I am at home. Fear is the stranger here.

This lesson suggests that we are willing aliens in our home home. Fear arrives, asserts itself, argues it is what we are in truth, and we believe it. And believing it effectively makes it real. And so we believe we are lost – to our home and to our own self, whom we have rejected at fear’s insistence.

Fear is the foundation of ego. It threatens attack and demands defense. It allows no peace but forever generates conflict, insisting that we have not brothers but at best temporary allies and at worst blood enemies who must be killed if we are to live.

Fear’s message is terrifying, and we have fallen for it. Look around and behold the world that fear has made – does it not include war? Nuclear weapons? Dying coral reefs and starving children? Isn’t happiness made of shifting sands?

The miracle teaches us that none of this happened. Fear did NOT render us homeless. We only dreamed that it did. And though the way back to happiness and peace may seem difficult, our return is sure.

Yet is your Self as certain of Its Own as God is of His Son. He cannot be confused about creation. He is sure of what belongs to Him . . . He does not know of strangers. He is certain of His Son (W-pI.160.7:4-6, 8-9).

We experience this certainty as our own when we seek it in our brothers and sisters. That is the theme of this current block of lessons: we are each the other’s savior.

You will not remember [Christ] until you look on all as He does. Who denies his brother is denying Him, and thus refusing to accept the gift of sight by which his Self is clearly recognized, his home remembered and salvation come (W-pI.160.10:4-5).

Today’s lesson becomes a happy mantra offered in gratitude. We are home, sure of what we are, and confident in our Creator’s love. Fear is alien to us – a way of seeing that we no longer accept because Christ’s vision has taken its place.

When we hold this idea in our mind, then it becomes easier to look as Christ looks and to see what Christ sees. This is reminiscent of Lesson 75.

Today the real world rises before us in gladness, to be seen at last. Sight is given us, now that the light has come (W-pI.75.4:4-5).

Gratitude and willingness join forces to clarify our mind, rid it of fearful thoughts and fantasies, and bring forth the light in which we the real world greet us as saviors, one and all. We are telling the truth about our self today, and live in its healing light.

←Lesson 159
Lesson 161→

I give the miracles I have received.

We can only give what we have – this makes sense to all of us. I can’t give you a slice of pie if I don’t have a pie. Also, if I want pie, then I have to keep the pie for myself. But A Course in Miracles upends this familiar logic, arguing that giving a thing away is how I receive it. Gifting it is “proof that what you have is yours” (W-pI.159.1:8).

This logic leads naturally to one of the sweetest and most instructive paragraphs in all the Text, Workbook and Manual for Teachers.

You understand that you are healed when you give healing. You accept forgiveness as accomplished in yourself when you forgive. You recognize your brother as yoursef, and thus do you perceive that you are whole. There is no miracle you cannot give, for all are given you. Receive them now by opening the storehouse of your mind where they are laid, and giving them away (W-pI.159.2:1-5).

To think this way – which is to become ready, willing and able to open the storehouse of our mind and share its contents without qualification or condition – is to see not with the body’s eyes nor the world’s logic but with Christ’s vision, which both sees and obeys only truth.

Christ beholds no sin in anyone. And in His sight the sinless are as one. Their holiness was given by His Father and Himself (W-pI.159.4:4-6).

We do not presently see this way, yet we can learn to. Our learning is accomplished by our willingness to see our brothers and sisters as our equals, and to recognize in all of us our shared desire for peace and happiness. We don’t want to be victors, we don’t want to be masters, and we don’t want to be better. We recognize in those desires only cause for suffering, and we want something else now. We want the other way.

Thus, we see our fundamental equality, and seeing it naturally dissolves our desire to be separate. My sister’s happiness is my own; my brother’s peace is mine. What else can it mean that we can only give the miracles we have been given?

So tentatively we perceive the peace and happiness that is our inheritance of creations of a loving God, and as we do, that happiness and peace naturally extends itself. It is less like we are entering a storehouse and discovering treasure, and more like we are dusty windows being cleansed so a living light can stream through them and reach the world.

Happiness and love are extension; that is what they are. They can’t be possessed or kept to oneself.

