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Lesson 330 I Will Not Hurt Myself Again Today
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II. SECTION 11. What is Creation?
Lesson 330 I will not hurt myself again today.
- Let us this day accept forgiveness as our only function. Why should we attack our minds, and give them images of pain? Why should we teach them they are powerless, when God holds out His power and His Love, and bid them take what is already theirs? The mind that is made willing to accept God’s gifts has been restored to spirit, and extends its freedom and its joy, as is the Will of God united with its own. The Self Which God created cannot sin and therefore cannot suffer. Let us choose today that He be our Identity, and thus escape forever from all things the dream of fear appears to offer us.
- Father, Your Son can not be hurt. And if we think we suffer, we but fail to know our one Identity we share with You. We would return to It today, to be made free forever from all our mistakes, and to be saved from what we thought we were.[1]
Today’s lesson idea completes the study of Part II, Section 11, What is Creation. It is important that we learn how accepting forgiveness as our only function frees our mind from all that would disturb it and set it against itself. In a day-to-day application of this idea, we practice our only function as we train our minds to return to God – we forgive the upside down world that we have substituted for Creation. We accept this forgiveness as our only function. Obviously as long as we are here, we will have other things to do. We have responsibilities. We have families, friends, and pets. We have houses and jobs. But our only spiritual function, the only function that we perform that has true and everlasting meaning and frees our mind from enchantment with the illusion, is practicing forgiveness.
Forgiveness is not what we have come to think of it in the world we made. While we may consider forgiveness a favor bestowed by someone bigger and better and holier towards those who have repented of their sins and beg for another chance, Jesus teaches us that forgiveness is recognizing the world we made for what it is and letting it go. Letting go of the past and all that happened in it. Forgiving the whole shebang – what we consider sources of pride and what we consider sources of shame; recognizing that we are doomed to keep repeating the past until we understand what time is for – to learn our way back to the oneness and unity of Creation.
When we fail to remember our function, we identify with our bodies and egos. In our efforts to regain a sense of completeness we place a lot of demands and expectations on ourselves and others, especially during holiday occasions. One of the starker lessons we learn over the years in ego world is that the harder we work, the more we sacrifice, the more material we accumulate, the wearier and less satisfied we become. The good news is that we do not have to work for what is already ours. We do not have to sacrifice our happiness or make undo demands upon others to sacrifice theirs for the freedom and joy that is ours in God. In the spirit we cannot sin against Creation and because of this, there is no suffering.
When we surrender the ego, when we grasp the meaning of separation and begin to use time as a curriculum, a course of study, a spiritual pathway to God, our minds are restored to spirit and naturally extend freedom and joy. Rather than identify with our history and our flesh bodies, our reality is our oneness with Christ, Who cannot sin.
I learned this lesson over our most recent American holiday. Thanksgiving has always been my favorite. I love everything about the day. First of all, giving thanks is an important value to me. Each evening, I complete my journal entry for the day with a thankfulness list. James and I encourage one another and our family to remember to bless all the people, animals, plants, machinery, and technology involved in bringing food to our table. Gestures of gratitude whether it be a gift, a helpful deed, or simply a heartfelt note beautifully express the giving to get/the getting to give principle of Creation.
Thanksgiving Day symbolizes all the special relationships that make this dream seem real and worthwhile. It is a time to get together with family and friends and celebrate with traditional food and beverages, rites and rituals. We have turkey and mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce and creamed corn, coleslaw and green bean casserole. There are a lot of desserts that involve pumpkin and perhaps pecan. At the Friar Patch, to honor both Southern and Northern tradition, we make half bread and half cornbread sage stuffing complete with chopped oysters. This year, James made a southern style white gravy to take the place of the turkey giblet gravy that I usually make. While not exactly my idea of gravy, I had little to say about it, because I was simply too depleted to make it myself.
