Monday, December 31, 2007

Lessons 361~365:

This holy instant would I give to You. Be you in charge. For I would follow You. Certain your direction gives me peace…

For years this statement has been my daily waking prayer … In actuality, this has the prayer in my mind ever since I truly accepted the miracle; since my I changed my mind from hell to Heaven, from illusory goals to truth as my only goal, from imprisoning myself as hostage to the ego to embracing my Self as host to God and accepting my function of happiness through forgiveness by making the one irreversible choice for the Atonement for my Self. This releases me from fantasies of ‘special-nesses’ of any kind. I so love what I seen now… You are my Self!!! …

It is with deepest gratitude, I reflect on this past year’s joining through ACIM lessons. I am so very blessed and as we move into the next year of time and space, I have but one New Year’s resolution:

I will to see what I denied~ because it is the truth. This is to say, I accept each person, place, thing, circumstance, and/or situation with equal value, without exception. Christ vision has now been received and opened the flood-gates of light behind and beyond which I experience as the great rays; full-love~

At last…. Our time of fantasy has come and gone~ Only God’s time, this present moment, is… The answer was gifted where it could be used. After all, God placed the answer together with the problem, so that they could not be separated by time…. Duh! How simple to see now; it is impossible that I have a problem that has not been -solved already. It has been done and Love is all that remains as viable for our forward path…

We cannot loose our way because there is no way but His, and nowhere can we go except to Him. We began this year with the happy decision to align our choices with the Holy Spirit by listening to the Voice for God~ using the daily workbook lessons… And we can rest in His certainty that this was no idle task…. You can feel it, can’t you?! We are as God created us! This one thing is sure…. Joy and gratitude are our natural state and our constant companion for direction…. We simply can’t loose what we are! ! ! ~ LOVE ! ! ! ~PURE, UNTAINTED, INNOCENT, GIVING~RECIEVING LOVE !

Happy New Year!!!

Sunday, December 30, 2007

Lesson 360:

Peace be to me, the holy Son of God.

Peace to my brother, who is one with me.

Let all the world be blessed with peace through us…

Of course the lessons wrap up in a state of perfect peace, because that is our true state… All is well with creation and us… always, already. We merely mistook ourselves to be the characters in a dream of separation and specialness, scarcity and loss… Yet through joining with a single-heart, in wholehearted willingness for the true~only, and giving ourselves innocently over to the curriculum of this Course, the mind has been returned, at last, to where it never really left in truth; to our natural state of perfect peace extending and blessing…

Sure, there are a good deal of forgiveness opportunities still to reveal themselves as we go about our lives, but now we see them as beacons ~lighting the way to unity with each other, and the way home…

Please join me in the exquisite prayer offered in the lesson today:

Father, it is Your peace that I would give, receiving it of You. I am Your Son, forever just as You created me, for the Great Rays remain forever still and undisturbed within me. I would reach to them in silence and in certainty for nowhere else can certainty be found. Peace be to me, and peace to all the world. In holiness were we created, and in holiness do we remain. Your Son is like to You in perfect sinlessness. And with this thought we gladly say “Amen”.

Saturday, December 29, 2007

Lesson 359:

God’s answer is some form of peace. All pain is healed; all misery replaced with joy. All prison doors are opened. And all sin is understood as merely a mistake.

~PEACE~ Imperturbable peace is the great gift I have been given for merely taking back what I thought about you and me and life and placing it on the alter of the mind of God’s Son, which is my mind, and allowing the Holy Spirit; which is , it turns out, my true Mind, to reinterpret and realign all for good… In other words, by being willing to see that I had been wrong about everything and selfishly releasing what was false; due to it making me unhappy, a grand shift was made in my psyche: from anxiety to Peace ~ from fear, to Love!

When we truly forgive what we thought and perceived about each other and the world, we are instantly and continually left with what is true~ the experience of serene peace, which is also letting all creation be as God created.

This delicious process of mind and feeling watching; forgiving all blocks to Loves awareness, always, and resting in the still peace that accompanies trust… This is accepting God’s answer~ God’s answer, which is always some form of peace~It is really the only way to fly, now~ Don’t you agree?

I know for me, life seems to live me, now… The present, is the present presence of God within all things… Whatever needs to happen or be accomplished somehow gets handled, for I constantly release to forgiveness and healing, any agendas of my own that surface up …

Peace is the still center of the love that I am; one with all creation…

Thursday, December 27, 2007

LESSON 358:

No call to God can be unheard nor left
Unanswered. And of this I can be sure;
His answer is the one I really want.

This is why we’re all here isn’t it? First in letting the imagination run wild and project a world and existence seemingly separate from our Source and all else. And Now, in glimpsing its transparent falseness, choosing to remember truth instead…

Here’s what I’ve seen; all prayers, or calls to God, are always answered instantly. Our reception isn’t nearly so clear. When our prayers are requests to a false god or idol, their manifestation follows the false laws of scarcity, specialness and loss. When our prayer is for only the truth, Heaven’s host rallies to assist us in remembering who we really are through the Holy Spirit… reminding us that we are under no laws but God’s. Forgiveness is the medium of the Holy Spirit to translate all that we thought we wanted into what we really want behind, beneath and beyond what can be experience with perception, but can be felt as love, acceptance, unity, and peace… every call is a call to God, to see the truth about ourselves

This is the truth: we are love’s radiant reality; we are as God created; His sinless Son, co-creator of all that is… Every call to any son of God is ultimately a call to remember Self through seeing Christ in our brother…

You are my sinless Self and I am joyously in your debt, welcoming the full remembrance of our eternal oneness, Now!... Thank you…

Wednesday, December 26, 2007

LESSON 357:

Truth answers every call we make to God,
Responding first with miracles, and then
Returning unto us to be itself.

It’s wild how forgiveness, as Jesus demonstrates and devotedly instructs us throughout the Course, turns out to be the best and, surprisingly easiest, experience in the world. We merely let every thing be exactly as it is. In other words, we accept life as it is, as God created us and all that is... and simply quit making stuff up, instead… We’re finally released from the burden on trying to be ‘right’ and trying to have the answers and having to think we know... And we are released into the ‘great knowing’ which is the Word of God!

