On March 1, 2020, the Community Miracles Center celebrated it's 33rd Birthday in San Francisco, California. Six ministers of the CMC shared their thoughts on the past, present, and future of the CMC. Below is a lightly edited transcription of their talks.
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Rev. Dusa Althea Rammessirsingh
CMC Minister #21, Ordained on October 17, 1997
Hi, everybody! I didn't want to be first, but I am the first. I am the first even in my family too. I am the oldest. What can I tell you?
As I was thinking about what I was going to say today, I found something, I don't even know what year this is(1). It includes a reading from A Course in Miracles called Setting the Goal. "In any situation in which you are uncertain, the first thing to consider, very simply, is, ‘What do I want to come of this? What is it for?' The clarification of the goal belongs at the beginning, for it is this which will determine the outcome. In the ego's procedure, this is reversed. The situation becomes the determiner of the outcome, which can be anything. The reason for this disorganized approach is evident. The ego does not know what it wants to come of it. It is aware of what it does not want, but only that. It has no positive goal at all." (OrEd.Tx.17.58)
But we do have a positive goal, don't we? All you who are present know that the most important thing is to be positive. You have to take a look at this old Sunday Program. At the very bottom is Tony(2). It's an ad for a recording and there is a cassette, so you know how old this is. It is a cassette recording and it's Rev. Tony's "Latest and Greatest! Only $5.95." It's called Shift Happens, Part One. I thought I had to bring this in. It also has a notices for the Principles of Healing Study group, and talk with a "Prayer Minister," then a picture of a cup of coffee.
Every Sunday morning, I don't know if you guys remember, even before we had coffee ready you could come up and a CMC Minister would be there and they would ask you what you'd like to prayer about, and we could pray with them for whatever we wanted. Then there was the First Friday Healing Ritual which was really great. That was the gathering where we'd burn our prayer and healing list or whatever else we were asking for. That was another wonderful program. At that time Rev. David Lunaas used to play the piano for us. So many wonderful memories are here on this little program.
I guess some of you remember Reverends: Muriel, Judy, and Frank. So many people have passed through Community Miracles Center. I know they have gone on to do whatever they needed to do in their lives. Those of us who stayed are here now. Right? Isn't it wonderful to know we are here because we know what our purpose is: to help show and give love to the world – to spread love. We are so grateful that we have these opportunities and that we can join together.
I think I would love it if we could have those Sunday morning Prayer Ministers again, where you come in and ask a minister to pray with you about anything. Maybe we could start that again when we have our new home where we are going to be living and moving into(3). There are so many thoughts that are floating through my mind that I don't know what to say, but I am trusting that Spirit will guide me in this very moment to share all of the miracles. I feel like every day when I get up it is a miracle. I'm really lucky to have a lesson partner. Rev. Alicia and I do the lessons almost every day, and that really helps to start my day off and feel good about whatever it is that I have to do. Whether it's if I have to see clients, or no clients, or shopping. Whatever it is, I know that I can trust that Spirit will guide me though the whole day and in every moment.
I think that's a wonderful thing to have and that's what I got in becoming an A Course in Miracles student, which was to know that my guidance would always be with me. I am sure many of you have experienced that. I just can't get over this old Sunday Program. It has so many things on it. It made me think of Rev. Larry and how we had great parties at his house. My ordination was at Rev. Larry's house. My mother and sister came from New York City. I think of all the other people we did wonderful things together with at the CMC over the years.
We've had many wonderful things we've done, and now I say we are going to do many more things! Right? We are going to make it bigger and carry ourselves throughout the world knowing that we can carry love and peace to everyone we meet. Thank you. (applause)
1. Rev. Dusa Althea held up a very old Sunday Service program for everyone to see.
2. Rev. Tony Ponticello, CMC Minister #20, is the Co-Founder, Executive Minister, and President of the CMC Board of Directors.
3. Currently, the CMC does not have any timeline as to when the Sunday Gathering may be moved to a different location. However, since we are using a room that belongs to the city of San Francisco, it is expected at some time that the CMC will move again.
