Monthly Archives: September 2019

Lesson 273 The Stillness of the Peace of God is Mine

30 Monday Sep 2019

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PART II.  SECTION 6: WHAT IS THE CHRIST?

Lesson 273 The Stillness of the Peace of God Is Mine.

  1. Perhaps we are now ready for a day of undisturbed tranquility.  If this is not yet feasible, we are content and even more than satisfied to learn how such a day can be achieved.  If we give way to a disturbance, let us learn how to dismiss it and return to peace.  We need but tell our minds, with certainty:  The stillness of the peace of God is mine, and nothing can intrude upon the peace that God Himself has given to His Son.
  2. Father, Your peace is mine.  What need have I to fear that anything can rob me of what You would have me keep?  I cannot lose Your gifts to me.  And so the peace You gave Your Son is with me still, in quietness and in my own eternal love for You.[1]
Photo credit: http://www.shorelinepools.com

At one point in my life, a day of undisturbed tranquility may have spelled boredom to me, but those days are long past!  Yesterday was a day of travel.  I was doing my best not to begrudge the choice we made to take this kind of work, to live in hotels as much as if not more than we do at home; to leave what we hold near and dear to go on yet another adventure; to meet new people, see new sights, and experience away when we are such hillbilly, hippy homebodies. 

How I dreaded leaving my lovely kitchen and my brand-new spiralizer.  How much fun it had been using all seven different blades on the summer squash and freezing those spaghetti and swirly, curly pasta looking strands!  And all those dwarf eggplants which Zachary had helped me peel in stripes and slice thin for parmesan.  I still do not know what I am going to do with all the sweet green peppers and hot spicy jalapenos.  Hurriedly, I processed all the tomatoes and then the pears into chunky sauce.

And the precious kitty, Velvet.  She is always so happy when we are home.  All morning her little motor was purring in blissful contentment.  She gets petted up and fed and watered while we are gone and seems none the worse for wear, but how I miss her when we are away. 

Zachary and Lisa were going to a football game with the Other Grammy, Vicky, and that sounded fun, too.  The sun was shining, outside smelled of fall and leaves and goodness, and here I was in the house packing suitcases and trying to find the list I made last week of all the things I didn’t want to forget.  So it was easy to become testy and out-of-sorts with Lover who seems to delight in asking me questions about things I have to dig for when I am in the middle of a task that takes my full attention.  “How am I to know?” I stormed.  “Go look it up yourself,” I growled.  Then all sorts of small-minded thoughts swirled in my head toward him, exaggerating all his faults and reminding me of how happy I was (not) when I was single. 

But here is the happy solution.  I have learned how to dismiss disturbances of this kind!  They cannot and do not linger long.  I remind myself of how much love we have for one another; how lonely and dull my life was before Lover came in, swept me off my feet, and took me halfway around the world and back.  I remember all the fun we have on our trips – the long conversations; the interesting books we listen to on Audible.com; trying out new restaurants and revisiting our favorites; our adorable little suite at the Residence Inn; the friendly people and good music that we would never experience if we stayed home.  

Above all, I remind myself of how we dedicated our lives and our marriage to God, embraced His peace, and called it ours.  We do not live in fear anymore because nothing and nobody can rob us of what our Heavenly Father has given us to keep always.  We cannot lose His gift to us.  The special relationship prone to disturbances, jealousies, suspicions, and unrest has turned holy; the peace of Christ is with us in quiet tranquility.  The stillness of the peace of God is mine, is ours, is yours, and becomes us as the Sons of God.

[1] A Course in Miracles/Workbook for Students/The stillness of the peace…Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition, p. 433

Lesson 272 How Can Illusions Satisfy God’s Son?

29 Sunday Sep 2019

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PART II.  SECTION 6: WHAT IS THE CHRIST?

Lesson 272 How Can Illusions Satisfy God’s Son?

