Part 1 Undoing the Way We See Things Now

REVIEW VI

I am not a body.  I am free. For I am still as God created me.

Lesson 212

1. (192)  I have a function God would have me fill.

I seek the function that would set me free from all the vain illusions of the world.  Only the function God has given me can offer freedom.  Only this I seek, and only this will I accept as mine.

I am not a body.  I am free. For I am still as God created me.[1]

Morning and Evening Meditation

In keeping with the instructions for Review VI we open and close our devotional with the theme:  I am not a body.  I am free.  For I am still as God created me.  We begin our day with this; we end our day with this thought.  Every hour, every time we can, without any pressure or stress, we gently train our mind back to this refrain throughout the day.  We consciously and deeply relinquish all the vain illusions of the world – the promises of happiness and meaning and gratification in a world where everything that has the least amount of satisfaction attached to it is both costly and fleeting. 

As much as we can, we will get beyond words today.  We will not use any special postures or forms of practice.  We will instead be quiet and still.  We will put aside all we thought we knew and understood and trust in God to bring us light and truth.  When our thoughts stray to judgment and condemnation, to resistance against the reflection of God’s love, we can simply say, for example: “I do not want this thought against my friend.  I choose instead to forgive her, to bless her.”  And then we will repeat “I have a function God would have me fill.”

Jesus asks us in paragraph eight of Lesson 192, “Who can be born again in Christ but him who has forgiven everyone he sees or thinks of or imagines?”  So let us today dwell upon this question and practice conscious forgiveness toward everyone we see, the people and situations that come to mind, the stories we make up about others in our minds, the memories that tempt us to hold grudges and bear ill will toward others instead of forgiving them. 

Practicing this deeply, reverently, and diligently is our function in Christ.  It is the function that God would have each one of us fill, dear brothers.  No matter how many people we see, no matter how the world tries to stir us against one another, to hold grudges and arm ourselves against those who seem dangerous and insane, our function is to offer forgiveness, to bless them, to hold no one prisoner.  We are here to loose instead of bind, for this is what sets us free. 

We are not asked to do much.  All that God asks of us is to give up our anger.  To give up our spite.  To offer forgiveness.  It involves no sacrifice.  It frees our tortured minds of all the images of pain and shame.  We give up our anger and we are given everything by God.

I have a cousin who has riddled herself with insanity because of the hatred and anger and spite she is unwilling to give up toward her sister.  Everywhere she goes, she spreads vicious tales about her sister’s past wrongdoings, her faults, her vanities.  She wants to remind everyone that her sister is nothing but a whore, a thief, a usurper – from the time she came home from the hospital as a baby the little brat stole all the attention, broke her toys, and sucked up all the air in the room.  Now over 70 years later, the woman has made herself a pariah.  She has so distorted herself with hatred, jealousy, and unforgiveness that those who held her dearest now dread to respond to her calls, visit her, or have much at all to do with her.

There is absolutely no justification for holding another person prisoner in one’s mind.  My cousin’s younger sister is her savior, Jesus says.  She owes her sister thanks instead of pain.  When she learns to show mercy, she will be set free.  Until she sets her sister free, until she accepts her function in God, she is not born again in Christ.  In God’s eyes, it does not matter how much more virtuous she was than her sister.  It does not matter that she went to Bible College, saved her virginity for marriage, and taught Sunday School while her sister was whooping it up in the world.  As long as she is unwilling to forgive her sister for her feckless flirtations and frivolous forays – she is prisoner to the ego, she is not showing mercy, she is denying her function.  She is keeping herself in hell.

This is a very precious and highly personal process and we must never make light of it.  My cousin’s call to forgive her sister is as real to her as an other’s struggles to forgive rape, child molestation, or mass murder.  All of us have people in our lives that we hold prisoner in our minds, that we disparage, look down upon, build cases against, and condemn.  Our way to freedom is to fulfill the function given to us by God.  We are to set them free.  We forgive them.  In the world it is impossible to know love, Jesus tells us.  No matter how much we talk about it, say it, attach the word to all kinds of physical acts, we simply do not understand love.  Forgiveness is the only thing that reflects Love in a world where it is too far beyond our simple grasp. 

Today let our minds reflect God’s Love.  We have a function God would have us fill.  It does not cost us anything.  There is no sacrifice involved.  We simply give up our anger, our hatred, our resentment toward those who have not met our expectations.  Every time we see someone today, think of someone today, imagine someone today – we offer them forgiveness for not being who and what they really are in Christ.  We bless them.  We understand that they are struggling with their humanity even as we are struggling with ours.  We see them, not as flesh and blood, but as Sons of God, here for the same reason we are – to awaken from a dream of separation, in a time-bound process of accepting who and what we really are, to return to the place where we belong.  We look upon them gently, we see that all their faults, their weaknesses, their cruelty and stupidity are all unknown in Heaven, and so should not be remarked upon and made real here.  Forgiveness wipes our slates clean so that the Word of God can replace all the marks and smears the world had written there before. 

