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Hello All!
Bob and I returned only a few hours ago from the ACIM
Tribute and Celebration Conference in Salt Lake City
sponsored by Rev. Sue Borg and Rev. Frank Arnold's
It's A Miracle Center and cosponsored by
eight other
ACIM organizations. It was
the most totally awesome
gathering; well organized by loving people,
wonderful
accommodations, very tasty food
and truly marvelous
speakers! But then every
ACIM gathering I have attended
has been the most totally
awesome.
I was delighted to meet several people I
had known only
by their names and posts including Martha
Constain; a
lovely little woman, David Fishman; a
very tall man
(what -- 6 ft 6in.?) Linda Card; ACIM's "official"
jubulant
hugger, and Peter Phippen; (I hope I have the name
correct)
who entertained us with his Indiana Jones style
stories of
going to visit the country of Nepal while, unbeknownst to him;
a revolution was in progress, spending time in jail while
experiencing a very high fever from a badly infected foot (later
healed overnight) after
being chased across the unknown
countryside by "wild" Nepali's and threatened with swords made
for the specific art of
beheading. (How's that for a sentence?)
Then he most graciously
belted out his version of "O Danny
Boy" with words from
one of the WB lessons. If anyone
remembers which lesson please tell us.
There were many, many interesting indivduals we
met and talked with. Then
there were the literally out of
this world terrific speakers. I made notes! I will share
them with you! Plus there were the
singer/musicians
Donna Marie Cary and Scott
Kalechstein.
Scott brought down the house
with his song of invitation
to Arten and Pursa to visit
him. If anyone has the words
to that song I would love to
see them posted. Donna Marie's
music takes her
audience to heights and depths of love and
yet is often humorous
as well, as was her redition
of the old
Kentucky tavern song sung in
her most Kentuckian accent;
"Show Me Your Private
Parts" because after all is said and
done -- nothing is really
private. All the ego parts of this
dream are common to
all.
The private "part" I will "show" you is that my
dearly beloved
husband of 28 years and I just happened to be on the
opposite pole of the
"special love relationship" as we
approached the date for the
conference. Oh joy! Five
days of close proximity to look forward to at an ACIM
conference no less -- but like this???
LOL! But our
most handy masks of congeniality were firmly in place
while we toured the 35 acres
of the Mormon Temple
Square with Arvind
and Shashi Kumar. I'll bet they
didn't even notice! (PS: All is well now, very well in
fact. More on that later :-)
Salt Lake City is a crisp and clean sort of city with
wide
6 lane streets originally planned to accomondate the
turning
of horse drawn fire wagons.
It is situated in a valley surrounded
by steep sided snow covered mountains reminiscent of the tall
gray spires of the Mormon Tabernacle. The snow affords not only
winter sports, but the water
supply for the city is collected from
the melting snow we were
told.
The acres of Temple Square
in the center of Salt Lake City
contains the great
Mormon Temple which was 40 years in the
building. The square is
comprised of various other Mormon
buildings such
as museums of church history, family
history
library, church office
buildings, the original home of Joseph
Smith, original temple, Relief Society building; and other halls
containing very large and
beautifully realistic paintings of
Bible scenes. There are also
annexes, a huge conference
center that seats
twenty-one thousand,
theaters showing
films about the life of
Jesus, and other
films depicting early
Mormon history.
All around the perfectly manicured grounds are exquisite
fountains and flower beds. They over flowed with tulips,
lobelia, pansies,
English daisies and more; all perfectly
color coordinated and well kept voluntarily by church
members. There were
also hanging gardens and even
fountains flowing from
the sides of buildings.
We shared a lovely
meal and conversation with the good
company of Arvind and Shashi
in a restraurant on one of
the top floors of the
church office building. High windows
afforded a great view of the
surrounding city. We could
also look down on a scene of several brides in flowing
white gowns emerging from
the temple.
On hand in the square are well versed guides;
very friendly
young women missionaries from all over the world. They
are quite willing
to be engaged in conversation about
Mormon doctrines. The
missionaries guiding us were
from Guatemala and Chili and
had recently come from
a four month stint in Alaska. Each missionary is
self
or local church financed and serves for 18 months. The
women have to be 21 years of age to serve and the
youngmen are 19. I must say they do seem to radiate
a sincere love for Jesus.
The final leg of the guided tour took us to a
huge domed
hall where the sounds
of our voices echoed in an amazing
degree.The circular
walls were painted in dazzling space
scenes of galaxies and
worlds without end. A huge marble
statue of Jesus stood in the middle. I have pictures of Arvind
and Shashi, and Bob and I
standing beneath the statue. I
may post them later. It is here that tour
members are invited
by our guides to accept
Jesus and to learn more about their
church. Our guides never quite got the idea that they were
"preaching to the choir" so to speak although we told them
about A Course in
Miracles in response to their question
of
what brought us to
SLC. When they asked what ACIM was
we told them it was a book
about love and forgiveness. They
seemed quite interested and inquired with more
questions.
However, I feel they are well trained to show an interest in
their guests in
hopes that an interest in the Morman church
will be reflected
back to them. When
we talked of truth
being
eternal while only seeming to be perpetually
unfolding they
seemed enthusiastic and
explained that their
prophets were
receiving new revelations constantly, etc.
I will have to say that their organization
makes a brilliant
stab in attempting to make the world a better place with
their emphasis on the family
and high moral standards.
It is, of course;
an impossible task they have set for
themselves, but we
each have to find that out for ourselves,
don't we? And they will
-- as we all
will. Interestingly their
church doctrine teaches that spiritual
education goes on
after leaving the earth
plane.
Enough travel log! Tomorrow I will start posting a
series of
notes taken during the ACIM
convention speaking sessions.
Oh, by the way; one of the pair of "out of love"
;-) lovers
(chuckling) opted to go
to an unscheduled workshop on the
subject of developing a holy relationship while
the other one
declined. But guess what? The relationship
at least switched
poles! What a relief! They are "in love"
again ... smiling. This
very helpful workshop was given by Sandy
Levey-Lunden. Her
website is www.sandylevey.com.
Onward and upward toward the holy relationship; another
impossible task? No, because it already exists
though
we may be unaware of it in
its totality.
With love and laughter,
Ragna
The inner light can answer any of this world's queries and resolve any of its problems. Beyond all of these concerns, the inner light will show you who you are and your relationship to all...and bring you an understanding of love and peace that transcends ordinary human thought processes. Discover what it truly means to "love one another" and to "see peace." Yahoo! Groups Links
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