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Rev. Vincent Fuqua
CMC Minister #51, Ordained on October 4, 2004
It is an incredible honor to have the opportunity to come and celebrate Community Miracles Center's 33rd birthday. The thing that really resonates for me, and the reason I am actually more excited about this birthday, is the fact that CMC came about in 1987, and 1987 is the year that I graduated from high school.
I feel like there is a huge connection for me. I found a spiritual organization that started at the same time I graduated from high school. It was an opportunity that I actually thought wasn't going to happen because of the era I grew up in. It was rare as a gay man to be able to do that and to have this connection. It is such a wonderful, beautiful, powerful thing that I am very grateful for.
When Rev. Tony asked me to talk and he sent a little blurb of things to try to focus on, it really made me reflect on my growth and also how Community Miracles Center has evolved over the years, especially since I've been here. Even with the periodic challenges that come up, one of the beauties about the Course and about Community Miracles Center, is that no matter what happens we have a purpose. In my mind that purpose is healing, of finding ways how to heal this world that we are in.
When I think about what the Community Miracles Center should do in the future, and where we should go, it is in alignment with my own path. That path is to do healing in this world with the vulnerable populations. Specifically for me, that is in regards to race and racism. How can we as Community Miracles Center take this beautiful incredible message that we have in A Course in Miracles and put it more out into the world that we are in? How can we help with finding how to actually heal things?
One part for me is to heal the racism that exists is in this world because it has been going on for so long. We have a teaching, a teaching the allows us to learn how to forgive this world that we are in. What a great opportunity it is to be able to take it outside of these walls. Yes, we have Sunday Gatherings. Yes, we have these classes we go to. Yes, we put on, and go to these large A Course in Miracles Conferences. But I still think about what more we can do in the future to take it out into the larger community – not just among A Course in Miracles students. The ones who come here are already open to it. We do remove some of the blocks that we actually have, but it is the braoder community, the vulnerable populations, that we need to start reaching. That's where I see we can go and evolve, because that's where healing is going to start.
We already have it within us, but yet the other poulations don't see it. How can we go into these incredible spiritual communities the exist throughout this world and bring this message? For me that's what I want to see in my world. I know there is no way I could conquer racism without the spiritual connection of the Course and without the support of Community Miracles Center. It has allowed me to see who I am in a way I never thought possible. It's made it so I am able to model that for others – that healing my mind is the way to go.
I really think there is a lot of fear right now with the coronavirus that is happening in this world. What is happening to individuals who may identify as Chinese or other Asian ethnicity? They are starting to feel the effect of how people are treating them because of this. People are blaming them because of their fear of the coronavirus. But for us, we can help change that and help people's perception to see this differently. We can help them so they are able to embrace and see the love that actually really exists. It's another opportunity to come together as a country and as a world regarding this.
Whenever something comes up, that is what it is for. It's a lesson. Our lesson is to take the time to realize that we truly love our brothers and sisters no matter what – no matter what. This is the opportunity that we have right now, as Course students and as the Community Miracles Center. That's what we can do. In every aspect of our lives we are able to bring that message to help people and to also help ourselves to shift our own perceptions. That's how we grow, and that's how we evolve. For me that's what I see as the future of the Community Miracles Center. I see this incredible organization that we are involved with evolving in ways so remarkable that everyone will be able to understand the beauty of the message that we have. There is the beauty of us coming together, connecting in ways that we all deserve, and that we came for, in every single day of our lives. We want peace. We want peace in our minds. We do that by modeling, by demonstrating, by taking chances no matter how uncomfortable it may appear to be.
