This is My Father's World

"This is my Father's world; He shines in all that's fair.  In rustling grass I hear Him pass; He speaks to me everywhere." -- from the hymn, "This is My Father's World"

"All things are echoes of the Voice for God." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook 151

I love singing the old hymns I grew up with... every Sunday for over three years I've been doing one of them Acappella during communion at St. Vincent's-in-the-Vineyard (which is what gave me the idea for the CD).  Some of my ACIM friends have questioned how I can reconcile the thought systems, especially my latest YouTube posting.  This is a valid question, and I am never one to shy away from deeper inquiry.  I've learned the hard way over the years to beware of trying to shine up my illusions with Truth, trying to spiritualize or 'fix' what I am already identified with.  And by illusions I mean all conditioned thought and habitual behavior, including beloved traditions.  They are all made up, and we give them all the meaning they have for us.

At the same time, when we have forgiven and released the meanings we learned from our families, or that we took on as part of an identity... when we have ceased to judge any of our projections and former judgments as good or bad... then God becomes the only meaning of all things.  All the forms and aspects of life take on one purpose and one meaning... awakening to the Presence, and to our true Self.  We have given the world of our projection to God: "Give Him your thoughts, and He will give them back as miracles which joyously proclaim the wholeness and happiness God wills as proof of His eternal Love.  All the threads of fantasy are gone.  And what remains is unified into a perfect Thought that offers its perfection everywhere." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook 151, 14:1, 3-4

Whether it's the words of a beloved hymn or the words of scripture, unless we forgive and release the past we are only reading and listening through conditioned response, and have no eyes and ears to hear.  It's the same with the natural world... unless we forgive and release our fixed belief in a concrete, material world we can't hear the Voice and see the Love of God reflected here.  A forgiven world reveals the face of Christ everywhere, and the Love of God as the only meaning of all things.

THIS is my Father's world... forgiven and thus transformed to what is so close to Heaven that the transition to Christ's Vision is easily made, through Grace. 

"Through your transfiguration is the world redeemed, and joyfully released from guilt." -- A Course in Miracles; Workbook 151, 16:3