Motley Mystic top 5 posts of 2022
In case you missed any ... catch up before 2023!
Thank you all for taking this Motley Mystic journey with me through 2022. As we get ready to welcome the New Year, I invite you to take a journey back through the top five posts of the past year:
How to clear out your stinking thinking: How would it change the way you live if you gave yourself permission to clean out your inner emotional house – parting with the dead thoughts and emotions that your ego has convinced you are so precious that you wouldn't know who you would be without them? Because, I'll tell you who you would be without them – you would be who you truly are – the light of the world. Without your dead thoughts and emotions, you could shine a bright light of love and forgiveness in the world that would help heal others of their own emotional hoarding tendencies.
The practicality of spirituality: The best tool I can offer you to make your spirituality practical is this: forgiveness. I know, that concept sounds just as lofty and hifalutin as oneness and unity, but hear me out. Forgiveness works like a charm whenever you use it. I'm not talking about forgiving through gritted teeth, but actually forgiving whatever has occurred and moving on. How do we do that?
How the resurrection ruined Christianity: Why this idea of resurrection — and a belief in a bodily one at that — ultimately ruins Christianity is because from this moment forward the religion becomes about belief and about justifying those beliefs against all objections (and often martyring the objectors, to boot). This is the moment that the Jesus movement becomes less about actually caring about the poor and needy, or about defending the widow or the oppressed (y’know, the stuff Jesus actually did during his ministry), and more about building a “church” — i.e., based more on what you believe than what you do — because that, after all, is conveniently later deemed “works righteousness,” which makes all good acts suspect.
Even when you're right, you're wrong: The truth is, we're all in hell, one that we've created together to keep us believing the ego's lie that we're separate from one another and truly have nothing in common. How do we escape this hell? By realizing that our true function here is to be agents of connection and relationship – bringing unity in a world that is enthralled by a trance of separation.
The gift of forgiveness for Father's Day: This is the power of forgiveness. It's not just for us, but also for the person we have tied ourselves to through our anger or hatred.
Stay tuned for more Motley Mystic musings in 2023!
Happy New Year!
Want to learn more about A Course in Miracles?
Jubilee! Circle hosts an informal discussion group about A Course in Miracles every Tuesday night at 7:00 p.m. Eastern Time. If you’re in the Columbia, SC area, you can join us in-person at 6729 Two Notch Road, Ste. 70 in Columbia. If you’re anywhere else in the world, join us by Zoom using the link below. Whether you’re new to ACIM, or have been studying it for years, this is a low-pressure, friendly environment to learn more and grow together! Join us:
Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86088245457?pwd=bWd6QzhscGlUYnFnYUU1dy9uTUVMZz09
About the Motley Mystic:
The Motley Mystic is an online community for people who have realized that the truth speaks with many voices. There is no one religion, philosophy, institution or dogma that captures the whole Truth and nothing but the Truth. No one needs to swear allegiance to one line of thought or belief to discern Truth, because Love is the only thing that’s real. That’s what we explore at the Motley Mystic - all the tools and strategies we need to remove our barriers to Love and live fully as our true, Divine Self.
Candace Chellew is the founder of Motley Mystic as well as Jubilee! Circle, an interfaith spiritual community in Columbia, S.C. She is also the author of Bulletproof Faith: A Spiritual Survival Guide for Gay and Lesbian Christians published in 2008 by Jossey-Bass and the founder and senior editor emeritus of Whosoever: An Online Magazine for LGBTQ People of Faith. She is also a musician and avid animal lover.