Lesson 78. Let miracles replace all grievances.

Lesson 78. Let miracles replace all grievances.

(1) Perhaps it is not yet quite clear to you that each decision that you make is
one between a grievance and a miracle. Each grievance stands like a dark shield
of hate before the miracle it would conceal. And as you raise it up before your
eyes, you will not see the miracle beyond. Yet all the while it waits for you in
light, but you behold your grievances instead.

(2) Today we go beyond the grievances, to look upon the miracle instead. We will
reverse the way you see by not allowing sight to stop before it sees. We will
not wait before the shield of hate, but lay it down and gently lift our eyes in
silence to behold the Son of God.

(3) He waits for you behind your grievances, and as you lay them down he will
appear in shining light where each one stood before. For every grievance is a
block to sight, and as it lifts you see the Son of God where he has always been.
He stands in light, but you were in the dark. Each grievance made the darkness
deeper, and you could not see.

(4) Today we will attempt to see God's Son. We will not let ourselves be blind
to him; we will not look upon our grievances. So is the seeing of the world
reversed, as we look out toward truth, away from fear. We will select one person
you have used as target for your grievances, and lay the grievances aside and
look at him. Someone, perhaps, you fear and even hate; someone you think you
love who angered you; someone you call a friend, but whom you see as difficult
at times or hard to please, demanding, irritating or untrue to the ideal he
should accept as his, according to the role you set for him.

(5) You know the one to choose; his name has crossed your mind already. He will
be the one of whom we ask God's Son be shown to you. Through seeing him behind
the grievances that you have held against him, you will learn that what lay
hidden while you saw him not is there in everyone, and can be seen. He who was
enemy is more than friend when he is freed to take the holy role the Holy Spirit
has assigned to him. Let him be savior unto you today. Such is his role in God
your Father's plan.

(6) Our longer practice periods today will see him in this role. You will
attempt to hold him in your mind, first as you now consider him. You will review
his faults, the difficulties you have had with him, the pain he caused you, his
neglect, and all the little and the larger hurts he gave. You will regard his
body with its flaws and better points as well, and you will think of his
mistakes and even of his "sins."

(7) Then let us ask of Him Who knows this Son of God in his reality and truth,
that we may look on him a different way, and see our savior shining in the light
of true forgiveness, given unto us. We ask Him in the holy Name of God and of
His Son, as holy as Himself:

Let me behold my savior in this one You have appointed as the one for me to

ask to lead me to the holy light in which he stands, that I may join with him.<

The body's eyes are closed, and as you think of him who grieved you, let your
mind be shown the light in him beyond your grievances.

(8) What you have asked for cannot be denied. Your savior has been waiting long
for this. He would be free, and make his freedom yours. The Holy Spirit leans
from him to you, seeing no separation in God's Son. And what you see through Him
will free you both. Be very quiet now, and look upon your shining savior. No
dark grievances obscure the sight of him. You have allowed the Holy Spirit to
express through him the role God gave Him that you might be saved.

(9) God thanks you for these quiet times today in which you laid your images
aside, and looked upon the miracle of love the Holy Spirit showed you in their
place. The world and Heaven join in thanking you, for not one Thought of God but
must rejoice as you are saved, and all the world with you.

(10) We will remember this throughout the day, and take the role assigned to us
as part of God's salvation plan, and not our own. Temptation falls away when we
allow each one we meet to save us, and refuse to hide his light behind our
grievances. To everyone you meet, and to the ones you think of or remember from
the past, allow the role of savior to be given, that you may share it with him.
For you both, and all the sightless ones as well, we pray:

Let miracles replace all grievances.<

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The commentary on this lesson (below) is from Kenneth Wapnick's eight volume
series of books, called: "Journey Through the Workbook of A Course in Miracles,"
which can be purchased at the following site:??~ M. Street

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lesson 78. Let miracles replace all grievances.