We are the way, the truth and the life. Forgiveness merely sees past self-concept identification to the truth within ~

~The Self luminous reality~…

In daily practice, it lays out like this;we begin (as if we put on a new set of eyes) to see truth’s reflection in everyone and everything, as we choose forgiveness instead of separation... In other words, we see that our brother’s interests are no different from our own… Immediately we are filled with the love which experiences our brother’s innocence and our own… Sin no longer has a home here, for we are the medium for miracles.

I love the simplicity of forgiveness’s access to truth. As the lesson says:

“Your holy Son is pointed out to me, first in my brother; then in me. Your Voice instructs me patiently to hear Your Word, and give as I receive. And as I look upon Your Son today, I hear Your Voice instructing me to find the way to You, as You appointed that the way shall be:

“Behold his sinlessness, and be you healed”.

Friday, December 21, 2007

Lesson 356:

Sickness is but another name for sin. Healing is but another name for God. The miracles is thus a call t Him…

Sickness, like scarcity, loss, and well, pretty much anything else we resist in this world, have a few central themes. Our experience of them depends upon an opposite to give reality to it. They are time and outcomes bound, and require a separate identity to experience them… Yet in reality, they have but one thing in common; they are nothing…

And yet, for the purpose of Atonement, they are the means fro recognizing where the mind is falsely identified and the opportunity to solicit a miracle to replace the error called forth in mind… So, all things, being nothing in truth, can be seen as blessings in a unified purpose of forgiveness; clearing the way to recognize eternal creation behind and beyond.

When we recognize our eternality, we see what happens on the screen, yet we remember that trust will settle every situation, circumstance or relationship through the Holy Spirit for the best possible good for all. We place our faith in the unified outcome, which is as certain as God. So, miracles and healing and abundance and oneness are all mere alternate ‘labels’ for the experience of God in our lives...

It’s all Good! ~ It’s all God!

Thursday, December 20, 2007

Lesson 355:

There is no end to all the peace and joy, and all the miracles that I will give, when I accept God’s Word. Why not today?

Why not today, indeed?

Do I have something ‘better’ to do? In actuality this is not only the only business on the calendar of my so-called life, but all I am interested in… I have utterly defrauded all opposing thought forms as having any substance or significance what-so- ever, through the inquiry forgiveness offers… All that remains is the alive experience of ‘love-now’, which Holy Spirit within my mind held already, saving it for but my decision to place my faith in love instead of fear; the true only….

God/Self replaces the self-concept and I see the face of Christ reflected in shining stars; the light my brothers are and share with me…

~Christ-mas is the season of now; the answer always Yes! Today’s inquiry ‘why not today’~ unequivocally, YES! ~

~There is no end to all the peace and joy, and all the miracles that I will give, when I accept God’s Word: I AM AS GOD CREATED ME~ And only that is TRUE…

Please join me in remembering the beautiful prayer of truth at the beginning of this section: What Am I?

“I am God’s Son, complete and healed and whole, shining in the reflection of His Love. In me is His creation sanctified and guaranteed eternal life. in me is love perfected, fear impossible, and joy established without opposite. I am the holy home of God Himself. I am the Heaven where His Love resides. I am His holy Sinlessness Itself, for in my purity abides His Own…”

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Lesson 354:

We stand together, Christ and I, in peace and certainty of purpose. And in Him is His Creator, as He is in me…

Christ is what is; the true within my Self…as God created. And God has but One Son, fully whole as Christ. When I remember what I am in truth, I remember Christ. And I do this by seeing through your story and the labels that make up this world~ to the Christ within; forever shining the light of understanding and love… When the story ceases to have meaning and the single purpose of unified joy has given meaning to the present moment~ infinity… Christ, like God, is the name for what cannot be named… only experienced, as is…

Love is the experience, Creator and created… Here’s what I’ve noticed, only what can be shared allows joy to flow, uninhibited… and only the ministry of love can be shared. ~ I thank you for joining me in the one purpose we all share in Atonement…

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Lesson 353:

My eyes, my tongue, my hands, my feet today

Have but one purpose; to be given Christ to use to bless the world with miracles…

What a relief it is to not have to think about what to do, or where to go, what to say and to whom. All I need concern myself with is the setting of the Goal of truth and align in purpose with Christ. Once this dedication to purpose placed in faith, on the alter of my mind/heart as I wake, I can trust unequivocally, that all things will be brought in to perfect alignment for the best possible result for the good of all.

If, rather than dream up a day from the ‘great to-do-list’ of this world, I suspend that craving, just long enough to give over my life to Christ, all seeming problems are brought to the answer within; mind~ where the Holy Spirit answers them all by reinterpreting and showing the unified purpose for Atonement we all share in truth…

Setting the goal of truth; giving myself to Christ, clears my sight to see forgiveness’s blessing in all circumstances and experience love instead of fear.

A life in Christ is a wholehearted decision, which I make each day as I rise to materialize a world and brothers to join with in a shared purpose… I joyously say Yes!, to God’s plan, again and again, as long as time remains in mind… And only Christ defines my Self…

Monday, December 17, 2007

Lesson 352:

Judgment and love are opposites. From one come all the sorrows of the world. But from the other comes the peace of God Himself…

All of us actually know this simple truth and know it in actuality… Every time we judge, we can feel our heart constrict, yes? And in that instant of judgment, we can not feel the love we have, nor the love we are….

Pick a judgment; any judgment. Now try to hang on to that judgment as reality and feel the love that you are, simultaneously… Can’t be done, can it? Now, feel the deepest love you can within yourself; whether you identify this with your relationship with Self, with God, your children, Jesus, or whatever… just rest there in that yummy place of peace within~ This is the present moment~ the presence of God… Now try to judge, and stay in touch with that feeling of now… Doesn’t work, does it?

