PART II.  SECTION 5:  WHAT IS THE BODY?

Lesson 263 My Holy Vision Sees All Things As Pure

1. Father, Your Mind created all that is.  Your Spirit entered into it; Your Love gave life to it.  And would I look upon what You created as if it could be made sinful?  I would not perceive such dark and fearful images.  A madman’s dream is hardly fit to be my choice, instead of all the loveliness with which You blessed creation; all its purity, its joy, and its eternal, quiet home in You.
2. And while we still remain outside the gate of Heaven, let us look on all we see through holy vision and the eyes of Christ.  Let all appearances seem pure to us, that we may pass them by in innocence, and walk together in our Father’s house as brother and the holy Sons of God.[1] 

Notes and Personal Application How do we see all things as pure when the world around us rages and whirls with wrongdoing, strife, and terror?  The rapists, and killers, psychopaths and bums, drug dealers and human traffickers, plotters, liars, and cheats – are we really called to see this as pure?  Who are we kidding? 

It is easy for us to balk at today’s lesson.  It sounds as if Christ is asking us to walk through this life wearing rose-tinted glasses, in an imaginary world of love, peace, and joy while the world is fraught with starvation, floods, fires, and violence.  Instead of allowing the ego to tempt us to resist our lesson today, let us quiet our minds and hearts and humbly ask the Lord to show us the meaning of our lesson. 

In every situation, in every moment we make a choice whether we are going to see through the eyes of the ego or the eyes of Christ.  When we use holy vision, we bring forgiveness, love, joy, gratitude, and peace to every circumstance.  Being one with Christ, means that we walk with intentions of true helpfulness instead of promoting more violence, shame, guilt, and sorrow.  We no longer buy into the world’s interpretation of others.  Instead of standing around gossiping and condemning others for their perceived wrongdoing or social foibles, in Christ we see this as an opportunity to offer forgiveness, restoration, and healing. We find ourselves no longer able or willing to maintain status or find meaning in our material possessions, our social caste, or professional standing.  

As long as we are in human form, we continue to see with our eyes of flesh, but instead of promoting condemnation, punishment, and fear – as Sons of God – we look upon all that is wrong as a mistake that can be corrected.  We understand that the world of separation, change, and time cannot be real because it is perceived as separate from God and from one another.  While the path is narrow to truth and broad to illusion, all is takes is a few that seek to align themselves with Christ, the few that would take this stand against the unreality of this world and stand for the reality of God’s Kingdom.  When the ego’s messengers are screaming, “Kill, maim, destroy,” Holy Spirit is quietly calling us to forgive, heal, and restore.  

Today we pray with reverence and understanding:

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[1]A Course in Miracles. Workbook for Students. Lesson 263. Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition (1992).

Audio credit: the friar patch at http://www.eckiefriar.com

PART II.  SECTION 5:  WHAT IS THE BODY?

Lesson 262 Let Me Perceive No Differences Today

1. Father, you have one Son. And it is he that I would look upon today. He is your one creation. Why should I perceive a thousand forms in what remains as one? Why should I give this one a thousand names, when only one suffices?  For your Son must bear Your Name, for You created him. Let me not see him as a stranger to his Father, nor as stranger to myself. For he is part of me and I of him, and we are part of You who are our source, eternally united in Your love, eternally the holy Son of God.
2. We who are one would recognize this day the truth about ourselves. We would come home, and rest in unity. For there is peace, and nowhere else can peace be sought and found.[1]

Notes and Personal Application In the prayer Jesus leads us offer today, we recognize the fact that we are one.  Today we will look upon each other and all of creation as a whole.  We will train our minds today and for a focused time each day after to no longer name the things we see with our physical eyes as being separate from us, as being apart from us.  We, all of Creation, are the one Son of God.  We stand with Christ and in our oneness with Christ we are one. 

In our devotional time today we practice this prayer.  We see ourselves, our brothers, all of Creation not as fallen, not as separate, not as having many names and different forms, but as being part of ourselves.  If we see our brother as beautiful, strong, good, and true, we will see ourselves as beautiful, strong, good, and true.  If we see our brother as unattractive, weak, evil, and dishonest, we will see ourselves as being in the same category.  Jesus is asking us not only to recognize this truth but practice only seeing one another as God created us. 

