Commentary on ACIM Lesson 156

©2010 Rev. David Seacord

 

 

I walk with God in perfect holiness.

 

 

To sum up....  "I will step back, RELAX AND RELEASE MY LIFE INTO GOD'S HANDS, TRUST HIM TO KNOW AND PROVIDE FOR MY 'NEEDS', GIVE UP DOUBTING I AM WORTHY OF BEING LOVED, and let Him lead the way". 

 

I am glad I lived today.  

 

Namaste, 

 

David

______________________________________

 

My 'first person version'.  

 

 

 

Lesson 156

I walk with God in perfect holiness.

Today's idea simply states to me the truth that makes the thought of sin impossible. It promises me there is no cause for guilt, and that being causeless, it does not exist. This follows surely from the basic thought so often mentioned in the text; that 'ideas leave not their source'. If this be true, then how can I be apart from God? How could I walk the world alone and separate from my Source?

This Course is not inconsistent in the thoughts that are presented in its curriculum. Truth must be true throughout, if it be true. It cannot contradict itself, nor be in parts uncertain and in others sure. I cannot walk the world apart from God, because I could not be without (or 'outside') Him. He IS what 'my life' is. Where I am He is. There is one life. That life I share with Him. Nothing can be apart from Him and be alive.

Yet where He is, there must be holiness as well as life. No attribute of His remains unshared by everything that lives. What lives is holy as Himself, because what shares His life is part of Holiness, and could no more be sinful than the sun could choose to be of ice; the sea elect to be apart from water, or the grass to grow with roots suspended in the air.

There is a light in me which cannot die; whose presence is so holy that the world is sanctified because of who I am as it's container. All things that live bring gifts to me, and offer them in gratitude and gladness at my feet. The scent of flowers is their gift to me. The waves bow down before me, and the trees extend their arms to shield me from the heat, and lay their leaves before me on the ground that I may walk in softness, while the wind sinks to a whisper round my holy head.

The light in me is what the universe longs to behold. All living things are still before this light, for they recognize Who walks with me. The light I carry is their own light too. And thus they see in me their own holiness, saluting me as a savior and as a Son of God. I accept their reverence, for it is due to Holiness Itself, which walks with me, transforming in Its gentle light all things unto Its likeness and Its purity.

This is the way salvation works. As I step back, the light in me steps forward and encompasses the world. It heralds not the end of sin in punishment and death. In lightness and in laughter is sin gone, because its quaint absurdity is seen. It is a foolish thought, a silly dream, not frightening, ridiculous perhaps, but who would waste an instant in approach to God Himself for such a senseless whim?

Yet I have wasted many, many years on just this foolish thought. The past is gone, with all its fantasies. They keep me bound no longer. The approach to God is near, and at hand. And in the little interval of doubt that still remains, I may perhaps (on occasion) lose sight of my Companion, and mistake Him for the senseless, ancient dream that now is only the past.

"Who walks with me?" This question should be asked a thousand times a day, till certainty has ended doubting and established peace. Today let doubting cease. God speaks for me in answering my question with these words:

I walk with God in perfect holiness. I light the world, I light my mind and all the minds which God created one with me.

 

Commentary on ACIM Lesson 155

©2010 Rev. David Seacord

 

I will step back and let Him lead the way.

 

 

 

I just peeked ahead and read the title of the lesson.  A big smile rose in my heart, and my Voice said, "Ok, but write what you've been thinking about now, and then read the lesson".  So that's the context today.

 

What I have been thinking about all day is 'bit parts'.  Like in the movies, not the starring role, but the 'little bitty' parts.  (This is all 'up' for me because of the Guy Finley wisdom dovetailing with yesterdays lesson...)

 

What I am seeing is bit parts are as essential as the starring role, from God's point of view.  In fact, given the fact that it is often an unrecognized 'extra' that holds the pivot point that the story of our lives revolve around, I am now understanding that bit parts are 'assigned' as deliberately as starring roles are.  And, by God, they are very appreciated, especially when performed with love and gratitude.

 

What is opening for me as I contemplate the possibility of loving bit parts is a sense of balance and rightness.  The blindness of stardom cannot be escaped except by stepping down from the stages and seeing life from absolute ordinariness.  In absolute ordinariness lies the freedom to be just exactly as I am, which requires no effort and no struggle and no pretense of being anybody other than the being that God created.  

