My dear friends:
Below is the announcement from the Foundation for A Course in Miracles about our beloved Teacher Ken Wapnick’s passing yesterday. Ken was the most beautiful, kind, generous-to-all person I have ever known. With deep sadness as well as infinite Love and gratitude for all he has given us that lives on to lead us home, I offer these interviews I did with him over the last several years. May we all grow into the certainty (through moment-to-moment practice) that our all-loving, forgiven connection has never, and can never, be broken! https://www.foraysinforgiveness.com/interviews/interviews-kenneth-wapnick
Love always,
Susan
Kenneth Wapnick
It is with the utmost sorrow that we inform you of the death of Dr. Kenneth Wapnick on Friday December 27, 2013. He died peacefully at home with his beloved wife Gloria and family at his side. The family will have a private service and plans are being made for a forthcoming public memorial.
“There is no death. The Son of God is free.” (W-pI.163)
“Teach not that I died in vain. Teach rather that I did not die by demonstrating that I live in you.” (T-11.VI.7:3-4)
Thanks for those interviews with Ken, Susan, as well as your insightful commentary as well… I suppose we’ll never know – on this level – the profound impact that Ken has had – and will continue to have – on the lives of those he’s touched … until we look back from the end of time and see it all played out in an unimaginably vast script of forgiving, undoing and Atonement. 🙂
Is Ken really dead? Whoa, I think I just spotted him riding that “arc of golden light”…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8stdVzvijD0
(Thomas Bergersen – Sun)
“Beyond the body, beyond the sun and stars, past everything you see and yet somehow familiar, is an arc of golden light that stretches as you look into a great and shining circle. And all the circle fills with light before your eyes. The edges of the circle disappear, and what is in it is no longer contained at all. The light expands and covers everything, extending to infinity forever shining and with no break or limit anywhere. Within it everything is joined in perfect continuity. Nor is it possible to imagine that anything could be outside, for there is nowhere that this light is not.”
Hi Susan!
Hi Carroll:
I think I saw him, too! Thank you so much for reaching out, and much love to you always!
Susan
Bruce: As I just wrote to a reader in regard to sharing our experience of Ken’s extraordinary teaching and presence: “I hope in the coming days, weeks, months, and years that we continue to do so, while really allowing his teachings and continuing presence to permeate the way we live our lives. Allowing us to come to see everyone and thing the same, and respond in all circumstances only from our one heart.” Love to you, Susan
Dear friends,
In Belgium there are not really much people who are familiar with Ken and who, therefore, would not understand my deep grievance. So it is good to relate with you all. Thank you all for your loving support of the Foundation and for your blessings for Ken and his family.
Since Ken was for all of us our spiritual father, it feels good to be together with so many brothers and sisters.
Peace and love,
Joerie
Thank you Bro!
Dear Joerie:
Thank you for reaching out. Ken was indeed our spiritual father. Connecting with one another in our grief is very comforting. I hope we can stay connected as we eventually move on, learning to truly integrate all he has taught us into the very fabric of the way we live our lives and treat each other.
Love to you always,
Susan
Hello Susan,
Thank you so much for directing us back to your interviews. I received inspiration from each at the time I first read them and even more inspiration this time around. I look forward to your posts and when they arrive in my inbox they are quickly enjoyed and read more than once!
Much love to you for sharing your journey with us!
Anne
(Minden, NV)
I am so sad and surprised…what was wrong? I am so struggling with how advanced I saw him for “not being a body” — did he think he was ready — the ACIM and foundation was ready for his early departure…I just thought I would make it out to Cali before this…I spent 14 years studying with him in Roscoe…I am just….
I was at his workshop with Daniel Hall a few years ago in Temecula. Since I am from finance I don’t have any friends who would attend such an odd workshop.
I don’t fit in well with the New Age scene as well. I guess I am too highly conflicted. LOL.
I asked Ken to sign my ACIM at the end. He noticed that I have scribbled notes in the front blank pages as I studied it over the years.
It is an ugly thing since I used to carry it around shopping when I did each of the lessons over the 300 odd days of whatever it took to actually finish the thing, which I did, painfully at times. The sweat from the tropics in Puerto Rico have peeled the blue cover off.
I scribbled notes all over the white paper underneath the blue cover. I wrote whatever had impact on my thinking as I studied over the year.