When we first start this practice, it seems as if we are trying to deceive ourselves in believing something that simply is not there.  However, the more time we give to God in our minds and hearts, the more that we make Christ the foundation of our lives, the more our oneness with Him becomes apparent to us.  Yes, on this level we experience ourselves as human.  Yes we all have many faults, weaknesses, perversions, and weird habits.  But we are not discussing our humanity here.  We are not referring to what our ego-eyes would have us perceive.  We are instead giving the ego-eyes to God and asking for the vision of Christ. 

When we practice the vision of Christ, even if it is only for a few minutes a day, we begin to see others as ourselves.  We develop a deep and abiding empathy.  We begin to understand God’s plan of salvation.  We begin to understand the concepts in the Course which ask us to see beyond this world of physicality and seek the Kingdom of God within each and every one of us. 

We look past the outward appearance of our brothers.  We do not judge someone as fat or skinny, black or white, old or young.  We do not judge others by the styles and trends they follow.  Rich or poor, conservative or liberal, male or female, we have absolutely no desire to stick our nose in or flap our gums about the private parts or the private matters of humanity.  It no longer matters to us which church others attend, or if they attend a church at all.  Religious dogma loses its hold upon our consciousness; traditions, rites, and rituals become meaningless as we move away from our humanity and accept our divinity in Christ.  Patriotism becomes love not only for our own beautiful country, but respect, love, and ardor for the whole. 

When we begin to know our true identity in Christ, we no longer care for the same things we cared about when we thought we were a body.  As we let loose our need to perceive differences, to judge and compare, to look at mistakes and call them sins, to condemn others for the very things we do ourselves, we experience a sense of joy, freedom, and peace.  There are times the world seems encased in a golden haze of purity and love as we no longer insist on labeling Creation as apart from ourselves or separate from God. 

Today, practice coming home to this truth and resting in oneness, in unity with God.  At home in unity with God is where we find what we really seek and what we really want – the peace that can be found no where in the realm of bodies, separateness, and idols. 

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[1]A Course in Miracles. Workbook for Students. Lesson 262. Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition (1992).

Audio credit: the friar patch @ http://www.eckiefriar.com

PART II.  SECTION 5:  WHAT IS THE BODY?

Lesson 261 God Is My Refuge and Security

1. I will identify with what I think is refuge and security. I will behold myself where I perceive my strength and think I live within the citadel where I am safe and cannot be attacked. Let me today seek not security in danger, nor attempt to find my peace in murderous attack. I live in God. In Him, I find my refuge and my strength. In Him is my Identity. In Him is everlasting peace. And only there will I remember Who I really am.
2. Let me not seek for idols. I would come, my Father, home to You today. I choose to be as You created me and find the Son whom You created as my Self. [1]

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[1]A Course in Miracles. Workbook for Students. Lesson 261. Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition (1992)

Audio credit: the friar patch @ http://www.eckiefriar.com

PART II.  SECTION 4:  WHAT IS SIN?

Lesson 260 Let Me Remember God Created Me

1. Father, I did not make myself, although in my insanity, I thought I did.  Yet, as Your Thought, I have not left my Source, remaining part of Who created me.  Your Son, my Father, calls on You today.  Let me remember You created me.  Let me remember my Identity.  And let my sinlessness arise again before Christ’s vision, through which I would look upon my brothers and myself today. 
2. Now is our Source remembered and Therein we find our true Identity at last.  Holy indeed are we, because our Source can know no sin.  And we who are His Sons are like each other, and alike to Him.[1]

Notes and Personal Application  Borrowing from last year’s post, I will once again write that I never believed in evolution.  I did not believe that we created ourselves.  Beyond my agnosticism, attempts at atheism, indignation and resentment at my plight as a human, trapped in a meaty, lusty, vulnerable body, accused of sin and destined to die, I remembered God.  I knew of His Love.  I remembered how appalled I was at the teachings of the church, the stories in the old testament, the ways in which preachers and teachers cherished the idea of God’s wrath, His vengeance, His playing favorites.   

What I have learned over this past year of studying the Course and completing and sharing each day’s lessons is that while I may not have believed in evolution, I did make a false sense in which to survive in this world.  This false sense, the ego me, posed as the real me.  I turned to it for protection, for power, for a sense of adventure, for a means in which to sink into and enjoy my humanity and forget my divinity.  Only when I began to see with the vision of Christ, did I notice the stark difference between the self I created and my real and holy Self that God created.  While the real and holy Self began to emerge and the ego self began to dissolve, I was the only one that could experience this happening.  The process feels like walking through the valley of the shadow of death mentioned in Psalms 23.  There is Holy Spirit guiding, protecting, walking with me, as I experience the death to the false self, while in the outer world there is Eckie pulling her weeds, planting her cabbages, making a sandwich, taking a shower, going to market, the same old girl doing her daily routine. 

