Do we really need to learn through pain like St. Francis?

Dearly Beloved,

At the bottom of this letter is what has been called the St. Francis prayer. Its authorship is anonymous, which is a beautiful thing. In truth, it was written by our nameless name, the Voice of God. Its earliest publishing was traced back to 1912, in France, in a spiritual magazine, “The Little Bell", published by a Catholic organization.

However, it's called the St. Francis prayer, there's no record of it being associated with his writings. Historians and researchers argue that it doesn't fit within his writing style, and the St. Franciscan Order does not recognize it as his actual work. Nevertheless, it is a very powerful piece of writing and I find it interesting it has become so closely associated with him.

St. Francis was a Christian Mystic who lived from 1182 – 1226. What I know about him is that he loved all things equally. He cared for animals, the environment, and people all the same. I feel in my heart he knew everyone he came across was a messenger from God. He saw no difference among them. He dedicated his life to “his” understanding of the Christ teaching.

He was known for being true to himself and his disinterest in the rewards of the world. He was perfectly happy living a life of poverty. He practiced long periods of silence and fasted for 40 days once a year. In his understanding of austerity, asceticism, and piety he suffered tremendously and meditated on the "passion" of the Christ. 

He also worked with many so-called "terminal" or "contagious" ill patients, the lepers, inspired by the life of Jesus. He did this work fearlessly demonstrating his belief in invulnerability. It's not so different from the many courageous nurses and doctors who tirelessly served during the COVID-19 pandemic and the many miraculous stories I saw on the news and heard from people. Patients who were served by angels and who cared for angels. So many people passed on from the body dream, yet so many people were brought together. The illusion of differences was transcended daily.  There was a Call for Love and the Call Answered every day.

In the case of St. Francis, he reported one evening in his “passion” he was granted a vision. A six-winged angel, a seraphim, who wings burned in love and covered the body of a crucified man, Yeshua or Jesus Christ, on the cross.  It reported he received “stigmata” scars on his hands and feet for his own passion. To be clear, passion, means suffering.  This vision is similar to my own in some ways. It speaks to deep truths that is hard for people to hear. One being the reality of a world of fallen angels who have been crucifying themselves. II have no doubt what Francis experienced was a reflection of his own inward condition, another spiritual truth. I'm sure he gained a lot spiritually from his practice, learning through pain.  

It has been taught by Bill W. the co- author of Big Book of AA , that “Pain is the touchstone of all spiritual progress”.  Many spiritual teachers live by this in a variety of ways.  Eckart Tolle is quoted as saying, “Most people's teacher is their suffering”. That is true in this day and age. Vernon Howard, a great master taught, “Make the pain get worse so you can see it. Let the pain get as bad as we can bear it and then add to it.” He called it “The Great Rule”.  In my experience, I too have learned a lot through pain. The mental process of experiencing insanity, going through exhaustion, and hitting bottom when the motivation for change is experienced.  Tony Robins is quoted as saying, ” Change happens when the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of change”. This is true of most recovering addictis in the many forms of addiction and it’s good medicine. So does change require pain? Does that mean we need pain through learn?

Jesus is quoted in the ACIM as saying “Learn to be quiet in the midst of turmoil, for quietness is the end of strife and this is the journey to peace. Look straight at every image that rises to delay you, for the goal is inevitable because it is eternal.” (ACIM, T-12.II.5:5-6) 

What does this mean? It means hating your mental position is never the Answer. We have made a dark self. A grievance is what darkness is. You must learn how to bring the power of miracle forgiveness, which is never divorced from the Light of Awareness, the Presence of the Holy Spirit, the Power of Now, or simply put, Presence into our pain and see pain for what it is, illusion.  In this way you bring darkness into light, shining it away instead of feeding it. As you learn to do this you learn to stand as Awareness, free of judgment, into your turmoil. Looking on the ego’s thought system with the Light of the Holy Spirit, will dissolve or transmute the pain over time or even very quickly. In the beginning of the learning process this happens sometimes quickly or sometimes slowly, depending on how much investment there is in the illusion or mental idol. As real vision grows and becomes constant idols are promised to vanish quickly because vision is the wish for constant joy instead of the climax.

As idols fall you begin to stop or lessen thinking from the past with all the craving or obsession leading to compulsive acting out. This is key for the light of real vision to come about in your experience, as thinking about the past or future hinder it. Acting out on those obsessions, being possessed by darkness, and chasing idols, will bring a great deal of pain and destruction into your life. As an example, you will learn getting drunk or chasing after sex or money can only bring you pain. This may stop you from using substances or the ego in many ways, abstaining. In many ways, it will be because you are afraid of pain and living in the past, which is problematic. Some call this a healthy fear or pain, as if fear or holding the past against the present can never be part of the solution. Holding the past against the present is what the grievance is. Again, you can never fully escape what it is you value, call it fear, grievance, or sick belief, it is all the same. Christ-Vision teaches you are invulnerable, which requires you to learn you can’t hold on to the belief that anything in the world makes you sad, ill, weak, or afraid. Can you see this relationship to learning through pain? 

Again we ask, do we need pain to leAsarn?

“There is no need to learn through pain. And gentle lessons are acquired joyously, and are remembered gladly. What gives you happiness you want to learn and not forget. It is not this you would deny. Your question is whether the means by which this course is learned will bring to you the joy it promises. If you believed it would, the learning of it would be no problem. You are not a happy learner yet because you still remain uncertain that vision gives you more than judgment does, and you have learned that both you cannot have.”  (ACIM, T-21.I.3:1-7)

“No one who learns from experience that one choice brings peace and joy while another brings chaos and disaster needs additional convincing. Learning through rewards is more effective than learning through pain, because pain is an ego illusion, and can never induce more than a temporary effect. The rewards of God, however, are immediately recognized as eternal. 