 

Tonight as I practiced my guitar and sang a song or two, it was for the love of the music that I did it.  I saw that even though I am being given musical performance assignments (in churches and for friends),  that they are not 'big star' productions...., that they are nice little bit parts (that I receive appreciation for, but I am not being the meal. I am being simply a bit of spice). 

 

The other thing I am seeing is this IS exactly what I desire.  I love self-expressing, but I do not love myself as an arrogant egotistical prima donna.  In fact, the idea of becoming lost in egotistical 'stardom' is actually my idea of hell.

 

So after thinking about this a lot today, when I saw that the lesson title was "I will step back and let God lead the way", it was 'self-obvious' that the timing was perfect.  

 

Let's see what we can learn today, shall we?  

 

Namaste, 

 

David  

 

 

____________________________

 

First Person version

 

Lesson 155

I will step back and let Him lead the way.

There is a way of living in the world that is 'not here', although it seems to be. I do not change appearance, though I smile more frequently. My forehead is serene; my eyes are quiet. And all the ones who walk the world as I do recognize me as their own. Yet those who have not yet perceived 'the way' will recognize me also, and believe that I am like them, and as I was before.

The world is an illusion. Those who choose to come to it are seeking for a place where they can be an illusion, and avoid their own reality. Yet when they find their own reality is even here, then they step back and let it lead the way. What other choice is really theirs to make? To let illusions walk ahead of truth is madness. But to let illusion sink behind the truth and let the truth stand forth as what it is, is merely sanity.

This is the simple choice I make today. The mad illusion will remain awhile in evidence, for those to look upon who chose to come, and who have not yet rejoiced to find they were mistaken in their choice. They cannot learn directly from the truth, because they have denied that it is so. And so they need a Teacher Who perceives their madness, but Who still can look beyond illusion to the simple truth in them.

If truth demanded they give up the world, it would appear to them as if it asked the sacrifice of something that is real. Many have chosen to renounce the world while still believing in its reality. And so they have suffered from a great sense of loss, and have not been released, according to their thinking. Others have chosen nothing but the world, and they have suffered from a sense of loss still deeper, which they did not understand.

Between these paths there is another road that leads away from loss of every kind, for sacrifice and deprivation both are quickly left behind. This is the way appointed for me now. I walk this path just as others walk it, nor do I seem to be distinct from them, although I am indeed. Thus can I serve them while I serve myself, and set their footsteps on the way that God has opened up to me, and them through me.

Illusion still appears to cling to me, that I may reach them that God has assigned me. Yet illusion has stepped back. And it is not illusion that they hear me speak of, nor illusion that I bring their eyes to look on and their minds to grasp. Nor can the truth, which walks ahead of me, speak to them through illusions, for the road leads past illusion now, while on the way I call to them, that they may follow me.

All roads will lead to this one in the end. For sacrifice and deprivation are paths that lead nowhere, choices for defeat, and aims that will remain impossible. All 'this' steps back as truth comes forth in me, to lead my brothers from the ways of death, and set them on the way to happiness. Their suffering IS AN ILLUSION. Yet, still they need a guide to lead them out of it, for they mistake illusion for the truth.

Such is salvation's call, and nothing more. It asks that I accept the truth, and let it go before me, lighting up the path of ransom from illusion. It is not a ransom with a price. There is no cost, but only gain. Illusion can only seem to hold in chains the holy Son of God. It is only from illusions he is saved. As illusions step back, the Son of God 'finds himself' again.

God tells me: Walk safely now, yet carefully (because this path is new to me and I may find that I am tempted still to walk ahead of truth, and let illusions be my guide). My holy brothers have been given me, to follow in my footsteps as I walk with certainty of purpose to the truth. Truth goes before me now, that my brothers may see something with which they can identify; something they understand, to lead the way.

Yet at the journey's ending there will be no gap, no distance between truth and I. And all illusions walking in the way I travelled will be gone from me as well, with nothing left to keep the truth apart from God's completion, holy as Himself. I will 'step back into faith' and let truth lead the way. I know not where I go. But the One Who does know goes with me. In faith I will let Him lead me, and go, as with the rest.

When dreams are over, time has closed the door on all the things that pass and miracles are purposeless, the holy Son of God will make no journeys. There will be no wish to be illusion rather than the truth. And I step forth toward this, as I progress along the way that truth points out to me. This is my final journey, and one which I make for everyone. I must not lose my way. For as truth goes before me, so is it going before my brothers who will follow me.

