ACIM Chapter 13. XI. The Peace of Heaven, 3, 4

ACIM Chapter 13. XI. The Peace of Heaven, 3, 4

XI. The Peace of Heaven, P 3

3 When we are all united in Heaven, you will value nothing that you value here. For nothing that you value here do you value wholly, and so you do not value it at all. Value is where God placed it, and the value of what God esteems cannot be judged, for it has been established. It is wholly of value. It can merely be appreciated or not. To value it partially is not to know its value. In Heaven is everything God values, and nothing else. Heaven is perfectly unambiguous. Everything is clear and bright, and calls forth one response. There is no darkness and there is no contrast. There is no variation. There is no interruption. There is a sense of peace so deep that no dream in this world has ever brought even a dim imagining of what it is.

I’ve been sitting with this idea of value.

The definition of value is to consider (someone or something) to be important or beneficial; have a high opinion of. So, to value wholly is to see someone or something as wholly important? Would it mean that there would be no thought of it that was less than important or beneficial? I thought about this and wondered if Jesus was right. Is there anything in my life that I value wholly?

I have a very nice luxury car, and I appreciate the comfort and dependability. But do I value it wholly? I can easily imagine living without it, so how valuable could it be to me? I value my home. It is paid for and is in fairly good condition. It is not perfect, but very satisfactory. I don’t sit around thinking how much I love it, though I do appreciate it. I have some thoughts about things I would like to change about it. So clearly, I don’t value it wholly.

Things have never been terribly important to me, so how about relationships? I value my children a great deal. I love them, like them, and enjoy their company. And I appreciate them. I would be devastated to lose any one of them. In fact, the thought of losing one of them breaks my heart and sends me into great fear. Can I wholly value something that creates fear in me? Can I wholly value something that is so fragile it could be lost to me? How about when one of them behaves in a way that causes me distress? Do I value that relationship a little less when that happens?

What would it be like to value something wholly?

To know that it is forever what it has always been? That there is no chance of loss? To experience nothing from it except total unending peace and love? What must that be like? This is my true existence, I am told. I have no memory of it, but I do trust Jesus, and I trust that this Course is from him, so I believe in total value even though I haven’t experienced it now. Also, I accept that partial value doesn’t count for much and certainly isn’t worth defending.

I am not going to try to achieve this state of total value here in the world because I don’t think it is possible. But I am going to continue doing everything I am guided to do, knowing that eventually I will reach the state of Heaven. Actually, I think that accepting that I am not experiencing anything of true value now will help me in the long run. If I stop trying to find value where there is none, then I will be open to finding it where it is to be found.

XI. The Peace of Heaven, P 4

4 Nothing in this world can give this peace, for nothing in this world is wholly shared. Perfect perception can merely show you what is capable of being wholly shared. It can also show you the results of sharing, while you still remember the results of not sharing. The Holy Spirit points quietly to the contrast, knowing that you will finally let Him judge the difference for you, allowing Him to demonstrate which must be true. He has perfect faith in your final judgment, because He knows that He will make it for you. To doubt this would be to doubt that His mission will be fulfilled. How is this possible, when His mission is of God?

I am not going to find perfect peace in time where I seem to exist at the moment. But I can come close if I choose to let the Holy Spirit lead me. If I bring Him my unpeaceful thoughts, He will show me how to see them differently, and the contrast will teach me what brings peace and what doesn’t. Jesus is using the word sharing in describing this. What can be shared brings peace; what cannot be shared brings suffering.

I didn’t understand what Jesus meant by this at first.

The word ‘sharing’ seemed to come out of left field. What does sharing have to do with peace? But suddenly I had the thought that this has to do with Oneness. We are one, and we cannot experience the peace of God until we accept our unity. This is what sharing is about. All must be shared with all. If it cannot be shared, it is not of God and therefore is not real.

That which cannot be shared must be abandoned, and this will be done because this is God’s Will. What is it that I cannot share? Something I can’t share is hate. I can hate the same one that my friend hates, but we cannot share the hate. I hate for my reasons, and she hates for hers. And I feel hate in my way, and she feels it in her way. Hate is a perception, and it shifts and changes as perceptions do.

How can we share what we cannot even pin down? We have a strong need to join, and so we tend to gather around ideas, but if those ideas are not real, we wind up standing in the same place, but still unable to join in that place. For instance, if I hate a politician and you hate that same politician, we can come together in our hate. We can talk about what we hate about him, and we can talk about our fears about him, but we cannot share in our hate. We cannot become one in our hate.

Love, on the other hand, is real.

Because it is real, it can be shared. We can come together to put our hate on the altar and allow it to be transformed. Then, we will share the love that is there. We will be joined in a real way; we will love as one. In love, there is no fear. In love, there is a sense of what we really are and of our oneness with our Creator, and so there is the deep and abiding peace that Jesus speaks of in this paragraph.

The other point Jesus is making is that this is done through the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will lead us to perfect perception. Perfect perception will show us what we are capable of sharing. It will show us the results of sharing while we still remember not sharing, and this contrast will show us what must be true. This will lead us to the only choice we would want to make, the choice to allow the Holy Spirit to judge for us. We will not fail in this because the Holy Spirit will not fail in His mission. He will not fail in His mission because it is of God.

So, we are learning in these two paragraphs that if something is not wholly valuable, then it is not valuable at all. And that if something cannot be wholly shared, it cannot bring us peace. I gave serious thought to what I valued and what could be wholly shared. The only thing I could find that met these two requirements was my awakening to my relationship with God. So, I do all that I can to move always in that direction.

I want the peace of God above all else.

²The peace of God is everything I want. ³The peace of God is my one goal; the aim of all my living here, the end I seek, my purpose and my function and my life, while I abide where I am not at home. (ACIM, W-205.1:2-3)

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