  1. Father, the truth belongs to me. My home is set in Heaven by Your Will and mine. Can dreams content me? Can illusions bring me happiness? What but Your memory can satisfy Your Son? I will accept no less than You have given me. I am surrounded by Your Love, forever still, forever gentle and forever safe. God’s Son must be as You created him.
  2. Today we pass illusions by. And if we hear temptation call to us to stay and linger in a dream, we turn aside and ask ourselves if we, the Sons of God, could be content with dreams when Heaven can be chosen just as easily as hell, and love will happily replace all fear.[1]
Photo credit: http://www.thedailymeditation.com

A Netflix series that I’ve been watching recently no longer holds the least bit of interest – the beating up of flesh, the frightening scenes of creation turned upon itself, no memory of God, a child’s hellish world. At first I was disappointed and thought, well now what?

Then today’s lesson brought the message home:  I am a Son of God and could never content myself for long with the horrors that this world makes up to enthrall and capture our imaginations and turn us against love.  I choose love, gentleness, and safety when I choose God’s Kingdom.  I choose to fill my mind with the memory of God, which is true, everlasting satisfaction and entertainment. 

We are not taught that God’s Kingdom is entertaining, but the Course tells us to play the happy game of salvation, enjoying the wit and the humor of God which is never insulting but the only real laugh because it is creative and constructive.   Once we experience the wit of God, the witlessness of the world becomes so apparent that we can give only the least bit of polite attention to it possible. 

Dear Heavenly Father, dreams can no longer content me!  Illusions cannot bring me happiness!  Pretense and lying tongues no longer steal my joy! Only Your memory can satisfy me, Your Son, and I will be happy with no less than You have given me.  Surrounded by Your Love forever, forever gentle and forever safe – I am God Son as You created me to be.  Today I let all illusions pass me by.  If temptation calls to us to stay and linger here in the world, we turn aside and ask ourselves, if the Sons of God could ever be content with the fiction of the world, when Heaven can be ours just as easily as hell and love instead of fear. In Jesus holy Name. Amen.

[1] A Course in Miracles/Workbook for Students/How can illusions…Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition, p. 432

Part 6. What is the Christ?

28 Saturday Sep 2019

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PART II.  SECTION 6:  WHAT IS THE CHRIST?

  1. Christ is God’s Son as He created Him.  He is the Self we share, uniting us with one another, and with God as well.  He is the Thought Which still abides within the Mind that is His Source.  He has not left His holy home, nor lost the innocence in which He was created.  He abides unchanged forever in the Mind of God.
  2. Christ is the link that keeps you one with God and guarantees that separation is no more than an illusion of despair, for hope forever will abide in Him.  You mind is part of His, and His of yours.  He is the part in which God’s Answer lies; where all decisions are already made, and dreams are over.  He remains untouched by anything the body’s eyes perceive.  For though in Him His Father placed the means for your salvation, yet does he remain the Self, Who, like His Father, knows no sin.
  3. Home of the Holy Spirit, and at home in God alone, does Christ remain at peace within the Heaven of your holy mind.  This is the only part of you that has reality in truth.  The rest is dreams.  Yet will these dreams be given unto Christ, to face before His glory and reveal your holy Self, the Christ, to you at least. 
  4. The Holy Spirit reaches from the Christ in you to all your dreams, and bids them come to Him, to be translated into truth.  He will exchange them for the final dream which God appointed as the end of dreams.  For when forgiveness rests upon the world and peace has come to every Son of God, what could there be to keep things separate, for what remains to see except Christ’s face?
  5. And how long will this holy face be seen, when it is but the symbol that the time for learning now is over, and the goal of the Atonement has been reached at last?  So therefore let us seek to find Christ’s face and look on nothing else.  As we behold His glory, will we know we have no need of learning or perception or of time, or anything except the holy Self, the Christ Whom God created as His Son.[1] 
Photo credit: http://www.startsandendswithyou.com

Christ is the perfect son of God, still as God created Him.  He is our means of salvation, at home within the Heaven of our holy mind.  Christ is our only reality – the rest is dreams, Jesus tells us.  We give these dreams to Christ and they fade before His glory, and then we know who and what we really are – our holy Self, the Christ, the Sons of God, united as one at last in Christ. 