Judgment is a characteristic of time; founded in fear and fleshed out in memory… We simply have to leave the present to get to it…

The Course tells us that we don’t need judgment to organize our lives and that the letting go of judgment is the obvious prerequisite for hearing the Voice for God… We need but be still and present an instant… Then love will direct our actions …

When we can let all things be exactly as they are, we easily live in the now; in the presence of love…

There is now way to get love. Love is what we are, and therefore love is the way! Simply Love Now! And the rest will fall into place for the good of all…

Sunday, December 16, 2007

What am I?

~I am God’s Son, complete and healed and whole, shining in the reflection of His Love. In me is His creation sanctified and guaranteed eternal life. In me is love perfected, fear impossible, and joy established without opposite. I am the holy home of God Himself. I am the Heaven where His Love resides. I am His holy sinlessness Itself, for in my purity abides His Own.~

This statement, from the beginning of this section, What Am I, has bee a constant mantra for me almost from the beginning of my study with the course. It has served as a key that unlocks my consciousness to truth; to intrinsic awareness of the truth of what I am…

I remember that the first time I read it, I felt I already knew it by heart and I was merely recalling and reciting. I was so humbled by the experience of Self sweeping me away from my perceived self, I just sat and wept for the longest time in total gratitude for absolute opening to the possibility of total salvation from all I had designed and imprisoned myself with….It was my first Taste of recognizing eternity in the Self…

I feel that same awesome gratitude and eternal oneness right now~

I rest serenely, in the realization of instant and total forgiveness….

Lesson 351:

My sinless brother is my guide to peace. My sinful brother is my guide to pain. And which I choose to see I will behold…

You are my self and how I see you, is what I wish to be…. That is really some kind of truth to ‘white-flag’ the ego-identity to… Spectacular!!! Once you’ve recognized it, even for one holy instant, it changes everything… mutating your very DNA… I can never really ‘cop-out’ again… on some level I always know, I am responsible for literally everything that ‘seems’ to happen in my world of perception…by my choice of what I wish to see… I have gotten awfully particular about my wish-list anymore... I have truly come to know, that in this world, it is only by my function of forgiveness that happiness is mine… making happiness the only way to see….

Any resistance to love’s presence, that seemingly ‘shows-up’ in my life, boils down to an authorship or authority issue, easily seen now as the ego’s die-hard competition with God… None of this make-believe has mattered-a-whit to the truth. Always, it has presented itself via the Holy Spirit in mind, as a chance to forgive, which is the chance for the restoration of peace, which is the reestablishment of the memory of my Self…. There’s simply no way to loose….

One thing has remains constant; how I choose to see you is what I end up experiencing as me. My perception of you ends up being my perception of myself. And oh, the joy of seeing your innocence ~ the perfect reflection of what I am…. Thank you.

Saturday, December 15, 2007

Lesson 350:

Miracles mirror God’s eternal Love. To offer them is to remember Him, and through His memory to save the world….

What does it mean to offer miracles? And what are the miracles we offer? Well, not religion sponsored in childhood; not walking on water or raising the dead … It turns out that miracles are merely natural acts of love seeking expression. (Which, by the way, was always, already our natural state, but for the prodigal wool of fantasized separation we pulled over our innocent eyes)

We offer miracles when we life instead of death; Love instead of fear… Miracles are sight cleansing; allowing us to see what is really there… Miracles turn the mind back to Source and we see our brothers as God sees them; loving and forgiving. So our actions reflect the oneness we share, taking direction from within~ regardless of the seeming circumstances…

Offering Miracles is the willingness to see through the constructs of water and death and walking and rising to the love within. It is being willing to see things differently; to trust that regardless of what I might think I see due to my beliefs, somewhere within/amidst the situation, is the one unyielding truth: God’s eternal Love is!

I don’t have to know how I will recognize its presence in any given situation… Love is what we are and it will recognize itself… I but need to want to offer miracle’s in place of all other responses, therefore allowing, Christ’s vision to rest upon all things, which brings to light the “I am as God created me and you are part of me” force of all creation, with in our mind.

Its funny, I started forgiving because, well, frankly, I was a pussy, couldn’t tolerate a lot of discomfort for long. When I saw a possible way out of it, I took it…. (Incidentally, up till I found the Course and therefore forgiveness; with meaning resonated to the core with, my ‘ways out’ always resulted in shame ~yuk)… Anyway, when I saw the falsehood of everything the way I had been looking at it, and experienced the relief of turning the dial to ‘miracles’; through forgiveness.

What rather rapidly began to happen, which I’m sure you can relate to, is that I just could not abide the feeling of holding grievances…. It just feels too icky…

Also, what I found out was that I didn’t have to make it (whatever they or the circumstance was) right in my mind, if I just exercised a little faith in a power greater than myself. If I could suspend my judgment ever so slightly and allow that the Holy Spirit, did know what was right for all~ And quite without reason, peace would come over me and I had a much better view of the big picture. WOW! I felt better immediately.

Not only that, it works virtually every time. I became able to let go and let God so to speak…

Needless to say, when I started this practice, I did it on shoestring faith without any idea that I was offering miracles or that it would be this simple exercise that would restore my faith in you and me and more. I never dreamed the gap I saw between us would begin to close and all the ideas of ‘specialness over oneness’ would meld into the Christ-melding-pot, as God’s eternal Love reality penetrated more and more of my mind.

I never I guessed that I would, as a result of ‘forgiving to feel better’, begin to remember God ~ nor did I foresee that that my insane busy mind would begin to still... That the memory of Him would come softly and terminally… everlastingly ~ that I would have moments of eternity where God’s Love erased all form and space and time; engulfing me (well, the experience of Son of God) in eternity, forever now….

And, that that would restructure my on-going experience with time and space and form…. That I would begin to identify more with the ‘Son of God’ indelible identity within rather than the ‘you/me’ with out…. Maybe, it’s because of the sense of reality, which too, I never dreamed would not seem solid any more as I had always believed. But rather, it has taken on the sense of being more a shadowy overlay mirroring belief…

I see my so-called life like a sort of reoccurring (or ongoing) lucid dream where I am aware, from above the battleground of the stream of events; where I can spot the false and choose the truth, instantly altering my perception and flooding me with love….