When we remember our Source and begin to discover our true Identity, the false sense has to go in order to make room in our mind for our Real Self.  If we try to hold on to the false self, we will be trying to serve two masters, which is impossible.  We live then in a state of confusion.  For years, I had an on/off again approach to God.  I could not understand the plan of salvation.  I could not for the life of me understand why, if we were created beings, our tendency for wrongdoing was any fault of our own.  A car manufacturer takes responsibility for the mistakes made on the assembly line.  Our old Dodge Ram, our Jeep and even my little Mercedes coup has had manufacturer recalls correcting flaws in their construction.  My mind refused to believe in sin or the idea that God was out to punish us for a mistake that He made when He created us.  I tried to go to church, to read my bible, to pray to this God that the minister talked about each Sunday, but it all seemed a ploy, contrived, an attempt to pull together  a neat little theology, dignify it with meaningless rites and rituals, put a ribbon on it, call it salvation, and bestow it upon only those who were gullible enough to not question its validity and veracity.  In other words I experienced my spiritual process as a series of false starts and dashed hopes. I remember my sister scolding me for how often I changed my mind about my Christianity.  And I felt so ashamed of myself.  I felt so sorry for Jesus that He had such a wishy-washy, sometimes in and sometimes out of the fold, old mutton who kept wandering off on her own insisting that what was good for the rest of the sheep failed to hold her interest. 

And yet when the words of Christ came to me, to tell me that I was not lost, that I was not a special case, that in His eyes, I never left the fold, that I am not some stubborn old ewe who can’t buckle down with the rest of the old girls munching grass and filling my belly with small leafy greens.  I am His Son. I am His Creation.  I will only find myself in Him.  While I may find companionship, helpful tips, and earthly guidance in the religious institutions of the world, my salvation comes from accepting my true Identity, my oneness with Christ.  Here is where we cherish thoughts of sin no more.  It simply does not exist – it is erased from our consciousness and we are happy to see it go. 

We call on God today as His Son.  We let go of the false self and remember that God created us.  What God creates can only be wholesome, true, beautiful, and holy.  What God creates cannot be riddled with sin.  Today we join together from across the world and recognize the intelligence and logic of this thought.  God Who knows no sin creates no sin.  We are holy because He is holy.  We are as God created us.  Let not the lies of this world tempt us to believe we made ourselves separate and apart from Him Who is our Source. 

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[1]A Course in Miracles. Workbook for Students. Lesson 260. Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition (1992).

Audio credit: the friar patch @ http://www.eckiefriar.com

PART II.  SECTION 4:  WHAT IS SIN?

Lesson 259 Let Me Remember That There Is No Sin

1. Sin is the only thought that makes the goal of God seem unattainable.  What else could blind us to the obvious, and make the strange and disturbed seem more clear?  What else but sin engenders our attacks?  What else but sin could be the source of guilt, demanding punishment and suffering?  And what but sin could be the source of fear, obscuring God’s creation; giving love the attributes of fear and of attack?
2. Father, I would not be insane today.  I would not be afraid of love, nor seek for refuge in its opposite.  For love can have no opposite.  You are the Source of everything there is.  And everything that is remains with You, and You with it. [1]

Notes and Personal Application Today our lesson informs us that the idea of sin is foreign to God.  Believing in sin is the one thought that makes us believe that the path to God is simply too much for us, in our human form, to attain. When we think of ourselves as sinful, fallen, cursed of God there seems to be simply no point in seeking God, holiness, or heaven.  Why would we want to serve such a harsh mean Fellow who would create a universe in which we were expected to worship grovel before Him forever in exchange for atonement, anyway?  Such a belief system traps the ignorant and unsuspecting in fear and superstition. It encourages fanatical, violent witch hunts against the true message and mind of Christ.  It seeks to turn our natural love and longing for God into fear and attack. 

Today we give up such insanity.  We no longer fear our devotion to God and for one another.  We are no longer afraid to say how much we love our Father and Creation.  We are no longer afraid to claim our holiness as His Son.  We are no longer afraid to accept our rightful place in His Kingdom as we stand with Christ.   Thoughts of sin no longer keep us from God or from our true identity in Him!  We do not weaponize the gospel of Christ against those who rise against us for sin and death and destruction is an image of the insane world’s perception and has no place in our eternal mind and home with God. 

