ACIM Chapter 2. V. The Function of the Miracle Worker, P 9, 10. Charity is a way of looking at another as if he had already gone far beyond his actual accomplishments in time.
ACIM Chapter 2. V. The Function of the Miracle Worker, P 9, 10
V. The Function of the Miracle Worker, P 9
9 Healing is an ability that developed after the separation, before which it was unnecessary. Like all aspects of the belief in space and time, it is temporary. However, as long as time persists, healing is needed as a means of protection. This is because healing rests on charity, and charity is a way of perceiving the perfection of another even if you cannot perceive it in yourself. Most of the loftier concepts of which you are capable now are time-dependent. Charity is really a weaker reflection of a much more powerful love-encompassment that is far beyond any form of charity you can conceive of as yet. Charity is essential to right-mindedness in the limited sense in which it can now be attained.
Healing is our function while we exist in time and space, and though it has no place in reality, it is important here. What is most important to me in this paragraph is this; it is described as a way of perceiving the perfection of another even if you cannot perceive it in yourself. I have prayed for someone and heard the ego tell me to heal myself first before I go around trying to heal someone else.
Understanding Healing
But if that were the case, if it was arrogant of me to attempt healing even though I am not healed, and if it were impossible for me to heal until I am healed, nothing would ever get done. Jesus also talks about the unhealed healer, but this is another issue. For now, what Jesus wants me to understand is this:
1. In Reality, there is no healing or need for healing, but in time and space, we need it.
2. I can heal by perceiving the perfection in another, and this is not dependent on being completely healed myself.
An Example from My Life
Here is how this occurs in my life. When someone tells me they are suffering, I know this is true in time, and that healing is needed. And so, I pray for their healing in whatever form it needs to occur. But at the same time, I know that they are not that body. I know they are part of the Sonship and in God where He placed them. It doesn’t matter that they don’t know this. It doesn’t matter if I don’t always know it for myself. Right now, right at this moment, I know it for them.
True healing is always the healing of a belief. It is all the same if they are experiencing a lack of money or health or are struggling with a relationship. They are holding a belief that must be undone. I don’t concern myself with that because it is not my part. I simply believe in them and know the Holy Spirit to heal them. The beliefs we look at and allow to be undone in our minds are just steps in the process of remembering what we are. This undoing helps us to awaken from the dream and realize that the only problem we ever had was to believe we are separate from God.
10V. The Function of the Miracle Worker, P 10
10 Charity is a way of looking at another as if he had already gone far beyond his actual accomplishments in time. Since his own thinking is faulty he cannot see the Atonement for himself, or he would have no need of charity. The charity that is accorded him is both an acknowledgement that he needs help, and a recognition that he will accept it. Both of these perceptions clearly imply their dependence on time, making it apparent that charity still lies within the limitations of this world. I said before that only revelation transcends time. The miracle, as an expression of charity, can only shorten it. It must be understood, however, that whenever you offer a miracle to another, you are shortening the suffering of both of you. This corrects retroactively as well as progressively.
We Are Both Healed
I can be completely caught up in my ego drama and still recognize the truth for someone else. It is amazing, really, how I can step seamlessly from ego to truth in a nanosecond. I can do this because while the ego is in my mind, truth is also in my mind. Through my strengthening desire to be more aware of the truth, I can more easily access it.
The beauty of this is that when I speak or even think the truth for someone else, it heals, and it heals not just that person but also me. It will often shift me right out of the ego as if the whole drama I had just moments before been thoroughly wrapped up in was nothing. Which is, of course, exactly true; it was nothing. But, boy, did it feel like something while I was focused on it! I am so grateful for the release that healing brings.
Do I always see the effects of the healing right away? No, but healing has occurred. It will wait for me, and it will wait for the other person, and we will accept it when we can. Healing is limited to what we can accept, but it is never lost. And it is limited simply because it occurs in a world of limitation. But as Jesus says, whenever we offer a miracle to another, we shorten the suffering of both of us. This is an effect I can appreciate.
Retroactive and Progressive
“The miracle corrects retroactively as well as progressively.” I know that time is not real, and even in the illusion of time, it is not linear. I don’t think of us living a long line of lives, one after another. Rather, I think of us living all of them all at once. Assuming something like reincarnation occurs, this sentence would mean that as I heal my mind right now, all my incarnations, before and after on this imaginary timeline, are healed.
It must change everything! No wonder we save thousands of years with each miracle! Of course, I don’t know if I am right about how it works. And probably, I fall way short of understanding even if I am on the right track. But here is what is certain and does matter. In time, the miracle of healing is important to me, and I can do this for others, and at the same time, it is done for me.
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