Gloria to God:

Dear God, what would You like to tell me?

God:

The sky is blue. Clouds are white. You are true, and My delight!

That is to make you smile and be less serious. Will you be less serious? Think of having fun as a way to serve Me. Will you do that?

Gloria:

Gladly. I don't seem to really be able to have fun, dear God. I'm not sure what I would go out to do that would be fun for me. See a musical maybe.

It's Jill's birthday tomorrow, and I will go, but I cannot stay for games — I just can't seem to enter in — and I am not happy to do the great candle wishes ceremony that everyone around here does. I don't know what to say, and even if I did, I would feel phony.

On the subject, Jill asked me to ask You for a Godwriting for her birthday. I told her no nicely. For one thing, I feel that I would have the intention that the writing be flattering for the occasion. When I normally do it, I just wait for what comes and I have no idea of what will come.

The other thing is that I feel like making a birthday thing of it cheapens it, makes it sort of parlor game or a cute thing to do for someone's birthday. Perhaps if the thought to do a birthday Godwriting for Jill had come spontaneously to me, it would be different, but Jill asked me to do it, and I feel contrived, and I also feel Jill's control again.

God:

Dear Gloria, your presumed inability to have fun is a form of your control, dear one. Just have the idea that you might like to have fun, and then forget about it. Fun isn't a Have-to. If it is, it's not fun.

Birthday celebrations have been difficult for you because you feel you have to be out of your truth. You're not going to say, "Jill, you bug me more than anyone else I know at present." You might truthfully say, however, "I am deeply fond of you, and I will miss you a lot when you move, and I do wish you a happy birthday." You don't have to be phony.

Gloria:

God, I really think I can't stay for the wish part of her birthday. I just can't. I go to weddings and funerals, and I feel honest, but not birthdays. Am I thinking too much about myself and not enough about the other?

God:

It is a dilemma for you. You want to uphold Jill, and you wouldn't want to hurt her, and yet the truth is you don't want to go.

Gloria:

I think you're right.

God:

What would Karen tell you to do?

Gloria:

Not to do anything under obligation. I think part of what it is for me is that it's public, sort of. I could celebrate with Jill alone maybe and not feel I have to perform. God, I don't think anyone else has this thing I do.

God:

Just about everyone on earth has something, Gloria.

Gloria to Mother Divine:

Dear Mother Divine, what would you like to tell me?

Mother Divine:

Your difficulty with birthday celebrations comes from your birthday not being noticed when you were a child. You get self-conscious about the whole thing. This is something from the past, and now you let go of the past and let it lie where it lies.

At the same time, you don't have to enjoy birthdays or go to them. Who said you did? Free yourself, Gloria, and follow your own heart to joy.

Gloria:

I suppose if it were Karen's birthday and she was here, I would not only attend, I would be organizing it.

Mother Divine:

You would. Now, free your heart to be what it is. Don't constrain it. Don't wrap it in bows and ribbons and present it when it feels reluctant.

A heart beats its own rhythm. Let it be unto itself. Go by your feelings. You do not let God down by not attending a birthday party.

A Course in Miracles, p. 451 (following Lesson 320), "What Is Creation?":
"Creation is the sum of all God's thoughts…Only Love creates, and only like Itself. There was no time when all that It created was not there. Nor will there be a time when anything It created suffers any loss…God's thoughts are given all the power that their own Creator has, for He would add to love by its extension…God's memory is in our holy minds which know their oneness and their unity with their Creator. Let our function be only to let this memory return, only to let God's Will be done on earth…"

Gloria to God:

Dear God, that is so beautiful. The memory of You, of true love, of our true selves.

God:

All are the same. Love, you, I, and truth. I never left you, dear one. I am balancing you all the time. I am like a Juggler of Souls.

Later…

Gloria:

Dear God, I received a lovely note from my niece who is three years younger than I. I think my other nephew and his family who were visiting her must have given me good press. I don't recall such regard for me.

God:

I do not know why you are surprised when someone out of your past values you now. It may well be change in your niece's perception of you, but you can deal with it very well. Say to yourself, "About time!" and let it go at that.

What anyone says to you or about you, pro or con, is irrelevant. Be neither thrilled nor despondent when you are with Me. I assure you, you are with Me, so what can affect you? When you are knowingly established in My heart, what can buoy you or shake you?

Deep in My heart you rest. Deep in My heart, you belong. And deep in your heart am I. Is there room for more or even the possibility of less? What do outer changes have to do with us? Established in My love you are, and you are contagious with My love.

It is catching. In fact, there is no known antidote. Some people it affects quickly. Others longer. Some sporadically. But there is no resisting the contagion of love.

Gloria:

Dear God, half the time I am not aware of feeling loving or even feeling capable of it.

God:

Don't mix up the love I am talking about with the rabid emotion. I am talking about the quiet equal regard for all. None superior. None less. All equal.

When equality is given, there is no need to control because one knows he is not less nor another more.

Gloria:

But the love Christ talks about toward other people?

God:

Seeing beyond the superficialities. For so long you have equated love with a clinging, or passion, whereas Christ simply and quietly saw and believed in the equality of man and regarded all as such, his equals under God, his brothers under God, and his saviors because they would go with him to God's Heaven.

Christ recognized the divinity in all and lighted it in all hearts. Christ's light has continued to this day, and that is why so many are grateful to Jesus the Christ who showed what human beings can be under the aegis of God.

He further noted his same spark in all hearts. And this is what everyone does. He sees another as himself. Only so many do not see their truth and only see their flaws in others and fault them.

Christ blessed all of them because he saw their blessedness, a reflection of his own, and this is how he healed with the light of his eyes, his touch, and his knowledge of unity. He proclaimed oneness to the world. And he proclaims it now, as do I, in these very words.

I do not tell people to bow down. I tell them to look up. And so did Christ.

My love for My beloved son Christ is the same as My love for you, for I see your gladness and the light I put there within you.

I am talking to everyone; that's a given. And all you need to see is your own light in order to see the light in all.

What you feel right now, Gloria, is love, this quiet peace and melting. This is union. This love establishing itself within you, immutable, soaking its way into every cell, seeping to all.

Do not ask yourself, Do I love this one or that one? Know the answer is yes. Beneath the layers and fragments of moil and grime lies love, My love, stirred in your heart so that you can write My words and reflect them to the world for Me.