Our hope, our peace, and joy is found in this:  Love has no opposite.  God is Everything.  God is Everywhere and Everlasting.  God is Reality.  All else that would try to establish itself against Him is a lie which cannot stand against the truth. 

When we realize that our salvation from sin is deliverance from a lie that presents itself as truth, our hearts and mind will leap in holy recognition of what has kept us from loving God and accepting our rightful place as His Son.  Suddenly the traditional teachings of the church, of the bible, of our established institutions and organizations will be seen through the eyes of Christ rather than with the eyes of the ego. 

When Jesus lived on earth in a human form, he did not pastor in a church, collect tithes and offerings, or establish a group of musicians to lead the participants in song.  He did not waste his time studying liturgy, ministry, biblical studies, and theology.  Jesus followed His heart, His holy mind, His calling.  He simply did what God told him to do and told his disciples to do the same.  He told stories that illustrated God’s love and devotion to Creation.  He gave people hope.  He delivered them from belief systems that purposefully trapped them in servitude and slavery, draining them of their sovereignty.  Instead of avoiding the lepers and outcasts, he ministered to them.  He told the people He healed “sin no more.”

There are all kinds of theories about what Jesus could have meant by this.  We are told in one section of the bible that it is impossible for us not to sin.  We are told that sin must be punished.  In the book of James we are told we are liars if we say we have no sin!  The idea that we are sinful, guilt-ridden creatures who are an offense to our Creator is the basis for nearly every religion in the world. 

Yet today in Lesson 259, Christ informs us to remember there is no sin.  Sin is not of God.  If God is Everything; then sin is only an idea that lifted itself up against Him.  It is something we do not give a second thought. We simply let the idea of sin go.  We cannot take that idea or any of the consequences of believing in its imaginary power with us to His Kingdom.  When the prodigal comes home, he does not bring the idea of sin with him, his sense of guilt and shame or his imaginary offenses are lifted.  He takes off his rags stained with pig dirt.  They are not put into an archive to keep forever as evidence of his having squandered his inheritance.  The grime from his journey is washed away, not kept in a jug to remind the sinner of how thankful he should be to be taken back in.  He is home!  He is grateful to have learned from his mistakes, welcomed with open arms and joyful heart to his rightful kingdom.   He is given a clean robe, a ring, and the best seat of the house while a feast is prepared in his honor.  The Father reproves any talk of sin, of punishment, of spite and vengeance and accountability.  Remember there is no sin!  He was lost.  Now he is found.  He made a mistake.  He learned a lesson.  He is back where he belongs. 

Let us go again and again to this simple but powerful story to remind ourselves of the insanity of believing in sin. The idea that we are born in sin obscures the fact that we are born in separation.  When we believe in our sinfulness, we believe that we have earned God’s wrath and condemnation.  We believe that the only way to return to our Father is through systems of fear that involve sacrifice, shame, guilt, and bloodshed.  Our relationship with Christ becomes tainted because we believe that our sinful natures caused our Lord to suffer.  We miss the point of His ministry and focus on the cross, His bloodshed and suffering rather than on His command to forgive and to seek God and His Kingdom.  We are taught that God cannot be appeased without blood, even that of His Own Son, while all God asks of us is our love, our devotion, our return. 

From around the world, we join as one in putting down our ideas of sin.  We have simply made a mistake.  We fell into a realm of separation.  Like the prodigal we thought to leave the sure thing of Everything and make our own way in a world of Unreality, of opposites, of love and hate, peace and war, gentleness and violence, truth and lies, courage and fear, health and decay, life and death.  We would set up our own Kingdom where we could be boss, only to find that without our Source we are lost, confused, driven mad with uncertainty, forgetting our way, and swamped in thoughts of sin.  We want to come Home!  We learned the lessons of separation.  We see that without our Everything we are nothing.  We have made of ourselves a hellish version of that which is Holy, Innocent, and Sublime. 

Today we pray:

Our Father Who is Everything, we love and devote ourselves to You.  We have made a mistake.  We want to come Home.  We want Your kingdom.  We want Your Will.  We miss Your Love, Your Holiness, Your All in All.  Deliver us from thoughts of sin, despair, and death.  Let us see this madness for what it is!  Let us no longer fill our minds with the Unreality which makes the strange and distorted seem real while blinding our eyes to Your Kingdom.  We give You our eyes in exchange for the vision of Christ.  We give You our divided minds for the unified mind of Christ.  We give You thoughts of sin and shame for thoughts of mistakes corrected by Your love, patience, and mercy.  Let the rest of our sojourn in time be devoted only to You.  You are the Everything and sin, which cannot be part of You, is nothing but a vain attempt to separate ourselves from Your Love.  In the name of Jesus, with Whom we are one.  Amen.    

