Commentary on ACIM Lesson 170

©2010 Rev. David Seacord

There is no cruelty in God and none in me.

Dad had, as usual, slept through Mom receiving her flowers. "Let him sleep", I said, as I left Mom beaming with her flowers, "I'll be back later...". My voice just spoke itself, even though I hadn't known until that instant that, yep, that's the plan. I walked down the hall way from their apartment which leads to the common dining room and main entrance, wondering what I would do for Dad... and 'right on time' I had a nano-seconds-brief vision of some of my art lining the hall I was in, so that each time Dad shuffles to a meal, he'd be able to enjoy my work. A couple of seconds of thinking about the idea, getting a yes, I have a good many stored pieces he would enjoy etc, and the plan was on.

Went 'home' (to their home, which I am taking care of) and started sorting out a big box of paintings, making selections. Received a thought that it would be good to get administrative approval, so I made the call, explained the plan, and got the approval. Somehow though, the yes wasn't a real yes, which I noted as a clue to 'be flexible'.

As I arrived at my parents door again, I realized I'd best 'do this' outside the apartment in the wide carpeted hall. Got Dad into his wheelchair just saying, 'OK Dad, time to get up, it's Fathers Day'. Ohhh, where are we going? You'll see... and rolled him out into the hall. OK Dad, this is my Fathers Day present to you.... I'm going to give you an art show! Ohhhh! Wonderful!...He exclaims...

So one by one, I unwrapped painting after painting, many that my Dad had never seen, held them up in front of him for as long as he liked, told him the titles of each one and when I had painted it, and then placed them against the hall walls so that we could all see them. A few people gathered. Mom joined us. Dad went 'Wow', and 'Amazing' and 'Wonderful', laughing like a little child in delight. Mom (beaming) told everyone several times 'He's our eldest son... he's an artist'....

Then Dad said, like he'd just climbed Everest, "Son, as far back as I can remember, I've never had a Fathers Day gift like this. Thank you." You're welcome Dad. And to myself, I thought, "Sorry it took me this long to get to it... "

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Clearly, we all 'won big'. Everyone had been honored, everyone had been acknowledged, 'family' was present. Life was 'at peace', the way it 'should' be. :-)

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Epitaph:

The point of 'service to others' is to provide God's peace 'from us to them', that they may know the peace of God that we know. God doesn't care how this is done, He gives Himself to everyone as they will receive. It's the best example we have.....

Namaste,

David

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Lesson 170

There is no cruelty in God and none in me.

No one attacks without intent to hurt. This can have no exception. When I think that I attack in self-defense, I mean that to be cruel is protection; I am safe because of cruelty. I mean that I believe to hurt another brings me freedom. And I mean that to attack is to exchange the state in which I am for something better, safer, more secure from dangerous invasion and from fear.

How thoroughly insane is the idea that to defend from fear is to attack! For here is fear begot and fed with blood, to make it grow and swell and rage. And thus is fear protected, not escaped. Today I learn a lesson which can save me more delay and needless misery than I can possibly imagine. It is this:

I make what I defend against, and by my own
defense against it is it real and inescapable. I will lay down my arms, and only then do I perceive it false.

It seems to be the enemy without that I attack. Yet my defense sets up an enemy within; an alien thought at war with me, depriving me of peace, splitting my mind into two camps which seem wholly irreconcilable. For love now has an "enemy," an opposite; and fear, the alien, now needs my defense against the threat of what I really am.

If I consider carefully the means by which my fancied self-defense proceeds on its imagined way, I will perceive the premises on which the idea stands. First, it is obvious ideas must leave their source, for it is me who is making the attack, and I must have first conceived of it. Yet I attack outside myself, and separate my mind from him who is to be attacked, with perfect faith the split I made is real.

Next, are the attributes of love bestowed upon its "enemy." For fear becomes my safety and protector of my peace, to which I turn for solace and escape from doubts about my strength, and the hope of rest in dreamless quiet. And as love is shorn of what belongs to it and it alone, love is endowed with attributes of fear. For love would ask me lay down all defense as merely foolish. And my arms indeed would crumble into dust. For such they are.

With love as enemy, must cruelty become a god. And gods demand that those who worship them obey their dictates, and refuse to question them. Harsh punishment is meted out relentlessly to those who ask if the demands are sensible or even sane. It is their enemies who are unreasonable and insane, while they are always merciful and just.

Today I look upon this cruel god dispassionately. And I note that though his lips are smeared with blood, and fire seems to flame from him, he is but made of stone. He can do nothing. I need not defy his power. He has none. And those who see in him their safety have no guardian, no strength to call upon in danger, and no mighty warrior to fight for them.

This moment can be terrible. But it can also be the time of my release from abject slavery. I make a choice, standing before this idol, seeing him exactly as he is. Will I restore to love what I have sought to wrest from it and lay before this mindless piece of stone? Or will I make another idol to replace it? For the god of cruelty takes many forms. Another can be found.

Yet do not think that fear is the escape from fear. Let me remember what the text has stressed about the obstacles to peace. The final one, the hardest to believe is nothing, and a seeming obstacle with the appearance of a solid block, impenetrable, fearful and beyond surmounting, is the fear of God Himself. Here is the basic premise which enthrones the thought of fear as god. For fear is loved by those who worship it, and love appears to be invested now with cruelty.