Not only had I depleted myself, but I chose to be sick. Following the path of the women before me, I worked way too hard and failed to enlist the helpers that were all around me. I fell into a sense of being the martyr. I nursed a secret grudge toward my grown daughter who sat and watched me prepare all the festive food while she stuffed her face with Almond Joy bars and crunchy rice bits and complained about how big her belly was. Instead of sharing the joy of planning and preparation, I took it upon myself to fulfill my picture of what Thanksgiving should look like, taste like, and smell like. When something failed to match that picture, I got crabby and bossy and felt put upon. I made up stories in my head towards those who did not pitch in or expressed a differing view.
Needless to say by the time we sat down to eat on Thanksgiving Day, the holiday had lost its shine for this old girl. Although everything tasted delicious and the loved ones around the table raved about how tasty everything was, I barely enjoyed the yummy dishes. I was tired, out of sorts, and full of secret grudges. Lover, sensing my distress, insisted that I stretch out. While our kids and grandkids took walks, played with the pets, and threw skippers across the pond, I was in bed nursing what felt like the flu. When I finally got up, James regaled me with a detailed account of all the cleanup measures that he took, as if he had done me a personal favor.
When I took this to the Lord in prayer, Holy Spirit showed me how I had made an idol of Thanksgiving Day. I had separated this day from every other day, by making it “special,” thereby heaping high expectations toward myself and others. It was a good example of specialness in that I had made an image in my mind and then sacrificed my health, well-being, and happiness to the perfect turkey and all the fixings. While there is no sin in celebrating holidays, my mistake had been to think of myself as single-handedly pulling off what was actually a joyous, joint effort that celebrated the contributions from all that gathered. Much like the women before me, I allowed my ego to convince me that I worked harder, longer, and sacrificed the most to make the celebration special. Nursing grudges clouded my awareness of how far our daughter had come and the measures she took to spend Thanksgiving week with us. When our son showed up with the delicious green bean casserole that he makes every year, my ego told me how nice it must be to show up with one dish and get all kinds of acclaim. Instead of taking joy in the happy exclamations of our young grandsons running in and out of the house, shouting and having fun, I found myself getting perturbed over the racket and the dirt on the floor. In other words, instead of practicing forgiveness, I practiced specialness. I attacked my mind and gave it images of self-pity, martyrdom, and sacrifice. Instead of relaxing and having fun and enjoying the process, I did too much and ended up spending the better part of the day in bed.
Today’s prayer is a prayer of health and healing, for it is a prayer of recognition and taking responsibility. When we remember our true Identity as God’s Son, we lay aside all false expectations and the hurtful measures we take to make special that which is only in part. We enjoy the contributions of all without judgment and resentment. When we forgive, we remember to laugh and to enjoy ourselves and others. Free to love, every day is Thanksgiving Day. For we are saved from what we thought we were.
[1]A Course in Miracles. Workbook for Students. Lesson 330. Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition (1992). p. 466.
Audio credit: the friar patch @ http://www.eckiefriar.com
Lesson 329 I Have Already Chosen What You Will
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II. SECTION 11. What is Creation?
Lesson 329 I have already chosen what You will.
- Father, I thought I wandered from Your Will, defied it, broke its laws, and interposed a second will more powerful than Yours. Yet what I am in truth is but Your Will, extended and extending. This am I, and this will never change. As You are One, so am I one with You. And this I chose in my creation, where my will became forever one with Yours. That choice was made for all eternity. It cannot change and be in opposition to itself. Father, my will is Yours. And I am safe, untroubled, and serene, in endless joy, because it is Your Will that it be so.
- Today we will accept our union with each other and our Source. We have no will apart from His, and all of us are one because His Will is shared by all of us. Through it we recognize that we are one. Through it we find our way at last to God.[1]
We thought we flouted the Will of God. We thought we introduced a second will stronger than God’s Will. How could this possibly be true? If we consider Who God is and What God is, how could there be anything but His Will in His universe. Either we believe that God is all-powerful, all-loving, all-good or we believe that He has an opposite which is as mighty and as strong and as powerful as He is, a will that He is always at war with.
