April 24, 2018

Everyone who comes into our lives, no matter how brief, has a purpose in our life. Their real purpose is healing, the salvation of our sanity. We have chosen them. They arrive in the form that Spirit uses to teach us. It is our choice whether to choose to learn the lesson or deny the lesson. That is the free will we are given in our creation. Perhaps we are too quick to judge this one we have encountered. Perhaps we are so apt to put up the walls of separation between us and anyone else that we do so without thinking. Would we allow a bit of compassion to enter our mind? Perhaps this would allow us to perceive this one a bit differently. They may be simply calling for love or even extending love to us. Perhaps we can set aside our habitual denial of love, look beyond the first appearance of things and allow Spirit to guide us to see and perceive this one through the lens of love and compassion.

Forget not that you came this far together, you and this one. And it was surely not the ego that led you here. No obstacle to peace can be surmounted through the ego’s help. The ego does not open up its secrets, and bid you look on them and go beyond them. The ego would not have you see its weakness, and learn it has no power to keep you from the truth. The Guide Who brought you here remains with you, and when you raise your eyes you will be ready to look on terror with no fear at all. But first, lift up your eyes and look on this one in innocence born of complete forgiveness of their illusions, and through the eyes of faith that sees them not.   T-19.IV.D.8:1-7

We tend to journey through life with our eyes cast down. What are we avoiding? What are we afraid to look at? Keeping our eyes cast down is an avoidance of seeing correctly. We can’t look beyond the appearance of things unless we look up. We need to look up to see reality, to see the abundance before us, to see the one we travel with at this moment as they really are. When I encounter you at the store, you bring joy to me and thus I bring joy to you in this present moment. When I raise my eyes, I have a chance at seeing the Heaven that is my home. I am already there, but I don’t recognize it because I am keeping my eyes averted. When I encounter you, it is an opportunity for us to recognize our holy relationship in this holy instant and rejoice in our Oneness. In the same manner, when I encounter a stranger in any situation, it is an opportunity for me to recognize the holy in that one and thus they can recognize the same in me, whether at this moment or at some point in the illusion of time. The forgiving of misperception is our purpose in this world.

We fear the One because we look upon each other with fear We have misperceived each other as fearful. What if we could look upon each other without fear and allow ourselves to see holiness and love in each other? This is the meaning of forgiveness, to see another as they really are. Who is this one who stands beside me, even if only for a short while? They are meant to be there with me. Perhaps they are a teacher, a learner, a messenger. They have something for us – and we for them – guided from Spirit. We can pause a moment and look beyond our busy day to the gift that lies beyond and is offered us.

Beside you is one who offers you the chalice of Atonement, for the Holy Spirit is in them. Would you hold their sins against them, or accept their gift to you? Is this giver of salvation your friend or enemy? Choose which they are, remembering that you will receive of them according to your choice. they have in them the power to forgive your sin, as you for them. Neither can give it to themselves alone. And yet your savior stands beside each one. Let them be what they are, and seek not to make of love an enemy.   T-19.IV.D.13:1-8

Look again at the one beside you. Look beyond the first appearance to what is beyond. See them anew. Let the heavy dark veil be pulled aside. How holy and how beautiful they are. Their light shines brightly as their light joins with the Great Rays that shine from your holy Self and remember your Oneness. Joy, Peace and Love rise in us having always been there waiting to be recognized. Join with your friend and share in your Oneness. Know the truth about who you both really are, One with all Creation. There are no obstacles left for Peace to flow over. Peace is within you.

April 17, 2018

We hang the darkened veil of our mistaken perception between our mind and peace. This veil obscures our view of reality. It obscures our view of love and joy. It is the obstacle to peace we can choose to push aside so easily if we are just a little willing to allow Spirit into our perception. As we allow Spirit to guide our minds, the darkened and heavy veil fades into nothingness before our very eyes to reveal light, laughter and love within and around us. The awareness of our divine nature reveals itself in Oneness with each other. We find it possible and even easy to relax into the awareness of who we really are right now in this holy instant. Peace will flow across this seemingly insurmountable obstacle with ease and grace, bringing the awareness of eternal reality to our minds.