We need to challenge ourselves to move beyond the comfort of our own space. That is how we're going to change things. That is how I see Community Miracles Center in the future as allowing our uncomfortableness to bring these changes forth and to share and extend our message. Regarding racism and the other negative thing that exists in society, we can bring that feeling of love. We can heal and we can truly forgive this world that we are in because that is the purpose of my path and that is the purpose I believe of the Community Miracles Center. Thank you. (applause)
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Rev. Tedosio Samora
CMC Minister #6, Ordained on September 8, 1990
Hello. My name is Rev. Tedosio Samora, and I am very happy to be here talking today. I was sitting out there in the audience and listening to the other speakers to get an idea of what I was going to speak about. Then I started thinking about the past, and when it all started coming to me. For me, it all started with Alcoholics Anonymous.
I wanted a spiritual path. After I went through the Alcoholics Anonymous program, I wanted to find something that was more fulfilling spiritually. I went searching and found various spiritual groups that I went to. Some were not so good. I remember one of them was Heaven's Gate. I am glad I decided not to do that because they all committed suicide because they wanted to get to Heaven faster – or something like that. I searched around in San Francisco and it was the Summer of Love in the Haight-Ashbury area. I was walking around because of the Summer of Love. Love was something that was important, but I didn't really understand it. I saw a place, the California Miracles Center, it was in the Haight/Ashbury neighborhood on Clayton St. I walked up the stairs and I met Tony and I met Larry. I saw this new book and it was kind of funny that the AA book is also blue. It seems all the miracles books are blue. (laughter)
I bought the book, the blue version of A Course in Miracles, and I read it but it was very confusing to me. I didn't understand what it was all about so I decided to join a class. Our teachers were, of course, Larry and Tony. Meeting those two gentleman was fantastic. I have a lot of great memories with those two.
I remember when I had my 60th birthday and I asked Larry if I could have my birthday party at his house, the "Bedini Mansion" is what I called it. He said "yes" and I had around 150 people there. It was fantastic party. I think I had two parties there. Of course I had to give Larry some money after that. It was $1,000 or something like that. He cooked everything, and he did everything for me so it was nice.
I look at the Community Miracles Center as my platform and other peoples' platform to find something which I didn't really understand, and that was unconditional love. Now when I walk the streets of San Francisco, when I go to parties, I look at all the faces and I see love. Everyone. Everybody. Sometimes I speak philosophically and I start mentioning my experience about love and a lot of people try to understand it, and many do understand it. They are amazed by how much I know about love. I learned it all through the Community Miracles Center and the book.
I found a lot of things. I travel all over the world. I've been to China. I've been to India. I've been to Europe, Turkey, Egypt. I know that when I meet people there I don't know, I'm still spreading the love there to them. I do feel good when I visit these countries and these people. I enjoy it very much.
The country I enjoyed the most was India, because of the spiritual temples that are there. Every temple that I went to, I saw a statute a cow or something like that. I touched it for spiritual thought and energy. They believe this, and so I'm going to believe it too. If they are going to believe me about my love, then I'm going to believe in their spiritual paths, because that is what the Course teaches us – that we all have individual paths to go on. So I'm very happy about that.
That's why I'm very thankful for A Course in Miracles and the Community Miracles Center. I like our Conferences. I am pretty sure the one in L.A.(5) will be a nice one. My best Conference was Boston. I enjoyed that the most. The other Conferences were wonderful too, but Boston was the one I enjoyed the most. I want to thank you the members of this place. I want to thank you for your love and understanding. I thank you for giving me the chance to be able to speak to you. Thank you. (applause)
5. The Los Angeles 2020 ACIM Conference was cancelled due to the coronavirus outbreak. The 2019 ACIM Conference had been in Boston, MA. The 2021 Conference scheduled to be held in Washington DC in May (27), 28, 29, 30 of 2021 has also had to be canceled, again due to the pandemic and the hotel closing. A virtual live conference is now being planned for the same weekend.
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Rev. Rudy Colombini
CMC Minister #15, Ordained on November 4, 1995
I am used to a microphone but not so much public speaking. What I really appreciate about the Community Miracles Center is our sense of community and how far I've watched you come with me to this place of where there is more love.
