Look again

At work today I feel very restless and reach for the book Living with Grace by Beca Lewis which I happen to have in my bag. As I read the next couple of pages forward from where I am in the book I come across a list of questions and feel prompted to answer them according to how I feel in exactly that moment without stopping to censor the thoughts.

Who am I today?
An employee at V&G, a bookkeeper.

What am I thinking?
I want to do a good job. I want to be interested in what I am doing. I want to get something out of what I am doing here. I want to be fully occupied during my time here. I want things to be better- more ordered, sorted out, as a result of my work here. I want a sense of satisfaction from getting things done during the day.

What am I feeling?
Perhaps I am wasting my employers money by going through this process. Nervous about taking time from work to answer these questions. I should just get on with it. I feel restless.

At this moment I become aware once more that I have a choice regarding purpose and the restlessness would seek to obscure that choice. Once again the Holy Spirit whispers of simplicity and I see that I do not need to go on answering the questions in the book. I can simply make a clear statement of purpose in the present moment. I then typed the following:

Today I choose to focus on Reality. I place my awareness on the Truth of Beauty and Love in the highest sense of which I am able to conceive. I know beyond doubt that Beauty is real. I choose to focus on the possibility that this beauty can be extended, and that by holding it in mind I allow for its extension. My willingness is all that the Holy Spirit needs and so today I gladly offer it that His Might may be joined with it and magnify the Truth.
Amen.

Later on in the afternoon I realised that I was being given another opportunity to look at some unquestioned beliefs when I experienced a surge of anger.

The company I work for has two food outlets and an offsite kitchen. My office is in the cafe but most days I also visit the sandwich bar to pick up post etc. Today I opened the post from the sandwich bar to find that we had been sent a catalogue from a company we already order from but who don’t realise that the sandwich bar and restaurant are the same company. The temptation is to think that something has gone ‘wrong’- they’ve sent a catalogue to s/one who doesn’t need it, they’re trying to get us to sign up not realising that we already have. This feeds into the idea that waste is possible, it’s a waste for them to send us a catalogue when we already use them as our supplier.

At this moment it occurs to me to go over to the bookcase where we keep all the catalogues and check for this one. I know that at one point we did infact have two copies of this catalogue as we had one delivered to our offsite kitchen as well as the cafe. When I check on the shelf I find that we don’t have either catalogue in the office at the moment.

I now feel able to call them up & tell them we are the same company without having to hold onto the concept of waste in my mind. Waste is s/one trying to give s/one s/thing that s/he doesn’t want or need. A waste of effort/resources. But if IT- separation, all things of this space/time perception are unreal then there can be no waste. It comes back to responsibility and authority again. If I accept the premise that responsible people make sure that there is no waste of resources then we are tied to being people and being judged on the basis of our actions. If I accept that the only real authority is the Source of true creation- Love, then judgement is not mine to use. Love shines equally upon all that is true and in its light all that is untrue merely disappears. If I am willing to let go of my need to judge and see myself as a responsible person then there is more room for the light to enter and illuminate my actions.

The anger at having received a ‘superfluous’ catalogue dissipates. I just want to let them know that we are one company so that they are not unaware of this fact. Where before I would have started by saying “You’ve sent us a catalogue and we don’t need one because we ALREADY get our fish from you so it’s pointless sending us another one.” Or at least with the tone implied by that statement. Now I want to say “Just wanted to let you know that these two places are the same company so we are already choosing to buy our fish from you! All the orders are placed from the café so you needn’t send anything to the sandwich bar address.” In the middle of writing that I realised that this is the very same fish company mentioned in my last post, the ones who use Peace of Mind printed on their invoices! Ha ha ha.

***** ***** ***** ***** *****

Writing this post this evening I remember an ongoing saga with another company who constantly send a magazine to us that no-one in the building reads. It is called OOH, which stands for Out Of Home magazine. I always thought it was funny that this magazine had such a strange name for a bakery publication but it never occured to me to consider the name in the light of ACIM terminology. I cannot begin to tell you how many times I have railed against this publication!!! I have emailed them, called them, written to them, sent the magazine back to them, everything I could think of to tell them to PLEASE stop sending us the magazine as no-one reads it and it's a waste to send it to us. There was often a piece of paper in with the magazine giving a reduced rate for subscription. Not only were we not subscribing in the first place it seemed IMPOSSIBLE to stop receiving the magazine. Perhaps we could pay them NOT to send it to us! All seemed to go quiet for a while and it appeared that perhaps we were off the list but then at the beginning of February it came again.

In the light of the experience i had today with the fish catalogue I can see this situation differently. It's kind of like the invoice with Peace of Mind written on it. If everything is a symbol then the title of this publication OutOfHome can be looked at with another meaning. Today it speaks to me of where I appear to find myself- out of the kingdom, in a place where communication is difficult and there are many different people (me v the people sending the magazine for example) holding different intentions. Today thinking of this magazine reminds me that being OutOfHome is necessarily an uncomfortable position to be in because it is to feel distanced from the truth. And yet, the Holy Spirit is my constant companion and reminds me that anything unlike home is simply an illusion, a mirage. Every time I think of this magazine I have the opportunity to remind myself of Home in all its glory. To remember that I am asleep at Home, I have not left my Fathers house. What a great symbol!

I am blessed every day to be given so many opportunities to look at mistaken beliefs and to choose the Holy Spirits purpose in all encounters.

Amen