What are Miracles

In A Course in Miracles, miracles are shifts in mind away from fear and towards love. In that sense, our function as miracle workers is to become consistently and sustainably miracle-minded. To be patient, kind and gentle where we were formerly impatient, unkind and rough. Or, simpler yet, to be loving where we were formerly fearful.

That is easy enough to say but remarkably difficult to bring into application. It is the gap between saying “God is Love” and actually living that way. We do it at some times and in some places. We do it with some people. But we do not do it uniformly or consistently. Why? Why do we resist what would make deeply, naturally and sustainably happy?

I think the unsexy answer is simply that our conditioning in favor of fear is sufficiently powerful that undoing it is not easy and thus presents as undesirable. The radical and unconditional love to which A Course in Miracles directs our attention often appears irrational or even impossible, the domain of saints and martyrs.

Yet I suggest that this radical and unconditional love is our fundament – is the very ground and essence of our being – and so is deeply natural and even effortless. It is our shared domain, brought forth through mutuality – through cooperation, coordination and communication. It is our life but unrecognized, unrealized. Hence our feeling of loss, separation, victimhood, spiritual poverty, et cetera.

Of course, the hope in all that is simply that we already are that which we seek. Therefore, the solution as such is simply to see clearly what already is. We don’t nee to obtain anything new – an idea, a teacher, a practice. We simply give attention – settle into stillness and acceptance – and allow Love to reveal itself to us, to presently remember itself in our living.

The final five lessons of A Course in Miracles direct us to a meditation practice in which we surrender self-centered control and goal-setting in favor of giving attention to what is. We do not direct what arises, or master what arises, or modify what arises. We merely observe what arises as it arises.

And if I need a word to help me, Love will give it to me. If I need a thought, that will Love also give. And if I need but stillness and a tranquil, open mind, these are the gifts I will receive of Love. Love is in charge by my request (W-pII.361-365.1:1-4).

[This is easier to understand if we remind ourselves that God is Love, and amend the workbook language accordingly, as I have done here]

Thus, the culmination of our study and practice is the work of sitting quietly with Love, allowing life to live itself through us, without interference or resistance of any kind (grasping, obsessing, controlling, et cetera).

I do not suggest this is easy. But I do suggest it is natural. And that after a little egoic blather, Mind settles and what arises is Love – in and out of familiar forms (friends, teachers, bluets, guitars, horses, home-baked bread, dreams, chocolate, orgasms, Emily Dickinson poems, chickadees, deer prints by the river, starlight, spinach seeds and so forth).

In that sense, A Course in Miracles falls away because it must, because it is not actually there, and yet paradoxically remains present if we need to gently touch it or be held by it, when touching or being held is helpful.

There is no shame but only helpfulness in giving warm welcome to the many formal symbols Love assumes in our Living.

For our practice now is merely to turn repeatedly towards Love – to bring forth Love in all we do – which is finally to lose our selves in Love – to forget that which is not Love – which together is to find the still and silent Self we are – together – in Love.