Think of the ways in which you are grateful. What are you grateful for today? Are you grateful that you have a place to live unlike those who find themselves homeless? Are you grateful that you have a job while others don't? Are you grateful that you are healthy unlike someone who is sick and suffering? Are you grateful that you have a partner unlike someone who is alone? Or you may feel, " There but for the grace of God go I. At least I am better off than that person." We are grateful that God saved us from a car accident even if someone else had to lose their life. We are grateful when our team wins because someone has to lose. In these examples, aren't we basically being grateful that we have gained at someone's loss? This kind of gratitude depends on comparing ourselves to people who have less than we do and it relies on someone else losing. In other words, this kind of gratitude is all about comparison and differences. Jesus says, " It is insane to offer thanks because of suffering," (W.195.2.1) but that is the ego's notion of gratitude, which is based on differences. It is based on the principle of one or the other.
 
Specialness always makes comparisons. On our spiritual path, we even compare ourselves to those who are more or less enlightened than we are. We go through our life with the mantra of better than, worse than, everywhere we look. " The ego literally lives by comparisons." (T.4.II.7.1)(ACIM OE T.4.III.32) We feel superior when we feel better than someone else and angry or jealous when we feel worse than someone else. It is truly the disease of the ego and the dark side of the ego's version of gratitude. It is important to bring these dark thoughts to awareness rather than to deny thoughts and feelings that arise in us. The reality is that we do make these kinds of judgments. It is an aspect of the separation. Jesus understands that this is our condition when he says, " But what is different calls for judgment, and this must come from someone 'better,' someone incapable of being like what he condemns, 'above' it, sinless by comparison with it." (T.24.I.4.2)(ACIM OE T.24.II.6)
 
What happens when we see our brother better than we are and thus a " rival for your peace; a plunderer who takes his joy from you," (W.195.3.1) is that we then see him as our "enemy." Why? This goes back to the discussion of special love and special hate relationships where Jesus says if we see our brother as having something we don't have, we believe he has something that was actually taken from us. If he is the one that is winning in this competition between us, then " vengeance is all there is to wish for." (W.195.3.2) Now all we want in this rivalry is to see him diminished because he has what we believe we rightly deserve. We may, for example, experience this when those who seem to have it all take a fall. Now we may enjoy such a moment because we no longer see ourselves as "less than" someone who previously seemed superior. We now see ourselves as having taken back what we think we rightly deserved. It is a situation of gaining our happiness at someone else's expense. Of course, we assume that that is the same program that is running in their minds. In the same way, we are upset and angry if someone has more than we do. This is the nature of the ego thought system, always of one or the other.
 
Comparisons are everywhere in this world of separation and competition. Clearly we see ourselves as better than those who murder and hurt others, but Jesus says, " Love makes no comparisons." (W.195.4.2) " Against the littleness you see in him you stand as tall and stately, clean and honest, pure and unsullied, by comparison with what you see." (T.24.II.1.6)(ACIM OE T.24.III.12)
 
Our specialness depends on seeing the lack in others while purporting the innocence in ourselves. We want to see them as the guilty ones so we can see ourselves in a better light. Yet if we are willing to look in our own minds, with great honesty, we will see our own hateful, murderous thoughts and realize that the content of the ego mind is always the same.

Jesus says that thoughts we feel as a result of comparison with others are " pitiful and depreciating." (W.195.1.4) The comparisons we make create a tremendous burden for us. They are a significant obstacle to our peace. Any comparisons made are unloving because comparison is a way of setting things apart. They are another way to keep the separation going and to see our brothers as different. " Let us not compare ourselves with them, for thus we split them off from our awareness of the unity we share with them, as they must share with us." (W.195.5.4) Comparison is a way we avoid our reality, which is one with every brother.
 
We can indeed be grateful that we are given the means to turn these thoughts over for healing. We are given the means to escape this prison-house we made. There is "One Who offers you the certain means whereby all pain is healed, and suffering replaced with laughter and with happiness." (W.195.2.2) Pain and suffering are always the result of our investment in specialness, but true gratitude, based on love, can show us the way. When gratitude is joined to love, we recognize our sameness. We share the same thought system that brought us into the experience of this world of duality, but we also share the same one Self. In our sameness is the Oneness of who we are reflected. We can be truly grateful that, instead of the bargaining and reciprocity that are part of the special relationship, where we always try to benefit at the expense of our brother, our freedom can be found in recognition of the sameness that we share. This sameness is a reflection of the oneness of Heaven. It is a recognition that, as we are released, our brothers are as well. While we imprison them with our judgments, we imprison ourselves.
 
We all share the same purpose. We all want to escape from this prison house, but we can't do it when we hold thoughts of specialness. These are thoughts of comparison and differences. In fact Jesus asks us to question why we would want to hold onto this kind of insanity and turn away from him and the peace and joy that he is offering us. " Nor could the even partly sane refuse to take the steps which He directs, and follow in the way He sets before them, to escape a prison that they thought contained no door to the deliverance they now perceive." (W.195.2.3) It requires that we really ask ourselves how we can trust what we think and feel. To refuse to do so is to continue in our insanity, relying on our own misperceptions of who our brother is.
 
