November 26, 2019

Justice is seeing innocence in another. This is justice in the reality of God’s creation. It is really that simple. We are all innocent. God creates us innocent. And we are incapable of corruption for we are extensions of God. We are One with God. If we believe we are not innocent, then we must believe that God is not innocent, but corrupt. But the truth is God sees our God given innocence and nothing else. Anything we believe about ourselves that is not innocence is a fabrication of our egoic thought system that believes we are separate from God. The Holy Spirit is given us to help remind us of our innocence. When we return to this idea of justice, we return to love and the awareness of who we really are.

To one who merits everything, how can it be that anything be kept from them? For that would be injustice, and unfair indeed to all the holiness that is in them, however much they recognize it not. God knows of no injustice. God would not allow God’s Child be judged by those who seek their death, and could not see their worth at all. What honest witnesses could they call forth to speak on their behalf? And who would come to plead for them, and not against their life? No justice would be given them by you. Yet God ensured that justice would be done unto the Child God loves, and would protect from all unfairness you might seek to offer, believing vengeance is their proper due.   T-25.VIII.10:1-8

Are we willing to be that one witness who sees innocence and sees it fairly? Fairness is seeing ourselves and each other as we truly are. And fairness allows love to be seen where it is and has always been, but was blocked by our unbelief. There is no blame for this unbelief. There is no punishment for this unbelief. We are asked only to look again and look beyond what appeared to be to the innocence beyond. Our innocence has always been within us waiting to be recognized when we choose to look beyond our egoic judgement and let it go. Spirit is also there within us ready to guide us in this transformation as we allow ourselves to be transformed.

You have the right to all the universe; to perfect peace, complete deliverance from all effects of sin, and to the life eternal, joyous and complete in every way, as God appointed for the holy Child. This is the only justice Heaven knows, and all the Holy Spirit brings to earth. Your special function shows you nothing else but perfect justice can prevail for you. And you are safe from vengeance in all forms. The world deceives, but it cannot replace God’s justice with a version of its own. For only love is just, and can perceive what justice must accord the Child of God. Let love decide, and never fear that you, in your unfairness, will deprive yourself of what God’s justice has allotted you.   T-25.VIII.14:1-7

We have come to the point where we want another way. Spirit is waiting for us to be willing to allow Spirit to guide us in that change. It’s a change as far as the world we seem to see is concerned, but it is really a return to the awareness of who we really are. It’s a return to innocence. It’s a return to completeness and wholeness. It’s a return to limitlessness. As we allow Spirit to guide us in this shift, we find peace and love flowing through us again. It never stopped, but we now are aware of its presence again. Be willing then to be a witness to innocence. Allow Spirit to reveal it to you in another and thus find it in yourself. All blame, judgement and guilt fall away at the sight of innocence, for there is nothing else to see. The light of innocence lights up Heaven for us and surrounds us with peace, love and joy. There is nothing more we could ever want for this is everything. In this witness to innocence is justice returned to love. And fairness is returned to all in the abundance of everything.

November 19, 2019

The Course teaches us that love and justice are the same. We all have our own idea of what justice is. However, our perceived idea of justice is probably skewed by our belief in vengeance. We believe we have “sinned” and thus must pay some penance for our “sins.” The Course reminds us again and again that we are created holy and are incapable of “sin.” We have simply made up some fictional world that has taught us we are flawed and thus in trouble beyond any reasonable reconciliation. We have bought into the illusion of separation with all we think we have and thus believe we must be punished. And so we believe that punishment is part of justice.

But how is punishment part of love? Real love is unconditional. Yet we have come up with an idea called “tough love.” God knows nothing of this kind of justice that is not fair and is vengeful. Our mistaken concept of justice in this world is a great distortion of the justice God holds. God’s justice sees all sin vanish. God’s justice sees all punishment gone. God’s justice sees all darkness shifted to light. After all, we are created in the image of God. We are even more than an image. We are extensions of God.

