Commentary on ACIM Lesson 182

©2010 Rev. David Seacord

I will be still an instant and go home.

My miracle today is that I and Rattler, 'a 4 foot 'trophy-beautiful' rattlesnake', are both 'doing fine', not the worst for the 'close encounter'.....

To begin with, this morning I was pretty sweaty after helping my elderly neighbors by doing an emergency repair of a leaking water line in the tiny crawl space under their modular home, and my sweat attracted a large fly. I told it to go elsewhere, but it buzzed me and used me as a landing field and played dodge my swatting hand for a while, until I won the game hands down. Looking at it's body, smashed by a force 50,000 times larger than itself, I understood I had just killed. And it didn't feel good, even if it was 'only a fly'. Life is life. I know I would not wish to be suddenly swatted out of existence..... I found myself asking for help in healing 'the killer' in me....

Later in the afternoon, my neighbor knocked on my door again and told me that my repair had failed, as had his second attempt (while I was gone at the library), and now he was going to try a third time with a new type of coupler. He didn't have to ask me for help, I just said 'Give me a minute, I be right over..'. I slipped into work grubbies (this morning when we first tested my first repair it failed instantly and I got soaked, so I prepared for that possibility again, dressing lightly....not that at 112 degrees getting wet was going to be any real problem... :-)

Harold's job was going to be to toss me tools from the crawl space door... stuff like that. I crawled in the twenty feet to the repair site and got to work. I toss the failed part back toward the 'door' and call for a different tool. Harold sticks his head in under the house and says "Don't move, there's a rattler behind you".

Thus a drama begins. I am just out of striking range but Rattler has me cornered. He's coiled, ready to strike. It's not safe to crawl by him to the exit. I have nothing as a defense... no stick, no broom, nothing. As I have 'lived with rattlers before' (but that's 'another story'), I knew I had to let him calm down, so I backed away in the opposite direction. In a bit, his rattles stopped quivering and his head went down.

I talked to him (the rattler, like I have been talking to the birds that sing for me each morning). "This is going to all be ok", I said. Harold's point of view was he didn't want another rattler living under his house (this was not the first one) and went to get a shovel so 'I could kill it'. My knowing was that could be a dangerous thing to try to do in this tiny crawl space where I was lightly dressed and unable to move much. I told him "There has to be a better way... let me think a second"..., then, "Yes, pass me the shovel".

I told Harold I thought we could probably capture the rattler alive (done it before) and I would then take it out into the desert.... did he have a garbage can with a lid? Yes. Could he open the west access panel (that I could see would give me a safe way out)? Yes. Great, you do that. I'll finish this job. And Rattler, you just stay put a few minutes...

So I got the leak repaired in a couple more minutes, keeping an eye on Rattler, with the shovel laying between us just in case. But, as Harold was getting the west access panel opened up, Rattler decides he's outta here, and starts to head for 'deeper under', where I'd have no chance to capture him. I use shovel as a moveable fence, barricading his escape, trying to herd him outside. Absolutely not acceptable!! was his answer, along with some untranslatable swear and pissed off words, hisses, and rattles. Then, after striking at the shovel several times, he does a sudden '180', and bolts for the area near the regular entrance panel. I'm on him from behind, block his try for getting past the entrance with the shovel, and successfully force him outside.

As I quickly crawl outside myself, I see Rattlers tail going around the corner. Calling to Harold to bring the trash can, I realize Rattle is smart, and is looking for a hole to go back under the house through. I stop that with the edge of my shovel, holding him pinned (but not so as to injure him). His upper body is entwined in a lattice, his midsection is pinned by my shovel, and his quivering tail is beckoning for my bare hand to grab it, and pull him out of the lattice. I tell Harold to put the trash can on its side, open top toward me, and to step back. At 84, he's smart from a long life, and doesn't argue :-).

The touch of a live rattler in my bare hand is hard to describe. There's places where I felt his traction grippers trying to launch off me, and there's a smoother area out past that closer to the rattles. And most magical, there is incredible wildness alive in my hand....

I slowly pull the withering, lungeing body out of the lattice, sliding my shovel up closer to the head as it came out. Suddenly Rattler stops resisting, very quickly backs out of the lattice AND under my shovel, and I drop his tail and jump back. He's good he is!! He dives for cover again, this time some bushes next to the property-dividing chicken wire fence. We both take a breather for a minute or two. Then I hop the fence to be on the grass of the neighbors lawn, see that Rattler is partially exposed, set up the trash can, pin the midsection with the shovel flat again, grab the tail, pull him out of the bushes, drop him in front of the trash can, and sweep him into it with the shovel. Capture is completed by uprighting the trash can and covering it with its lid.

Epilogue: I release Rattler several miles out into the nearby desert, in the shade of a large palo verde tree in an arroyo. "What was all that about?" it seemed I heard him say as he lay looking at me for a minute before beginning to explore. "Nothing personal," I said back telepathically. "But this is where you belong much more. Out here, you can live free and be beautiful. Back there, somebody would for sure kill you out of fear...". "But not you?". "No, today, not me... not that it's 'the truth', but you might say 'a fly sacrificed itself that you might live'..."