Jesus calls to us to be merciful today.  As the Son of God, we deserve mercy.  As one with Christ, when we refuse to forgive our brother, we refuse to forgive Christ.  All of us on earth are called to forgive each other, to accept each other as our own identity, to recognize that there is no difference between me and you because we are all as God created us.  I am what you are, and you are what I am.  Forgiveness shows us we are one.[2]

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[1] A Course in Miracles. Workbook for Students. Lesson 212. Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition (1992).

[2] Audio credit: The Friar Patch at http://www.eckiefriar.com

Part 1 Undoing the Way We See Things Now

REVIEW VI

I am not a body.  I am free. For I am still as God created me.

Lesson 211

1. (191)  I am the holy Son of God Himself.

In silence and in true humility, I seek God’s glory, to behold it in the Son whom He created as my Self.

I am not a body.  I am free. For I am still as God created me.[1]

Morning and Evening Meditation

Today we reflect upon Review VI’s daily theme:  I am not a body.  I am free.  For I am still as God created me.  We let the words sink into our consciousness and lift us out of our entrenched and usurped identity in the world, in the body, in the ego.  We are no longer a man or a woman, a Greek or a Jew, an American or an African or a Peruvian.  We do not identify with our gender, race, religion. We are not our country, family lineage, or our status in the world.  We are not our affiliations with a political thought system or our passions or hobbies in the world.  We are as God created us – everlasting spirit, a Son of God, united with God and with each other, without sin, without stain, without disease, without death.  When we accept our true identity in Christ, we are saved and in position to save others – we no longer use our powers stupidly or cruelly.  Hell is undone.

When we do not accept our identity in God, we have accepted the ego’s identity and are in a state of constant instability. We are vulnerable to all that the world throws at us, we are born to live a little while, to know that no matter who or what we choose to fasten our identity and worth and happiness upon, it is doomed.  It can only be for a little while and there is always someone or something bigger, better, newer, and more exciting waiting to take our place, to assume our position, to throw us off our game, to steal our joy, and keep us locked into an ongoing pattern of seeking but never finding that which satisfies the yearnings of our hearts and souls.   

Referring back to our original lesson, paragraph seven instructs us to use the following phrase to remind ourselves often of who and what we really are:  I am the holy Son of God Himself.  I cannot suffer.  I cannot be in pain.  I cannot suffer loss.  I cannot fail to do all that salvation asks. 

As Sons of God, it is impossible for us to fail in what God has created us to be. We are still as He created us.  Past the illusion of this world, the dream of separation and of time, we are still God’s Son.  God loves us and is devoted to us.  Never again can we accept the weak, frail version of ourselves that the ego would offer us in place of the truth about who and what we are.  We were not created to be born and die, to weep and suffer pain.  As our Father, God has bestowed upon us the same power that He Himself enjoys both in heaven and on earth. 

There is nothing at all cheeky about accepting the truth about who and what we really are.  There is nothing impudent about waking up to discover that all of this has been a dream of separation, of being apart from each other, of being a multitude of warring factions rather than the loving Son of God.  We cannot be over-confident in this truth about ourselves, we cannot let it frighten us, go running back to cower in the flesh and blanket our awakened consciousness in the trivia of the world.  We are the holy Son of God Himself.  We are not a body.  We are free.  We are still as God created us.  This is you and this is me. 

Today in our quiet moments and with true humility we step up to the plate.  We seek God’s glory.  We behold His glory in ourselves, His Son.  Dare to push all doubts and fears aside.  Do not accept the lies of the ego which would keep us trapped in a self-image designed to warp and pervert us, alienate and divide us, keep us seeking but never finding, wrapped up in flesh and blood and driven by desires that end in death. 

One here and one there, from all over the world, we lay down our defenses against the truth.  We put aside our differences and we come together as one in Christ.  We are brought together, you and me, us and we with these words: 

I am a holy Son of God.  I am not a body.  I am free.  I am still as God created me.[2]

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[1] A Course in Miracles. Workbook for Students. Lesson 211. Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition (1992).

[2] Audio credit: The Friar Patch at http://www.eckiefriar.com

Part 1 Undoing the Way We See Things Now

REVIEW VI

I am not a body.  I am free. For I am still as God created me.