Thus, what we are discovering is not something about the discrete self – my spirituality, my wellness, my growth. Rather, it is the discovery that what we share transcends and thus undoes the illusion of being a discrete self in the first place. Christ’s vision does not acknowledge separation.

Christ’s vision is the holy ground in which the lilies of forgiveness set their roots. This is their home. They can be brought from here back to the world, but they can never grow in its unnourishing and shallow soil (W-pI.159.8:1-3).

Thus, our ministry (e.g., W-pI.157.5:1) becomes the work of becoming messengers of love – carrying “lilies of forgiveness” from the real world back into the nightmare of separation, where they might gently transform the world into the happy dream in which God is remembered and the grounds for separation (and dreaming itself) are dissolved.

And what we give away becomes our own, and its bounty is increased a thousandfold. We become the Christ who dreams of a forgiven world, gently helping guide it from dreams of death and pain to dreams of life and healing. This is our calling, and every moment of every day – every relationship, no matter how apparently trivial or brief – becomes the means by which we remember together our “unlost and everlasting sanctity in God” (W-pI.159.10:8).

←Lesson 158
Lesson 160→

I am among the ministers of God.

Today’s lesson extends the functional aspect of yesterday’s lesson, and also serves as a true declaration of freedom. No longer do we need to worry about who we are or what we should do or what our function is. All that is set by the Holy Spirit, the Voice for God, and all of it can only serve the cause of Peace and Happiness, ours and everyone else’s.

It also clarifies what God’s Ministers do – they carry messages. They don’t write the message, interpret the message, alter the message or question the fitness of the recipient. They are content to bear the glad tidings of salvation on terms they do not set. Truly, this is a foundation of happiness.

It is also a statement about our willingness and open-mindedness. It reflects our commitment to release our will in favor of aligning wholly with God’s Will. We don’t sweat the details of our day-to-day lives, because that’s not our function. We are here to bear witness to peace and joy. That’s all.

Therefore, the message God would have us carry to the world is given first to us. It is the knowledge that unity with God – in which our innocence and peace are perfectly held forever – is the message that we are meant to carry to our brothers and sisters. But we teach by example. We teaching by knowing that unity as the essence of our lives.

The Messengers of God perform their part by their acceptance of His messages as for themselves, and show they understand the messages by giving them away. They choose no roles that are not given them by His authority. And so they gain by every message they give away (W-pI.154.7:2-4).

Paradoxically, we do not recognize the gift we have been given until we have given it away. In the world, this would make no sense – possession does not begin with dispossession. Not so with A Course in Miracles. We recognize our unity with God when we see our brothers and sisters as our saviors, and thus are saved. We teach salvation by learning salvation.

In other words, we aren’t waiting for some deep insight or awakening experience. We aren’t waiting to be ordained an expert in love. Jesus isn’t going to tap our shoulder and say “you – you be the chief disciple.”

What happens is that one day we wake up and we want peace more than we want conflict, and we actively give attention to our brothers and sisters as peacemakers – not bringers of conflict. We do this in a fumbling way but it doesn’t matter because we have glimpsed the Truth, and a glimpse is sufficient to light the interior darkness. We will never be lonely again. When we teach peace, we learn peace, and when we learn peace, we realize that that the peace which surpasses understanding was in us – and understood by us – all along.

This recognition of our brother and sister as our savior, which awakens the Christ in them, which awakens the Christ in us, is called “joining” and it is the symbolic end of the separation. That is, in the context of bodies in the world – in the very separation itself – we bring the separation to end by joining with one another as Messengers of God’s Love.

It is this joining that we undertake to recognize today. We will not seek to keep our minds apart from Him Who speaks for us, for it is but our voice we hear as we attend Him. He alone can speak to us and for us, joining in one Voice the getting and the giving of God’s Word; the giving and receiving of His Will (W-pI.154.10:1-3).

This joining is literal – it occurs right here in our lives. We begin to seek in experience not our own goals, not our own ideals, not our own preferences but merely the doing of God’s Will, which unites all of us in a shared remembrance of Love.

