice, but as Love; giving that does not seek admiration or accolades; understanding I am born to contribute, express, and serve without needing to see results, without reward or appreciation. I am to imitate the tree, the wood given to become fire. I am to follow Jess’s lead into joyful servantship.
This is not a big deal, not a big purpose, just little acts of authentic generosity pouring out as as part of a whole, greater than myself. Every real communication, every kindness, every mindful task counts. Giving changes everything. Giving is pure abundance. Giving is the Love that brings the lion to lay down with the lamb.
I am not required to wear a crown of thorns or hang on a cross. It is done, resurrection completed 2000 years ago. I am asked to remember, live generously, dying to my own will to keep, to have, to collect, to misuse. I am responsible for detachment from corporeal desires, letting go and becoming the miracle of true giving. Through these daily devotions, greed, jealousy and gluttony fade into gratitude.
I look again at the mountain, the tree, sipping a warm cup of tea. I recognize the love of creation enveloping me. For a little while, I lost sight of Heaven. Now, I understand it is within me, made manifest in my love, and in the love of Jesse who lives even now to show us… we have everything, we are everything, with absolutely everything to give and nothing to lose.
Giving, serving, little acts of kindness are the way of dying to self in this third week of lent.
I love you!
Please join me in our Zoom room this Thursday evening and bring your gifts. The link follows.
MaryBeth
www.foundationofopenhearts.com
mbopenheart@foundationofopenhearts.org
Join Zoom ACIM Meeting, March 4, 2020 at 7:30pm
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