Lesson 210

1. (190)  I choose the joy of God instead of pain.

Pain is my own idea.  It is not a Thought of God, but one I thought apart from Him and from His Will.  His Will is joy, and only joy for His beloved Son.  And that I choose, instead of what I made.

I am not a body.  I am free.  For I am still as God created me.[1]

Morning and Evening Meditation

I am not a body.  I am free.  For I am still as God created me.

We open our devotional practice with the theme for Review VI.  We let these sentences rest on our quiet minds, our altars free of the demands of the world, of our families, our houses, our jobs, our worldly interests and calls.  When we realize we are free of the body, the world recedes from our minds and our minds are cleared for the Truth of God, the Reality for which we have been yearning for our whole lives but did not know how to put into words, did not know how to put into practice, did not trust in our Selves but rather trusted in the lies of the outside world. 

Now we know!  Being free of our bodies, we can choose joy instead of pain, we can be happy instead of sorrowful and afraid.  Pain – experienced in any form, Jesus tells us, is not true, it is not real, it is a lie.  When we experience pain we experience God as cruel.  There He is in His sweet Heaven, above and not beneath, inflicting pain upon His subjects like a cruel landowner who sits in his mansion while his peasants eke a bare subsistence living from his fields.  This is the world’s portrayal of god – this is the god we would learn about in most of our churches and synagogues and temples.  A god who is all-powerful but who is quite willing to see us suffer physically, psychically, and mentally, a god who wants us to kill each other, to seek vengeance upon our so-called enemies because they worship a different way from us or do not have the same values, or have done us wrong or worse yet, our ancestors have wronged their ancestors. 

But God is not cruel, Jesus informs us in Lesson 190.  Pain is only a sign that illusions reign in place of truth.  Pain is a denial of the reality of our Loving Father.  If He is real, pain is not.  If pain is real, He is not.  Our Father wills that none of us suffer so much as a stubbed toe for would we not rush to protect our little ones from such a fate if it be in our power? 

Our thoughts that are not aligned with the Will of God, the Love of God, the Peace of God, are what causes our pain.  Jesus tells us that nothing outside of our own minds can hurt us or injure us in any way.  Nothing from the outside world can oppress us.  Nobody but ourselves can affect us.  It is our thoughts about such matters that bring the pain.  We have the power within us to influence all things simply by remembering who we are. 

You may not believe this.  It may seem too far out there.  You may think that you are being hoodwinked and that it is unbelievable that your thoughts about things have brought you so much trauma, pain, and disease in your life and in the lives of those you love.  But Jesus tells us in this lesson that as we perceive the harmlessness in all that has brought us such grief and torment, we will see differently and that our sorrows, our grief, our illnesses, will become a source of purity, a source of holiness, even. 

When we begin to see that the world is only a representation of our thoughts about it, we will have much more incentive to change our mind about it.  When we give up our addiction and our false delight in pain and pity, mayhem and melodrama, sacrifice and suffering, sorrow and grief and choose the joy of God – the world changes to reflect what we want to see. 

When we turn off the media, put down the newspaper, refuse to engage in conversations that revolve around rumors, intrigue, and ill will, when we no longer give room in our minds and thoughts to conspiracies, suspicions, and doomsday prophecies – we are clearing our altars for the Joy of the Lord.  When we no longer chase after special relationships instead of trusting in God, God will give us the desires of our hearts, the desires that align with truth and righteousness, peace and love. 

No matter how much we want to blame others for causing us pain, others have absolutely no power to hurt us.  When we are hurt, it is the result of our idle wishes, strange desires, thoughts of death.  When we engage in sour thoughts toward our family members, our coworkers, our friends, the president, other races, cultures, religions, and community groups, we are asking for pain.  We are asking for discord.  We are asking for sorrow.  When we bring up past sins and point our fingers in blame and shame, we are going to see this projected on the screen of our lives.  When we rant and riot, spew forth venom, cast aspersions on the names of others, take up causes, fight for our rights, and give other people the power to steal our joy and cause us to suffer, we are not choosing the joy of the Lord.  No cause on earth, no matter how seemingly righteous, worthy, or critical will bring us joy or give us anything but pain.

 Jesus teaches that we must lay down our arms and come without defense into the quiet place where Heaven’s peace holds all things still at last.  Let thoughts of danger and of fear be exchanged for thoughts of God’s love and devotion to us.  Refuse to allow thoughts of attack into our minds.  Put down the cruel sword of judgment, He says. Stop hiding our holiness behind the withering assaults we take upon others. 