It seems to you the world will utterly abandon you if you but raise your eyes. Yet all that will occur is you will leave the world forever. This is the re-establishment of your will. Look upon it, open-eyed, and you will nevermore believe that you are at the mercy of things beyond you, forces you cannot control, and thoughts that come to you against your will. It is your will to look on this. No mad desire, no trivial impulse to forget again, no stab of fear nor the cold sweat of seeming death can stand against your will. For what attracts you from beyond the veil is also deep within you, unseparated from it and completely one.   T-19.IV.D.7:1-7

It is time to lift the veil. It is time to look beyond the veil and see peace, allowing peace to flow across this obstacle that is now reduced to nothing. Join in Oneness with the Ones who travel with you on this journey back to the awareness of who you really are. We are all in this together and will all complete the journey together, for we are all One. The appearance of separation is no more as we join together in Unity as our true Identity. Our egoic thought system has not led us to this desire to awaken. The light and Spirit within us has led us to this place where we realize there has got to be a better way. Our Higher Holy Spirit Self has called us to awaken our mind to the Divine nature we are and have always been. This is the call we have heard and chosen to accept for ourselves and each other.

Stand you here a while and tremble not. You will be ready. Let us join together in a holy instant, here in this place where the purpose, given in a holy instant, has led you. And let us join in faith that the One Who brought us here together will offer you the innocence you need, and that you will accept it for my love and the One’s.   T-19.IV.D.9:4-7

Take a step back. Observe this holy instant and recognize its power. All that is not real has faded away just for this moment. This instant is pure, holy, complete and infinite in its reality. Welcome this instant and simply allow it to be. Rest in this “now” moment. It reveals to you all that is true. We can allow ourselves to return here any time we find ourselves caught up in the absence of peace. In this holy instant we are home. The presence of peace within us is all encompassing – it is total. Let Spirit within put into perspective your purpose. Accept this purpose as Spirit reveals it to you. Peace will flow like a river as peace rises in you.

April 10, 2018

The fourth obstacle peace must flow over is like a heavy veil that hangs between our mind and our Mind. This heavy veil obscures the reality of Love by making it seem disfigured, diseased and ugly to our separated mind. Love seems to appear scarred and repulsive. Love’s appearance through this heavy veil appears undesirable and something that instills fear in our mind. Even though it is an illusion caused by the distortion of the veil of fear, it appears very real to us when we are unwilling to seek the guidance of Spirit in our perceiving. As we rely on our egoic thought system to guide our perception of the world, we see a world colored by fear: fear of peace, fear of death, fear of pain and fear of God. All this “fear of” occupies our mind and paralyzes our ability to see with our Spirit Eye. We have the ability within us to see clearly, to see Love, Joy and Peace holding steadfastly within our One Mind waiting for us to realize we want to see clearly.

The fourth obstacle to be surmounted hangs like a heavy veil before the face of Christ. As the face of Christ rises beyond it, shining with joy because the Christ is in the Creator’s Love, peace will lightly brush the veil aside and run to meet Love, and to join with Love at last. For this dark veil, which seems to make the face of Christ like to a leper’s, and the bright Rays of the Creator’s Love that light the face of Christ with glory appear as streams of blood, fades in the blazing light beyond it when the fear of death is gone.   T-19.IV.D.2:1-3

No matter what form this imagery takes for us, the distortion in our perception is easily pulled aside when we look for the divine guidance within us; the presence of our Higher Holy Spirit Self. We are the Divine guidance we seek. We have simply denied its existence within our mind. And, our denial has kept it well hidden behind this veil. This darkest veil is the result of our solemn vow, the promise we made in secret to our egoic thought system, never to lift this veil. Not to approach it, nor even to suspect that it is even there. This is the secret bargain we made with our egoic thought system to keep what lies beyond the veil forever blotted out and unremembered. Here is our promise never to allow union to call us out of separation; the great amnesia in which the memory of the Divine seems quite forgotten; the cleavage of our Self from us, the fear of God, the final step in our dissociation.