He needs our voice that He may speak through us. He needs our hands to hold His messages, and carry them to those whom He appoints. He needs our feet to bring us where He wills, that those who wait in misery may be at last delivered (W-pI.154.11:2-4).

This could be a shared smile in the hallway at work. Could be a kind word for the cashier at the grocery store; could be recognizing that the cashier needs to be allowed to do their job with minimal dialogue. Could be a check to the local shelter, a call to an old friend, or a decision to order dinner instead of cook. It’s not our call.

We are the beneficiaries of these messages! For they are all love – they all speak to our unity – and they naturally extend themselves through us when we place nothing of our own in their way. And to do that, we simply need to remember – and accept – that we will not recognize God’s gift of Love to us until we give it away.

A Course in Miracles is clear – only our lack of belief makes this so right now. We hold back a little. We hedge. We’ll carry the message most of the time; or we’ll carry to everyone but this one person.

And that’s okay! We will receive a thousand miracles and then another thousand to get us through this desert of doubt. God is not mocked! His Love transcends our doubt and indecision.

Yet knowing there is another way – and that this way opens before us right now – are we not ready to accept it? Shall we not, at last, remember in each other the limitless love of our Creator?

←Lesson 153
Lesson 155→

I will step back and let Him lead the way.

Recent lessons have designed us as ministers of God, messengers of Love whose only function is to spread the peace and joy of Christ throughout the separation, in order to hasten its inevitable dissolution.

Today’s lesson emphasizes the method of our ministry. It is driven not by ego, but by our willingness to get out of the way. We consent to a ministry in which the terms and conditions of our work are not set by the world, nor anyone in it, but rather by the One Who knows the world is a vast illusion, capable only of causing suffering.

The world is an illusion. Those who choose to come to it are seeking for a place where they can be illusions, and avoid their own reality (W-pI.155.2:1-2).

A Course in Miracles charts a middle way between the path of renouncing the world while still believing it is real, and embracing the world beause it is real. Those paths lead to despair. The course’s middle way is the “happy dream,” a path that neither rejects nor accepts illusions, but simply passes through them, guided by Truth.

All roads lead to this one in the end. For sacrifice and deprivation are paths that lead nowhere, choices for defeat and aims that will remain impossible (W-pI.155.7:1-2).

On this path, we simply bear witness to the gentleness and certainty that truth provides. Salvation is accomplished; we merely recognize it with greater and greater clarity. The truth goes before us, “lighting up the path of ransom from illusion” (W-pI.155.8:2).

We pay nothing for our freedom. We walk with one another, supporting each other in our willingness to be finished with separation and the suffering it imposes on us, along with our brothers and sisters. The gaps we perceive between ourselves and everything else shrink. They cannot threaten us.

It does not matter that we do not understand how this is so. It does not matter that we can’t explain what it means to trust God. The joy and peace we feel is contagious, and it is this that our brothers and sisters need. The explanation can come after, if necessary.

You know now where you go. But One Who knows goes with you. Let Him lead you with the rest (W-pI.155.10:4-6).

We follow the truth in place of illusion, knowing it can only lead us to God.

Your feet are safely set upon the road that leads the world to God. Look not to ways that seem to lead you elsewhere. Dreams are not a worthy guide for you are are God’s Son (W-pI.155.13:1-3).

Our practice of this lesson requires us to be still and listen for God, whose “loving Voice” guides our journey into the quiet way of defenselessness and Heaven (e.g., W-pI.153.18:1-2). All God does is remind us of our innocence, which we share with all Creation, and thus alight in us the desire to know nothing else but God and Love.

Given peace and joy, what else would we ask for? And given peace and joy, what else would we offer others?

←Lesson 154
Lesson 156→

In my defenselessness my safety lies.

Few lessons upend our innate understanding of how to live as this one does. Self-defense is firmly established as a right in our mind, to be justly wielded in the service of righteousness. The idea that one would just surrender it and live without recourse to defense of any kind feels beyond foolish.

If we were bodies, then perhaps self-defense would be logical. Bodies are vulnerable; they do die. But we are not bodies (W-pI.199.8:7), and so our relationship to attack and defense must be different. We need to see the cycle of violence inherent in attack and defense, and see further how that cycle appears to trap us against our will.

