For Ken

With every word, gesture and smile
It was his purpose to teach that we are one
That nothing in this world of devastation is true
That we are holy, forgiven and united with Him forever
That our true nature is one of love and peace.

Friends, let us be still together

And go forward now with hearts and hands and feet
To teach the world that love and joy
Lie in each one of us.

Brigid

I was very shocked and saddened to hear that Kenneth had died. For about 20 years now Ken has been my spiritual teacher and the most loving mentor I ever allowed myself to experience, I hardly can express my deep gratitude for this wonderful. precious gift of his guidance and companionship along my journey with the Course.

I have been several times at the Foundation in Roscoe, and these times have been the most stunning and transforming experiences of my life. which brought me deeper and deeper into the process with the Course. Gloria, I remember once (many, many years ago) you and Ken saying to me: "Tell the Austrians that the brain and the mind are not the same!"

All the following years, I appreciated the gorgeous contact with Ken through fax letters which helped me so much. I didn't always want to hear what he told me, and I didn't always follow his advice (at least not right away, with some issues it took years), and I was very stubborn and very impatient. By means of Kenneth's consistent demonstration of unconditional love, his gentle patience, and his sweet sense of humor I was able to open up more and. more over the years. And in spite of all my silliness, all of my stubbornness, and all of my fear—I felt loved!!! Which is, was, and always will be the most important lesson of my life.

I've never been in Temecula. Last summer Ken and I agreed that I'll come over for the November academy to meet him again after all those years. I'm so sorry that I couldn't hug him close to me (literally) anymore. Relationship» are in the mind. Nevertheless I'll miss him very much as a concrete symbol of Jesus' love. Now we are called to teach by demonstration as Ken has taught us so beautifully.

I hardly can imagine that this letter will be my last fax to Ken. Kenneth was and still is my model, my beacon for Jesus' love. Dear Ken. thank you. thank you, thank you! I'll always love you!

Gloria, I am so grateful for your teachings and your love. Please accept my sincere sympathy.

With love,

Monika Guttmann

Dearest Ken,

You continue to help us navigate through time and space. You guide us on our "journey through the far country of guilt and fear with the light of forgiveness as our guide, and the light of heaven as our goal."

I have been blessed with your talents and love dear Maestro and I deeply express my gratitude to you for helping me hear the Song of Truth. I could not have done this on my own.

Your leadership, humor and unconditional kindness was such a stirring symphony, and it continues to bless a wide community of love. We will all surely meet again in the place that we truly never left. And may your joyful coda of redemption herald the journeys end for us All.

You have meant a lot to me.

Thank you.

Ever love,

Eileen Kenney

I would like to add my words of gratitude to all the thousands of others who have listened to Kenneth's lectures over many years and benefited so very much from them. He has made A Course in Miracles understandable in a way I know I could never have achieved on my own. He had a wonderful gift of bringing this Course off the pages into one's daily difficult life. Just to hear his voice so earnestly and honestly explaining it was something always to look forward to. He was a scholar with a sense of humor that always infused his commentary. And no matter how many times I listened to the lectures, I never tired of hearing them again and again. He's left an inestimable legacy in those lectures as well as his many essential books. Thank goodness his voice will still always be there for us! He'll still be helping us homeward even though he has gone before.

I am so glad that I did get to meet him at one of his lectures in New York many years ago. Both he and Gloria were so graceful and kind to shake hands with students after the lecture. If reflections of divinity find a presence here on earth, Kenneth is for certain one of those reflections. I am very grateful that his voice is still just a tape or CD away and he will continue to help me and others. Heaven knows we need it!

I would like Gloria and his family to know how meaningful he was and still is in my life and I'm certain thousands stand before and after me. He was the most wonderful of teachers because one just knew that he really cared about our understanding of the Course. That means a very great deal when one is struggling to comprehend and endeavor to practice it. I have great sympathy of their loss while trying to think at the same time that Kenneth is supremely happy in the real home we all want to find again. The understanding of the Course, which Kenneth tried so earnestly to teach us, is what will ultimately help us to cope with his no longer being here by our side. Yet I cannot help but miss him!

I was interested to hear the stories about seeing Jesus in Ken's eyes. About 1989 I was in Roscoe and mentioned to Ken I would like to talk to him about a book 1 wanted to write, "Healing the Cause." Whilst in the dinner que he came up and said "let's talk about this book of yours " After a minute into the conversation Ken's eyes started to change into another's. It struck me forcibly. He then said "I will help you with this book."

Afterwards I was so affected by this I left the dining room, went around the corner to a quiet place and she'd a few tears. I wondered, is there a Ken left anymore?

Ken went onto help me with my second book. I would joke with him about when did he have time to sleep but he told me not to be nosy.

Our Beloved Teacher

Beethoven's 14th of the Late String Quartets, just one of the many gifts you have given me, accompanies this tribute.

The first and only time I attended a lecture in person with you was in the late 80s at Unity Church in San Antonio, Texas. I had been studying the Course for three or four years (now I'm in my 31st year, oh my!). As all lectures that you give, most of which I have seen on YouTube, thank goodness there are so many, you were going into great depth. I imagine we were all struggling to make sense of Jesus' iambic pentameter and the simple, yet difficult concepts. You, beloved Dr. Wapnick, Kenneth, Ken, danced around a white board delving into the layers of guilt, trying your best to help us remove the veils with your tireless explanation. All of a sudden you referred to Jesus as Mr. Smarty Pants! The whole congregation burst into riotous laughter. That was when I knew that YOU were my amazing, devoted, loving and hilarious teacher. I have often referred to Jesus the same over the years; it vacillates between Beloved Brother and Mr. Smarty Pants. The latter title helps me to laugh through the ego's self-importance and reminds me to smile and it directs me to the purity of the Holy Spirit that sings within us all. What I refer to as the smile within.

