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Coming Out of the Closet with Pathways of LIght.
Nine years ago, when I completed my on-campus studies and was ordained at Pathways of Light, I knew that I was not the same person returning to the world and relationships I once knew.
.
During those nine years I acquired a new fear.
The fear of how people would respond to A Course In Miracles.
To wit:
"Jesus wrote another Bible after 2,000 years? Get serious!"
"A channeled dictation from Jesus? What institution are these people in?"
"My internet sources say that ACIM is a cult."
"A Missouri Synod Lutheran, then a Roman Catholic, now A Course in Miracles, what's next Bob?"
Both my mother and my wife told me that I was being brainwashed by a cult.
And both divorced me.
..................................
This spring, May 2005, I accepted the opportunity to take the final weeks of studies for ordination with a new group of 8 candidates at the Kiel, Wisconsin POL Campus.
Part of my motivation for being there was to do inner work with a group, and individuals, that included my wife Kathryn Thompson (married at POL 12-19-04).
During that week of inner work, I mentioned my experience, and awareness, nine years ago, of being a changed being moving back into a world that would not be accepting of the changed me.
I did get enough "feedback" from people over those nine years to prove that every thought that I created was very, very, true.
I confess, that I found myself becoming not quite so blatant about my POL experiences.
I was not your most enthusiastic ACIM evangelist.
Was I, IN THE CLOSET, with ACIM and POL?
In the words of Mortimer Snerd, "Yup, Yup, Yup!" ;-)
...............
So, what's happened in nine years?
Has there been a change?
"Yup, Yup, Yup."
........................
This morning, I am aware of the unique opportunities that yesterday presented.
Duncan Tam invited me to a men's breakast and meeting at Unity Church on Tompkins Street in Madison, the capital.
I arrived early and began sharing my wife Kathryn's Pathway Story with the three men cooking in the kitchen,
I also gently, laughingly, spoke to other arrivals about my "bubblyness" in looking foreward to seeing my wife in just a few hours, after an absence of 12 days.
Predictably, they asked where she had been, and that was my lead in to talking about her officiating at her first wedding in Pennsylvania, exactly one week earlier, last Saturday (June 4, 2005), which led into my adding about her being ordained the Saturday before (May 28, 2005), which led into where, Pathways of LIght, at Kiel, Wisconsin, which led into A Course In Miracles.
This was all done with peacefulness, but with joy.
Sharing the sacred with a sense of humor.
It was also interesting to note that during our group discussion, Duncan prefaced that he was not an ACIM student, and then introduced ACIM comments.
Duncan and I picked Kathryn up at the Dane County Airport at 1 pm, and then went to a 2:00 pm ION meeting, with Kathy eating her lunch from Ella's Deli on the way (creamy cheesed broccoli on bake potato with spinach soup).
ION means Institute of Noetics (Science). "We create opportunities for groups to engage in transformation, and to make a conscious choice to shift our world from a basis of fear, to one of love.
Full group, and small group work, during the next two hours, led to another series of gentle unfoldings, when appropriate, about POL and ACIM.
Continuing on our way home, we visited friends at their homestead in the rural Poynette area, which proved to be another delightful unlolding of four persons sharing what was significant in their lives: The digging up, and gifting, of many edible herbs to plant at Bumpity Road, a POL Minister's wedding in Pennsylvania, shutting down a saw mill to talk, etc.
Then, on to my niece Tanya's (TANYA: There's A New You, Always), high school graduation party at my youngest brother's home. And more unfoldings WITH RELATIVES.
BLOOD RELATIVES!
This is BLATANTLY, "out of the closet!"
(If you were arrested for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence in yesterday, to get you convicted?)
Gently, I have stepped "out of the closet," and am sharing my unfolding.
A major (p)art of my unfolding is listening. (sometimes) :-)
THE LESS I SPEAK, THE MORE I HEAR,
JESUS WHISPERING, IN MY EAR.
PeACEfully,
Bob Thompson
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