This is when the joy of the Lord belong to us.  This is salvation’s power.  We know that pain is only an illusion – Joy is reality.  Pain is a lie; joy is the truth.  We choose the truth – no matter how the world tempts us to believe there is a cause to worry, to fret, to get sick, to depress ourselves upon its calls to take up arms and defend ourselves against the evil hordes or rampaging pestilence – we know God.  Our minds are fixed upon Him.  We love Him who gives us peace when the world would offer us conflict.  We devote our minds to Him who gives us Life and Light when the world would fill our mind with death and darkness.   

We are not a body.  We are free.  We are still as God created us.[2]

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[1] A Course in Miracles. Workbook for Students. Lesson 210. Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition (1992).

[2] Audio credit: The Friar Patch at http://www.eckiefriar.com

Part 1 Undoing the Way We See Things Now

REVIEW VI

I am not a body.  I am free. For I am still as God created me.

Lesson 209

1. (189)  I feel the love of God within me now.

The Love of God is what created me.  The Love of God is everything I am.  The Love of God proclaimed me as His Son.  The Love of God within me sets me free.

I am not a body.  I am free.  For I am still as God created me.[1]

Notes and Personal Application:  We quiet our minds and sweep clear our inner altar this morning of all the calls and causes of the world.  We bring our stillness and our trust to God.  We are not bodies separated by our flesh and time and space.  For these blessed moments we focus upon our freedom from all that the world does to keep us apart from it.  We remember that we are still as God created us – One with Him and with all of Creation.  This is a blessed meditation – one that as we experience it and let it shine from us – will save the world.  Morning and evening we spend at least 15 minutes with this practice, devoting our time and our thoughts to God, with whom we are one.  We will not answer the calls of the world during these times because we know that this is the most important things we can be doing at this time.  We will put our trust and our belief in God and His Will and no longer allow the world to tempt us that we are doomed!

The review for our day tells us that we feel the love of God within us now.  This is what we are made of – the Love of God.  It is who and what we are in our eternal beings.  We are His Son.  It is His Love that unshackles us from our identity with time and all that it seems to hold – the world, our bodies, the special relationships which would take the place of our Sonship with God, our Brotherhood with Christ.  We can let it all go with no sorrow, no pain, no sense of loss or sacrifice – we exchange that which is nothing for God’s Love which is Everything. 

This is not only a blessed meditation; it is a powerful one!  Today pray this prayer with me.  As we pool our minds to experience God’s Love, now, we are joined from all parts of the world and made one in Christ.  We may never meet in the flesh, but we are one in God’s Love, one in the spirit of Sonship and Brotherhood. 

Dear Father: We feel Your love within us now.  As we draw close, shutting off the clamor of the world and all of its calls to involve ourselves in its repetitive and tiresome pleasures, pranks, plagues, and pitfalls, we come to understand that we are made of Your Love, for Your Love, and by Your Love.  Let us quietly and wordlessly share Your Love with those who come to mind, forgiving them their small humanity, blessing their marvelous reality in You, reflecting the Love we feel within us now, so that we may all be free.  In the name of Jesus, with Whom we are one.  Amen.    

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[1] A Course in Miracles. Workbook for Students. Lesson 209. Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition (1992). 

Audio credit: The Friar Patch @ http://www.eckiefriar.com

Part 1 Undoing the Way We See Things Now

REVIEW VI

I am not a body.  I am free. For I am still as God created me.

Lesson 208

1. (188) The peace of God is shining in me now.

I will be still and let the earth be still along with me.  And in that stillness, we will find the peace of God.  It is within my heart, which witnesses to God Himself. 

I am not a body.  I am free. For I am still as God created me.[1]

Notes and Personal Application:  Our devotions today start with Review Six’s theme:  I am not a body.  I am free.  For I am still as God created me.  We will meditate upon this theme, remembering who and what we really are – we are everlasting, we are forever, the world is not our home, the body does not confine us or define us! 

As we review Lesson 188, we experience the peace of God shining in us – now.  We do not have to wait until we get to Heaven.  We do not have to wait until God’s Kingdom come, God’s Will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.  We have God’s peace and it is shining in us right now, this instant.  We do not have to seek the light of God’s peace because it was born into each one of us.  Jesus tells us in Lesson 188, we can never lose our light – it will lead us back to where we belong.

The peace of God shines out from us and touches everyone and everything around the world.  It stops to caress every living thing, Jesus tells us in paragraph three of our lesson.  It leaves a blessing that remains forever.  It renews our hearts and lights up the way.  When we recognize the peace of God within us, we cannot keep it to ourselves.  We must bless others – quietly and without making a show of ourselves, we no longer curse, we no longer speak ill or hold grudges, we bless all we see because there is nothing else we can do when we realize what the peace of God is, what it means, and how precious and priceless and irreplaceable it is.