Holy Spirit bids us to surrender our processes to Him, to be translated into truth.  He wants those dark dreams, the mistakes we made, the useless journeys, the trauma, abuse, and destruction.  The dreams of fear; the fight to survive in a world of doom; the addictions; the adulteries; the lies; the secret hurts and sorrows.  There are no dreams that He will not exchange for truth or extinguish as the nothingness they are. Holy Spirit will exchange them, Jesus says, for the final dream which will end all dreams – the end of time when peace has come to every Son of God and forgiveness rests upon the world.  How could we remain separate from our Father and Creator? 

As we seek to find Christ’s face in the face of our brothers and look on nothing else, teach nothing else, be nothing else, we realize there is nothing else we wish to see except the holy Self, the Christ Whom God created as His Son. We no longer see our brothers as sinners, as joe-joes, bullies, victimizers, liars, thieves, mooches, and predators.  We no longer see ourselves as unworthy sinners who killed Jesus in order to be saved by His blood, the only thing that would repay the tyrant God for our disobedience and wickedness.   We are the Christ.  We are the Sons of God.  We are loved, cherished, and welcomed back with arms flung open wide – no bloodshed, no sacrifices, no humiliations, and tongue-lashings for our imagined sins.  There is a feast, there is music and dancing and festivities, for we have learned the hard lessons of separation.  We walked through the valley of the shadow of death, we searched, and we came home to our heart of gold. 

[1] [1] A Course in Miracles/Workbook for Students/What is the Christ…Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition, p. 431

Lesson 271 Christ’s Is The Vision I Will Use Today

28 Saturday Sep 2019

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PART II.  SECTION 6:  WHAT IS THE CHRIST?

Lesson 271 Christ Is The Vision I Will Use Today.

  1. Each day, each hour, every instant, I am choosing what I want to look upon, the sounds I want to hear, the witnesses to what I want to be the truth for me.  Today I choose to look upon what Christ would have me see, to listen to God’s Voice, to seek the witnesses to what is true in God’s creation, in Christ’s sight, the world, and God’s creation meet, and as they come together all perception disappears.  His kindly sight redeems the world from death, for nothing that He looks on but must live, remembering the Father and the Son; Creator and creation unified.
  2. Father, Christ’s vision is the way to You.  What He beholds invites Your memory to be restored to me.  And this I choose, to be what I would look upon today.[1]
Video credit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eh44QPT1mPE

This morning, I woke up with James Taylor (I thought) singing “Keep me searching for a heart of gold, and I’m getting old…) in my head. A fitting message, for we are growing old.  It is only for the years we spend learning what is not a heart of gold that we can finally recognize what is one, I mused later to brother Gene (who kindly pointed out that it was Neil Young – not James Taylor.)  In any case, we both agreed that it can’t be found in the external world, only in the internal, invisible, everlasting one – a heart of gold.

Then later in our study group, Linda and I discussed how we find Christ’s vision in the Lord’s Prayer as we welcome God’s Kingdom and God’s Will into our hearts and the world.  What struck me was how much each of us was already doing this with the Lord’s Prayer, deconstructing, praying, and absorbing it in our daily practice.  It is the way to the Father, Jesus tells us.  The Lord’s Prayer as Christ’s vision invites our Father’s memory to renew in us.  Today we choose to be what we would look upon, and we look upon our world restored to God’s Kingdom and God’s Will.  Gone are the hurts, the betrayals, the awful inconveniences that burden our daily lives to the point of madness!  Welcome to the Kingdom of God where everybody accepts the truth with a smile; where wit and humor amuse us throughout eternity, where love and belonging sustain us.  In God’s Kingdom, material possessions do not rule and own us; we are free from time and the false god of egoism; we rest eternally – no longer striving for things in our contentment and satisfaction.  We have found the heart of gold; we never grow old, for we have returned to our rightful place in the family of God.  Christ’s vision is what I will see today.  In the name of Jesus, Amen.

