Lesson 123. I thank my Father for His gifts to me.
(1) Today let us be thankful. We have come to gentler pathways and to smoother
roads. There is no thought of turning back, and no implacable resistance to the
truth. A bit of wavering remains, some small objections and a little hesitance,
but you can well be grateful for your gains, which are far greater than you
realize.
(2) A day devoted now to gratitude will add the benefit of some insight into the
real extent of all the gains which you have made; the gifts you have received.
Be glad today, in loving thankfulness, your Father has not left you to yourself,
nor let you wander in the dark alone. Be grateful He has saved you from the self
you thought you made to take the place of Him and His creation. Give Him thanks
today.
(3) Give thanks that He has not abandoned you, and that His Love forever will
remain shining on you, forever without change. Give thanks as well that you are
changeless, for the Son He loves is changeless as Himself. Be grateful you are
saved. Be glad you have a function in salvation to fulfill. Be thankful that
your value far transcends your meager gifts and petty judgments of the one whom
God established as His Son.
(4) Today in gratitude we lift our hearts above despair, and raise our thankful
eyes, no longer looking downward to the dust. We sing the song of thankfulness
today, in honor of the Self that God has willed to be our true Identity in Him.
Today we smile on everyone we see, and walk with lightened footsteps as we go to
do what is appointed us to do.
(5) We do not go alone. And we give thanks that in our solitude a Friend has
come to speak the saving Word of God to us. And thanks to you for listening to
Him. His Word is soundless if it be not heard. In thanking Him the thanks are
yours as well. An unheard message will not save the world, however mighty be the
Voice that speaks, however loving may the message be.
(6) Thanks be to you who heard, for you become the messenger who brings His
Voice with you, and lets It echo round and round the world. Receive the thanks
of God today, as you give thanks to Him. For He would offer you the thanks you
give, since He receives your gifts in loving gratitude, and gives them back a
thousand and a hundred thousand more than they were given. He will bless your
gifts by sharing them with you. And so they grow in power and in strength, until
they fill the world with gladness and with gratitude.
(7) Receive His thanks and offer yours to Him for fifteen minutes twice today.
And you will realize to Whom you offer thanks, and Whom He thanks as you are
thanking Him. This holy half an hour given Him will be returned to you in terms
of years for every second; power to save the world eons more quickly for your
thanks to Him.
(8) Receive His thanks, and you will understand how lovingly He holds you in His
Mind, how deep and limitless His care for you, how perfect is His gratitude to
you. Remember hourly to think of Him, and give Him thanks for everything He gave
His Son, that he might rise above the world, remembering his Father and his
Self.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The commentary on this lesson is an excerpt 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 123. "I thank my Father for His gifts to me."
*This lesson is about gratitude. Implicit here, as I mentioned at the beginning
of Lesson 122, is the correction for the ingratitude we feel. As long as we
believe we are individuals, cherishing our physical and psychological selves,
with specialness our greatest value, there is no way we can be grateful to God
because He is the greatest threat to our separated existence. Needless to say,
it is the true God Who is threatening, because the ego's version is part of the
dream, unlike God Himself Who does not even know of its existence. To remember
God is to remember Who we are as part of Him. As one with Him, our individual
existence means nothing. In fact, it <is> nothing -- only a figment of our
deluded imaginations.
This lesson, then, expresses the correction, born of the thought that there must
be another way of looking at myself, not to mention looking at the world. I
recognize that my individuality has not made me happy, nor has my seeking after
specialness brought me the peace, love, and joy I want. In other words, we are
grateful for being wrong and God being right. However, as long as we think we
are right about our existence and understanding of the world, gratitude is
impossible. Who could be grateful for a God, course, and teacher we believe is
wrong?*
(1:1-3) "Today let us be thankful. We have come to gentler pathways and to
smoother roads. There is no thought of turning back, and no implacable
resistance to the truth."
*We find pep talks like this throughout the workbook. Obviously Jesus knows that
this is not the whole truth for us, because he continues with the gentle
lessons, but he appeals to our right minds that gentle pathways be our goal.
Clearly this is not a judgment against us because we are resistant to the truth,
have thoughts of turning back, and often wish to close the book -- permanently.
Jesus does not want our guilt, but our realization that these thoughts do not
make us happy. Thus he addresses the part of us that truly does want to travel
on the gentle pathways of forgiveness, and he seeks to reinforce it.
We all should appreciate this next sentence, recognizing how different Jesus'
perspective is from our own.*
(1:4) "A bit of wavering remains, some small objections and a little hesitance,
but you can well be grateful for your gains, which are far greater than you
realize."
