The Light You Bring
. . . on sharing what God shares with us
The goal we set determines the means we choose to reach the goal. If I want to build a house, I don't gather measuring spoons and a blender. If I want to ride a horse along the forest trail, I don't grab my car keys.
It's tricky though, right? What if the goal is more abstract, like happiness? Some relationships help with that, some don't. And even the ones that make us happy don't always make us happy. What's going on?
Everyone seeks for what will bring him joy as he defines it. It is the not the aim, as such, that varies. Yet it is the way in which the aim is seen that makes the choice of means inevitable, and beyond the hope of change unless the aim is changed (T-25.IV.1:5-7).
The suggestion is, we're lost in a dream and have forgotten what we are, what makes us happy, and how to do the thing that makes us happy. In ACIM terms, we are listening to the ego’s sales pitch for suffering and buying in, over and over and over.
We only think the goal is happiness. A couple turtles down, the goal is unhappiness. It’s suffering.
A couple turtles down, the goal is separation.
This is an acutely challenging space, one in which we can get lost for lifetimes. It's hard to acknowledge that the reason we're not happy is because we don't want to be. It’s hard to realize that suffering is a choice. We like blaming others; it seems right to alienate ourselves from God. We've been in pain so long that we've forgotten what love is and no longer recognize it, either as a goal or a means.
We are - as the A Course in Miracles bluntly puts it - doing this to ourselves (T-27.VIII.10:1).
. . . while you think that suffering and sin will bring you joy, so long will they be there for you to see. Nothing is harmful or benificent apart from what you wish. It is your wish that makes it what it is in its effects on you (T-25.IV.2:2-4).
There is - thank Christ there is - another way.
The Son of God creates to bring him joy, sharing his Father's purpose in his own creation, that his joy might be increased, and God's along with his (T-25.IV.2:7).
That is what creation in Heaven looks like. And it is neither a future condition nor a supernatural one. It can be experienced right here, right now (e.g., T-25.IV.5:6).
Picture yourself at the end of a long day. Work, commute, angry kids, distracted spouse, loud neighbors, needy elder parent . . . You're exhausted. Your mind is wracked with worry and anger, fear and regret. Just drawing a breath feels like a victory.
And Jesus comes along and says gently, hey, want to let go of some of that grief and agony? I can help.
For years that happened to me. Years. And each time I would sigh and say, I’d love to give it up, man, but . . . look at my life. I have to clean up this mess, head that one off at the pass. Give me a few days or weeks or . . .
Like I said, lifetimes can pass.
But a day does come when rather than object to Jesus’s offer of partnership - rather than stunt like we’ve got it all figured it out, thanks very much - we get real. We get honest and say, "I'd love to suffer less, Jesus. But how?"
It's a fair question, right? Life is hard. Set aside my middle-class anxiety and stressors, which are nontrivial. What about the threat of nuclear war? Migrants drowning on Greek beaches? Book burning and gun violence?
Peace, love and understanding is a nice idea but . . . come on. There are real problems to solve.
And Jesus smiles, patiently takes our hand, and says "you maker of a world that is not so, take rest and comfort in another world where peace abides" (T-25.IV.3:1).
Stay with that a second, okay? Look at it closely. We don't have to do anything. We have to stop doing something. And stopping is a form of rest. It's a form of comfort. It’s what we want.
For most of my life I thought following Jesus was for the spiritually gifted - Thérèse of Lisieux and Tara Singh, Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin. And it is that! But it's also like, you know, you and me. We too are invited to discover the reality of - to literally see and visit - to be re-born in, re-homed in, and resurrected in - "another world where peace abides."
This is an experience that we have as separate selves in separate bodies with separate interests. It is a thing that happens.
And all we have to do for it to happen is be willing that it happen. We have to see that the reason it's not happening is because we're not willing that it happen, and we have to become willing. We have to get out of our own way and let something unexpected happen, something we can’t plan for or control.
