Sean Reagan

On my decision all salvation rests.

What I really enjoy about this lesson is the idea of God trusting me with his kids. I’m being flippant but you know what I mean. We spend a lot of time on “trusting God” and here we reverse that. God trusts us.

What I find amusing in a low-level frustrating kind of way about this lesson is the way certain sentences end up so convoluted by pronouns that they effectively lose all meaning, e.g., “You would give your Son to me in certainty that he is safe Who still is part of You, and yet is mine, because He is my Self” (W-pII.238.1:5). Huh?

But what I think is most noteworthy in this lesson is its one-sentence title: on my decision all salvation rests. Why that? Why here and now?

With respect to trust: A Course in Miracles typically personifies God as a superior male, the Father to end all fathers. Though it uses “Kingdom” quite a bit, it never uses “King” or “Ruler” or anything overtly militaristic.

I appreciate that! It is consistent with everything we know about the historical Jesus, whose emphasis was not on Rule but rather collaboration with a Loving Father whose patience, gentleness and kindness transcended our imagination.

And so in that spirit, I am grateful to consider a father who trusts me. As a father and a son in this life, I understand the role that trust plays in establishing and nurturing healthy relationships, and the way its absence undermines wholeness and happiness. I think the course is being very pro-family here, very pro-functional family.

With respect to the overly-dense sentences . . . I know, I know. If you go through them carefully, taking note of what’s capitalized and what’s not, they eventually parse into meaningful nuggets. Do I think Jesus spoke that way? No I do not. Do I think that ACIM sometimes indulges semantic density as a kind of juvenile pretension to intellectuallism? Yes. Yes I do.

Is all that merely opinion and therefore not worth the pixels comprising it? Of course it is.

What really stands out here is that the lesson’s title directs our attention not to trust, or ambling pronoun-strewn sentences, but to the decision we are entrusted by God to make – the decision upon which all salvation rests. No pressure!

What is the decision? It is the decision to “heal the separation by letting it go” (T-5.II.1:4), which is also our shared response to the Holy Spirit’s call to joy, given Him by God for our salvation (T-5.II.3:2).

The Holy Spirit is in you in a very literal sense. His is the Voice that calls you back to where you were before and will be again. It is possible even in this world to hear only that Voice and no other (T-5.II.3:7-9).

When we choose to listen to the Holy Spirit, we are choosing to listen to God, who is not in us because we are in God (e.g., T-5.II.5:5). The Holy Spirit teaches us this by teaching us how to be happy together. Our “decision” really amounts to saying, over and over, “sure, I’ll be happy. How?”

And then we wait on the answer. The answer is always given, because the answer is what we are in truth! But here in the world it takes time to learn this, and then to accept and trust it. But as we learn to accept and trust it, we realize that we are merely reflecting the trust that is already in us.

In a real way, we are what we seek. We already live where and how we want to live. But we have forgotten! Today we take yet another gentle step together in the direction of remembrance.

←Lesson 237
Lesson 239→

Now I would be as God created me.

This lesson reminds me of Saint Paul’s insistence that to be Christian was to have one’s value system utterly refactored in the Name of Love. One had to be transformed in a way that was visible to others; it wasn’t just about ideas but rather the effect of taking those ideas seriously.

The hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber, for our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is nearly over; the day has drawn near. So let us lay aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light (Rom 13:11-12).

A Course in Miracles says this refactoring is not something new but rather the remembrance of what is and was always true: we are creations of a loving God whose function is to create as God creates.

I will arise in Glory, and allow the light in me to shine upon the world throughout the day. I bring the world the tidings of salvation which I hear as God my Father speaks to me (W-pII.237.1:2-3).

Indeed, in that same letter to the Romans, Paul used the phrase “put on Christ,” which he characterized as opposite the human body. To be Christ was to no longer “make provision for the flesh” and the gratification of its desires.

A Course in Miracles is less rigid in its dualism (though it still sets body and mind as opposites, with the latter preferred by orders of magnitude). Instead, it suggests that when we “put on Christ,” as Paul puts it, the body’s perception is transformed. Our senses, when given to Christ, reveal a world that “ends the bitter dream of death” (W-pII.237.1:4).

Awakening is not about not having sex or chocolate or refusing long walks on the beach but rather about seeing the form of these things in the light that was given to us in Creation. That light, which is the Vision of Christ, is what allows us to know what everything is for because we know what we are. When we know ourselves, perception is transformed. We are no longer deluded.