I walk now only to God, pausing and reflecting on this. Could any way be holier, or more deserving of my effort, of my love and of my full intent? What way could give me more than everything, or offer less and still content the holy Son of God? I walk now only to God. The truth that walks before me now is one with Him, and leads me to where He has always been. What way but this could be a path that I would choose instead?

Now my feet are safely set upon the road that leads the world to God. I look not to ways that seem to lead me elsewhere. Such dreams are not a worthy guide for I who am God's Son. I will forget not He has placed His Hand in mine, and given me my brothers in His trust that I am worthy of His trust in me. He cannot be deceived. His trust has made my pathway certain and my goal secure. I will not fail my brothers nor my Self.

And now He asks only that I think of Him a while each day, that He may speak to me and tell me of His Love, reminding me how great His trust; how limitless His Love. In my true Name and His Own, which are the same, I practice gladly with this thought today:

I will step back and let Him lead the way,
For I would walk along the road to Him.

Amen.

Commentary on ACIM Lesson 154

©2010 Rev. David Seacord

 

 

I am among the ministers of God.

 

A couple of days ago I received an email containing the spiritual teachings of Guy Finley, who is a clear and power light of God, and who is based in southern Oregon (USA).  In the message he wrote was a thought that caught my deep attention: 

 

"You can wake yourself up just as many times as you're willing to catch yourself in daydreams where you're the star.  Each time you find yourself daydreaming, cancel all remaining performances of that show."  Guy Finley

 

Since I read those words, I have been recognizing my 'stardom' daydreams (better) and  doing the canceling practice (a few times).  Now, as I read todays lesson, I see receiving Guy's message was a spiritual 'set up' to help me be prepared for the message in todays lesson.... that we cannot know what role is best for us, and that our happiness will arise from our willingness to fulfill the role God's Voice has chosen for us, with our consent and acceptance.

 

It is a beautiful and profound lesson, and I am strongly feeling to 'let it be' (i.e., not create a 'first person version').  I pray you are nurtured by its message.... know that I am here learning it too.  

 

My blessings to you, and 

 

Namaste, 

 

David

 

_________________

 

The Original Lesson

 

Lesson 154

I am among the ministers of God.

Let us today be neither arrogant nor falsely humble. We have gone beyond such foolishness. 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.

Whatever your appointed role may be, it was selected by the Voice for God, Whose function is to speak for you as well. Seeing your strengths exactly as they are, and equally aware of where they can be best applied, for what, to whom and when, He chooses and accepts your part for you. He does not work without your own consent. But He is not deceived in what you are, and listens only to His Voice in you.

It is through His ability to hear one Voice which is His Own that you become aware at last there is one Voice in you. And that one Voice appoints your function, and relays it to you, giving you the strength to understand it, do what it entails, and to succeed in everything you do that is related to it. God has joined His Son in this, and thus His Son becomes His messenger of unity with Him.

It is this joining, through the Voice for God, of Father and of Son, that sets apart salvation from the world. It is this Voice which speaks of laws the world does not obey; which promises salvation from all sin, with guilt abolished in the mind that God created sinless. Now this mind becomes aware again of Who created it, and of His lasting union with itself. So is its Self the one reality in which its will and that of God are joined.

A messenger is not the one who writes the message he delivers. Nor does he question the right of him who does, nor ask why he has chosen those who will receive the message that he brings. It is enough that he accept it, give it to the ones for whom it is intended, and fulfill his role in its delivery. If he determines what the messages should be, or what their purpose is, or where they should be carried, he is failing to perform his proper part as bringer of the Word.

There is one major difference in the role of Heaven's messengers, which sets them off from those the world appoints. The messages that they deliver are intended first for them. And it is only as they can accept them for themselves that they become able to bring them further, and to give them everywhere that they were meant to be. Like earthly messengers, they did not write the messages they bear, but they become their first receivers in the truest sense, receiving to prepare themselves to give.

An earthly messenger fulfills his role by giving all his messages away. The messengers of God perform their part by their acceptance of His messages as for themselves, and show they understand the messages by giving them away. They choose no roles that are not given them by His authority. And so they gain by every message that they give away.

Would you receive the messages of God? For thus do you become His messenger. You are appointed now. And yet you wait to give the messages you have received. And so you do not know that they are yours, and do not recognize them. No one can receive and understand he has received until he gives. For in the giving is his own acceptance of what he received.

