The Wild Reed: I Am One With the Beloved

I share this morning two expressions of wisdom and beauty.

The first is my adaptation of Lesson 124 of A Course in Miracles – Volume II: Workbook for Students: “Let me remember I am one with God.”

The second is the Jake Nava-directed music video for Tina Turner’s 2000 single, “Whatever You Need” (from her 1999 album, Twenty-Four Seven).

As you’ll see and hear, both the reading from A Course in Miracles and the lyrics of Tina’s song share a number of spiritual insights and truths.

I should note that the original Course in Miracles text uses the metaphor of father for the Divine Presence. I prefer and use the metaphor of lover as expressed in the phrase “Beloved One.” As with the previous adaptations I’ve shared (see here, here and here), if this one resonates with you, feel free to make it even more meaningful by using your preferred images and words: “God,” “Allah,” “Lord,” “Jesus,” “Holy One,” “Mother.” . . . I trust that they all serve as different pathways leading up the same holy mountain or, to use another metaphor, different gateways leading inwards to our center, the deepest part of which we all share. For as Henri Nouwen so beautifully reminds us: “In the depths of my being, I meet my fellow humans with whom I share [all things].”

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Let me remember I am one with God.

Today let us give thanks for our Identity in God, the Beloved One of our Soul. Our home is safe, protection guaranteed in all we do, power and strength available to us in all our undertakings. We can fail in nothing. Everything we touch takes on a shining light that blesses and that heals. At one with the Beloved and with the universe we go our way rejoicing, with the thought that the Beloved goes everywhere with us.

How holy are our minds! And everything we see reflects the holiness within the mind at one with God and with itself. How easily do errors disappear, and death give place to everlasting life. Our shining footprints point the way to truth, for the Beloved One is our Companion as we walk the world a little while. And those who come to follow us will recognize the way because the light we carry stays behind, yet still remains with us as we walk on.

What we receive is our eternal gift to those who follow after, and to those who went before or stayed with us a while. And God, Who loves us with the equal love in which we were created, smiles on us and offers us the happiness we gave.

Today we will not doubt His Love for us, nor question His protection and His care. No meaningless anxieties can come between our faith and our awareness of the Beloved’s Presence. We are one with Him today in recognition and rememberance. We feel the Beloved in our hearts. Our minds contain His Thoughts; our eyes behold His loveliness in all we look upon. Today we see only the loving and the lovable.

We see it in appearances of pain, and pain gives way to peace. We see it in the frantic, in the sad and the distressed, the lonely and afraid, who are restored to the tranquility and peace of mind in which they were created. And we see it in the dying and the dead as well, restoring them to life. All this we see because we saw it first within ourselves.

No miracle can ever be denied to those who know that they are one with God. No thought of theirs but has the power to heal all forms of suffering in anyone, in times gone by and times as yet to come, as easily as in the ones who walk beside them now. Their thoughts are timeless, and apart from distance as apart from time.

We join in this awareness as we say that we are one with the Beloved. For in these words we say as well that we are saved and healed; that we can save and heal accordingly. We have accepted, and we now would give. . . . Today we would experience ourselves at one with the Beloved One, so that the world may share our recognition of reality. In our experience the world is freed. As we deny our separation from he Beloved, the world is healed along with us.

Peace be to you today. Secure your peace by practicing awareness you are one with your Creator, as He is with you. Sometime today, whenever it seems best, devote a half an hour to the thought that you are one with God. This is our first attempt at an extended period for which we give no rules nor special words to guide your meditation. We will trust God’s Voice to speak as He sees fit today, certain He will not fail. Abide with God this half an hour. God will do the rest.

Your benefit will not be less if you believe that nothing happens. You may not be ready to accept the gain today. Yet sometime, somewhere, it will come to you, nor will you fail to recognize it when it dawns with certainty upon your mind. This half an hour will be framed in gold, with every minute like a diamond set around the mirror that this exercise will offer you. And you will see the Beloved’s face upon it, in reflection of your own.

Perhaps today, perhaps tomorrow, you will see your own transfiguration in the glass this holy half an hour will hold out to you, to look upon yourself. When you are ready you will find it there, within your mind and waiting to be found. You will remember then the thought to which you gave this half an hour, thankfully aware no time was ever better spent.

Perhaps today, perhaps tomorrow, you will look into this glass, and understand the sinless light you see belongs to you; the loveliness you look on is your own. Count this half hour as your gift to God, in certainty that His return will be a sense of love you cannot understand, a joy too deep for you to comprehend, a sight too holy for the body’s eyes to see. And yet you can be sure someday, perhaps today, perhaps tomorrow, you will understand and comprehend and see.

Add further jewels to the golden frame that holds the mirror offered you today, by hourly repeating to yourself:

Let me remember I am one with God,
at one with the world and all within it,
and at one with my Self,
in everlasting holiness and peace.

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Now, it might seem a stretch for some to find similarities between the above text from A Course in Miracles and a song by the Queen of Rock’n’Roll, Tina Turner. But to my ears, mind and heart they are there.

Turner was a practicing Nichiren Buddhist and Buddhism holds that reincarnation is part of the human/spiritual experience. Turner most resolutely explores reincarnation in her 1984 song "I Might Have Been Queen," but she also does so in her later song “Whatever You Need” which is about two souls coming together in successive lifetimes.

These souls recognize that only love is ultimately real, and that the sacred source of all things (called “God” my many) is Love. Their identity is in this Love, a Love that illuminates the truth that we are all one. Moving through life with this truth and the illuniating vision it gives, ensures that, in the words of A Course in Miracles, “everything we touch takes on a shining light that blesses and heals.”

In what other lives have I known your kiss?
And what forgotten moments have I felt like this?
The way you touch me, I come undone
You know me more than anyone
Whatever you want

In what other lives have I touched your face?
And what words did we whisper
in a strange forbidden place?
To be with you, is to find myself
We’re two of a kind, you and I
I couldn’t love anyone else

You are my beginning, my end
You are my lover, my friend
In this life, in this time

Whatever you want, whatever you need
I will be right here waiting
Whatever you want
Whatever you need
I will be right here waiting, yeah, yeah, yeah

In what other lives, did I feel your skin?
And when exactly did I breathe you in?
Feel like I’ve known you for a thousand years
You’re so familiar to me and there is no fear

Watch the sun go down, yeah, yeah
My past and future in you are bound, oh yeah
I watch as time moves on, I’m alive and strong
And when I’m with you, there’s no right, no wrong

– “Whatever You Need”
Written by Russell Courtenay & Harriet Roberts
Recorded by Tina Turner for her
1999 album, Twenty-Four Seven

The Wild Reed

Thursday, July 09, 2026

I Am One With the Beloved

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