In the Course, Jesus teaches us that there is no Will but God’s Will. Anything outside God’s Will is nothing. It cannot be for God is all and in all. What would not be the Will of God does not exist except in dreams, illusions, and the vain imaginings of the separated Sons of God. We have no battles to be fought and no wars to be won. When we accept God’s Will as the only Will there is, we realize our oneness! We realize that the battles we thought we had to fight have faded away. We realize the sins that seemed to plague us and fill us with shame are nothing, but ideas separate from the Will of God, mistakes that fade into the nothingness, and of no account. The judgments we would cast upon each other may extend time but do not, in the least bit, affect eternity or our Father’s Will. We realize that the enemies we have made are our brothers in the Sonship of God. We realize that nothing that happens here in time, where Sons of God dream of separation is worth mentioning or remembering. It is over. It is finished. Christ has returned and set up His Kingdom within us and restored us to our Father’s Kingdom, our eternal home.
It is God’s Will that no one shall be lost in time or otherwise, and so it is. There is no other Will. Let us not embrace another choice that would disparage our Father’s Will. 2
[1]A Course in Miracles. Workbook for Students. Lesson 329. Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition (1992). p. 466.
2Reposted by permission – Lesson 329 – eckiefriar.com November 25, 2019.
Audio credit: the friar patch @ http://www.eckiefriar.com
Lesson 328 I Choose The Second Place To Gain The First
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II. SECTION 11. What is Creation?
Lesson 328 I choose the second place to gain the first.
- What seems to be the second place is first, for all things we perceive are upside down until we listen to the Voice for God. It seems that we will gain autonomy but by our striving to be separate, and that our independence from the rest of God’s creation is the way in which salvation is obtained. Yet all we find is sickness, suffering, and loss and death. This is not what our Father wills for us, nor is there any second to His Will. To join with His is but to find our own. And since our will is His, it is to Him that we must go to recognize our will.
- There is no will but Yours. And I am glad that nothing I imagine contradicts what You would have me be. It is Your Will that I be wholly safe, eternally at peace. And happily I share that Will which You, my Father, gave as part of me.[1]
Jesus explains in today’s lesson that when we choose to put God first, we are putting our Selves first. It reminds me of when I was teaching my children the value of good manners. While making that extra effort may seem like an imposition, the fact is, I told them, that when we use good manners, people like being around us. Since it is unpleasant to sit across the table from a friend who chews with their mouth open, we may not get invited to dinner if we do not take the measures to keep our mouth closed while we masticate our meal. When we accept another’s hospitality, it benefits us to be the kind of guest that picks up after themselves and refrains from nabbing the biggest potato nor taking dibs on the most comfortable seat in the house. Be the kind of guest that makes a lot of extra work for your host and chances are you simply will not be invited back. When we receive a present, it is not only nice, but smart, to follow up with a big thank-you. The little bit of effort that this entails, guarantees goodwill – people who do not express appreciation often get overlooked the next time a gift-giving occasion comes around. The fact that neither one of my children nor myself particularly enjoy getting overlooked when it is time for invitations or presents, may seem like a selfish incentive to practice good manners, but God in His great love and desire for oneness and unity, has made our individual happiness and well-being dependent upon the appreciation, love, and respect we show for Him and for all Creation.
While etiquette can only take us so far in this world, it serves as a means to understand the logic behind the how and why of putting God before our selves. Put ourselves first, and we have removed ourselves from God and the oneness we share with Him and with all of Creation. We see ourselves as separate beings. Each one of us must then find our own way in a dog-eat-dog world. Even our most special and cherished alliances will fail and disappoint us in this state of putting ourselves first. We thought it would be our happiness to set ourselves apart and strive to be Boss, but apart from Creation, we simply do not fare well. Here in our isolated bits and parts we can not truly know one another, we can not truly comfort one another, we can not truly know and give the love with which we were created for and with.
Today Jesus asks us to consider our true will – we will to be happy, we will to be secure, we will to have peace. God’s Will and Creation’s Will are one – an idea never leaves its source. When we will with God we are willing with our own will. When we put God first, we put ourselves first for we are giving up our vain imaginings about who and what we are and have accepted our reality as His Son.