Where Rev. Vincent left off, that the CMC is a platform, is a key thing my share. I was looking at the Community Miracles Center for the last three years and the incredible things that we've done. I was looking at this pretty little graphic on my computer today. I think we reach out to about 5,000 people a year, through our Conferences, through our online presence, and through our classes. Then those people reached out to their families.We have probably touched, in the last 33 years, at least a million people with this. When you are doing exponents, it's really incredible.
We are an amazing institution. I am proud to be the Vice-President of this. I'd rather be the President but .… (laughter) John Lennon once said that without Elvis there would be nothing. I am saying without Rev. Tony Ponticello there would be no Community Miracles Center. There would be nothing. My gratitude is to a man who is incredibly gifted with many talents. Just walking the streets around a financial center like San Francisco, he could be flying Learjets, but he does understand important things. He understands what true value is in the world. He made a choice that he is to heal the world, and beyond even healing the world – taking it to places we cannot even imagine.
So that takes me to the next place where I just want to put a few thoughts out to David and Larry (early important members who have passed) and what we have been through since the 90s. I think it was 1990 when I started, you know during the AIDS epidemic. I watched how we persevered through that. We've had financial issues, and not only are we here but I think we are a stronger, more tightly knit community than we've ever been. I'm really glad about that. To all those who have made their transition, they are still here. They are in our thoughts. They are in my thoughts, and I bless you and love you. You too, Larry. (laughter)
So my thirty year experience goes like this. I feel that a lot of you are with me in this because when we first started to study A Course in Miracles we did so from a sense of survival. There was a world that was not understood and our goal was to somehow simply feel better. I am thinking that and for about my first ten years, I was trying to understand the Course. The Course in a way is like having a girlfriend I disagreed with it. It took a lot of willingness to work my way through the Course during those ten years. Sometimes it was grind and although magnificent and a complete game changer, it did take courage to go through. I believe the Community Miracles Center was there with me. The whole Miracles community was trying to understand that book. It was a newborn. We did it.
Then the second twenty years, we were all chopping wood and carrying water because we had learned how to do it and the Course made that happen. We went to work. We improved in our jobs. We improved in our relationships, but we were still in survival even though there was plenty of wood and plenty of water. I think what happened, the real game changer, was that one day somebody came up with the idea that "Oh, that's not a metaphor. Wait a minute. It's not a metaphor." Like sickness and death can be healed – that's what we're here for. That's what saving the world is about. We don't need to be sick. We don't need to be unhappy. We don't need to die.
Jimi Hendrix has a verse that says "Well, I stand up next to a mountain, And I chop it down with the edge of my hand."(6) When the Course talks about mountain, it not only says we can move mountains, but it also says it's just like what we are talking about. It's that easy. It's that simple.
So it's this third decade that has made the metaphors a reality. That's what I see as a mission for A Course in Miracles and the CMC. I am so happy to be a part of your life and your being a part of mine – and our amazing works of miracles that are like the art for the universe. We are at the pinnacle of the cosmos. We work it right here, from the CMC. Year number 33 – right on! (applause)
6. "Voodoo Child" by Heaven Music and Jimi Hendrix
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Rev. Peter Graham
CMC Minister #40, Ordained on January 22, 2002
I guess it is appropriate that Rev. Tony gets to speak last along with everybody else. I am glad to be in second position from the last. (laughter) Wow! 33 years! Rev. Tony wanted us to talk about where we are now and going forward. I do think we have to say a little first about where we've been too.
I just want to express my gratitude to Rev. Tony and Rev. Larry who came before him and all those who came before them supporting them. Without them we wouldn't be here. I have lived in San Francisco for twenty years and I think I've lived in Rev. Tony's home or Rev. Larry's home for at least fifteen of those years. I wouldn't have housing without them.
This has been really great to have this community to advance for me to broaden my understanding of spirituality and how to bring that practice into my life on a day-to-day basis. I will share real quickly, I've said this before in some of my talks, that when I was living in Philadelphia, I had picked up up A Course in Miracles. I did the first couple of lessons and I got depressed. I set it down because I didn't understand it. What do you mean "Nothing I see means anything." (OrEd.WkBk.51.1) That scared the heck out of me. You know this world is so important, though now I believe much different.