You who are now the messenger of God, receive His messages. For that is part of your appointed role. God has not failed to offer what you need, nor has it been left unaccepted. Yet another part of your appointed task is yet to be accomplished. He Who has received for you the messages of God would have them be received by you as well. For thus do you identify with Him and claim your own.

It is this joining that we undertake to recognize today. We will not seek to keep our minds apart from Him Who speaks for us, for it is but our voice we hear as we attend Him. He alone can speak to us and for us, joining in one Voice the getting and the giving of God's Word; the giving and receiving of His Will.

We practice giving Him what He would have, that we may recognize His gifts to us. He needs our voice that He may speak through us. He needs our hands to hold His messages, and carry them to those whom He appoints. He needs our feet to bring us where He wills, that those who wait in misery may be at last delivered. And He needs our will united with His Own, that we may be the true receivers of the gifts He gives.

Let us but learn this lesson for today: We will not recognize what we receive until we give it. You have heard this said a hundred ways, a hundred times, and yet belief is lacking still. But this is sure; until belief is given it, you will receive a thousand miracles and then receive a thousand more, but will not know that God Himself has left no gift beyond what you already have; nor has denied the tiniest of blessings to His Son. What can this mean to you, until you have identified with Him and with His Own?

Our lesson for today is stated thus:

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 realize 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.

 

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

 

_____________________________________

 

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.

Commentary on ACIM Lesson 152

©2010 Rev. David Seacord

 

The power of decision is my own.

 

 

Contextually inside the writings I have shared previously about my mother, I recognized today that one of the gifts I have received from her is my love of gardening.....

 

Because Yuma in the summer is often the hottest place in the continental United States, I arose before sunrise to beat the high temperatures of full day, and tackled cutting back the mass of heat withering 'spring expansion' of everything that can grow here (which were gorgeous not long ago, full of now departed desert blooms.)  My compost required attention too, and since I had not added anything fresh during the weeks just in New Mexico, now was a perfect time to turn it. That became my main labor.  

 

Maybe labor quieted my mind, maybe it was something else, but I was suddenly self-aware of the pleasure I was receiving from this sweaty dirty somewhat odiferous activity.  I noticed myself reviewing backwards my gardens (historically).... appreciating each one for the the vision that inspired them, and the way that growing a garden seems to so naturally bring people together.  Then I arrived back at my childhood, and there was my mom out in our garden, with all of us kids as her crew.   Ahhh.... Mom.  I learned this love from my mom!  And to love food preparation too!  (Our garden was the way she fed the eight of us kids.... it was always at least a full acre in size, and mom 'grew everything' in the rich black Michigan soil of my youth...  Then during harvest, we were a family factory (for real), canning about 5 thousand quarts of fresh fruits and vegetables to feed us through the next year... ) What an amazing accomplishment Mom!  

 

As I write this, I am remembering today's lesson too.... about how our Voice for God will reinterpret our ego's stories, deleting the false, and leaving intact the parts that align with how God sees things.  Stepping forward, I see I have been way under-appreciating my first female love (because of some adolescence  breakdown events that happened that I wrote about earlier).   Thanks God, for the hint...., I'm onto it.  :-).  You keep doing your thing here with me, and I 'just might' turn out.  :-)

 

Enough.  Time to create my 'first person edition'.  (See, if I write first, THEN write the 'first person', both happen....:-)

 

Namaste, 

 

David

 

_______________________________

 

First Person Version

 

 

Lesson 152

The power of decision is my own.

No one can suffer loss unless it be his own decision. No one suffers pain except his choice elects this state for him. No one can grieve nor fear nor think himself sick unless these are the outcomes that he wants. And no one dies without his own consent. In other words, nothing occurs but that it represents my own wish, and nothing is omitted that I choose. Here is my world, complete in all details. Here is its whole reality for me. And it is only here that salvation is.

I may be tempted to believe that this position is 'extreme, and too inclusive' to be true. Yet, can truth ever have exceptions? If I truly have the gift of everything, can any 'loss' be real? Can pain be part of peace, or grief of joy? Can fear and sickness enter into a mind where love and perfect holiness abide? Truth must be all-inclusive, if it be the truth at all. Today, I shall accept no opposites and no exceptions, for to do so is to contradict the truth entirely.

Salvation is the recognition that the truth is true, and nothing else is true. This I have heard before, but I may not yet accept both parts of it. Yet without the first, the second has no meaning. But, without the second, the first is no longer true. Truth cannot have an opposite. This can not be too often said and thought about. For if what is not true is true as well as what is true, then part of truth is false. And truth has lost its meaning. Nothing but the truth is true, and what is false is false.