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[1] A Course in Miracles. Workbook for Students. Lesson 259. Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition (1992).

Audio credit: the friar patch @ http://www.eckiefriar.com

PART II.  SECTION 4:  WHAT IS SIN?

Lesson 258 Let Me Remember My Goal is God

1. All that is needful is to train our minds to overlook all little senseless aims and to remember that our goal is God.  His memory is hidden in our minds obscured but by our pointless little goals which offer nothing, and do not exist.  Shall we continue to allow God’s grace to shine in unawareness, while the toys and trinkets of the world are sought instead?  God is our only goal, our only Love.  We have no aim but to remember Him.
2. Our goal is but to follow in the way that leads to You.  We have no goal but this.  What could we want but to remember You?  What could we seek but our Identity?[1]

Notes and Personal Application In our humanity, we have all manner of goals that really make no sense at all when we realize who we are in Christ.  One of the thoughts that we explored yesterday in our study group was the fact the ministry of Christ did not instruct men how to be good, godly husbands or women how to be respectful, loving wives. In fact Christ made it perfectly clear that the whole question of marriage and what is lawful and what is not within the realm of this most special relationship has no meaning at all in the kingdom of God.  The things that concern us as earthlings have no room in our consciousness when we practice the mind of Christ. 

When our goal is centered on what concerns our humanity, our time, focus, and efforts will be used to get that new promotion, to find a mate which is better suited to us than the one we have now, to make sure our kids get into a good college, or we will needlessly stress ourselves and everyone close to us in order to distinguish ourselves in some way before we die.  We will often plot, scheme, cheat, borrow, or steal to get what we want.  We will distress ourselves and depress ourselves over the humiliating realization that no matter what we do, how much money we have, what car we drive, how big and glorious our mansions, how important our job – we can never have it all.  Something will always be missing.  We may be married to the perfect mate, but our little darlings for whom we work so hard to provide all the luxuries and extravagances that we never had as children turn out to be major disappointments.  We may do everything right – live in the right neighborhood, go to the right church, pay our taxes, contribute to the community, show up in all the right places only to be falsely accused of horrendous crimes and our friends, reputations, and livelihood ripped away for no reason.  Earthquakes, fires, floods, hurricanes, landslides, lightning – acts of the gods of this world – all seem to be in cahoots against those who would make anything in this world their goal.

When our goal is to find a path to God, we no longer concern ourselves with that which can only leave us empty, unfulfilled, and disappointed.  Jesus tells us in the gospel of Matthew to seek the kingdom of God first, not to worry or fret about material needs or things that would bring us worldly esteem or status.  This is not something that happens unless we make it happen.  We are to seek God’s Kingdom, to train our minds to want God more than we want love and romance, more than we want that new car, or that promotion, or that cruise around the world.  Jesus promises us that when we put first things first, all our material needs will be met.  When we devote ourselves to the Kingdom of God, all other things that would take up our time, our thoughts, our energy will fall into their proper perspective.  We will realize that all that shines is not gold.    

The prayer offered in today’s devotional reminds us that we can never know who and what we really are unless we rigorously keep our goal of seeking God at the forefront of our mind.  This means we need a curriculum to keep our faith and our commitment strong.  We need a program that keeps our minds focused, addresses our weakness and temptations, explains and expounds upon what we need to know to see the world for what it is and why we need to be saved from it!

Join with me today in committing yourself to seeking God.  Find a spiritual path that speaks to you both as an individual and as part of the oneness of God.  For me, I have found a deep and abiding love for Jesus as Savior within the pages of A Course in Miracles.  The Course has defined Christianity for me in a way that makes sense to me, that rings true in my heart and mind, that fills me with peace and love and joy.  Each day I strive to keep my focus on seeking God.

In seeking God, we can avoid all the senseless aims that the toys and trinkets of this world would dangle in front of our physical eyes, to gratify for only an instant our physical senses, and then leave us full of despair, loneliness, and shame.  In seeking God we learn to love God and not fear Him.  We learn to know ourselves as His Son as we become one in Christ.  Finding and following our individual and collective paths to God we raise the consciousness of the whole world.  The world as we know it is transformed through the eyes of Christ.  We stand with Him.  We are one with Him.  And the Lord’s Prayer becomes our prayer.  God’s Kingdom Come! God’s Will be done – on earth as it is in Heaven. 