Where does the totally insane belief in gods of vengeance come from? Love has not confused its attributes with those of fear. Yet must the worshippers of fear perceive their own confusion in fear's "enemy"; its cruelty as now a part of love. And what becomes more fearful than the Heart of Love Itself? The blood appears to be upon His Lips; the fire comes from Him. And He is terrible above all else, cruel beyond conception, striking down all who acknowledge Him to be their God.

The choice I make today is certain. For I look for the last time upon this bit of carven stone I made, and call it god no longer. I have reached this place before, but I have chosen that this cruel god remain with me in still another form. And so the fear of God returned with me. This time I leave it there. And I return to a new world, unburdened by its weight; beheld not in its sightless eyes, but in the vision that my choice restored to me.

Now do my eyes belong to Christ, and He looks through them. Now my voice belongs to God and echoes His. And now my heart remains at peace forever. I have chosen Him in place of idols, and my attributes, given by my Creator, are restored to me at last. The Call for God is heard and answered. Now has fear made way for love, as God Himself replaces cruelty.

Father, I am like You. No cruelty abides in me, for there is none in You. Your peace is mine. And I bless the world with what I have received from You alone. I choose again, and make my choice for all my brothers, knowing they are one with me. I bring them Your salvation as I have received it now. And I give thanks for them who render me complete. In them I see Your glory, and in them I find my peace. Holy am I because Your Holiness has set me free. And I give thanks. Amen.

Commentary on ACIM Lesson 169

©2010 Rev. David Seacord

By grace I live, by grace I am released.

Prologue:

Sometimes life asks for a future commitment, and then, as the time approaches, other conflicting commitments arise that challenge us in the keeping of our word.... Living fearlessly means knowing 'it will all work', and allowing God to help us in doing that....

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Several months ago I delightedly accepted a Landmark scholarship (thanking me for decorating their Phoenix center with my art 'pro bono' for several years) to an expensive 'advanced communication' course. It did not 'register' to me then that the course dates (this coming weekend) were the same as both my mom's birthday and also, as it turns out, Fathers Day. But that did begin occurring to me a couple of weeks ago, when I mentioned to my parents I would be gone on those dates. Mom's look let me know I was missing something...

Being blind but not stupid, I figured it out pretty quick. And so did they (that it was not really an option to cancel the scholarship, and that I would be attending the course, and so, be absent on their 'big day'). They graciously downplayed their disappointment, and I went into a bit of denial, ignored the impact, and pretended it was no big deal. Except of course, in the back of my heart was a sadness about it too.

Anyway, as I am to leave for Phoenix tomorrow (that would be, by the time you read this, today, Friday 6-18), when I awoke this morning it was clear that today was the day, and that I'd better do something for them that was really special, because, not only did it have to have an impact that lasted for several days, it was also 'probably going to be' my Dad's last Fathers Day, and I, waking up to that, desired to find a way to honor him appropriately for all that he has been for me in my life...

But I didn't have a clue what I could do that would be suitably memorable. The time to 'ask for help' had clearly arrived....

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The phone rang and I was informed that the semi-truck from Oregon delivering my local wholesale health-food buying club order would arrive in an hour (we all meet it at a spot on the side of the road). That got me out the door and off the property.

After receiving my gogi berries etc, my car sorta just drove me to the supermarket, and I went in. Yes, they had flowers. Good. Normally, I'm frugaland practical, and would buy something potted, but I knew better this time.... So, let's see... ahhhh, Roses... right... but what color... (an old memory of my mom loving a song called 'The Yellow Rose of Texas' comes into my mind).... right, Yellow Roses... I pick out the only dozen they have, and start to head to the check out... something whispers 'wait', and I stop. A big bouquet of multicolored blooms said 'me too'... Hum, doubles the price, but OK, you to then... Then, I remembered the last time I'd given Mom some flowers, there was a problem about no vase being available... OK, God...I get we're splurging? So I ask at the Customer Service counter, "Do you have vases, and a florist?". You bet. She's on a break. I'll go get her. 'Thank you'.

Me and the florist hit it right off as soon as I said 'It's for my Mom, she's going to be 84 Sunday'.... She suggested a large ($$$) vase, suggested greens and babies breath and a ribbon too ($$$) and after swallowing at the estimated total ($$$) and giving the go-ahead as an act of faith that God IS real, we went to work like a well-oiled team. She picked up clues from me (as I removed a wilted petal, she began doing that too), I picked up clues from her (cut the rose stems, remove the lower leaves [keeps the water fresher, she said]). We had a good time communing and creating beauty together, and I thanked her from my heart for her service, paying the price with a happy affirmation of abundance, for was I not God's son, and well provided for? Yes Yes Yes.

I knew 'I'd done good' when all the staff at the home ooooh'd and aaaahhhh'd. 'That might even top the chocolate that just arrived from your sister', one said (at places like this, staff often become 'kinda like family').

I've known Mom has been 're-evaluating' her opinions of me of late. She'd acknowledged it kinda 'sideways' (that she musta have underestimated me) when she found the Haagendaz in her freezer that she'd thought I'd intentionally not gotten her (because I don't eat dairy et. al.) But I could see from the look on her face that she never expected to see a bouquet like this one come from me. She kept trying to get me to say 'It's for both you and Dad' (which I finally did, but only to make her more comfortable). The Yellow Roses of Honor were then placed on the table outside the apartment door, so that my Mom could beamingly SHARE with everyone her pleasure....

Epitaph: You can only meet another where they are, and how they are.

Tomorrow, how I early-celebrated Fathers Day with my Dad....