At the top of the second inner page I had written ” Do Nothing.” Professor Wapnick laughed as he read that, circled it in the red pen I had handed him, drew a smiley face and signed the book.
“To Scott, in love & peace, -Ken.”
The experience had a big impact on me. I thought it interesting that those two words stood out for him as well.
BTW. I am a pretty horrible student of this stuff. I find myself pissed off all the time. It is like studying for the Olympics of “hot potato.” I was amazed at how unusually peaceful Ken was. He was the most, or one of the most, peaceful people I have met. Shaking his hand was like sticking my mitt into an electrical “peace” socket. That was a very strange experience.
Dear Susan ~
I’ve loved and deeply appreciated your interviews with Ken through the years, as well as your video collaborations with Bruce and Lyn Corona. I was off line all weekend until last night, when I received emails from several of my course community friends and teachers. It is comforting to grieve together and read the tributes and the ways his demonstration of loving kindness, humor and the truth of what we was experienced by those of us who have been transformed by his presence in our lives.
I am forever indebted and deeply love my dear brother, Ken’s longtime student and Course teacher Jamie Romkey, for creating both a former online community that flourished for several years and became a home for many course students who loved Ken’s work. I am also deeply indebted and deeply love my dear brother Bernard Groom, who lives in France, and created another online ACIM village for us to gather in, when Jamie closed his site.
Thank you for making this tribute page available to us.
Below you’ll find two postings about the news of Ken’s transition pasted . The first is David Hoffmeister’s post:
Beloved One,
Let us pause an instant today to remember all the Love that our brother Ken shared with the whole Sonship before his passing from the appearances of this world, and all the Love he continues to share far beyond this time-space cosmos. Along with Helen and Bill and Judy, Ken ushered into the world A Course In Miracles. Now as its curriculum comes brightly into full awareness we all rejoice and give thanks together.
I love you Ken.
Forever and ever in deep appreciation for every loving step in opening to God’s Love,
~David
Next is from our long time Mill Valley CA Monday night course study group teacher David Hillier-Davidson:
The figure in the dream we knew as Ken Wapnick has left the dream. He played out his part in the Holy Spirits plan for the awakening of God’s Son. His part included a roll in bringing A Course in Miracles to the world, which taught us many things about Truth and the illusion that seems so real to us.
Hear are a few thoughts Ken might want us to remember now: Birth is not a beginning and death is not an end. Nothing real can be threatened and nothing unreal exists. And of course; how to distinguish between what is real and what is an illusion. If it changes it’s not real!
For me it is very comforting to remember ideas from A Course in Miracles like those above at this time. It allows me to see that I am still as God created me, one with all that is, and surely one with my brother Ken Wapnick. Nothing in the dream that included Ken is real, only the love God shared with us through him is true. The love that shined through Ken is present now and can never change.
As I am fond of saying, we are love, and anyone who is in our thoughts is part of that love. It’s nice to have you around Ken!
Being Fearless, Choosing Love
David
Someone from Bernard Groom’s ACIM village site posted Helen’s Requiem as a tribute for Ken.
Requiem
You came but for a while. When Jesus called
You were content to go. For who would stay
to watch the dreary cycle of the nights
Turn coldly gray with each return of day?
This world was not your home. Would God allow
His child to wander long without a home
Which He Himself makes bright? Your tired eyes
Closed gratefully when He at last said, “Come.”
You have forgot all this. All thoughts that hurt,
All sorrow, all regret, have ceased to be
In your remembrance. He Who called to you
Has loosened all your chains and set you free.
Because I love you I would have you go.
Because I love Him I can scarcely weep.
Because He loves you glory goes with you,
And in that glory you but seem to sleep.
He came in mercy. Let me give Him thanks
You stayed with us until you saw Him smile
And tell you it is finished. He will come
For me that way in just a little while.
It is for this I wait, in certainty
That He Who made the stars will not forget.
I will be glad to see Him smile at me,
Or if He choose, to wait a little yet.
What a beautiful remembrance, Michelle–thank you!
Kathleen, Anne, Doc, and Michelle, I have responded to your comments in an email message, since that’s the form I received this in.