Yet justice cannot punish those who ask for punishment, but have a Judge Who knows that they are wholly innocent in truth. In justice Spirit is bound to set them free, and give them all the honor they deserve and have denied themselves because they are not fair, and cannot understand that they are innocent. Love is not understandable to sinners because they think that justice is split off from love, and stands for something else. And thus is love perceived as weak, and vengeance strong. For love has lost when judgment left its side, and is too weak to save from punishment. But vengeance without love has gained in strength by being separate and apart from love. And what but vengeance now can help and save, while love stands feebly by with helpless hands, bereft of justice and vitality, and powerless to save?   T-25.VIII.8:1-7

Remember, that when we choose vengeance, we have blocked love from our awareness. In a like manner, when we choose love all that is not love fades away into nothingness for that is what it is. The choice is ours. It is not a huge choice. Spirit does not ask us to make this shift alone. When we choose love, all of Creation is supporting us in our new choice. We are asked only to make a little room for a change to take place. A little willingness to open our mind is all Spirit needs to begin to guide us on our path of transformation. Once we begin the return journey, we will find a remembrance of who we really are that showers us in love and peace. We recognize the home in Heaven we never left, but couldn’t see around us.

What can Love ask of you who think that all of this is true? Could Love, in justice and in love, believe in your confusion you have much to give? You are not asked to trust Love far. No more than what you see Love offers you, and what you recognize you could not give yourself. In God’s Own justice does Love recognize all you deserve, but understands as well that you cannot accept it for yourself. It is Love’s special function to hold out to you the gifts the innocent deserve. And every one that you accept brings joy to God as well as you. God knows that Heaven is richer made by each one you accept. And God rejoices as the One Child receives what loving justice knows to be their due. For love and justice are not different. Because they are the same does mercy stand at God’s right Hand, and gives the Child of God the power to forgive themselves of sin.   T-25.VIII.9:1-11

When all is done, Love returns us to justice and justice returns us to love. Nothing else is real. There is no sin, there is no punishment. There is no pain or suffering. We are holy and free, complete and whole as we are created. We are free to choose to return to that awareness whenever we are ready to choose to return. Love and peace will come flooding back, filling us and the world with great compassion and blessing. Make that choice today and begin the journey back to the awareness of who you really are.

November 12, 2019

We all have differing ideas of what justice is. Most of us believe that we want justice, but perhaps we are not willing to give anything up for justice to be carried out. Perhaps our idea of justice is just a bit conditional. We want justice our way. Perhaps it’s time to look at justice differently. If all that is real is love ad if we share all that is real with all of creation, then justice must be all good and no one can lose anything in the presence of justice. What keeps us from accepting justice in our lives? Usually it’s because we are unwilling to let go of some idea or thing we are afraid to lose and will cause us to be in a state of lack.

The Holy Spirit can use all that you give to Spirit for your salvation. But Spirit cannot use what you withhold, for Spirit cannot take it from you without your willingness. For if Spirit did, you would believe Spirit wrested it from you against your will. And so you would not learn it is your will to be without it. You need not give it to Spirit wholly willingly, for if you could you had no need of Spirit. But this Spirit needs; that you prefer Spirit take it than that you keep it for yourself alone, and recognize that what brings loss to no one you would not know. This much is necessary to add to the idea no one can lose for you to gain. And nothing more.   T-25.VIII.1:1-8

Again, the Course tells us we need only a little willingness, just a little willingness for salvation to rise in our minds. Salvation is allowing ourselves to enter into the awareness of Oneness we already are. It involves releasing our attachment to the world we think we see and the beliefs we hold about it. It involves opening our minds just a little to a different interpretation – a different perception – of all we hold dear. We want a different world than we are seeing, yet we cling to the idea of that world so tightly we leave no room for the possibility of anything better.

What does the justice we think we know consist of? It probably is some combination of truth, fairness and vengeance. Yes, vengeance! We believe there is a price to be paid for justice. We believe we must give something up, perhaps even something dear. We believe we must “pay” for our shortcomings. We only hope that we will pay less than others who have also sinned. And there it is. We believe we must sacrifice something for justice. Where is fairness in this brand of justice? Where is love and peace in this view of justice? Is this real justice? This is not the justice the Course is talking about.

