Wholeness is the perceptual content of miracles. They thus correct, or atone for, the faulty perception of lack (T-1.I.41:1-2).
One of the hallmarks of separation is a sense of lack, and a corresponding sense of scarcity. There always seems to be something missing – some person or thing, some feeling or idea – that would complete us. We are seekers who do not realize that WHAT we seek is given and present.
Corresponding to – and reinforcing – this experience of lack is a sense of scarcity. What is missing is rare – there’s not enough to go around – and so we have to find it now. When we think this way, we enter into competition with our brothers and sisters. They are seen as threats to our safety and well-being.
This is an obvious error crying out for correction.
The miracle demonstrates wholeness, which is the end of lack and the undoing of scarcity. What is whole is not missing anything, and what is not missing anything cannot be concerned about ideas like scarcity and abundance. God provides, and provides perfectly. We are complete. We have no problems.
But our completion must include a remembrance – and a deep abiding acceptance – of the wholeness and perfection of the other as well. God does not create unequally. If we perceive a reality in which inequality seems justified or logical, then we are perceiving from a state of confusion. Fear-based thinking can only beget separation and its attendant harm.
Love is the other way and, for some of us, A Course in Miracles is the path on which we remember this and bring it into application.
Thus, miracles remind us of wholeness. This reminder might be a glimpse of that unity, it might be a coherent idea about unity, or it might be a dialogue in which we are restored to unity. Either way, a shift in perception occurs – our old thinking is updated and healed, and our will is brought gently into alignment with Creation, in which nothing is missing, and so nothing need be sought or hoarded or hidden away.
When we perceive ourselves as lacking, we can remember this is an error. Errors can be corrected. We can ask the Holy Spirit to restore to awareness that incompletion and fragmentation are ego-driven illusions that serve the cause of conflict rather than peace. We can be open to changing our mind. We can let our living reflect a new belief system, premised on our inherent wholeness which is our relationship with all of existence.
It’s helpful to note the way that miracles “correct” or “atone” for faulty perception. We are not punished; there is reprimand. It is a simple question of adjusting our thinking so that it naturally accords with reality as God created it. It’s more like polishing our glasses so that we can see better than anything else.
Miracles are simple and clear, but their effects have long range and impact. Our shared willingness to see ourselves and others as God knows us allows us to to experience our inherent wholeness, itself a mark of the kinship of all beings. What else would we want when everything is given?