Every obstacle that peace must flow across is surmounted in just the same way; the fear that raised it yields to the love beyond, and so the fear is gone. And so it is with this. The desire to get rid of peace and drive the Holy Spirit from you fades in the presence of the quiet recognition that you love Spirit. The exaltation of the body is given up in favor of the spirit, which you love as you could never love the body. And the appeal of death is lost forever as love’s attraction stirs and calls to you. From beyond each of the obstacles to love, Love Itself has called. And each has been surmounted by the power of the attraction of what lies beyond. Your wanting fear seemed to be holding them in place. Yet when you heard the Voice of Love beyond them, you answered and they disappeared.   T-19.IV.D.5:1-8

Listen, then, for the call of Love that calls from its dwelling place within us. Love’s attraction points us to what lies beyond all the obstacles to peace we could ever dream up to the Divine truth of the Love we are. Peace dwells within that Love. We are and have always been that Love and Peace. This is what we really are. When we choose to allow our Divine nature to rise in our consciousness, all else fades gently into nothingness, for all that is not Love and Peace is surely nothing. Look within to the Holy and recognize yourself in the One of Oneness.

April 3, 2018

Dedication is the telltale sign of where our mind is focused and what we believe about ourselves. I am dedicated to love. Are you? I am dedicated to life and freedom. Are you? I am dedicated to seeing the holy in each one I encounter in this world. Are you? I am dedicated to allowing Spirit to enter my relationships and transform them into holy relationships, granting the miracle of healing to both of us. Are you? Consider making this choice. You need not do all the work but offer just a little willingness for Spirit to enter and do the heavy lifting. Would you deny communication or accept communication?

You who are dedicated to the incorruptible have been given through your acceptance, the power to release from corruption. What better way to teach the first and fundamental principle in a course on miracles than by showing you the one that seems to be the hardest can be accomplished first? The body can but serve your purpose. As you look on it, so will it seem to be. Death, were it true, would be the final and complete disruption of communication, which is the ego’s goal.   T-19.IV.C.6:1-5

Fear has no place in our lives. In the real world, the eternal world of love and grace, there is nothing to fear. In fact, there is no fear at all in the real world. We are One with Source – the One – who is Us as we are the One. The adage, “There is nothing to fear but fear itself.” has a ring of truth. As we allow ourselves to remain in communication with the Divine in each other we begin to recognize our Divine Oneness in eternity. What can eternity be but peace? The fear of death will retreat from our awareness as its appeal is yielded to love’s attraction. The end of separation, which nestles quietly in the safety of our relationship, protected by our union with each other, and ready to grow into a mighty force for Truth and Peace is very near. The infancy of the miracle of healing is carefully guarded by love, preserved from every thought that would attack it, and quietly made ready to fulfill the mighty task for which it was given us. Our newborn purpose is nursed by angels, cherished by Spirit and protected by Oneness. It does not need our protection; it is ours. It is deathless, and within it lies the end of death and separation.

When anything seems to you to be a source of fear, when any situation strikes you with terror and makes your body tremble and the cold sweat of fear comes over it, remember it is always for one reason; the ego has perceived it as a symbol of fear, a sign of sin and death. Remember, then, that neither sign nor symbol should be confused with source, for they must stand for something other than themselves. Their meaning cannot lie in them but must be sought in what they represent. And they may thus mean everything or nothing, according to the truth or falsity of the idea which they reflect. Confronted with such seeming uncertainty of meaning, judge it not. Remember the holy Presence of the One given to you to be the Source of judgment. Give it to the One to judge for you, and say:

Take this from me and look upon it, judging it for me.

Let me not see it as a sign of sin and death, nor use it for destruction.

Teach me how not to make of it an obstacle to peace, but let You use it for me, to facilitate its coming.   T-19.IV.C.11:1-10

Begin this process today. Allow the miracle of healing to enter your heart and mind as you invite Spirit into your relationships. Eternity will flow across the obstacles to peace you have place between your mistaken thoughts and who you really are. Now is the time to rest in Peace.

March 27, 2018

The third obstacle that peace must flow across is our strange devotion to death. This idea may puzzle us and sound irrational. But we have devoted ourselves to the idea of death through our fear of death. According to the Course, there is no death. It is merely a mistaken thought. We are created in the image of the One – our Source – who does not know death. If the Divine cannot die and we are Divine, how could death affect us in any way? Only our identification as a body, which we have given value due to our belief in separation, do we fear death in any way. We have forgotten that we are created eternal and remain eternal even when we block our awareness of our eternal being. Because we fear the end of the body will be the end of us, we fear death. The Holy Spirit offered us release from this dedication to death and we accepted that release when we invited Spirit into our relationships. We offered Spirit a little willingness to accept the miracle of healing. Though we can place obstacles to peace entering our awareness, we cannot remove it from our true being. Peace dwells within us. Nothing can change that fact. We can do no more than block peace from our awareness. Death is no more than a shadow of a mistaken idea.

