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”.

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 …

Lesson 276:

The Word of God is given me to speak…

“My Son is pure and holy as Myself...”

Ok, so God’s Son (you and me) is pure and holy as God Himself… in other words, ‘I am as God created me… pure and holy and eternally unchangeable in nature due to Source Itself… Which is to say that what is Love; whole and innocent and eternal cannot be something else…tainted by imagination’s concepts and falsehoods…

Now, in terms of daily application, this really simplifies things. If I am experiencing anything that did not spring forth from this initial idea (God’s Son is pure and holy as Himself) as the fundamental cornerstone of my perception, then I need to stop and ask “What is the meaning of what I behold?” Then be still and listen…

Forgiveness will serve its meaning up to me in purified form and as I see you as myself, I know exactly what to do and say, for it is the present we now share…

Here, now, all I see is that you are my one Self in the holy exchange of the false for the true; the call for Love ~ Love answering…

We are as God created… this is the only message worth of sharing in this so-called world of for-getting and re-membering and for-giving and re-cognizing and real-izing…

YOU, my Christ brothers, are my holy relationship in this world as eternally in God… His Son is pure and holy as Himself…

And as messengers of God (which ultimately we all are), the word of God is given us to speak…

Lesson 217:

I am not a body. I am free.

For I am still as God created me…

I can be but my gratitude I earn.

I am not a body. I am free.

For I am still as God created me…

Appreciation is the best of all feelings… is it not? Whether you are looking at a sunset or holding your child in your arms, thanking a friend for a favor or a stranger for assistance, or joining together in a common cause for the salvation of the world. Whether that salvation looks like Katrina relief or some other physical coming together, or the commitment to persistent forgiveness of every thought we ever had that hurt, and letting the miracle wash over our vision, clean it up, and cause a new perception. It is the feeling of gratitude in the end that makes us feel unified and identified with those around us. ~ And, aaahhh, the joy…~

You know what I am so grateful for that goes along these lines? I am grateful for a healed perception from one that teaches that the world is somehow outside myself and I am at the mercy of its dictates, to one where all seeming minds are One-Mind, the one we share with God. That Mind thinks only thoughts of Creation; with love at the base, extending and receiving in full appreciation, returning in kind and extending again…. And on and on….

I am grateful too, that because this is the only thing that could be real and it is what I am. (And I know it by the resounding cha-chink that rings the chorus of joy throughout my being as I tune inward to the Oneness that creates or makes-up worlds…) On the same note, I am so grateful to bare witness to the fact that the false is always false; all the pains and frustrations and pettiness and competition and scarcity and sacrifice and worry and guilt ~ well, fear in other words, are but nothing; merely given the semblance of life on illusions screen…

Every single thing you say or do, or not, shows me what I think I am… what the texture of my current belief structure is, and where I am in my forgiveness lessons. If I am experiencing anything but appreciation… its time to offer the situation and all involved, to the Holy Spirit for reinterpretation and healing… It’s so simple and always works, every time to restore my mind to peace…. Thank you, thank you, thank you… for we are the One…

Lesson 172:

God is but love, and therefore so am I…

Once given wholeheartedly to this one eternal truth, all else dissolves into the turning of mind to only Love., I notice how simple it is to quietly rest in this idea and let everything else slip away from mind. It is so compelling it draws me deeper. It feels absolutely safe and complete and whole. Thought seems not to want to muster itself into symbols of this world in representation in mind. Nothing can harm what is everything. Now, this is freedom…

In my defenselessness my safety lies…

What is there to defend, when love has filled the emptiness that seemed to be within, making desire for something without, irrelevant? If I allow my mind to slip in to the sleep of believing in other-hood and person-hood, I loose my identity; here, now in the present Love of God~ One Self= brother-hood… Remembering and demonstrating through the ministry of my daily life, requires my focus remain in the stillness of my being. ~God is but Love, and therefore so am I~

With attention on being, Love fills the ‘gap’ between my brothers and myself with the stillness of our oneness in Him. We are one. We are by nature, the ministers of His Word among the sleeping… gently waking with the peace of God that recognizes its own. Once we have heard the call of Love beckoning that we awaken to Him, and once (even for an instant) answered, our ministry is set… The Holy Spirit is directing the ‘big’ picture, and we can lean back into the love that we are and trust…

I am among the ministers of God…

We are united with our Creator, Who created only like unto Himself; the Love that is creation.

God is but love, and therefore so am I…

God is… therefore, I am…

Lesson 158:

Today I learn to give as I receive…

Christ’s vision is the gift we give. Today we practice seeing beyond the images of form, bodies and persons, and look beyond to the light in them which we see because we are that same self light. One light, like one mind, the one we share with all creation that is creation, creation and Creator as one…

What I have found helps ease the monkey-mind when requests beyond its scope, such as this, are ask of it, is to give it something to focus on, sort of chew on, mull over, occupy it appropriately. Like for instance, quantum physics has explored, investigated, and theorized what makes up all seeming matter and space. It has scientifically proven that none of it is solid. It is rather a combination of particles and waves given specificity by the intent of the viewer. And if broken down to its minutest particle and examined with extreme magnification, the final core is formless emptiness.

This makes the leap to practicing today’s lesson reasonable to the mind that thinks bodies and objects and space. We are ask only to look lovingly beyond, to the light within; to the very reason it is possible to see what seems to be another, or a brother.

Christ’s vision is the gift we receive by offering all we have perceived to the Holy Spirit for forgiveness, reevaluation and reinterpretation. It is this sight we see in our brother, when love has replaced fear and we recognize we but share a common goal; to unite as one in Him.