This morning while I was watering the drooping, thirsty sunflowers I paused for several moments just to reflect upon the peace of God.  Buzzing bumblebees, butterflies, and hummingbird moths sipping the nectar from the flowers and it blessed me beyond measure to see them enjoying the patch of beautiful yellow-orange and brown faces.  It was hot, quiet morning and when I was finished watering the gardens and harvesting some tomatoes and zucchinis, I stretched out on the hammock and closed my eyes. 

The words from Lesson 188 came back to me, The peace of God is shining in me now.  Let all things shine upon me in that peace and let me bless them with the light in me.  I thought about how relaxing it was to water the garden, to take each plant and give it a long, cool drink from the well.  To watch them perk up before my eyes, to thank me with their beauty and bounty. Each plant brings forth its fruit its own unique way – the purple and white flower on the eggplants, the pale green outer leaves around the firm core on the cabbages, the pretty white flowers on the red pepper plants.  I was transfixed for several moments, aware of the peace of God, the peace of God in me and coming from me.  It was as if all my thoughts lined up with love and peace and joy.  It was as if for that bit of timelessness there was nothing in or on my mind but gentle kindness and a deep gratitude.

I was not afraid of the bear that lives in the woods.  I was not afraid of the draught.  I was not afraid that someone would see me laying on my hammock and call me lazy and useless.  My thoughts were not on any kind of trouble, worry, or care.  When I opened my eyes, all I could see was the pattern of the leaves and the limbs against the puffy white clouds and the light blue sky. This is peace.  And it shines in all of us when we grow still and let the world grow still around us. 

Go with peace today.  Be quiet with it.  Be still and shine it on your world. 

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[1] A Course in Miracles. Workbook for Students. Lesson 208. Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition, (1992).

Audio credit: http://www.eckiefriar.com

Part 1 Undoing the Way We See Things Now

REVIEW VI

I am not a body.  I am free. For I am still as God created me.

Lesson 207

1. (187)  I bless the world because I bless myself.

God’s blessing shines upon me from within my heart, where He abides.  I need but turn to Him and every sorrow melts away, as I accept His boundless Love for me.

I am not a body.  I am free.  For I am still as God created me.[1]

Notes and Personal Application:   We open our morning and evening mediation with I am not a body. I am free.  For I am still as God created me.  If you are doing these lessons and devoting your attention to the theme of Review Six, by now the above sentences are embedded in your consciousness.  If you are wondering where a deepened sense of peace and joy stem from – let it be clear that understanding these lines truly does enlighten us in all ways.  Our spirits soar, we are no longer confined in flesh, not knowing who we are and where we belong.  We know we are creations of God, adrift but not unmoored, lost but only in our blighted imaginations, in these three sentences we find ourselves complete and whole. 

In our review of Lesson 187, we learn that what we give, we receive.  This idea is different from what happens in the world.  In the world, when we give something away, it is no longer ours.  In truth, when we give, we receive. In fact, Jesus says that it is only in giving that we can receive.  The only way we can protect all things that we value is by giving them away and this is the only way we can be sure to never lose them.  The only caveat is this:  Do not value form – no form ever endures.  It is the thought behind the form of things that is unchangeable. 

Today’s idea is a kingdom principle that when applied in form will simply not work.  Do not be deceived into thinking that this is a get rich quick scheme.  It does not work with anything of form.  If people tell you that the way to get God’s blessing is to send them a hundred dollars, you can tell them to pound sand.  If someone tells you however, to receive God’s blessing you must bless other people in your words, thoughts, and deeds – you know that you are in the presence of a teacher of God.  If someone tells you that to retain God’s blessing upon your life, you must continue to bless others in your words, thoughts, and deeds – this is truth – it will cost you no money, it will take little of your time, but you will see the miracles it brings to everyone you see. 

To receive blessings, no sacrifice is ever demanded – there is no pain or sense of loss, no sickness or sorrow, no poverty, starvation, or death.  We do not beg God to bless us, to remove a curse, to smite our enemies.  We can laugh at such crude depictions of our Father who loves all of Creation.  Blessings are received as they are given.  Blessings are retained as they are never denied to anyone.  It is like a stream of living water – it is freely given as long as it is not dammed up, hoarded, or doled out to a select few.  When kept for oneself, it dries up and becomes that which will never quench one’s thirst or water one’s garden. 