Thank you all again for reaching out. I’m deeply touched by your outpouring of love and appreciation for our dear teacher. I know his loving-to-all presence and teaching will continue to guide us to all we ever really wanted. Love always, Susan
I have my wife to thank for encouraging me to go to a Ken workshop, when he was in Atlanta for several days; after that experience I began to write to him, quite regularly. He always replied and was sure to send his love to my wife, whom he had also met.
Ken showed me, and all of us, that after the body’s usefulness is over, we lay it down. There is no greater gift than to demonstrate a life well lived with purposefulness and love. He did that and was complete in the work he had to do here in the dream.
Au revoir, dear friend and brother. I miss you already.
Jerry-Yah’Kov
Thank you all for your loving comments about Kenneth. I was feeling so alone knowing that he no longer is in this world. He often said that no one dies without his own consent. So he must have known it was okay to go.
Kenneth gave us so much in his teachings and left us so much to draw from now. And really none are alone with Jesus to hold our hand and for us to hold each other’s hands. He once said to me “Julia remember not to take your ego too seriously and if you can’t do the course just be kind”. Okay Ken I’ll do my best. And thank you for you Ken…….what a privilege to have crossed paths.
Hi Susan,
After the initial shock at the news of Ken’s passing I understood he has completed his forgiveness lessons and had gone home. Then came the understanding that the best way to honor him was to do it ourselves and join him.
I am so grateful for the time we spent in Temecula last March. I am grateful for your devotion to the Course. I am grateful for all the work Ken has done and the relentless way he kept on remindng us how to practice this material and the huge quantity of work he has given us.
I don’t really feel like he has gone as all I have to do is pick up one of his books or play a cd or video.
The love and gratidude I feel for him is endless.
Blessing to all,
Angela
Everyone:
I am so very touched by the outpouring of love and appreciation for Ken in your comments. So many have shared the ways in which they have corresponded with Ken, listened to Ken, visited with Ken. The ways in which his very presence has helped us learn to forgive ourselves. Your stories are so comforting. Ken treated every one of us with the same unconditional love, because we are the same. May we grow through our practice into that awareness. May we honor him by living his work and allowing our minds to heal.
Right now, I am remembering Ken’s gentle :)!
Love to all!
Below is a tribute from one of the villagers at Bernard Grooms site, where Bernard has put a tribute page, however, not all the tributes are in that section alone so if you click on comments you’ll see all the recent ones.
I so appreciate reading other’s personal recollections.
aloha
joining in on the loving tributes to our brother ken
here’s one of his key teachings/poems:
TURN TO THE STATELY CALM WITHIN
WHENEVER YOU ARE TEMPTED TO HOLD AN UNKIND THOUGHT OF ANYONE,
TURN TO THE STATELY CALM WITHIN
WHENEVER YOU ARE TEMPTED TO MAKE ANOTHER PERSON THE OBJECT OF YOUR NEED,
TURN TO THE STATELY CALM WITHIN
WHENEVER YOU ARE TEMPTED TO FEEL JUSTIFIED IN YOUR JUDGMENT OF OTHERS,
TURN TO THE STATELY CALM WITHIN
WHENEVER YOU ARE TEMPTED TO HOLD A THOUGHT ABOUT SOMEONE YOU WOULD NOT ALSO SEE IN EVERYONE,
TURN TO THE STATELY CALM WITHIN
KEN WAPNICK
am thankful for the many years and many workshops and many writings and many smiles ken shared with all of us
he is with us all in so many ways
am thankful the news was shared here
am thankful for so many who knew him and love him gather here
may we all remember to turn to the stately calm within
love to all
aloha and mahalo
(ken would often suggest “go have a cookie!”)
I’ve just received the news of Ken’s passing. I just wanted to pay tribute to one who has with his unflagging faith and deep understanding of ACIM has been my mentor albeit via written word, video and audio for the past 7 years. I’ve read almost everything I can about ACIM but always knew in my being that the voice and words of Ken were centred and reflected truth. Of course he was a leading light in this one mind and his teaching will always be available to help us awaken from this dream. His work is really just the beginning for many of us. Words cannot describe how his labour of love and his faithful contribution is deeply appreciated and will always be cherished. God bless.
Thank you, Christina. Beautifully stated, and SO true for us all!
It is appropriate to feel sad and I do!!
Thank you so much Ken for the legacy you have left us!!