It is as if a circl held [the mind] fast, wherein another circle bound it and another one in that, until escape no longer can be hoped for or obtained. Attack, defense; defense, attack, become the circle of the hours and the days that bind the mind in heavy bands of steel with iron overlaid, returning but to start again (W-pI.153.3:1-2).

This is not a trap we escape by struggle but by letting go. We stop fighting; we accept our innocence as the only strength we need; we let God’s Will be our guide in all things. But we cannot let go until we see the futility of anything else. So long as we cling to the idea that our strength, our ideas, our will is sufficient, we will remain stuck.

Indeed, this lesson suggests that even at our most open-minded and inspired we do not actually understand the truly insidious nature of defense. We don’t know how much we have been “made to sacrifice” on its account (W-pI.153.5:3), nor what we have done to “sabotage the holy peace of God” (W-pI.153.5:4).

Defensiveness hides our brothers and sisters from us, and forces us into a deadly game of escalating violence that has no winners, only losers.

How do we learn to take the radical step of becoming totally defenseless?

We accept without qualification or condition the lofty function A Course in Miracles assigns us: We are here to save the world (W-pI.153.8:2) – we represent the One Who sent us (T-2.IV.A.18.8:3) – and there is nothing else in our lives but this.

In other words, it is time to accept our function in Creation: to bring love to what is loveless, love to what is fear-filled, and love to what is lost and forsaken and beyond consolation.

Be still a moment, and in silence think how holy is your purpose, how secure you rest, untouchable within its light. God’s ministers have that the truth be with them. Who is holier than they? What defense could possible be needed by the ones who are among the chosen ones of God, by His election and their own as well? (W-pI.153.10:1-3, 6)

If you have come this far in the lessons, then you are not fooling around. You are ready to see the real world, and to remember your rightful place in God’s Creation. All that remains is to become active in the ministry of awakening, which rests upon the simple truth that “you will not see the light, until you offer it to all your brothers” (W-pI.153.11:5).

A Course in Miracles teaches us that we are extensions of love, and that we can only create as we were created, and so all that we can offer is love. We have forgotten this, and live in the world forgetfulness both made and maintains. There is another way. The other way is simply to love you brothers and sisters now. Don’t worry what form this love takes, or whether you are up to it, or what your brother or sisters does or does not do in response to your offer. That is not our concern any longer.

The ministers of God can never fail, because the love and strength and peace that shine from them to all their brothers come from Him. These are his gifts to you. Defenselessness is all you need to give Him in return (W-pI.153.20:4-6).

Thus, we set aside conflict and focus on acceptance. We open our hearts and our minds to our brothers and sisters, bearing witness to the fearlessness that comes from knowing God’s Will and our own are not separate but united as one. We “lay aside what was never real” and “look on Christ and see His sinlessness” (W-pI.153.20:7).

Seek your brother’s innocence. Seek only Christ in him. Withdraw all attack and offer no defense against illusions of powerlessness and hate. In this way, the Peace of God will be restored to our Mind, and flow like a healing river across the fearful, violent world.

←Lesson 152
Lesson 154→

The power of decision is my own.

The first paragraph of this lesson is in many ways the essence of A Course in Miracles without any softening or spoon-feeding. You’re suffering because you choose to suffer, and you can choose not to suffer. It’s on you, brother. It’s all on you.

We tend to respond in one of two ways. The first is to argue by posing apparently impossibly ethical quandaries – – are you saying that the Jews in Auschwitz “chose” to suffer in that way? That I “chose” to have my dog run over by a car? My son to be diagnosed with cancer?

The second is to simply deny it. Go through our day – and then our life – without ever actually considering the nature of our being and the extent of its creative power.

Let’s take the first response seriously. Let’s go all the way down on the extreme example of the holocaust. Is A Course in Miracles truly suggesting that those who suffer the worst the world has to offer – genocide, rape, starvation, torture – chose it?

