Commentary on ACIM Lesson 153

© 2010 Rev. David Seacord

 

In my defenselessness my safety lies.

 

Today was 'a success', as I was held inside a beautiful 'peace of God' most of the day.   The way I described it to a friend was that 'nothing was missing'.  And inside of 'nothing missing' there was space to receive a lot of surprises....  

 

I walked into a large mega-store getting items for my parents, and a practice of 'not knowing who the other was' arose without effort.  It was distinct, as if there were two thought-streams being viewed at once.  There was the 'normal' arising of 'my' opinion (what Landmark calls our 'already always listening'), and then there was the immediate canceling of that opinion, to be replaced with 'ontological question'....i.e., 'the awareness that I really did not have a clue who each other person I saw was'... except that they were my brothers.  I felt free, and in that freedom I interacted freely, asking for directions to where this or that was with a new space for each of them to be my 'brother', and as a result, they all were.  It was 'a connectedness' which continued.... 

 

The paint store brother-guy voluntarily offered information about how to do the project I was getting paint for, the female receptionist/brother at the art center allowed me to play the grand piano for a while, my conversations with other/brothers on the phone were rich and warm, I warmed up my mother/brother with thank you compliments for the skills she had encouraged in me, and for the wild-ediblist in me, the universe had me drive alongside a field full of wild purslane (growing in the shadow of the main crop), which I enthusiastically collected a large bag of and made a supper dish from.  

 

There is a line of a Peter Makina song I have written of before...'nothing to do or undo, nothing to force, nothing to fix, and nothing missing'.  Today I saw that on my journey, how it has worked is I am first attracted to certain teachings that strongly call to me, such as that line in the song.  These become 'ideals' that I 'work on'.  Then I relax and release, somehow knowing God will 'make it so'.  Sometime years later, I suddenly recognize I am being the actuality of those ideals as a reality.  This is a grace moment, a confirmation, and a glimpse of my true nature.  

 

Learning how to enter such states permanently is both our true purpose and our 'natural inheritance'.  While it is never the same journey as any another/brother being, all spiritual journeys are universally based on the same principle, which is the core of this Course: 

 

There is no separated-from-God state that is real. 

 

Or, as the Sufis say it:  There is no reality, but God.  

 

Or, as the Bible says it:  In Him we move, and have our being.  

 

Namaste, 

 

David

 

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My 'First Person' edited version.....

 

 

Lesson 153

In my defenselessness my safety lies.

The 'I' who feels threatened by this changing world, its twists of fortune and its bitter jests, its brief relationships and all the "gifts" it merely lends to take away again; let that 'I' attend this lesson well. Know deeply 'this world' provides no safety. It is rooted in attack, and all its "gifts" of seeming safety are illusory deceptions. It attacks, and then attacks again. No true peace of mind is possible where danger threatens thus.

Further, 'the world' gives rise only to defensiveness. For threat brings anger, anger makes attack seem reasonable, honestly provoked, and righteous in the name of self-defense. Yet this defensiveness is 'a double threat'. For it attests to weakness, and it sets up a system of defensethat cannot work. Now are the weak still further undermined, for there is treachery without and still a greater treachery within. The mind is now greatly confused, and knows not where to turn to find escape from itsimaginings.

It is as if a circle held it fast, wherein another circle bound it and another one in that, until escape no longer can be hoped for nor obtained. Attack, defense; defense, attack, ....these become the circles of the hours and the days that bind the mind in heavy bands of steel with iron overlaid, returning only to start again. There seems to be no break nor ending in the ever-tightening grip of the imprisonment upon the mind.

And these defenses are the costliest of all the prices which the ego would exact. In them lies madness in a form so grim that hope of sanity seems but to be an idle dream, beyond the possible. The sense of threat the world encourages is so much deeper, and so far beyond the frenzy and intensity of which I can conceive, that I have no idea of all the devastation it has wrought.

I/ego am its slave. I/ego know not what I do, being in fear of it's threat. I/ego do not understand how much I have sacrificed, I, who can feel its iron grip upon my heart. And I/ego do not realize what I have done to sabotage my true and  holy peace of God by my defensiveness. For I behold the Son of God (myself) as a victim (to attack by fantasies, by dreams, and by illusions I have made; yet helpless in their presence, needful only of defense by still more fantasies, and dreams by which illusions of my safety comfort me).

My true defenselessness is my true strength. It testifies to the recognition by me of the Christ in me. I do recall that the text maintains that choice is always made between Christ's strength and my own imagined weakness, whenever I see myself apart from Him. But my true defenselessness can never be attacked, because it recognizes Gods strength in me is so great any attack is pure folly, or at best, a silly game my tired child-self might play, whenever I may become too unconscious to remember what I  am.

