Monday, November 12, 2007

Lesson 317:

I follow in the way appointed me…

Here is where certainty lies. It is the only place to find it. The way appointed me is the way of God, the way of love. It is the clear perspective of a unified purpose within a world made to epitomize conflict… In fact, it is the only certainty. “Only God’s plan for salvation will work.” (W-71).

I love the prayer that invites the Holy Spirit to lead which is given in lesson 71: “What would You have me do? Where would You have me go? What would You have me say and to whom?”… I’ve found it an excellent gateway to the perspective that allows for the appointed way to be seen…

Miracles light the way forged by Forgiveness. The Holy Spirit is the guide and map interpreter and you are my compadrés and companions. Grievances act as little cairns showing us the way when a fork has surfaced in the pathway of mind, and belief seems to block the way.

One must forgive the con-structural possibility that a dual way could exist at all, when God is perfect oneness and all is His Son… It’s like a “choose once again” trail marker… It is the conscious decision to “follow in the way appointed me” that shifts the mind to see the path at all. Free-will is ours and we are the dreamer of the dream of worlds.

The lesson says, “I have s special place to fill, a role for me alone. Salvation waits until I take this part as what I choose to do”.

In my early years with the Course, I took this as a role I played in the world. It just so happened that I had received a miracle. I ask for another way, and I was given it. I felt I had found my purpose in life~ to counsel other fellow sufferers to see that only love can heal and nothing else does…and that was good as far as that piece goes. It’s not for me to see the total picture for all~ that is the Holy Spirit’s role...

Here’s the thing, though, I actually took this so-called-inspired role as the role appointed me, a ‘special role’, helping, counseling, teaching~ it was a role characterized by it’s different from others special roles-ness… See the subtle division there? I didn’t… not for a while, anyway. I think this is a trap a lot of sincere seekers fall into. Where seeking-mind interprets miracles as finding answers in the world and then deciding it knows something it can teach to others. What I came to experience for myself (really in every area of life), as soon as I think I Know something, I close myself off from true knowing. Which, incidentally, often reveals itself in my own very words when I and they dedicated to purpose and given over to the Holy Spirit. Knowing is not of this world…

I didn’t realize the subtle, seductive twist the ego designed especially for me. And what I did experience happening I began to feel detached from myself in a very fundamental way. I was all about what I felt obliged to maintain and perpetuate ~this image/role which seemed held in such regard by those it thought it ‘helped’… And this persona seemed so respected and was seen as knowledgeable and important by myself as well as others.

What I see now is that there was a sort of splitting (separation) within my own ‘secret/personal’ self. There was a childlike self, tucked inside, humbled by and still holding the miracle in tact, waiting… Yet, also, from this little self I too felt somewhat in awe (or was it trepidation?) of this persona-self. And the split grew. I was attached to the persona. And after a while, I began to suffer from a deep sense of feeling fraudulent. Not particular to any actions or words inconsistent to the role, but a building sense of knowing it was not what I am, but rather a distraction of ‘importance’ to delay the only way appointed me…

I’m not saying there was anything but a miracle-in-action going on for me throughout this time. I just find it useful to remember the cunningness of the ego; how seductive and contrived it is ~ seducing us to look the way our weaknesses want to see… And yet, it is ultimately vicious… Well, as the Course puts it, it’s out to kill us (thank God, there is no death in Life~ whew!) What I’m recalling today is a replay of my forgiveness lesson specifics, as honestly as I can, from a mind-watching perspective (and perhaps a little hindsight).

I chose the Hell-bus out of the predicament I found myself in, incidentally. This Hell-bus, by the way, for me, turned out to be the fast-track to forgiving the personhood construct. It gave me direct access to a clear and present awareness of the single choice ~for the Atonement…

Now, here, is the true way appointed me… I chose the Atonement for myself and never again have I suffered from the same split in self that I was once so belabored by…

My path is certain, my choices~ as clear as my willingness at any given moment, and the way secure. Love is the lamppost as well as the sun. I cannot really lose my way. The Course tells us that God would not leave us comfortless… It is true. This comfort is as present as my choice to take the way appointed me, and to choose the Atonement for myself.

Under this umbrella, all things are seen from a unified perspective, all directed toward only good for all. No one ever really loses. We love or we forgive or we wait till we’re ready to love and forgive… The details that seem to flesh-out my so-called-life are seen with equal value; just as all is seen as either useful to purpose or not and therefore forgiven and then useful once again….

God’s plan for salvation replaces our nightmare of separate ‘special-nesses’ with the dream of forgiveness and oneness. His dream answered the idea the impossible: that there could be a world where one was separate from and even conceived his maker, a separate entity, apart from all the billions surrounding him, levying for control, for which one must continually maintain control over it all… or parish. (Geese, that’s sound insane when ya put it that way).

Not one seemingly individual person is left out of a unified plan. It is but by our choice that a unified purpose is seen and followed. Like lesson 236 says: “I rule my mind, which I alone must rule.” ~lessons 79and 80: “Let me recognize the problem so it can be solved and recognize the problem has been solved ~lesson 138: “Heaven is the decision I must make”. And then followed by lesson 139: “I will accept the Atonement for my self”… which brings us back to today’s lesson: I follow in the way appointed me… It is the one goal for action ~ all that has meaning in this world made to contradict itself…

Please join me in this clear and beautiful prayer from today’s lesson:

Father, Your way is what I choose today. Where it would lead me do I choose to go; what it would have me do I choose to do. Your way is certain, and the end secure. The memory of You awaits me there. And all my sorrows end in Your embrace, which You have promised to Your Son, who thought mistakenly that he had wandered from the sure protection of Your loving Arms”…

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