Empty Hands, Open Minds

. . . there's nothing to get but there IS something to give

Studying A Course in Miracles sometimes feels like deciphering an esoteric scripture given only to the faithful. It feels like there is something else to get, understand, experience. Ken Wapnick brought in gnosticism, Gary Renard brought in ascended masters. Some of us start schools, some of us write books.

None of that is right or wrong; none of it is a crisis. We’re all doing the best we can. Thinking there's a mystery to solve can be fun and interesting; I like Scooby Doo and Sherlock Holmes. But in the end, the idea there is more than this - this this - is a lie, and in the end, all lies are painful. They do not come from God and Love (e.g., M-8.2:5). Therefore, they are not worthy gifts unto God and Love.

I say that because while there is nothing to get, there is something to give. There is something to give back to God. Mary Oliver was gesturing at this when she asked, "what is it you plan to do/with your one wild and precious life?"

Tara Singh suggested we give it away as creatively and reverently as possible.

In our giving, we will receive. In our receiving, everything is made holy. We will receive gifts of Heaven, the compassion of God. And that is what we will give to another (Commentaries on A Course in Miracles 159-60).

Imagine cupping a just-hatched Monarch butterfly. You open your hands gently; you let the butterfly try its wings; you don't rush it. You're gentle and kind. It is an amazing thing to behold - the butterly and the gentleness. The butterfly is in your hands but in another way, a deeper way, it's not in your hands at all.

Many of us are waiting on a miracle as the world defines miracle - a new partner, a better paycheck, some other kind of upgrade. But that is not what ACIM teaches us miracles are. The Buddha said what he called enlightement most people called resignation. He didn't mean a passive acceptance of defeat; he meant a clear seeing leading to fruitful cooperation.

Miracles are this clear seeing - glimpses of an underlying unity that cries out for our participation and cooperation. When we are miracle-minded, the innocence of the world is exquisite and all our relationships become holy because all of them are sites of remembering the real world.

This world of light, this circle of brightness is the real world, where guilt meets with forgiveness. Here the world outside is seen anew, without the shadow of guilt upon it. Here are you forgiven, for here you have forgiven everyone. Here is the new perception, where everything is bright and shining with innocence, washed in the waters of forgiveness, and cleansed of every evil thought you laid upon it (T-18.IX.9:1-4).

Miracles are not letting the butterfly go. Miracles are learning that you and the butterfly are the same. Miracles demonstrate that the cause for happiness is not in the world but in our mind. It’s when miracles don’t occur that something is wrong (T-1.I.6:1-2).

When we connect with others from this mindset, we realize that underneath how different we all are, we are all the same. We have the same struggles with guilt and fear, we have the same longing for wholeness, we have the same intutions around the sacred and the profane. We all know, deep down, that nothing real can be threatened and nothing unreal exists (T-in.2:-2-3). We all need help remembering it.

Separation is not sustainable. No matter how unhappy we are, no matter how lost or confused, no matter how aggrieved, we are still bound to Love. We cannot help but meet it where it is, and go with it where it goes. Rivers don't look for banks and banks don't audition bodies of flowing water. They arise together naturally, servants of the one Will. Us, too.

There is no negotation anywhere in our living. There is no study. In the deepest sense of the word, there is not even any dialogue. There is nothing to get because everything is given, and the one who gives it - the one who makes the gift - is our own self.

Love,
Sean