 I find that the spirit and the presence of God is what gives you the strength and the guidance to be, to do the most helpful, appropriate thing in any given instance. It's not trying to figure out what's appropriate, it's a lot of work to figure out what's appropriate from form, looking back at the past and all past learning and trying to judge what's appropriate, you know, what to say, what to do. That's not what the Course is asking us to do, it's saying, you know, I am here to be truly helpful, I am here to represent Him who sent me. I do not have to worry about what to say or what to do, for He who sent me will direct me. I am content to be wherever He wishes, knowing He goes there with me, and I will be healed as I let Him teach me to heal. If that's your prayer, if that's the prayer of your heart, you used to say that every time I'd go through a doorway, whether it was, you know, to a course group or go visit my grandmother or to go to the grocery store or the laundry mat or whatever, every time I would come to a doorway, I would just pause for a moment and have an inner reciting of that prayer so I could reorient my mind before I went into the course group or the grocery store or the laundry mat and just reorient into I am here only to be truly helpful and remind myself that I had a purpose and I had to train myself into opening to that purpose because there were so many other conditionings in there about what the course group meant, what the laundry meant, what the grocery store meant, you know, I was just re-enacting old scripts, I had a grocery store script, get in and get out as fast as you can, look for the bargains, read the ingredients, go for the shortest line, oh no, that's the shortest line, move, shift lines, you know, I had a grocery store scenario that was re-enacting and playing out every single time but when I really said no, it was like that radical trust thing, when I said no, before I go into the little door that opens up that lets you in, you know, the automatic door, I would pause outside, I am here only to be truly helpful, I am here to represent Him who sent me and miracles upon miracles, talking to people, meeting people, joyful, joy in the frozen food section, that's right, our blue light special today is joy, it was just connecting, connecting, connecting and I'll get out whenever I get out, I'm not concerned how long the Holy Spirit is going to have me in the grocery store, I'm not concerned about getting through the line or through the aisles as fast as I can, time is not my dictator anymore, I am not a slave to time, I will be a beacon of joy and happiness, I will bring joy down every aisle, I will bring joy to the frozen food section, you know, I even had my mystical, I had a raising the dead experience, like Jesus, I actually had a raising the dead experience when I was doing the workbook and there is no death, the Son of God is free and I actually went back to the frozen food section and that's where it happened, the frozen food section is going to take a salad to my grandmother and it was ordinary miracles, you know, it was a very natural experience to watch a woman, you know, die and come back to life, you know, in that mindset it was the most ordinary natural thing on earth, it was not an extraordinary experience at all, it had a context, it was my lesson of the day and I was there for that lesson to be shown the witness to that lesson and so that's what we mean by giving yourself over to an inner power, an inner force, a higher power to lead you and guide you as you start to let go of the reenactments of time and space, how many of us have gone through Christmases in New Year's where we are just reenacting the same thing, watching some bright ball come down on Times Square, the ball drops, the party things go off, the old Lang Syne, should old acquaintance be forgotten, yes, yes, old acquaintances should be forgotten, we have to let go of linear time, we have to let go of past memories, we have to let go of past associations, it's not a bad thing, people sometimes would say to me like, it's interesting with family reunions and high school reunions and everything, you know, I was never into any of that stuff ever and I'm so happy that I'm not sentimental because I realize that I couldn't really experience the goal of A Course in Miracles and remain sentimental. It's an attachment. It is, it is. It's like when people would say, don't you ever feel like nostalgia? I said, no, no, I don't, I'm not nostalgic, I'm happy but I'm not nostalgic and you can't be nostalgic and happy. You've got to let the past go, you know, what about sentimentality, don't you have tradition, tradition, tradition, you know, Fiddler on the Roof? No. Have you ever, David, sung those happy songs from Fiddler on the Roof? No, I never go, if I were a rich man, no, I'm not interested. In fact, in this world, I've never in this lifetime been a rich man. I've identified more with Fannie Brice. Brice, I got plenty of nothing and nothing's plenty for me. I got the sun, I got the moon, I got the deep blue sea. Folks, there's plenty of plenty. They got a lock on their door, afraid somebody's going to rub them. Now that they're making more, what for? I've got no luck on my door, that's the way to be. They can steal the rug from my floor, that's okay with me, because the things that I prize like the stars in the skies, they're all free. Yeah, I can identify with that. People talk about abundance, let's talk about abundance. Where's our speaker? Let's talk about abundance. Let's talk about abundance of your heart. Let's talk about love. Let's talk about open-mindedness, seeing everybody the same, seeing no stranger, welcoming everyone in. You want to talk about manifesting? You can't. God did not create you to manifest. You have absolutely no power of mind to manifest. And what is manifesting, manifesting but wanting? What do we just say? You want to empty your mind of wanting? You know, more of what? I want to manifest more of this in my life, more of that in my life. Who's doing the manifesting, the spirit of the ego? Let's talk straight here. Is the spirit a manifester? Hell, no. The spirit is the I am presence of God and the spirit is not a manifester. You don't have the power to manifest. Even in the Course it says, the teaching from the Bible, the Word was made flesh. Jesus says, strictly speaking, this is impossible. That's Jesus' words, impossible. You can't manifest. You've never been able to manifest the damn thing. So why work at it? Why try to use the power of your mind to make something different in form when the form is the past? Do you think you can make a better version of the past? Do you think anyone has ever succeeded in making a better version of the past? Do you think you can improve upon illusions? When illusions, the very meaning of illusion is nothing, how can you make a better nothing? Really, it's a third grader who could understand that logic, making a better nothing. So we're not into the power of manifesting. We're into the power of joy, the power of happiness. And we're really starting to see that people would say, well, how can you live your life if you're not trying to improve the world? It's easy. It's really easy to live that way. It's difficult to try to continue to mix metaphors and spiritualize matter. That's what manifesting is an attempt to do. It's an attempt to spiritualize matter. And as we talked about the other day, it just is not possible. And the joy comes from seeing you don't need to compromise.