ACIM Conference
2013
Chicago, IL
A Gift of Lilies
April 26, 27, 28 - 2013
(Fri. to Sun.)
Huge Early Enrollment Discount
Currently only $499.
Price will be $549 on Sep. 1
Click here for more information!
Click here to enroll!
Gabrielle Bernstein
Guest Presenter
![[Gabrielle Bernstein]](/joomla/../images_2013_other/Gabrielle_Bernstein_sq.jpg)
Author of the bestsellers:
Add More ~ing To Your Life -and- Spirit Junkie
http://gabbyb.tv/home
This will be an "exclusive" appearance for Ms. Bernstein. It will only be avablable to conference attendees. There is no "partial admission" to the "A Gift of Lilies" conference which is a "full immersion" 3 day *ACIM* experience!
Our Exciting Line-Up of Speakers
| Row 1 Sharon Sherrard David Fishman & Regina Dawn Akers Jubi Onyeama & Clare Lamanna Rev. Tony Ponticello Tom Whitmore & Carmen Cameron Row 3 Donna Marie Cary DavidPaul Doyle & Candace Doyle Mary Gerard Lenihan Rev. Jennifer Hadley David Hoffmeister |
Row 2 Jon Mundy Ph.D. Rev. Deborah Phelps & Rev. Paul Phelps Rev. Myron Jones & Rev. Larry Glenz Rev. Shawn Moninger Rev. Tony Senf Row 4 Earl Purdy Cindy Lora-Renard & Gary Renard Rev. Jerry Stefaniak Joe Wolfe |
The Anatomy Of Prayer
Written by Rev. Linda Chappo Monday, 31 October 2011 12:00
On Sunday, October 23, 2011, Rev. Linda Chappo addressed the congregation at the Community Miracles Center in San Francisco CA. The following is a lightly edited transcription of that lecture.
I'd like to thank you all for coming out on this beautiful day. I want to welcome everyone. The name of my talk is “The Anatomy of Prayer.” I’m going to tell you in advance what it’s about. This is from the email announcement that was sent out. “A Course In Miracles has a radically different approach to prayer. Prayer is not a ‘To Do List’ of demands we make on God, but instead, it’s a love song to our Creator. Join with me this Sunday as I talk about my experiential adventures with the way the Course really wants us to pray. I will share my experience, insights, and results. Join the conversation and share your own miracle minded way of praying.”
As many of us know, the politically correct way of getting things that we want was spoken about in the movie and the book, The Secret. I call that metaphysical manifestation. It seems like this frequently takes the place of prayer. This is when we are asking the universe for the things that we might want in our lives. The rules of that are basically: know what you want, visualize it, ask the universe, affirm what you want in the present tense, and then of course take action. What we tend to do is ask for a new car, right livelihood, romantic relationships, loose that last 10 pounds, take away the signs of aging … those are all things that we play with. I don’t know about you, but for myself, I’ve gotten a lot of disappointing results with this. (laughter) Sometimes it kind of works out and other times it doesn’t. What I realize is, and A Course In Miracles is really clear on this, when we pray like that, it’s based on the needs of the ego and not the spirit.
The End of the Heterosexual Imperative
Written by Rev. Tony Ponticello Sunday, 31 July 2011 12:00
On Sunday June 26, 2011, Rev.Tony Ponticello addressed the congregation at the Community Miracles Center in San Francisco, CA. Outside the CMC in the streets of San Francisco an estimated 1.2 million gay men, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgenders were celebrating the annual Gay Pride Day festivities. What follows is a lightly edited transcription of that lecture.
Thank you all for being here on Gay Pride Day. Late Friday night, June 24, 2011, same sex marriage got signed into law in New York State. (cheers and applause) by Governor Andrew Cuomo. He had been a very strong champion for the legislation getting through the New York State Congress – with a little help from President Obama as well. The bill passed the New York State Senate by a majority of 33 to 29. It won by four votes. An interesting thing about this is the New York State Senate is controlled by Republicans. There is a Republican majority in the New York State Senate. That means that several of the Republicans actually voted for legalizing same sex marriage in New York State. That was unusual.