*In the opening paragraph of "The Happy Dream," Jesus says in effect we have no
idea what is going on with us:
" ... for you cannot distinguish between advance and retreat. Some of your
greatest advances you have judged as failures, and some of your deepest retreats
you have evaluated as success." (T.18.V.1.5-6 )
In other words we cannot understand, appreciate, or evaluate our progress on the
spiritual path. Since we are overwhelmed by the force of the ego, we think there
is no way we could ever get beyond it, and so we think that the little we have
already done is not much at all. Jesus is telling us here that we have done much
more than we realize. We may not have ascended to the top of the ladder, but by
dint of our commitment to him and earnestness to succeed in learning his
lessons, we have gained a great deal.*
(2:1) "A day devoted now to gratitude will add the benefit of some insight into
the real extent of all the gains which you have made; the gifts you have
received."
*These gains come from my seriousness about returning home and my study and
practice of the Course. I am already on Lesson 123, so I have spent at least one
hundred and twenty-two days on this. After all, I could have stopped after day
one, or did not have to start at all. The fact that I am practicing -- however
half-heartedly my efforts may sometimes be, however filled with specialness --
means there is a part of me that wants to learn these lessons and stay with
them. That is what we need to look at in ourselves, rather than judge our
failures and resistance. Thus we will feel grateful for our teacher, his
lessons, and ourselves for having chosen to learn from them.*
(2:2) "Be glad today, in loving thankfulness, your Father has not left you to
yourself, nor let you wander in the dark alone."
*This undoes the ego's projection that we did not abandon God: He abandoned us.
Further, even if we did, He should have stopped us, reaching His everlasting arm
into the darkness and pulling us back. From the ego's standpoint, it is always
God's fault. Real gratitude comes from understanding God does not save us
because He cannot. If He did in fact reach into the darkness, it would mean it
were real, and salvation necessary from the factual separation. Our gratitude to
God is because He does not know of our separated state, and so does not try to
save us. His changeable Being remains our only hope. Thus Jesus tells us in the
text that we need to forgive God for His not being one with us. He does not join
us in our game of sin, guilt, and fear, which means there is no sin and,
therefore, no separated self that needs punished:
"Forgive your Father it was not His Will that you be crucified."
(T-24.III.8:13).
Once we have forgiven our Creator, we experience gratitude for the fact that He
<is>, and that in His Being we rest secure as His Son. Even during our sleep of
forgetfulness, His memory rests secure as well, its very presence gently calling
us to awaken and be glad. Who could <not> then be grateful for such a light
shining in the darkness of our guilt and fear?*
(2:3-4) "Be grateful He has saved you from the self you thought you made to take
the place of Him and His creation. Give Him thanks today."
*To repeat, God saves us by simply being Himself. Thus the line that comes later
in the workbook: "We say 'God is,' and then we cease to speak" (W-pI.169.5:4).
Nothing more can be said about God, and that is why and how He saves us -- He
does not change, make error real, establish illusion as reality, or see His Son
as separate from Him. Reality itself is the salvation from illusion.*
(3) "Give thanks that He has not abandoned you, and that His Love forever will
remain shining on you, forever without change. Give thanks as well that you are
changeless, for the Son He loves is changeless as Himself. Be grateful you are
saved. Be glad you have a function in salvation to fulfill. Be thankful that
your value far transcends your meager gifts and petty judgments of the one whom
God established as His Son."
*Gratitude is impossible as long as we think we are here. We are grateful only
when we de-invest from our individual identity and specialness. In other words,
we give thanks that God is right and we are wrong. This is the meaning of
humility, the precondition for gratitude brought about by fulfilling our
function of forgiveness.*
(4) "Today in gratitude we lift our hearts above despair, and raise our thankful
eyes, no longer looking downward to the dust. We sing the song of thankfulness
today, in honor of the Self that God has willed to be our true Identity in Him.
Today we smile on everyone we see, and walk with lightened footsteps as we go to
do what is appointed us to do."
*"What is appointed us to do" is forgive, which means I first become aware of
how much I do not want to let go of my judgments and specialness, how much I do
not want to smile on everyone I see. Indeed, I want only to smile at those from
whom I want something; a desire that is selective, specific, and special. My
first step in learning to forgive, therefore, is being aware of how much I do
not want to, how much I do not want to change my perceptions. It is only when I
become aware of my withholding a smile or a gentle word from you, that I can see
I am withholding it from myself. Thus, I am not only <not> interested in being
with you, but also not being with Jesus, and I certainly am not interested in
returning to God. We need to see the causal connection between the <effect>, how
we are towards others -- separate, insensitive, and special -- and the <cause>,
not wanting to return home and remember God's Son. We look at that wish without
judgment, thereby forgiving ourselves -- our function on earth. How could one
not feel gratitude for such a function, for only through forgiveness can our
hearts be lifted above despair to share the vision of the Son of God: the Self
that God created one with Him.*
(5:1-2) "We do not go alone. And we give thanks that in our solitude a Friend
has come to speak the saving Word of God to us."
*Our Friend is the Holy Spirit, and the "saving Word of God" is an expression of
the Atonement: correction, forgiveness, this lesson. Hope is therefore present
in our minds. If only we avail ourselves of it. Our gratitude knows no bounds,
for this Friend and His healing Word are the way out of hell.*
(5:3-5) "And thanks to you for listening to Him. His Word is soundless if it be
not heard. In thanking Him the thanks are yours as well."