[1]A Course in Miracles. Workbook for Students. Lesson 328. Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition (1992). p. 465.
Audio credit: the friar patch @ www.eckiefriar.com
Lesson 327 I Need But Call And You Will Answer Me
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II. SECTION 11. What is Creation?
Lesson 327 I need but call and You will answer me.
- I am not asked to take salvation on the basis of an unsupported faith. For God has promised He will hear my call and answer me Himself. Let me but learn from my experience that this is true, and faith in Him must surely come to me. This is the faith that will endure and take me farther and still farther on the road that leads to Him. For thus, I will be sure that He has not abandoned me and loves me still, awaiting but my call to give me all the help I need to come to Him.
- Father, I thank You that Your promises will never fail in my experience if I but test them out. Let me attempt, therefore, to try them and to judge them not. Your Word is one with You. You give the means whereby conviction comes, and surety of Your abiding Love is gained at last.[1]
Today Jesus teaches us that our salvation does not hinge upon our belief in it. Salvation is for all. God promises to heed our calls and answer us when we are ready to come Home. We do not have to take anybody else’s word for it. We learn to have faith in Him because our faith and trust comes to us through personal, visceral experience. We call; He answers. We ask for guidance; He guides us. We ask for reality; He reminds us of Creation. When we develop this kind of faith in Him, we are no longer afraid to call upon Him. We do not care who knows where our affections lie. We are not ashamed to call Him Father nor are we ashamed to be His Son. We understand God’s love and devotion toward us and how respectful the plan of salvation. In other words, we are not threatened or coerced, we are not robbed or tricked, He plays no cruel games or goes to war against the world we made in substitute of Creation. He simply awaits for us to come to the end of the lessons that separation teaches us.
In our A Course in Miracles study group, we extend welcome to anyone who wants to study the Course. However, we do make it clear from the start that this is not a study group designed for debate, for doubt, or for challenge. This is not a study group created to convince others of the validity or the efficacy of the Course. When we gather together, we have already ascertained through our personal studies and application that this is the means through which we find the path to God. We are already under the conviction that this is the path in which Holy Spirit leads us to seek truth. We gather together because we do not learn alone. We gather together, not to convince one another of truth, but to support one another’s seeking with this particular curriculum.
This same principle applies to this blog. As much as I enjoy hearing from readers and encourage such communication through email, if this blog does not speak to your heart, by all means seek another path to truth. Nobody benefits from arguments, from judgment, from perceiving attack or defending a belief system. I share my process of surrendering the ego and the ego’s belief systems on a public forum because this is what Holy Spirit has called me to do. As much as I appreciate having followers from all over the world, whether you follow me or not is none of my business. I do not do this as a means to gain fame and fortune! In the process of relinquishing the ego, I make mistakes, I go on rants, and I share what seems to be real struggles while I test and prove what Jesus teaches in the Course. As I have mentioned in previous posts, I trust you who are sincerely called to study A Course in Miracles to understand, to withhold judgment, to forgive me when I make mistakes or express myself in a loveless manner just as I trust that God does! When I use language that offends you, when the quality of the podcast interferes with the lesson, when I mispronounce words or offer illustrations that leave you all the more confused, please accept that this is not by design. I share my process to encourage others to share, because it is only when we get past our fear and shame of imperfection that we come together as one – certain of God’s abiding love at last.
[1]A Course in Miracles. Workbook for Students. Lesson 327. Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition (1992). p. 465.
Audio credit: the friar patch @ www.eckiefriar.com
Lesson 326 I Am Forever An Effect Of God
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II. SECTION 11. What is Creation?
Lesson 326 I am forever an Effect of God.
- Father, I was created in Your mind, a holy Thought that never left its home. I am forever Your Effect, and You forever and forever are my Cause. As You created me, I have remained. Where You established me, I still abide. And all Your attributes abide in me because it is Your Will to have a Son so like his Cause that Cause, and Its Effect are indistinguishable. Let me know that I am an Effect of God, and so I have the power to create like You. And as it is in Heaven, so on earth. Your plan I follow here, and at the end I know that You will gather Your effects into the tranquil Heaven of Your Love, where earth will vanish, and all separate thoughts unite in glory as the Son of God.