[1] A Course in Miracles/Workbook for Students/Christ’s is the vision…Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition, p. 432

Lesson 270 I Will Not Use The Body’s Eyes Today

27 Friday Sep 2019

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PART II.  SECTION 5:  WHAT IS THE BODY?

Lesson 270 I Will Not Use The Body’s Eyes Today.

  1. Father, Christ’s vision is Your gift to me, and it has power to translate all that the body’s eyes behold into the sight of a forgiven world. How glorious and gracious is this world! Yet how much more will I perceive in it then sight can give. The world forgiven signifies Your Son acknowledges His Father, lets his dreams be brought to truth and waits expectantly the one remaining instant more of time which ends forever, as Your memory returns to him. And now his will is one with Yours. His function now is but Your Own, and every thought except Your Own is gone.
  2. The quiet of today will bless our hearts, and through them, peace will come to everyone. Christ is our eyes today. And through His sight, we offer healing to the world through Him, the holy Son whom God created whole; the holy Son whom God created one.[1]
Photo credit: http://www.amazon.com

The forgiven world!  The vision of Christ transforms the world itself into a paradise of gentle glory and graciousness. The vision of Christ can be found in the Lord’s Prayer.  Our Father, who abides in Heaven.  Holy is Your Name.  Your Kingdom come.  Your will be done.  On earth, as it is in heaven.  Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses even as we forgive those who trespass against us.  Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for Yours is the Kingdom, the Power, the Glory forever.  Amen.

When we pray to our beloved Father as One “Who abides in Heaven,” we acknowledge that the ego world is not the world God created.  In His prayer, Jesus instructs us to salute God’s holy name in reverence and adoration.  When we pray, “Your Kingdom come, Your Will be done on earth as it is in Heaven,” we are giving up this world of separateness, temporality, doom, and gloom and asking for God’s Kingdom to come, God’s will be done. When we ask our Father in Heaven for our daily bread, we acknowledge that God sustains us both in this world and the one to come.  When we ask to be forgiven, even as we forgive, we recognize that whatever happens in this world is a bygone – both what we have done and what others have done to us.  We let it go for we know it has no meaning and we teach our brothers to do the same. When we pray, “Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil,” we ask that our holy memory returns to us, that we are not tempted by the illusion’s web of lies, but we have faith in Christ’s Vision.  For God’s Kingdom has come; God’s Will is done, Jesus taught us to pray.  God is the Power and the Glory forever!  This is the vision of Christ.  This is the vision that will bless our hearts and offer healing to the world.    

Through our quiet, blessed hearts peace will come to everyone, Jesus tells us in today’s lesson.  Christ takes the place of our body’s eyes and gives us His holy vision of God’s Kingdom come.  It is through Christ’s holy vision that healing comes to the separated world. Christ’s vision brings us to the Sonship; Christ’s vision makes us whole.  The lion and the lamb are as one. Our only function is to accept this.  There is no work involved.  It is not hard.  It is not cumbersome.  There is no need to try to make it so, as if to faithlessly suspect the light and easy path that Christ has promised!  We do not judge ourselves or others, listing what we are doing wrong or what we could do better.  We do not begrudge ourselves our little pleasures.  We do not bow our heads in shame and sorrow for the mistakes we make in the flesh.  God’s Kingdom has come!  God’s Will is done.  On earth, as it is in Heaven.  It is through our quiet hope in the Vision of Christ that peace and healing come to the world.  Amen. 

[1] A Course in Miracles/Workbook for Students/I will not use the body’s…Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition, p. 230

Lesson 269 My Sight Goes Forth to Look Upon Christ’s Face.

26 Thursday Sep 2019

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PART II.  SECTION 5:  WHAT IS THE BODY?

Lesson 269 My Sight Goes Forth To Look Upon Christ’s Face.