Oh, Beloved Teacher,
that which appeared in the form of a man from New York City,
that which appeared as Helen and Bill and Gloria and Judy
and every single one of us,
let us rejoice that it is all just a bit of sand in an eye that dreamt of nothing
and is not an eye
but the heart of love
singing the song of love to itself!

Margaret (Mugoux) Varra

From my first visit to the FACIM in 1991, I knew that Ken Wapnick was the teacher who could answer my questions and erase any doubts that I had about my choice to become a student of A Course in Miracles. How grateful I am that I, who had been a life-long skeptic, found my way to his classroom and he found a way to open my heart with his kindness. Ken, along with his wife, Gloria presented a shining example of how to be in the world and also how to rise above it. Each time I remember to laugh at my ego's foolishness, I remember Ken.

A tribute to Ken Wapnick and the content of his "life".

No other word for it, I was stunned to hear of Ken's physical passing. The seeming world has lost an amazing friend, therapist, scholar, teacher and the last of the core Course trio, Helen, Bill and Ken, obviously, perfectly chosen to participate in the birthing, interpretive and caretaking work that needed to happen with the Course.

We are so blessed by the sheer volume, prolific quantity and quality of the work that Ken has given to the world both in print and electronic media. Not to be overshadowed by the volume of work left behind, Ken personally touched thousands of lives individually with his inimitable kindness, brilliance, generosity, keen ability to listen and truly hear, unforgettable humor, scholarship, and unparalleled therapeutic skill. I experienced all of these gifts on a first hand basis over multiple decades.

During the years in the late 70's, 80's on, whether in Ardsley or Crompond, and later in the Catskills and Temecula I thoroughly appreciated Ken's lighthearted nature. In fact, he was irrepressibly light hearted in all realms except perhaps when it came to elucidating and defending the integrity of the content of the Course against blatant misinterpretation which was not a little ironic because, of all people, he knew, as the Course would state in scores of ways, that the "Truth" needed no defense. [I think it was important to sweep of history and certainly part of some grander plan that the Course be introduced and circulated through the world as a stable intact body of work (FIP) for close to three decades. Certainly, Ken knew this in the core of his being, both implicitly and explicitly.]

When wondering how to "be in the world and yet not oft he world," what to do in any given problematic situation, I can so clearly hear Ken's admonition, "do the 'normal' thing," "nothing wrong with using 'magic', (go to a doctor, take medicine, earn a living, etc.) just know that it's magic. .. after all the whole perceptual world in the mind is a magical solution to a tiny mad idea, i.e., the 'separation'."

Again, I will never forget Ken's kindness and generosity, his heart and soul. In these days of Olympic bars being set and breached at incredible heights, Ken's seeming passage through this "life" has set a bar that we very few if any can only dream of. As the world wakes up, no doubt in time he will be revered among the giants of this age, Freud, Jung, Krishnamurti, Ghandi, ML King, but not for who he was but rather for who he knew he wasn't and what he gave to the world out of that no-one-ness.

Finally, I appreciate how Gloria and the others at the foundation must have wrestled with the question of whether to have a gathering to honor the individual person that Ken was and came to a decision to honor the content that Ken's life was all about rather than the form of his life.

My thoughts and prayers go to you Gloria and your family and to the foundation staff.

Love,

David Hunt

Thank you, Ken,

For gently guiding me down the "Road to Damascus" and into the Presence of Jesus.

All too soon, our quintessential exemplary teacher of ACIM, Ken Wapnick, has appeared to leave our space-time classroom; he will be missed! However, his teaching lives on in our hearts and minds, every time we practice kindness, forgiveness, mindfulness and inclusion. It would be impossible to put into words the profound impact that Ken's teaching has had on my life and so many others, just as it would be equally daunting to .attempt to convey the ineffable nature of ACIM itself; it seems so appropriate that the last Lighthouse newsletter article about the Treachery of Images conveys a reminder to always seek the higher truth beyond the form, whether it be a physical teacher, a book, or any other specific that we might attempt to forge a special relationship with. Even though words can never fully convey our experience, they can reflect that awareness. The last paragraph of section IV of Chapter 5 of the text speaks also to that grace of our shared eternal truth that has never left Spirit despite our dreamt imaginings to the contrary—how appropriate for Ken's abundant and superbly insightful legacy of gifts to us all:

"How can you who are so holy suffer? All your past except its beauty is gone, and nothing is left but a blessing. I have saved all your kindnesses and every loving thought you ever had. I have purified them of the errors that hid their light, and kept them for you in their own perfect radiance. They are beyond destruction and beyond guilt. They came from the Holy Spirit within you, and we know what God creates is eternal. You can indeed depart in peace because I have loved you as I loved myself You go with my blessing and for my blessing. Hold it and share it, that it may always be ours. I place the peace of God in your heart and in your hands, to hold and share. The heart is pure to hold it, and the hands are strong to give it. We cannot lose. My judgment is as strong as the wisdom of God, in Whose Heart and Hands we have our being. His quiet children are His blessed Sons. The Thoughts of God are with you. "

Thank you, Ken, for your inestimable generosity of Spirit that has blessed us beyond measure.