- Let us today behold earth disappear, at first transformed, and then, forgiven, fade entirely into God’s holy Will.[1]
Today Jesus reminds us of our place in our Father’s mind. Creation is a Holy Thought of God. The idea of Creation never left its Source. Forever we as God’s Effect, are as God created us. God is the Cause, and we are the effect. God made us like Him to be the Son – so like Cause that Cause and its Effect are alike. Creator and Creation are one, Jesus teaches. And today our prayer asks of God to show us the power we have to create like God creates. To bring Heaven to earth, following the happy plan of salvation – forgiving and reflecting God’s love.
When we fulfill our function, when we learn to think of Creation as whole and perfect, pure and holy, when we no longer cherish the spaces and outlines between us, but rather recognize and welcome and make one again – we will be gathered home. The world we made of opposition and separateness will vanish for there is no place for rank and rancor in the glory of Creation, in the oneness of the Sonship.
This morning as I read over our lesson in my morning devotional, I recalled the movie we watched last night. Colette and Coltin are here to visit over Thanksgiving, and after Coltin ate his supper and polished off a bowl of teaberry ice cream, he got into his pajamas and said he wanted to watch Jumangi. So we rented Jumangi, Welcome to the Jungle. We laughed and carried on throughout the whole movie, it was high entertainment made especially funny by Grandpa wanting to sit on Coltin’s lap during part of the show. Afterwards we all brushed our teeth and kissed and hugged and went to our separate beds and that was the end of it, or so I thought.
But this morning during my quiet time with God, Holy Spirit asked me to take a closer look at the movie for illustration for today’s lesson. God’s plan of salvation is in everything we see, and it behooves us to pay careful attention.
In short, the movie introduces us to four teenagers who have earned themselves detention through their self-centered, limited views about themselves and others. During detention, instead of preparing old magazines for the recycling center, they find a discarded video game amongst the shelves of recyclables and decide to play that. The game requires that they choose adult avatars to play a game of high adventure set in a jungle. They realize almost immediately after starting the game, that this game is not set up to compete against one another, but to join their separate skills and knowledge base to survive. The only way out is through it. The only way through it is together. Without one another, they will remain trapped in the game much like the lone guy they find who has been missing since 1996.
To watch as the high school students adjust to their adult avatars is not only hilarious but upon a closer look, a good example of what this world is for all of us as Sons of God who have lost their way. Our Course teaches us that all of us who end up here, have decided to separate from our Source. We have made another version of Creation and the Creator that we call our own. We are trapped in our illusions, and we think of ourselves as the bodies which have been handed to us upon our arrival. We assume the separated identity of egos rather than remember our true identity in the oneness of God.
Throughout the movie, when an avatar would lose one of their lives, they would simply disintegrate and then a few moments later, fall from the sky none the worse for wear to pick up where they left off. As watchful as they became over the number of lives they had left, it was amusing and enlightening to watch them develop the love and affection for one another necessary for survival. As they pooled their separate talents and put aside their self-limiting ideas about themselves and one another, they accomplished astounding feats. It was not until each one of them cared more about saving the others than about their individual survival that the curse was lifted and they returned home. Like all of us, they had to learn to see past separateness, past appearances, past differences, past the past to see the commonality, the one-for-all and the all-for-one that is God’s plan for salvation.
At the end of the game, they return to their former lives as bosom buddies, no longer separated by status and appearances. As they have changed, so has their world changed. The missing boy from 1996 has become a man, a father, a returned son. The haunted house, which served as a blight upon the town at the beginning of the movie, is now a loving, lovely home. A miracle has transpired bringing healing and restoration beyond time’s power to enchant.
