VIII. The Holy Meeting Place
1. In the darkness you have obscured the glory God gave you, and the power He bestowed upon His guiltless Son. All this lies hidden in every darkened place, shrouded in guilt and in the dark denial of innocence. Behind the dark doors you have closed lies nothing because nothing can obscure the gift of God. It is the closing of the doors that interferes with recognition of the power of God that shines in you. Banish not power from your mind but let all that would hide your glory be brought to the judgment of the Holy Spirit, and there undone. Whom He would save for glory is saved for it. He has promised the Father that through Him you would be released from littleness to glory. To what He promised God He is wholly faithful, for He shares with God the promise that was given Him to share with you.
2. He shares it still, for you. Everything that promises otherwise, great or small, however much or little value, He will replace with the one promise given unto Him to lay upon the altar to your Father and His Son. No altar stands to God without His Son. And nothing brought there that is not equally worthy of both but will be replaced by gifts wholly acceptable to Father and Son. Can you offer guilt to God? You cannot, then, offer it to His Son. For they are not apart, and gifts to one are offered to the other. You know not God because you know not this, and yet you do know God and also this. All this is safe within you, where the Holy Spirit shines. He shines not in division, but in the meeting place where God, united with His Son, speaks to His Son through Him. Communication between what cannot be divided cannot cease. The holy meeting place of the unseparated Father and His Son lies in the Holy Spirit and in you. All interference in the communication that God Himself wills with His Son is quite impossible here. Unbroken and uninterrupted love flows constantly between the Father and the Son, as both would have it be. And so it is.
3. Let your mind wander not through darkened corridors, away from light’s center. You and your brother may choose to lead yourselves astray, but you can be brought together only by the Guide appointed you. He will surely lead you to where God and His Son await your recognition. They are joined in giving you the gift of oneness before which all separation vanishes. Unite with what you are. You cannot join with anything except reality. God’s glory and His Son’s belong to you in truth. They have no opposite, and nothing else can you bestow upon yourself.
4. There is no substitute for truth. And truth will make this plain to you as you are brought into the place where you must meet with truth. And there you must be led, through gentle understanding which can lead you nowhere else. Where God is, there are you. Such is the truth. Nothing can change the knowledge, given you by God, into unknowingness. Everything God created knows its Creator. For this is how creation is accomplished by the Creator and by His creations. In the holy meeting place are joined the Father and His creations, and the creations of His Son with Them together. There is one link that joins them altogether, holding them in the oneness out of which creation happens.
5. The link with which the Father joins Himself to those He gives the power to create can never be dissolved. Heaven itself is union with all of creation, and with its one Creator. And Heaven remains the Will of God for you. Lay no gifts other than this upon your altars, for nothing can coexist with it. Here your little offerings are brought together with the gift of God, and only what is worthy of the Father will be accepted by the Son, for whom it is intended. To whom God gives Himself, He is given. Your little gifts will vanish on the altar, where He has placed His Own.[1]
All Jesus is telling us in today’s devotional text reading is to let Holy Spirit undo all that is not of God in our lives. We open the door of our hearts and minds to God. We say: “Take my little craven ego self and make me whole again in – I will not resist my innocence, my purity, my holiness in You. I return my self to You for I am not my own Creator and am no longer willing to accept that which is not glory and call it worthy of Your Son.”
We cannot come to God without accepting our Sonship and we cannot accept our Sonship carrying any guilt, fear, or shame. When Holy Spirit shines upon our lower minds and all that would befuddle and confuse us is done away, we have made of our mind a holy place. There we commune with God, there our constant communication cannot be broken or interfered with. Here is where the love flows constantly between God and us, His Son. Here is where we find no guilt, no shame, no finger-pointing, no blame. Here is where we see each other as we are in Him. In the holy meeting place with God, we see beyond the world of perception which magnifies our differences, finding fault and focusing on that which separates the Sonship.
It is your responsibility and my responsibility to keep our minds from wandering through the dark perspective of the world. We are not to be babies about this always calling out to Jesus to help us –Holy Spirit is our strength for in holiness and in Spirit we stay in the center of the light of truth. This is where we find our oneness with God, not in the world and all of its dizzying array of shattered pieces. We cannot join with shattered splintered fragments of the truth, in opposition, in opposites, in stories of guilt and blame. We can only find our true and everlasting Selves in Sonship – and for this we must decide.
There is no substitute for truth. This becomes very plain to us as our communion with God is reestablished in the holy meeting place of our mind. Where God is, we are – and as we come to know this we come to know the oneness of Creation. We come to know of our connection – me with you and you with me – we come to know that we are one with all and all with one. This other thing that happens in the world which sets us apart and against one another, that would have us prey upon and lick our chops over Creation is seen for what it is, and we can watch it go away with joy and gladness – as we embrace our oneness with God and with each other. This knowledge is in you, and it is in me. Concealed by our guilt and shame for the desire to conquer and devour which we chose over love and nurturance, Holy Spirit makes of our mind the holy meeting place, the link where all is restored.
We end today’s devotional text knowing that our link with the Father cannot be dissolved. Heaven is oneness with God and with all of Creation. This is God’s Will for you and for me – we bring our humanity to God and offer it to Him upon the altar of Love. All that is not loving, good and forever painlessly melts away and our divinity is restored. God does not withhold Himself from His Son. He gives Himself – He shares power, He shares glory and honor and praise. He is not the Big Ego that sits on a throne and demands flattery and hoards praise and worship that many of us have been taught to believe. God gives Himself to Us, His Son. When we offer God our humanity, it vanishes and we are like Him, holy and pure, creators and not destroyers, expanding God’s Kingdom forever.
Today in your devotional practice, meditate upon this text and let Holy Spirit wash away all misconceptions of God that we know simply cannot be true of our Father. Ask Holy Spirit to illuminate all the falsehoods that we have been taught about God. Forgive yourself for teaching that which proves itself false in the light of truth. Refuse to believe anything of God that is less than Love, for we cannot love a God we fear. We cannot respect a God that would create a fallible creature and then punish it forever for failing. We cannot trust in a God that has favorites or tells us to forgive and then refuses to forgive those who are not willing to grovel before Him forever. Welcome the truth of Holy Spirit which will make of our minds the holy place where we commune again with our Father and are reacquainted with His undying love, affection, and devotion toward us His Son.
[1] A Course in Miracles. Chapter 14 Teaching for truth. VIII The holy meeting place. Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition (1992).
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