Raising the Light

An Altar of Sacrifice

When we think of sacrifice, we generally think of giving up a bad habit or a favorite food.  Sometimes, we give up an action or a mindset.  For example, we might sacrifice chocolate for a day.  We might decide to give up TV for the week.  We might attempt to control a bad temper or foul language for a period of time.

There are many reasons that we might sacrifice these things.  Usually, we sacrifice for religious reasons.  We might fast for a day, a week or more when petitioning God in our prayers for help in a matter.  We might seek insight in an aspect of the spiritual.  Our Catholic friends will not eat meat during the forty days of Lent.  They may also give up something that is dear to them during that season.

In any case, sacrifice is seen as something that we deny ourselves in order to gain something else.  It is almost like a bargain we make with God.  If I don’t eat chocolate during the forty days just preceding Easter, then God will look favorably on my life and good things will come.  He will also remember this act of sacrifice when I am judged on the last day.

As we come to awakening, we discover that God is not sitting up there in a crystal palace, on some great throne keeping a score card of our “good” and “bad” thoughts and actions.  He is not watching and waiting for us to do something unloving so He can swing His cosmic flyswatter and end our existence, blotting us out of the Book of Life.

What we find God doing is holding His Son in His arms awaiting the day that the Sonship awakens from the dream.  He is confident that the day will certainly come; it is inevitable.

When we were created, He allowed us to go out and play.  He told us to utilize our creation faculties and…create.  He didn’t tell us to stay within certain parameters when we do it.

While we dream and create, some things that appear to happen to us or that we seem to be doing to others are not always pleasant.  Sometimes we say nasty things to someone.  Sometimes others say or do nasty things to us.

The Father doesn’t judge these things.  Remember, He’s holding us while we dream a dream.  He told us to go out and play.  He told us to experience our ability to create.  He’s not keeping a scorecard.  All He wants us to do is remember who we truly are.  He wants us to be still and listen to the Voice that will lead us back to our true identity.  It is, after all, difficult to remember these things when the world around us appears so real.

Because of this, we tend to carry baggage around with us wherever we go.  Our baggage is filled with fear and guilt and sorrow.  We walk around our world with shadows and grief etched into the lines on our faces.  We make an attempt at looking happy.  We don’t want the person facing us to think we may have done something that is not loving.

We walk down the path all hunched over as if the cares of the world are on our shoulders.  We feel there is no hope.  Everything is against us.  “They” are coming at me from every angle.  It’s the government, the economy, the boss, the job, the bank account, the grocery store; everyone around me is making my life miserable.

The truth about sacrifice comes into play here.  The Holy Spirit is a master at the art of dissolving our fears and our unloving acts.  The Holy Spirit invites us to put a new spin on sacrifice.  Instead of giving something up that makes us relatively happy, why not give something up that makes us miserable?

Whenever an unloving thought surfaces upon the consciousness, go to the altar of sacrifice.  Lay that burden down upon the altar.  Ask the Holy Spirit to reinterpret this unloving thought or action.  You may be surprised at the healing that comes from this simple act of sacrifice.

That’s what the Holy Spirit does.  That’s why the Father sent Him to us.  He is the Voice for God.  He will reveal amazing truth to you.  He will take your burdens and show you the truth behind it all.

You are sinless.  You are holy.  Your body and mind does and thinks one thing, but You, the You that you truly are, never changes.  Your Light is eternal.  When we begin to understand this, everything begins to look different.  Your smile will no longer be a mask where you hide your burdens.

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Happy Solstice

Today was the Solstice.  From now on, the days get longer.  I can feel the warm summer breezes already.  If you ever watched a video called, “The Secret”, you will remember how they taught us that if you think it, you can have it.  So, let’s all start thinking about those warm summer breezes.  Ready?  One, two, three…

Okay, so there’s still snow on the ground, the roads are still dangerously slick and we still have to bundle up when we walk outside.  I’ll bet you felt good for just a moment, though.

You see, there is no wrong or right.  There is no good or bad.  Everything is neutral until we give it meaning.  I know people that just love this weather.  I think they need some help, but they get giddy when it gets snowy and cold.

When I walk out in the dead of winter, my first instinct is to blame God for the 10 inches of snow I have to shovel.  It’s God’s practical joke on mankind.  There He is, sitting on his throne looking down on us saying, “Oh, so you think you’re so smart?  Shovel this.”

But what is actually happening is, I walk out into a neutral situation and call it “bad”.  So, it’s “bad”.  It’s “bad” weather.  We got hit with a “bad” snowstorm.  It’s a “bad” day.  I should have stayed in bed because this weather makes me feel “bad”.

Yet, my friend walks out in the same weather and says, “Wow! It snowed!  It’s ‘wonderful!’  Isn’t this ‘wonderful’ weather?  What a ‘wonderful’ day.”  Yeah well, I still think she needs some help, but we both put our own labels on the same event.  I’m walking around all day feeling bad because of all of this lousy weather.  Yet, she’s walking around with a smile on her face because she thinks this weather is the best.

Let’s not forget, everyone wants a “White Christmas”.  Personally, I think we should have “Leap Christmas”.  Let’s hold Christmas every four years.  But, that’s another post altogether.

So, is the snow good or is it bad?  It’s neither.  It’s neutral until we give it meaning.  We can do this with our cars, our jobs, the burned toast, the spoiled food in the refrigerator, the ball game the team lost, the ball game the team won, our money, our marriages and our very lives.

I suppose the thing to do is, we should begin to find anything we can that is good about every situation.  Maybe if we change the labels that we give everything, we can change the world; at least, our personal little corner of it.

In just a moment, I am going outside to look at how “wonderful” the world looks tonight, smile and say, “Don’t you just love this beautiful weather?”