When we begin to have so much as an inkling that we are an effect of God, that we have the power to create as God does, we realize how critical it is that we think the thoughts that reflect the love, devotion, and purity of Creation. It may seem hard on our egos to lay aside judgments, to put down our desire for vengeance, spite, attack, and defense. Yet, this is the means by which our minds are freed from the illusion of separation. Putting aside the ego makes room for the Second Coming of Christ to take place in our minds and hearts. Establishing peace on earth and goodwill toward all of Creation within the dream is our way back to the Kingdom which we never truly left. Like those kids in the movie, we will be only too happy to see the game world dissolve into nothingness, as we awaken to Creation’s glory as the Son of God.
[1]A Course in Miracles. Workbook for Students. Lesson 326. Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition (1992). p. 464.
Audio credit: the friar patch @ www.eckiefriar.com
Lesson 325 All Things I Think I See Reflect Ideas
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II. SECTION 11. What is Creation?
Lesson 325 All things I think I see reflect ideas.
- This is salvation’s keynote: What I see reflects a process in my mind, which starts with my idea of what I want. From there, the mind makes up an image of the thing the mind desires, judges valuable, and therefore seeks to find. These images are then projected outward, looked upon, esteemed as real, and guarded as one’s own. From insane wishes comes an insane world. From judgment comes a world condemned. And from forgiving thoughts a gentle world comes forth, with mercy for the holy Son of God, to offer him a kindly home where he can rest a while before he journeys on, and help his brothers walk ahead with him, and find the way to Heaven and to God.
- Our Father, Your ideas reflect the truth, and mine apart from Yours but make up dreams. Let me behold what only Yours reflect, for Yours and Yours alone establish truth.[1]
In today’s lesson Jesus informs us that when we identify with the ego’s insane wishes, we will not see Creation as it was created, we see instead an insane world. When we think in part, we will see in part. When we think of ourselves as separate, we will see separateness and defend ourselves against the unity of Creation. When we think division, we will see division and defend ourselves against the wholeness of Creation. When we think of our brothers as mean-spirited, selfish, and lazy, that is how we will interpret everything our brother does, instead of seeing our brother as God created him. When we think with the darkened mind, we will see the shadowland of the death-driven world rather than the light, the joy, the peace. and love of Creation.
Forgiveness is the key to salvation. For when our minds have forgiving thoughts the gentleness and kindness of Creation comes forth. Here we extend mercy to our fellow creatures, here we offer them a place of rest as they return to God, and in our forgiving thoughts we help our brothers walk ahead not of us, but with us, as our forgiving thoughts lead us back to God.
When I read that last sentence in the first paragraph, the words “walk ahead with us” leapt out and captured my attention. Usually when we see “walk ahead” we think of someone walking in front of us. Gallantly we may step aside and allow someone to walk ahead of us, but no, Jesus is saying that our brother walk ahead “with” us. Here we see the mutuality of salvation represented in the journey back to God. Nobody is ahead; nobody is left behind. Forgiveness extended to all and by all allows us to walk ahead together. Nobody is in a hurry to get there first; nobody is calling first dibs. The key factor in a return to God is seeing our brothers as ourselves, experiencing the flow of grace that is getting to give and giving to get. I offer up my spot on the journey to my brother, but instead of taking it, we walk ahead together, for we are one, we are equals, we are both leaders and followers, we are whole. I would not dream of butting in line ahead of him; he would not dream of butting in line ahead of me.
This is an especially wonderful lesson to me this week because it speaks to reconciliation. For years I have found it difficult if not impossible to forgive those who have hurt me and disappointed me. Even though I am not necessarily a believer in astrology, my temperament seems to closely follow the description of a Scorpio, the sign I have been born under. Ferociously loyal, when I am betrayed, I seek unholy vengeance. Many times I have to cut people out of my life because I am afraid of my own desire to even scores or teach someone a much-needed lesson. When someone shows me their ass, I am challenged, not to show them forgiveness, but to show them that I too have an ass and it is bigger and “badder” than the one shown me.