*In this lesson we can see much more specifically that grievances are the
problem and miracles the solution. I might mention that this is the first lesson
that is in blank verse. This has no bearing on the meaning of the lesson of
course, but for those who appreciate Shakespeare, whose primary verse was iambic
pentameter, this is a bonus. Prior to this lesson there were occasional passages
that slipped in and out of blank verse, but this is the first time a lesson is
written entirely in meter. Jesus then shifts back to prose until later. If as
you go through this lesson you find yourself reading in rhythmic cadences, your
are responding to the iambic pentameter, even without being aware of it.*

(1:1) "Perhaps it is not yet quite clear to you that each decision that you make
is one between a grievance and a miracle."

*We think the decisions we make are between A and B, choices that are always
seen as external. Do I see this person or that one? Do I eat this food or
something else? Do I go here or there? Jesus is telling us these choices are but
forms that conceal the underlying and only choice: Do I choose the ego or the
Holy Spirit, attack of forgiveness, grievances or miracles?*

(1:2) "Each grievance stands like a dark shield of hate before the miracle it
would conceal."

*Note the purposive nature of grievances. We have seen that purpose is
everything in A Course in Miracles, and Jesus states that the only question we
should ask of anything is: "What is it for?" (T.17.VI.2.2) The purpose we give
to a circumstance is all the meaning it has. Directly implied here is that the
grievance is a defense, "a dark shield of hate" that prevents us from choosing
the miracle "it would conceal." We are therefore never angry or judgmental for
the reasons we think. We believe our anger is caused by something outside us:
what someone does or says, or a situation we do like. However, this statement
lets us know that the real purpose -- the attack thought's underlying content --
is our desire to hide the miracle from our vision.*

(1:3) "And as you raise it up before your eyes, you will not see the miracle
beyond."

*Why do we not want to see the miracle? If we did, we would be seeing within our
minds, realizing the reason we are upset is that we made the wrong choice. In
other words, we are the dreamers of our dreams, and therefore the only ones who
have the power to change them -- the last thing in the world the ego wants us to
discover. What preserves the belief in the reality of the ego is the fact that
we do not remember we made it up. The ego has no existence in itself, which
means the world that arose from it has no existence either. Their seeming
reality rests in the power of the Son's mind to believe in it.

The ego's problem, to recap our earlier discussions, is not the Love of God, of
which it knows nothing. Its problem is the decision maker, the power of the
Son's mind to choose the ego. This means that at any given moment -- the holy
instant -- the Son can withdraw that power and choose the Holy Spirit's miracle
instead. The ego would then disappear, as would our individual existence. That,
then, is the ego's fear: redemption, not crucifixion (T-13.III.1:10-11). To
ensure this does not happen, the ego makes up an elaborate thought system of
sin, guilt, and fear, and projects this into a specific world in which we can
justifiably hold grievances. These defend against the minds guilt, which in turn
defends against the love in our minds. Thus the ego's "shield of hate" prevents
us from seeing the miracle, thereby preventing our ever choosing it.*

(1:4) "Yet all the while it waits for you in light, but you behold your
grievances instead."

*The miracle of correction waits, which ultimately means the One Who <is> the
correction. Consequently, if you want to keep the Holy Spirit's Love away from
you, you need only pick a fight with someone. Jesus says the same thing in the
manual in the context of the peace of God:

"God's peace can never come where anger is, for anger must deny that peace
exists. Who sees anger as justified in any way or any circumstance proclaims
that peace is meaningless, and must believe that it cannot exist." (M-20.3:3-4).

Anger is like a solid shield or wall, behind which is the Love of God. If you
fear this Love, knowing that in its presence your specialness disappears, you
keep it by fighting with someone -- physically, verbally, or in your thoughts.
The form anger takes does not matter, since the dynamic is the same: the
darkness of our grievances conceals the miracle's light.*

(2:1-2) "Today we go beyond the grievances, to look upon the miracle instead. We
will reverse the way you see by not allowing sight to stop before it sees."