Namaste,

David

Commentary on ACIM Lesson 168

© 2010 Rev. David Seacord

Your grace is given me. I claim it now.

In response to my last commentary, one of my very wisest friends took the time today to write me and share his point of view about Jesus driving the moneychangers out of the temple..... I've been enjoying my contemplations all day as a result....

In modern day parlance, perhaps the CNN reporter was politically biased and had an axe to grind or a strongly held conviction that this seemed the perfect opportunity to push, and so the report contained those.... or, perhaps Jesus' consciousness was so many heads above the crowds of his day that nobody on the ground at the time (including his disciples?) really understood the why and the wherefore of the action. So maybe they reported it as being something they understood in their world (anger) when it was really something else entirely. Perhaps it was a demonstration of appropriate use of spiritual power, but suppose that it didn't come anger... even though that was what got written up.

It all brings up an important point, revealing why rigorous spirituality is like a razors-edged sharp blade.... that beyond all the belief systems and dogmas, because it happens inside us, our experience of God is completely our own creation, and that is sometimes challenging to be fully responsible for. Ultimately we are left with our own knowing, and on it alone we stand. Ultimately, all beliefs are false. Only self-knowledge arising from our truest, most honest depths defines us.

For me, I say I am only Love. Yes, I am still walking the path of its purification, but I walk that path because of the inspiration I am given when I recognize the Love that I am is the truth of me. I accept the necessity of the purification, for it promises me my true Self.

My view is what works for me may work for you. Without sharing, I will never know if I might have a gift for my brothers. Hence, once the 'fear of others' is gone, what is there to do, but share?

Namaste,

David

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My personal version, in first person

Lesson 168

Your grace is given me. I claim it now.

God speaks to me. Shall I not speak to Him? He is not distant. He makes no attempt to hide from me. I may try to hide from Him, but I suffer from the deception, while He remains entirely accessible. He loves me for I am His Son. There is no certainty but this, yet this suffices. He will love me forever. When my mind remains asleep, He loves me still. And when my mind awakens, He loves me with a never-changing Love.

If I but knew the meaning of His Love, hope and despair would be impossible. For hope would be forever satisfied; and despair of any kind unthinkable. His grace is His answer to all despair, for in it lies the remembrance of His Love. Would He not gladly give me the means by which His Will is recognized? His grace is mine by my acknowledgment. And memory of Him awakens in any mind that asks the means of Him whereby its sleep is done.

Today I ask of God the gift He has most carefully preserved within my heart, waiting to be acknowledged. This the gift by which God leans to me and lifts me up, taking salvation's final step Himself. All steps but this I learn, instructed by His Voice. But finally He comes Himself, and takes me in His Arms and sweeps away the cobwebs of my sleep. His gift of grace is more than just an answer. It restores all memories my sleeping mind forgot; all my certainty of what Love's meaning is.

God loves me. I request that He give me now the means by which this world will disappear, and vision first will come, with knowledge but an instant later. For in His grace I see a light that covers all the world in love, and I watch fear disappear from every face (as hearts rise up and claim the light as theirs). What now remains to be done that Heaven would be delayed an instant longer? What is still undone when on my forgiveness rests everything?

It is a new and holy day today, for I receive what has been given me. My faith lies in the Giver, not my own acceptance. I acknowledge my mistakes, but He to Whom all error is unknown is yet the One Who answers my mistakes by giving me the means to lay them down, and then quickly rise to Him in gratitude and love.

And He descends to meet me, as I come to Him. For what He has prepared for me He gives and I receive. Such is His Will, because He loves me. To Him I pray today, returning but the word He gave to me through His Own Voice, His Word, His Love:

Your grace is given me. I claim it now. Father, I come to You. And You will come to me who ask.
I am the Son You love. Amen.

Commentary on ACIM Lesson 167

©2010 Rev. David Seacord

There is one life, and that I share with God.

Knowing I am a son of God and having 'being it' down perfectly are clearly two different things. Like with my bike ride yesterday, my life has plenty of arenas to practice being divine (non-judgmental) love in. This is absolutely 'the way' for most of us ----as almost nobody just 'awakens' and stays there without at least some sadhana. Risking being sacrilegious and commenting on the life of Jesus, his action of angrily whipping the merchants and money changers out of the temple seems to me to have been a sadhana breakdown, even though from a Christian dogma POV his action was deified (for He, inside the perception of him as the ONLY son of God, could do no wrong....)

But supposing it was a breakdown...(certainly from the Courses perspective it would have been, as the Course teaches 'there is no justification for anger that is real').... that just goes to show that even our Avatars and Saviors are still human, and can error (occasionally). We need to be awake to that, and not project perfection (as an ideal) on anyone. Perfection is simply being whole (which means, exactly as you are, excluding nothing, you are that). So obviously, we are perfect exactly as we are. :-)

Today I was practicing a song written by a friend of mine in my youth who is now long dead. Perhaps I am the only person left who sings this song, so I treasure it. It has a beautiful line in it: "Get to know me better, but learn to love yourself". This is our ultimate truest sadhana, this learning to love ourselves. It includes including in our self-love a willingness to offer the holy love of a son of God upon our errors, mistakes, failures, stupidities, arrogance, betrayals... all that we are conditioned to pour our self-hate upon. And then to embrace our self-hate with love too. (Yes, you're correct; I'm just describing self-forgiveness...)