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[1] A Course in Miracles. Workbook for Students. Lesson 258.  Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition (1992).

Audio credit: the friar patch @ http://www.eckiefriar.com

PART II.  SECTION 4:  WHAT IS SIN?

Lesson 257 Let Me Remember What My Purpose Is

1. If I forget my goal, I can be but confused, unsure of what I am, and thus conflicted in my actions.  No one can serve contradicting goals and serve them well.  Nor can he function without deep distress and great depression.  Let us therefore be determined to remember what we want today, that we may unify our thoughts and actions meaningfully, and achieve only what God would have us do this day.
2. Father, forgiveness is Your chosen means for our salvation.  Let us not forget today that we can have no will but Yours.  And thus our purpose must be Yours as well, if we would reach the peace You will for us.[1]

Notes and Personal Application The world is in a state of confusion.  It is unsure of what it is.  It is conflicted in its actions.  This morning I think of several situations which illustrate this point. We have God-loving, God-fearing people, for instance, who insist that abortion is murder, that once a woman is pregnant her body and what happens in her body and to her body is no longer of her concern alone.  That the fetus which she is carrying within her, belongs to the state, the government, to God.  In the eyes of many, the fetus is a viable human being from the time of conception whether or not it can exist independently outside the womb.  And yet many of these same people vocalize rabid resentment toward the government funds and welfare systems established to help poor families and single mothers raise their children.    

We have religious institutions that for hundreds and even thousands of years in some cases have perverted the gospel of Christ to suit their own greedy purposes.  Every good deed was offset by atrocity and cruelty.  Avarice, idolatry, and lust powered the spread of this twisted gospel around the globe.  Crimes against humanity, committed in the name of Christ, butchered the defenseless, tortured those who refused to bow down, and enslaved and raped the unfortunate boys and girls entrusted to their care.  And yet adherents to this ruthlessness would condemn and demonize a gospel that teaches love for God and for others, equality, forgiveness, sinlessness, holiness, freedom from shame and guilt! 

We have forgotten who we are.  It is to the best interest of the gods of this world that it remains so!  As long as we are trying to save humanity, we are serving contradictory goals.  As long as we are making rules for our bodies to live by so that we can all get along and live in peace and brotherhood here in the world, we are not cognizant of who we are and what we are about.  This world is not the place where we fight for our rights, force others to do things our way, get ourselves worked up into a lather over our political and religious beliefs, not to mention our favorite sports team or movie star. When we realize who and what we really are, there is no need to seek recompense for all the wrongs done to our people, bomb abortion clinics, or march for peace while screaming obscenities at those who promote war! 

This world is an illusion of madness.  All kinds of horrible things go wrong when we confuse our holy purpose with the body, with humanity, with this illusory kingdom.  While we think we are doing the work of Christ, we are contributing to the separation, we are supporting the futile attack on God, we are aligning ourselves with a miscreation that took what belonged to God and made something else out of it.  As long as we think our salvation can be found in this world, we are trapped in the cycles of time, the go-rounds of despair, disease, and death.  

Jesus was crucified for teaching this gospel.  He taught that all of us are Sons of God.  There is no special church or religion that has a special in with God.  He taught that we must lay down our humanity to truly live, to truly grasp the meaning of life.  He taught us that every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess that He is Lord.  He taught us that God so loved the world, He gave His Son so that what went wrong can now be saved. 

Today we stand with Christ, in oneness with Him, we are that Son.  We practice our only function in this world.  We practice it wherever we are, whatever we are doing, no matter the color of our skin, the nature of our culture, the spiritual traditions of our family, tribe, or clan.  We unify from all over the world by simply remembering what we want today – we want the Will of God.  We want the peace of God.  We want salvation – not only for ourselves and our little band of believers, our little clan, our little bunch of those for whom we are especially fond – but for all. 

As we remember what we want, we are reminded that forgiveness is the chosen means for our salvation.  We forgive the world, we forgive ourselves, we forgive each other for thinking that there was another will than God’s.  We forgive our egos, the gods of this world, which would take that which belongs to God and make a lie, a fabrication, a nightmare.  

Today let our thoughts and actions be unified by devoting ourselves to what God would have us do and avoiding what God would have us not do!  We will speak words of forgiveness.  We will speak words of love.  We will not engage in corruption, finger-pointing, and blame.  We will not allow the world to distress us or depress us.  We will stand strong, single-minded, and committed lest we be conflicted in our aim and useless to His kingdom.    

