My mind holds only what I think with God.
I will not value what is valueless (Lesson 133).
Let me perceive forgiveness as it is (Lesson 134).
The first part of today’s review teaches us the right use of judgment – the judgment of what is valuable and what is not. It is a way of asking, are we ready to value Love and not fear? Peace and not conflict?
If we value Love and Peace then these are the qualities that we will bring forth in our living, because what we hold in mind must appear in our living. As A Course in Miracles observes, the world is “the outside picture of an inward condition” (T-21.in.1:5). Yet now, instead of the dark shadows of fear, our clear minds reflect only the light of Christ, in which nothing is seen but what reminds us only of God.
The second part of the review is a way of understanding and applying first. Forgiveness “as it really is” teaches us how to value what is valuable, and not value what is without value, and not get twisted up in doing so.
Because we get confused, right? We want to value what is valuable but bodies aren’t valuable so . . . we are supposed to not value our brothers and sisters? Our kids and parents? This dilemma – dramatic as it sounds and intense as it feels – is not actually a problem. It’s just the same old confusion of mind with body arguing its own case.
Forgiveness – clear seeing – teaches us that our brothers and sisters are not bodies but that the love appearing in and as and through those bodies is them. When you see this light and understand what it is, then you can no longer mistake the body as valuable in and of itself. It’s like a coffee mug – we drink our coffee and get on with life. The Light of God is the coffee, our bodies are the mugs. It’s literally the same thing.
If this sounds crazy or difficult, consider that may be because it is true in God’s Mind and you are still resisting your home in that mind. But since our mind holds what it thinks with God, then perhaps this idea is not entirely without merit. Perhaps in giving attention to it, we will finally see that God is the Mind in which thinking is. Not the thought so much as the awareness in which the thought appears.
On this view, you and I are thoughts in the Mind of God. And on that view, we are more like sunbeams than dense and solid bodies. In truth – which is to say, in God’s Mind – we are illuminative and generative, like any other good idea.