And yet a shadow cannot kill. What is a shadow to the living? They but walk past and it is gone. But what of those whose dedication is not to live; the black-draped “sinners,” the ego’s mournful chorus, plodding so heavily away from life, dragging their chains and marching in the slow procession that honors their grim master, lord of death? Touch any one of them with the gentle hands of forgiveness, and watch the chains fall away, along with yours. See them throw aside the black robe they were wearing to their funeral, and hear them laugh at death. The sentence sin would lay upon them they can escape through your forgiveness. This is no arrogance. It is the Will of our Creator. What is impossible to you who chose your Creator’s Will as yours? What is death to you? Your dedication is not to death, nor to its master. When you accepted the Holy Spirit’s purpose in place of the ego’s you renounced death, exchanging it for life. We know that an idea leaves not its source. And death is the result of the thought we call the ego, as surely as life is the result of the Thought of our Creator.   T-19.IV.C.2:1-15

Put aside the melodramatic description of separation and the dedication to death, for it is an insane illusion of an idea. The idea of death does not even occur to our Creator. Our home in Heaven is not capable of death, sin or anything else of separation’s nature. We have been released form that idea which seems to imprison us. Accept that release and step into the freedom that is ours. Accept and honor the Will of our Creator by releasing each other from the idea of death and separation. Free another from any limitation you harbor in your mind and find yourself also free of limitation. Free each other from this obstacle to peace.

You have another dedication that would keep the body incorruptible and perfect as long as it is useful for your holy purpose. The body no more dies than it can feel. It does nothing. Of itself it is neither corruptible nor incorruptible. It is nothing. It is the result of a tiny, mad idea of corruption that can be corrected. For the One has answered this insane idea with Its Own; an Answer which left the One not, and therefore brings the Creator to the awareness of every mind which heard the One’s Answer and accepted It.   T-19.IV.C.5:1-7

We have the power, the strength, to release each other and thus all Creation from the bonds with which we have imprisoned them. We need do nothing more than accept the Gift offered us which is already ours. Allow peace to flow across any obstacle you still harbor that seems to protect you from the awareness of your true identity. You are and have always been whole, complete and limitless. Let this be so in your awareness and remember who you really are. Heaven is your only home.

March 20, 2018

There is a song I enjoy singing that contains the following line: “I’m attracting the people in my life whom I’ll be serving, and who will teach me lessons that I need to know.” We may read this and think that can’t possibly be true. Or perhaps we think that most are an exception to this rule. Maybe we’re not allowing ourselves to be open to the lessons Spirit is offering us. Perhaps we need to look at all the things we encounter through a different perception. Perhaps the obstacles we have placed in our minds are not protecting us, as we may think, but are actually hurting us. Maybe we’ve grabbed the wrong end of the stick and are hanging on for dear life when the best thing for us to do is let go of it.

When we approach this world from a mindset of doing it alone or by ourselves, we make a simple task extremely difficult. Reality is meant to flow gracefully through and above all this world offers. And much of what the world has to offer would be helpful if we allowed our Higher Holy Spirit to guide us in each aspect of our journey. Our natural state of mind is peace. Peace still dwells within us, being so much a part of us we can’t get rid of it. But we expend great effort blocking the awareness of peace from our mind. Perhaps it would be more correct to say we block our Mind from our mind. We block the awareness of our Holy Divine Self form our awareness. Our Creator, though creating us as Itself, gave us the power to choose our own perception and thus our awareness. What and how we choose to see sends its own messengers reinforcing what we have chosen to see. Those who appear in our lives reflect the perception we have chosen to color our world with. What if we choose a different perception, a different lens with which to see? I propose we would see a different world – a different reality. Is our perception aligned with our egoic thought system or our Higher Holy Spirit Self? It’s a question worth asking ourselves.

