PART II. SECTION 7. What is the Holy Spirit?
Lesson 290 My Present Happiness Is All I See
- Unless I look upon what is not there, my present happiness is all I see. Eyes that begin to open see at last. And I would have Christ’s vision come to me this very day. What I perceive without God’s Own Correction for the sight I made is frightening and painful to behold. Yet I would not allow my mind to be deceived by the belief in the dream I made is real an instant longer. This the day I seek my present happiness and look on nothing else except the thing I seek.
- With this resolve, I come to You, and ask Your strength to hold me up today, while I but seek to do Your Will. You cannot fail to hear me, Father. What I ask have You already given me. And I am sure that I will see my happiness today.[1]
This morning as I was tinkering about in the kitchen, wiping counters, straining the evaporated milk that had baked in the crockpot over night, planning what to do with the last of the green peppers from our pepper patch, I was troubled by the memory of a particular cousin of mine who has always seemed on a mission to embarrass or put other people down. Loud and bossy and apparently without shame – once she had hollered all the way across a restaurant where I sat eating quietly with my daughter and boyfriend that my blonde hair was not my natural color and that I must be dyeing it. Clearly she felt it her God-given duty to set the record straight in case I was trying to pull the wool over people’s eyes and present myself as a born blonde! Now years later, this particular memory seemed to symbolize the spite and ill will that seemed so prevalent in our family and I knew that Holy Spirit was telling me to correct my perception of this. That the perception itself was wrong – nobody was trying to tear people down or keep them in their place lest they start to think too much of themselves. This was a construct that my ego had made up in order to get me to despise others and use as an excuse to choose that which is not love.
Throughout my whole life I had jealousy looked on as I watched my friends and coworkers talk about how kind, good, and helpful were their family members. While other people got together to go on cruises, picnics, and weekend shopping sprees, to help bale hay, shuck corn, and shell peas, it seemed as if my family members could not be in the same room together for more than a half hour before they started their mind-numbing, character-destroying, mocking ridicule of first one and then the next relative not present. For years I had kidded myself and thought that I was the “nice” one that did not do that. While others were intent on tearing down, I saw myself as the kind who built people up and showed love and forgiveness.
But then came menopause and all those decades’ worth of secretly cherished condemnation, judgments, resentment, jealousy, and denial that I had banked in my mind, and wrote so prodigiously about in my journal, came out of my mouth and into the ears of the ones whom I had been harboring ill will toward. While for years I had envisioned myself as a passive, sweet thing smiling and humbly taking putdowns, letdowns, and false friendship, now the dark thoughts that I had stored in my secret places came out with a vengeance. There were few stones left unturned! People were dismayed to learn that I had been keeping track of all their wrongdoing for decades, that I had dates and times and pages of script detailing all their sins against me and mine. It was not as if I wanted the dam to leak, to crack, to spew forth all those dark torrents of long, held back grudges and mean observations, it just did.
At first I experienced this as the disaster it seemed to be. The aftermath of hurtful, vengeful, and bitterly perceived accusations against others, left only a handful of loved ones behind. While I mourned the lost friendships and family members, slowly I came to realize that nothing real can ever be lost. The rubbish that washed away in that mad flush of pent up adversity, bitterness, jealousy, and grudges were things that I did not want anyway! Shallow-rooted relationships serve no ultimate purpose. Hypocrisy, unwillingness to be corrected and to correct, lack of courage and truth-telling regarding myself and others, washed away. What seemed to be a disaster led to a deeper walk with God, a true coming to Jesus that was not based upon hiding darkness but bringing darkness to light. Now it seems ludicrous to build any kind of relationship that is not holy, honest, and holistic.
Jesus tells us today that when we perceive without God’s Own Correction – our Holy Self, our Holy Spirit – we perceive that which is frightening and painful to behold. While I can choose to think of others as being the hostile, uncaring, mocking and begrudging beings that I experienced them as in the past, I would be choosing the unreality of the ego and using false perceptions as a reason to withhold love, to practice unforgiveness, thus keeping us in hell.
I choose to see only my present happiness, appreciating God’s blessings, joy, and peace. No matter the joys or the sorrows of the past, both serve only to cloud and distract me from expressing gratitude and enjoying the freedom of my present.
Today during our devotional practice and throughout the day, we train our minds to disengage in stories of the past. We begin to see that our life and our reality here in time is only a teaching and learning experience brought to us in a dream of time. It is a dream that when understood and experienced in truth awakens us to God, because we set our minds only to learn the value of forgiveness, love, peace, and joy. When we commit ourselves to see only our present happiness, our minds are free from the unreal past and we see it for the false perception it is.
Today we end Part II:7 ‘What is the Holy Spirit?.’ Accept your holy Self today. Accept God’s Gift to you. Be His Voice that calls to you. Let forgiveness rest upon this dream and be restored to the sanity and peace of mind that only recognizing your Holy Spirit as your holy Self can do. Our Holy Spirits as one complete God as we are completed in Him. He is our Father; we are His Son. Ask God to reveal this truth to you if you experience resistance to accepting who and what you really are in Christ. God bless you, one and all.
[1] A Course In Miracles. Workbook for Students. Lesson 290. Foundation for Inner Peace, Second Edition (1992). p. 442.
Audio credit: the friar patch @ www.eckiefriar.com
