on the occasion of Lola’s commissioning ceremony during a mutual accountability group meeting – these were the words we used, adapted from A Course In Miracles, Lesson 157:
This is a day of silence and of trust. It is a special time of promise in our calendar of days. It is a time Heaven has set apart to shine upon, and casts a timeless light upon this day when echoes of eternity are heard. This day is holy, for it ushers in a new experience, a different kind of feeling and awareness. We have spent long days and nights in celebrating death. Today we learn to feel the joy of life.
We add a new dimension now, a fresh experience which sheds a light on all that I have learned already, and prepares me for what I have yet to learn. It brings me to the door where learning ceases, and I catch a glimpse of what lies past the highest reaches it can possibly attain. It leaves me here an instant, and I go beyond it, sure of my direction and my only goal.
Today it will be given me to gain a touch of Heaven, though I will return to paths of learning. Yet I have come far enough along the way to alter time sufficiently to rise above its laws and walk into eternity a while. This I will learn to do increasingly, as every lesson, faithfully rehearsed, brings me more swiftly to this holy place and leaves me, for a moment, with my Self.
God will direct our practicing today, for what we ask for now is what God wills. And having joined our will with God’s this day, what we are asking must be given us. Nothing is needed to light our minds and let them rest in still anticipation and in quiet joy wherein we quickly leave the world behind.
From this day forth, my ministry takes on a genuine devotion and a glow that travels from my fingertips to those I touch, and blesses those I look upon. A vision reaches everyone I meet, and everyone I think of, or who thinks of me. For my experience today will so transform my mind that it becomes the touchstone for the holy Thoughts of God.
My body will be sanctified today, its only purpose being now to bring the vision of what I experience this day to light the world. We cannot give experience like this directly. Yet it leaves a vision in our eyes which we can offer everyone, that they may come the sooner to the same experience in which the world is quietly forgot and Heaven is remembered for a while.
As this experience increases and all goals but this become of little worth, the world to which we will return becomes a little closer to the end of time, a little more like Heaven in its ways, a little nearer its deliverance. And we who bring it light will come to see the light more sure; the vision more distinct.
The time will come when I will not return in the same form in which I now appear, for I will have no need of it. Yet now it has a purpose, and will serve it well. Today I will embark upon a course I have not dreamed of. But the Holy One, the Giver of the happy dreams of life, Translator of perception into truth, the holy Guide to Heaven given me, has dreamed for me this journey which I make and start today, with the experience this day holds out to me, to be my own.
Into Christ’s Presence will I enter now, serenely unaware of everything except Christ’s shining Face and perfect Love. The vision of Christ’s Face will stay with me but there will be an instant which transcends all vision, even this, the holiest. This I will never teach, for I attained it not through learning. Yet the vision speaks of my remembrance of what I knew that instant, and will surely know again.
And so it is, Amen
Lola's online journal, 