Strangers in Paradox

By Carol Christenson

We humans are not strangers to paradise. Only in its apparent reflection do we feel strange.

A paradox is false because it goes against itself in fact. How is this different from saying that we are spiritual beings having a human experience when we can't know anything except our current (human) experience? We think it is real. Is it? If not, then it is a paradox; it is false because it goes against itself in fact.

These offerings, gathered from A Course in Miracles and teachers like Eckhart Tolle, are simply ways to record feelings that seemed paradoxical at the time. But paradoxes dont exist; only reality does. Everything else is a chosen adventure.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press
• Release date: Jun 16, 2011
• ISBN: 9781452534282

Carol Christenson

Having lived between inner love and outer fear for most of my life made the pursuit of paradox necessary for survival. Carol Christenson chose early retirement from an accounting arena she shared with her husband, to live in the desert Southwest, providing the time to pursue her real interest: wondering how life works.

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Contents

Shhhhhh……

Ground Covers

The Saturday Before Easter

Religion

Rigidity

Reflections

Alchemy

Work In Progress

A Linear Circle

Ghost

Silent Tears and Quiet Storms

A Master

RSVP

Past Angles

Missing Person

Does Math Have Rhythm?

The Argument

Firewater

The Leap of Faith

Question

And That Is Enough

Butterfly Boredom

Breath of Life

Cycles

Old Souls

Clear

The Visitor

Possible

Litter

The Art of Be-ing

Costumes

Huh?

Dreams

Going Within

Light Happens

Co-Dependency

The Enchantress

Definitions

Invisible Circle

On Being Centered

Starry Starry Night

My Past

Zero Point

Holograms

Eight

Emerging

The Pain Cycle

The Map

Neglect

Overtime

Responsibility

Peace: For Heaven’s Sake

Gravity

Creation-Evolution

On Time Control

Meditation

The Call

Veils

Mirrors

Request

On Holograms

On Re-union

Womb

The Magician

How To Heal World

The Truth

You

Whale Song

The Perch

The Covenant

Incarnations

The Pond

Perfect Balance

Presence

Mute

On Change

Choice

Dimensions

Shadows

Just Wondering

On Super Conductivity

Alive or Living?

Inner Critic

Victory

Fear of Drowning

On ‘Me’

On Truth

The Co-Creator

Designer Stuff

Power Outage

The Bridge of Faith

Roadblock

Life

The Universal Path

Eternal-ness

A Truth

One Candle Power

Memories

Peace

Waves

Unity

Caught in Time

Advice

The Debut

Walking Dead

Humble

Re-pair Work

Is …is

Television

Tornado

Master Builder

Immortality

Awareness

Timeless

Duality

The Masks

Auto-Immune Disorder

Trinity

New Word Order

Life

Evolution

Patterns

Broken Connection

Sacred Circle

The Gap

The Cloud

Chaos?

Narrow Gate

Walking on Water

The Hug

A Rainbow

On Love

Fly Fishing

Please

Middle

Is God Dead?

The Second Coming

Corners

Surrender

Fog

Whole

Names

Metal of Honor

Doubt

Cinderella Revisited

Inside Out

Lessons

Caught in My Cocoon

Warning

Boundaries

The Best Defense

Evolution

The Quickening

Awakening

Reunited

Fire and Light

Who Are You?

Definition

Sustenance

Compassion

The Altar

The Choice

Shift

The Fall

Underground Spring

On Middles

Living

Mirrors

Ears to Hear

Denial

Suffering

Self-Worth

New Year’s Eve

The Illusion

Bridgeless

Midnight Awakening

Creation

Co-Creator

Moss

Choice

Above Rubies

9-11

Return to Co-Creation

Just Sit

Rebirth

Ebb Tide

Cremation

Mandelbrot…

With Age Comes Wisdom

Reflections

Sabotage

Free Choice

02/22/02

The Art of Completion

High Noon

Re-Creation

Cocoon

Fireflies

Will Power

Mirrors and Reflections

Sacred Scars

The Picnic

Here and Now

Duality?

What is a Warrior?

The Prostitute

Coma

Independence

Change of Heart

Naked

Taste of Life

Words

Through the Looking Glass

Temperment

Realignment

Trinity

Inclusive

I Am-ness

Burnished Life

Manifestation

Blowing Smoke

Silence

Savor the Wine

Dear 2011:

Core Belief

Entering Now

For the Sake of Time

Sanity

Not Yet

Arrival

The Wild Ride

Holy Ghost

Understanding

The Connection

Fickle

Letting Go

Youth

What Price Love?

Imposter

Dawn

Sands of Time

End of the Line

A Real Paradox

Refusing Re-runs

Quantum Misunderstanding

Left Behind

E Equals MC Squared

Knowing You

The End?

A Haiku Postscript

Shhhhhh……

I want to know my God!

I cried, aloud, to the rising sun

I want…

I whispered, quietly, to the stars

I want…

I sobbed, desperately, into my pillow

Finally, a response:

Then, be quiet.

Ground Covers

Gazania and galaxies

grow toward each other

seeking to cover their respective ground

meeting, embracing, uniting

until all one sees are flowers…and stars

The Saturday Before Easter

Here I am

          caught between Good Friday and Easter Sunday

Removed from the cross

          and not yet risen from the dead

Like a caterpillar

          who, in its cocoon,

          am allowing all I’ve ever been

          to dissolve into all I will become

                    … tomorrow

Religion

My poetry has been my religion

My link to Truth

My connection to God, whatever It is

I pour my life upon pages

          using words

                    like a rosary

                    like a mantra

                    like a chant

          …repetition finally burning through ignorance

          until I see no reflection

Until what I write brings no tears

Because there is no space for them to form

And no time for them to appear

Rigidity

Time-space

is very pliable

before it molds itself into mass

with a face

…and a name

Reflections

Where in the world is Everywhere?

Is it in this world and beyond?

When in the world was it born?

Before the beginning dawned?

Why in the world did it come?

To give to world time-space?

Who in the world called it forth?

Ah…whomever wants to see Its face!

Alchemy

Now

…is a moment without boundaries

Space

…without time

God

…without a mirror

Yet

…to get here, one must traverse

          limitations

          clocks

          and reflections

Life

…is the path from nowhere to nowhere

          covering somewhere in its trek

Work In Progress

I am the inventor

of me

Each day I add

to my-ness

reforming it as I deem appropriate

I will never complete me

Done is a contradiction to forever

A Linear Circle

The shortest distance between two points

is not always a straight line

Sometime, it is no line at all

Ghost

There is more to leaving

          than leaving

If one leaves behind what should have been

          either taken or destroyed

          one must return

                    or be haunted by the ghost of oversight

Silent Tears and Quiet Storms

My tears have gathered silently

Even I did not notice the clouds collecting in my life…

          birds still sang

          the sun still rose

          flowers, fragrant, still nodded to me as I passed

Life was beautiful

          but for the quiet storm forming in