Commentary on ACIM Lesson 231
©2010 Rev. David Seacord
Father, I will but remember you.
"To remember [you] is Heaven". The original word between the brackets was "Him", but my heart's prayer said it as 'you', as in "God, I love you".
We can all use remembering Heaven as we negotiate this life. Even though sometimes it can seem like a problem. Case in point.... I, nostalgic for Heaven, sometimes struggle with life in this world. Obviously, that means at that moment I am NOT remembering Heaven. Or, I am remembering it unclearly, where it seems like a place to escape to where everything I have not yet mastered about life here will not exist.... will have disappeared.
What is remembering Heaven clearly? It's simply peace. And peace doesn't look like anything, like a picture. Peace is a state of being able to be at peace in an unlimited way. Meaning whenever, however, whatever.
I practiced that today, but my peace muscles were [temporarily] inadequate to the task. I got slam dunked 'under protest' in the halls of justice. You can imagine me sitting on my butt looking at a snorting bull getting ready to charge, wondering if I'm going to square off with it or run. I'm rapidly dropping out of my idealizations and starting to think more practically. Coaching from my sister: "Why pick battles you can't win?" I get that... The brilliant listening of my ex: "I'm so sorry, that has to hurt. It's a lot of money." I felt that trigger my fairy tale idealized emotions to tears, and clear some of the anger that I've been trying to control. That was good....
The thing about the David and Goliath story that's not always present is that David was an EXPERT with a sling--- he'd even taken out lions with it, if my memory of Sunday School comics is accurate. So it only LOOKED like a mismatch. Me vs. the Court? It's a true mismatch. Don Quixote vs. Godzilla..... actually, rather foolish to have even tried.... but then, I didn't know what I do now. :-)
Harzat Inayat Khan is quoted as saying "Shatter your ideals on the rock of truth". My transliteration of that to my life goes "In this world, let my idealism be shattered with what is actually possible." What is possible is to let go, release, and move on. It's been there as a quiet truth all along.... God's whispered promise: I will provide. Tonight, remembering Heaven is remembering that.
Namaste,
David
__________________________________
Lesson 231
2. What is Salvation?
Salvation is a promise, made by God, that you would find your way to Him at last. It cannot but be kept. It guarantees that time will have an end, and all the thoughts that have been born in time will end as well. God's Word is given every mind which thinks that it has separate thoughts, and will replace these thoughts of conflict with the Thought of peace.
The Thought of peace was given to God's Son the instant that his mind had thought of war. There was no need for such a Thought before, for peace was given without opposite, and merely was. But when the mind is split there is a need of healing. So the Thought that has the power to heal the split became a part of every fragment of the mind that still was one, but failed to recognize its oneness. Now it did not know itself, and thought its own Identity was lost.
Salvation is undoing in the sense that it does nothing, failing to support the world of dreams and malice. Thus it lets illusions go. By not supporting them, it merely lets them quietly go down to dust. And what they hid is now revealed; an altar to the holy Name of God whereon His Word is written, with the gifts of your forgiveness laid before it, and the memory of God not far behind.
Let us come daily to this holy place, and spend a while together. Here we share our final dream. It is a dream in which there is no sorrow, for it holds a hint of all the glory given us by God. The grass is pushing through the soil, the trees are budding now, and birds have come to live within their branches. Earth is being born again in new perspective. Night has gone, and we have come together in the light.
From here we give salvation to the world, for it is here salvation was received. The song of our rejoicing is the call to all the world that freedom is returned, that time is almost over, and God's Son has but an instant more to wait until his Father is remembered, dreams are done, eternity has shined away the world, and only Heaven now exists at all.
Lesson 231
Father, I will but to remember You.
What can I seek for, Father, but Your Love? Perhaps I think I seek for something else; a something I have called by many names. Yet is Your Love the only thing I seek, or ever sought. For there is nothing else that I could ever really want to find. Let me remember You. What else could I desire but the truth about myself?
This is your will, my brother. And you share this will with me, and with the One as well Who is our Father. To remember Him is Heaven. This we seek. And only this is what it will be given us to find.