Thus did I live my day today, gratefully without killing again.

Namaste,

David

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The Lesson

Lesson 182

I will be still an instant and go home.

This world you seem to live in is not home to you. And somewhere in your mind you know that this is true. A memory of home keeps haunting you, as if there were a place that called you to return, although you do not recognize the voice, nor what it is the voice reminds you of. Yet still you feel an alien here, from somewhere all unknown. Nothing so definite that you could say with certainty you are an exile here. Just a persistent feeling, sometimes not more than a tiny throb, at other times hardly remembered, actively dismissed, but surely to return to mind again.

No one but knows whereof we speak. Yet some try to put by their suffering in games they play to occupy their time, and keep their sadness from them. Others will deny that they are sad, and do not recognize their tears at all. Still others will maintain that what we speak of is illusion, not to be considered more than but a dream. Yet who, in simple honesty, without defensiveness and self-deception, would deny he understands the words we speak?

We speak today for everyone who walks this world, for he is not at home. He goes uncertainly about in endless search, seeking in darkness what he cannot find; not recognizing what it is he seeks. A thousand homes he makes, yet none contents his restless mind. He does not understand he builds in vain. The home he seeks can not be made by him. There is no substitute for Heaven. All he ever made was hell.

Perhaps you think it is your childhood home that you would find again. The childhood of your body, and its place of shelter, are a memory now so distorted that you merely hold a picture of a past that never happened. Yet there is a Child in you Who seeks His Father's house, and knows that He is alien here. This childhood is eternal, with an innocence that will endure forever. Where this Child shall go is holy ground. It is His Holiness that lights up Heaven, and that brings to earth the pure reflection of the light above, wherein are earth and Heaven joined as one.

It is this Child in you your Father knows as His Own Son. It is this Child Who knows His Father. He desires to go home so deeply, so unceasingly, His voice cries unto you to let Him rest a while. He does not ask for more than just a few instants of respite; just an interval in which He can return to breathe again the holy air that fills His Father's house. You are His home as well. He will return. But give Him just a little time to be Himself, within the peace that is His home, resting in silence and in peace and love.

This Child needs your protection. He is far from home. He is so little that He seems so easily shut out, His tiny voice so readily obscured, His call for help almost unheard amid the grating sounds and harsh and rasping noises of the world. Yet does He know that in you still abides His sure protection. You will fail Him not. He will go home, and you along with Him.

This Child is your defenselessness; your strength. He trusts in you. He came because He knew you would not fail. He whispers of His home unceasingly to you. For He would bring you back with Him, that He Himself might stay, and not return again where He does not belong, and where He lives an outcast in a world of alien thoughts. His patience has no limits. He will wait until you hear His gentle Voice within you, calling you to let Him go in peace, along with you, to where He is at home and you with Him.

When you are still an instant, when the world recedes from you, when valueless ideas cease to have value in your restless mind, then will you hear His Voice. So poignantly He calls to you that you will not resist Him longer. In that instant He will take you to His home, and you will stay with Him in perfect stillness, silent and at peace, beyond all words, untouched by fear and doubt, sublimely certain that you are at home.

Rest with Him frequently today. For He was willing to become a little Child that you might learn of Him how strong is he who comes without defenses, offering only love's messages to those who think he is their enemy. He holds the might of Heaven in His hand and calls them friend, and gives His strength to them, that they may see He would be Friend to them. He asks that they protect Him, for His home is far away, and He will not return to it alone.

Christ is reborn as but a little Child each time a wanderer would leave his home. For he must learn that what he would protect is but this Child, Who comes defenseless and Who is protected by defenselessness. Go home with Him from time to time today. You are as much an alien here as He.

Take time today to lay aside your shield which profits nothing, and lay down the spear and sword you raised against an enemy without existence. Christ has called you friend and brother. He has even come to ask your help in letting Him go home today, completed and completely. He has come as does a little child, who must beseech his father for protection and for love. He rules the universe, and yet He asks unceasingly that you return with Him, and take illusions as your gods no more.

You have not lost your innocence. It is for this you yearn. This is your heart's desire. This is the voice you hear, and this the call which cannot be denied. The holy Child remains with you. His home is yours. Today He gives you His defenselessness, and you accept it in exchange for all the toys of battle you have made. And now the way is open, and the journey has an end in sight at last. Be still an instant and go home with Him, and be at peace a while.

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My partnership request.... Please consider yourself an important gateway this message is passing through on it's way to others. Please do 'send it on'. Thank you.

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Rev. David Seacord

Fine Art Painter / Sufi Cherag

david@davidseacord.com

www.davidseacord.com

www.davidseacord-everymansjournal.blogspot.com

www.davidseacord-acimcommentaries.blogspot.com

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