No, I wasn’t looking for that by forgiving…. But, it turns out, forgiveness, like lessons 122 and 121 say; offers everything I want and is the key to happiness.

No question, we are remembering God and the world is being saved …

Friday, December 14, 2007

Lesson 349:

Today I let Christ’s vision look upon all things for me and judge them not, but give each one a miracle of love instead.

I dearly love these last lessons, because they perfectly articulate the forgiven world from which I truly desire to experience life~ now …

They are succinct, yet open expansive and completion-ideas which not only appeal to the truth in myself, but show me by my responding in love and full acceptance and application, that indeed, it is my own true Self, in the Holy Spirit, from which they come…

It is easy to ‘lean back’ and trust from this place of surrender and acceptance. For I recognize that every aspect of the Atonement is playing out perfectly as God’s plan for salvation… blessing each and every brother, relationship, situation, and circumstance with miracles.

Oh, it is so delicious to taste the glory of God’s Love through just stepping back in mind and allowing Christ’s vision to visit the miracle of love upon the seeming events of the day… How freeing it is to have no agenda of my own that I would keep when clearly miracles bless me with the agenda the Holy Spirit unfolds for me instead…

In accepting the gift of forgiveness, and offering it, I feel my eyes soften into Christ’s sight of Love before me…. Solutions and direction unfolds in the perfect grace of God. I am eternally grateful and join all my brothers today in the hallelujah chorus of gratitude and praise to God the Father and His holy Son…

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Lesson 348:

I have no cause for anger or for fear, for You surround me. And every need that I perceive, Your grace suffices me…

Enough~ always, just exactly enough… A wonderful awareness of my coming home to my Self, which frankly, took me by surprise, was that there is always just enough; I always just right… It takes a bit of peeking beneath the covers of false identity and blaring horn of “more, more, more” which blasts constantly from the ego perception of the world… For the longest time, I felt haunted by ‘not-enough-ness’, feeling weak and unstable; always trying to do more seemingly to get more, always barely paying the price of admission to enoughness with it, yet never being able to add anything through my efforts that would take away the hollow emptiness and fear I ran from… Nothing really sufficed… I was merely caught up in a fantasy of false identity and had forgotten it was not my Self…

Finally, none of it mattered or meant anything to me… It seemed I lost my mind…

Then the miracle came softly and rested gently on my broken sight… What I saw within and beyond the crazy efforting, was what I call the zero-point; the eye of the storm, the empty fullness of potentiality~ Thank God I came to my senses! What characterizes every person, event or circumstance, for me today, is the grace of God which always, already, suffices…

To experience this grace, one need merely be willing to surrender all perceived needs as they steadily rise to awareness through forgiveness, and our tendencies toward defense of anger and fear, and allow trust to handle every problem ~now~ The light always dawns and we see that we have everything because we are everything.

We begin to experience the truth of today’s lesson: We have no cause for anger or for fear, for God surrounds us… And every need that we perceive, God’s grace suffices…

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Lesson 347:

Anger must come from judgment. Judgment is the weapon I would use against myself, to keep the miracle away from me…

All judgment is self judgment. Every decision we make in our live is based on what we believe we are. Am I what I made of myself through the criteria of judgments the ego laid out? In other words, am I a body in a world of survival of the fittest...

Or, am I as God created me through extending His Love? Which would make me, basically, Love; the essence of life itself… What I decide determines what I will see. In the former, my perception comes after manifestation; leaving me at the mercy of what shows up and therefore what is available as far as resources goes, to make do the best I can to survive and hopefully, be happy…. In this scenario~ the more ‘stuff’, the better the success … Sounds pretty tenuous and insecure to me…

With the latter, identifying myself as the Son, which God created as Himself, my perception develops from within; taking form from the meaning or purpose of the situation. So what I see is part of me… and the purpose of life itself… The particulars of any circumstance or chain of events are seen as relevant only in so much as they serve the relationship to each other… Here, happiness rules, because it is not dependent on a state other than Now… Patience and certainty are present, because nothing is missing, for oneness is known.

The miracle allows us to make that shift from fantasy to reality in God; to see the false as false and only the truth as true... to experience our unity with each other as well as our oneness with Creator and creation.

This lesson is reminding us that when we experience anger of any kind, we have flip-switched to the false, attacking our true identity…And that by that decision, we are keeping the miracle at arms length… Luckily, at this stage of the game, we are generally quick to realize our error because any lack of peace is becoming increasingly intolerable. Plus, we know the restoration of peace and joy is just decision for forgiveness, away…

We judge because we’re afraid to trust. However, what we know now, is that this need not be. And we are willing to give up our defense against love and let anger dissolve into this instant where we are willing to listen… and in that stillness, we recognize the gentle Voice for God assuring us that He has judged… and that we are the Son He loves…

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Lesson 346:


Today the peace of God envelops me, and I forget all things except His Love…

Let’s begin with today’s prayer… It is just the sort of prayer that sets the goal of truth where it belongs… NOW:

“Father, we wake today with miracles correcting our perception of all things. And so begins the day we share with You as we will share eternity, for time has stepped aside today. We do not seek the things of time, and so we will not look upon them. What we seek today transcends all laws of time and things perceived in time. We would forget all things except Your Love. We would abide in You, and know no laws except Your law of love. And we would find the peace which You created for Your Son, forgetting all the foolish toys we made as we behold Your glory and our own.”
Ah, eternal PEACE! Couldn’t you just sit in the feeling this lesson brings, forever? Oh, yeah! ... We are.... Now is forever!

It is the nature of the peace of God to envelop all…. So, you see, even when we identify with the ‘me’ within the dream where there are subjects and objects, God’s Love extends to blanket us in peace. This is the truth in actuality, always.