If you believe you are a body, and there is an actual world in which that body lives, then the range of experiences open to that body include the worst the world has to offer. You can win the lottery and live happily ever after and you can also be murdered by a serial killer before the sun sets. For most of us, experience won’t reach those extremes but they’re still there. Pretending otherwise is a fool’s errand (T-2.IV.3:10).

All A Course in Miracles does is teach us that there is another way to see the world – at its best, its worst, and the apparent range between them. This seeing teaches us how to perceive with the Vision of Christ, which is a synonym for Love, rather than ego, which is a synonym for fear.

The hallmark of love is radical acceptance – it excludes nothing and noone. It perceives cries for love and extensions of love, and the response to both is the same: love.

If you have the gift of everything, can loss be real? Can be part of peace, or grief of joy? Can fear and sickness enter in a mind where love and perfect holiness abide? Trust must be all-inclusive, if it be the truth at all (W-pI.152.2:3-6).

Therefore, the course gently teaches us that there are no exceptions to love. The holocaust is a vast demonstration of fear, an enormous cry from the heart of the cosmos for love. Most of us are not called to make that cry but we are all called to respond to it – by consoling those who suffer, and showing those who cause the suffering that there is another way.

Is it clear? Right now, the course asks you to perceive only love or the call for love, and to realize that both call forth the same exact response. The secret-which-is-not-a-secret, but which can be hard to remember is: sometimes you are the one crying out, and sometimes you are the one responding, and in both instances, in the end, there is only love.

As God created you, you must remain unchangeable, with transitory states by definition false. And that includes all shifts in feeling, alterations in condition of the body and the mind; in all awareness and in all response (W-pI.152.5:1-2).

Again, this all-inclusiveness is a function of radical acceptance. Exclude nothing and you will remember God’s Love. There will be nothing else to know.

Please note that attempts to understand – which give rise to the challenge inherent in “is the course really saying . . . ” questions – is often not a sincere attempt to learn, but a delay tactic. We understand just fine – it’s application that we don’t want to face. I don’t mind saying it’s good to love one’s enemies, but to actually love those enemies . . . that’s a step too far.

This is why denial of the lesson is the second response, and the one that is actually harder to deal with. We don’t want to be responsible unto love, we can’t actually argue effectively against love, so we just . . . flush it down the memory hole. Forget about it and then forget we forgot about it and go on with our lives.

Lesson 152 is really responding to our habit of denial. It’s saying that to deny our responsibility for love – to hide from it in fear – is actually a form of arrogance. It’s arrogant because it asserts that we can decide what Creation is and what it is not. We are in charge – our will shall call the shots – because God is a cruel and malignant tyrant.

Denial is a very passive-aggressive response to what we fear. The solution – as ACIM would have us practice it – is true humility. Let us accept ourselves as God created us – no more and no less – and then live the life that naturally appears, in which we are gently included as co-creators with God.

Today we practice true humility, abandoning the false pretense by which the ego seeks to prove it arrogant . . . truth is humble in acknowledging its mightiness, its changelessness and its eternal wholeness, all-encompassing, God’s perfect gift to His beloved Son (W-pI.152.9:1-3).

This is true peace. Acceptance – which is the absence of resistance – is the end of conflict. It brings forth the gentle light of creation in which all life is seen equally as a loving reflection of a loving Creator, including our very own self.

. . . we accept of Him that which we are, and humbly recognize the Son of God. To recognize God’s Son implies as well that all self-concepts have been laid aside, and recognized as false (W-pI.152.10:2-3).

Thus, radical acceptance and true humility become the means by which we remember our gentleness and innocence, and our “right to Heaven and release from hell” (W-pI.152.10:5). And as we remember them, we offer them to everyone we meet, everyone we have met or have yet to meet, and even those we will never meet. How else will they remember God? And how else will they teach us to remember God?

This is not an easy lesson, but it is not meant to be. It is meant to challenge us in a deep way, asking us to see our arrogance and violence and let it go in favor of a humble quiet in which we can at last hear the Voice for God, which substitutes peace for anxiety and depression, truth for self-deception and dishonesty with others, and all of Creation for the petty illusion of separation (e.g., W-pI.152.12:3).

←Lesson 151
Lesson 153→