*Implied here is that our eyes are not the instruments of seeing. True seeing,
or vision, occurs in our minds, as we have seen many times already. It occurs
only when we choose Jesus as the source of our vision. When we exclude him we
become blind. We "see" separation and sin within; and therefore we think we see
a separated and sinful world without. But none of this is seeing. Recall our
earlier quoted line -- "Nothing so blinding as perception of form" -- now seen
in its fuller context:

"Everything the body's eyes can see is a mistake, an error in perception, a
distorted fragment of the whole without the meaning that the whole would
give.... The body's eyes see only form. They cannot see beyond what they were
made to see. And they were made to look on error and not see past it. Theirs is
indeed a strange perception, for they can see only illusions, unable to look
beyond the granite block of sin, and stopping at the outside form of nothing. To
this distorted form of vision the outside of everything, the wall that stands
between you and the truth, is wholly true. Yet how can sight that stops at
nothingness, as if it were a solid wall, see truly? It is held back by form,
having been made to guarantee that nothing else but form will be perceived."

"These eyes, made not to see, will never see. For the idea they represent
left not its maker, and it is their maker that sees through them. What was its
maker's goal but not to see? For this the body's eyes are perfect means, but not
for seeing. See how the body's eyes rest on externals and cannot go beyond.
Watch how they stop at nothingness, unable to go beyond the form to meaning.
Nothing so blinding as perception of form. For sight of form means understanding
has been obscured." (T-22.III.4:3;5:3-6:8).

That is why Jesus teaches us never to trust our perceptions. They are based on
form, the shadowy fragment of the ego's thought system of separation and guilt.*

(2:3) "We will not wait before the shield of hate, but lay it down and gently
lift our eyes in silence to behold the Son of God."

*In the early years of studying A Course in Miracles, we inevitably think the
Son of God we behold is someone external to us. It is only later, as we work
with the Course over a period of time, that we come to realize that the Son of
God has nothing to do with what our physical eyes see, for we experience him in
the mind, the image of which we project onto others. The Son we have made real
within is thus what we perceive outside: <projection makes perception>. To be
sure, the context of these lessons is the shift in our perception of our special
love or hate partners. In truth, however, we are only changing our minds about
the Son of God <in our minds>. Before we can shift the inner perception of the
Son from guilty to sinless, we need first recognize that the Son is ourselves
and not another. Only then do we happily lay down our shield of hate.*

(3:1-2) "He waits for you behind your grievances, and as you lay them down he
will appear in shining light where each one stood before. For every grievance is
a block to sight, and as it lifts you see the Son of God where he has always
been."

*The Son has always been within his Father, Whom he never left. Therefore he has
always been within the mind, which contains the memory of his Source. The
principle of the Atonement reminds us that the darkness of our hate has no power
over the light; the ego's grievances cannot withstand the face of Christ shining
in forgiveness beyond the block to sight.*

(3:3) "He stands in light, but you were in the dark."

*The Son of God is the Christ Who remains in our right minds through the Holy
Spirit, even though we shrouded him in veils of separation, guilt, and hate.
These are veils that we, in our deluded minds, had chosen to replace the light
in our awareness.*

(3:4--4:1) "Each grievance made the darkness deeper, and you could not see."
"Today we will attempt to see God's Son.

*We come now to another exercise in forgiveness, which helps us see the light
that is just beyond the ego's darkness of hate and judgment. Keep in mind,
again, that the context is seeing God's Son in our brother, against whom we
believe we hold grievances. However, since what we perceive outside mirrors what
we perceive inside, the light of Christ I see in you is nothing more or less
than the Son of God I have made real in my mind. My learning to see God's Son in
you, my brother in specialness, reflects my seeing the same Son in me.*

(4:2-5) "We will not let ourselves be blind to him; we will not look upon our
grievances. So is the seeing of the world reversed, as we look out toward truth,
away from fear. We will select one person you have used as target for your
grievances, and lay the grievances aside and look at him. Someone, perhaps, you
fear and even hate; someone you think you love who angered you; someone you call
a friend, but whom you see as difficult at times or hard to please, demanding,
irritating or untrue to the ideal he should accept as his, according to the role
you set for him."

