My thoughts* on ACIM Urtext Lesson 187 for 5 July 2023.
I bless the world because I bless myself.
(My life understanding alters so quickly anymore that I need to get this up before I am in another place. Take what works for you, leave the rest.)
(Yes, this actually applies to the white male as well OR it applies to no one.)
I bless the world because I bless myself.
* WITHIN THE ATONEMENT.
* Understand that this is AFTER one has accepted the idea of forgiving Christ for the error of belief in separation of God and knowing that all that is IS Christ and that God, the Father has never left Him and communicates to Him now through the witness (promptings and communication by feelings and thoughts) of the Holy (Wholly) Spirit.
1. No one can give unless he has.
* I now have faith in humanity not because of what I see humanity doing but because of what I know God has given me. This is where the peace inside me comes from. This peace of mind is what I would give.
²In fact, giving is proof of having.
³We have made this point before. ⁴What seems to make it hard to credit is not this. ⁵No one can doubt that you must first possess what you would give. ⁶It is the second phase on which the world and true perception differ. ⁷Having had and given, then the world asserts that you have lost what you possessed. ⁸The truth maintains that giving will increase what you possess.
* The truth says that giving will give you more.
2. How is this possible? ²For it is sure that if you give a finite thing away, your body’s eyes will not perceive it yours. ³Yet we have learned that things but represent the thoughts that make them.
* Things represent thoughts that made them.
⁴And you do not lack for proof that when you give ideas away, you strengthen them in your own mind.
⁵Perhaps the form in which the thought seems to appear is changed in giving. ⁶Yet it must return to him who gives. ⁷Nor can the form it takes be less acceptable. ⁸It must be more.
3. Ideas must first belong to you, before you give them. ²If you are to save the world, you first accept salvation for yourself.
³But you will not believe that this is done until you see the miracles it brings to everyone you look upon.
* I can look at people and see their masks and know they are false, and that Christ and God’s Love stand behind the mask. I treat people as God would treat them and how I would want to be treated, because I have no answer for the mask they wear. I send them love as I remember the Atonement and that God IS. This fills my heart with a joy that cannot be removed.
⁴Herein is the idea of giving clarified and given meaning. ⁵Now you can perceive that by your giving is your store increased.
4. Protect all things you value by the act of giving them away, and you are sure that you will never lose them.
* I want to retain the understanding that God IS. I want to retain the happiness that I have because I know all the confusion the ego has placed upon the Son was forgiven BEFORE it ever was there. I want the peace I have in the knowledge that each component of the Sonship of God will come to know these things. And I want to keep the joy that I have that EVERYONE will come to know this when they are willing to see that suffering is not a part of existence and look once again to God.
* These are the things I would keep and these are the things that I would give away that I may be able to keep them. Form changes but these truths do not alter.
²What you thought you did not have is thereby proven yours. ³Yet value not its form. ⁴For this will change and grow unrecognizable in time, however much you try to keep it safe.
⁵No form endures.
⁶It is the thought behind the form of things that lives unchangeable.
* From this mind set I can have healthy boundaries. I can speak of the ego’s shadow world and know that the Son of God is as He was created and not harmed. I can walk without guilt and I can see people without guilt even though their costumes and masks that the ego has created can be sad or annoying.
5. Give gladly.
* What you are giving is an awareness of the forgiveness of the Son of God.
²You can only gain thereby. ³The thought remains, and grows in strength as it is reinforced by giving. ⁴Thoughts extend as they are shared, for they can not be lost.
* I give love to the whole. I do not know how to do anything else. I am accused of doing a lot of other things by egos and people see what I am doing as not being love but my heart, mind and my “being,” along with confirmation of the Spirit says it is love.
* I can get caught in ego games and be used as a pawn to make someone belittle themselves or praise themselves depending on which way the ego-wind blows at the moment, but I cannot really engage with them because of jealousies where people do not think that there is enough love and respect to go around to include me in their particular story. More often than not they cannot really see me and only see the story that they need to maintain. That is what the ego does. And that is okay. It will pass in time.
⁵There is no giver and receiver in the sense the world conceives of them. ⁶There is a giver who retains; another who will give as well.
* This is what the Atonement does for us.
⁷And both must gain in this exchange, for each will have the thought in form most helpful to him.
* This is why I can be grateful to God for ALL that comes my way. I know that He simply supplies everything.
⁸What he seems to lose is always something he will value less than what will surely be returned to him.
* I cannot lose the Happiness, Peace, Joy, and Knowledge of the Holy (Wholly) Spirit that is found in the Atonement.
6. Never forget you give but to yourself.
* Because we are ONE it is literal as well.
²Who understands what giving means must laugh at the idea of sacrifice.
³Nor can he fail to recognize the many forms which sacrifice may take.
⁴He laughs as well at pain and loss, at sickness and at grief, at poverty, starvation and at death.
⁵He recognizes sacrifice remains the one idea that stands behind them all, and in his gentle laughter are they healed.
* Note: “gentle” laughter. Not a brazen laughing at but a chuckle that the Son of God Who has all that the Father has could possibly sacrifice. It makes no sense.
* I can change what I can, accept what I cannot, and be willing to embrace the positive moments as angel kisses and blessings from Father within the world of form.
7. Illusion recognized must disappear.
* It will NO LONGER be seen as REAL, and its sting alters tremendously but we are still living in the world of the ego’s shadow games which the Holy (Wholly) Spirit helps us navigate.