God bless your family and close friends and the wider Course Community. We will feel your loss acutely!! Thank you for being my mentor and even though I never met and shared with you personally….my friend.
Much love
Elizabeth
You can imagine my sadness upon hearing of the death of my beloved teacher, mentor and dear friend, Ken Wapnick. Tears flow as I write this, tears of sadness, tears of love, and, yes, even tears of joy, in appreciation of how this man, who, for me, has clarified to crystal clarity A Course in Miracles teaching and path, has impacted my life in seeking and finding my direct connection with my inner Teacher of Love.
I am so glad for the way the announcement has been offered, speaking words that I know Ken would be well pleased with. I am equally pleased in this and feel a deeper commitment to living and practicing and teaching through my example of kindness, clarity and compassion the truth and beauty of the teaching and path of A Course in Miracles, offered by that symbol of a Love beyond this world, namely Jesus. I have taken his hand and in so doing I listen to my inner Guide, the Holy Spirit, to look at my ego identification and smile with a gentle kindness of heart at all the cries for love, my own and those of all my brothers and sisters.
Gratitude, gratitude and more gratitude for Ken and all he has offered and all he has left to us of the gifts of his writings and recorded workshops.
Love and blessings to all his family and friends and to the spirit of love and clarity Ken so impeccably exemplified.
So much love,
Norman
I’m so grateful, Ken,
That I can still hear your voice
Whenever I choose.
That I can still see your face
And have my “aha” moments
As your words wash over me.
Thank you for the clarity,
The love,
The humor.
Thank you for changing my life,
For helping me know
“Nothing happened.”
With love,
Maggie
Thank you, for your beautiful remembrance of our beloved teacher who has helped us really understand how to practice forgiveness, and whose presence of uninterrupted Love for all continues to teach and inspire.
And thank you for your lovely poem, Maggie! It really captures his presence and teaching!
In Memory of Ken.
How do I thank someone who has been my daily mentor and
teacher for over 20 years.The understanding and knowledge that I have received is beyond measure and I will be forever grateful to Ken for this.
His voice is with us always. Thank you for being such a devoted and inspiring teacher. With much love Julie
This outpouring is so beautiful. And the interviews …
The amount of life’s work he left was staggering, but more than anything else, I remember his kindness, wry sense of humor, dignity.
Thank you, Carol. Very well said. Such a volume of illuminating work, Ken’s left us. And, as you say, that kindness, sense of humor, and dignity. He treated every single one of us like we were his long, lost best friend. And there was this playfulness, this joy. Such a graceful man!
Ken, I am saddened by your passing, but I know “to be absent from the body, is to be present with the Lord”. You are home. I have never met you, but I feel so connected with you, and all you have taught me in “A course of Miracles”, your gentle personality and loving kindness is felt through your recordings and books. So my dear brother, I will not say goodbye, but my “brother” So long until we meet again. Thank you so much for your contributions.
Thank you for sharing your experience of Ken’s amazing presence and powerful, healing teaching, Maggie!
Thank you ken for all your teaching, your book the meaning of forgiveness has been a blessing and a gift.
Très cher Ken, tu es et resteras à jamais dans mon cœur. Tu représentes ce qu’il m’a été donné de rencontrer de plus pur dans ce rêve. Tu m’as accompagnée, dirigée, guidée à travers tes vidéos, tes séminaires, tes écrits. Tu es un véritable cadeau du Ciel.
Soi bénit cher frère de mon cœur pour tout le bien que tu as semé dans mon esprit et celui de millier d’autres.
Ta lumière a traversé le temps et l’espace et s’est jointe à Dieu. Je suis tes pas, tes mots en toute sécurité maintenant, car je ne vais plus seule, tu vis dans mon esprit avec Jésus à tes côtés. Je viens vers vous avec grande joie, mes frères. J’amène avec moi tous mes frères et soeurs dans mon coeur. Je ne jugerai rien ni personne. Je m’engage à aimer comme Dieu aime Son Fils, entièrement.
Grand merci!
Pour toujours avec vous, avec Dieu et avec tous. Amen!
Merci beaucoup pour votre expression sincère de l’amour pour notre maître bien-aimé!
(Hope I am expressing my appreciation for your comments correctly in your beautiful language.)