That is, our uncertainty about self-identity ends when we accept ourselves as God created us. That is our truth, and that reveals to us our true Self, in and for whom the world is neither a cage nor a battlefield. Instead, it becomes a site of sharing the peace that is in us as a function of our Creator, who does not abide suffering.

Reality is true, regardless of our acknowledgement. It’s like being at the beach. I can close my eyes and say “I’m not at the beach,” and I can even believe myself and convince others. But I am still at the beach. The crisis arises not through what reality is but through our resistance and denial. Therefore, this lesson gently invites us to become open to a new way of being. It is a hearty “yes” rather than a hesitant “maybe” or stubborn “no.”

←Lesson 236
Lesson 238→

I rule my mind, which I alone must rule.

What kind of ruler are you?

That is the question behind today’s lesson. What kind of ruler do you want to be? What kind of ruler do you need to be? The mind is a kingdom given to us to rule. How shall we govern? How shall we assert our authority?

Another way to frame the fundamental question is: what is your relationship to power?

It is not an accident that the lesson urges us to serve, rather than to rule. Or rather, that it equates true service with ruling. In A Course in Miracles, true power is found in our willingness to share freely with our brothers and sisters, without fear or condemnation. Always ask: how can I help here? How can I be of service?

In this, the course tracks a long Christian tradition of subverting the world’s ideas about power, leadership and accomplishment. When John and James seek positions of influence in Jesus’s Kingdom, and the other disciples grumble, Jesus gently admonishes all of them.

Whoever among you seeks greatness shall be the minister of all, and whoever seeks to be first shall be the servant of all, for I did not come to be ministered unto but to minister (Mark 10:35-45).

For most of us, the mind is an unruly kingdom. It is full of ideas, images, visions and stories that seem to spring up from nowhere. Some we like, others we don’t. We are often anxious or depressed on behalf of the mind’s content. We seem to be doing its bidding, rather than the other way around.

What we want or need seems beside the point. Mind asserts itself over and aginst us, like a child veering between tantrums and boundless play, with no loving parent to guide and care for it. The result is chaos and pain.

A Course in Miracles invites us to reconsider this characterization of mind, and to realize that true power lies is offering the mind – its function and the many forms (ideas, images, visions and stories) it generates to God. That is, we offer the mind to God, through the Holy Spirit, to be used only for the purpose of atonement.

When we do this, we are actually allowing the mind to do the only thing it really can do – which is to serve (W-pII.236.1:5). To become a servant of our brothers and sisters – to teach atonement and nothing else – is not our highest or best function. It is our only function.

When we learn that we can offer our mind to God on behalf of our brothers and sisters, we are effectively realizing that love, not fear, is our true motivation. Thus we are released from suffering, and given the function of salvation.

Those who are released must join in releasing their brothers, for this is the plan of the Atonement. Miracles are the way in which minds that serve the Holy Spirit unite with me for the salvation or release of all of God’s creations (T-1.III.3:3-4).

Thus, our “exercise of power” is really the open-minded and full-hearted expression of willingness to choose the Holy Spirit rather than ego. We ask that our thoughts reflect God’s Thoughts, and then actively seek those Thoughts so that we might follow them to shared happiness and peace.

Sometimes we ask, what are the Thoughts of God? The simplest answer is that they always guide us into relationship with our brothers and sisters, in ways that elevate the happiness and inner peace of all involved. Are you happy? Are you free of conflict? If the answer is yes, then you are thinking with God. If the answer is no, then you’re not.

It is not a crime to not think with God! This is not easy work we are doing, because we are undoing the habituated thinking of decades, in a world that does not support that undoing at all. We have to be patient and gentle with ourselves, as God is with us.

Somewhat cryptically, this lesson concludes by reminding us that our “gift to God” is also God’s Gift to us (W-pII.236.2:3). In a sense, the Course is suggesting that God’s “gift” is the free will which we accept by returning it to him for HIS ends, rather than ours.

This is a fair and helpful characterization! Left to our own logic and perception, we are easily sidetracked into schemes of sacrifice and bargaining, which always lead in the end to shared suffering. Cooperating with God – availing ourselves of Creation – becomes the way that we honor our will. We recognize it is not ours alone but rather is shared with God, and with all life.

