[acimlessons_list] Lesson 349 - December 15

[Sue Roth]

LESSON 349 - DECEMBER 15

"Today I let Christ's vision look upon 
All things for me and judge them not, but give 
Each one a miracle of love instead."

PRACTICE INSTRUCTIONS 

See complete instructions in separate document. 
A short summary:

* Read the commentary paragraph slowly and personally.

* Pray the prayer, perhaps several times.

* Morning and evening: Repeat the idea and then spend time in Open Mind
Meditation.

* Hourly remembrance: Repeat the idea and then spend a quiet moment in
meditation.

* Frequent reminders: Repeat the idea often within each hour.

* Response to temptation: Repeat the idea whenever upset, to restore peace.

* Read the "What Is" section slowly and thoughtfully once during the day.

Practice suggestion:

* Think of a person you know. 

* Once you have chosen someone, imagine your mind stepping back and
withdrawing all judgment of this person, all evaluation of any kind. 

* Then imagine Christ looking through you at this person. As He looks, He
does not judge, He simply loves. He does not strain this person through your
filters of suspicion. His only concern is to give him or her a miracle. Try
to let Christ actually look through you, so that it's more than just your
imagination.

COMMENTARY

"The law of love," mentioned in the second sentence, has been referred to in
lessons 344, 345, and 346. We are likely to forget how Lesson 344 defines
it: "Today I learn the law of love; that what I give my brother is my gift
to me." The law of love is the law that giving and receiving are the same,
that generosity and loving extension is a practical way of life because what
I give, I receive. Understanding what the law of love is, the words of this
lesson make perfect sense:

	So [by not judging, but giving a miracle of love
	instead] would I liberate all things I see, and
	give to them the freedom that I seek. For thus do
	I obey the law of love, and give what I would find
	and make my own.	(1:1-2)

Do I want others to refrain from judging me, forgive my mistakes, and offer
me miracles of love? Let me give what I seek; let me give what I want to
find for myself.

Each time I accept a gift of God, I have added to my repertoire of miracles
I can give (1:4-5). Each time I give that miracle to another, I have
solidified my learning that the miracle belongs to me (1:6). And thus I
remember God.

Let me not judge today, but offer miracles of love instead. Let me give what
I want to receive.

WHAT IS A MIRACLE?

Part 9: W-pII.13.5:1-3

In stark imagery, this section refers to our world as "a dry and dusty
world, where starved and thirsty creatures come to die" (5:1). The Course
says, more than once, that we came to this world in order to die; we sought
death by coming to a place where everything dies. For instance, "You came to
die, and what would you expect but to perceive the signs of death you seek?"
(T-29.VII.5:2). "It is not will for life but wish for death that is the
motivation for this world" (T-27.I.6:3). We came out of guilt, believing in
our own sin and seeking our own punishment. We came because somehow, in the
twisted logic of the ego, death is the ultimate proof of our success at
separating from God. We made this world as a place to die in, and then we
came to die in it.

But "miracles fall like drops of healing rain from Heaven" on this parched
land we have made, and the miracles turn it into a paradise.

	Now they [the starved and thirsty creatures, which are
	ourselves] have water. Now the world is green.	(5:2-3) 

Miracles, then, transform the world of death we made into a place of life.
Chapter 26 of the Text, in Section IX ("For They Have Come") extends the
same images:

	The blood of hatred fades to let the grass grow green
	again, and let the flowers be all white and sparkling 
	in the summer sun What was a place of death has now
	become a living temple in a world of light. Because of
	Them. It is Their Presence which has lifted holiness 
	again to take its ancient place upon an ancient throne.
	Because of Them have miracles sprung up as grass and
	flowers on the barren ground that hate had scorched 
	and rendered desolate. What hate has wrought have They
	undone. And now you stand on ground so holy Heaven
	leans to join with it, and make it like itself. The
	shadow of an ancient hate has gone, and all the blight
	and withering have passed forever from the land where
	They have come.	(T-26.IX.3:1-8)

We open to miracles when we open to forgiveness and love, when we open to
God. "They" and "Them" in this Text section refer to the face of Christ (the
sight of our brothers' innocence) and the memory of God. When we allow
ourselves to see the face of Christ in our brothers, the memory of God
returns to us. When that happens, the "scorched and...desolate" ground of
this world becomes a garden, a reflection of Heaven.