There is purity in understanding the flow of God’s blessings and coming to understand how we are one in thought when fear of one another is laid aside and we stand together as God’s Son.  Our grievances toward one another are washed away when we bless each other.  All those people whom we simply cannot stand, whom we love but want to stay away from, whom we see as shadows who have infringed upon our joy and taken away our sunshine – we bless.  We offer them a blessing and we are blessed.  We lay down our past dealings – the things that were said, the way we were made to feel, the ways in ways in which our kindness was met with hostility, the times when we felt unwanted and unwelcome.  When we bless others who have hurt us, disappointed us, cast us off for someone new and exciting and stopped returning our calls – we are blessed.  Jesus says we make our minds a home for Innocence Itself, Who dwells in us and offers us His Holiness as ours. 

For those of us who have grown cynical in the world, who mock innocence, who enjoy playing people for the fool – pointing out mistakes and keeping the past alive in order to keep others from following their joy and reaching their destiny – let there be no mistake.  Jesus tells us that this principle also works when we fail to bless others.  When we fail to bless others, we fail to recognize our own blessings.  We fail to realize our own salvation.  We fall into a dirty stream of blame and shame and end up full of sorrow, ashamed, and forsaken.  In other words, we make our own hell. 

Today we bless the world because we bless ourselves.  It is the way we love our Selves the best – by blessing everything and everyone we see.  We value blessing and so we give it away – this is the way to our salvation and to the salvation of the world.  No matter how lowdown and dirty someone wants to play, let us bless them and move on, offering them no spite, no mean words, no nasty recriminations – simply a blessing and not a curse.  

Again we wrap up today’s devotional practice with this refrain:  I am not a body, I am free. For I am still as God created me. 

I bless you because I bless myself, and you bless me because you bless yourself.  We are one in Christ, today and always. 

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[1]A Course in Miracles. Workbook for Students. Lesson 207. Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition (1992).

Audio credit: http://www.eckiefriar.com 

Part 1 Undoing the Way We See Things Now

REVIEW VI

I am not a body.  I am free. For I am still as God created me.

Lesson 206

1. (186)  Salvation of the world depends on me.

I am entrusted with the gifts of God because I am His Son.  And I would give His gifts where He intended them to be.

I am not a body.  I am free.  For I am still as God created me.[1]

Notes and Personal Application:  Today we open and close our morning and evening devotional practice with the holy reminder – I am not a body, I am free.  For I am still as God created me.

In our 15-minute periods, let us sit with the idea that the salvation of the world depends upon each one of us realizing that we are one with Christ.  As we realize who and what we are in Christ, we see the Gifts of God which has been entrusted with us.  We have been given the world.   It is our holy assignment.  It is our Mission from God.  When we accept our mission, we acknowledge the truth that God’s Will is done on earth as it is done in Heaven.  When we accept our mission, we unite our will along with Creation and restore it to Heaven’s peace. 

God is not asking us to change who we are.  He is not asking us to dress a certain way or go live in the desert and eat grasshoppers.  He is not telling us to sell everything we have and give it to the poor.  He is not asking us to forsake our families or sacrifice our first born.  God is simply asking us to remember who and what we really are – we are not a body, we are free.  We are as God created us.  God is asking us to accept our role in salvation – to know that the whole of it depends on each one of us – not on the little pile of dust that would be our bodies, but on our true Selves which is God’s Son. 

Our humanity will find all kinds of ways to drown out the Voice for God in our lives.  It will give us many scattered goals and functions.  It will divide us and splinter us and overwhelm our mortal bodies with demands, expectations, and roles that drain us of all our joy and peace and love.  Our reality in God makes us one.  In God we are whole.  When we know our one true purpose, we can ignore the calls and causes of this world that clamor for our attention and bring nothing but more demands and uproar.  When we know that the salvation of the world depends upon us, we understand that our function is to forgive as Christ forgave.  Jesus shows us that to forgive is how we offer love on earth.  We forgive because we know that there is nothing to forgive in Heaven.  We forgive because forgiveness is expressing love to a world that yearns for love, sings songs about love, makes much of love but has forgotten what it really is. 

Dear Father, today we ask that our lesson idea is made real to our minds and hearts.  Show us the truth about ourselves – we are not bodies, we are liberated, we are as You created us to be.  The salvation of the world depends upon our willingness to forgive one and all for wandering away from You.  Let us do Your Will and offer love in the way the world understands.  In the name of Jesus, with Whom we are one.  Amen. 

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[1] A Course in Miracles. Workbook for Students. Lesson 206. Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition (1992).