Dear Father, Today we are determined to remember that we can have no will but Yours.  The gods of this world would convince us otherwise, but we belong to You.  You made us.  You made us like You to share Your glory and power and goodness with us.  Your purpose is our purpose.  Your peace is our peace.  Your mind is our mind.  Let this truth sink deep into our consciousness, Lord, so that we never forget who and what we are in You.  In the name of Jesus, with Whom we are one.  Amen. 

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[1] A Course in Miracles. Workbook for Students. Lesson 257. Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition (1992).

Audio credit: the friar patch @ http://www.eckiefriar.com

PART II.  SECTION 4:  WHAT IS SIN?

Lesson 256 God Is The Only Goal I Have Today

1. The way to God is through forgiveness here.  There is no other way.  If sin had not been cherished by the mind, what need would there have been to find the way to where you are?  Who would still be uncertain?  Who could be unsure of who he is?  And who would yet remain asleep, in heavy clouds of doubt about the holiness of him whom God created sinless?  Here we can but dream.  But we can dream we have forgiven him in whom all sin remains impossible, and it is this we choose to dream today.  God is our goal; forgiveness is the means by which our minds return to Him at last.
2. And so, our Father, would we come to You in Your appointed way.  We have no goal except to hear Your Voice and find the way Your sacred Word has pointed out to us.[1]

Notes and Personal Application:  Forgiveness means we put this whole human experience in its proper perspective.  We realize it is a dream of sin and shame.  We forgive all the participants in its unworthy version of Creation.  We no longer cherish our wounds and sustain ourselves on the blood and flesh of Creation.  We no longer doubt our holiness and our worthiness in God. 

Jesus tells us today that all we can do in this realm is dream, and yet we choose our dreams.  We forgive our fellow creatures for their part in the dream which separates us from our reality in God.  We forgive those who taught us to find our identity in our bodies, in our gender, in our intellect, and in our preferences.  We forgive those who lied to us and taught us to fear God instead of love Him.  We forgive those who wrote words of hatred and favoritism and called them holy.  We forgive our neighbor for not sharing our political and religious beliefs, we forgive our fellows for corrupting themselves and others with unwholesome practices.  We forgive God for He seems to have abandoned us in this god-forsaken territory.

We choose to dream of forgiveness because we choose to see this illusion for what it is – a counter creation, a twisted version, a stolen, turned upside down and inside out copy of all that is real, alive, and awake. 

To make God our goal, we must choose forgiveness.  This is our way to Him.  We must have no other goal before us; we must choose no other god to take His place.  We must take Him at His Word. 

Dear God:  Today we soften our minds and thoughts with forgiveness.  Today our minds and hearts reflect Your love.  Laying down our dreams of sin, shame, and separation, we dream of forgiveness because we are as You created us, sinless – without the mark of beastliness, depravity, and death.  Our only aim is to find our way to You, and it is with forgiveness we walk the path to make our way home.  Make this real in our minds and hearts today.  Let us not be deceived by the world.  Let not temptation keep us from our journey another day.  In the name of Jesus, with Whom we are one, Amen.    

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[1] A Course in Miracles. Workbook for Students. Lesson 256. Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition (1992).

Audio credit: the friar patch @ http://www.eckiefriar.com

PART II.  SECTION 4:  WHAT IS SIN?

Lesson 255 This Day I Choose To Spend In Perfect Peace

1. It does not seem to me that I can choose to have but peace today.  And yet, my God assures me that His Son is like Himself.  Let me this day have faith in Him Who says I am God’s Son.  And let the peace I choose be mine today bear witness to the truth of what He says.  God’s Son can have no cares and must remain forever in the peace of Heaven.  In His Name, I give today to finding what my Father wills for me, accepting it as mine, and giving it to all my Father’s Sons, along with me.
2. And so, my Father, would I pass this day with You.  Your Son has not forgotten You.  The peace You gave him still is in his mind, and it is there I choose to spend today.[1]

Notes and Personal Application Today is a beautiful day in Pennsylvania.  The scent of early fall is in the air.  There are clouds promising us rain, giving us a respite from relentless heat and drought of summer.  Our grandson is coming over to do our weekly grocery shopping, enjoy lunch out at TGI Fridays, and help clean the chicken coops, trim back weeds, and work in the garden.  Tonight we invited our daughter-in-law over with us to have cheeseburgers and fries and spend some time together.  