If the secret to salvation is that we are causing our own suffering, then being saved means no longer causing our own suffering. I used the image of Jesus earlier because for me it is an effective one. If the Master asked you to let your worries go, to become as the lilies in the fields and the sparrows in the sky, what would you do?
For me the answer is, I would do it. I would beg him not to forsake me when I failed - beause my doubt in God’s grace and mercy is legion - but I would try. For Jesus I would try.
Here is a promise I can make. When we really try to live with Jesus - to accept the invitation to live in a world of peace, love and forgiveness - then we will discover how hard it is and realize that what needs to change is in the mind, or the heart if you prefer, and then - this is the hard part, by the way - that nothing needs to change because it’s already been perfectly given. Reread those lines from the text - the gift is given. It’s here. We simply have to accept it.
And here’s the thing. Our acceptance includes performing the gift - literally acting it out to the best of our ability. As we do so, we discover that the following lines are not poetic tripe but pure truth:
Your "evil" thoughts that haunt you now will seem increasingly remote and far away from you. And they go farther and farther off, because the sun in you has risen that they may be pushed away before the light (T-25.IV.4:4-5).
Again, please note how that anticipates a process that unfolds in time and thus to a self that also exists in time. A self who, in time, learns the actuality of existing quietly, in perfect innocence and utterly without fear (T-25.IV.3.4:7).
In you is in all of Heaven. Every leaf that falls is given life in you. Each bird that ever sang will sing again in you. And every flower that ever bloomed has saved its perfume and its loveliness for you (T-25.IV.5:1-4).
That is an exquisite and personal promise made by Jesus through the medium of A Course in Miracles. We do not have to do anything to make it so. We just have to stop denying - through actions based in fear - that it is so. We have to come to the joyful realization that nothing real can be threatened and nothing unreal exists (T-in.2:2-3).
We have to become still and grateful. And in stillness, trade suffering for joy in order to learn that joy is all there is and the belief otherwise, which is the source of all conflict, was always an illusion, readily undone in our shared heart that remembers only the divine call to love without qualification or condition.
The heart that remembers this call is a "widening world of light" against which all darknesses melt away, leaving only rest and happiness and peace. It is given to us now, to give away to each other now.
This you can bring you to all the world . . . How better could your own mistakes be brought to truth than by your willingness to bring the light of Heaven with you, as you walk beyond the world of darkness into light (T-25.IV.5:11-12).
Thank you, always, for lighting the way unto the Heaven we were created to share.
Love,
Sean
"The heart that remembers this call is a "widening world of light" against which all darknesses melt away, leaving only rest and happiness and peace. It is given to us now, to give away to each other now."
This beautifully poetic passage was like an actual light shining in this post on my screen. I am recently home from an unexpected and challenging ten days in the hospital due to some complications from a recent surgery.
For much of the time I was in the hospital, I was in pain or very uncomfortable at best, dealing with significant stress and uncertainty. The emotional challenges felt as overwhelming at times as the physical ones.
I was blessed to be in a room with one wall consisting entirely of a window that looked out over the Wasatch Mountains outside Salt Lake City. One morning right after waking, the room was quiet and it had just rained. As I lay there in silence, my mind was wondering about the dream I was dreaming. All of it: the physical pain and discomfort, the emotional stress and anxiety, the uncertainty of my condition. I can't say how, but I was suddenly, acutely aware of the dreaming of it (even though I was quite awake). I had just physically awakened but I knew I was still dreaming all of what I was experiencing.
I looked over at the window just as the sun began to rise through the clouds over the mountains. It was all majestically, unspeakably beautiful and moving. And in the awakening to and welcoming of that "widening world of light" I literally felt the darknesses, all of them melting away, leaving an experience, a recognition, of Peace that I can't say I've ever felt in exactly that way before.
In that moment I knew Christ's presence in that room and in my heart and I knew I was whole and at least in my awareness of that moment, I felt Home.
Sean, your profoundly moving words here brought that experience back in such a felt way, I just wanted to share the experience and thank you once again, for Light that comes through you and your messages.
Blessings as always,
Dan
InSpired. So grateful.