  1. I ask Your blessing on my sight today.  It is the means which You have chosen to become the way to show me my mistakes and look beyond them.  It is given me to find a new perception through the Guide You gave to me, and through His lessons to surpass perception and return to truth.  I ask for the illusion which transcends all those I made.  Today I choose to see a world forgiven, in which everyone shows me the face of Christ, and teaches me that what I look upon belongs to me; that nothing is, except Your holy Son.
  2. Today our sight is blessed indeed.  We share one vision, as we look upon the face of Him Whose Self is ours.  We are one because of Him Who is the Son of God; of Him Who is our own Identity. 
Video credit: youtube.com

When our heavenly Father blesses our sight today, we have the means to see our mistakes, our illnesses, and despair, and look past them. Holy Spirit, our God-given Guide gives us a new perception and leads us to truth. He gives us the illusion that transcends all illusions in that we forgive the world. In that forgiven world everyone shows me the face of Christ. We are one face, one Sonship, one Brotherhood, the holy Son of God.

It is a beautiful day, and unlike the blind man in the video above, we can see it as such with God’s blessing upon our vision today. Our sight goes forth to look upon the face of Christ today. It is the face of reconciliation. It is the face of offering forgiveness to keep forgiveness. It is the face of warm reunions, happy embraces, and tender recollections. It is the face of polka dot dreams, meetings of the mind, and letting bygones be bygones. It is the face of mutuality, invulnerability, and love. Let us look upon the face of Christ today and be one.

Lesson 268 Let All Things Be Exactly As They Are

25 Wednesday Sep 2019

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PART II.  SECTION 5:  WHAT IS THE BODY?

Lesson 268 Let All Things Be Exactly As They Are.

  1. Let me not be Your critic, Lord, today, and judge against You.  Let me not attempt to interfere with Your Creation and distort it into sickly forms.  Let me be willing to withdraw my wishes from its unity and thus to let it be as You created it.  For thus will I be able, too, to recognize my Self as You created me.  In Love was I created, and in Love will I remain forever.  What can frighten me when I let all things be exactly as they are?
  2. Let not our sight be blasphemous today, nor let our ears attend to lying tongues.  Only reality is free of pain.  Only reality is free of loss.  Only reality is wholly safe.  And it is only this we seek today.[1]
Photo credit: http://www.slavorum.org

Do we dare complain about a thing or cast our judgment upon the screen of our lives?  Time and our lives in it, as it stands, is our perfect learning tool.  We may play a cast of different characters within the drama of life, for this is but a stage in which we learn our lessons, act out the separation, and learn forgiveness toward ourselves and others for the parts we play in pointing them toward God.  What happens in time, stays in time – it is not eternal, and therefore it is not real in a perpetual sense of the word.  All we need forgive happens in time.    

For no matter how much we cherish it and hold it in our memories and relish the telling of it, all suffering comes to an end.  All pain and sorrow are washed away.  Our lives in the flesh can be our personal heaven or our personal hell – heaven when we recognize and forgive the illusion; hell when we cherish the drama of loss, decay, and death, and use what our brothers did to us as an excuse for not taking responsibility for our own awakening.

Giggling to myself this morning over an antic from the past, at one point I would have tsked, tsked and called it sin instead of having a good laugh.   But now I see it as my story.  Since that is how I learned the lessons of love, then that is how I learned the lessons of love.  Judgment is reserved for those who would love condemnation and would themselves condemn!  I will let all things be exactly as they are. 

Have you ever played the game of If Only?  I have.   If Only Lover and I had met when we were young.  If Only I had been to Japan with him.  If Only I would have graduated high school and gone straight to college and made something of myself.  If Only I had not had to raise two kids by myself and struggle and juggle jobs, relationships, and emotional issues.  If Only my dad would not have died when I was a kid.  If Only my mother would have been more normal. If only I had not been such a stinker.  If Only I had not spent nearly a decade of my life mooning over someone who was clearly not that crazy about me!  If Only I had been more independent and not so needy.  If Only I had had more insight.  If Only I had spoken up; If Only I had kept my mouth shut.  If Only I had had more tact… 

The game of If Only not only serves to keep us from appreciating things exactly as they are but will prevent us from using things exactly as they are to lead us to our Heavenly Father.  Letting all things be exactly as they are awakens us.  We can be happy for those hard lessons, take joy in them, remember them with relish and forgive them, because they serve to help us see past the clouds and shadows of the ego world’s stage that would obscure our true identity.  Letting all things be exactly as they are leads us back to our real Home, our real people, our real Selves.