Just stop in your tracks of time at any present moment, turn around on yourself, and be present~ This instant; right here, right now…. aahhh… you can’t miss it~ the peace of God has you surrounded, yes!? Real-izing this fact, is simply a decision as the dreamer for peace now, for the truth and nothing but the truth… It is always within reach. In fact, it is already present. One merely need return the mind to alignment.

Today, we decide for the truth; we accept Love as the only real experience, and the only one we want…. Here alone, can peace be known and brought forward in the dream. Who cares about the details of the dream? Never can we organize them to bring peace.

When I finally realized that ‘not-caring’ was really a very high thought; that the outcome was a sure as Love, I freed myself to be present. And in the present moment, I found my presence is what gave it life…

The funny thing about that is that without the burden of caring, I love deeply, play and laugh, interact, enjoy, get angry and forgive with ease. Because I can be with what is, instead.

Ummm… life’s yummy~ Being in Love with now! Within Now is the forgetting all things except God’s Love…

Monday, December 10, 2007

Lesson 345:

I offer only miracles today, for I would have them be returned to me….

For years I took the miracle on faith, choosing out of hopelessness and into hope. And gradually, miracles have altered my whole life; my total way of thinking, therefore seeing the world… And now, miracle-mindedness has become a habit you might say. I am ever awe-struck by how the Holy Spirit uses all the ego’s little tactics, like the addictive mechanism, for exactly the opposite purpose than they were made, healing the mind to wholeness through complete surrender to what is... We, as the characters in the dream, are already networked with the mechanisms once used for defense, and find another purpose; one of unity rather than separation, peace rather than competition, sameness rather than specialness ~till this is all we want~….

I want only the healed perspective. I want only to see unity where division once seemed so real.

Because of the single goal to see the truth set forth by my accepting Atonement for myself, I accept it for you, for we are one. The methodology I have at my disposal is the Miracle~ the correction of the error of seeing any interests apart from my own. ~I want only to see the false for what it is, denying its power, and leaving only the Christ we are as one. And in this one desire rests the miracle, which is now visited upon us both in grace, and with it deep abiding peace.

How joyous is the timeless gift of unending Love we experience by merely choosing to offer only miracles today.

Even on the level of this world, just slowing down our compulsive, competitive, thought system and therefore actions, and thinking of the ‘other’ choice; miracle-mindedness ~ the possibility of looking with only loving eyes/perception) already feels better. Geez, just softening our eyes and considering it, starts warming the heart, ~yes?….

I offer you only miracles for I would have them for myself~ otherwise I am blind…. Truth be know, I have no other goal to choose any more. No-thing else satisfies or raises the slightest interest for me…

Thank you for the miracles you have given and received…. Not one has been lost on me (or anyone in truth). I might have been (and still can be) a resistive study at times, but I have found that every loving thought merely awaits reception. Period. Like the ever-favorite quote from the Course says: “LOVE WAITS ON WELCOME NOT ON TIME”.

I bless you with miracles today…

Sunday, December 9, 2007

Lesson 344:

Today I learn the law of love; that what I give my brother is my gift to me….

Isn’t this the constant, facing-up in life? We can’t get away from what we believe we are. We simply project it on to everyone and everything. Through devotion truth as the one and only goal, one begins the gradual dis-identification and detachment from the self-concept and its outer world of projected beliefs. We begin watching its train of events, without attachment or aversion… We recognize the false for what it is~ a transitory state of memory culmination in the Atonement.

Simultaneously, we realize the Self as the changeless, eternal witness…Miracle mindedness reinterprets the succession of circumstances through the eyes of love…

The constant fact I have seen again and again, is that Love is relentless; it will find its way to heal every relationship of any kind~ regardless of what might seeeem to be happening… With a little willingness and still patience, love always shows me that my brother is myself…

With even the slightest willingness to be shown, love sweeps in and reveals the yummy, peaceful perspective of oneness, where no one can lose. Loss is without meaning in our oneness.

Progressively, my awareness of Self has become my home… And beneath the surface of daily life, I notice I am filled with the awesome, presence of Christ light and a feeling of imperturbable joy. The surface forgiveness lessons that look like ‘you’ and ‘me’ and ‘situations of possible scarcity or difference; the antics of specialness and fear, unfold as false~ revealing them as simply beliefs being uncovered, and applied for healing oneness through forgiveness.

The groovy part is that I can no longer really be duped by the antics of the ego dream. I am the dreamer, after all… and somehow, I am always aware of this now. You know what I mean… The light of truth has been turned on, for I have answered to the call of love to complete itself… I deny the denial of truth and I can no longer deny Christ love as One Light allowing for reflection of belief to be seen.

Love is the constant awareness in Mind and makes the task of forgiveness joyous and abundantly alive. We are the Gift of Love to each other… Giving and receiving each other as one, is how we re-member our true identity in God… There is nothing I, for One, would rather be a part of… thank you for your never-ending gifts of love and forgiveness and grace…

Saturday, December 8, 2007

Lesson 343:

I am mot asked to make a sacrifice to find the mercy and the peace of God….

The mercy and the peace of God are already within. They are within the essence of Grace from which we, as Spirit, choose to form experiences, ultimately labeling them this or that… Without judgment, what we experience as grace is but our identity as the Son of God…

What comes to my mind in practicing today’s lesson is that empty space within experiences which we then give meaning; that field of possibility which unites them all as one. And without which, no experience is possible…

We, God’s Son are love’s life breath…We are, God’s complete God. We have our being in creation extending and graciously completing itself. Ultimately, there can be no question as to creations nature; it is. And creates as it is....

All our fantasies of the world real-ize the imagined life of a guilty Son, separated from Origin but fathered by belief in self-source; alone and antithesis to truth. All power of creation has never left us. It’s just that in the dream of separation, our desire for the false to reign constructs limits as a necessary component to disguise the Son of God from himself…

The Course says that the lessons to be learned are only two, each having its outcome in a different world, and each following indubitably from its source.