©2010 Rev. David Seacord
Father, I will but remember you.
"To remember [you] is Heaven". The original word between the brackets was "Him", but my heart's prayer said it as 'you', as in "God, I love you".
We can all use remembering Heaven as we negotiate this life. Even though sometimes it can seem like a problem. Case in point.... I, nostalgic for Heaven, sometimes struggle with life in this world. Obviously, that means at that moment I am NOT remembering Heaven. Or, I am remembering it unclearly, where it seems like a place to escape to where everything I have not yet mastered about life here will not exist.... will have disappeared.
What is remembering Heaven clearly? It's simply peace. And peace doesn't look like anything, like a picture. Peace is a state of being able to be at peace in an unlimited way. Meaning whenever, however, whatever.
I practiced that today, but my peace muscles were [temporarily] inadequate to the task. I got slam dunked 'under protest' in the halls of justice. You can imagine me sitting on my butt looking at a snorting bull getting ready to charge, wondering if I'm going to square off with it or run. I'm rapidly dropping out of my idealizations and starting to think more practically. Coaching from my sister: "Why pick battles you can't win?" I get that... The brilliant listening of my ex: "I'm so sorry, that has to hurt. It's a lot of money." I felt that trigger my fairy tale idealized emotions to tears, and clear some of the anger that I've been trying to control. That was good....
The thing about the David and Goliath story that's not always present is that David was an EXPERT with a sling--- he'd even taken out lions with it, if my memory of Sunday School comics is accurate. So it only LOOKED like a mismatch. Me vs. the Court? It's a true mismatch. Don Quixote vs. Godzilla..... actually, rather foolish to have even tried.... but then, I didn't know what I do now. :-)
Harzat Inayat Khan is quoted as saying "Shatter your ideals on the rock of truth". My transliteration of that to my life goes "In this world, let my idealism be shattered with what is actually possible." What is possible is to let go, release, and move on. It's been there as a quiet truth all along.... God's whispered promise: I will provide. Tonight, remembering Heaven is remembering that.
Namaste,
David
__________________________________
Lesson 231
2. What is Salvation?
Salvation is a promise, made by God, that you would find your way to Him at last. It cannot but be kept. It guarantees that time will have an end, and all the thoughts that have been born in time will end as well. God's Word is given every mind which thinks that it has separate thoughts, and will replace these thoughts of conflict with the Thought of peace.
The Thought of peace was given to God's Son the instant that his mind had thought of war. There was no need for such a Thought before, for peace was given without opposite, and merely was. But when the mind is split there is a need of healing. So the Thought that has the power to heal the split became a part of every fragment of the mind that still was one, but failed to recognize its oneness. Now it did not know itself, and thought its own Identity was lost.
Salvation is undoing in the sense that it does nothing, failing to support the world of dreams and malice. Thus it lets illusions go. By not supporting them, it merely lets them quietly go down to dust. And what they hid is now revealed; an altar to the holy Name of God whereon His Word is written, with the gifts of your forgiveness laid before it, and the memory of God not far behind.
Let us come daily to this holy place, and spend a while together. Here we share our final dream. It is a dream in which there is no sorrow, for it holds a hint of all the glory given us by God. The grass is pushing through the soil, the trees are budding now, and birds have come to live within their branches. Earth is being born again in new perspective. Night has gone, and we have come together in the light.
From here we give salvation to the world, for it is here salvation was received. The song of our rejoicing is the call to all the world that freedom is returned, that time is almost over, and God's Son has but an instant more to wait until his Father is remembered, dreams are done, eternity has shined away the world, and only Heaven now exists at all.
Lesson 231
Father, I will but to remember You.
What can I seek for, Father, but Your Love? Perhaps I think I seek for something else; a something I have called by many names. Yet is Your Love the only thing I seek, or ever sought. For there is nothing else that I could ever really want to find. Let me remember You. What else could I desire but the truth about myself?
This is your will, my brother. And you share this will with me, and with the One as well Who is our Father. To remember Him is Heaven. This we seek. And only this is what it will be given us to find.
posted by Rev. David Seacord at
1:39 PM
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