It is not given to the ego’s disciples to realize that they have dedicated themselves to death. Freedom is offered them but they have not accepted it, and what is offered must also be received, to be truly given. For the Holy Spirit, too, is a communication medium, receiving from the Creator and offering the Creator’s messages unto Us. Like the ego, the Holy Spirit is both the sender and the receiver. For what is sent through Spirit returns to Spirit, seeking itself along the way, and finding what it seeks. So does the ego find the death it seeks, returning it to you.   T-19.IV.B.17:1-6

What messages do we choose to listen to? Furthermore, what messages do we choose to take in and make our own? Allow yourself to really look at each message you receive and ask Spirit for the guidance in which you welcome in and which you set aside. Do not worry about making a mistake. Any message you set aside that is holy will remain waiting for you to realize its truth and will welcome your acceptance when it comes. The messages of eternity and love and joy and peace will never fade, for there is no death in them. Only the messages of separation and the temporary deceive us to make us think they are real and lasting. They will let us down when we align with them. But the messages of eternity will remain ready for us to welcome when we are ready to see them.

There is no obstacle to peace too great to keep us from peace. Let your Higher Holy Spirit Self do the heavy lifting to remove them from your sight, for they are nothing more than an illusion and fade to nothingness when seen for what they are.

March 13, 2018

The section we are reading and discussing tonight is subtitled “The Attraction of Pain.” One may wonder why anyone would be attracted to pain. Yet, in our own upside-down way, we are. Our egoic thought system makes pain look more attractive than the “pain” it convinces us peace will cost. If peace seems too costly, then maybe our minds will remain aligned with separation rather than Oneness. Are we willing to step into eternity? Or are we afraid to go where we want to be?

Faith in the eternal is always justified, for the eternal is forever kind, infinite in its patience and wholly loving. It will accept you wholly and give you peace. Yet it can unite only with what already is at peace in you, immortal as itself. The body can bring you neither peace nor turmoil; neither joy nor pain. It is a means, and not an end. It has no purpose of itself, but only what is given to it. The body will seem to be whatever is the means for reaching the goal that you assign to it. Only the mind can set a purpose, and only the mind can see the means for its accomplishment and justify its use. Peace and guilt are both conditions of the mind, to be attained. And these conditions are the home of the emotion that calls them forth, and therefore is compatible with them.   T-19.IV.B.10:1-10

We identify very strongly as our body in this crazy world. We may even believe that our body offers some sort of protection from the world. The Course teaches us otherwise. Our body has no purpose other than the purpose we give it. Our body is merely a tool which we can use for one purpose or another. We can use our body to reinforce separation and fear and even pain. Or we can use the body to facilitate our joining together in Oneness. The body will reflect the choices of the mind.  What have you chosen? Have you chosen peace or something else? When we make our choice, all the conditions of that choice come with it. It’s all or nothing. There is no middle ground. Yet, Spirit will lead us to and on the steps we need to take to get where we are going.

Sometimes we get the idea in our minds that the body is bad or evil. There is no truth in this idea. The body is neither good nor bad. It is merely a means in our journey to the awareness of who we really are. Our body can be our obstacles to peace. But, it can also be the catalyst to discovering peace within our being. What purpose do we give it? Why are we attracted to pain? Is it really more desirable than peace? The truth is we have separated ourselves from the awareness of our true nature. We have separated ourselves from the peace and joy we carry within us. We have denied the simple fact that we are whole, complete, limitless, and the essence of love. We have chosen to believe that pain, fear and guilt can actually exist and that in believing they do, we make them appear very real.

It is not given to the ego’s disciples to realize that they have dedicated themselves to death. Freedom is offered them but they have not accepted it, and what is offered must also be received, to be truly given. For the Holy Spirit, too, is a communication medium, receiving from the Creator and offering the Creator’s messages unto Us. Like the ego, the Holy Spirit is both the sender and the receiver. For what is sent through Spirit returns to Spirit, seeking itself along the way, and finding what it seeks. So does the ego find the death it seeks, returning it to you.   T-19.IV.B.17:1-6

We will find the peace we seek. It may take a long time if we choose to place obstacles it the way. But, it can also be a shorter, easier journey if we choose to let the obstacles to peace fade as we realize they are not real. It’s our choice. We can make the road difficult or easy. It can be the easy road if we choose to let Spirit guide us beyond what appears to be obstacles. Once Spirit has led us through them, we look back and realize there was nothing there to begin with. Seek pain no more. It may appear attractive, but it needn’t be at all. When the going gets rough, choose again.

