Lesson 334. Today I claim the gifts forgiveness gives.
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Lesson 334. Today I claim the gifts forgiveness gives.
I will not wait another day to find the treasures that my Father offers me.
Illusions are all vain, and dreams are gone even while they are woven out of
thoughts that rest on false perceptions. Let me not accept such meager gifts
again today. God's Voice is offering the peace of God to all who hear and choose
to follow Him. This is my choice today. And so I go to find the treasures God
has given me.
I seek but the eternal. For Your Son can be content with nothing less than this.
What, then, can be his solace but what You are offering to his bewildered mind
and frightened heart, to give him certainty and bring him peace? Today I would
behold my brother sinless. This Your Will for me, for so will I behold my
sinlessness.
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Commentary on this lesson by Ken Wapnick, from his books: "Journey Through the
Workbook of A Course in Miracles." Book set may be purchased at the following
site: ~ M. Street.
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Lesson 334. "Today I claim the gifts forgiveness gives."
*Lessons 334 through 337 center on the theme of perceiving sinlessness in our
brothers, which allows us to realize we are sinless, too. They roughly parallel
the two sections that end Chapter 20, "The Consistency of Means and End" and
"The Vision of Sinlessness" (T-20.VII,VIII). Forgiveness' gift awakens in us the
memory of our innocence, for by undoing the belief in the sin we perceive in
others, we give ourselves the opportunity to choose the sinlessness the Holy
Spirit offers over the ego's gift of sinfulness.*
(1:1) "I will not wait another day to find the treasures that my Father offers
me."
*Here again, Jesus appeals to us to recognize how unhappy we are living under
the ego's guidance, and how happy we would be if we let him be our teacher
instead.*
(1:2) "Illusions are all vain, and dreams are gone even while they are woven out
of thoughts that rest on false perceptions."
*In other words, the world is already over. The Atonement principle has never
ceased to be, and everything we have ever dreamt, thought, or experienced is an
illusion that never happened -- "This world was over long ago" (T-28.1.1:6).*
(1:3-6) "Let me not accept such meager gifts again today. God's Voice is
offering the peace of God to all who hear and choose to follow Him. This is my
choice today. And so I go to find the treasures God has given me."
*We saw the importance of choosing the second place, that we may remember that
we -- an aspect of God's Son -- are part of the first. If we are unhappy with
the ego's gifts of anger, depression, or pain, we need but remember these were
our choice, and thus we can choose again.*
(2:1) "I seek but the eternal."
*The ego will always have us seek after the ephemeral: the world's gifts of
specialness. Jesus reminds us that what we truly want, and want alone, is the
love that never ends:
"Let, then, your dedication be to the eternal, and learn not to interfere
with it and make it slave to time." (T-19.1.16:1)*
(2:2-5) "For Your Son can be content with nothing less than this. What, then,
can be his solace but what You are offering to his bewildered mind and
frightened heart, to give him certainty and bring him peace? Today I would
behold my brother sinless. This Your Will for me, for so will I behold my
sinlessness."
*The way we find the eternal in ourselves is to forgive. Jesus, as we have seen
repeatedly, has us work backwards. We begin where we think we are -- in special
relationships fraught with neediness and grievances. We learn to use these as
classrooms under the guidance of our new teacher, in which we come to understand
that the sin we perceive around us, or even in our own bodies, is a projection
of the mind's belief in sin. Once we return to the source of the error, we can,
as the decision maker, choose differently. We begin by asking for help to shift
our perception of someone perceived external to us, and gently move to our
bewildered mind and frightened heart, there to accept our inherent sinlessness
as God's true Son.*
Love and Blessings,
Lyn Johnson 719-369-1822
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