1. God’s Son is guilty. Bingo! This world of scarcity, struggle and sacrifice and happiness, the never-ending carrot dangles by its rules, value judgments and orders of reality. Here every seeming reprieve from struggle is paid for at the price of freedom….Where everything is temporary and ends in death and one must stay on guard using worry and guilt. … I know, yeah, yeah, yeah, we’ve heard it all before~ the constant dirge of death that soundtracks this world.

And why am I going on about the world of guilt’s reign? We all know it all too well; we have learned it at the expense of remembering we are everything, so the ego identity holds it very dear. But, we are not that.

Ah, but the other lesson, says the Course is really a remembering of all that we denied.

2. It is a denial of the denial of truth. And its message is based in truth: God’s Son is guiltless. The outcome starts with joy and unity since it is the natural ’being’ given freedom to extend…

I love what it says in the last chapter of the text…“There is no living thing that does not share the universal Will that it be whole, and that you do not leave its call unheard. Without your answer is it left to die, as it is saved from death when you have heard its calling as the ancient call to life, and understood that it is but your own. The Christ in you remembers God with all the certainty with which He knows His Love. But only if His Son is innocent can He be Love. For God were fear indeed if he whom He created innocent could be a slave to guilt. God’s perfect Son remembers his creation. But in guilt he has forgotten what he really is.” (T-31.I.9)
Love’s never-ending presence sponsors all relationships, circumstance and situation: all ways, always, for the good of all ~This is what we learn to trust through practicing forgiveness… No sacrifice is possible in truth and the mercy and the peace of God are inherent in what we are. This learning experience of the guiltlessness of God's Son is not only inevitable, but welcome… We but choose the Atonement; giving and receiving mutually, salvation and ‘gift of everything’…

Please join me for a moment right now, and let your mind slip back into the empty space just behind, before and beyond the words you’re reading and feel the alive nothingness that forms the hub we experience as ‘I am’… Now slip into the gap between and ‘I’ and ‘am’… Feel that instant of perfect rest: the mercy and the peace of God…

~we say ‘God is’ and we cease to speak~

Friday, December 7, 2007

Lesson 342:

I let forgiveness rest upon all things, for thus forgiveness will be given me….

This is a guarantee…. It isn’t crucial that we understand everything about forgiveness, just that we practice it… Keeping in mind that it is the ‘ego that analyzes; where the Holy Spirit accepts’ puts us in right-minded alignment for forgiveness. The crucial piece is that we practice our willingness to have our perception changed … We are ‘doing it right’, if we leaning in the direction of being willing to see the situation or person or belief or circumstance differently. And this is enough to engage the Atonement principle, and release the mind to healing... The Holy Spirit handles the details…

This transformation procedure actually takes place within a dimension of reality where the needs for conflict and forgiveness aren’t viable. The change of heart, inherent in deciding we want forgiveness’s blessing on a situation or relationship, is the softening or opening that invites the Holy Spirit to visit the light of truth upon it.

Before we realize it, our guts have started shape-shifting and our smudged vision of the other/circumstance, clears and love’s clarity shows us another way of addressing the situation, entirely.

In fact, often we don’t even recognize that it is the healed and forgiven issue, sponsoring our involvement in a given miracle.

FORGIVENESS MUST REST UPON ALL THINGS… that is the promise of the Atonement…. In reality, it has all already been accomplished… Yet, for the mind that still believes in the reality of the dream of separation, forgiveness is simply the means by which the Atonement is accomplished in the time/space mind dynamic… So that’s all handled through God’s plan for salvation…

We just need remember that all things are for-giving to all as one…

And doesn’t it just feel better to give up the burden of having to be right, or of having to know? Whew!

Please join me in today’s perfect, yummy prayer:

“I thank You, Father, for Your plan to save me from the hell I made. It is not real. And You have given me the means to prove its unreality to me. The key is in my hand, and I have reached the door beyond which lies the end of dreams. I stand before the gate of Heaven, wondering if I should enter in and be at home. Let me not wait again today. Let me forgive all things, and let creation be as You would have it be and as it is. Let me remember that I am Your Son, and opening the door at last, forget illusions in the blazing light of truth, as memory of You returns to me.”

Thursday, December 6, 2007

13. What is a miracle?

When it becomes apparent that a miracle is necessary in a given situation … When all ego antics to maintain control have finally failed, it is not the agony of defeat that I reference in my experience bank, but rather, the relief of letting go of the heavy burden of self deception, and leaving me at last in the present, in peace…

For me, when it finally became clear that I did not know… When I finally threw my hands in the air; in the great universal signal for defeat, I was totally open to receive the miracle that would at last breathe life back into my tired and worn-out sense of identity, with the truth instead …

In other words, one must virtually die to the world we made, if but for an instance, to receive the vision of Christ which allows us to see the inner oneness we all share. Persons are revealed as long-lost brothers and competition dissolves in the recognition of a unified purpose. By checking nothing at the door, and giving over my entire idea of ‘problems’ to the miracle allowed me a new perspective entirely. I came to realize that a miracle was not some kind of ‘outside- help-from- above’ but simply the righting of perception. The miracle works within the seeming problem or situation illuminating another way of looking at it that eliminates all fault; wipes tears away and replaces defensiveness with gratitude. What’s more, is that the core on which this healed perspective all takes place, is already in place, right there waiting for the mind that is ready for the miracle. It is merely invisible or inaccessible when the desire for the problem is taking precedence.

Only dream figures move and seem to change. It is within this dynamic that the miracle is needed. …

The ever-familiar film-clip of the tiny mad idea, known as life, supported by belief in, and fears of, death…has been answered… The Atonement principle rights the divisional perspective to see/experience beyond, where all remains as one, always, already…

Reality is Changeless.