²Accept not suffering, and you remove the thought of suffering.
* Suffering loses its sting once you accept the Atonement because you know that like lack of any kind it cannot be real. It is in accepting the concepts within the Atonement that lays the foundation for our thinking that has us standing on solid ground. THIS lends to confusion because it cannot be understood by the ego and in the Atonement, things are seen very differently but they are still seen.
³Your blessing lies on everyone who suffers, when you choose to see all suffering as what it is.
* In other words, when you see through the lens and awareness of the Atonement.
⁴The thought of sacrifice gives rise to all the forms that suffering appears to take. ⁵And sacrifice is an idea so mad that sanity dismisses it at once.
* Note that SANITY IS ONLY FOUND WITHIN THE ATONEMENT.
8. Never believe that you can sacrifice. ²There is no place for sacrifice in what has any value. ³If the thought occurs, its very presence proves that error has arisen and correction must be made. ⁴Your blessing will correct it. ⁵Given first to you, it now is yours to give as well.
* Helen really grabbed onto the idea of no sacrifice from the records I have seen but she did not grab ahold of the idea of forgiveness that is stated in this next statement.
⁶No form of sacrifice and suffering can long endure before the face of one who has forgiven and has blessed himself.
* This does not mean that you will not have moments when you feel disconnected from the ego-network that you have lived so long amongst. Or that it will not feel disorienting at times. Let your faith in God help you ride through these times knowing that the truth is within you and is firm, regardless of any outside influences suggesting otherwise.
9. The lilies that your brother offers you are laid upon your altar, with the ones you offer him beside them. ²Who could fear to look upon such lovely holiness? ³The great illusion of the fear of God diminishes to nothingness before the purity that you will look on here.
* I suspect that this can happen at any stage. I have always known that God IS on some level. Jesus tells us that we all have that same reality. Yet, in the world of form and ego, be it of the ego shadows or the roles we took on for the Universal Plan these truths can be hidden IF instead we choose to hid behind guilt or blame and deny God’s Reality.
⁴Be not afraid to look. ⁵The blessedness you will behold will take away all thought of form, and leave instead the perfect gift forever there, forever to increase, forever yours, forever given away.
* This fills me up with joy. I know this is real. But I cannot convince someone who is not willing to accept the concepts of the Atonement that this is real right NOW.
* We are the only ones who keep ourselves from what we ARE in God as His Only Begotten Son.
10. Now are we one in thought, for fear has gone.
* When we have accepted this, yes. And until all have accepted it we will be prone to occasions of temptation where fear or isolation appear to be real and yet, with the assistance of the Holy (Wholly) Spirit we can know that there is no fear in the Presence of God that has any form of reality.
* Bill and Helen never reached this state. They could not reconcile with what they saw and what was real. This was because they could not accept the unseen truths that reside with in them such as God’s Reality, Christ being ALL of creation and not Jesus alone, and a sort of universal mind that moved with them with God’s Voice at the Head in the Holy (Wholly) Spirit.
²And here, before the altar to one God, one Father, one Creator and one Thought, we stand together as one Son of God.
* This is what we ARE.
³Not separate from Him Who is our Source; not distant from one brother who is part of our one Self Whose innocence has joined us all as one, we stand in blessedness, and give as we receive.
⁴The Name of God is on our lips.
⁵And as we look within, we see the purity of Heaven shine in our reflection of our Father’s Love.
* This is where I know we truly ARE and why I can tolerate how people think I am crazy, another thinks I am just plain stupid or “stubborn,” do those two go together in the mind of one who thinks that of another? Others claim I am abusive because of memories that have been warped and expounded on by others, it just goes on and on. THANK GOD my father was an abusive drunk so I could have the training I would need to cope with the asinine way I am treated as an adult! ~ Oh, and THAT makes me an outcast who is coping the best she can so we can give her wide range and leave her be. BUT, IN NO WAY is she to be seen as someone who may have a “leg-up” on coping skills in this world of ego shadows and deception.
* Okay, so I am done with my rant! Sometimes it just needs to be said.
* Just because you walk in the Atonement does not mean that you do not see through the eyes of the Holy (Wholly) Spirit the nonsensical world that the ego has made with smoke and mirrors.
* We are expected to tolerate ridiculous behaviors that are very demeaning and degrading to both parties in the world of the ego. We do not know how to cope with pain, or the anger that erupts from pain, and we are willing to accept ridiculous limitations on remedying this because we will not ALLOW God to SHOW us the WAY to our TRUE Home and REALITY in Heaven.
* Jesus says that there is NO LOGIC in the world of the ego and he is correct and the longer I walk in the Atonement the more that I see it. But my witness of God makes it possible to endure.
* What follows in #11 relates to what we have in FAITH because we will not “see it” in our day to day lives until a greater portion of the consciousness (that means YOU, and others) accepts the Atonement.
11. Now are we blessed, and now we bless the world. ²What we have looked upon we would extend, for we would see it everywhere. ³We would behold it shining with the grace of God in everyone. ⁴We would not have it be withheld from anything we look upon. ⁵And to ensure this holy sight is ours, we offer it to everything we see. ⁶For where we see it, it will be returned to us in form of lilies we can lay upon our altar, making it a home for Innocence Itself, Who dwells in us and offers us His Holiness as ours.
(ACIM, W-187.1:1–11:6)
Till next time, God bless, debi.