There is nothing about this of which I am proud, I am merely describing the Eckie I made myself out to be to survive in this world. She seemed to be my friend. She seemed to be all for me – to defend me from those who would take advantage, to attack those who hurt me or those I held dear. This ego-driven Eckie wanted to make sure that I get what is coming to me, that nobody else gets to it first. She likes to let everybody know that she is an introvert, not an extrovert. She has a clearly delineated boundary, a line which nobody better cross without express permission. While she seemed to be my friend, her protection gives me nothing; she takes me nowhere; she leads me round in hopeless, loveless circles. Returned to her source, ego Eckie is a big nothing.
Getting in touch with the me who is as God created me, has been a wonderful reconciliation not just with my holy Self, but also with my brothers. Learning to put away judgment, learning to overlook slights and wounds and boundary crossing, learning to choose the gentle, forgiving thoughts that reflect God’s love has filled me, not with a desire for vengeance or trying to prove who is the bigger badass, but rather a desire for healing, a willingness to let bygones be bygones, a tenderness that cares for the whole and not just for certain parts.
Today’s prayer fills me with peace, with love, with calmness and certainty of purpose. Let us speak the words together, asking God to illuminate the meaning in our hearts and minds:
Our Father, Your ideas reflect the truth, and my ideas apart from Yours, make stuff up. Let me only behold the reflections of Your ideas. For Your ideas and Your ideas alone establish truth. In the name of Jesus, with Whom we are one. Amen.
[1]A Course in Miracles. Workbook for Students. Lesson 325. Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition (1992). p. 464.
Audio credit: the friar patch @ www.eckiefriar.com
Lesson 324 I Merely Follow, For I Would Not Lead
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II. SECTION 11. What is Creation?
Lesson 324 I merely follow, for I would not lead.
- Father, You are the One Who gave the plan for salvation to me. You have set the way I am to go, the role to take, and every step in my appointed path. I cannot lose the way. I can but choose to wander off a while, and then return. Your loving Voice will always call me back and guide my feet aright. My brothers all can follow in the way I lead them. Yet I merely follow in the way to You, as You direct me and would have me go.
- So let us follow One Who knows the way. We need not tarry, and we cannot stray except an instant from His loving hand. We walk together, for we follow Him. And it is He Who makes the ending sure and guarantees a safe returning home.[1]
Today we are reminded that God is the One who gives us salvation. God decides which way we are to go, the roles that best suit us, and every step we take along the path of our return. Because God gives us the plan, it is impossible for us to lose the way to Him. We can put off our awakening as long as we choose; we can wander away from the path that He gives, but because God made the path of return for each one of us, we can only return. His Love, which is the purpose and core of all Creation, His Love, which has established our Sonship, will never abandon us or forget us. We cannot lose it – ever.
Conversely, when we devise salvation’s plan, we will work very hard to clean up our acts in order to deserve salvation. When we must compete with others for our spot on the glory train, we will be in a state of worry and fret about our worthiness. We will call our mistakes, sins, and crave to be punished rather than forgiven, even as we crave to punish others when they make mistakes. We will sacrifice needlessly of our time, our money, our effort. We will feel it is our God-given mission to save the world with doctrines that divide rather than unite and dogma that saves the few rather than all. Our spiritual path will be fraught, not with love, peace, and joy, but anxiety, worry, and needless fretting over the souls of those who do not make the cut or how many stars we have collected in our crowns.
Jesus tells us in today’s prayer that our brothers can all follow in the path we lead because we are on the path in which nobody can ever stray except for an instant. No matter what it may look like in time, our mistakes so seeming great or trite and small are a mere blip on the everlastingness of eternity. Our brothers can all follow where we lead because we did not make the path. Our brothers can follow our lead only in learning to completely trust the One Who did make the path. Hence, I have no worries over your salvation nor should you concern yourself with mine. I am not ahead of you, nor are you ahead of me. We walk together with those from the distant past and with those who have as yet to be born. On the path to God, time takes on a new meaning – it is our teacher and friend rather than enemy. Once we have reached our goal time will simply fade away because it serves no purpose in Creation.
