As of now, 11 Course Students are coming from the Course Group in Omaha, NE!

      Here's a story I haven't told before. My old man is in hospital after suffering a minor heart attack. I don't feel anything? I either don't want to feel anything or I really don't care. Either way it's a little disturbing. 
 
      At the age of 15 I left his house never to return. At that young age I had strong feelings about both my parents and those feelings drove me to move as far from them as I could get. I went to work and saved for a year and when I was 16 I left New Zealand forever.
 
      My father was out of control. He was physically abusive and totally arrogant in his approach to family,. He hated my mother and he hated the responsibility of his 4 children. The 5 of us continually attempted to please him but of course it never worked. 
 
      I remember feeling very frightened as a young boy. I was never safe and I have horrible memories of hiding out under the hedge and in the potting shed, hoping he would go out or that he might forget my latest crime.
 
FULL STORY

      I found Love in the back of a Nissan Xterra on a frigid night in November of 2001. No, dear reader, this is not that kind of a love story! I was parked at a trailhead adjacent to the Dolly Sods Wilderness in the mountains of West Virginia, having arrived too late in the day to begin a solo backpacking trip. I had no idea that my life experience was about to be irrevocably changed as I opened a little book I had grabbed off my wife's nightstand before I left my home that morning.

 

      At the time I told myself I needed this trip to clear my head as I prepared to begin a new job. In retrospect, this trip represented so much more. Disintegration by definition must precede integration, and at the time it felt as if my life was falling apart. My work environment was poisonous, my marriage (my third) was deteriorating, my family relationships were strained, and my yearning for meaning was intense. I did not understand what was occurring in my life.

 

      And then that night in my sleeping bag in the back of my vehicle, by the light of my headlamp I read Change Your Mind, Change Your Life by Dr. Gerald Jampolsky and Diane Cirincione. I began reading at 7pm and finished as dawn was breaking. It was my first introduction to A Course in Miracles, and over the next three days as I walked through the forest I thought of little else. Those words, symbols on a printed page, stirred and released some long held emotion locked deep within me.

 
FULL STORY

 There is nothing I like more than a good question about the Course.  And by "good question", I mean a thought provoking one - a question that makes me reassess what I currently believe and perhaps come to see it in a new light. As a result, we have a very interactive study group of Course students here in Louisville where everyone is encouraged to share their insights and questions. It is also a very diverse group with people from widely varying religious backgrounds so we get a lot of very insightful questions and I've been making a note of them for the last 15 years. 

QUESTION: The Course places such an emphasis on meditation and prayer but I find it is just so hard to get really quiet in meditation because my mind is just FILLED with random thoughts.  Any suggestions?
  
FULL STORY

 

May 3, 2006