[acimlessons_list] LESSON 315 - NOVEMBER 11

[Sue Roth]

LESSON 315 - NOVEMBER 11

"All gifts my brothers give belong to me."

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.

COMMENTARY

In Lesson 97 we are told that if we practice with the lesson's idea ("I am
spirit") and thus bring reality a little closer to our minds, the Holy
Spirit will take the minutes we give to Him in those holy instants "and
carry them around this aching world" (W-pI.97.5:1). It says, "He will not
overlook one open mind that will accept the healing gifts they [the minutes
you give] bring, and He will lay them [the gifts] everywhere He knows they
will be welcome" (W-pI.97.5:2). He talks about how "each gift to Him [will]
be multiplied a thousandfold and tens of thousands more" (W-pI.97.6:1). Now,
one thousand times ten thousand is ten million. So He will multiply our
gifts at least ten million times, except it says "tens of thousands," plural
tens, so that means as much as ninety million times. Perhaps the numbers are
simply symbolic of "an extremely large number," but I'm sure Jesus means,
quite literally, that an unimaginably large number of minds will be affected
by our choice. Every mind that is open to receive will receive our gift;
millions of minds.

Now in this lesson we see the opposite side of the coin. For all those
millions who are open, and who, like us, give the gift of their mind to God
for a moment, we, in turn, receive their gifts. Thus, every moment,
thousands of my brothers and sisters find the way to God for a moment and
give a gift, which I receive because all minds are joined, as the first
paragraph tells us. A smile between brothers or a word of gratitude or
mercy, anywhere in the world, offers a gift to my mind. I can receive the
certainty of anyone who finds the way to God.

All minds are joined. Every moment, a thousand gifts arrive at the portal of
my mind, given by other minds. If I am open, I can receive every one of
them! In a study group where this concept was discussed, a student remarked,
"That sounds like a full-time job!" Indeed. Sounds like my kind of job, too.

Ever wonder where some of those blessed thoughts come from? Ever wonder why
suddenly, in the midst of a rather blah day, something comes into your mind
and gladdens your heart? We usually think, if we think of it at all, that it
must be the Holy Spirit. But it could equally well have been your sister
whose mind found the way to God at just that moment and smiled at someone,
and in so doing sent her gift to you. The Holy Spirit was just the postman.
Someone you never knew, halfway around the world, just gave you a blessing!

This cosmic exchange of gifts within the greatest "Internet" in the universe
is going on all the time. Everyone is wired in; you just have to read your
mail.

So let us lift our hearts in gratitude and thanks to every Son of God. Let
us this morning and this evening spend some time in thanks to our brothers,
who are one with us, for all their multitude of gifts, most of which have
gone unacknowledged for most of our lives.

Let me say to all of you who read this: "Thank you for remembering, my
sister or my brother!" Thank you for loving instead of fearing. Thank you
for being aware, for being alive. Thank you for smiling, for letting joy
through. Thank you for showing mercy. Thank you for forgiving. Thank you for
joining with another. Let my meditation today be on all the ways I am
constantly being blessed by my brothers and sisters, and on the reality that
I gain from each and every one.

     I thank You, Father, for the many gifts that come to me today and every
day from every Son of God.	(2:1)

WHAT IS THE LAST JUDGMENT?

Part 5: W-pII.10.3:1

     You who believed that God's Last Judgment would condemn the world to
hell along with you, 
     accept this holy truth: God's Judgment is the gift of the Correction He
bestowed on all 
     your errors, freeing you from them, and all effects they ever seemed to
have.

Most of us, at least in Western society, have grown up believing in some
kind of hell. We say, "God will get you for that." We curse one another with
the words, "Go to hell!" Intellectually we may have rejected the idea of a
literal hell, with flames and demons with pitchforks, but the notion is
woven into our thoughts nevertheless. There is a sort of visceral fear of
what may lie after death that gnaws at our guts, denied, repressed, but
still...there. If we do believe in God, as many do, the worry about how He
will judge us, how He will evaluate our lives in the end, eats at us
constantly.

To us, then, the Course appeals: "Accept this holy truth!" Judgment is not
condemnation but a gift, a gift of Correction. Not a punishment, but a cure.
Not "no exit," but a way out. The Last Judgment does not enumerate our every
fault and then lock us into their consequences for all eternity. No, it
corrects our errors and frees us from them, and not only from the errors
themselves but from "all effects they ever seemed to have."

Think about it. How would it feel to know beyond any shadow of doubt that
you were free from all your errors, and from all their effects? That would
be total jubilation! The "Hallelujah Chorus" in spades. But that, the Course
is telling us, is the <truth>, and it is this truth that "has never changed"
(1:1). We are free from our errors and their effects, we always have been,
and we always will be. That is what we will all, collectively, come to
accept in that moment of Last Judgment. And that is what we are now learning
to accept for ourselves, and to teach to all our brothers and sisters. We
release each other from our sins, that those we release may in turn release
us.