*In "Dream Roles" near the end of the text, Jesus explains that we get angry at
others because they do not fulfill the role we have given them in our dream
(T-29.IV.4:1). This kind of exercise, repeated in different ways throughout the
workbook is something we should practice all the time, not just when we are
working with a particular lesson. It should be applied whenever we are tempted
to get upset with anyone. Sometimes it is the same person, -- we all have our
favorite targets -- but it could be someone, as Jesus describes here, whom we
think of as a friend or loved one. When people behave in a way that pushes our
buttons, we can see this as an opportunity to realize that the relationship is
only a screen onto which we projected our guilt over having pushed the love of
Jesus away. If we allowed ourselves to experience his love, we could never be
angry or upset with anyone. It would be impossible because of the mind's
principle of <one or the other>: hate of forgiveness; fear or love.

When we find ourselves upset, it is always because: 1) we decided Jesus' love
was too threatening to our specialness, and separated from it; 2) we next
repress the guilt over this perceived sin, committed still again; and 3) sought
and found others onto whom we could project our guilt, magically believing we
had become free of it. We then forget this three-step process, aware only of its
end product -- hurt, anger, and disappointment. At this point we should remind
ourselves of the exercise, returning to our minds to ask Jesus for help, saying,
as a variation of T-5,VII.6:7: "I must be looking at these people wrongly,
because I am blaming my loss of peace on them." We thus use the circumstance as
an opportunity to realize that what we are perceiving outside directly reflects
the sin and guilt we first perceived inside. Instead of seeing it in ourselves
and accepting it there, we had chosen to see it in other people.

It is only in asking Jesus for help -- i.e., joining with him -- that we undo
the cause of our upset, which lies in our guilt over pushing him away. That is
why going to him or the Holy Spirit is a major theme of A Course in Miracles.
Asking Their help is precisely what undoes the root cause of our distress,
regardless of its form. In an important passage at the end of the manual for
teachers, Jesus tells us that asking the Holy Spirit for guidance is the way out
of guilt:

"There is another advantage, -and a very important one,- in referring
decisions to the Holy Spirit with increasing frequency. Perhaps you have not
thought of this aspect, but its centrality is obvious. To follow the Holy
Spirit's guidance is to let yourself be absolved of guilt. It is the essence of
the Atonement. It is the core of the curriculum. The imagined usurping of
functions not your own is the basis of fear. The whole world you see reflects
the illusion that you have done so, making fear inevitable. To return the
function to the One to Whom it belongs is thus the escape from fear. And it is
this that lets the memory of love return to you. Do not, then, think that
following the Holy Spirit's guidance is necessary merely because of your own
inadequacies. It is the way out of hell for you." (T-29.3).

This view of seeking the Holy Spirit's help shifts the focus from the <form> of
what we think we are asking for to the <content> of undoing the ego's arrogance
in thinking it is better off on its own.

The process of healing thus begins with the experience of anger or
disappointment with another, our having repressed the mind's decisions for sin,
guilt, and projection. Our commitment to learning and practicing this course can
be seen in how quickly we are able to ask the Holy Spirit's help to shift how we
see someone outside, as a way of reflecting the shift in how we wish to see
ourselves.*

(5:1-3) "You know the one to choose; his name has crossed your mind already. He
will be the one of whom we ask God's Son be shown to you. Through seeing him
behind the grievances that you have held against him, you will learn that what
lay hidden while you saw him not is there in everyone, and can be seen."

*We find here an intimation of the theme of generalization, which is central to
the next two lesson. If I could accept that I made up my grievances against you
-- and no one has trouble finding someone to use for the exercise -- I will at
some point generalize the lesson and realize I have made up my grievances
against everyone. The darkness I saw in you I saw in all people, because it is
in me. However, the light I now see in you is also in all people, because that,
too, is in me. We have practiced with specifics but only so we can learn to
generalize and recognize there is only one problem and one solution. As Jesus
says later in the workbook:

"The mind that taught itself to think specifically can no longer grasp
abstraction in the sense that it is all-encompassing. We need to see a little,
that we learn a lot." (W.PI.161.4.7).*

(5:4-6) "He who was enemy is more than friend when he is freed to take the holy
role the Holy Spirit has assigned to him. Let him be savior unto you today.
Such is his role in God your Father's plan."