This is the simplest of distinctions, yet the most obscure. But not because it is a difficult distinction to perceive. It is concealed behind a vast array of choices that do not appear to be entirely my own. And thus the truth appears to have some aspects that belie consistency, but which do not seem to be contradictions introduced by me.

As God created me, I must remain unchangeable, with transitory states by definition false. And that includes all shifts in feeling, alterations in conditions of the body and the mind; in all awareness and in all response. This is the all-inclusiveness which sets the truth apart from falsehood, and the false kept separate from the truth, as what it is.

Is it not strange that I believe that to think I made the world I see is arrogance? God made it not. Of this I can be sure. What can He know of the ephemeral, the sinful and the guilty, the afraid, the suffering and lonely, and the mind that lives within a body that must die? I but accuse Him of insanity, to think He made a world where such things seem to have reality. He is not mad. Yet only madness makes a world like this.

To think that God made chaos, that He contradicts His Own Will, that He invented opposites to truth, and that He suffers death to triumph over life; all this is arrogance. Humility would see at once these things are not of Him. And can I see what God created not? To think I can is merely to believe I can perceive what God willed not to be. And what could be more arrogant than this?

Let me today be truly humble, and accept what I have made as what it is. The power of decision is my own. Decide but to accept my rightful place as co-creator of the universe, and all I think I made will disappear. What rises to awareness then will be all that there ever was, eternally as it is now. And it will take the place of self-deceptions made only to usurp the altar to the Father and the Son.

Today I practice true humility, abandoning the false pretense by which my ego seeks to prove humility is arrogant. Only the ego can be arrogant. But truth is humble in acknowledging its mightiness, its changelessness and its eternal wholeness, all-encompassing, God's perfect gift to His beloved Son. I lay aside the arrogance which says that I am a sinner, guilty and afraid, ashamed of what I am; and lift my heart in true humility instead to Him Who has created me immaculate, like to Himself in power and in love.

The power of this decision is my own. And I accept of Him that which I am, and humbly recognize the Son of God. To recognize God's Son implies as well that all self-concepts have been laid aside, and recognized as false. Their arrogance has been perceived. And in humility the radiance of God's Son, his gentleness, his perfect sinlessness, his Father's Love, his right to Heaven and release from hell, are joyously accepted as my own.

Now do I join in glad acknowledgment that lies are false, and only truth is true. I think of truth alone as I arise, and spend five minutes practicing its ways, encouraging my frightened mind with this:

The power of decision is my own. 
This day I will accept myself as what 
my Father's Will created me to be.

Then will I wait in silence, giving up all self-deceptions, as I humbly ask my Self that He reveal Himself to me. And He Who never left will come again to my awareness, grateful to restore His home to God, as it was meant to be.

In patience I will wait for Him throughout the day, and hourly invite Him with the words with which the day began, concluding it with this same invitation to my Self. God's Voice will answer, for He speaks for me and for my Father. He will substitute the peace of God for all my frantic thoughts, the truth of God for my self-deceptions, and God's Son for my illusions of myself.

 

Commentary on ACIM Lesson 151

©2010 Rev. David Seacord

 

 

All things are echos of the Voice for God. 

 

As often happens after I am finished creating the 'first person version', I am without much more to say right now.  It empties me, which is one of the reasons I am attracted to the practice of doing them (the first person versions).  

 

However, for the benefit of several new subscribers who have never received an email with a 'first person version', allow me to explain that for a good while now, excepting the review periods, I have been converting the text of the lesson from third person into first person, plus on occasion adding clarifications.  From my point of view, there is a value in experiencing the teachings as speaking from within my being (as from my Godself), rather than from outside my being.  I invite you to try them out.  If you prefer the original text, it is available just below the edited version for your use and/or comparison. 

 

I think that is it for today. Except my dad says he is very happy I am back home.  Me too.   

 

Namaste, 

 

David

 

__________________________

 

My 'first person' edited version

 

 

Lesson 151

All things are echoes of the Voice for God.

I can see I can judge no one on partial evidence, for that is not judgment. It is merely my opinion, and my opinion is very often based on my ignorance and doubt. My seeming certainty is but a cloak for my uncertainty, which my ego/I would conceal. My uncertainty needs such an irrational defense because it is irrational. And if my defenses seem strong, convincing, and without a doubt, it is because of all my doubting underneath.