On our path to God, we seek not to lead one another or to follow one another. This is critical to our understanding of our goal and the spiritual concepts of equality, mutuality, and oneness. We walk together following Him Who leads the way. It is important that we remind one another of this frequently for in our yearning for oneness here in the dream of separateness, we tend to worship the spaces and outlines which distinguish us from one another. Although there is nothing wrong in being gracious when someone recognizes a spiritual truth that we may have expounded upon and blessed them with, it is important to always remain cognizant of the mutuality we share. We are both teachers and students. We walk together. We must never allow or encourage others to follow us instead of the path that God has made for them. No matter what other paths may look like from our earthly perspective, we walk together when we follow Him.
It should gives us pause if we hang too tightly on the words of our fellow travelers. Take everything someone says and go to God with it. Ask Him what He has to say about it. Quote what God tells you! Do not cringe behind your brothers, expecting them to lead the way, using the words they say to judge and preach to others. This is not a godly practice nor is it one that leads to love. Likewise, collecting followers and encouraging allegiance and leadership puts us in a precarious position of specialness. As we follow God, walking side by side, nobody ahead and nobody behind, we practice the mutuality that keeps us humble, correctable, and teachable.
How thankful we are that we did not make the plan of Salvation! How thankful we are to lead only to follow the One who guarantees our safe return. For we are as God created us – our oneness with Creation – restored.
[1]A Course in Miracles. Workbook for Students. Lesson 324. Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition (1992). p. 463.
Audio credit: the friar patch @ www.eckiefriar.com
Lesson 323 Today I Gladly Make The “Sacrifice” Of Fear
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II. SECTION 11. What is Creation?
Lesson 323 I gladly make the “sacrifice” of fear.
- Here is the only “sacrifice” You ask of your beloved Son; You ask him to give up all suffering, all sense of loss and sadness, all anxiety and doubt, and freely let Your Love come streaming in to his awareness, healing him of pain, and giving him Your Own eternal joy. Such is the “sacrifice” You ask of me, and one I gladly make; the only “cost” of restoration of Your memory to me, for the salvation of the world.
- And as we pay the debt we owe to truth, —a debt that merely is the letting go of self-deceptions and of images we worshipped falsely, —truth returns to us in wholeness and in joy. We are deceived no longer. Love has now returned to our awareness. And we are at peace again, for fear has gone and only love remains.[1]
Jesus teaches us that there are two levels. One is false and one is true. When we no longer believe in and worship that which is false, only truth remains. To remember Creation is to surrender all the substitutes that we made to take its place. It is only our recognition of our need for salvation that truth can be made apparent to us. As long as we are content with this world, finding our jollies in its follies, happy to play the pointing fingers game, and add our two cents to its unending commentary on its unrestful dramas, competitions, and strife – we are doomed to what we must “sacrifice.” However, when we surrender decay, darkness, and death all that remains is healing, light, and love everlasting. When we surrender our craving for suffering, sorrow, anxiety and uncertainty, God’s love and devotion for us returns to our awareness. We are healed. We are filled with peace and joy. We are restored to Creation. We are as God created us.
Application of today’s lesson concept can be illustrated by no longer being afraid of being called a “kook” because we choose to seek God in a public forum. We are no longer content to stay in the closet knocking on heaven’s door, our private journeys have only taken us so far. When we bring our love for God out in the open; we bring our path to God out where everyone can see. No longer ashamed of our need for salvation, no longer ashamed to say, “There must be a better way,” our public devotion is not a device in which to boast or brag of our enlightened spirituality, but a platform in which to share our journey. For salvation cannot be grasped alone for God’s plan is one of reunification, healing, and wholeness.
The Course teaches that we honor truth by letting go of all that is false. We honor God by letting go of all that would shatter the joy and peace and love in which He created us with and for. When we are ready to give up all that stands in the way of our return to Him, we exchange nothing for Everything. Today I gladly make the sacrifice of fear.
[1]A Course in Miracles. Workbook for Students. Lesson 323. Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition (1992). p. 463.
Audio credit: the friar patch @ www.eckiefriar.com