Audio credit: http://www.eckiefriar.com

Part 1 Undoing the Way We See Things Now

REVIEW VI

I am not a body.  I am free.  For I am still as God created me.

Lesson 205

1. (185)  I want the peace of God.

The peace of God is everything I want.  The peace of God is my one goal; the aim of all my living here, the end I seek, my purpose and my function and my life, while I abide where I am not at home.

I am not a body.  I am free.  For I am still as God created me.[1]

Personal Notes and Application:  Today we are on our fifth day of Review VI.  We open our morning and evening meditation with the friendly and happy-making assertion about who and what we are not and who and what we really are:  I am not a body.  I am free.  For I am still as God created me. 

While I would never discourage young people from studying A Course in Miracles, I believe that it makes more sense to come to the teachings after experiencing the world.  When we were young and full of piss and vinegar, as James likes to put it, we would not have wanted to be anything but our bodies!  No matter how much trouble they were, how spiritually deprived, how they embarrassed or harassed us, we lived for them.  We took delight in the pleasures and displeasures our bodies seemed to make of us and for us.  We were driven by the idea that our bodies – both our shame and our delight – were somehow going to get us where we wanted to go and give us that which for what we were yearning. Looking back we both laugh and cringe over all the ways in which we tried to reconcile these two irreconcilable thoughts – we were to worship a God who made the body, and yet the body seemed to be a thing in and of itself, and not of God at all!   

If someone would have asked me what I wanted at an early stage of my life, I would not have said the peace of God.  I wanted to be a published writer. I wanted to be rich. I wanted to distinguish myself somehow and someway from others. I longed for adventure, travel, to be on the arm of some new and dashing guy, a marvelous lover, a world-wise fellow who would teach me the ropes.  I yearned to meet and make friends with people more like the characters I found in literature, people who would sit and discuss ideas with me and share my love for books and writing and ponder the meaning of the universe, rather than the lot I seemed to be stuck with who were suffering their unhappy, love-starved lives with flirtations and affairs, their pretending to be one thing but being quite another, their repetitive, go-nowhere cycles of planting bad seed and hoping for a good harvest.  I wanted to be free of such people because I wanted to be free of that version of me.  I wanted to meet someone that would change my current state and make me into something else.  In other words, the peace of God was not on my want list, and there is no shame in that. It was a very necessary phase of my life where I had to experience wanting a lot of other things and even getting them in order to find out that without the peace of God, that other stuff meant nothing at all.   

What I have learned in time and through time is that it is only the peace of God I want – for when I have the peace of God, I have Everything.  Happiness becomes my new standard and goal.  Without the peace of God, I may have everything I thought I wanted, but it will be as nothing, and happiness will always be something I am seeking but never finding. 

Today we will spend our meditations times and our little moments throughout the day reminding ourselves that no matter what we think we want here in the world, without the peace of God it will be over before it began, it will be spent, it will be fast a fading memory and then gone forever.  The world’s promises to bring us pleasure, to tickle our fancies, to make us smarter, bigger, better fail to do bring us anything but disappointment.  There is no point getting cynical about it, boo-hooing, griping or complaining.  Things here do not last and there is a very good reason for this to be so – it is not God’s Kingdom, it is not God’s Will, and we can never make it what it is not. 

Nothing that happens in the world dares to disturb the tranquil, quiet calmness we experience with the peace of God.  We may not understand how this can be, but this is what we want.   The world will always find something to separate us, to build cases against each other, to take up our signs and wear our special colors, to join its causes and go to war. The world may call for peace, but what it really wants is bloodshed, let us make no mistake about it.  It is only the peace of God we want, because this the only peace there is!

Today we quiet our minds and turn off all that would call for discord.  We clear the altars of our mind of all that is not the call of love, and we offer them to God.  We pray,

“I want Your Peace on the altar of my mind, O Father.  While I am living in the dream of separation, my one goal is to experience Your Peace.  It is my function to seek Your Peace and find it and share it with others.  My body does not define me.  The bodies of others do not define them.  We are still as You created us.  Let us experience Your peace.  In the name of Jesus, with whom we are one.  Amen.“

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[1] A Course in Miracles. Workbook for Students. Lesson 205. Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition (1992).

Audio credit: http://www.eckiefriar.com

Part 1 Undoing the Way We See Things Now

REVIEW VI

I am not a body.  I am free. For I am still as God created me.

Lesson 204

1. (184)  The Name of God is my inheritance.

God’s Name reminds me that I am His Son, not slave to time, unbound by laws which rule the world of sick illusions, free in God, forever and forever one with Him.

