Community Voices 4

Written by Various Authors Monday, 31 March 2008 12:00

On April 6, 2008 the Community Miracles Center officially celebrated it’s 21st Birthday. On this Sunday five of our active ministers took to the stage and gave short talks. After hearing from these “Community Voices” we had a wonderful potluck celebration. What follows are lightly edited transcriptions of these five presentations.

Rev. Geri Baskind:

Tony had said to me, when he called, “Just talk about what’s going on in your life – how the Course is impacting your life.”

I decided to go to law school. I’m a single parent. I have two kids who have issues that manifest in behavior and I work full time. I thought, “Well this is never going to happen.” But to tell you the truth the whole experience at law school has taught me more about detachment, and more about perception, than I ever thought I would ever learn. I need to be able to not only argue my side, but I have to show that I understand the other side of the argument as well – to be able to do that. But originally I was thinking “I can’t do this.” “I’m never going to be able to do this.” I called my brother who has always – I call him the one I don’t pay – he’s always been really influential for me. I told him, “You know ‘Bro’, I’m just really scared.” He said to me, “You already know how to do that. Do something different.” (laughter) I thought, “Excuse me!” I looked in the Course and it said, “Your recognition that whatever seems to separate you from God is only fear, regardless of the form it takes and quite apart from how the ego wants you to experience it, is therefore the basic ego threat.” (T-11.V.10.1) I said, “Oh! Okay.”

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Bodhidharma And ACIM

Written by Rev. Tony Ponticello Friday, 30 November 2007 12:00

(On Sunday November 4, 2007 Rev. Tony Ponticello addressed the congregation at the Community Miracles Center in San Francisco. What follows is a lightly edited transcription of that talk.)

Good morning everybody. Thank you for being here. I want to talk today about the legend of Bodhidharma, how it relates to A Course In Miracles and how it relates to my own life.

Bodhidharma is, possibly, a mythological Buddhist figure. The word, “Bodhidharma” itself is not a formal name. It is two Sanskrit or Pali words put together. “Bodhi” which means: awakened, knowing or enlightened and "dharma" which means: one's righteous duty. “Bodhidharma” then would mean someone performing his righteous duty of: enlightenment, awakening and knowing. Someone who was on a Bodhidharma path would be doing his duty and bringing enlightenment or awakening to where it was needed.

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Personal Resurrection

Written by Rev. Larry Bedini Saturday, 31 March 2007 16:00

(On Easter Sunday morning, April 8th, 2007, Rev. Larry Bedini stood before the congregation at the Community Miracles Center in San Francisco. What follows is a lightly edited transcription of that lecture.)

Good morning. My talk today is on personal resurrection. I didn’t want to talk about the Easter story because we’ve heard it every Easter and if we don’t know it by now, good Lord, we never will. It’s a wonderful story and of course we all enjoy hearing it from time to time. However, I’ve been thinking about what I really want to say today and that is the idea of personal resurrection. Jesus had his personal resurrection and we should have our personal resurrection. I certainly want mine.

So, I want to talk about what that means to us – what it might mean to us on an individual, personal level, yours and mine. We think of the resurrection more in connection with Jesus rising from the dead, after being crucified and placed in the tomb. Resurrection means, by Webster’s dictionary: “rising from the dead.” But the A Course In Miracles says there is no death. It says there are many forms of death but there is no actual death. We can lay the body aside when we choose to do so but we don’t literally die. We are immortal; we are eternal. God created us that way. So, we cannot die. What God created cannot literally die. We can only move on. We can go back home when we’re ready to. The Course even teaches us that we never really left home and that we never really left God. So, we lay down the body and we move on or into another dream.

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Core Issues

Written by Rev. Tony Ponticello Friday, 30 June 2006 12:00

(On Sunday morning, July 10, 2006, Rev. Tony Ponticello addressed the congregation at the Community Miracles Center in San Francisco. What follows is a lightly edited transcription of that lecture.)

The title of my talk today is “Core Issues.” (Two people in the congregation spontaneously say, “Uh Oh!” and everybody laughs.) I didn’t realize that would be so risky. I’ve observed, lately, that we all have certain core issues. Certain issues, certain problems, that tend to recur and recur and recur. Sometimes we make little breakthroughs with them, but with our core issues, they have a way of coming back. I’ve been noticing that with myself and with other people. All people have certain issues that tend to come back again and again.

For myself, it’s always the issue of having too much to do, not having enough time and feeling overwhelmed because of it. I would say that any issue that lasts for decades is probably a core issue. (laughter) I’ve had that issue for decades, really. I do make little breakthroughs, but it tends to recur.

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