I know I do not seem to doubt the world I see. But I habitually do not really question what is shown me through my body's eyes. Nor do I usually ask why I believe them, even though I learned a long while ago that my senses do deceive me. That I believe them to the last detail which they report is even stranger, especially when I pause to recollect how frequently they have been faulty witnesses indeed! Why would I trust them so implicitly? Why, but because of an underlying doubt (which I would hide with show of certainty)?

How can I judge anything then? My judgments all rest upon the witnesses that my senses offer me. Yet what witness was ever falser than this? But how else do I judge the world I see? I place pathetic faith in what my eyes and ears report. I think my fingers touch reality, and close upon the truth. This is awareness that I 'understand', and think more real than what is witnessed to by the eternal Voice for God Himself.

How can this be true judgment? I have often been urged to refrain from judging, but not because it is 'a right' to be withheld from me. I have been urged to refrain because I cannot judge. I can merely believe my ego/I's judgments, all of which are false. It tries to guide my senses carefully, to prove to me how weak I am; how helpless and afraid I am, how apprehensive I am of  a 'just punishment', how black with sin and  how wretched in my guilt I am.

This egoic thing it speaks of, and would yet defend, it tells me is myself. And I have believed that this is so with stubborn certainty. Yet underneath its convincing remains the hidden doubt that what it shows me as reality with such conviction it does not itself believe.Underneath, it is itself alone that it condemns. It is within itself it sees the guilt. And it is its own despair it 'sees' in me.

Today, let me not hear its false voice. The witnesses it sends to prove to me its evil is my own are false, and they speak with a certainty of what they do not know. My faith in them has been blind. And I would not share the doubts their 'lord' can not completely vanquish. But I have too often believed 'to doubt his vassals' is 'to doubt myself'.

Yet this I choose to learn today: 'To doubt their evidence' will clear the way to recognize myself, and I shall then let the Voice for Godalone be Judge of what is worthy of my own belief. For God's Voice will not tell me that my brother should be judged by what my eyes behold in him, nor what his body's mouth says to my ears, nor what my fingers' touch reports of him. He passes by such idle empty witnesses, which merely bear false witness to God's Son. He recognizes only what God loves, and in the holy light of what He sees do all the ego/I's dreams of what I am vanish before the splendor He beholds.

Today I will let Him be Judge of what I am, for He has a certainty in which there is no doubt, because it rests on Certainty so great that doubt is meaningless before Its face. Christ cannot doubt Himself. The Voice for God can only honor Him, rejoicing in His perfect, everlasting sinlessness. Whomever He has judged as holy can only laugh at guilt, be unwilling now to play with toys of sin; and equally unheeding of the body's witnesses before the rapture of Christ's holy face.

And thusly He judges me. I will accept His Word for what I am, for He was there. And thus He bears witness to my beautiful creation, and the Mind Whose Thought created my reality. What can the body mean to Him Who knows the glory of the Father and the Son? What whispers of the ego can He hear? What could convince Him that my 'sins' are real? I will let Him be Judge as well of everything that seems to happen to me in this world. And His lessons.... they will enable me to bridge the gap between the world's illusions and the truth.

How blessed I am.  He will remove all faith that I have placed in pain, disaster, suffering and loss. He gives me vision which can look beyond these grim appearances, and can instead behold the gentle face of Christ in all of them. I will no longer doubt that only good can come to me (I who am beloved of God), for He will judge all happenings, and teach me the single lesson that they all contain.

He will select the elements in them which represent the truth, and disregard those aspects which reflect only idle dreams. And He will reinterpret all I see, and all occurrences, each circumstance, and every happening that seems to touch on me in any way from His one frame of reference, which is wholly unified and sure. And I will see the love beyond the hate, the constancy in change, the pure in sin, and only Heaven's blessing on the world.

Such is my resurrection, for my life is not a part of anything I see. It stands beyond the body and the world, past every witness for unholiness.... it stands within the Holy, holy as Itself. In everyone and everything His Voice would speak to me of nothing but my Self and my Creator, Who is One with Him. So will I see the holy face of Christ in everything, and I will hear in everything no sound except the echo of God's Voice.