I am not a body.  I am free.  For I am still as God created me.[1]

Notes and Personal Application:   Today we open our morning and evening devotion with the words:  I am not a body.  I am free.  For I am still as God created me.  This morning James and I woke up with aches and pains – our backs hurt, my calve muscles ached, our shoulders felt hammered.  I blamed the bed, we need a new mattress but I have been dithering about how I want to replace it – do we get one of those fancy-schmancy mattresses that do all kinds of magic or settle for a medium firm Serta with a pillow top?  James said he has and will continue to sleep on whatever I pick out as long as it is not so soft it sags in the middle.  But he does not associate his aches and pains with our mattress; his come from being old, he said. 

We had a good laugh – we are only five years apart and so if he is old, then I am old!  If his aches and pains are from the aging body that is where mine are coming from as well.  Why bother getting a new mattress? 

According to Wikipedia, the United Nations has designated sixty-five as being the start of old age.[2] But old age is an idea, a state of mind, a device of the ego nature designed to put the fear of God in us.

We are not bodies.  We are free.  For we are still as God created us.  The rumbles and grumbles that seem to symbolize our old age, our has-been status in the world, our lack of no longer contributing to the gene pool or the work force are simply not the truth about us.  We are still as God created us, the Mind of God.  The Name of God is our inheritance – Jesus reminds us in today’s review. In the world we experience ourselves as humans separated by time and space from Creation and the Kingdom from which we came – destined for death and decay. In God’s Kingdom we are forever, invincible, and one with God and each other – designed to last forever and ever.  

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[1] A Course in Miracles. Workbook for Students. Lesson 204. Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition (1992).

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_age# Retrieved July 23, 2020

Part 1 Undoing the Way We See Things Now

REVIEW VI

I am not a body.  I am free. For I am still as God created me.

Lesson 203

1. (183)  I will call upon God’s Name and on my own.

The name of God is my deliverance from every thought of evil and of sin, because it is my own as well as His.

I am not a body.  I am free.  For I am still as God created me.[1]

Notes and Personal Application:   This morning I woke up early and went downstairs to start the coffee.  While the coffee was brewing, I went outside to sit and look at the algae pond, the woods, the ducks, the overcast sky.  It was so pleasant, so quiet, so peaceful.  The rooster shattered the quiet morning with his throaty crows, rather unhappily, it sounded to me.  Last night James had put him in the retirement home with the pensioners to give the little hens a break from all his rascally ways.  He has been an over-stimulated, randy lad and with twelve young hens, I was afraid he was going to you-know-what himself to death if we did not intervene!  The pensioners can stand their own against him – old and brazen, they have outlasted and outlived three roosters in their lifetimes. 

This morning’s devotional practice begins with I am not a body.  I am free.  For I am still as God created me.  And today’s lesson review “I call upon God’s name and on my own,” brings to mind a passage in Sons and Lovers when writing about his character, the drunken, family-despising Mr. Morel, D.H. Lawrence writes, “He forgot the God in him.”[2]  I do not want to forget the God in me, my mind said, as I sat on the back deck in the early morning hours.  And so here this morning I call upon God’s name and on my own.  For God has made me like Himself, and I am still as God created me. 

Today let our prayer be that we never forget the God in us.  No matter where we are in the lifespan, no matter what our worldly achievements, our advances and our declines – we will remember to call upon God’s name and on our own.  For we are like Him!  We do not have to believe the false report of who we are any longer.  We are not bodies which clamor, demand, and point fingers of blame and shame!  We are the Mind of God, made in His image, powerful and invulnerable. 

As humans we are in a dark primitive dream state in which we prey upon the flesh of Creation to survive to die another day.  We are all screaming for and streaming toward that which we think will satisfy us but never will.  We will never find security by making any other part of Creation insecure; we will never find peace, by disturbing the peace; we will never find happiness by coveting the joys, blessings and gifts of another being.

The name of God delivers us from the fallen, depraved nature of this world because it is the name He shares with us.  He breathed His Name into us, His Son.  Unlike the fictional Mr. Morel, I never want to forget the God in me, and I hope you do not either!   

Do your best today to meditate morning and evening on our lesson review.  Throughout the day quietly ask Holy Spirit to reveal the deep truth of today’s lesson review idea.  To those of us who have been programmed to fear God instead of love and identify with Him, the idea of sharing the name of God takes some getting used to!  But how could we call Him Father if it were otherwise?    

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[1]A Course in Miracles. Workbook for Students. Lesson 203. Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition (1992).

[2] Lawrence, D.H. Sons and lovers. (Kindle Edition) retrieved from amazon.com. A public domain book.

Audio credit: http://www.eckiefriar.com