If we don't learn this, we find it very difficult to face the world newly, freshly, and with joy. Instead we are bogged down in the spiral of self-pity and shame that feeds on and creates low self-esteem. It's not worth it. There is no cheese there. Please don't stay, even if it is comfortable and/or familiar.

I think it better to spend an entire life picking myself up from my failures, and then recommitting to my practice, than to imagine I am so unlovable that I give in to spiritual apathy and doing nothing that uplifts me or others.

And my inner guide agrees, always showing me again and again the blessings in what seem like disasters. I just work on remembering the simple phrase..."No mistakes".

Who can know (as an ego) his own ripeness? Better to serve humbly, and let God do the exalting.

Namaste,

David

Commentary on ACIM Lesson 166

©2010 Rev. David Seacord

I am entrusted with the gifts of God.

A little personal truth for you today....

The way it has been going lately (as God shapes me up with this sadhana / writing process) is that I will follow my inspiration and write something, and then, once it is out the door and into the public domain, I get to eat crow, by failing to be able to live the very thing I just wrote about. Then, to stay clean, I 'get to' tell you the truth about that....

Here's my little example from today. I go out real early for an exercise-acquiring 10 mile morning bike ride with my herbal healer friend along the banks of the Colorado River, sort of. Actually it's all reed-lined sloughs and slough lakes interspersed with big irrigation canals, and it's a graded, sometimes wash-boardy, sometimes deep sand or gravel dirt road we ride on. It's beautiful in the coolish morning, and for a while I enjoy myself, even though my friend is quickly considerably out in front of me. She waits for me a couple of times, but then disappears. The long and short of it is, I fell way behind. My bike is a mountain bike, and so it has the fat tires I need, but still the ride was not being the pleasant little jaunt I had envisioned it would be. The deep sand catches my tires and wants to throw me, the wash-board is jolting, and long before I get to the 5 mile turnaround point, my back muscles are complaining, my butt is sore, and I am feeling really spent just getting this far one way, and yet, I have to also ride all the way back too. I decide to turn around short of the goal when my friend appears heading the opposite direction. She says (laughing at me and my condition because this is the reverse of our normal situation [I usually out-hike her]) "Hey, we can stop and rest up a little ways at a picnic table I rested at a few days ago [when she was out here with somebody else]. It's not too far. I'll wait up there for you." And she takes off.

I try for a while to keep close enough to see her, but that exhausts me, so I settle down to plowing through the experience. It's hot by now and there's no shade anywhere. I keep going. But after a while, boy am I complaining.... I didn't know it was going to be 10 miles, I didn't know there wouldn't be any shade, I didn't know it would be this gnarly road full of sand traps and wash-boards. And then, where was the darn picnic table? ( I never found it, and neither did she, by the way.)

Long about now, God dropped in (uninvited) and had me take a look at 'how I was being'. So? (I wanted to say). So whatever happened to the practice of 'embracing without resistance', which you so eloquently wrote about just three days ago? I was silent. That was because I wanted to cuss, but God was right there, you know....

"Well, you think about it..." God said, and took off with a fancy loopty loop. I peeled one of those amazing 'best I've ever eaten grapefruits' that God had given me a few days ago too, and got some energy from that. And then I decided to see if I could shift gears a little, and walk (I mean ride) my talk.

Sure enough, changing my head space, I started to notice the little things around me again.... dried old weeds became patterns of beauty, and somehow I started to be able to miss the sand traps a lot better. I even stopped and checked out a couple of little side roads a bit, just to see what was up. In other words, I started enjoying myself again finally... even the sun and the sweating.

My friend rescued me with her pickup, saving me from riding the last mile, but by then it didn't matter. We just had a good laugh. (And I'm glad she never heard what I had been thinking....)

So here's the moral of the story: Whenever God drops in 'uninvited', consider He knows something.

Namaste,

David

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My personal version in first person.

Lesson 166

I am entrusted with the gifts of God.

All things are given me. God's trust in me is limitless. He knows me, and that I am His Son. He gives without exception, holding nothing back that can contribute to my happiness. And yet,unless my will is one with His, His gifts are not received. But what would make me think there is another will than His?

Here is exposed the paradox that underlies the making of the world. This world is not the Will of God, and so it is not really real. Yet those who think it is real, they must still believe there is 'another will', and that one leads to opposite effects from the effects God wills. Impossible as it indeed is; but every mind that looks upon the world and judges it as certain, solid, trustworthy and true believes either in two creators; or in only one.... himself alone. But never in one God.

The gifts of God are not acceptable to anyone who holds such strange beliefs. He must believe that to accept God's gifts (however evident they may become, however urgently he may be called to claim them as his own) is to be pressed to treachery against himself. Thus compelled, He must deny the presence of God's gifts, contradict God's truth, and then suffer to preserve the world that he made.

For here is the only home he thinks he knows. Here is the only safety he believes that he can find. Without the world he made he is an outcast; homeless and afraid. He does not realize that it is here that he is afraid indeed, and homeless, too; an outcast wandering so far from home, so long away, he does not realize he has forgotten where he came from, where he goes, and even who he really is.

Yet in his lonely, senseless wanderings, God's gifts go with him, all unknown to him. He cannot lose them. But he will not look at what is given him. He wanders on, aware of the futility he sees about him everywhere, perceiving how his little lot but dwindles, as he goes ahead to nowhere. Still he wanders on in misery and poverty, alone, though God is with him, and not knowing the treasure that is his is so great that everything the world contains is valueless before its magnitude.