Dear Heavenly Father, I will let things be exactly as they are.  I will not judge against You, myself, or others. The game of If Only would only lead me down a path that is that much farther from Your love and unity.  The game of If Only is not a pastime for the righteous, but a hoax of blasphemy and lies.  The game of If Only blathers on enticing me to consider that the right paths, the good people, the good life have passed me by because of my poor choices, my stunted opportunities, my wayward ways.  Instead, I choose to play the happy game of salvation – waking up to the reality of Christ, accepting responsibility for my own darkness, recognizing the ego world as a stage, accepting my process and the processes of my brothers as we learn of separation and choose to be united with You.  In Jesus name.  Amen. 

[1] A Course in Miracles/Workbook for Students/Let all things ….Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition p. 429

Lesson 267 My Heart Is Beating In The Peace of God

24 Tuesday Sep 2019

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PART II.  SECTION 5:  WHAT IS THE BODY?

Lesson 267 My Heart is Beating in the Peace of God.

  1. Surrounding me is all the life that God created in His Love.  It calls to me in every heartbeat and in every breath; in every action and in every thought.  Peace fills my heart and floods my body with the purpose of forgiveness.  Now my mind is healed, and all I need to save the world is given me.  Each heartbeat brings me peace; each breath infuses me with strength.  I am a messenger of God, directed by His Voice, sustained by Him in love, and held forever quiet and at peace within His loving Arms.  Each heartbeat calls His Name, and every one is answered by His Voice, assuring me I am at home in Him.
  2. Let me attend Your Answer, not my own.  Father, my heart is beating in the peace the Heart of Love created.  It is there and only there that I can be at home.[1]
Photo credit: http://www.verywellmind.com

We are enveloped in an inner world of love calling us with each heartbeat and with each breath, in everything we do and in everything we think.  Peace bubbles up from our spiritual core, and our whole beings are awash in forgiveness.  A right mind!  All that would save the world is given us, for every heartbeat brings more peace, and each breath we take infuses us with might.  We are messengers of God, directed by His Voice, Holy Spirit implanted within.  We are sustained by His Love.  This inner kingdom is forever calm and filled with joy, for we stay sheltered within His Arms.  Our heartbeats call His Name, and each one is rejoined by His Voice, declaring we are home in Him. 

Dear Father, let me listen and respond to Your Response and not my own!  When my mind is full of thousands of answers, with its dreams and schemes and go-nowhere ideas, let my mind be quiet and listen for Your Voice and Your Answer.  My heart is beating, thrum, thrum, thrum, in peace and joy and happiness. Heart of Love, You created my heart, and it is in You and only in You where I find meaning and purpose.  Where I find my home.  In Jesus name.  Amen.

[1] ACIM Lesson 267. My heart is beating in the peace of God, Foundation for Inner Peace, 2nd edition.

Lesson 266 My Holy Self Abides In You, God’s Son.

23 Monday Sep 2019

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PART II.  SECTION 5:  WHAT IS THE BODY?

Lesson 266 My Holy Self Abides In You, God’s Son.

