[acimlessons_list] Lesson 225 - August 13

Thu Aug 12 09:53:09 EDT 2004

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+ COMMENTARIES ON LESSONS FROM THE WORKBOOK OF A COURSE IN MIRACLES
+ by Allen Watson, with Practice Summaries by Robert Perry, of The Circle of
Atonement
+ Visit our website at <http://www.circleofa.com>
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Lesson 225 - August 13

"God is my Father, and His Son loves Him."

PRACTICE SUMMARY (See Part II Practice Summary, and also Part II
Introduction)

Purpose: To take the last few steps to God. To wait for Him to take the
final step.

Morning/Evening Quiet Time: as long as needed.

Read the written lesson.

Use idea and prayer to introduce time of quiet. Do not depend on the words.
Use them as a simple invitation to God to come to you.

Sit silently and wait for God. Wait in quiet expectancy for Him to reveal
Himself to you. Seek only direct, deep, wordless experience of Him. Be
certain of His coming, and unafraid. For He has promised that when you
invite Him, He will come. You ask only that He keep His ancient promise,
which He wills to keep. These times are your gift to Him.

Hourly Remembrance: Do not forget.

Give thanks to God that He has remained with you and will always be there to
answer your call to Him.

Frequent Reminder: As often as possible, even every minute.

Remember the idea. Dwell with God, let Him shine on you.

Response To Temptation: When you are tempted to forget your goal.

Use idea as a call to God and all temptation will disappear.

Reading: preceding one of the day's moments of practice.

Slowly read "What is...?" section.

Think about it a while.

Overall Remarks: Now, in this final part of the year that you and Jesus have
spent together, you begin to reach the goal of practicing and of the course.
Jesus is so close that you cannot fail. You have come far along the road. Do
not look back. Fix you eyes on the journey's end. You could not have come
this far without realizing that you want to know God. And this is all He
requires to come to you.

COMMENTARY

Love is reciprocal. We receive God's Love for us by returning it to Him;
there is no other way to receive it, "for giving and receiving are the same"
(1:1).  This <exact> phrase recurs six times in the Course, and there are
many others very much like it. We may think we understand what it means, but
the Course assures us that no concept it teaches is more difficult for us
truly to learn.

The way to know God's Love blazing in our minds is to return It to Him. If,
in our times of quiet yesterday we focused on feeling His Love of us, let us
today focus on our awareness of our love for Him. Donna Carey has a
beautiful song I was listening to on tape just a day or two ago, which says,
"I'll be forever in love with You." I wish I could send you all this song;
it expresses so beautifully what I feel this lesson is saying. "I'll dance
in the light of Your Love, forever in love with You," she sings.

What would it be like to have the Love of God "mine in full awareness,
blazing in my mind and keeping it within its kindly light"? Is this not
what, in our heart of hearts, we all want? Let me cultivate this sense of
love in our hearts today. Let simply this be our focus. Nothing complex,
nothing even conceptual, just letting our hearts sing with love for God,
basking in His Love for us. As the Song of Solomon in the Old Testament put
it, "I am my Beloved's, and He is mine." To know God as the Beloved is one
of the highest of spiritual expressions.

Have you ever sat in stillness with one you deeply love, simply gazing into
his or her eyes, without words? That stillness of love is what this lesson
is leading us to, a silent communion of love given and received,
acknowledged and returned, flowing in an endless current that energizes and
transforms our minds and hearts.

WHAT IS FORGIVENESS? (Part 5)

In contrast to the stillness today's lesson speaks of, an unforgiving
thought is frantically active. It has to be. It must be frantic because it
flies in the face of truth, and attempts to make real an illusion. Frenetic
activity is often the sign of unrecognized unforgiveness. Things that seem
to oppose what we want to be the truth keep popping up, like gophers in the
silly "bang the gopher" game for kids, and we have to keep bashing them down
to maintain our version of reality.

Stilling our mind and becoming quiet, in and of itself, is often enough to
begin dissolving our unforgiveness. Unforgiveness cannot exist in quiet. You
cannot be peaceful and unforgiving at the same time. "Peace to my mind. Let
all my thoughts be still" (Lesson 221). One thing that can foster this peace
and stillness is focusing on the very exchange of love that is the center of
today's lesson. The power of our affection for God, and His for us, can
quell the stormy thoughts and bring, even if only briefly, a moment of quiet
peace, in which unforgiveness simply dissipates.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+ Commentary by Allen Watson
+ Practice Summary: Robert Perry
+ Available in book format from The Circle
+ of Atonement (Vol. 1 reprint due by end of 2004, write us for info)
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