He seems a sorry figure; weary, worn, in threadbare clothing, and with feet that bleed a little from the rocky road he walks. No one but has identified with him, for everyone who comes here has pursued the path he follows, and has felt defeat and hopelessness as he is feeling them. Yet is he really tragic, when you see that he is following the way he chose, and need but realize Who walks with him and open up his treasures to be free?

This is a picture of my ego-chosen self, the one I made as a replacement for reality. This is the self I have savagely defended against all reason, every evidence, and all the witnesses who came with proof to show me this is not me. In the past, I have heeded them not. I have gone on my own appointed way, with eyes cast down lest I might catch a glimpse of truth, and be released from my self-deception and set free.

I would cower fearfully lest I should feel Christ's touch upon my shoulder, and perceive His gentle hand directing me to look upon my gifts. How could I then proclaim my poverty in exile? He would make me laugh at this perception of myself. Where is my great self-pity then? And what becomes of all the tragedy I sought to make for myself, for whom God intended only joy?

My ancient fear has come upon me now, and justice has caught up with me at last. Christ's hand has touched my shoulder, and I feel that I am not alone. I even think the miserable self I thought was me may not be my Identity. Perhaps God's Word is truer than my own. Perhaps His gifts to me are real. Perhaps He has not wholly been outwitted by my plan to keep His Son in deep oblivion, and go the way I chose without my Self.

God's Will does not oppose. It merely is. It is not God I have imprisoned in my plan to lose my Self. He does not know about a plan so alien to His Will. There was a need He did not understand, to which He gave an Answer. That is all. And I who have this Answer given me have need no more of anything but this.

Now do I live, for now I cannot die. The wish for death is answered, and the sight that looked upon it now has been replaced by vision which perceives that I am not what I pretended to be. A Holy One walks with me Who gently answers all my fears with this one merciful reply, "It is not so." He points to all the gifts I have each time the thought of poverty oppresses me, and speaks of His Companionship when I perceive myself as lonely and afraid.

Yet He reminds me still of one thing more I had forgotten. For His touch on me has made me like Himself. The gifts I have are not for me alone. What He has come to offer me, I now must learn to give. This is the lesson that His giving holds, for He has saved me from the solitude I sought to make in which to hide from God. He has reminded me of all the gifts that God has given me. He speaks as well of what becomes my will when I accept these gifts, and recognize that they are my own.

The gifts are mine, entrusted to my care, to give to all who chose the lonely road I have escaped. My brothers do not understand they but pursue their idle wishes. It is I who teach them this now. For I have learned of Christ that there is another way for all of us to walk. I will teach them by showing them the happiness that comes to those who feel the touch of Christ, and recognize God's gifts. I will not let sorrow tempt me to be unfaithful to my trust.

My sighs will now betray the hopes of those who look to me for their release. My tears are theirs. If I am sick, I but withhold their healing. What I fear but teaches them their fears are justified. My hand becomes the giver of Christ's touch; my change of mind becomes the proof that who accepts God's gifts can never suffer anything. I am entrusted with the world's release from pain.

I will betray it not. I will become the living proof of what Christ's touch can offer everyone. God has entrusted all His gifts to me. I will be witness in my happiness to how transformed the mind becomes which chooses to accept His gifts, and feel the touch of Christ. Such is my mission now. For God entrusts the giving of His gifts to all who have received them. He has shared His joy with me. And now I go to share it with the world.

Amen.

Commentary on ACIM Lesson 165

©2010 Rev. David Seacord

Let not my mind deny the Thought of God.

Arising rested (this is a reference to the fact that I did not write a commentary yesterday :-) before dawn, I had arranged with a friend to take advantage of a brief 'below seasonal cool spell', and get out for an early morning desert hike, my first since before my month in New Mexico.

I started walking to our meet-up at the trail head, expecting to see no desert blooms, as the season was past. And I didn't. But I was thrilled by the surprise I did find. Desert fruit. Everywhere, and in all kinds of forms.

These were not cherries or plums, to be sure. Instead, they were mostly pea-like pods of different sizes and shapes hanging prolifically from many different varieties of desert trees and bushes. I stopped to investigate, opening some palo verde tree pods and examining the still-soft greenish beans inside. They smelled like fresh lima beans, so, yep, into my mouth one went. No bitter taste... but just to be sure, I did spit it out, knowing that after I googled for information, I could get more.

Then an understanding arrived: In every life-form which flowers, there is fruit that follows. There is no vacuum in this principle, for God's blessings confirming it exists everywhere.... desert, ocean, peak, valley, prairie, forest, lake.... and in all climates, from arctic to tropical.

As I contemplated this, I thought about my species. I saw that consistent with this principle, when in youth, we are in flower, and sure enough, most of our females procreate and give 'fruit' to the world. As is right, for 'there is a season to everything under heaven'.

In our separated-from-God egoic consciousnesses we often miss the mark about when 'the season' is finished, and as a result, a lot of the pains in our lives ensue. I have always admired the Hindu householder precepts as a path to mitigate this. They divide the human lifespan into 3 main journeys: adolescence, householder, and senior maturity (or 'renunciate'). In the first, you are a child and a student; in the second, you marry and raise a family and make a living; in the third, you let go of the world and all its possessions and devote yourself to spiritual sadhana, and preparing your consciousness to depart the body. This basic pattern is also seen in many indigenous cultures.

