A Course in Miracles Lesson 169

By grace I live. By grace I am released.

Kindness is not complicated – really it is just a question of putting another’s needs before our own – and that service becomes the light by which we are find our way back to Heaven. We need each other so that we might learn how to better hear the call for love and to practice – for practice does make perfect – our capacity to respond to that call with love. There is nothing else to do.

Somehow, when we allow the Holy Spirit to bring our focus to kindness, the ego just sort of disappears. It fades away. Anger and viciousness are forgotten. We aren’t rejecting anything. It’s more like we just acknowledge our brokenness and humbly ask God to let us be of service to our brothers and sisters anyway. Ego resists and resents that that grace-filled prayer for the wellness of our brothers and sisters. When we privilege others, we undo the ego’s need to turn them into enemies, which is how it sustains the illusion of separation from God and Creation.

When we choose to help those the ego wants us to hurt, we respond to a call that is deeper and lovelier than the ego can withstand.

We do this because as students of A Course in Miracles we know that giving and receiving are the same (M-2.5:5). Thus, when we respond with love to a brother or sister, we are also offering love to ourselves. This isn’t complicated! We all know how happy it makes us to help others. We were made to serve one another. There is no other, no better use to which we can put these bodies.

We could literally end war, feed the hungry and bring about a new world of peace.

Yet our objective is greater than even the end of conflict in the world: we seek to remember our fundamental unity with God. We want to return to that state each of us dimly remembers and daily laments that we ever turned away from it. We did not say no to God! But we think we did and the effect is the same. Radical kindness is what reminds us all this is a dream from which we are even now awakening. It lays the groundwork for divine homecoming. We don’t yet know when or how or what it will look like, but in offering one another love, we testify to our confidence that it is assured.

The ending must remain obscure to you until your part is done. It does not matter. For your part is still what all the rest depends on. As you take the role assigned to you, salvation comes a little nearer each uncertain heart that does not beat as yet in tune with God (W-pI.169.11:2-4).

What a beautiful mission! And what is our part in bringing it about? Simply to be kind: to extend miracles from the interior altar that knows nobody has left God and the ones who believe otherwise will soon remember the truth. It seems impossible but if we turn within, with empty hands and open heart, the direction will be clear. We are only here to help others – that is the special function of miracle workers (T-2.V.A.18.8:2). We don’t have to think about helping ourselves – that is in better hands than ours.

What is the face of Christ but his who went a moment into timelessness, and brought a clear reflection of the unity he felt an instant back to bless the world? How could you finally attain to it forever, while a part of you remains outside, unknowing, unawakened, and in need of you as witness to the truth (W-pI.169.13:3-4)?

Let us be grateful for this opportunity to walk together, bringing the light of Love to all the world’s shadows, gathering all our brothers and sisters who remain yoked to sorrow and sacrifice (W-pI.169.14:1). We aren’t spiritual giants and we aren’t holy gurus. There is too much work to be distracted anymore by titles and labels, churches and rules. We are simply those who at last are ready to love one another in the manner of the One who sent us, giving and receiving kindness, altogether lighting the way home.

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2 Comments

  1. Good timing with this once again. I was pondering something “the ego made hurt me” and how I was going to respond to it because I an experiencing the hurt. I tried hard to “sit by” but ended up writing, writing, writing, then deleting, deleting, deleting. I then read about our ego blow up toys, (Chpt 30(IV)) and how I need to put them away, and see past them. I rested some, then read your words on kindness. Now I will respond with kindness and love, to “gather up brothers and sisters who are still yoked to sorrow and grief.” Thank you Sean. I needed this.

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