*The Atonement principle, for all its truth, radiance and love, has no relevance
until we choose to join it, which we do by separating from the ego's
interference to it. We accept the Atonement for ourselves when we release all we
made to hide its truth. We thus need to look at our investment in the inner and
outer worlds of specialness. Without the Holy Spirit by our side, this is
impossible, but with Him we are led to our Self. Our thanks to Him is His to us,
His thanks to us is ours to Him, for the song of gratitude has no beginning and
no end, reflecting the Song of God, as in this wonderful passage from later in
the workbook:
"Our Love awaits us as we go to Him, and walks beside us showing us the way.
He fails in nothing. He the End we seek, and He the Means by which we go to
Him." (W.PII.302.2.1-2)*
(5:6) "An unheard message will not save the world, however mighty be the Voice
that speaks, however loving may the message be."
*Jesus cannot save me until I choose to join with him. "Salvation is a
collaborative venture" not only because I see my brother as one with me, but
because I collaborate with him who represents salvation. Thus is Jesus' message
of forgiveness accepted and offered as one:
"As you come closer to a brother you approach me, and as you withdraw from
him I become distant to you. Salvation is a collaborative venture. It cannot be
undertaken successfully by those who disengage themselves from the Sonship,
because they are disengaging themselves from me. God will come to you only as
you will give Him to your brothers. Learn first of them and you will be ready to
hear God. That is because the function of Love is one" (T.4.VI.8.)
And so we return together, as God's <one> Son.*
(6:1) "Thanks be to you who heard, for you become the messenger who brings His
Voice with you, and lets It echo round and round the world. Receive the thanks
of God today, as you give thanks to Him."
*The message echoes round and round the world by our choosing it. When in the
holy instant we choose Jesus as our teacher and the Atonement as our guiding
principle, we have joined with the Sonship, because there is no longer any
separation in our minds. Further, since the physical world is the shadow of the
Son's separated mind, the world is healed as well.
Again, this is not a message we broadcast around the world behaviorally, but one
that automatically extends through us. This means the message remains within the
mind of God's Son the instant it is chosen, and the miracle allows it
effortlessly to extend, as we recall:
"You may still think that holiness is impossible to understand, because you
cannot see how it can be extended to include everyone. And you have been told
that it must include everyone to be holy. Concern yourself not with the
extension of holiness, for the nature of miracles you do not understand. Nor do
you do them. It is their extension, far beyond the limits you perceive, that
demonstrates you do not do them." (T.16.II.1.1-5)*
(6:2-3) "For He would offer you the thanks you give, since He receives your
gifts in loving gratitude, and gives them back a thousand and a hundred thousand
more than they were given."
*These numbers are obviously symbolic, but their magnitude of healing that
occurs when we choose to release our guilt and look at our judgments without
judgment, accepting the gratitude of God even as we extend it to Him.*
(6:4-5) "He will bless your gifts by sharing them with you. And so they grow in
power and in strength, until they fill the world with gladness and with
gratitude."
*The poetic language reflects the truth that awareness of our abundance as God's
Son increases as we release our hold on guilt and specialness. As they decrease
in the power we had invested in them, the natural power and strength of God's
Love is allowed to be what they are. Thus is our mind filled with gladness and
gratitude as we become aware that the night has ended and Christ's light has
dawned. Our minds fill with this light, as does the mind of the Sonship -- one
mind is all minds -- for the power and strength of God's Son excludes no one;
otherwise they would not be true.*
(7) "Receive His thanks and offer yours to Him for fifteen minutes twice today.
And you will realize to Whom you offer thanks, and Whom He thanks as you are
thanking Him. This holy half an hour given Him will be returned to you in terms
of years for every second; power to save the world eons more quickly for your
thanks to Him."
*True gratitude reflects Heaven's Oneness -- a circle without separation. This
is unknown on earth, and we are not asked to understand how thirty minutes saves
eons, but we are asked to let it happen. This we do when, through our gratitude,
we express our unity with God and the Holy Spirit, which emanates from the
forgiveness of our brother and ourselves.*
(8) "Receive His thanks, and you will understand how lovingly He holds you in
His Mind, how deep and limitless His care for you, how perfect is His gratitude
to you. Remember hourly to think of Him, and give Him thanks for everything He
gave His Son, that he might rise above the world, remembering his Father and his
Self."
*Again, and finally, God does not feel gratitude to us. He does not have a
separated self that can experience another: in gratitude or in hate. This lovely
passage, as indeed this lovely lesson merely expresses God's Love in the
specific form correction needs to undo the ego's tale of sin and guilt,
punishment and pain, hate and death. As we allow ourselves to experience
gratitude -- to and from God -- the chains of hate and fear drop away. No longer
bound to the ego's shadowy world of despair, our hearts and minds are lifted
above the world into the light, as Heaven sings its song of gratitude"