*Our brother is our savior -- "more than friend" -- not because he possesses
magical attributes, but because we realize that what we are seeing in him is a
projection of what is in our ourselves. This enables us to be saved from our
guilt and the disastrous effects of our wrong choices. Had it not been for this
special relationship, we would have had no opportunity for salvation. This,
then, is the essence of "God's" plan of Atonement: The world, which was made as
an attack on God and substitute for His Love, becomes a classroom in which we
learn to remember Him. There is nothing redeeming in the world itself, but our
redemption comes from giving it a different purpose.*

(6) "Our longer practice periods today will see him in this role. You will
attempt to hold him in your mind, first as you now consider him. You will review
his faults, the difficulties you have had with him, the pain he caused you, his
neglect, and all the little and the larger hurts he gave. You will regard his
body with its flaws and better points as well, and you will think of his
mistakes and even of his "sins."

*Jesus is asking us to be honest with ourselves (and with him) about our
grievances: to hold no perception back from awareness. If we do, we are choosing
to retain some "spots of darkness" (T-31.VIII.12.5) in ourselves that we never
wish to relinquish to the healing light of forgiveness. It is these "spots" we
have projected onto another -- our savior -- that become the means of healing
ourselves.*

(7:1) "Then let us ask of Him Who knows this Son of God in his reality and
truth, that we may look on him a different way, and see our savior shining in
the light of true forgiveness, given unto us."

*Again, we need ask for help to change the wrong choice in our minds, not the
external situation; we change our minds, not someone else. As Jesus says in a
parallel passage from the text:

"Dream softly of your sinless brother, who unites with you in holy
innocence. And from this dream the Lord of Heaven will Himself awaken His
beloved Son. Dream of your brother's kindnesses instead of dwelling in your
dreams on his mistakes. Select his thoughtfulness to dream about instead of
counting up the hurts he gave. Forgive him his illusions, and give thanks to him
for all the helpfulness he gave. And do not brush aside his many gifts because
he is not perfect in your dreams." (T.27.VII.15.1-6).*

(7:2-3) "We ask Him in the holy Name of God and of His Son, as holy as Himself:
"Let me behold my savior in this one You have appointed as the one for me to ask
to lead me to the holy light in which he stands, that I may join with him."

*We ask for help "that I may join with him." Strictly speaking, of course, we do
not join with someone else, because we are already joined. However, the
experience of joining with someone undoes the attack thought that kept us
separated. It is really a prayer to ourselves -- the decision-making part of our
minds -- that we begin the process of recognizing that God's Son is one. If I
attack you, my special love or hate partner, I am saying the Son is separated,
split in two: <me> and <you>, and the rest of Sonship contained in you. The
above prayer for the experience of oneness is thus the correction for such
insane thinking.*

(7:4) "The body's eyes are closed, and as you think of him who grieved you, let
your mind be shown the light in him beyond your grievances."

*Jesus is certainly not talking about an external perceptual shift, but a
miraculous shift in the Course's sense of that term: the mind's shift from
grievances to miracles.*

(8:1-3) "What you have asked for cannot be denied. Your savior has been waiting
long for this. He would be free, and make his freedom yours."

*This can be understood on two levels. We each need each other's forgiveness
because we can help each other understand we made the wrong choice and now can
make the correct one. When you identify with your guilt and I attack you, I
reinforce it by saying, in effect, your decision for the ego was right. However,
when I am in my right mind and do not attack, regardless of how you may perceive
me, I send a different message, communicating to you that same choice I made you
can make:"Your mind contains two alternatives. The one you have chosen -- the
one I have chosen as well -- was a mistake. As I have corrected my mind I
represent for you the same choice." Recall the passage from the manual for
teachers we have seen before, in which we say to each other:

"Behold, you Son of God, what life can offer you. Would you choose sickness
[or guilt] in place of this?" (M-5.III.2:11-12).

Ultimately, of course, the savior who "has been waiting long for this" is
ourselves. We understand metaphysically that there is no one out there, and so
the person we perceive is a split-off part of ourselves -- the guilty self that
needs forgiveness. Our misperception of this person thus becomes the means
whereby we correct the original misperception of ourselves.*

(8:3-5) "He would be free, and make his freedom yours. The Holy Spirit leans
from him to you, seeing no separation in God's Son. And what you see through Him
will free you both."