To say this is to realize that peace and joy are a shared goal of all of us, and is altogether reasonable. Atonement abides no loss or other cause for grief. Our “rule” is the giving away of everything that obstructs the free flow of Love; our power is the power to serve in God’s Name. Nothing else becomes us.

←Lesson 235
Lesson 237→

God in His mercy wills that I be saved.

I am grateful for this lesson’s emphasis on mercy, which is so intimately connected to justice which, in turn, is so intimately connected to Love. God’s mercy is the assurance of our shared salvation, for what God loves cannot be condemned.

Thus, to know ourselves as God’s Child in Creation means remembering that Love is the ground of our being, and its effects extend Love throughout the cosmos.

Out of love he was created, and in love he abides. Goodness and mercy have always followed him, for he has always extended the Love of his Father (T-13.I.6:6-7).

But we forget this! We try to put our own spin on it, mostly because we don’t want to be merciful as God is merciful. We want to judge others in order to exclude them from Heaven. We think judgment is what makes us safe; we think exclusion is how we ensure our personal experience of salvation.

But we are wrong. And the effects of our error hurt all of us.

You who have been unmerciful to yourself do not remember your Father’s Love. And looking without mercy upon your brothers, you do not remember how much you love Him (T-13.X.9:1-2).

When we separate ourselves from the remembrance of our Creator, we open up the world to all kinds of horror and grief. Yet when we insist on remembering God, then we also remember how to create like God.

And that becomes a means to true forgiveness and happiness.

I need but remember that God’s Love surrounds His Son and keeps his sinlessness forever perfect, to be sure that I am saved and safe forever in His Arms. I am the Son He loves (W-pI.235.1:3-4).

Thus, our prayer today is a prayer that we might remember God’s mercy – not as an ideal but as a fact of our existence. Mercy is a way of being present to ourselves and to one another, so that together we might create like our Creator.

←Lesson 234
Lesson 236→

Father, today I am your Son again.

This can be a confusing lesson. It invites us to anticipate a time “when dreams of sin and guilt are gone, and we have reached the holy peace we never left” (W-pI.234.1:1).

That is, it invites us to imagine a future which is already here. “Nothing has ever happened to disturb the peace of God . . . ” (W-pI.234.1:4). But if that’s so, then why do we have to pretend it’s not here but in some faroff future?

More plaintively, why are we being invited to suffer when we clearly don’t have to?

The answer is, because we don’t actually believe the peace of God is here in the present. If we did, we wouldn’t need the Course or any other spiritual or psychological practice. We really do think the peace of God is far off in the future.

Thinking that way allows us to spiral out in ten thousand directions – different teachers, traditions, therapists, healers, books, classes. None of them ever solve the problem. But they do keep us distracted. That is their whole function – to keep us in fear and away from love.

What we would we look at if we were not so invested in perpetuating separation through a projected healing process that never works?

Eventually, we would look at the decision to project in the first place. We would take seriously the idea that we are doing this – “this being suffering – to ourselves (e.g., T-27.VIII.10:1). We could ask: absent projection, what is the external world?

So here we are: two hundred some odd lessons into A Course in Miracles, half a dozen runs through the Text, maybe a dive into the Manual for Teachers, and we are still incapable of realizing that God is Love, that Love wills only to create, and that we are Love’s Creation, created to create like our Creator.

What are we so scared of?

A moment ago I used the word “incapable.” It felt right in the moment. But is it true? Are we actually incapable or is it more like unwillingness? Like deep down we are stubbornly clinging to our right to say no, decide for ourselves what is true and what is false, bow to no man or woman, deny God, take what is ours by force if necessary et cetera?

For me, the study and practice of A Course in Miracles invites me over and over to this precise interior confrontation – of what am I so scared? What function does all this spiritual and pyschological drama serve?

All we really have to do is look within and see ego for what it is, without fear or resistance. Nothing hidden, nothing projected, nothing mysterious.

What happens when we do that? When I do that, what do I see?

Honestly, I see a child. I see a hurt child, a damaged child, a doubtful child. I see Robert Bly’s thirty-thousand year old boy who had to make up his mind how to save me from death. I see Alice Miller’s wounded inner child. I don’t see evil. I don’t see anyone to blame. I feel what I always feel for wounded children, within and without: Love.

When ego is reconfigured as an inner child then healing becomes possible. It’s like setting aside fear in order to parent; doing so is a form of communion with God. I can be kind to myself and, by extension, to you. Why not? Comfort and consolation are second nature to Love.

