My thoughts* on ACIM Urtext Lesson 138 for 17 May 2023. Heaven is the decision I must make.
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(I want to honor this man whose pose I got from free pexels to represent us all as we decide Heaven is what our Reality must be. I am grateful for him.)
Heaven is the decision I must make.
1. In this world Heaven is a choice, because here we believe there are alternatives to choose between. ²We think that all things have an opposite, and what we want we choose. ³If Heaven exists there must be hell as well, for contradiction is the way we make what we perceive, and what we think is real.
* Yes, I CAN choose REALITY instead of fiction. So when I point out error it is ONLY that. Not a REALITY that I want to correct.
2. Creation knows no opposite.
* You really do want to understand this. ONLY Heaven is REAL.
²But here is opposition part of being “real.” ³It is this strange perception of the truth that makes the choice of Heaven seem to be the same as the relinquishment of hell. ⁴It is not really thus. ⁵Yet what is true in God’s creation cannot enter here until it is reflected in some form the world can understand. ⁶Truth cannot come where it could only be perceived with fear. ⁷For this would be the error truth can be brought to illusions. ⁸Opposition makes the truth unwelcome, and it cannot come.
* This is why we live in a “limbo world” or a continued “dream state” for a while and why FAITH is so important. Truth (IE God) is not welcome here yet. And perhaps will not be until ALL have accepted the undoing of fear and separation through the Atonement.
3. Choice is the obvious escape from what appears as opposites.
* If “duality” were a “thing” for ACIM this is what I would see it as. The “appearance” of opposition that we have in the world when the Reality is that God IS and opposition is a false idea.
²Decision lets one of conflicting goals become the aim of effort and expenditure of time. ³Without decision, time is but a waste and effort dissipated. ⁴It is spent for nothing in return, and time goes by without results. ⁵There is no sense of gain, for nothing is accomplished; nothing learned.
* I would suggest there has been a lot of wasted time but this does not have to be with you and me.
4. You need to be reminded that you think a thousand choices are confronting you, when there is really only one to make.
* Please, hear this and do not make it complicated. (Hint, this goes for “True Forgiveness”, as well.)
²And even this but seems to be a choice. ³Do not confuse yourself with all the doubts that myriad decisions would induce. ⁴You make but one. ⁵And when that one is made, you will perceive it was no choice at all. ⁶For truth is true, and nothing else is true. ⁷There is no opposite to choose instead. ⁸There is no contradiction to the truth.
* This comes as a witness of the Holy (Wholly) Spirit in my experience.
5. Choosing depends on learning. ²And the truth cannot be learned, but only recognized. ³In recognition its acceptance lies, and as it is accepted it is known. ⁴But knowledge is beyond the goals we seek to teach within the framework of this course. ⁵Ours are teaching goals, to be attained through learning how to reach them, what they are, and what they offer you. ⁶Decisions are the outcome of your learning, for they rest on what you have accepted as the truth of what you are, and what your needs must be.
6. In this insanely complicated world, Heaven appears to take the form of choice, rather than merely being what it is. ²Of all the choices you have tried to make this is the simplest, most definitive and prototype of all the rest, the one which settles all decisions. ³If you could decide the rest, this one remains unsolved. ⁴But when you solve this one, the others are resolved with it, for all decisions but conceal this one by taking different forms. ⁵Here is the final and the only choice in which is truth accepted or denied.
* We SEE Heaven by releasing the Son of God from sin and acknowledging that only God IS and ever could be, so, obviously Heaven is what IS.
* As stated only seeing Heaven opens the door for the truth to be revealed to us by the Holy (Wholly) Spirit. And if we choose INSTEAD to make decisions about Heaven and the Innocence of the Son of God or any part of Him over and over again, we lose our witness of Heaven.
7. So we begin today considering the choice that time was made to help us make. ²Such is its holy purpose, now transformed from the intent you gave it; that it be a means for demonstrating hell is real, hope changes to despair, and life itself must in the end be overcome by death. ³In death alone are opposites resolved, for ending opposition is to die. ⁴And thus salvation must be seen as death, for life is seen as conflict. ⁵To resolve the conflict is to end your life as well.