The idea presented in this Lesson is that our gratitude is not about raising ourselves above anyone, but recognizing the unity we share with everyone. Thus, our true gratitude is to the Holy Spirit, Who has given the means to recognize our Oneness. This gratitude makes room for " the sick, the weak, the needy and afraid, and those who mourn a seeming loss or feel apparent pain, who suffer cold or hunger, or who walk the way of hatred and the path of death" (W.195.5.2) In other words, to raise ourselves above anyone at all is to keep ourselves separate and alone. When we are tempted to look at anyone and be grateful we are not like them, we exclude ourselves from love. We all share the same unity. (W.195.5.3) Only when we experience the inclusiveness of all brothers is gratitude sincere. Otherwise, our thanks is for nothing but the suffering of others. However, if we extend gratitude to everyone, the way opens up for us to know our Self and be grateful for it. It comes from a recognition that we are not lacking. We already have been given everything. No one can take our peace from us. It is in us. " Our gratitude will pave the way to Him, and shorten our learning time by more than you could ever dream of." (W.195.10.1) It goes hand in hand with love.
 
What is true gratitude? It is gratitude for our Oneness, and that we have been given the means to go home together. We are grateful for all of our brothers with no exceptions! Am I to be grateful to those that push my buttons, elicit my anger and rage, those who seem to abandon me, those who hurt me? The answer here is a resounding yes! For gratitude for all events, circumstances and difficulties will move us forward immeasurably. How would we ever access the guilt in us without the help of those who bring it to our awareness? Without them we would have no way of experiencing it. That is why this supposed enemy is really our savior from hell. When we recognize this, we can actually turn our anger and revenge into a song of gratitude. While it may seem difficult, our part is actually simple. We acknowledge our thoughts and release them to the Holy Spirit. He will do the rest. We can be grateful that we have been given everything. We are not lacking. We have within us what we look for outside of ourselves.

Regine Akers recently wrote a piece that relates beautifully to the gifts our brothers can offer, where she says, " It is easy to feel enlightened or transformed or spiritual when things seem to be going your way...when people agree with you, when they state how much they like you, when they do as you ask. But if there is a need for these things, the ego will rise again, because the ego is always there. When the ego rises with some type of upset or suffering, you can deny it or explain it away but if this is done, the gift is being missed. There is a great gift in ego appearing from hiding. The gift is finding the path to freedom again. One may need to admit I wasn't as far along as I thought. That is OK. You've found the path again. Yay! Now for those earlier practices of forgiveness, observation and attachment. Rest, accept, trust. Watch your thoughts and feel your emotions but don't believe them or act on them. Wait and let the storm pass. Do nothing. Just watch. Above all else, blame no one or nothing. Even what seems to be your current pain, be grateful. Be vigilant and grateful. You never really wanted to fool yourself anyway. Thank God you are at home."

Honor is the natural greeting of the truly loved to others who are like them. Jesus says,  " Give only honor to the Sons of the living God, and count yourself among them gladly." (T.7.VII.5.8)(ACIM OE T.7.VIII.75) Honor is due everyone, because they are as God created them, one with me. Truly I can be grateful for all of the blessings, as well as for the opportunities, these brothers and sisters offer me for my forgiveness and healing. Wow, if only we can keep this at the top of our awareness all through the day today. Today, as I think of each of you, I am truly grateful that you take this journey with me. I am grateful that we all go together. I am grateful for this Course, for the opportunities to release comparisons, specialness, and all thoughts that keep us separate. " Today we learn to think of gratitude in place of anger, malice and revenge. We have been given everything. If we refuse to recognize it, we are not entitled therefore to our bitterness, and to self-perception which regards us in a place of merciless pursuit, where we are badgered ceaselessly, and pushed about without a thought or care for us or for our future. Gratitude becomes the single thought we substitute for these insane perceptions. God has cared for us, and calls us Son. Can there be more than this?" (W.195.9.1-6)
 
Our purpose today is to " learn to think of gratitude in place of anger, malice and revenge." (W.195.9.1) In other words, we bring awareness to our ungrateful attitude, where we feel better than others. We uncover this attitude first in our own minds, so we are not simply doing a spiritual bypass, trying hard to see our brother beyond our own judgments. This will never work. We must face our own darkness and be willing to acknowledge our judgments. We must bring them to the feet of truth and be grateful to them for the gift this practice offers us. We need not be grateful for their behavior, but only for the awareness it brings to our own minds. We can be grateful we can't change the truth of what we are. We are still one with God. Nothing else is real. Open today to the deep peace that comes from recognition that no dream can change our reality. Love is the only reality!