  1. Father, You gave me all Your Sons, to be my saviors and my counselors in sight; the bearers of Your holy Voice to me.  In them, are You reflected, and in them does Christ look back upon me from my Self.  Let not Your Son forget Your holy Name.  Let not Your Son forget his holy Source.  Let not Your Son forget his name is Yours.
  2. This day we enter into Paradise, calling upon God’s Name and on our own, acknowledging our Self in each of us; united in the holy Love of God.  How many saviors God has given us!  How can we lose the way to Him, when He has filled the world with those who point to Him and given us the sight to look on them?[1] 
Photo credit:www.reddit.com

Dear Heavenly Father, You provided all these people that I see with my eyes to be my saviors and counselors; they speak Your holy words to me.  You are reflected in my brothers; Christ looks back upon me through my brothers because we are one.  Let me always remember Your holy Name.  Let me always remember that I abide in Your Son and You are my holy Source.  Let me still remember that my name is Yours.

In today’s lesson, Jesus reminds us that God created us in His image, and He created us to be His Son.  When we imagined removing ourselves from God, we became bodies – detached, governed by a rogue ego, caught up in an insane nightmare, a delusional world of fear and time.  And yet today – we enter into Paradise, by merely calling on God’s Name which is our own, acknowledging that we are not separate selves, but one Self, united in God’s holy Love.  Let all these seemingly different, ill-mannered, frightened selves teach us what love and unity is not!  When we choose to see our brothers only through the eyes of Christ, their antics become object lessons, inadvertently pointing to the right path that leads us Home.  They cannot hurt, disappoint, weary, or disturb us – no matter their seeming ill-intention.  For we abide in You, God’s Son. 

[1] Lesson 266: My holy Self abides in you, God’s Son …. https://acim.org/workbook/lesson-266/

Lesson 265 Creation’s Gentleness Is All I See

22 Sunday Sep 2019

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PART II.  SECTION 5:  WHAT IS THE BODY?

Lesson 265 Creations’ Gentleness Is All I See

  1. I have indeed misunderstood the world because I laid my sins on it and saw them looking back at me.  How fierce they seemed!  And how deceived was I to think that what I feared was in the world, instead of in my mind alone.  Today I see the world in the celestial gentleness with which creation shines.  There is no fear in it.  Let no appearance of my sins obscure the light of Heaven shining on the world.  What is reflected there is in God’s Mind.  The images I see reflect my thoughts.  Yet is my mind at one with God’s.  And so I can perceive creation’s gentleness.
  2. In quiet would I look upon the world, which but reflects Your Thoughts, and mine as well.  Let me remember that they are the same, and I will see creation’s gentleness. 
Photo credit: http://www.eckiefriar.com The Homecoming Tie

Today I meditated upon and invited gentleness into my thoughts and interactions with others as well as myself.  When my grandson returned my car today, still handsomely sporting the new clothes we had shopped for last weekend, I remembered how Lover stopped working outside yesterday to come in and gently help him knot his tie.  And there was this gentle sense of awe from younger brother to the older who had a date and was driving Grammy’s car to the homecoming dance, that I recalled.   Then  three fresh eggs gently frying in butter for the hungry boy, and whole grain toast.  There were hugs and kisses and heart felt gratitude expressed.  How he loves to drive my car to his special occasions.  Last night it was homecoming; last spring it was prom.  A gentleman, he fills the tank with gas and washes it before bringing it back.  How nice is that? 

There was the tender picking of hundreds of tiny orange tomatoes and the joyful baking of a three-cheese pie with them.  And taking a quiet iced coffee break with Lover out back on our old metal chairs, overlooking the still pond. Picture this:  The annual baseball game taking place across the road, families carrying their camp chairs and coolers to watch the game transpire, all the shiny pickup trucks parked in rows – a day of respite from the hard work of farming to come together, play a game, drink beer, and eat good food.  The sun shining, the clouds white and puffy, the thousands upon thousands of people at the fair – nobody shoving or pushing or shouting but smiles and happiness and goodwill all around. A delicious gyro, funnel cake, bubble tea.  Petting our four-legged brothers with their silky noses pressed through the bars of their livestock stalls, ears perked and eyes soft at gentle words.  Walking about until our feet tired; coming home to our bliss.  Tucking the younger grandson into bed with love and prayers and later falling fast asleep and happy with Grandpa.  Today I see the world in celestial gentleness with which creation shines.