March 6, 2018

The second obstacle that peace must flow across, and closely related to the first, is the belief that the body is valuable for what it offers. Here is the attraction of guilt made manifest in the body and seen in it. We tend to think that anything worthwhile requires sacrifice. Is it reasonable to think we must sacrifice happiness to attain peace? We have come to believe in this world that our identity is our body. We believe our identity is what our body does, how it speaks, how it looks. We may also think we have some soul identity, but it is secondary to our body and the history of our body’s life. This idea places our identity squarely in our past. We so strongly place our identity in this past experience of the body that we end up denying our present. Thus, we deny who we really are. We never found real happiness in this idea, so we identify with some sort of guilt for the failing we identify with. We feel we have sacrificed happiness for some sense of identity. Here is the source of the idea that love is fear. And so, we send out messengers of fear.

The Holy Spirit’s messengers are sent far beyond the body, calling the mind to join in holy communion and be at peace. Such is the message that I gave them for you. It is only the messengers of fear that see the body, for they look for what can suffer. Is it a sacrifice to be removed from what can suffer? The Holy Spirit does not demand you sacrifice the hope of the body’s pleasure; it has no hope of pleasure. But neither can it bring you fear of pain. Pain is the only “sacrifice” the Holy Spirit asks, and this Spirit would remove.   T-19.IV.B.3:1-7

We may not realize it, but Spirit is working within us. Spirit knows us intimately. Spirit quietly dwells within our being and gently calls to us, waiting until we are ready to listen to the Holy within us. We’ve forgotten the Holy was there within us. We’ve been so busy seeking it outside ourselves that we missed the fact it has always been right here within us. Each of our relationships in this world reflect how aware we are of our true Holy Identity. Our Holy Identity has never left us. It has never been sullied. It is wholly intact.

Peace is extended from you only to the eternal, and it reaches out from the eternal in you. It flows across all else. The second obstacle is no more solid than the first. For you want neither to get rid of peace nor limit it. What are these obstacles that you would interpose between peace and its going forth but barriers you place between your will and its accomplishment? You want communion, not the feast of fear. You want salvation, not the pain of guilt. And you want your Source, not a little mound of clay, to be your home. In your holy relationship is your Source’s Creation. We have not lost communion with Source, nor with yourself. When you agreed to join another, you acknowledged this is so. This has no cost, but it has release from cost.   T-19.IV.B.4:1-11

We have paid the price of our illusions with the sacrifice of the awareness of peace in our minds. Yet, it is a simple matter to reconnect with that peace. Simply releasing our attachment to the value we place on our body as our identity will bring an opening of our minds to the reality of our Holy Identity. Spirit gently holds it for us and our readiness to welcome it back into our minds. We cannot sacrifice Heaven at all. There is no obstacle we can place between ourselves and peace that our holy relationship cannot diminish to nothing. In the light of our Holiness, all that is fear and guilt must fade away. Nothing can dim or extinguish the light we are. Look to one-another in your holy relationship and see all separation vanish. We truly are One in eternity and there is no real reason not to step into that awareness in this moment. Delay no longer, for the time is now.

February 27, 2018

Is it really possible that we are afraid of love? We are the ones who place the obstacles to peace in our own way. It makes no sense whatsoever, but we do it anyway. Perhaps we are afraid of the power of real peace and love. Perhaps we are afraid of happiness. Perhaps we have become so accustomed to the misery in our lives that we are afraid of anything different. What if there were nothing to blame anyone or anything for? Perhaps it’s just too impossible to imagine a reality where we are complete, whole and filled with love and peace. The perfect world we seek is already within each one of us waiting for us to allow it to rise in our consciousness.

What messages do we send out consciously or unconsciously? Who and what are the messengers we project in this temporal world we seem to see around us?

Love’s messengers are gently sent and return with messages of love and gentleness. The messengers of fear are harshly ordered to seek out guilt and cherish every scrap of evil and of sin that they can find, losing none of them on pain of death, and laying them respectfully before their lord and master. Perception cannot obey two masters, each asking for messages of different things in different languages. What fear would feed upon, love overlooks. What fear demands, love cannot even see. The fierce attraction that guilt holds for fear is wholly absent from love’s gentle perception. What love would look upon is meaningless to fear, and quite invisible.   T-19.IV.A.11:1-7

We have a choice. We can choose what we want to attract in our consciousness by sending out that message. The Course tells us that what we believe we will see. What we send out we will receive back. One of the principles of the Course states that giving and receiving are the same. When we give peace, we will receive peace. Similarly, when we believe we are peace, we see peace. What we put out there we will get back. The light within us is all powerful. When we choose to let it shine, all darkness vanishes in light’s presence. The obstacles we made to block peace are merely insubstantial shadows waiting for the light to shine them away.