Western addictions to elongating the season of 'bodily pleasures' interrupt this pattern, and 'we/I' suffer as a result. Culturally we do not understand we are not these bodies, and as we struggle to maintain our beauty, virility, and youth against the entropy of time, our minds loses its natural peace.

A Course in Miracles is a simple reminder to all this that it is unreal in its entirely.... that it is all 'phenomena' and none of it is truly the 'us' that God created. What did He create? He created the Love that we are. This we can use or misuse, for as extensions of God we have the gift of free will. I think surrender to 'this Love that we are' is what allows us to accept ourselves without self-judgement. Then, when we are young we are young, self-accepting, and we happy, and when we are old (in the body) we are old, self-accepting, and still happy. For when so surrendered, there is no such thing as a day without God's grace, as grace also does not live in a vacuum either, and finds its expression most easily among 'the surrendered ones'. Drinking the water of grace every day, trusting in the active presence of God to guide our lives, that will produce of us a 'fruit' that God will recognize, and know it is 'of Him'.

In this (as Gangaji has often said) is 'a life well-lived', and also, fully healed.

Namaste,

David

__________________________________

My personal version in first person.

Lesson 165

Let not my mind deny the Thought of God.

What makes this world seem real except my own denial of the truth that lies beyond? What but my thoughts of misery and death obscure the perfect happiness and the eternal life my Father wills for me? And what could hide from me what cannot be concealed except illusion? What could keep from me what I already have except my choice to see it not, denying it is there?

The Thought of God created me. It has left me not, nor have I ever been apart from it an instant. It belongs to me. By it I live. It is my Source of life, holding me one with it, and everything is one with me also because it left me not. The Thought of God protects me, cares for me, makes soft my resting place and smooth my way, lighting my mind with happiness and love. Eternity and everlasting life shine in my mind, because the Thought of God has left me not, and still abides with me.

Would I deny his safety and his peace, his joy, his healing and his peace of mind, his quiet rest, his calm awakening, if I only recognized where they actually did abide? Would I not instantly prepare to go where they are findable, abandoning all else as worthless in comparison with them? And having found them, would I not make sure I stay with Him, and He that remain with me?

I will deny not Heaven. It is mine today, but for the asking. Nor need I perceive how great the gift, how changed my mind will be before it comes to me. I ask to receive, and it is given me. Conviction lies within it. Till I welcome it as mine, uncertainty remains. Yet God is fair. Sureness is not required to receive what only my acceptance can bestow.

I ask with desire. I need not be sure that I request the only thing I want. But when I have received, I will be sure I have the treasure I have always sought. What would I then exchange for it? What would induce me now to let it fade away from my ecstatic vision? For this sight proves that I have exchanged my blindness for the seeing eyes of Christ; my mind has come to lay aside denial, and accept the Thought of God as my inheritance.

Now is all doubting past, the journey's end made certain, and salvation given me. Now is Christ's power in my mind, to heal as I was healed. For now I am among the saviors of the world. My destiny lies there and nowhere else. Would God consent to let His Son remain forever starved by my denial of the nourishment I need to live? Abundance dwells in me, and deprivation cannot cut me off from God's sustaining Love and from my home.

I practice today in hope. For hope indeed is justified. My doubts are meaningless, for God is certain. And the Thought of Him is never absent me. Sureness must abide within me I who am host to Him. This course removes all doubts which I have interposed between Him and my certainty of Him.

I count on God, and not upon myself, to give me certainty. And in His Name I practice as His Word directs me to do. His sureness lies beyond my every doubt. His Love remains beyond my every fear. The Thought of Him is still beyond all dreams and in my mind, according to His Will.

Commentary for ACIM Lesson 164
©2010 Rev. David Seacord

Now are we one with Him Who is our Source.

This will be an abbreviated presentation today-- no commentary essay, and no first person version. That will give me some 'down time', which I am glad to receive. I am sure I will make up for it in the future. All's well, nothing is 'wrong'. Just time for a bit of extra rest.

Namaste,

David

Lesson 164

Now are we one with Him Who is our Source.

What time but now can truth be recognized? The present is the only time there is. And so today, this instant, now, we come to look upon what is forever there; not in our sight, but in the eyes of Christ. He looks past time, and sees eternity as represented there. He hears the sounds the senseless, busy world engenders, yet He hears them faintly. For beyond them all He hears the song of Heaven, and the Voice for God more clear, more meaningful, more near.

The world fades easily away before His sight. Its sounds grow dim. A melody from far beyond the world increasingly is more and more distinct; an ancient call to which He gives an ancient answer. You will recognize them both, for they are but your answer to your Father's Call to you. Christ answers for you, echoing your Self, using your voice to give His glad consent; accepting your deliverance for you.

How holy is your practicing today, as Christ gives you His sight and hears for you, and answers in your name the Call He hears! How quiet is the time you give to spend with Him, beyond the world. How easily are all your seeming sins forgot, and all your sorrows unremembered. On this day is grief laid by, for sights and sounds that come from nearer than the world are clear to you who will today accept the gifts He gives.

There is a silence into which the world can not intrude. There is an ancient peace you carry in your heart and have not lost. There is a sense of holiness in you the thought of sin has never touched. All this today you will remember. Faithfulness in practicing today will bring rewards so great and so completely different from all things you sought before, that you will know that here your treasure is, and here your rest.

This is the day when vain imaginings part like a curtain, to reveal what lies beyond them. Now is what is really there made visible, while all the shadows which appeared to hide it merely sink away. Now is the balance righted, and the scale of judgment left to Him Who judges true. And in His judgment will a world unfold in perfect innocence before your eyes. Now will you see it with the eyes of Christ. Now is its transformation clear to you.