We receive it too, because we want only what is real. We have decided for Heaven. We want only the truth. We are learning to value only what is valuable and to recognize that what is not, is but a forgiveness opportunity in which we can leave the world we think we see by an instant’s shift in mind to the light of Love beyond and within. When we look again, we see our Self. This is the vision the text is referring to in that often quoted passage in the text: “The holiest place on earth is where an ancient hatred has become a present love.”

Why do we so love this passage? It connects us with the purpose for our being here. It points to the experience of which we all are connected; we feel a deep sense of honor and surrender just hearing the phrase. It reminds us of what matters. It unites us with the sense of Christ’s vision accomplished…

Again, here’s what the lesson says:

Christ’s vision has one law. It does not look upon a body, and mistake it for the Son whom God created. It beholds a light beyond the body; an idea beyond what can be touched, a purity undimmed by errors, pitiful mistakes, and fearful thoughts of guilt from dreams of sin. It sees no separation: And it looks on everyone, on every circumstance, all happenings and all events, without the slightest fading of the light it sees.

This can be taught; and must be taught by all who would achieve it. It requires but the recognition that the world can not give anything that faintly can compare with this in value; nor set up a goal that does not merely disappear when this has been perceived. And this you give today: See no one as a body. Greet him as the Son of God he is, acknowledging that he is one with you in holiness.

Today, let us give and receive as one; looking to the Christ light in every one and situation, in remembrance of the Christ light we all share and the vision we now have received…

Lesson 157:

Into His presence would I enter now…

Ah, the joyous stillness of the peace of God… This becomes, now, the only experience we want and the only one we want to give. And we give only what we have received. The critical part of today’s lesson is to wait in still anticipating and in quiet joy, with this one intent~ to experience for ourselves a holy instant of the truth. This then transforms our priorities on a daily basis from one of merely wanting to bring illusions to the truth, to one of genuine devotion to being a minister for truth.

We no longer look upon anyone or circumstance or situation with merely the body’s eyes and the ego’s definition, we reserve interpretation of what seems to be for the holy interpretation, which reveals itself whenever judgment ceases.

…Your experience today will so transform your mind that it becomes the touchstone for the holy Thoughts of God.

We are on the sure-footed path now, the road invisible to us prior to this moment, but gifted by our desire for it and devotion to the truth and nothing else. Join me as we embark on this new phase of our journey where we are the expression of what we teach; the experience of love’s awareness, the refection of the face of Christ….

Into Christ’s Presence will we enter now, serenely unaware of everything except His shining face and perfect Love. The vision of His face will stay with you, but there will be an instant which transcends all vision, even this, the holiest. This you will never teach, for you attained it not through learning. Yet the vision speaks of your remembrance of what you knew that instant, and will surely know again.

Lesson 154:

I am among the ministers of God…

We are appointed Now! This is what the lesson says, telling us that mere arrogance on our part to continue to play small and set the world up as a fearful place of competition and loss. His message is not just that these states painful states and painful time is over, but that pain and separation were but a dream of falsehood. We are reminded how far we’ve come in the curriculum and how much we still have to learn. We are given the perfect tool to assist us. We don’t judge it, but merely accept our function as messengers of His Word, by receiving it first ourselves. We give only what we have to give.

Will we wait to receive and therefore fulfill our function by bringing the glad tidings of guiltlessness and purity to those appointed us for our delivery? We need seek not for who or what or when as messengers our ministry begins, our part was cast in Heaven and cannot be understood through the mind that made this world of hell. This is the happy news of enlightenment which forgiveness brings. We need not decide if we are worthy yet. Just to decide to accept our ministry, Now!

And like the lesson says: “We cannot judge ourselves, nor need we do so. These are but attempts to hold decision off, and to delay commitment to our function. It is not our part to judge our worth, nor can we know what role is best for us; what we can do within a larger plan we cannot see in its entirety. Our part is cast in Heaven, not in hell. And what we think is weakness can be strength; what we believe to be our strength is often arrogance. The Voice for God, Whose function is to speak for you, chooses and accepts your part for you, is not deceived in what you are, and listens only to His Voice in you….God has joined His Son in this, and thus His Son becomes His messenger of unity with Him. A messenger is not the one who writes the message he delivers. The role of Heaven’s messengers, which sets them off from those the world appoints, is that the messages that they deliver are intended first for them.”

How simple is salvation! I but accept the Atonement for myself. I am as God created me and you and I are one in Christ. This recognition brings a feeling of overwhelming peace and all-encompassing Love. Whatever does not feel this way, or interferes with this flow of perfect peace, in any way, is merely a forgiveness lesson. I recognize by the way I feel, that I have misinterpreted the situation and choose again. My role is to decide for the Holy Spirit within my mind and accept His replacement of love instead. My ministry consists of the people and situations I encounter in my life. It is they with whom I am to share the compassionate message that only truth is true and what seems painful, fearful and worrisome was merely false.

Let’s not waste one more moment wishing our particular ministry was not filled with disenchanted ‘special’ or failed relationships and wish we had something ‘better’ or easier to work with. This is as good as it could possible get. It has been done. Only the Holy Spirit; the Voice for God, has the entire blue-print; the Whole picture, from the so-called beginning to end, which is its completion in God.

We but look back upon it with Him, dreaming we make the journey but once again…. Let’s not waste it, but let time itself collapse into the miracle of our Father’s plan for salvation of and for our Self…

YES. We joyously accept our appointment among the ministers of God, today, as we say:

“I am among the ministers of God, and I am grateful that I have the means by which to recognize that I am free.

The world recedes as we light up our minds, and realizes these holy words are true. They are the message sent to us today from our Creator. Now we demonstrate how they have changed our minds about ourselves, and what our function is. For as we prove that we accept no will we do not share, our many gifts from our Creator will spring to our sight and leap into our hands, and we will recognize what we received.”

Thank you for joining in our holy function.