Monday, January 22, 2007

~The miracle; a form of vengece to the face of Christ~lesson 22

Lesson 22:

“What I see is a form of vengeance…”

When I first read this statement, I just could not believe it was true~ not about me. “I look for the ‘good’ in things”, I heard myself think…”That’s just not the kind of person I am.”
I look at this now, and I see that ‘defense’ was my immediate response. Defense is a form of vengeance! …Obviously offering example #1 of what the first part of the lesson was saying. “Today's idea accurately describes the way anyone who holds attack thoughts in his mind must see the world. Having projected anger onto the world, he sees vengeance about to strike at him. His own attack is thus perceived as self defense.”

What helped me here was remembering what it said in the very introduction of the workbook: “Some of the ideas the workbook presents you will find hard to believe, and others may seem to be quite startling. This does not matter. You are merely asked to apply the ideas as you are directed to do. You are not asked to judge them at all. You are asked only to use them. It is their use that will give them meaning to you, and will show you that they are true… Remember only this; you need not believe the ideas, you need not accept them, and you need not even welcome them. Some of them you may actively resist. None of this will matter, or decrease their efficacy. But do not allow yourself to make exceptions in applying the ideas the workbook contains, and whatever your reactions to the ideas may be, use them. Nothing more than that is required.”

Actually this idea of just letting the ideas in and leaving my mind, faithfully, to jell with the ideas and find truth coming out on top, has been a sort of template for me with the Course. That alone is a true miracle; given the kind of intense “figure it out, get it done, get it done right” kinda gal that this model, Danét, is…

…Still, something about the intangible, silent call to peace, behind the words, where I felt/feel “home at last” … beckoned me to trust, to keep the faith… Even in the face of what might seem to come to pass… and believe me, many seeming horrors I didn’t think I could tolerate seeing about myself ~have been revealed~ come to pass ~sentenced by the miracle~ and obliterated in the light of forgiveness … somehow, that little willingness ~and the mighty power of the Holy Spirit, have seen me through, healing my mind.

I am not afraid to look today, I am not frightened by the ‘ego-belief’ that seemed to make this world real. I’m thinking about in chapter 4 of the text where it talks about the guiltless world and the threat it seems to be to begin to ‘take a look’… “Undermining the ego's thought system must be perceived as painful, even though this is anything but true. Babies scream in rage if you take away a knife or scissors, although they may well harm themselves if you do not. In this sense you are still a baby. You have no sense of real self-preservation, and are likely to decide that you need precisely what would hurt you most. Yet whether or not you recognize it now, you have agreed to cooperate in the effort to become both harmless and helpful, attributes that must go together. Your attitudes even toward this are necessarily conflicted, because all attitudes are ego-based. This will not last. Be patient a while and remember that the outcome is as certain as God…” (T-4.II.5-7).

I used to think that ‘the ego’ was really a force to be reckoned with –I see now that ~ it is a belief; a dream of a world apart from love, and actually, a wisp of nothingness.
Once held up to the light it's gone.

It turns out that my willingness to open to the Atonement is enough… Then the Holy Spirit does the correction in my mind...and I recognize the Christ…

These days, reality, for me, is seen from "above the battleground”, as it's referred to in the Course. I watch the play of mind called world. I resonate in and with 'borderland'. I am acutely aware I am the dreamer of the dream and this has become increasingly my ‘tangible’ experience of life…'the world is but a part of the dream I gave away, nothing more fearful than an idol thought' that I would claim now through forgiveness. I am experiencing the miracle. It is a stable state of deep peace and surety and contentment, imperturbable to the seeming “forms of vengeance; the perishable, that which does not last, that is not real, etc”. I need arrange nothing. This is the Holy Spirit’s expertise, which I gladly defer to! Turns out, trust does solve every problem now. As am I, my brothers are trustworthy… The answer to any question I might have, reveals itself in the face of Christ everywhere I look, in everyone and everything around me, even before I am aware of it… ~thank you~

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