Parenting As A Spiritual Practice

Make a listing of the 5 things that come to mind when you ask yourself that question. What's evenworse: it doesn't have enough nutritional value to maintain you! However, in order to do that wemust give up piquing and taking offense.

I suppose one would have to ask what optimal living is. One definition that resonates for me wasinspired by A Course in Miracles. This suggests that unless the will is totally free, completelyunbound we are not living optimally.

This is the first in a series of 10 weekly articles that will focus on selected lessons from a course inmiracles (ACIM): Workbook for Students. There are 365 lessons in the workbook that are meant tobe completed daily over the course of a full year, but I will only be focusing on 10 of those 365lessons.

My brother called me on Friday morning to tell me our Dad had died the night before. We had beenso preoccupied with our mother's condition we were devastated he went first. I was going to paymore attention to him once Mom died. Funny how you discover these strange thoughts. But the nextmorning my sister called to report that Mom was no longer eating or drinking. As I rushed to herside I began to take on a sort of a course in miracles audio state and as I prayed for help I could feelmy Dad supporting me. He was always a "take charge" kind of guy and I was so relieved to feel himcoming in strong. He had kept close tabs on Mom's condition, mostly through us kids and had been areal comfort to me in recent months.

Surely Lesson 182 qualifies as one of the most beautiful lessons in acim. It says that I am in exilehere, learning things and playing "games" to occupy myself in order to cover up my sadness, untilit's time to go home again. My persistent homesickness for Pennsylvania merely symbolizes myhomesickness for Heaven. In retrospect, I can see that I've always felt it, though faintly. And I cansee that my desire to re-create Heaven here on earth has been a poor substitute for Heaven itself. Tobe sure, my memories of Heaven are not very clear. But I think those memories explain my desire toremember what lies beyond the veil.

When you are not in the gray zone, add to this list and delete anything that doesn't work for you.Over time you will create your own personal "doer's guide to being." When you begin to feel theimpulse to look for solutions - things to "do", tell your mind that you appreciate its input, but thatyou have chosen to "do" something else right now and let that voice fall away. Remember - it takespractice to shift from "doing" to "being" at will. But even a few moments of "being" will rejuvenatethe "doer" in you.

A printed publication generally offers you plenty of stuffs with taking a great deal of time andattention. Once Mom expired I was really going to pay him more attention. Jesus was the idealexample of the form of love.