Lesson 341:

I can attack but my own sinlessness,

And it is only that which keeps me safe…

I accept Atonement for myself and defer to God’s identity for me, in place of the one I made… both for myself and for you…

To attack is to accept temporary insanity in any given situation… And it always, with out fail, only hurts my state of peace; my sense of certainty, safety and awareness of love…

I am as God created me. And sin is obliterated in this acknowledgement. We use the term sinlessness only because we are speaking to a mind dulled by belief in personhood and sin and punishment and death… But it is really no-thing…

Sinlessness is not even an appropriate technology for the changeless reality in which we rest in God; where there is only God the father and his innocent Son, completing creation in perfect oneness…

Today’s prayer:

Father, Your Son is holy. I am he on whom You smile in love and tenderness so dear and deep and still the universe smiles back on You, and shares Your Holiness. How pure, how safe, how holy, then, are we, abiding in Your Smile, with all Your Love bestowed upon us, living one with You, in brotherhood and Fatherhood complete; in sinlessness so perfect that the Lord of Sinlessness conceives us as His Son, a universe of Thought completing Him.

I joyously join with everyone to right every circumstance and situation within belief through the miracle of our changeless, sinless reality as love….

Wednesday, December 5, 2007

Lesson 340:

I can be free of suffering today….

There is a flow, like water; to this section of lessons… It is the steady, gentle awareness of our choice to no longer serve guilt but to allow for all the defenses and make-believe that held its value in place, to be dispersed into the tranquil rousing that forgiveness brings. What is apparent now, here, as we gaze with Christ’s vision is all the beauty which was always present, but which our faith in guilt concealed. It is here, we have the chance of recognizing the Son of God; to look and see the face of Christ.

The freedom from suffering is the change of mind from dreams of guilt to happy dreams. This is the choice takes the place of the formerly worshiped ‘idol’ of guilt and its dwindling reign in mind. ‘Choose once again’, the Course tells us again and again… This lesson says we can, today, choose forever to let go of suffering and allow the flow of love forgiveness brings…freely…

We decide one simple thing; we do not want whatever we believe an idol gives. For thus the Son of God declares that he is free of idols. And thus he is free…

I am, indeed, free of suffering today; for I am as God created me. This choice exposes the madness of following guilt’s chosen path as a way of life…. Appearances can but deceive the mind that wants to be deceived. There is no meeting place for the peace of God and guilt. Forgiveness allows for the dance of suffering to be seen for what it is: guilt is the one and only cause of pain, no matter what it seems to look like. And the peace forgiveness brings makes it so we are no longer enticed by guilt’s pretentious, hopeless allure.

We choose freedom from, or instead of suffering and through this choice we see what was previously invisible (due to our desire not to see, per guilt’s wishes). The idea of salvation is viable at last. This one choice is the decision to expose the false; not so much running from the make believe toys in the idol dream, but rather deciding against their reality, which was only kept alive by deception. It is the decision to let the truth be true. I love the what the Course says in the section in the text called Beyond All Idols where it states:

“Salvation is a paradox indeed! What could it be except a happy dream? It asks you but that you forgive all things that no one ever did; to overlook what is not there, and not to look upon the unreal as reality. You are but asked to let your will be done, and seed no longer for the things you do not want. And you are asked to let yourself be free of all the dreams of what you never were and seek no more to substitute the strength of idle whishes for the Will of God… No more than this is asked… salvation asks for nothing in reality. And even in illusions it but asks forgiveness be the substitute for fear Such is the only rule for happy dreams”…

To “let all things be exactly as they are” is another way of stating the running theme of these later lessons in the Course… as a matter of fact, that is what the Course says… “No rules are idly set, and no demands are made of anyone or anything to twist and fit into the dream of fear. Instead, there is a wish to understand all things created as the really are. And it is recognized that all things must be first forgiven, and then understood…. The real world is the state of mind in which the only purpose of the world is seen to be forgiveness.”…

The peace of God flows naturally as we let go all attachment to guilt… Can’t you just feel it? Right Now!

~We can be free of suffering today~

Ah, God’s plan for salvation rocks! There’s simply nowhere to turn that doesn’t lead back to the yummy presence of God’s Love; always, already forever present… now that’s a groovy present, eh?

Tuesday, December 4, 2007

Lesson 339:

I will receive whatever I request…

Here, I sit, with today’s lesson working its magic in my mind… I am feeling full and light… And part of what keeps coming to my mind is chapter 30 in the text. Section entitled; Rules for Decision. OMG, I cannot describe what a precious source of perfect, specific as well as general, this guide has been for me… It is so completely contrary to the very make-up of the ego-self, to be clear on any thing. The entire ego thought system, after all, was made for precisely the opposite. So, in other words, asking the self of this so-called life what it wants and what will make it happy is futile. And really nothing… what a waste of perfectly good life force, eh? Oh, sure the ego is a great ‘used-vehicle’ type salesperson; shape-shifting when necessary to play the role of motivational speaker and counselor… and maker–of-promises.

However, there is no unity in division, no clarity in confusion. Going to the source of unhappiness for the umpteenth time for ‘a new plan’ for happiness, is the very definition of insanity, yes? … Doing the same thing over and over; expecting different results…sound familiar?

The Course bypasses engagement in this common, redundant thinking, and it delivers it message directly to the part of the mind which is ready to receive. Even when we feel we don’t understand, what I have seen is that it delivers and waits till my forgiveness opens that part of my mind where the wisdom of its message patiently waits for my wholehearted welcome…. So many times, haven’t you, as I have, experienced that ‘ah ha!’; so that’s what the Course meant about that’ kind of moment? It speaks directly to right-mind…

Now, referring specifically to the Rules for Decision section, for many years I fell under the category, it addresses:”…if you find resistance strong and dedication weak, you are not ready”. I hated for this to be true about me, and often I lied to myself that I was ready, but results always revealed the discrepancy… You can’t hide from what you have given value to… it shows up in your life, regardless, because thoughts create things…

However, in moments of non-resistance I found that I could certainly follow the very next instruction”… and I was able let it go how it went; the outcome as well, often, as the process…. “A little willingness”… It goes along ways… In fact, it is always just enough…

And here’s the thing, in spite of myself, or was it in-spired of my-Self, truth has become my single goal; regardless of what things look like externally, somehow that zero-point of love is always present at the center of my mind. In revisiting the process laid out in Rules for Decision, as I have, oh so many times, I am profoundly moved by the miracle; I found that somewhere along the line, the kind of deep abiding peace and joy, I glimpse in this practice, I was now coming to recognize as my natural state… I had been willing and ready and able to remember and apply its principles as part a natural part of my life of forgiveness, and just allow, not needing to understand or figure out….

