In March of this year, Lee Flynn, who is both my friend and an ACIM scholar, (though he doesn’t like me to call him that) read the “Identity Crisis” writing that I had just rediscovered. It is a memoir of my time of receiving A Course of Love, written as it was being received, shared, and published (roughly 1998-2004). 
I know it was in March because I got a new computer that precipitated my review of old files, and also because I was just finding my way back to the cabin after months of snow and cold that kept me from it. Once I started reading “Identity,” my desire to keep reading felt a lot like my impulse to get to the cabin. Having begun, I kept returning to it. Still . . . Lee, who never before (in my experience) had been a quick reader, was farther into it than I was. He was loving it.
The next time that Lee and I talked he had become enamored by one of the sermons recounted in “Identity Crisis.” It spoke of the Kingdom. It was given by Fr. Warren based on Jer. 1:1, 4-10/Jn 20:1-2, 11-18, and this is the relevant passage:
“What the Gospel says is that everyone is a part of the kingdom, and everyone, as a part of the kingdom, has a part to play. And the part we play may bring forth one hundred-fold, sixty-fold, or less, but we do produce. We do have talent. Some of us are richly talented. Some of us less so. We all have talent. That’s how God made us. And that’s how God has called us.”
Lee then spoke of the Kingdom in Chapter 7, section 5 of ACIM OE, (FIP T-7.III.2), saying:
“In all the times I’ve passed through this work, it never hit like this. References to the Kingdom in ACIM are references to here and now, and the Kingdom is nothing other than what I can come to know of this or any holy moment here or anywhere, as directed by love to know it truly.”
Highlights from ACIM OE Chapter 7, Section 5: The Recognition of Truth
“God’s meaning waits in the Kingdom because that is where He placed it. . . . How can you, who are God’s meaning, perceive yourselves as absent from it?” ACIM OE Tx:7.26 (FIP T-7.III.2)
“To be in the Kingdom is merely to focus on it. . . . You who are the Kingdom are not concerned with seeming. Reality is yours because you are reality.” ACIM OE Tx:7.29 (FIP T-7.III.4)
“It smacks of the mysticism at the end of ACOL’s Forty Days,” Lee said. “God is creating you and you are God creating, at the same time. (See Day 32) It’s in the same order of like, Let’s just fling the doors open!”
“God has lit your minds Himself and keeps your minds lit by His light because His light is what your minds are.” ACIM OE Tx:7.30 (FIP T-7.III.5)
“The Course,” Lee recounted, speaking of ACIM, “describes this entire life to me as one rolling holy moment. Telling me in essence, ‘Lee, what you are in truth, the direct experience of this, is the Kingdom because you are the Kingdom.’ God has given you a gift that you both have and are. By not knowing this, you do not know who you are.”
The phrase, “What you are,” Lee told me, “is in 150 places in ACIM. Four of them in this section alone. They’re the last three words that appear in this section.”
“Love needs only this invitation. It comes freely to all the Sonship, being what the Sonship is. By your awakening to it, you are merely forgetting what you are not. This enables you to remember what you are.” ACIM OE Tx:7.38 (FIP T-7.IV.7)
“Who you are” is in A Course of Love over 380 times.
Lee and I have been having conversations, like this one, once a week for years. We’ve been saying for a while that we should open them up now and again and see what happens. This might just be the perfect topic with which to begin.
Stay posted for a date and time. We’ll release it soon here on Musings, other websites, and Facebook. If you care to indicate your interest now, you can do so here, and we’ll start a list.
(I’m finishing edits on the second Way of the Mary’s book: “Memoria,” so we’re shooting for September, likely a weekday evening.)
Mari Perron and Lee Flynn in Dialogue about ACOL and ACIM.
Coming soon.
Thank you for sharing your joy in the Love of God here in this way! A favorite paragraph from the Text of ACIM Original Edition that I have quoted often for the past 5 years is 16.19: “Reality is safe and sure and wholly kind to everyone and everything. There is no greater love than to accept this and be glad. For love asks only that you be happy and will give you everything that makes for happiness.” In dialogue with our ACIM OE conference call a few weeks I heard the voice that comes from my vocal cords say “I am reality and as such am safe and sure and wholly kind” and when I did realized that this is the nature of the Love of God in the Sonship: It is reflective from the mirror held by each aspect of the Love of God that we might rejoice in the beauty of our Self.
Dear Laurie, I love your expression of “I heard the voice that comes from my vocal cords.” Thank you for sharing the beauty of your Self.
ACOL is such a gift. I’m rereading it and now am up to the Treatises. I find my life reflecting what I read. I felt concerned about my ability to open to the joy of Christ Consciousness and accepting/loving everyone and everything. That concern showed me my fears and judgements. ACOL said these reactions would not let me sustain this beautiful consciousness that my heart longed for. I asked for help.
Jesus said, don’t turn to someone else, turn to your Self. And I did. I became aware of this calm, sweet, presence deep within me. She was able to hold everything, accept everything – it wasn’t something I had to learn or expand to hold, it was available through this part of me, my Self. What an experience! The sense that this is the best of me and the truth of me. And of course, if I saw everyone correctly, their version of this Self was their truth as well.
With regard to my doubts and judgments, My Self showed me anger and bitterness that I thought were cleared, but were actually much older issues. It showed me impatience and judgments and did all this so gently that no resistance came from me. It revealed how I could look at someone and see the truth of who they are – not their personalities.
This surely feels new to me, not something I’m learning, but something being revealed. I didn’t know what that meant, but I believe it is what I experienced.
How open you had to be, Mari, to receive this material. And how grateful we all are for your dedication and gift to us.
Dear Fredi, What a beautiful expression of your felt experience. It is a gift to me and all who see it. Being able to hold everything, accept everything – and not having to learn to do so, becoming aware that it is available. . . you expressed it all beautifully. Self-expansion and self-revelation. ACOL really is amazing. Even to me, it is new each time I go back to it, and from Mirari, I’ve begun to pay attention to new areas, like the importance of “memory.” I’m so glad to have you as a companion in The New.
Yes…yes to all of that. I like to link the concept of “Kingdom” with the concept of “extension”, as suggested in COL Day 40.8 :
” When I created, I extended my being..into form.”….
Amen
Great to hear your “yes to that,” Ben. Amen to you too.