I will practice wordlessly today, except at the beginning of the time I spend with God. I will introduce these times with but a single, slow repeating of the thought with which the day begins. And then as I watch my thoughts, I will appeal silently to Him Who sees the elements of truth in them. Let Him evaluate each thought that comes to my mind, let Him remove the elements of dreams, and let Him give them back again as clean ideas that do not contradict the Will of God.

Let me give Him my thoughts, and He will give them back as miracles which joyously proclaim the wholeness and the happiness God wills His Son, as proof of His eternal Love. And as each thought in me is thus transformed, may it take on true healing power from the Mind which saw the truth in it, and failed to be deceived by what was falsely added. Let all the threads of fantasy be gone. And let what remains be unified into a perfect Thought that offers its perfection everywhere.

Today, let me spend fifteen minutes thus when I awake, and let me gladly give another fifteen more before I go to sleep. My ministry begins as all my thoughts are purified. So am I taught to teach the Son of God in everyone the holy lesson of his sanctity. No one can fail to listen, when I hear the Voice for God give honor to God's Son. And everyone will share the thoughts with me which He has retranslated in my mind.

Such is my Eastertide. And so I lay the gift of snow-white lilies on the world, letting it replace all witnesses to sin and death. Through my transfiguration is the world redeemed, and joyfully released from guilt. Now do I lift my resurrected mind in gladness and in gratitude to Him Who has restored my sanity to me.

And I will hourly remember Him Who is my salvation and deliverance. As I give Him thanks, the world unites with me and happily accepts my holy thoughts, which Heaven has corrected and made pure. Now has my ministry begun at last, to carry round the world the joyous news that truth has no illusions, and the peace of God, through me, belongs to everyone.

Amen.  

 

Commentary on ACIM Lesson 150

©2010 Rev. David Seacord

 

 

Reviewing:

 

My mind holds only what I think with God.

(139) I will accept Atonement for myself. 
(140) Only salvation can be said to cure.

 

 

 

As far as learning humility is concerned, simply accepting the Atonement (at-one-ment with God) is the obvious cure for all egotism, mine included.  For it is egotism that thinks it is a something separate from the whole (i.e., God), with power to choose and create whatever it desires from the smorgasbord of life.  Egotism thinks 'free will' is license to feast.  It isn't, that's a child playing with matches view.  Free will is rightly viewed as a humbling responsibility, and as the opportunity for mature partnership with our personal spirit/soul and with the God/Source.  

 

What cures this egotism?  Same thing as with the child.... under watchful supervision, the child is allowed to burn himself.  That one experience will install forever vast wisdom about fire.  

 

With us and our adult egos though, well, we are often pretty stiff-necked and determined.  A lot of the people that wake up the most radically almost got themselves killed before they did.  Some actually did die for a few minutes, but then got sent back with 'the message'.  So what is wisdom?  It is NOT having to learn by way of our OWN personal egoic experience.  It is recognizing another's experience as 'worthy of respect', and absorbing from their testimony enough to grow out of the 'egoic danger zone'.  (This is actually what the whole 'faith' thing is about.  It is trusting the word of your brother.) 

 

True surrender always leads directly to the Atonement.... how could it not?  True surrender is simply entering 'the partnership', 'the oneness', 'the whole'.... with no personal agenda as a superior commitment.  (Yes, we are still allowed our personal preferences, but if you watch enlightened people, they will drop such preferences in a heartbeat whenever the Godwill requires it.) (FYI, my take on myself these days is: I usually make the 'right choice', but 'sometimes' [I smile at myself] it takes a bit longer than a heartbeat.  And sometimes I still 'make mistakes', which are really 'practice sessions in cleaning up personal integrity).  Anyway, by the time we ripen enough to be willing to surrender authentically, we do know FOR SURE that the God/Source has a better view of our life than we do. (This is obvious because you are no way going to actually surrender if you don't get that...) From the testimony I have heard through the years what happens 'after surrender' is you are usually assigned the jobs your ego always wanted to do.  Only it (our ego) wanted those jobs to inflate itself.  However, as the truly surrendered ego is not inflatable or deflatable (because no separated ego is 'at home' anymore), the experience of 'at-one-ment' remains undisturbed.  

 

We are then free to enjoy without attachment the life that God gives us Now, and Now, and Now.  This is the way that God calls us to serve.  Whatever the form, by exemplifying authentic surrender exactly where we are we each meet our true destiny.

 

Namaste, 

 

David

 

 

Lesson 150

My mind holds only what I think with God.

(139) I will accept Atonement for myself. 
(140) Only salvation can be said to cure.