Perhaps the two basic themes of "A Course in Miracles" could be summarized as being first
the need to forgive other people and ourselves, and secondly, placing our trust in the loving
and comforting presence of Jesus or the Holy Spirit.
So I thought I would base our morning’s meditation upon these two themes.
So let’s become still, trying to reach down within, to the place of peace where God dwells,
and where the Christ in each of us dwells with Him.
As we feel ourselves sink deeply, trying to reach that place of peace, there’ll be many
different clouds that would attempt to stop our way and obscure the vision that would
lead us back home.
These clouds of illusions would take many different forms.
They would take the forms of feelings of anxiety, feelings of fear, feelings of anger directed
at other people for things they have not done that we feel they should have, or things that
they have done to us or those whom we love that we feel were wrong.
These grievances that we hold against them may come in different forms.
At times these forms might be that of extreme rage or fury.
Yet other times they may come as mild annoyances.
The forms do not matter.
Within them they still have the power to detain us from our holy path.
As we sit here quietly now, let the various forms that these illusions take come before us.
Do not be afraid of them.
Do not feel guilty because of them.
Simply look at them and recognize what they are; seeing yourself look at them so you can
begin to understand that these thoughts and these feelings do not represent who we really are.
And as we pass through these clouds of illusion, imagine in your mind that there’s a comforting
hand that is reaching out, and this comforting hand asks only that we take it, that it may
guide us through.
Give whatever name to this hand that feels comfortable.
Call Him “Jesus,” call Him the “Holy Spirit,” call Him “God the Father;”
whatever name seems right to you.
The loving Presence behind that hand responds to the love that is calling out in your heart for Him,
not the name that you use.
And take that hand and let Him guide you through all those thoughts of fear, of anxiety–thoughts of anger.
And together with Him, gently brush them aside as you move beyond them and beneath them to
the place of love that God has always held out, welcoming us; welcoming us back home
to the place we never left.
Let us spend a few quiet moments now feeling that loving Presence...comforting us and guiding us.
[music]
And now, now we stand on the other side, beyond those darkened clouds that would have detained us.
And we stand in the light of Christ that shines upon us and within us.
The Source of that light makes only one request, that we take that light of love that He has
given us and we share it with all the people in our lives; those people whom we see, those
people whom we touch, those people whom we even think of, that we may become messengers
of that light.
In that way, the light of peace and the light of God will once more shine upon this world
of darkness and of shadows that has forgotten the Love of He Who has created us.
There is a wonderful line that closes one of the workbook lessons (W-pII.302.2:1-3)
that speaks of this Love as being the end that we seek as well as being the means by
which we come to Him.
Amen.