Part 1 Undoing the Way We See Things Now
Lesson 106 Let Me Be Still and Listen to the Truth.
- If you will lay aside the ego’s voice, however loudly it may seem to call, if you will not accept its petty gifts that give you nothing that you really want; if you will listen with an open mind, that has not told you what salvation is; then you will hear the mighty Voice of truth, quiet in power, strong in stillness, and completely certain in Its messages.
- Listen, and hear your Father speak to you through His appointed Voice, Which silences the thunder of the meaningless and shows the way to peace to those who cannot see. Be still today and listen to the truth. Be not deceived by voices of the dead, which tell you they have found the source of life and offer it to you for your belief. Attend them not but listen to the truth.
- Be not afraid today to circumvent the voices of the world. Walk lightly past their meaningless persuasion. Hear them not. Be still today and listen to the truth. Go past all things which do not speak of Him Who holds your happiness within His hand, held out to you in welcome and in love. Hear only Him today, and do not wait to reach Him longer. Hear one Voice today.
- Today the promise of God’s Word is kept. Hear and be silent. He would speak to you. He comes with miracles a thousand times as happy and as wonderful as those you ever dreamed or wished for in your dreams. His miracles are true. They will not fade when dreaming ends. They end the dream instead; and last forever, for they come from God to His dear Son, whose other name is you. Prepare yourself for miracles today. Today allow your Father’s ancient pledge to you and all your brothers to be kept.
- Hear Him today and listen to the Word which lifts the veil that lies upon the earth and wakes all those who sleep and cannot see. God calls to them through you. He needs your voice to speak to them, for who could reach God’s Son except His Father, calling through your Self? Hear Him today and offer Him your voice to speak to all the multitudes who wait to hear the Word that He will speak today.
- Be ready for salvation. It is here and will today be given unto you. And you will learn your function from the One Who chose it in your Father’s Name for you. Listen today, and you will hear a Voice Which will resound throughout the world through you. The Bringer of all miracles has need that you receive them first, and thus become the joyous giver of what you received.
- Thus does salvation start and thus it ends; when everything is yours and everything is given away, it will remain with you forever. And the lesson has been learned. Today we practice giving, not the way you understand it now, but as it is. Each hour’s exercises should begin with this request for your enlightenment: I will be still and listen to the truth. What does it mean to give and to receive?
- Ask and expect an answer. Your request is one whose answer has been waiting long to be received by you. It will begin the ministry for which you came, and which will free the world from thinking giving is a way to lose. And so the world becomes ready to understand and to receive.
- Be still and listen to the truth today. For each five minutes spent in listening, a thousand minds are opened to the truth and they will hear the holy Word you hear. And when the hour is past, you will again release a thousand more who pause to ask that truth be given them, along with you.
- Today the holy Word of God is kept through your receiving it to give away, so you can teach the world what giving means by listening and learning it of Him. Do not forget today to reinforce your choice to hear and to receive the Word by this reminder, given to yourself as often as it is possible today: Let me be still and listen to the truth. I am the messenger of God today, my voice is His, to give what I receive. 1
Notes and Personal Application: This morning as I sit in my office, sipping French roast, and typing out this blog, I bow my head and ask God to fill me. “I want Your gifts,” I remind myself by addressing God, our Father. “Swept aside are any self-made gifts that sit upon Your altar, and I ask for only Your gifts to be placed upon the altar of my mind. Take all that is not joy and peace. Take all that does not reflect Your Love through the forgiveness I give to everybody and everything. Let me be still and listen to the truth, I am the messenger of God today, my voice is His, to give what I receive.”
This is a catchup post. This week writing the blogs seemed an impossibility to me as I struggled with myself to realize that I did not want the self-made gifts upon the altar. It took me three days (which felt like three years) to realize that while I had thought they saved me; they had steered me farther away from everything I really wanted! The gifts I made did not silence the meaningless, rather they made the meaningless seem enjoyable, driving me deeper into the hellish realm of nothingness. The gifts I made of spite and vengeance, of that which only substitutes for survival, had deceived me by offering what posed as the source of life, fun and freedom, power and control. The voices of the dead with all their seeming popularity, their causes and good works, their graven images of sociability, companionship and belonging – Jesus warns us that to attend to them leads us farther from the truth. We are to go past all things that do not speak of Him. Do not be deceived by special relationships with their pictures of charm and chumminess, Jesus reminds us, their persuasions have no lasting value and ends in despair. Christ holds our happiness within His stretched-forth hand, welcoming us with love.
When we hear only Him, when we silence the ego’s chitter chatter in our minds, we discover the miracles that He brings to us. There is nothing that the ego could offer us that can stand in for what He gives us because His miracles are true. They do not fade with time. They do not change with passing moods and fancies. Instead – they end this nightmare of time where all things lose their magic and appeal, where all things born strong and sturdy turn weak and frail. Where all are born to die, to suffer loss, to divorce themselves from love.
Jesus says that God’s Word lifts the veil that lies upon the earth. It wakes the walking dead. It brings vision to the blind. God calls to the world through us. He needs our voice to call for His Son. Without us, they will not hear.
When I first came upon A Course in Miracles, I had no idea of the changes it would bring about in my life. I held on to it for years, knowing it was truth, but not ready for its message. It would be well over a decade before I could read the text from start to finish and sit with streaming eyes in gratitude for the message that had been imprinted upon my own mind and heart from the time I was born. I had a friend! There were others! I wasn’t crazy, it was them! Beam me up, Scotty.
I was not beamed up; I did not get to come home. Nobody gets to come home until we all come home, until time has ended, until every last one of us remember who and what we are. I sat with that truth, deflated and stunned, stunted by my shyness, by my flip-flop dabbles with this belief system and that, with the fear of turning out like my mother, whose religious experiences had inflated, rather than abated, her ego. I felt like Moses. Send Aaron, not me! I can talk about ending child sexual abuse. I can get up in front of auditoriums full of people, speak on the radio, go into prisons, churches, and before the CDC and talk about how important it is to teach the proper terms for vagina and penises to our children, but please do not ask me to talk about Jesus. I will support the Foundation for Inner Peace, I told God. I will support the Circle of Atonement. I will support the ministry of others, I promised. Support your own ministry, said the Voice for God. I am calling you.
Jesus teaches that salvation hinges upon our learning the lesson of giving and receiving. Not as we know it now, but as it really is. Salvation starts and ends when everything is ours and everything is given away. In the hourly exercises developed for this lesson, we tell ourselves: I will be still and listen to the truth. What does it mean to give and to receive? The answer to this question will begin the ministry for which you came to free the world from thinking that giving is a way to lose. This is the way the world is readied to understand and to receive the truth of God and the end of separation. When we share our search for truth, we open the minds and hearts of others who were afraid to ask for it. We embolden them by the thousands. Jesus promises that each five minutes we spend in listening to the Voice for God, a thousand minds are opened to the holy Word we hear. And then a thousand more.
What we receive, we can only keep by giving it away. Nobody else can deliver the message that we were born to share. Dollars in a collection plate are not going to take the place of the message you have to share. Supporting a structure, a mission, another ministry is not what God has called us to do. He is calling each of us to be the Voice for God in the world. Jesus tells us to get over our fear, our shyness, our awkwardness. The stories we make up about what other people are going to think of us being the Voice for God – none of that matters. As often as possible we are to remind ourselves to get over the fear of others and embolden ourselves with holiness. Let us be still and listen to the truth: We are the messengers of God today. Our voice is His, to give what we receive.
1 A Course in Miracles. Workbook for Students. Lesson 106 Let me be still…Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition (1992). pp.190-191.
the friar patch 