1. Is it not true you do not recognize some of the forms attack can take? If it is true attack in any form will hurt you and will do so just as much as in another form that you do recognize, then it must follow that you do not always recognize the source of pain. Attack in any form is equally destructive. Its purpose does not change. Its sole intent is murder, and what form of murder serves to cover the massive guilt and frantic fear of punishment the murderer must feel? He may deny he is a murderer and justify his savagery with smiles as he attacks. Yet he will suffer and will look on his intent in nightmares where the smiles are gone, and where the purpose rises to meet his horrified awareness and pursue him still. For no one thinks of murder and escapes the guilt the thought entails. If the intent is death, what matter the form it takes?
2. Is death in any form, however lovely and charitable it may seem to be, a blessing and a sign the voice for God speaks through you to your brother? The wrapping does not make the gift you give. An empty box, however beautiful and gently given, still contains nothing. And neither the receiver nor the giver is long deceived. Withhold forgiveness from your brother and you attack him. You give him nothing and receive of him but what you gave.
3. Salvation is no compromise of any kind. To compromise is to accept but part of what you want; to take a little and give up the rest. Salvation gives up nothing. It is complete for everyone. Let the idea of compromise but enter, and the awareness of salvation’s purpose is lost because it is not recognized. It is denied where compromise has been accepted, for compromise is the belief salvation is impossible. It would maintain you can attack a little, love a little, and know the difference. Thus, it would teach a little of the same can still be different, and yet the same remain intact, as one. Does this make sense? Can it be understood?
4. This course is easy just because it makes no compromise. Yet it seems difficult to those who still believe that compromise is possible. They do not see that, if it is, salvation is attack. Yet it is certain the belief that salvation is impossible cannot uphold a quiet, calm assurance it has come. Forgiveness cannot be withheld a little. Nor is it possible to attack for this and love for that and understand forgiveness. Would you not want to recognize assault upon your peace in any form, if only thus does it become impossible that you lose sight of it? It can be kept shining before your vision, forever clear and never out of sight, if you defend it not.
5. Those who believe that peace can be defended, and that attack is justified on its behalf, cannot perceive it lies within them. How could they know? Could they accept forgiveness side by side with the belief that murder takes some forms by which their peace is saved? Would they be willing to accept the fact their savage purpose is directed against themselves? No one unites with enemies, nor is at one with them in purpose. And no one compromises with an enemy but hates him still, for what he kept from him.
6. Mistake not truce for peace, nor compromise for the escape from conflict. To be released from conflict means that it is over. The door is open; you have left the battleground. You have not lingered there in cowering hope that it will not return because the guns are stilled an instant, and the fear that haunts the place of death is not apparent. There is no safety in a battleground. You can look down on it in safety from above and not be touched. But from within it you can find no safety. Not one tree left still standing will shelter you. Not one illusion of protection stands against the faith in murder. Here stands the body, torn between the natural desire to communicate and the unnatural intent to murder and to die. Think you the form that murder takes can offer safety? Can guilt be absent from a battlefield?[1]
In today’s devotional text, Jesus tells us that all are saved, or none are saved. There can be no compromise in this. We cannot offer someone guilt and not be guilty ourselves. For we are one. And when we forgive, we forgive wholly. We do not forgive our brothers for this but not for that. We do not make the projections of sin, guilt, shame, or any call at all for attack of any kind on anyone for anything because our faith is not in this world’s illusions. Our faith is not in sin, our faith is in Christ, our faith is in the perfect Sonship of God.
Salvation does not make deals with the world for God’s Creation is His Creation and cannot exist outside of Heaven. Salvation does not come for an elect for there are no elect – we are equal Sons of God and each one of us, no matter how the world may try to label us and discount our worth, no matter how low on the totem pole, no matter how crass and crude and cruel – are beloved of God and perfect in His sight. As Sons of God, as part of the Brotherhood of Christ, we would never see any of our brothers suffer; we would not dream of going up in the Rapture and letting anybody behind to suffer torments forever; we could never enter the joy and bliss of eternity knowing that our brothers were trapped in torment, agony, and despair.
There is no peace in a salvation plan that would promote attack, conflict, judgment, and condemnation. A salvation plan with no peace is not salvation but rather another form of hell. If your salvation does not bring you peace, if your salvation means you leave your loved ones behind, if your salvation is a constant battle with the devil, with evil, with suffering and pain – it is not the salvation plan of God. For God’s salvation plan is complete and there is no compromise in it. If I am saved you are saved and if we are saved, all are saved – for there is no kindness, goodness, forgiveness, or mercy in saving one and not all.
We never have to defend this truth for truth needs no defense. Our traditional holy books and sacred texts teach that salvation is only for those who latch on to God’s Chosen people, who pray a certain way, who believe in the blood of Jesus, who revere the blessed virgin, who are baptized in water. We are all free to believe what we choose to believe, but there is only one truth and it is the same for all and it applies to all. If God is Love, He cannot be a God of vengeance and of wrath. If God is our Father, our Creator, and His Love never fails, Creation can never fail. If God is Everything, there cannot be anything except for God. When we take this to the final conclusion, we know then that anything that is not perfect love and peace and joy, can only be an illusion, it can only be a dream, it can only be a fictional realm of what could be if it were possible for truth to also be a lie; for love to also be fear; for peace to also be conflict; for joy to also be sorrow.
As long as we believe in opposites and opposition we engage in the imaginary battle between the forces of good and evil. To be saved from these meaningless, ongoing, fictional conflicts is to leave the battleground! When we reach for the Higher Mind of Christ, we awaken to the realm beyond the illusion, we see through the veil of sin, we no longer try to find safety in attack, murder, and taking sides. There is no compromise in this – when I awaken I awaken you and you awaken and you awaken the next guy and so forth. All around the world, the light comes on. All around the world, Christ returns – not in the sky to whisk the ones who are better than all the rest of us away to their eternal bliss – but in our minds and hearts that we are reestablished as God’s Beloved Son together, as One.
[1] A Course in Miracles. Chapter 23 The war upon yourself. III. Salvation without compromise. Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition (1992).
For daily 2021 Workbook lessons visit www.i-choose-love.com courtesy of Linda R.
Audio credit: www.eckiefriar.com
the friar patch 