Paper, plastic or the teeming dazzle of life its own self
“By figuring things out, by labeling them, we restrict what we let into our awareness, we block the field of infinite potentiality that wants to come forth through us.”– From my book, E-Cubed
A couple years ago, I was invited (for free) on a cruise to Bermuda with three sexy chefs from the Bravo show, Top Chef.
There were private cooking classes, Quick Fire challenges and meet and greets with bad boy celebrity chefs Ash Fulk, Angelo Sosa and Spike Mendelsohn.
And while this travel writing assignment certainly illustrates how amazingly awesome things started happening when I began giving up meaningless ideas, I’m telling you this story because of the cardboard cutouts. That’s me in the picture with the cardboard cutouts of the three guests of honor.
You also see cardboard cutouts at the movies—Kevin Hart and The Rock, for example, are currently at my local theater posing for their movie, Jumanji. College basketball fans often hold up cardboard cutouts or big heads, as they’re known, to distract the opposing team.
So what does that have to do with Lesson 13 from a Course in Miracles?
The purpose of the first 50 lessons is to unravel all thoughts that block our good. To help us realize that everything we see is a cardboard cutout. It’s a picture of the past frozen in time, serving as a stand-in for the real thing.
We decided long ago that life is this certain way and that’s all we can see.
Our crafty brains literally reconstruct empty shells, caricatures of the teeming life that exists in every now moment.
We look at the people in our lives and don’t really see them, not as they are now. We look around at the world we inhabit and see nothing but the cardboard cutout of our story. The invisible grace, the never-ending abundance is invisible to us.
I’ve seen cardboard cutouts of Angelo Sosa and I’ve seen the real thing.
Believe me, the cardboard cutouts pale in comparison.
Pam Grout is the author of 19 books including E-Squared, E-Cubed, Thank & Grow Rich and her new book, Art & Soul,Reloaded: A Year-Long Apprenticeship to Summon the Muses and Ignite Your Daring, Audacious, Creative Side.