* THIS is were the MOURNING comes in that I spoke of in yesterday’s lesson. Your attachment to the life you thought you had is released bit by bit, including all relationships with everyone alter. This is brought to you gently by the power of the Holy (Wholly) Spirit who spreads His “wings” of comfort and assurance about you and shows you these things as you are willing to meet them without fear. You may have a tinge of sadness but fear the Spirit will not present to you. The sadness is just for loss or change; the letting go of ideas, dreams, and expectations in the tales of what you thought things “ought to be.” We have all faced this in different ways in the world but THIS will be complete and inclusive with nothing remaining as you thought it was except for Heaven itself.
8. These mad beliefs can gain unconscious hold of great intensity, and grip the mind with terror and anxiety so strong that it will not relinquish its ideas about its own protection. ²It must be saved from salvation, threatened to be safe, and magically armored against truth. ³And these decisions are made unaware, to keep them safely undisturbed; apart from question and from reason and from doubt.
* One of the ways that this occurs in our era is through “distraction.” Our addictions and how easily we can be swayed by the media show this vividly. Sexuality is an addiction that steals our youth, even if they avoid chemical abuses. Though ANYTHING can be an addiction if it calls our attention away from God and is habitual in our lives. Sports, shopping, work, exercise, etc. it all has potential for addiction or at the very least distraction from making this DECISION for Heaven.
9. Heaven is chosen consciously.
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²The choice cannot be made until alternatives are accurately seen and understood.
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³All that is veiled in shadows must be raised to understanding, to be judged again, this time with Heaven’s help.
* Do not “pass by” these statements TOO quickly. We who understand that God IS have the opportunity to bring into the open “³All that is veiled in shadows must be raised to understanding, to be judged again, this time with Heaven’s help.” The Holy (Wholly) Spirit will allow us to SEE that which is veiled in the shadows and bring it into the light to be judged by Spirit and seen as it truly is, an error of belief in separation from God, Self, each other, and Heaven.
⁴And all mistakes in judgment that the mind had made before are open to correction, as the truth dismisses them as causeless.
* THIS is a fantastic blessing! In this, the Atonement, we allow all time to be corrected and our biased judgments to be released. The Holy (Wholly) Spirit shows us this and walks with us through it as well.
⁵Now are they without effects. ⁶They cannot be concealed, because their nothingness is recognized.
* I think the point that Spirit is wanting me to make is that YOU do not do this alone, ever.
10. The conscious choice of Heaven is as sure as is the ending of the fear of hell, when it is raised from its protective shield of unawareness, and is brought to light.
* We do not even realize the fear that we carry.
²Who can decide between the clearly seen and the unrecognized? ³Yet who can fail to make a choice between alternatives when only one is seen as valuable; the other as a wholly worthless thing, a but imagined source of guilt and pain? ⁴Who hesitates to make a choice like this? ⁵And shall we hesitate to choose today?
11. We make the choice for Heaven as we wake, and spend five minutes making sure that we have made the one decision that is sane. ²We recognize we make a conscious choice between what has existence and what has nothing but an appearance of the truth. ³Its pseudo-being, brought to what is real, is flimsy and transparent in the light. ⁴It holds no terror now, for what was made enormous, vengeful, pitiless with hate, demands obscurity for fear to be invested there. ⁵Now it is recognized as but a foolish, trivial mistake.
* Our fears “demand obscurity.” Obscurity: the state of being unknown, inconspicuous, or unimportant: “he is too good a player to slide into obscurity” SIMILAR: insignificance anonymity, the quality of being difficult to understand: “poems of impenetrable obscurity” SIMILAR: incomprehensibility impenetrability unintelligibility, a thing that is unclear or difficult to understand: “the obscurities in his poems and plays”
* This is WHY these things MUST be brought to the open and we have been doing so as a nation and world for quite a while now in my lifetime. I am thinking that the Nixon fiasco may have been a very prominent and public display of what I am thinking of. Though it is by no means limited to politics. Think of the cover-up of the molestation of thousands of youths in what should have been a sacred and safe space. It is happening in personal lives also as the number of divorces and hesitation to enter into marriage is suggesting on a massive scale.
12. Before we close our eyes in sleep tonight, we reaffirm the choice that we have made each hour in between. ²And now we give the last five minutes of our waking day to the decision with which we awoke. ³As every hour passed, we have declared our choice again, in a brief quiet time devoted to maintaining sanity. ⁴And finally, we close the day with this, acknowledging we chose but what we want:
⁵Heaven is the decision I must make. ⁶I make it now, and will not change my mind, because it is the only thing I want.
* Amen.
(ACIM, W-138.1:1–12:6)
Till next time, God bless, debi.
