[acimlessons_list] LESSON 139 - MAY 19

[Sue Roth]

LESSON 139 - MAY 19

"I will accept Atonement for myself."

PRACTICE INSTRUCTIONS

Purpose: "To accept the truth about yourself, and go your way rejoicing in
the endless Love of God" (10:2).

Longer: Two times-morning and evening-for five minutes.

* Begin by reviewing your mission: "I will accept Atonement for myself. For
I remain as God created me." 
* Then go into a meditation aimed at reconnecting with the knowledge of who
you are. You haven't lost this knowledge. It is still there, deep within
your memory. You may want to picture this knowledge as a light at the very
center of your mind, and then focus on sinking down and inward to make
contact with it. Increase your motivation to reach this knowledge by
realizing that you can remember it for everyone (11:5). Whenever your mind
wanders off, be sure to call it back by repeating the opening lines. 

Shorter: Hourly, for several minutes.

Do a shorter version of the longer practice (begin by repeating, "I will
accept Atonement for myself. For I remain as God created me"). Lay aside all
distracting thoughts. Let all false beliefs about yourself be cleared away,
and learn that the chains that would hide your Self from your awareness are
nothing but fragile cobwebs.

COMMENTARY

What does it mean to accept the Atonement for myself? This lesson puts an
end to any idea that this is a selfish notion, or that it means my only
concern is myself, or my personal happiness. Nothing could be clearer than
this: "It is more than just our happiness alone we came to gain. What we
accept as what we are proclaims what everyone must be, along with us"
(9:4-5).

To accept the Atonement for myself means to accept the truth of what I am,
to decide to "accept ourselves as God created us" (1:2). And what am I? I
already know, in my heart of hearts, but I resist knowing. This lesson is
magnificent in its trenchant dissection of the insanity of the way we
question our Identity. It questions all our questioning. It raises all our
doubts to doubt. It denies the possibility of denial. It belittles our
thoughts of littleness. How can we be anything except what we are? How can
we not know what we are? "The only thing that can be surely known by any
living thing is what it is" (2:3).

God created us as extensions of His Love. That is our mission; it is what we
are. To accept the Atonement is to accept this truth about ourselves. To
accept the Atonement is to begin to function as God's Love in the world.

Every time we refuse to see the magnificence in another we are denying our
own. We look on others with less than love because we refuse to see how much
we merit it. We are God's representatives on earth; accepting the Atonement
is to accept our mission. We are here to restore the grandeur of what we all
are to every mind-not just to our own. This grandness, this magnificent
inclusiveness, this divine generosity is our very being. We are the open
heart that embraces the world, remembering "how much a part of us is every
mind" (11:6).

In us our Father's Love can contain them all. Our heart is big enough for
all the world.

This is Who we are. Today, let me remember. Today, let me accept my holy
aim. Today, let me know myself as part of this great throbbing,
all-embracing Heart of God.