SUNDAY APRIL 24, 2016
Creation is Sharing
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A COURSE IN MIRACLES
CH 9 "THE CORRECTION OF ERROR"
XI. THE DENIAL OF GOD   

You cannot make creators who are unlike your Creator any more than He could have created a Son who was unlike Him. If creation is sharing, it cannot create what is unlike itself. It can share only what it is.
       
  ACIM.OE.TX.CH 9.XI.97
A COURSE IN MIRACLES
WORKBOOK Part I ~ REVIEW III
INTRODUCTION
Review III
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Voice and Music by CIMS SonShip Radio
  
*IAMBIC PENTAMETER*
WHAT IS IAMBIC PENTAMETER?
 
   Our third review begins today. We will  
   review two of the last twenty ideas  
   each day, until we have reviewed them all.  
   We will observe a special format for  
   these practice periods, which you are urged  
   to follow just as closely as you can. 
   We understand, of course, that it may be  
   impossible for you to undertake  
   what is suggested here as optimal  
   each day and every hour of the day. 
    
   Learning will not be hampered when you miss
   a practice period because it is
   impossible at the appointed time.
   Nor is it necessary that you make
   excessive efforts to be sure that you
   catch up in terms of numbers. Rituals
   are not our aim, and would defeat our goal.  
   
         But learning will be hampered when you skip
    a practice period because you are
   unwilling to devote the time to it
   which you are asked to give. Do not deceive
   yourself in this. Unwillingness can be
   most carefully concealed behind a cloak
   of situations you cannot control.
   Learn to distinguish situations which
   are poorly suited to your practicing
   from those which you establish to uphold
   the camouflage for your unwillingness. 
    
   Those practice periods which you have lost
   because you did not want to do them for
   whatever reason should be done as soon
   as you have changed your mind about your goal.
   You are unwilling to cooperate
   in practicing salvation only if
   it interferes with goals you hold more dear.
   When you withdraw the value given them,
   allow your practice periods to be
   replacements for your litanies to them.
   They gave you nothing. But your practicing
   can offer everything to you. And so
   accept their offering, and be at peace. 
    
   The format you should use for these reviews
   is this: Devote five minutes twice a day,
   or longer if you would prefer, to
   considering the thoughts that are assigned.
   Read over the ideas and comments which
   are written first in each day's exercise.
   And then begin to think about them while
   letting your mind relate them to your needs,
   your seeming problems and all your concerns. 
    
   Place the ideas within your mind, and let
   it use them as it chooses. Give it faith
   that it will use them wisely, being helped
   in its decisions by the One Who gave
   the thoughts to you. What can you trust but what
   is in your mind? Have faith, in these reviews,
   the means the Holy Spirit uses will
   not fail. The wisdom of your mind will come
   to your assistance. Give direction at
   the start, and then lean back in quiet faith,
   and let the mind employ the thoughts you gave
   as they were given you for it to use. 
    
   You have been given them in perfect trust;
   in perfect confidence that you would use
   them well; in perfect faith that you would see
   their messages, and use them for yourself.
   Offer them to your mind in that same trust
   and confidence and faith. It will not fail.
   It is the Holy Spirit's chosen means
   for your salvation. Since it has His trust,
   His means must surely merit yours as well. 
    
   We emphasize the benefits to you
   if you devote the first five minutes of
   the day to your review and also give
   the last five minutes of your waking day
   to it. If this cannot be done, at least
   try to divide them so you undertake
   one in the morning, and the other in
   the hour just before you go to sleep. 
    
   The exercises to be done throughout
   the day are equally important, and
   perhaps of even greater value. You
   have been inclined to practice only at
   appointed times and then go on your way
   to other things, without applying what
   you learned to them. As a result, you have
   gained little reinforcement, and have not
   given it the opportunity to prove
   how great are its potential gifts to you. 
     
   Here is another chance to use it well.
   In these reviews we stress the need to let
   your learning not lie idly by between
   your longer practice periods. Attempt
   to give your daily two ideas a brief
   but serious review each hour. Use
   one on the hour, and the other one
   a half an hour later. You need not
   give more than just a moment to each one. 
     
   Repeat it, then allow your mind to rest
   a little time in silence and in peace.
   Then turn to other things, but try to keep
   the thought with you, and let it serve to help
   you keep your peace throughout the day as well.
   If you are shaken, think of it again.
   These practice periods are planned to help
   you form the habit of applying what
   you learn each day to everything you do. 
     
