[acimlessons_list] Lesson 343 - December 9

Susan Carrier suelegal at theteks.com
Wed Dec 8 05:41:25 EST 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 <http://www.circleofa.com/>
>
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Lesson 343 - December 9


"I am not asked to make a sacrifice To find the mercy and the peace of God."

PRACTICE SUMMARY

(See Part II Practice Summary and also Part II Introduction)

COMMENTARY

The whole idea of loss or sacrifice is foreign to the Course. "Loss of any
kind is impossible" (T-8.VII.5:2). As the first line of paragraph one points
out, how could it be a loss to end suffering? How can happiness be gained by
sacrificing? The idea is ridiculous when you look at it, and yet for
centuries most Western religions have believed that in order to find God's
mercy you have to give up something, usually something really valuable. You
have to suffer to attain Heaven. You have to pay for your mistakes.

Heaven, or salvation, must be only gain. How could it be a loss and still be
Heaven? Let me affirm to my Father, "You only give. You never take away. And
You created me to be like You, so sacrifice becomes impossible for me as
well as You. I, too, must give" (1:3-6). Someone just today was telling me
how they got trapped in a mental loop of feeling as though God had given
them a dirty deal by creating them capable of experiencing this dream of
suffering; it was as if God was putting us through all this for selfish
reasons, or at least allowing us to go through this for selfish reasons, for
what <He> can get out of it. But God only gives; He does not take away. Let
me not think otherwise.

And what God gives is given forever; "As I was created I remain. Your Son
can make no sacrifice, for he must be complete, having the function of
completing You" (1:8-9). I can't lose what I am; I can't sacrifice something
of value and become incomplete, because that would be contrary to my
function of completing God. For God to be complete (which of course He must
be, being God) I must be complete, for He created me to complete Himself!
Therefore, I cannot sacrifice; I must remain complete.

We are beset with the notion that somehow we have to earn the mercy and the
peace of God. Especially when I've been off on some ego detour, I always
feel as if I have to "go through" something to find my way back. I need to
have a proper period of remorse and feeling guilty. At least I have to sleep
it off! It just doesn't seem right to snap instantly from ego madness to a
state of peace and joy without paying some kind of penalty first. Yet, "The
mercy and the peace of God are free. Salvation has no cost. It is a gift
that must be freely given and received. And it is this that we would learn
today" (2:1-4). Because they have no cost, mercy and peace are Immediately
available in every instant. I need only to be willing to freely give them
and receive them.

In this instant, right now, let me give mercy to myself. Let me see my
childish heart in pain over what it thinks it has done, and let me spread
mercy across it like a warm blanket. Let me embrace myself with love and
affirm my own innocence again. Have I forgotten who I am? That's OK. Have I
been angry at a brother? I still merit mercy and peace. Have I betrayed a
friend? God still counts me as His own. No sacrifice is asked; no penance;
no "decent" period of mourning. I can simply, trustingly open my mind to my
Friend and find welcome. I can come home to God. What am I waiting for? Let
me come to Him now.


WHAT IS A MIRACLE? (Part 3)

W-pII.13.2:1-2

One of the most frequently repeated lessons of the entire Course is that
giving and receiving are the same: "To give and to receive are one in truth"
(Lesson 108). This lesson, one of the most basic the Holy Spirit wants to
teach us (it is the first lesson of the Holy Spirit in Chapter 6: "To have,
give all to all"), is also one of the hardest for us to learn because it is
the antithesis of our normal way of thinking.

"A miracle contains the gift of grace, for it is given and received as one"
(2:1). To receive a miracle, we must give it; to give it, we must receive
it. Receiving a miracle and giving a miracle are one thing, not two. Many of
us get wrapped up in trying to figure out whether I must forgive myself
first to forgive someone else, or whether I have to forgive the other person
before I can forgive myself. The answer is, neither and both. To forgive
yourself you must forgive the other person, but to forgive the other person,
you must forgive yourself. They are one. They seem to be two distinct
actions but they are not; they are one action because my brother and I are
one Self. It may often seem, within time, that one precedes the other, but
in reality, both happen simultaneously.

"And thus it illustrates the law of truth the world does not obey, because
it fails entirely to understand its ways" (2:2). The "law of truth" is, I
think, the same as the "law of love" mentioned in Lesson 344: "...what I
give my brother is my gift to me." Were we to completely appropriate this
one thought, we would be out of here, done with the curriculum. A miracle
illustrates this law; it gives a pictorial representation of it, a
demonstration of it. When I give a miracle to a brother, I am looking on his
devastation and realizing that what I see is false (1:3). I am seeing his
wholeness rather than the illusion of his lack. My seeing that for someone
else reminds them to see it for themselves, if they wish to. And when they
receive the miracle, <I> am blessed. I am reminded of who I am.

The world does not obey this law, nor understand it. Unlearning the world's
way of thinking about this is what the Course calls "undoing the getting
concept" (T-6.V.B.3:1). It calls this the first step in the reversal of our
ego's thinking. Miracles are important to us because they illustrate this
law; they help us know, by experience, that giving is receiving; that I keep
what I want by giving it away. 
 
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+ Commentary by Allen Watson
+ Practice Summary: Robert Perry
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