Can this be justice? God knows not of this. But justice does God know, and knows it well. For God is wholly fair to everyone. Vengeance is alien to God’s Mind because God knows of justice. To be just is to be fair, and not be vengeful. Fairness and vengeance are impossible, for each one contradicts the other and denies that it is real. It is impossible for you to share the Holy Spirit’s justice with a mind that can conceive of specialness at all. Yet how could God be just if God condemns a sinner for the crimes they did not do, but think they did? And where would justice be if God demanded of the ones obsessed with the idea of punishment that they lay it aside, unaided, and perceive it is not true?   T-25.VIII.5:1-10

Here again we are taught that what we give to Spirit can be reinterpreted for us. This reinterpretation brings us a new perception, a new understanding of whatever ideas we allow Spirit access to. There is no dramatic sacrifice to make. Can we summon a bit of curiosity for a better world? Can we open our minds to the mere possibility that real justice will reconnect us with love and peace? Our holy Self has never been corrupted. We are still as we are created by God. God makes only perfect and so we are still perfect. We have simply blocked our awareness of our holiness. Be willing then, just a little willing, to let Spirit begin to show us a new interpretation of justice. That new interpretation will be the reconnection to the love and peace we truly are. Say yes to this new perception now and see a new, but familiar world.

November 5, 2019

How does salvation work in this world? How do we begin to change our minds and see differently? Source has given us assistance, never leaving us alone. A plan has been given to us to guide us on our journey. And everyone and everything we encounter has a special function to help guide our journey.

Your special function is the special form in which the fact that God is not insane appears most sensible and meaningful to you. The content is the same. The form is suited to your special needs, and to the special time and place in which you think you find yourself, and where you can be free of place and time, and all that you believe must limit you. The One Child of God cannot be bound by time nor place nor anything God did not will. Yet if God’s Will is seen as madness, then the form of sanity which makes it most acceptable to those who are insane requires special choice. Nor can this choice be made by the insane, whose problem is their choices are not free, and made with reason in the light of sense.   T-25.VII.7:1-6

The world we think we see appears daunting, confusing and perhaps insane to us as we make our journey in life. What if there were a different way to see the world? We have been perceiving the world from a point of view – a set of beliefs – that are mistaken. Our perception is clouded by our mistaken beliefs about the world, ourselves and even God. We are not really sinners. We are not corruptible. We are not limited and small. These beliefs and others have caused us to misunderstand the world and who we are. The idea that God has a unique plan for us is an amazing and attractive idea. We are that valued. We have the means to begin to see and understand a new meaning of the world we see. We have the means to tap into a new understanding of who we really are. Spirit is waiting for us to be willing to change our minds and be willing to see a new perception of the world, a perception that is just for us, custom designed for our particular needs. What could be more loving than that? Asking Spirit for guidance is the key to open up this new understanding. The time we begin this is our choice. This begins the journey without distance, the return journey to the awareness of who we really are. This journey is salvation.

Salvation is rebirth of the idea no one can lose for anyone to gain. And everyone must gain, if anyone would be a gainer. Here is sanity restored. And on this single rock of truth can faith in God’s eternal saneness rest in perfect confidence and perfect peace. Reason is satisfied, for all insane beliefs can be corrected here. And sin must be impossible, if this is true. This is the rock on which salvation rests, the vantage point from which the Holy Spirit gives meaning and direction to the plan in which your special function has a part. For here your special function is made whole, because it shares the function of the whole.   T-25.VII.12:1-8

Here can we find our peace and joy. Here is perfect love manifest. There is nothing to lose. Anything that can be lost is not real and is not worth having to begin with. The real world is full of abundance. It is limitless. Loss is impossible in the real world. All is shared in its abundance and propels us into the knowledge that we are holy, that we are complete just as we are. We can lose sight of that truth when we adopt the belief that we are otherwise, but we cannot lose the reality of it. Rest in the peace that comes with the acceptance of our special function in this world. It is instrumental in our own salvation, and is necessary in the salvation of all. There is no point in fearing loss, for loss is impossible in salvation. Celebrate Oneness instead.