Beginning at the Beginning

. . . and becoming happy together

A miracle is a shift at the level of the mind away from fear and towards love. At its most basic, A Course in Miracles is a curriculum - a text and workbook - that teaches us how to create conditions in which miracles can consistently and reliably occur.

The shift which miracles induce may appear minor or major, or not appear at all, without in any way affecting the healing power of the miracle (T-1.I.2:1). Sometimes the miracle is a faint hint that we shouldn't have gossiped at work yesterday. Sometimes weeks or even months pass without apparent miracles. And sometimes a lifelong problem - impatience, say, or jealousy - is undone in an instant.

There is no order of difficulty in miracles . . . They are all the same. All expressions of love are maximal (T-1.I.1:1, 3-4).

This shift always feels internal; it always feels private. It seems like nobody else is aware of the miracle the same way we are. That is not because mind is private or internal - it is neither! - but because we are still asleep and thus not fully aware of mind's true nature and function.

Perhaps most critically, the shift is not a thing we do. It's like gardening. Chrisoula and I don't make sunflowers grow. We just collaborate to create conditions in which sunflowers may grow. The rest is in God's hands; the rest is the cosmos being cosmic.

One of the hardest aspects of practicing ACIM is realizing how little it asks of us. By nature we are doers. We are problem-solvers. We want to pray and meditate, study and write. We want to heal the sick and raise the dead. We want to make the world a better place.

And A Course in Miracles comes along and says, well, maybe the sunflowers will grow and maybe they won’t. Maybe the hungry will be fed and maybe they won't. Maybe we'll give up war and maybe we won't. Either way it doesn’t matter. What happens - no matter what happens - is neither good nor bad but only meaningless.

If you could accept the world as meaningless and let truth be written upon it for you, it would make you indescribably happy. But because it is meaningless, you are impelled to write upon it what you would have it be. It is this you see in it. It is this that is meaningless in truth (W-pI.12.5:3-6).

Our effort to force meaning onto the external (i.e., this is good, this is bad) is the problem. What would happen if we just stopped?

Beneath your words is written the Word of God. The truth upsets you now, but when your words have been erased, you will see His (W-pI.12.5:7-8).

Never underestimate the degree to which the erasure of our words will be perceived as an insult to our intelligence, work ethic, and sense of self. There is a lot of hubris in our guilt and fear. If this was easy then we wouldn't need A Course in Miracles (or any other form of the universal curriculum).

That is why we say miracles are gifts (e.g., T-25.IX.7:2). They do not come from us. They accomplish what we could never accomplish. We mean well - we really do - but we are too enmeshed in shame, violence, judgment and guilt to fully realize the illusion, the identity crisis in which we are trapped.

We need - in the most literal sense possible - a miracle.

None of this is a crisis! It's not a crime against God or nature. When we are ready to remember that there is another way, then we will remember that the other way is already given. We will remember again what we have always known.

There is no fear in perfect love. We will but be making perfect to you what is already perfect in you (T-12.II.8:1-2).

The miracle is always a remembrance of what is true now. It reveals our fundamental innocence, which naturally extends itself, now. The miracle reminds us there is nothing to do because it was all done perfectly, a long long time ago. We can beathe and be happy.

Together - here, now - we can breathe and be happy.

Love,
Sean