You cannot escape from the ego by humbling it or controlling it or punishing it. (ACIM, T-4.VI.3:8) (ACIM, T-4.VI.3:3-5)

This way out of the pain we are discussing today does not require learning through pain, but it does require learning that your choices will either bring pain or joy, which is your choice to learn through pain or joy. The choice to learn through joy instead of pain requires that you want real vision or Christ-Vision, which is what learning through joy is, instead of the pain of mental idols, and choosing to learn through false judgment. This can be a painful process until we see what really brings us joy. Christ-Vision is a real reward, which comes about through practicing miracle forgiveness, letting go of the past, process of judgment, and seeing beyond the body. Can we simply see that when we don’t judge we don’t feel pain? Why not, not  judge what happens to you and allow yourself to learn in peace?

We must learn how to live in the laws of the universe we have used against ourselves to stay in prison and discover how to learn through the rewards of God instead of learning through pain and judgment. One chiefly being, that giving and receiving is the same, which in this world means teaching is learning. If you teach pain is the only way out of pain, that will be the only way out for you.  Furthermore, you will put a value on pain, requiring it to learn and the road will be painful. How can you get rid of what you value? Won’t it show up in some way in your experience? I feel learning through pain is valuable as a temporary learning aid while you are learning, learning through real vision is all you really want. This takes great humility, which can be painful, then turns into a mighty humbleness, in which there is no pain. This is what I feel has been taking place in my own life.

Like St. Francis, I had a vision that took place after seeing the "Face of Christ", the miracle of real vision, the beautiful Halo of innocence, and recognized our Christ Self as who I am.  Afterwards, I awoke one morning to a hologram of light in front of me. I saw Jesus transformed from a crucified lifeless body on the cross with arms horizontal, into a resurrected angel with wings that pointed vertically, in a beautiful rainbow body of light.  The discovery of real vision didn’t hurt at all. It was painless and I learned so much! The Holy Spirit taught me, that wherever there is division there is conflict. I saw that fact and the condition just began fading away. It included learning the sickness of labels and describing everyone and everything in names, which is to live in judgment, comparison, and the past. The disease of holding the past against the present. The Holy Spirit taught me to see and treat everyone as an angel, as a messenger from God, who comes to bring me love and the choiceless choice to bless them. The first day I experienced Christ-vision and saw the Son of God it cost me nothing. There was no sacrifice and no pain. There was only the joy of learning through forgiveness, light, gratitude, and communion. It brought me no fear but only love!

I want to be clear that learning through joy is still an ongoing meditation for me. That said it is clear to me it is not necessary to acquire stigmata and put yourself through pain for God.  Learning through joy is for the asking and presently unknown to most in the world.  Be easy on yourself. Don't judge yourself. We can learn to step back and let Him lead the Way of Light.

Read this passage below and never forget it's teaching!

"If truth demanded they give up the world, it would appear to them as if it asked the sacrifice of something that is real. Many have chosen to renounce the world while still believing its reality. And they have suffered from a sense of loss, and have not been released accordingly. Others have chosen nothing but the world, and they have suffered from a sense of loss still deeper, which they did not understand.

Between these paths there is another road that leads away from loss of every kind, for sacrifice and deprivation both are quickly left behind. This is the way appointed for you now. You walk this path as others walk, nor do you seem to be distinct from them, although you are indeed. Thus can you serve them while you serve yourself, and set their footsteps on the way that God has opened up to you, and them through you.

Illusion still appears to cling to you, that you may reach them. Yet it has stepped back. And it is not illusion that they hear you speak of, nor illusion that you bring their eyes to look on and their minds to grasp. Nor can the truth, which walks ahead of you, speak to them through illusions, for the road leads past illusion now, while on the way you call to them, that they may follow you.

All roads will lead to this one in the end. For sacrifice and deprivation are paths that lead nowhere, choices for defeat, and aims that will remain impossible. All this steps back as truth comes forth in you, to lead your brothers from the ways of death, and set them on the way to happiness. (ACIM, W-155.4:1–7:5)

We will continue to learn together what it means to learn through the joy of real vision and walk this path together as One.

One of my teachers, Ken Wapnick, taught me we are in a condition in which it’s hard for us to remember our true Self or God, because we are afraid of God. Remembering or learning of Him means facing the end of our false self and the belief in death. We don’t know only the fear dies. Who wants to learn what he is afraid us? Forgiveness and Real Vision make it possible for us to learn happily because it produces a way of seeing the world that is so beautiful we are no longer afraid of our Self who is the world. And if there is turmoil, we are no longer afraid of it.

Here is the prayer. I'd like to offer some commentary on it in the coming days. Over the years it's taken on rich meaning for me. I read once a week most weeks these days. To this day every time I read it, it feels fresh and new. May after reading today's letter it will have new meaning for you?

The St. Francis Prayer or The Prayer of the Little Bell

Lord, make me a channel(instrument)of thy peace, that where there is hatred, I may bring love. That where there is offense, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness That where there is discord, I may bring union/Harmony. That where there is error, I may bring truth. That where there is doubt, I may bring faith. That where there is despair, I may bring hope. That where there is darkness(shadows), I may bring light. That where there is sadness, I may bring joy.

O Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort/console than to be comforted, to understand than to be understood, to love than to be loved. For it is by giving that one receives.(Omitted in some versions) It's by self-forgetting that one finds. It is by forgiving that one is forgiven. It is by dying that one awakens to eternal life.

Amen

Much Love,

God Saves! Let Him lead the Way!

Kenney