The last paragraph was written after Christmas but just before New Year's, so this is the
Course's version of a New Year's resolution: "This is the time in which a new year will
soon be born from the time of Christ." Now he's using the specific images of the New
Year and Christmas but he's really talking about when we choose the holy instant, the
time of Christ, when we choose to be reborn as Christ, as that little child rejecting
the ego's little child, that he's asking us now to take that holy instant and extend it
so that it become not only a single point in a day, or a week, or a month, or a year,
but it become as often as we could possibly manage it throughout each day. He's spoken
of as a child because in our mind, first having chosen the ego, we now have to change our
mind and begin to grow into the experience that there is another self, there is another
teacher, there is another presence in our minds that we wish to listen to. And it's
the process of growth that is reflected in speaking of Christ as a child. So the child
doesn't really grow. Christ is Christ; Spirit is Spirit. It doesn't have age. As you read
in that poem this morning, there is no birth, there is no death. The peace of God shines
equally on the manger and the cross."I have perfect faith in you to do all that you would
accomplish. Nothing will be lacking, and you will make complete and not destroy." Now this
is obviously a reference to what the ego does where everything is lacking. That's the idea
of scarcity, and I have to sacrifice somebody else in order to fill up what is lacking in
myself. And when I do that, of course, I am destroying. That's how we began this whole
mess by destroying God, so we believed. And we did that because we felt something was
lacking. We wanted to be on our own. We wanted our independence, our autonomy, our freedom,
et cetera, and God would deprive us of that; therefore, He had to be bumped off. And then
we go through this long, unending, laborious search to be made complete and made whole
by joining with others or substances or things outside of our self to make ourselves complete,
when deep down we believe we are incomplete. And, again, that's why the special relationship
never, never works because it can't work because it can't complete us. And this is an introduction
of an idea which will then be developed much more fully in the following chapter. In fact,
there is a section called "The Choice for Completion." So that we will make complete
by choosing forgiveness which undoes all the thoughts that would interfere to our awareness
of our inherent completion as God's Son. "Say, then, to your brother: I give you to the Holy
Spirit as part of myself. I know that you will be released, unless I want to use you
to imprison myself [which, of course, is what happens in our special relationships]. In
the name of my freedom I choose your release, because I recognize that we will be released
together." And this we have to say to every brother, not just certain special ones. As
every brother that we are tempted first to exclude, every special relationship that we
are tempted to exclude either through direct hate or through cannibalization. Remember,
special love and special hate are the same. So each and every time we are tempted to accuse
someone, we should in a sense say this prayer. You don't have to say it literally if you
don't wish to, but the idea is that if I am really am serious about loving Jesus, if I
really am serious about taking his hand and going home and awakening from this nightmare
dream of hell, then the only way I could do that is to take everybody with me, not in
form but in my thoughts. And if I do not do that, I exclude certain people, then what
I am really saying in that is I do not want to return home. I am afraid of my love for
Jesus and his hand is the last one I wish to take, and you should look at that within
yourself with honesty and with open eyes as we are asked to do without guilt, without
judgment, without hysteria, without rationalization, and simply say, yes, that's where I am. I'm
still too afraid and that's very useful information for me to have. The problem is not out there.
The problem is in me. It's not a sin. It's simply my fear of losing this self and that's
alright. At least at that point you are being honest. When Jesus says earlier in the Course
we must be very honest with each other and hold nothing back, that's what he's talking
about. You don't have to pretend that you are holy. In this chapter in an earlier section
on the holy instant, he says the holy instant does not demand or have as a condition that
you have no thoughts that are impure. It simply asks that there be no impure thoughts that
you would keep...a big difference. He's saying you don't have to have totally pure thoughts,
that's insane. In this world, nobody has totally pure thoughts. But when the thoughts are impure,
thoughts of hate, thoughts of separation, of specialness, don't hold onto them. Bring
them to me. That's all he's asking. So just be aware of how tempting it is and how necessary
it is for your own survival as you see it to exclude certain people. "So will the year
begin in joy and freedom. There is much to do, and we have been long delayed. Accept
the holy instant as this year is born, and take your place, so long left unfulfilled,
in the Great Awakening." This really is the plan of the Atonement, and the plan of the
Atonement is not some specific plan and everybody has some specific, very important and holy
work they have to do. The plan of the Atonement is forgive, that's all it is...dull, boring,
same-old, same-old forgiveness. That's the Great Awakening. That's the great plan. "Make
this year different by making it all the same." That's a lovely line. W make this year different
from all the other years by seeing every situation, relationship, and circumstance as the same.
That's what that line means. So we make this year different from all the other years by
seeing everything in this year as the same because it's all the same. Everything is an
opportunity for me to first project my unconscious guilt onto the person or situation so I could
then ask for help that I could recall the projection, recognizing now that what I saw
outside is a projection inside. The darkness of sin I perceived in you is simply a mirror
of the darkness of sin I made real in myself. And now that I know that I did that, I could
change it, very simple. And when you see every day that way and every circumstance like that,
it makes your life very easy, and it makes your life very meaningful. The only meaning
it has because it's the meaning of going back within and it's the meaning of releasing yourself
from guilt by asking Jesus to help you look at the guilt where you put it outside, where
its source is which is inside, and then recognize that you don't have to hold onto it anymore.
"And let all your relationships be made holy for you. This is our will. Amen."