Then, I am going to shake my head and tell myself that lying is not ethical and go back in where its nice and warm.

Happy Solstice.

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It’s About Time

This is the first year in my whole incarnation that I did not hear someone remind me to change my clock. Usually, a TV or radio personality will say, “Don’t forget to change your clocks tonight.” That is not to say that they didn’t do that, I was just not in the right place at the right time.

How did I know that it was time to change my clocks? I woke up during the night and decided to read from some of my favorite spiritual on-line magazines. When I looked down at the lower right-hand corner of my screen to check the time, my computer clock said that it was 4:00 AM. My first thought was, “But that’s when I woke up and started reading tonight.” Then, I realized that it must be Daylight Standard Time; or, is it Daylight Savings Time? I always get that confused.

So, what is time? Really, what is it? In spiritual realms, we hear all the time that there really is no time. There is only the one and eternal now. That is a profound statement if you would take the time to contemplate it.

Look at our planet. Every twelve degrees of longitude marks a different hour. If time truly existed, wouldn’t we all run on the same clock? We do use Universal Time with a clock in Greenwich, England. Many industries including the military use UT so there is no doubt as to what time to attack or carry out a mission.

Time is a very interesting element in our little illusion we call life. We use it to make sense out of our insanity. Certainly, we could not just show up at work or other appointments whenever we decide to crawl out of bed and happen to bring ourselves in. The world would be in chaos if we did that. So, we have clocks and schedules to plan our days and agendas.

We mark days by when the sun comes up. We use midnight and noon to mark each beginning and end because those times do not vary each day like the sunrise and the sunset.

A day is marked by the rotation of the Earth around its axis and the revolutions of the Earth around the Sun. But, if you were to stand on another planet, a day would be much different there than a day here on Earth.

For instance, on Mars, a day is 24.7 Earth hours. That is 1.03 times as long as an Earth day.

On Venus, a day is a surprising 2,802 Earth hours or 116.8 times as long as a day on Earth.

On Mercury, a day is 4,222.6 Earth hours or 175.9 times as long as a day on Earth.

Just as surprising, Jupiter’s day is 9.9 Earth hours or 0.414 times as long as a day on Earth.

Saturn’s day is 10.7 Earth hours or 0.444 times as long as a day on Earth.

Our Moon’s day equals 27.32 Earth days.

If you were to take a trip into space and, let’s say, you are standing on the space station, what time is it there? The Earth’s rotation has no bearing on time when you are drifting in space.

Time is only a flimsy, elusive imagining that has no real meaning. There is nothing true about time. Time is not real. We say that our life is an illusion. We can also say that time is an illusion within the illusion.

So, what time is it? According to my watch, which is set for Daylight Standard Time, it is eternally NOW.

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Forgiveness and Valuing

You have heard me say that the life we perceive is merely an illusion.  We believe that it is real because when we stub a toe or step on broken glass we experience pain in the first case and bleed in the second.  That is convincing evidence that living a day-to-day life is real.

Actually, that is our ego—I affectionately call him Walter Ego—screaming and jumping up and down and getting in our face saying, “Don’t listen to Rev. Michael!  He’s full of hot air!  It’s real!  It’s all real!  Be afraid!  Be very afraid!”

But, if we can actually get past Walter’s ranting and raving, we would see that the very things we are concerned with (ACIM calls it “valuing”) are only forms.  They are like children’s toys.

These toys have no real meaning.  They are neutral until we give them meaning.  The instant we give meaning to these “toys”, we have judged them and made false gods out of them.  I know that is strong, but if you give it some thought, you will readily see the truth in it.

If, however, we refrain from judgment and simply allow whatever our toys offer, we will find that they truly cannot touch us.  When we come to that realization, we are in the very process of our awakening.

Obviously, this is no easy task.  When the heat is on; such as, an argument with a spouse or co-worker, or an insulting, obnoxious person spewing hurtful words, or even losing a job and praying that there is enough money to pay the mortgage and keep the lights on; that is when we need to remember that none of these forms have any true meaning.  In that light, there is nothing here that can touch us.

The outcome of such events in our lives will surprise you if you are true to these ideas.  We have the power to deflate Walter Ego’s argument simply by shifting our perspective in this way.

This does not guarantee a life of ease and comfort.  On the contrary, Walter is likely to throw more fits and become more persuasive that what we perceive is reality.  But, if we continue the practice of non-judgment, Walter will have to step down from his podium of threats and fear because you will have discovered the Light that you are.

Always remember that we should never place value on Walter Ego.  He is neither good nor bad.  By saying that our ego is bad, we are valuing and, therefore, judging.

Walter can be a signpost of what we need to look at and forgive.  When someone irritates you, feel the emotions connected with it.  Don’t hide from what you feel.  Experience all the uncomfortable emotions, look at it, forgive it for irritating you, forgive yourself for letting it irritate you, then give it to the Holy Spirit.  Let it go.  It cannot touch you.  It cannot hurt you.

Also, remember that we were created in God’s image.  That means that we are sinless from the spiritual perspective.  We are the Light.  We are holy, eternal, and innocent.  We are loved and we deserve to be loved.  All that we see here in the physical is actually distorted images as if we were looking at a broken mirror.

Namaste

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About Rev. Michael Ciavarella

Most recent entries

• An Altar of Sacrifice
• Happy Solstice
• It’s About Time
• Forgiveness and Valuing
• We Are Safe, After All
• Be Still
• Channeling The Voice
• The Lessons Keep On Coming
• An “Aha” Moment About Prayer
• Created To Create
• What If I Could Think?
• A Graceful Shift
• The Practice of Peace and Security
• A Stunning Experience
• What Is the Christ?

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