Our relationships in this world reflect how we see this world. Our view of the world is determined by what we believe about it. It is totally about our perception of the world. The real world is beyond the world we think we see. The real world is perfect, whole, peaceful and filled with love. Look beyond the appearance of the world you see to the real world. It is there, within each of us, waiting to be recognized, so it can rise in our awareness whenever we choose to allow it to manifest. Look to your relationships with one another to begin the healing journey. We have a reservation at the banquet.

Love, too, would set a feast before you, on a table covered with a spotless cloth, set in a quiet garden where no sound but singing and a softly joyous whispering is ever heard. This is a feast that honors your holy relationship, and at which everyone is welcomed as an honored guest. And in a holy instant grace is said by everyone together, as they join in gentleness before the table of communion. And I will join you there, as long ago I promised and promise still. For in your new relationship am I made welcome. And where I am made welcome, there I am.   T-19.IV.A.16:1-6

The banquet is set. It has always been set. Spirit invites us to sit with infinite gentleness. There is no need to hurry, for the invitation is in the present now of eternity, yet we still delay. As Spirit extends the invitation to us, extend the invitation to another in your holy relationship. Watch as the obstacles to peace vanish in the light of your invitation and peace fills your relationship and the world around you. You – we are home at last.

February 20, 2018

We are Peace. We are the essence and expression of Peace in this world. We are the center from which Peace radiates outward to call all others to peace. We are the home of Peace. We are its quiet home from which Peace gently reaches out, but never leaves. The Course puts it this way:

The first obstacle that peace must flow across is your desire to get rid of it. For it cannot extend unless you keep it. You are the center from which it radiates outward, to call the others in. You are its home; its tranquil dwelling place from which it gently reaches out, but never leaving you. If you would make it homeless, how can it abide within the One Child of God? If it would spread across the whole creation, it must begin with you, and from you reach to everyone who calls, and bring them rest by joining you.   T-19.IV.A.1:1-6

Why do we deny the Peace within us? It must be insanity. Or perhaps it is a fear of stepping into the reality of who we really are.  In reality, eternity, Peace cannot be subdued. Yet, we can block our awareness of that deep Peace abiding within us by placing obstacles to it in our minds.

Each obstacle we have believed separates us from Peace is really nothing. It has no real power whatsoever. It is merely an illusion in our minds and holds no reality other than that which we give it by believing it is real. We are the only obstacle to Peace in our lives. Only by releasing that belief will we allow Peace to extend beyond the limitations we placed on ourselves and flow across the world. Simply allowing Peace to extend from its dwelling place within us to flow across our relationships will those relationships be transformed and be recognized holy. In the miracle of our holy relationship, without this barrier, is every miracle contained. We offer the miracle of the awareness of Peace in every encounter. Let the resistance to this Peace within you fall away. Why would you ever want to get rid of Peace?

There is a hush in Heaven, a happy expectancy, a little pause of gladness in acknowledgment of the journey’s end. For Heaven knows you well, as you know Heaven. No illusions stand between you and another now. Look not upon the little wall of shadows. The sun has risen over it. How can a shadow keep you from the sun? No more can you be kept by shadows from the light in which illusions end. Every miracle is but the end of an illusion. Such was the journey; such its ending. And in the goal of truth which you accepted must all illusions end.   T-19.IV.A.6:1-10

Peace is within us, Light is within us. Love is within us. We are Peace, Light, and Love. We are the Ones who extend all that is real to all those who have hidden from their own reality. We need not change their minds or change anything they may or may not believe about themselves. We need only offer them the miracle of recognizing their holiness within them. By allowing the Peace within us to extend to another, we reveal the Peace already dwelling in them to arise in their awareness. As what is already within them rises to their awareness, they realize – as we do – that we are all One, joined in the unity of Oneness. Let the obstacles to Peace fall away, for they have no substance. Peace is waiting to radiate from within you to spread its Peace to all the world. Let this be so.