The Cabin and A Course of Love: <\/i>Freedom\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n

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It was in the summer of 2005 that my beloved cabin\u2019s construction was complete. In this month, I am spending my first time there, alternating between the interior work of painting and staining, and the equally interior work of contemplation and writing. With my first opportunity of sustained time for being with Jesus again, he began to guide me to understand my experience of the Course and how to live it going forward.<\/p>\n

We are particularly focused on the Forty Days of The Dialogues. I find this period and these writings to be so full of heart and wisdom, that when I get a chance to put it together, I\u2019m going to publish it as \u201cA Cabin and A Course of Love.\u201d (I\u2019ll let you know when that happens.)<\/p>\n

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The conversation began in this way:<\/strong><\/h3>\n

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August 22, 2005<\/p>\n

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My Brother,<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve had a new thought this morning. It came about because of thinking of Ian (my son) coming home from Virginia. I suppose because Angie (my daughter) brought up going to a scrapbooking class on August 31 and I said that it wouldn\u2019t be a good time because of Ian just getting home then. Later I thought of the First Friday Group and that I might want to go just to have something to do to get away\u2026to say \u201cI have a life too.\u201d\u00a0 To say, \u201cI\u2019m not just \u2018available\u2019 all the time.\u00a0 I have a life, things I do.\u201d<\/p>\n

That was when I realized: I have a life.<\/i> Not a life of doing things. Not a life I have to defend. Not a life I have to fill up as a defense. Not a life that only makes sense and feels complete when I\u2019ve got things to do. Not a life built around saying no\u2026or yes for that matter.<\/p>\n

I have a life.\u00a0 I\u2019m in possession of my life.\u00a0 Is that freedom?<\/p>\n

Isn\u2019t it?<\/i><\/p>\n

Oh, Jesus.\u00a0 How can it be so simple?<\/p>\n

I began to \u201cfeel bad\u201d last night after our talk about freedom because I didn\u2019t \u201cdo anything\u201d to try to experience freedom. I began to tell myself what a slacker I am. That you give me these things to do and I don\u2019t do them. I don\u2019t sit with them. I just carry on. But I cut my recriminations a little short. I was too tired for them. Yesterday was my first twelve-hour cabin day: two coats of primer on both walls, sanding, two coats of the yellow. Now today, two coats of the blue and the painting will be done.<\/p>\n

As I finished up after our talk yesterday, freedom was on my mind. What is it? I\u2019m wondering. What does it feel like? As I kept working, I did know that it isn\u2019t freedom from work.\u00a0 I kind of had that sense that it didn\u2019t have to do with what I did or didn\u2019t do. . . .<\/p>\n

How like to receiving the Course our conversations feel in certain ways. The main way is the lack of desire to \u201cgo back.\u201d I printed out a few of our conversations and read them, but for the main, I haven\u2019t. I almost feel like I can\u2019t. There\u2019s forward movement going on. That\u2019s the way I always felt with the Course. How could I \u201cgo back\u201d when what I had received had already taken me somewhere else and I was different?<\/p>\n

And yet how odd that now, when I return to the 40 Days, you talk of power and right on the first page you say, \u201cI am giving you cause for movement.\u201d<\/p>\n

When I gave my Beatitudes presentation at Centering Prayer, Dave talked about how in the first four Beatitudes there was no movement, and how there was movement in the last four. The first four are about, more or less, the growth of the human into maturity. I believe it is the fifth at which Fr. Keating says most humans get halted and never move further. They never move from \u201creason\u201d to \u201cintuitive consciousness or unity consciousness.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, I\u2019m glad for this feeling of forward movement although my forgetfulness, which remains as strong as it was during the time of the Course, sometimes makes me wonder. How odd that this might be \u201cpart of it,\u201d part of the forward movement, not getting stuck in the last lesson, but moving on to the next.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s start with having your own life. This feeling of freedom that doesn\u2019t feel like a feeling, doesn\u2019t feel like anything you do, doesn\u2019t feel like anything you\u2019ve grasped or gotten an awareness of. You just became aware this morning that you \u201chave a life.\u201d It\u2019s not what you expected at all. Not the \u201cpresence\u201d that you expected freedom to feel like.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

When I speak of presence and aspects of presence, you still think of them as something \u201cother than you,\u201d as if presence exists \u201cout there,\u201d like the wind, and if you sit still or put yourself in the right spot, it will sweep over you and you will know it is there.\u00a0\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

In the stillness, at times, you have indeed felt presence sweep over you and known it to be God. At such times you don\u2019t even associate this presence with me. You feel touched by the hand of God, the breath of God. The strongest of these feelings, when you felt inside of the knowing of God, you have never doubted. At other times, the feeling of connection that brings tears to your eyes, that you have described as feeling plugged in, these you don\u2019t make as much of.\u00a0 \u201cYOU\u201d are aware of connection, aware of God\u2019s presence, and it feels sweet and sad and touching, and you are glad for it, and sometimes this makes you think of me, but this is not quite what it was to feel inside God\u2019s knowing.<\/i><\/p>\n

Now you have felt what I am calling an aspect of both humanity and divinity\u2014freedom\u2014as yourself, as having a life. You have felt this in a way that is not \u201cother than you\u201d at all. In this sense, it is like being inside the knowing of God, only you are inside of the knowing of yourself. It is a different feeling but a very important one. It is very much what is meant by \u201cbeing it.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

\u201cBeing it\u201d is almost impossible to describe, and this is why, it is so very important, that you have experienced freedom as having a life. You have interiorized an aspect of yourself\u2014your humanity and your divinity. It didn\u2019t feel like a \u201cbig deal.\u201d It came in the most ordinary of ways. But it came. We spoke of freedom and you did not \u201ctry\u201d to know freedom. You carried on. In the morning you \u201cgot it\u201d that freedom is, as you put it, having a life.<\/i><\/p>\n

My words are not important for you to remember. But this is. You have remembered who you are. Now your \u201creal life\u201d begins.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Cabin and A Course of Love: Freedom\u00a0   It was in the summer of 2005 that my beloved cabin\u2019s construction was complete. In this month, I am spending my first time there, alternating between the interior work of painting and staining, and the equally interior work of contemplation and writing. With my first opportunity […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":101,"menu_order":7,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-445","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mariperron.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mariperron.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mariperron.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mariperron.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mariperron.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=445"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.mariperron.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/445\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":447,"href":"https:\/\/www.mariperron.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/445\/revisions\/447"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mariperron.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mariperron.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}