PART II. SECTION 5: WHAT IS THE BODY?
Lesson 268 Let All Things Be Exactly As They Are
- 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?
- 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]
Notes and Personal Application 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 forgive is what happened 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 hung my head in shame instead of having a good laugh. But now I see the mistakes I have made as an important component of my return to God. 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 James 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 not been so troubled. 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 all 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, we will let things be exactly as they are. We will not judge against You, myself, or others. The game of If Only would only lead us 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 separation, blasphemy, and lies. The game of If Only tempts us to think that we have missed the right paths, the good people, the good life because of our poor choices, our stunted opportunities, our wayward ways. Instead, we choose to play the happy game of salvation – awaking to the reality of Christ, accepting responsibility for our mistakes, recognizing the ego world as a stage, accepting our process and the processes of our brothers as we learn the hard lessons of separation and choose to be reunited with You. In the name of Jesus, with whom we are one. Amen
[1] A Course in Miracles. Workbook for Students. Lesson 268. Let all things…Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition p. 429.
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