I came to the Community Miracles Center about twenty years ago and in the first month I had signed up for a class. Rev. Larry was the instructor for the first year and Rev. Alicia was in my class. She was ahead of me but we still shared time in the class. Rudy was already in classes at that times as well. I think it's important, like some of you said here, that I wouldn't have been able to access the teachings of A Course in Miracles without these classes so it was really critical for my own life to be able to have this.
So that is the past and now going ahead. We had class on Thursday night. The experience of that class made me think about how I would like to see Community Miracles Center in the present and going forward what should we be as we get together as a community and do things. One quote I wanted to read was "How willing …" This is from one of our readings we did on Thursday night. I didn't plan this. It just happened. Thank you Holy Spirit. "How willing are you to escape effects of all the dreams the world has ever had?" (OrEd.Tx.27.81)
For me that has been a preoccupation over the last few years – for me to really stop making things so important, so serious. That's a very significant challenge for me. In our class on Thursday night there was six or seven students in the class. It was really nice to have Rev. Rudy, whose been joining us lately, and Rev. Steve is usually there, but he wasn't there this time because he was out having fun somewhere at a house party – where they don't wear any clothes or anything. (laughter)
If you were a fly on the wall in the class you know there was a lot of laughter in the class. Here we are reading this profound spiritual teaching, and we are laughing about our lives, things that come up in our lives, and things that seem so serious. We were laughing with one another, playing and having fun. I think that has always been a hallmark of our organization that Rev. Tony has been the leader in saying, "Hey, let's have these Conferences!" is one example. If you are part of the Community Miracles Center, then let's have fun in our community.
You know A Course in Miracles is all about healing. What is healing? Healing is all about getting over yourself. Right? It's getting over the drama of our lives and the intensity of the seriousness of the world. I say this as a person who often gets hooked into seriousness. In fact I was sharing in our class that there was a situation going on at my work this week where I got hooked into the drama for a couple of days. You know we do it, but what I really love about our community is that we continue to have fun. We continue to work very hard. Rev. Tony and others work very hard. Rev. Kelly there you are too! We work hard about taking the message of A Course in Miracles to other students here in classes, at Conferences, at online classes, and in emails. You know we are working very hard, but we are also making sure that we are having fun.
Another quote from Thursdays's night class was this. I'll read this quote then have a little commentary of course. I'm a minister so I have to speak. "Into eternity, where all is one, there crept a tiny mad idea at which the Son of God remembered not to laugh." (OrEd.Tx.27.82) So there it is. Regardless of where we are, remember we are eternal beings. We are never totally at the expense of the ego – and we can always laugh. Thank you. (applause)
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Rev. Tony Ponticello
CMC Minister #20, Ordained on October 17, 1997
Happy Birthday, Community Miracles Center! My focus is a little bit on where we have been, but of course more on looking to the future. So we are celebrating March 1st, 1987, it was a Sunday. We frequently have a birthday celebration on the first Sunday in March, but it isn't very often March 1st itself.
It was on March 1st, 1987, that we had our first gathering as Community Miracles Center. We had a group that had been gathering on Sundays since the previously July of 1986. We'd been meeting in that space already for a couple of years, and it was a continuing – but it was significant that it was a new corporate entity that was starting. It was founded by Rev. Larry and I, and it was the California Miracles Center. (Name was not changed to Community Miracles Center until January of 1998.)
It's now 33 years later. I really feel like we are in our second generation. I looked that up, and generally ... there isn't a hard and fast thing of how long a "generation" is. Generally it's thought to be about 30 years. The reason why it's thought to be about that, the average person, when they are born, has a 32 year old father and a 29 year old mother. Even though of course babies can be born to younger or older people. The 30 years is an average so we are in the second generation. If I was the "father" of the CMC, then I'd be "grandfather" of the CMC today. I'm not sure I really like that idea. (laughter) Maybe I'll just be the "grand founder" of the CMC. That sounds a little better than "grandfather," but I am proud to be the father, the founder, the grand founder, of the CMC.