Brother, this day is sacred to the world. Your vision, given you from far beyond all things within the world, looks back on them in a new light. And what you see becomes the healing and salvation of the world. The valuable and valueless are both perceived and recognized for what they are. And what is worthy of your love receives your love, while nothing to be feared remains.

We will not judge today. We will receive but what is given us from judgment made beyond the world. Our practicing today becomes our gift of thankfulness for our release from blindness and from misery. All that we see will but increase our joy, because its holiness reflects our own. We stand forgiven in the sight of Christ, with all the world forgiven in our own. We bless the world, as we behold it in the light in which our Savior looks on us, and offer it the freedom given us through His forgiving vision, not our own.

Open the curtain in your practicing by merely letting go all things you think you want. Your trifling treasures put away, and leave a clean and open space within your mind where Christ can come, and offer you the treasure of salvation. He has need of your most holy mind to save the world. Is not this purpose worthy to be yours? Is not Christ's vision worthy to be sought above the world's unsatisfying goals?

Let not today slip by without the gifts it holds for you receiving your consent and your acceptance. We can change the world, if you acknowledge them. You may not see the value your acceptance gives the world. But this you surely want; you can exchange all suffering for joy this very day. Practice in earnest, and the gift is yours. Would God deceive you? Can His promise fail? Can you withhold so little, when His Hand holds out complete salvation to His Son?

Commentary for ACIM Lesson 164
©2010 Rev. David Seacord

Now are we one with Him Who is our Source.

This will be an abbreviated presentation today-- no commentary essay, and no first person version. That will give me some 'down time', which I am glad to receive. I am sure I will make up for it in the future. All's well, nothing is 'wrong'. Just time for a bit of extra rest.

Namaste,

David

Lesson 164

Now are we one with Him Who is our Source.

What time but now can truth be recognized? The present is the only time there is. And so today, this instant, now, we come to look upon what is forever there; not in our sight, but in the eyes of Christ. He looks past time, and sees eternity as represented there. He hears the sounds the senseless, busy world engenders, yet He hears them faintly. For beyond them all He hears the song of Heaven, and the Voice for God more clear, more meaningful, more near.

The world fades easily away before His sight. Its sounds grow dim. A melody from far beyond the world increasingly is more and more distinct; an ancient call to which He gives an ancient answer. You will recognize them both, for they are but your answer to your Father's Call to you. Christ answers for you, echoing your Self, using your voice to give His glad consent; accepting your deliverance for you.

How holy is your practicing today, as Christ gives you His sight and hears for you, and answers in your name the Call He hears! How quiet is the time you give to spend with Him, beyond the world. How easily are all your seeming sins forgot, and all your sorrows unremembered. On this day is grief laid by, for sights and sounds that come from nearer than the world are clear to you who will today accept the gifts He gives.

There is a silence into which the world can not intrude. There is an ancient peace you carry in your heart and have not lost. There is a sense of holiness in you the thought of sin has never touched. All this today you will remember. Faithfulness in practicing today will bring rewards so great and so completely different from all things you sought before, that you will know that here your treasure is, and here your rest.

This is the day when vain imaginings part like a curtain, to reveal what lies beyond them. Now is what is really there made visible, while all the shadows which appeared to hide it merely sink away. Now is the balance righted, and the scale of judgment left to Him Who judges true. And in His judgment will a world unfold in perfect innocence before your eyes. Now will you see it with the eyes of Christ. Now is its transformation clear to you.

Brother, this day is sacred to the world. Your vision, given you from far beyond all things within the world, looks back on them in a new light. And what you see becomes the healing and salvation of the world. The valuable and valueless are both perceived and recognized for what they are. And what is worthy of your love receives your love, while nothing to be feared remains.

We will not judge today. We will receive but what is given us from judgment made beyond the world. Our practicing today becomes our gift of thankfulness for our release from blindness and from misery. All that we see will but increase our joy, because its holiness reflects our own. We stand forgiven in the sight of Christ, with all the world forgiven in our own. We bless the world, as we behold it in the light in which our Savior looks on us, and offer it the freedom given us through His forgiving vision, not our own.

Open the curtain in your practicing by merely letting go all things you think you want. Your trifling treasures put away, and leave a clean and open space within your mind where Christ can come, and offer you the treasure of salvation. He has need of your most holy mind to save the world. Is not this purpose worthy to be yours? Is not Christ's vision worthy to be sought above the world's unsatisfying goals?

Let not today slip by without the gifts it holds for you receiving your consent and your acceptance. We can change the world, if you acknowledge them. You may not see the value your acceptance gives the world. But this you surely want; you can exchange all suffering for joy this very day. Practice in earnest, and the gift is yours. Would God deceive you? Can His promise fail? Can you withhold so little, when His Hand holds out complete salvation to His Son?

Commentary on ACIM Lesson 163

©2010 Rev. David Seacord

There is no death. The Son of God is free.

My joy today was to paint 'three dimensionally' and at the same time, journey into another world.

A friend decorates her patio garden with cast spiritual figures, which she has had painted as she has collected them. The 30" tall +200 lb. cast concrete gray figure she refers to as 'the Buddha' was 'all mine' (artistically) to transform, and I approached the project with a keen interest and also with an 'OK God, what are we going to do here?' curiosity.