And yet for James and I who had a bit of a party last night with some dear friends, we suffered brain fog, a dull headache, and a struggle to hold on to joy throughout the day.  We skipped our devotional in the morning, we trudged through our day the best we could, we snapped at each other a few times and contradicted each other’s memories.  I felt so much ego-resistance to our Course study that I did not even look at it during the day and was sorely tempted to give it up as being too hard for me and taking all the fun out of life. 

Throughout the day, the still small voice of Holy Spirit continued to be a presence in my mind, and yet I was very much aware of the other voice that yammered its chorus of distractions and downright delusions.  Instead of turning a deaf ear to its calls, I listened to what it was saying:  You have only one life to live.  You only have a decade or two left.  You should forget about this inner voice you listen to and let steal all your fun and interest and whoop it up.   Your life is over.  You are deceiving yourself, Eckie.  God is not interested in you.  God is not the least bit concerned about you or anybody else in the world.  This is all there is and ever will be.  You get one shot at life; Girly Girl and you should squeeze as much out of it as possible.

One of the biggest shocks and disappointments in my life has been that growing older does not make it easier to resist the false self.  It is still the same old girl it has always been a fun-lover, a prankster, a fibber, a flake. The false self that I made to take the place of my real Self has provided me with a life full of fun, adventure, drama, love affairs, reminders of fleeting fancies in the form of an inglorious past, all which add up to a big, empty, go-nowhere, build-upon-nothing zero without the transforming power of Holy Spirit. 

I know this false self to bring me nothing but that which is not peace, and yet today it was coaxing me, wheedling with me, enticing me with its giddiness, its puerile pluck, its yearnings to be back in control.  All through the day while outside me was shopping, chatting with my husband, grandson, and daughter-in-law, shoveling out chicken manure and taking it to the garden, weed whacking, harvesting, cooking, and cleaning – my thoughts were not on God.  I did not want to find what God wills for me for I was afraid that what God wills for me was going to be too hard, too much of a sacrifice, and all I wanted to do was have fun and enjoy my life as it appears in the illusion.  Other people seemingly enjoy their godless lives, it argued.  So can you, Eckie.    

Listening to this other voice, I was promised high adventure, an appetite and passion for things which failed to satisfy for more than a few moments in the past and fail to even interest me at all anymore.  You are not God’s Son, it sneered, but a human being made of flesh and blood.  You are going to die and be gone for good.  Do not waste your time in this go-nowhere spiritual quest when you only have a short time to live and enjoy the world, your family and friends.  It is not right for you.  Other people can devote their life to God because they do not have anything going for them.  But for you it is vanity.  It is useless.  You change your mind too much.  You get bored.  You do not really like people that much, and for good reason!  Quit promoting such insane ideas.  Stop these meetings, this blog – it is just a big waste of your time.  It gives you a false sense of hope that you should not be sharing with others. 

What I chose to watch on Prime and Netflix after dinner and before bed did not reflect peace or any form of godliness.  I did not forget God, I resisted Him.  I chose to go my own way, and instead of peace, I felt heavy, grumpy, despondent, and out of sync.  I ate too much. My stomach was jumpy.  Just about everything anyone said to me got on my last nerve.  I swore at the poor cat.  Our house seemed a heavy burden instead of a place of shelter, warmth, and love.  Restless sleep, bad dreams, and blaming thoughts revealed to me, not God’s Will for my life, but the ego’s desire for my life. 

We can learn our lessons through joy or suffering.  It is our choice.  We rule our destiny simply by the thoughts we choose to think; the Voice we choose to heed or to oppose.  Today I chose not to spend my day in perfect peace. In listening to the old self, I got a good taste of what I am missing in the world of separation.  I found the empty self full of disturbance, lies, false promises, and unrest.  This is not God’s Will for me, and it is not my will for myself. 

Today I pray our prayer in my own words, a prayer for the days we choose not to spend in perfect peace. 

And so our Father, we did not pass this day with You. We opposed our real Self who is one with You and chose our old selves, who offers us a different way.  We thought we could enjoy a day without You in it, and it was not a place we want to be.  We want to pass all our days with You.  We never want to oppose You and Your Will for us again, because it was quite apparent that what our ego wants for us is not what we want at all!  Thank you for Your patience, Your constancy and love.  In the name of Jesus, with Whom we are one, Amen.

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[1] A Course in Miracles. Workbook for Students. Lesson 255. Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition (1992).

Audio credit:  the friar patch @ http://www.eckiefriar.com