   Do not repeat it and then lay it down.
   Its usefulness is limitless to you.
   And it is meant to serve you in all ways,
   all times and places, and whenever you
   need help of any kind. Try, then, to take
   it with you in the business of the day,
   and make it holy, worthy of God's Son,
   acceptable to God and to your Self. 
     
   Each day's review assignment will conclude
   with a restatement of the thought to use
   each hour, and the one to be applied
   on each half hour as well. Forget them not.
   This second chance with each of these ideas
   will bring such large advances that we come
   from these reviews with learning gains so great
   that we begin again on solid ground
   with firmer footsteps and with stronger faith. 
     
   Do not forget how little you have learned.
   Do not forget how much you can learn now.
   Do not forget your Father's need of you,
   as you review these thoughts He gave to you.
 
   ~ Original Handscript of ACIM
  
  ACIM OE WORKBOOK LESSON REVIEW III

CIRCLE OF ATONEMENT ~ COMMENTARY
          
LESSON AUDIO RECORDINGS
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DAILY LESSON
SonShip Workbook 
 L e s s o n 114 ~ REVIEW III
[Review Lesson 97 and Lesson 98]

<AUDIO>
Voice and Music by CIMS SonShip Radio

*IAMBIC PENTAMETER*
 
1 For morning and evening review:

[97] I am Spirit.
               2 I am the Son of God. No body can    
       Contain my spirit nor impose on me
       A limitation God created not.
[98] I will accept my part in God's plan for salvation.
3 What can my function be but to accept    
  The Word of God, Who has created me,
  For what I am and will forever be?
4 On the hour:  
               5 I am Spirit .
 
6 On the half hour:  
              7 I will accept my part in God's plan for salvation .

     ~ Original Handscript of ACIM
  
 
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ACIM Edmonton - Sarah's Reflections 
ACIM Edmonton, CA
LESSON 114
Review III ~ Lesson 97 and Lesson 98.

Sarah's Commentary:

"I am the Son of God. No body can contain my spirit, nor impose on me a limitation God created not ." (W.114.(97)1.2-3) I was writing this commentary a few years ago, right after hearing news that my brother and friend James had made his transition. These words registered deep in my mind. They were a beautiful reminder the body simply can't contain the spirit. All we are is Spirit. The body was made by the ego, seemingly to bind us to the illusion, giving us the apparatus of the eyes, ears and brain to fool us into thinking what we see, hear and process with our brains shows us what is real. It is not. Now we know we have a choice. We do not have to buy into this dream. We are not limited by what it shows us and says is true. In fact, what we see and think we know blocks the truth. This occurs until we recognize we don't know anything and that everything we have learned about the illusory world is false. Only then are we willing to be taught. Only when we let go of our false beliefs can we allow truth into our minds.
 
Jesus reminds us, "The lessons you have taught yourself have been so overlearned and fixed they rise like heavy curtains to obscure the simple and the obvious." (T.31.I.3.4)(ACIM T.31.I.3) This mind is not simple and obvious. We have learned very many complex messages. This is why the Course seems difficult to us, even though Jesus says it is our first language. We know the truth already as it is in our minds, but we have overlearned the false, which is what must be undone.

We think of ourselves as human beings, living in a body, contained by it and constrained by its limitations. We think as human beings we can have spiritual experiences from time to time, if we are fortunate. We are, in truth, spiritual beings who happen to be dreaming this human existence. In this human existence, we have all kinds of fears, all associated with the body and its vulnerabilities, including the certainty of death. If we truly knew we were spirit, what could we fear? What could limit us? What kind of boundaries could contain what we are? What could then die? "Salvation seeks to prove there is no death, and only life exists." (T.29.VII.10.2)(ACIM T.29.VIII.51)

Our spiritual reality is the only one there is. There is nothing outside of God's power, and therefore we are not outside of God. Even though we believe in the human experience, it can't alter the truth of our being as one Self united with our Creator. Right now, we experience ourselves as these bodies, so how do we transcend these seeming limitations? What is our path to freedom? Jesus tells us instead of using our bodies for our own (ego) purposes, they can become a communication vehicle for extending love, and when used for this purpose, they become holy. Thus, we learn about our true nature as love and as spirit, for we receive what we give. We become instruments for healing in the world. Thus, we transcend our limitations. We learn about the magnificence of the power of His love working through us. This is the basis for what we call the supernatural, although Jesus reminds us, "Miracles occur naturally as expressions of love." (T.1.I.3.1)(ACIM OE T.1.I.3) What is unnatural is the world of the ego. The miracle teaches us we need not be limited by any kinds of laws of this world. Thus, the miracle is not subject to limitations of space and time, and neither are we.

