Lesson 357
Truth answers every call we make to God,
Responding first with miracles, and then
Returning unto us to be itself.
Forgiveness, truth’s reflection, tells me how to offer miracles, and thus escape the prison house in which I think I live. Your holy Son is pointed out to me, first in my brother; then in me. Your Voice instructs me patiently to hear Your Word, and give as I receive. And as I look upon Your Son today, I hear Your Voice instructing me to find the way to You, as You appointed that the way shall be:
“Behold his sinlessness, and be you healed.”
Journal
This lesson reminds me that we are studying a course in miracles. We call on God which is a call for miracles and it is answered. I call for awakening and this is the call we all make even though at first, we probably don’t recognize that this is so. We think we want safety and love and we think we have safety when we are healthy and prosperous and we think we have love when we have the perfect partner and good friends and family. So, we ask for these things, but safety and love come from awakening from the world and as we awaken, we begin to experience our life differently and we discover safety and love exist no matter how the story unfolds.
Forgiveness tells us how to offer miracles. I forgive as I refuse to believe what my eyes and ears show me. I see someone suffering and I believe in their suffering and their circumstances and this is all I can offer them. But if I see that they are suffering and I remember the truth that they are fine, that everything is OK, that their Self is unaffected by the story, that is forgiveness and it is a miracle. How it affects the story will vary according to how ready the individual is to accept the miracle, but the miracle is never lost and the healing has occurred whether it is accepted now or later. Forgiveness is simply seeing the truth rather than the apparent illusion. It is knowing that the illusion is just an illusion.
2 Your holy Son is pointed out to me, first in my brother; then in me.
When we perceive the truth, we are perceiving the Son of God. We are perceiving what is actually there, not the shadowy image made from imagination to provide an impossible experience. If we want to know our Self, we must first know our brother as his Self. I love praying for my brothers because this is a way for me to offer the miracle in a very deliberate way. Someone tells me how sick they are and how they suffer and I know that this is their experience and I feel compassion for them, but I am not fooled. That which is sick and suffers is not them, it is the image they made to represent themselves. I know that it is only guilt and fear that are being manifest as sickness and I know that they are innocent. Knowing this is true about another helps me to know it about myself. Refusing to see it in another will make it impossible to see it in me. I will behold his sinlessness, and I will be healed.”
Regina’s Tips
Regina talks about finding our own inner teacher through contemplation and journaling. She says this: What I mean when I say that our special theme points to a Year 2 objective is that we will use words to discover “that [His Word] is written on our hearts.” Or said another way, we will use contemplation and writing to discover the clarity that lies within us.
Our first year has been focused on learning from teachings that appear outside of us. Although learning has a place on the spiritual path, learning can only take us so far. The real purpose of the spiritual path is to learn who we are. A part of learning who we are is realizing the wisdom that lies within us.
Past Entries
A few years ago I had an ongoing forgiveness lesson with the plumber who failed to live up to his contract to plumb my house even though he was paid to do so. I am grateful to have had this opportunity for lots of wrong-minded thinking to be flushed up. At the time it was happening, I was not so clear. I did stay sane enough to know it was an opportunity, but I was going back and forth between the desire to forgive and the need to make him guilty. Here are some of the thoughts I was having.
Here was my experience
I keep wanting to blame the plumber for my upset even though I know that I am the writer of my script. I want to abdicate responsibility and make the plumber the cause of what I experience. I really want to do this. (She says through gritted teeth) But I know that it is not true. I want it to be true but I cannot really believe it. How frustrating!
This is so silly because what if it were true. I would be stuck with feeling small, helpless, cheated, vulnerable, and angry. I would have no true recourse and would be doomed to remain so. You would think that I would be happy to take responsibility because then my experience of what is happening would be different. This situation is helping me to see how much I need the world on which to project my anger.
I have other issues with it as well. I feel foolish when people ask me how the house is going and I have to say the plumber still hasn’t shown up. I see them struggling for a way to ask me why on earth I paid him before he was through. So I care how they see me and that is another thought that I can give to the Holy Spirit.
This plumber is still innocent and he is still my dear brother who is helping me to clear away a lot of ego baggage that I didn’t even know I was carrying. I have much gratitude for my “dance” partner. We are waltzing through life in perfect harmony. He is offering me many opportunities to look at and release ego beliefs.
It is tempting to believe this is about getting running water in my house. It seems like the situation has become untenable and it is my job to fix it one way or another. There are things I must do on that level, but that is not the purpose of the situation. I am being given the opportunity to see that there is still a strong desire on my part to project and blame.
I still want the world to be my scapegoat for what I don’t want to see in myself. It is my chance to release this and at the same time to be the love I was created to be. I can find the plumber guilty or I can see his innocence and what he does or does not do has nothing to do with which one I choose.
My prayer is that I do this with my eyes open, continuing to mine all the golden nuggets from this situation. I pray for strength and support to remember my purpose and to be willing to see clearly without resorting to denial and projection, or at least to recognize it if I do so that I can ask for correction.
From a different year:
Looking back on it now, I see I went through a period of denial in which I tried to skip my anger, dress it up in spiritual garb and convince myself I was in forgiveness. I was clearly struggling with the idea that this man did something that needed my forgiveness. I was also conflicted in that I felt I needed to be right, while also wanting to be happy. I was having trouble deciding which was more important to me. I hated being confronted by my obvious decision to be a victim. I so much wanted him to be guilty, but couldn’t entirely convince myself that this was true.
“Projection makes perception. The world you see is what you gave it, nothing more than that…. It is the witness to your state of mind, the outside picture of an inward condition.” (T-21.IN.1:1-2,5)
What happens in my life reflects my beliefs so that leaves me 100% responsible. I did not choose on a conscious level to be cheated, but the belief that I could be a victim was in my mind and so was reflected in my life. The whole thing felt like a nightmare at the time, but now I recognize what a great learning device it was.
When I think of the whole plumbing situation, and all the money I threw at it only to have to do it all over again, I feel only gratitude. It seems little enough to pay for the lesson I received. And when we come to the bottom line, there was never any choice about what needed to be done. I accept 100% responsibility for my world. No matter what it looks like I am never a victim of the world I see. Sonny the plumber is completely innocent.
“Behold his sinlessness, and be you healed.”
2015
I am taking off from work today to prepare for the holidays. I have so much to do in such a small amount of time that I could easily become overwhelmed. Each time I think I need to hurry, I remind myself to slow down and remember my purpose. One of the things I need to do is buy food to cook for my family. I dread going into the busy stores with all the people scurrying around trying to do the same thing.
This is a perfect time to remind myself of my purpose. Each of these people is a part of my self, each one a perfect and beautiful part of God. Let me remember this while I am being crowded and jostled in the stores. Let me remember this in the traffic and while dashing through the rain to get into the store. Let me remember this when I am dealing with the harried clerks. Let me see the Christ everywhere I look, and I will know the Christ in me.
2016
“Behold his sinlessness, and be you healed.”
I went through a monumental struggle to see my dear one as sinless. It lasted for weeks and was the most painful experience as my mind was in constant conflict between what I perceived in the world and what I knew to be true in reality, and in deciding which version I wanted to be true. A few days ago I (metaphorically) fell to my knees in surrender and was finally of one mind when I asked for the truth, and everything changed in an instant. I saw his sinlessness and I was healed. My mind is at peace, and the peace that I chose is now projected as an image that is reflective of that peace. I pray that I never again lose sight of the truth. My brother is sinless and there are no exceptions to this truth, because what make the truth true is that there are no exceptions.