As I was getting my paints and tools set up and organized, I kept looking at the statue, imagining it in color, and in my mind tracing the lines of color separation etc. Gradually I realized that this was no Buddha at all, really (at least from my POV). Most Buddha's are pictured in a meditation posture, and are serene in countenance. This fellow was someone else, and, I realized, someone a lot like me.

There's a lot of spiritual traditions around the world with their version of him--- in the Tarot, he's the Fool; for a Sufi, he's a desert madzub/dervish, in Native American tales, he's a Trickster (like a coyote), but this Mexican-made Taoist/Zen rendition shows him as a stout, amply girthed wandering monk radiating an idiot's grin of ecstasy, carrying his beggars bowl in one hand and all his other worldly possessions in a bag tied to a stick over his shoulder in the other.

Can you relate? What an image of freedom.... to be a wandering beggar holy man with no cares or worries in the world. From another era in time, this spiritual brother reminds me that even now such freedom from the world is possible.

I know this because of his 'idiot's grin'. While it has been the physical freedom of such a life that the world has generally seen (and often not understood), it is his expression, which does not speak of a mind entangled in the world, that is the real message. Yet, to the world, he just looks 'crazy'. There is a wise saying in the east that comes from his times: "Trust him only if he looks crazy"...(that's paraphrased... the point being that oftentimes the freest most truly sane people LOOK crazy, 'as the world judges appearances').

In our times, we also do not need to have our minds entangled by the world either. Perhaps the world is 'denser', or there are 'more pressures' for us to 'embrace without resistance' (CLUE), but that is 'at our own command', for we are the ones creating the circumstances within which we study our spiritual curriculum. But it is still 'only circumstances within the phenomenal world' at play in our lives, and we can either resist them or surrender and accept them.

These days, my practice is 'surrender', and as quickly as I am able to remember to do it (let go resistance). I'm just being spiritually selfish, in a way. I have simply learned I would rather be a happy God-intoxicated 'fool' than be all tied up and entangled 'being somebody special' (by believing whoever I am thinking I am is the real 'me'). So the only game left is 'being nobody' which then (as long as I remember that) leaves me the freedom to 'be anybody' too. That should make sense if you're an 'idiot' too....:-)

Sorry, I forgot to take my camera. Maybe another time, OK?

Namaste,

David

__________________________

My personal version in first person

Lesson 163

There is no death. The Son of God is free.

'Death' is a thought that takes on many forms, most are often unrecognized. 'Death' may appear as sadness, fear, anxiety or doubt; as anger, faithlessness and lack of trust; concern for bodies, envy, and all forms in which the wish to be as I am not may come to tempt me. All such thoughts are but reflections of the worshipping of death as a 'savior' and 'giver of release'.

As the 'embodiment' of fear, the host of sin, god of the guilty and the lord of all illusions and deceptions, the thought of death does seem mighty. For it seems to hold all living things within its withered hand; all hopes and wishes in its blighting grasp; all goals that can be perceived in its sightless eyes. The frail, the helpless and the sick bow down before its image, thinking it alone is real, inevitable, worthy of their trust. For itseems it alone will surely come.

All things but death are seen to be unsure, too quickly lost no matter how hard to gain, uncertain in their outcome, apt to fail the hopes they once engendered, and to leave the taste of dust and ashes in their wake, in place of aspirations and of dreams. But 'death' is counted on. For it will come with certain footsteps when the time has come for its arrival. It will never fail to take all life as hostage to itself.

Would I bow down to idols such as this? When here is the strength and might of God Himself perceived within an idol made of dust? When here is the opposite of God proclaimed as lord of all creation, stronger than God's Will for life, the endlessness of love and Heaven's perfect, changeless constancy? When here is the Will of Father and of Son defeated finally, and laid to rest beneath the headstone death has placed upon the body of the holy Son of God?

In this unholy fantasy of 'defeat', the Son of God is imagined as becoming what death would have him be. His epitaph, which death itself has written, gives no name to him, for he has passed to dust. It says but this: "Here lies a witness that God is dead." And this it writes again and still again, while all the while its worshippers agree, and kneeling down with foreheads to the ground, they whisper fearfully that 'it is so'.

It is impossible for me to worship death in any form, and still be able to select 'a few' I would 'not cherish and would yet avoid', all the while still believing in the rest. For death is total. Either all things die, or else they live and cannot die. No compromise is possible. For here again I see an obvious position, which I must accept if I am to be sane; that what contradicts one thought entirely can not be true, unless its opposite is proven false.

The idea of the death of God is so preposterous that even the insane have difficulty in believing it. For it implies that God was once alive and somehow perished; killed, apparently, by those who did not want Him to survive. Their stronger will could triumph over His, and so eternal life gave way to death. And with the Father died the Son as well.

Death's worshippers may be afraid. And yet, can thoughts like these be fearful? If death's worshippers saw that it is only this which they believe, they would be instantly released. And I will show them this today. There is no death, and I renounce it now in every form, for their salvation and my own as well.God made not death. Whatever form it takes must therefore be illusion. This the stand I take today. And, it is given me to look past death, and see the life beyond.

Our Father, bless my eyes today. I am Your messenger, and I would look upon the glorious reflection of Your Love which shines in everything. I live and move in You alone. I am not separate from Your eternal life. There is no death, for death is not Your Will. And I abide where You have placed me, in the life I share with You and with all living things, to be like You and part of You forever. I accept Your Thoughts as mine, and my will is one with Yours eternally. Amen.