*At this stage of one's work with A Course in Miracles, one would most likely
not be aware that these lines are meant literally. It is not the Holy Spirit
sees me and you as separate, both beloved Sons of God. He does not see us as
separate at all, because we are not. As our experience of the Course deepens
over time, our understanding of lines like these will deepen, too. We will come
to realize that this literally means we are not separate selves, but split-off
parts of a larger self that is one, as our true Self is One.*

(8:6-8) "Be very quiet now, and look upon your shining savior. No dark
grievances obscure the sight of him. You have allowed the Holy Spirit to express
through him the role God gave Him that you might be saved."

*Our quietness is the result of having silenced the ego's shrieking voice of
specialness, allowing us to hear the gentle sound of the Holy Spirit's
Atonement. His vision of the inherent sinlessness of God's Son is allowed to
replace the darkened sight of grievances and hate. This vision embraces the
Sonship as one -- my brother and myself -- as I come to recognize my savior in
the very person I had chosen to exclude from love: the savior who is my self.*

(9) "God thanks you for these quiet times today in which you laid your images
aside, and looked upon the miracle of love the Holy Spirit showed you in their
place. The world and Heaven join in thanking you, for not one Thought of God but
must rejoice as you are saved, and all the world with you."

*The gratitude is our own, for finally having made the right choice: oneness
instead of separation; miracles instead of grievances; God instead of the ego.
In that choice is all the Sonship healed as it remembers the unity it had never
destroyed, its voice joined at last with the song of gratitude -- the prayer of
love -- Jesus describes in the beautiful opening to The Song of Prayer:

"Prayer is the greatest gift with which God blessed His Son at his creation.
It was then what it is to become; the single voice Creator and creation share;
the song the Son sings to the Father, Who returns the thanks it offers Him unto
the Son. Endless the harmony, and endless, too, the joyous concord of the Love
They give forever to Each Other. And in this, creation is extended. God gives
thanks to His extension in His Son. His Son gives thanks for his creation, in
the song of his creating in his Father's Name. The Love They share is what all
prayer will be throughout eternity, when time is done. For such it was before
time seemed to be." (S-1.in.1.)*

(10) "We will remember this throughout the day, and take the role assigned to us
as part of God's salvation plan, and not our own. Temptation falls away when we
allow each one we meet to save us, and refuse to hide his light behind our
grievances. To everyone you meet, and to the ones you think of or remember from
the past, allow the role of savior to be given, that you may share it with him.
For you both, and all the sightless ones as well, we pray:
"Let miracles replace all grievances."

*This, again, is an expression of the oneness of God's Son. As long as we
believe he is many -- separate bodies involved with other bodies -- we need to
practice with each one, applying "God's salvation plan": the forgiveness of our
special relationships. Each person then becomes our individual savior, for each
offers the opportunity of being saved from the mistaken choice of making the
separation real. At some point we realize that each person is every person, and,
finally, that <there is no person out there at all> -- only the one Son of God
contained in our minds. Since minds are joined, God's Son is in all people as
well. This vision of the light of miracles replacing the darkened veil of
grievances is given lovely expression in "The Savior's Vision":

"Behold your role within the universe! To every part of true creation has
the Lord of Love and Life entrusted all salvation from the misery of hell. And
to each one has He allowed the grace to be a savior to the holy ones especially
entrusted to his care. And this he learns when first he looks upon one brother
as he looks upon himself, and sees the mirror of himself in him. Thus is the
concept of himself laid by, for nothing stands between his sight and what he
looks upon, to judge what he beholds. And in this single vision does he see the
face of Christ, and understands he looks on everyone as he beholds this one. For
there is light where darkness was before, and now the veil is lifted from his
sight." (T-31.VII.8).

We move now to Lessons 79 and 80, which present the familiar theme of salvation,
but expressed differently. Our symphony based on the theme of forgiveness thus
continue, with its almost endless series of variations.*

Love and Blessings,

Lyn Johnson

719-369-1822

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Lesson 78. Let miracles replace all grievances.