My defensiveness is my ego/I's weakness. It proclaims I have denied the Christ and have come to fear My Father's 'anger'. What can save me now from my delusion of an angry god, whose fearful image I believe I see at work in all the evils of the world? What but illusions can defend me now, when it is but illusions that I fight?

I will not play such childish games today. For my true purpose is to save the world, and I would not exchange for foolishness the endless joy my function offers me. I would not let my happiness slip by because a remaining fragment of a senseless dream happened to cross my mind, and I mistook the figures in it for the Son of God; or its tiny instant for eternity.

I will look past such daydreams today, and recognize that I need no defense because I am created unassailable, without any thought or wish or dream in which attack has any meaning. Now I shall not fear, for I have left all fearful thoughts behind. And in defenselessness I stand secure, serenely certain of my safety now, and sure of my salvation; sure I will fulfill my chosen purpose, as my ministry extends its holy blessing through the world.

Let me be still a moment, and in silence think how holy is my purpose, how secure I rest, untouchable within its light. God's ministers have chosen that the truth be with them. Who is holier than they? Who could be surer that his happiness is fully guaranteed? And who could be more mightily protected? What defense could possibly be needed by the ones who are among the chosen ones of God, both by His election and their own as well?

It is the function of God's ministers to help their brothers choose as they have done. God has elected all (to be His ministers), but few have come to realize His Will is one with their own.And while I fail to teach what I have learned, salvation waits and darkness holds the world in grim imprisonment. Nor will I learn that light has come to me, and my escape has been accomplished. For I will not see the light, until I offer it to all my brothers. As they take it from my hands, so will I recognize it as my own.

Salvation can be thought of as a game that happy children play. It was designed by One Who loves His children, and Who would replace their fearful toys with joyous games, which teach them that the game of fear is gone. His game instructs in happiness because there is no loser. Everyone who plays must win, and in his winning is the gain to everyone ensured. The game of fear is gladly laid aside, when children come to see the benefits salvation brings.

I, who have played that I am lost to hope, abandoned by my Father, left alone in terror in a fearful world made mad by sin and guilt; let me be happy NOW. For 'that game' is finally over. Now a quiet time has come, in which I put away the toys of guilt, and lock away my quaint and childish thoughts of sin forever from both the pure and holy minds of Heaven's children and the Son of God (living now within me).

I pause but for a moment more, to play my final, happy game upon this earth. And then I go to take my rightful place where truth abides and games are meaningless. So is the story ended. Let this day bring the last chapter closer to the world, that everyone may learn the tale he reads of terrifying destiny, defeat of all his hopes, his pitiful defense against a vengeance he can not escape, that all that is but his own deluded fantasy. God's ministers have come to waken him from the dark dreams this story has evoked in his confused, bewildered memory of this distorted tale. And God's Son can smile at last, on learning that it is not true.

Today I practice in a form I will maintain for quite a while. I will begin each day by giving my attention to the daily thought as long as possible. Five minutes now becomes the least I give to preparation for a day in which salvation is the only goal I have. Ten would be better; fifteen better still. And as distraction ceases to arise to turn my from my purpose, I will find that half an hour is too short a time to spend with God. Nor will I willingly give less at night, in my gratitude and joy.

Each hour adds to my increasing peace, as I remember to be faithful to the Will I share with God. At times, perhaps, a minute, even less, will be the most that I can offer as the hour strikes. Sometimes I will forget. At other times the business of the world will close on me, and I will be unable to withdraw a little while, and turn my thoughts to God.

Yet when I can, I will observe my trust as a minister of God, in hourly remembrance of my mission and His Love. And I will quietly sit by and wait on Him and listen to His Voice, and learn what He would have me do the hour that is yet to come; while thanking Him for all the gifts He gave me in the one gone by.

In time, with practice, I will never cease to think of Him, and hear His loving Voice guiding my footsteps into quiet ways, where I will walk in true defenselessness. For I will know that Heaven goes with me. Nor would I keep my mind away from Him a moment, even though my time is spent in offering salvation to the world. Think I He will not make this possible, for I, who chose to carry out His plan for the salvation of the world and my own?

Today my theme is my defenselessness. I clothe myself in it, as I prepare to meet the day. I rise up strong in Christ, and let my weakness disappear, as I remember that His strength abides in me. I will remind myself that He remains beside me through the day, and never leaves my weakness unsupported by His strength. I call upon His strength each time I feel the threat of my defenses undermine my certainty of purpose. I will pause a moment, as He tells me, "I am here."

My practicing will now begin to take the earnestness of love, to help me keep my mind from wandering from its intent. I will not be afraid nor timid. There can be no doubt that I will reach my final goal. The ministers of God can never fail, because the love and strength and peace that shine from them to all their brothers come from Him. These are His gifts to me. Defenselessness is all I need to give Him in return. I lay aside only what was never real, and look on Christ everywhere, and see His sinlessness.