Maybe you say, well, that sounds great Sean. I’m glad you figured it out. But HOW do we do that? What’s the trick? What’s the insight? What’s the key to unlocking the happy dream?

Lesson 234 has a suprising answer, one that neatly sidesteps the whole rigamarole of ACIM. How do we remember innocence? Undo guilt and fear? See the Face of God and live?

Be grateful.

As you learn, your gratitude to your Self, Who teaches you what He is, will grow and help you honor Him. And you will learn His power and strength and purity, and love Him as His Father does (T-16.III.7:5-6).

In other words, when you seek that which obstructs your awareness of Love, take thankfulness with you. Take gratitude with you. Then, when you find ego, it will not be scary. It will be a wounded child and you will remember naturally what you are because what you are will take over in that moment. In the absence of fear, you will remember Love, because Love is all there is.

And yes, this practice of Remembering God Through the Practice of Gratitude takes time. But it also takes time with it. And yes, it also takes intention and devotion, and a context for their application, but also, it takes intention and devotion and the context for their application with it.

Today, let us be grateful for each other – that we are not alone, and do not have to figure all this our ourselves. God goes with us because we are together. What else could we be grateful for?

←Lesson 233
Lesson 235→

I give my life to God to guide today.

The efficacy of this lesson hinges on the understanding that we are giving all our thoughts and all our actions to God. We are keeping nothing for ourselves; we are holding nothing back from the totality of our giving.

Today we have one Guide to lead us on. And as we walk together, we will give this day to Him with no reserve at all. This is His day (W-233.2:1-3).

Most of us rebel here, overtly or otherwise. We’ll give some of our thoughts and some of our actions to God, but we’re going to keep some of them for ourselves. Maybe a little shame, just to keep the familiar cycle going. Maybe a little hating on the neighbor who, let’s face it, kind of deserves it for using a gas-powered leaf blower at seven a.m.. Maybe we’ll indulge this or that addiction because, hey, we deserve it.

But when we insist on holding back even a thread of our own privilege, we are back in as deep as we can go. Ego only needs a thread to keep going. And ego’s “keep going” is our suffering and the world’s. “The Atonement is a total commitment” (T-2.II.7:1).

So this lesson owns a kind of dual function. First, we actively practice surrending our will – in mind and body – so that we can remember that in truth we share God’s Will, which is the only Will there is.

And second, realizing how hard that it is, and how secretly we don’t really want to surrender, we can ask why. We can look at resistance, identify its function, and ask if it truly serves our goal of remembering our shared innocence.

Resistance, says the Course, is the ego’s “last defense” (P-2.I.2:3).

“Resistance” is its way of looking at things; its interpretation of progress and growth. These interpretations will be wrong of necessity, because they are delusional. The changes the ego seeks to make are not really changes (P-2.I.2:4-9).

Our experience of resistance is really a symbol of our unwillingness to open our hearts and minds to the radical creativity of Love. We don’t want to be transformed into agents of atonement. We want to be happier, but on terms WE choose. We think being happy means getting what we want. And that, says the Course, is the whole problem.

Before you make any decisions for yourself, remember that you have decided against your function in Heaven, and then consider carefully whether you want to make decisions here. Your function here is only to decide against deciding what you want, in recognition that you do not know (T-14.IV.5:1-2).

When I resist giving my thoughts and activity to God, then I have chosen to continue pretending that I am the author of the universe and that all life must conform to my desires. But this is the fantasy of a child who has forgotten her mother and father. And while it may be understandable in the child, it is not understandable in us. We only have to look at the world to see what happens when we refuse to grow up and accept our rightful inheritance.

Salvation is not a form of rescue but of empowerment to think as God thinks and to create as God creates.

Your Self does not need salvation, but your mind needs to learn what salvation is. You are not saved from anything, but you are saved FOR glory. Glory is your inheritance, given you by your Creator that you might extend it (T-11.IV.1:3-5).

So I am grateful for those minutes that pass happily because I have given my thoughts and my activity to God. But I am also grateful for the insights into this internal resistance to giving my life to God. Little by little I am learning that there is nothing I want to keep, and that it is only by giving everything away that I can remember – with you – the “joy of living with our God” (T-14.IV.5:6).

←Lesson 232
Lesson 234→