You need to understand when we first started out, we were really just a local organization. There was no internet to really speak of. There was no email. We got email in 1996. So we existed for 9 years before we had email and we got a website also in 1996. We were able to bring Community Miracles Center along and into the technology age. Here we are streaming, admittedly with a lot of tech problems from time to time, but we keep going. We keep evolving. That's what I'm thinking about.
I am really proud that when the whole copyright controversy started with A Course in Miracles in about 1994, 1995, 1996, we were right there reporting on it. We did a lot of reporting on it. We tried to retain a neutrality which I believe we did. We gave everybody an equal voice. But we came under a lot of flack and criticism from the Course community from people who said the Foundation for Inner Peace was never going to have their copyright overturned. They said we were just going to cause a whole bunch of distractions and people criticized us – some severely. I still think we pegged it pretty well. The copyright did get overturned, and now there are these other versions of A Course in Miracles. People study different and multiple versions of A Course in Miracles.
We still retain that neutrality. At the Conference coming up in Los Angeles at the end of May, The Foundation for Inner Peace co-President Robert Rosenthal will be there. Robert Perry of the Circle of Atonement that publishes the Complete and Annotated Edition will be there. CIMS who publishes the Original Edition is going to be there. We are bringing everybody together. We give all these people with all these different editions a voice at the same venue, and I think that's kind of a remarkable kind of thing.
When Community Miracles Center started in March of 1987, we were $11,000 in debt because I had lent $11,000 to the Community Miracles Center of my own money. Some people think Rev. Larry gave the money to the Community Miracles Center. That is not so. Let's bust that myth right now. Rev. Larry never lent any money to the Community Miracles Center. I lent $11,000 to the Community Miracles Center. And I got paid back! It took almost 12 years for the CMC to pay me back the $11,000, but they did pay me interest during that time! I think it was a small amount of interest, but I got paid interest all throughout the loan and I was entirely paid back. I want that to be clear. I always want to thank the Community Miracles Center for that.
Now right here, right now, on our 33rd birthday, we are sitting on top of operating for three solid years in the black. We've had three pretty good years financially. Remember we have Conferences going on so it brings in a lot of income, and probably a lot of organizations wouldn't share this information as publicly as we do. Last year our income, the amount of money we took in, was $254,913.85. That's more than a quarter of a million dollars. That's not a big corporation, but it's not a small one either so Community Miracles Center is a mid-size company, organization. Funds and energy flow through us and green energy flows through us. Our net worth now is higher than it's ever been in our history. Our net worth right now is $105,266.00. You can just think of that as the financial cushion that we have right now which is really amazing. Considering that we started $11,000 in debt 33 years ago, to now be sitting on $105,266.00 is pretty good!
You know we got this Conference coming up in Los Angeles in May and I feel it creating. It's not just Rev. Kelly and myself who are creating it but all the people coming are creating it in their minds. They are thinking about it. They are thinking about who they are going to see. They are thinking about being in L.A. at the Omni Hotel. They are thinking about what tourist excursions they want to go on. The Presenters are thinking about what they are going to say and what their teaching is going to be. All that consciousness is literally manifesting that. It's going to be fantastic. I just feel it's going to be fantastic.
As far as moving forward into the future, we are going to keep doing Conferences. I think we've seen that is one of our special functions, it's our special function to do that. We can do it. We have the ability to do it. We have the consciousness that says we can do it, so we are going to do it. We do it! That's really amazing and I see that as growing and continuing.
I see these Conferences as getting larger eventually as the Miracles community continues to grow. We will continue to be established as the organization that holds these Conferences. We are established, but even more so in this second generation. The legitimacy of that will just continue to grow and people feeling comfortable to come continually to CMC events and Conferences because they've heard about them for years. They are good value for the money. They know it's an amazing experience so that's what I see for the Community Miracles Center.