I invite you all to join in the yummy treat of reviewing this section, Rules for Decision along with today’s lesson. The goal, after all, belongs at the beginning… So, if we want to set the day right~ aligned in truth~ that is, for the best possible application of today’s lesson: ‘I will receive whatever I request’ , why not take advantage of the specificity of this exercise? The directions, after all are for the un-perfect mind that will inevitably attempt them (as is the entire Course, thank you, Jesus)… Today I join with you in accepting Atonement through the means appointed us… I offer all my love and faith~

Monday, December 3, 2007

Lesson 338:

I am affected only by my thoughts….

I could say that this single idea: ‘I am affected only by my thoughts’, made more impact on the irreversible direction of my life than any other. I recall it as having been the first ‘pure’ ring-true-bell for me… And let me tell you, when you get this; I mean, really get this, it changes everything! Doesn’t it.

When I truly realized that I was responsible, entirely, for everything that was going on in my life, regardless of what it seemed externals might be, l was elated and terrified all at once. There was no longer, really, anywhere to run… And for that matter, there was nowhere to turn…~ nowhere, that is, but inward…

~Inward, I have to chuckle, the very place I had been trying to get away from all my life. I had run form looking within using every trick; including running compulsively in all the traditional, addictive ways were all to familiar, way as well as some I thought original to me.(Ah, the ego and its ingenuity~ passé!) One of my favorite methods was to remake or improve myself. You know, make it better, stronger, faster, get out in front, in head of the crowd… None of it worked. In fact it was the very futility of my ingenuity that lead me to its disillusionment… and into my Self within…

All my efforts to escape finally all lead back to me… And well, the most surprising thing happened.. Where I had been so sure there was only darkness within; what I called “the loneliness of nothingness”, I found only light: the incredible lightness of being”… It was a miracle.

The miracle was just waiting for me to get over my little fearful ‘rightness’, and allow its work to be done. Its message was clear: “I am as God created me~ nothing real can be threatened, nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the peace of God, and I am affected only by my thoughts”…This, turned out to be the peace of Mind I previously sought in escape and projection…

It is the Mind I share with God, the ‘real’ Mind, where illusions have no reign. I can pretend all I want and play a role in the dream about affects of thoughts apart from love, but I am in truth, always, the dreamer of the dream. I can even scare the wits out of myself, worry, regret, feel guilty, get angry, attack, feel remorseful, hurt and terrified to make a move, but this is all illusion….

I know, for beneath and beyond the dream, I am aware of my Self; deep within the everythingness and nothingness from which it came and it disperses; I recognize the light of creation in which I am wholly complete~ extending...choosing my thoughts in the light of awareness…

Love is all there is in truth. And only the thoughts that come from love bring happiness at all. They are the only one’s I want…keeping this in mind makes it’s relatively easy to not take the dream too seriously, as gradually, lucidity within the dream, becomes accessible.

I am affected only by my thoughts. I am deeply affected by my thought of you, my brothers... what happens to you happens to me. You are my thought of love transformed from my thought of fear. Thank you for your light, that I might see my thoughts reflected there. Through it, Mind returns to wholeness. I love you forever and ever as one…

Sunday, December 2, 2007

Lesson 337:

My sinlessness protects me from all harm…

Let me see here, sinlessness is the state of the center where the Self resides. The dark concept of harm cannot coexist with invulnerability; which is the natural state of the Son of God….

Once we be come willing to hide nothing, to harbor no thoughts that we would keep private, the belief in harm or vulnerability crumbles in the light of impartiality.

Harm is a concept only valid within the separation-illusion. Without belief in structures and concepts, harm could not exist. The ego’s entire kingdom is pieced together and propped up with the belief structures of scarcity, specialness, attack and harm, producing the illusion of danger and death and attackers and victims, winners and losers …. It’s all smoke and mirrors, easily dispelled when the choice to ‘forgive and see this differently’ takes precedence in value… Then what we see is our unity and oneness, even simultaneously as the bodies eyes see what they are made to see, within we recognize our brother as our Self…

In choosing Atonement for myself, I began to trust without reservation or forgive my reservation as soon a I noticed a sense of loosing connection with my center of peace … I became willing to forget fairness and justice concepts and allow the mystery within and beyond to visit truth’s impartial ‘fairness’ that unites… The letting go of needing to know, to understand and allow, has resulted in an experience of tolerance I never imagined. It’s really a feeling of accepting unconditionally that all things work together for good for all.

Nothing in this world can be done to fix anything dawns easily, although not always recognized or welcome in the beginning, when we accept Atonement and the single goal of truth. This choice seems to hold the energy of inevitability; a sense that what unfolds next has already been tested and true, so to speak…

The Holy Spirit is engaged and brings to life the ongoing gentle waking to the truth where no concepts reside at all. So, what I’m trying to get at here is although details in the dream seem effected, and choices seem to be made, another experience that is ongoing, beyond what seems apparent~ the bigger picture or rest of the story, so to speak.

There is an instant recognition, always; but due to valuing the belief in the reality of sin and you and me, etc., there is no conceptualization for pure life within the structure of the dream, so it seemingly takes time. Yet, the Holy Spirit is the great interpreter and once chosen, has given another way of seeing.

An experience that brings peace and safety and certainty comes quietly but for the single desire for it. I know... In this state of deep awareness within Mind, actions in this world blend with God’s plan for salvation and its accomplishment.

Then this experience of safety and certainty is paid forward, and trusting is easier, which handles rising fears and boosts faith… I see your sinlessness, I see mine.

Like the lesson says: “What must I do to know all this is mine? I must accept Atonement for myself, and nothing more. God has already done all things that need be done. And I must learn I need do nothing of myself, for I need but accept my Self.”