God is in everything I see because God is in my mind

"From this idea will the world open up before you, and you will look upon it and see in it what you have never seen before. Nor will what you saw before be even faintly visible to you. ... We are not attempting to get rid of what we do not like by seeing it outside. Instead, we are trying to see in the world what is in our minds, and what we want to recognize is there. Thus we are trying to join with what we see, rather than keeping it apart from us. That is the fundamental difference between vision and the way you see. ... Real vision is not only unlimited by space and distance, but it does not depend on the body’s eyes at all. The mind is its only source."

That is the ACIM lesson for today. For me, it seems to be about having the Mind of Christ. That will require a lot of work for me; I've learned a lot of judgemental behaviors.

On Friday we had a Director's retreat up at Stony Point. It was nice, but I'm beginning to see the limitations of my directors. The opportunity exists to empower them, and I hope I'm up to it.

Saturday was in Hartford, CT at a District Planning Meeting. In addition to an afternoon workshop on evangelism, I facilitated the breakout session for the local preachers. They overwhelmingly expressed a need and desire for training. I see that as a good thing, and a perfect opportunity to move forward with the NYTS courses I'm developing for the CME Church. We gave them an opportunity to bring up any issues or concerns they had. No one mentioned "the mess." I don't know if this was from fear, disapproval, or apathy. A couple of preachers in full connection did come to spend time with me or to offer a non-specific word of encouragement, but there were others who stopped short of shunning me. Which is quite interesting. I'm perceiving that there's a lot of fear based on politics and concerns about one's future. I understand that; it's just that in my mind, the only thing I fear is how God will judge me if I don't speak and act according to what I know of God's word and how that word lives in my heart. For those who quote "touch not my anointed and do my prophet no harm," or that one should never rise up against another preacher, I can't help but wonder if that extends to preachers who bring dishonor to the priesthood. How does that serve anyone? I don't get it, and maybe it's a sign that I don't need to be a preacher.

It just seems to me that our Church is more a political animal than a spiritual one. We make big shows of piety, religiosity and hooping and hollering on Sunday mornings, but I don't see a whole lot of spiritual backbone. I see an apparent perception of "God as Good-Luck Charm," some concept of God that is as transcendent, but not transcendent as in being beyond comprehension or transcendent as in outside the limits of human experience, but it sometimes seems that our definition of God includes a transcendence that has a foreign or other-ness quality to it. It seems that we regard God as something external or outside ourselves, which speaks to our separation from God. So while we may talk about our relationship with God, our actions often fail to show evidence of any relationship.

That's my take for today. I know that I certainly don't have God in my mind (yet) when I see everything. I want to. I want to get to that place and I know that it's by practice that I WILL get there. Interestingly, yesterday I came back into Port Authority after doing a workshop on evangelism. I thought about how I'd told people that evangelism was an everyday thing and that we always have opportunities to share Jesus and His love with people.

And then I looked around 42nd Street. It was 10 pm, and I understood why they have those tee shirts that say "Zoo York." I didn't think I could just start sharing the Gospel, so I endeavored to share a little love. I decided that I'd just make eye contact with everyone I saw and simply greet them with the love and joy that comes from my soul.

AWE-SOME!!! AWE-SOME!! It was a wonderful experience. 42nd Street was crammed full of every kind of people you'd ever want to see, and my only task was to reach out to them in love. What was amazing was that, overwhelmingly, that love is returned.

Then today we had the African American Day parade in Harlem. As I looked at all the people lining the streets, I couldn't help but wonder how we can get them that excited about Jesus. People clearly want something, and we who believe the Report of the Lord believe that there is something exciting in Jesus. We jsut have to either summon the authenticity to share it with the world in such a way that it becomes contagious, or -- we have to summon the authenticity to share it with the world in such a way that it becomes contagious.

God is in everything I see because God is in my mind.