There has been a lot of talk something within the A Course in Miracles community for many years, but it's really picked up lately. I believe that A Course in Miracles is becoming sort of the "Bible" for the next millennium. It's very well respected. It's very well respected and it's been around forty, fifty years. It's still highly thought of. Of course there are people who criticize it, but there is more talk and a little bit in this new book that came out that I'm reading, The Theology of Love - Reimagining Christianity through "A Course in Miracles." I know the man who wrote this, Richard Smoley. He's a true religion scholar, a theology scholar. He also is presenting this idea that Christianity is kind of "baked into" our culture but the Biblical version leaves many people lacking in a lot of ways. However, people really like what they read when they see A Course in Miracles. He feels, and I've heard this expressed elsewhere, that A Course in Miracles is right there ready to become the Christian spiritual source book of our culture. He feels it's already becoming that. Many other people feel it's already becoming that.
You know Community Miracles Center is sitting right there at the pinnacle of this. If A Course in Miracles is going to become the spiritual "Bible" sourcebook of the 21st century and beyond, the Community Miracles Center is going to become the church, the spiritual organization, to carry that forward because we embrace everybody. We have very definite opinions about things but we accept everyone else's opinions. We are this big tent organization. That is what I think is going to happen. That is what I think is the future for the CMC.
A Course in Miracles says, Rev. Steve read this earlier, "I seek a future different from the past." (OrEd.WkBk.314) I think when people say this, the first interpretation is "I seek a future different for myself, from the past that I have had." That is one way to look at that, but as I have been studying A Course in Miracles for all the years I've been studying it, I think it means way more than that. "I seek a future different from the past." (OrEd.WkBk.314) means I really seek a different world. I seek a really different experience of life of the world – an experience without sickness and death, an experience without war, an experience without violence, an experience without school shootings. If you look at the statistics, that is indeed what is happening and more and more people are aware of that.
I think that A Course in Miracles, Community Miracles Center, stands right at the pinnacle of all that evolution. We are going to continue because we are continualy going forward. We have the first generation behind us now and we are heading into the second generation.
You know years ago, 15 or 20 years ago, we were having problems with our Board of Directors. It was kind of a mess. We've been through several messes and I was advised by some people, who I'm sure meant well, but they'd tell me just to "Leave the organization and form a new one. Just quit Community Miracles Center and let them stew alone, while you form a new organization. Your people will follow you."
That probably would have been true, but I got the guidance at the time, "No," that's not what the Holy Spirit wants because there will come a time the fact that we have a three decade plus history – that longevity – will be so valuable that we can't even fathom that value. That is what I think we are experiencing now. The fact that we have 33 years, what we've gone through, and yet we've still prospered and stayed on the cutting edge of technology and the internet, that is a tremendous value to build on. We are going to continue to build because that is what I feel the energy of Community Miracles Center is.
I want to thank all the ministers who spoke today, the great Board of Directors that we have who are: Rev. Vincent Fuqua, Rev. Peter Graham, Rev. Rudy Colombini, Rev. Tedosio Samora, Rev. Dusa Althea Rammessirsingh, and of course thank you Rev. Kelly Hallock up in Washington State. Thank you to all the newer ministers who are around and stay with us. We are going places. This movement is going places. We are healing this world and it's awesome!
It's awesome being the "Grand Founder" of this organization. Thank you very much. (applause)
All of the ministers who spoke that day were ordained by the Community Miracles Center as noted at the beginning of each of their talks. Rev. Tony Ponticello is the Co-Founder and President of the CMC. Rev. Rudy Colombini is the Vice President and Rev. Peter Graham is the Secretary of the Board of Directors. Rev. Dusa Althea Rammessirsingh, Rev. Vincent Fuqua, and Rev. Tedosio Samora are also Board Members of the CMC. ♥
POB 470341
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This article appeared in the April 2020 (Vol. 34 No. 2) issue of Miracles Monthly. Miracles Monthly is published by Community Miracles Center in San Francisco, CA. CMC is supported solely by people just like you who: become CMC Supporting Members, Give Donations and Purchase Books and Products through us.