I was on my computer Friday night. I was checking my news page and there was the news story that same sex marriage had been signed into law. I thought I’d watch the politics show I like, The Rachel Maddow Show, to see what she had said about it. Her show aired at 6 p.m. Pacific Time, 9:00 p.m. Eastern Time, and at that time the bill hadn’t passed the New York State Senate yet. She was talking about how everyone was waiting to see what the New York legislature was going to do. The bill passed the Senate at 10:30 p.m. and was dramatically signed into law by Governor Cuomo about an hour and a half later at 11:55 p.m. five minutes before midnight. I didn’t know our elected officials worked that late into the night.
Lend Me Your Minds
Written by Rev. Tony Ponticello Thursday, 30 June 2011 12:00
“Fiends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears ...” (Julius Caesar 2.3) Ah. A perfect iambic pentameter line.** Of course, William Shakespeare wrote it. “Friends, teachers, Course students, lend me your minds.” Notwithstanding William Shakespeare and the Beatles (“Lend me your ears and I’ll sing you a song and I’ll try not to sing out of key.” – A Little Help from My Friends) I am asking all of you A Course In Miracles students to lend me your minds. Will you read along? Will you follow my thoughts? Will you understand and integrate them? Interesting questions, especially if you read the article in Miracles Monthly Volume 25, Issue 1 “Books Are Never Going to Save the World.” (March 2011)
The author of the article, Doug Thompson, makes a very cogent argument that a vast majority of people don’t read much, and even when they do, they don’t have the training and the mental acuity to follow and understand what they are reading. How many of you will actually read this entire article? And of those who do, how many will understand what I am trying to communicate? Perhaps you will consider this a challenge worth accepting.
The Doug Thompson article elicited a large amount of comments, and many of them were negative. The negative comments were never about Mr. Thompson’s main premises: most people don’t read, and of those who do only a very few understand much of what they read. If this is true, as Mr. Thompson firmly believes it is, then the healing accomplishments of A Course In Miracles will come through our actions and relationships rather than people’s engagement with the written words in the Course book. The negative comments were all about a side theme in the article which was Doug Thompson’s criticism, at times quite harsh, against just about all the printed editions of A Course In Miracles with the exception of his own, the ACIM Urtext Manuscripts, although this is only strongly implied and never said directly. The biggest target for Mr. Thompson’s criticism was the ACIM Original Edition published by the Course In Miracles Society (CIMS).
There's A Crack In Everything
Written by Rev. Antoinette Wednesday, 28 February 2007 12:00
(A CMC LEGACY ARTICLE – We're digging up literary "gems" from our vast achieves!)
On Sunday February 25, 2007, a large *A Course In Miracles* conference was being held in San Francisco, California named “An Opportunity To Gladden Yourself.” The Sunday Service at this conference was being hosted by the Community Miracles Center. Rev. Tony Ponticello had been scheduled to be the speaker at this Sunday Service. Unfortunately he was called away because of a family emergency the night before. Luckily, right before he left, he got in touch with his twin sister, Rev. Antoinette who lives in Memphis, Tennessee and asked her if she could fly in on a “red eye” to be the guest speaker. To everyone’s surprise she ran in, suitcases in hand, just after the service had started. What follows is a lightly edited transcription of her talk that Sunday morning just minutes after she had run up on the stage.
“An Opportunity To Gladden Yourself” what a great title for a conference, don’t you think? (applause) I hope you’re all being very glad. (more applause) Rev. Tony faxed me his notes and I’ve been studying them on the plane. I’m going to try to give a little bit of the sermon that he wanted to give but with my own Rev. Antoinette flair. (laughter)
In the year 2000 we were in the midst of a terrible controversy in the A Course In Miracles world. There were copyright law suits. Different Miracles organizations were getting sued by other Miracles organizations. Why, Endeavor Academy, Miracles Healing Center, one of our cosponsors was being sued. The Circle Of Atonement was involved with a law suit. CIMS (Course In Miracles Society) the organization which has brought us the A Course In Miracles – Original Edition, they were involved in a law suit. The Community Miracles Center received a very threatening letter from lawyers. It was all over the community. It wasn’t really a fun time for a lot of people and things seemed rather gloomy.