When we accept this, we accept our part in God's plan for salvation. We become channels of His love and peace. We take His Word for what we are instead of our own beliefs. Our self-concepts and our self-determined limitations have no reality. I am as God created me. He is the author of my life, not me. When I surrender my authority over my own life, I will be ready to take His Word for what I am. That is all He is asking of us. He is asking us to accept His Word for who we are and will always be. Step back today from your definitions of yourself, all of your self-imposed limitations and descriptions, all of your self-concepts, all the beliefs in your unworthiness and your limitations, and realize all of them are wrong. Why try to fix and improve what is not the truth about you? This is not a self-improvement course. It is not about raising your self-esteem. It is not about becoming worthy for God. This is a course in having all of our self-limiting thoughts and beliefs removed by accepting God's Truth. I am spirit. The body can never contain me. I cannot be limited. God says so. The Atonement Principle affirms that we cannot and have not changed ourselves. As God created us, we still are.

In the Manual, Section 25, on psychic powers, we are told psychic powers are not ends in themselves, but are there to help free us from limitation. What they do is to make the illusion of limitation less solid. Even if we don't currently claim to have psychic powers, we have probably all experienced "Communication is not limited to the small range of channels the world recognizes." (M.25.2.2) We have many examples of this in our own lives when we think of someone and they call, when we forgive someone in our own thoughts by reclaiming our projections and releasing them, our relationship miraculously shifts in a dramatic way, or when we are in the flow and everything comes easily without our intervention or planning, or when we experience miraculous healing. All of these kinds of events help us recognize the limits of the world do not apply.
 
We tend to have these experiences when we get out of our own way, when we "step back and let Him lead the way." (W.155) As long as we think of ourselves as responsible for our lives, in control and relying on the tiny wings of the sparrow, we limit ourselves and bind ourselves to this illusion. As Jesus says, "Who would attempt to fly with the tiny wings of a sparrow when the mighty power of an eagle has been given him?" (M.4.I.2.2) Today, we remind ourselves we are spirit, and we have a part to play in God's plan for salvation. Our part is just to accept the truth about ourselves, which means I accept you as part of me and us together as One Self.

Again, remember to bring the idea to any perceived needs, problems or concerns that arise during the day. Whenever you are not at peace, apply the idea to any upsets that come up. Look at any limitations in your mind today. If you are not feeling well, recognize suffering is not part of you. This Lesson, when applied, truly offers us reprieve from what we are feeling.

Today, you might want to watch for times when you are missing the practices and deceiving yourself about the other activities and goals you are making more important, recognizing this is resistance. This requires a lot of self-reflection and great honesty. He says the goals we serve with great attention in our lives offer us nothing, while applying these Lessons offer us everything. How much do we buy this? Doing the Lessons diligently can put us on "more solid ground, with firmer footsteps and with stronger faith." (W.RIII.12.3)(ACIM OE W.RIII.13)


Love and blessings, Sarah
huemmert@shaw.ca

PAUSED FOR WEEKEND
XI. The Denial of God 
 
93 The rituals of the god of sickness are strange and very demanding. Joy is never permitted, for depression is the sign of allegiance to him. Depression means that you have foresworn God. Men are afraid of blasphemy, but they do not know what it means. They do not realize that to deny God is to deny their own identity, and in this sense the wages of sin is death. The sense is very literal; denial of life perceives its opposite, as all forms of denial replace what is with what is not. No one can really do this, but that you can think you can and believe you have is beyond dispute.
 
94 Do not forget, however, that to deny God will inevitably result in projection, and you will believe that others, and not yourself, have done this to you. You will receive the message you give because it is the message you want. You may believe that you judge your brothers by the messages they give you, but you have judged them by the message you give to them. Do not attribute your denial of joy to them, or you cannot see the spark in them that could bring joy to you. It is the denial of the spark that brings depression, and whenever you see your brothers without it, you are denying God.
 
95 Allegiance to the denial of God is the ego's religion. The god of sickness obviously demands the denial of health, because health is in direct opposition to its own survival. But consider what this means to you. Unless you are sick, you cannot keep the gods you made, for only in sickness could you possibly want them. Blasphemy, then, is self-destructive, not God-destructive. It means that you are willing not to know yourself in order to be sick. This is the offering which your god demands because, having made him out of your insanity, he is an insane idea. He has many forms, but although he may seem like many different things, he is but one idea-the denial of God.
 
96 Sickness and death entered the mind of God's Son against His Will. The "attack on God" made His Son think he was fatherless, and out of his depression, he made the god of depression. This was his alternative to joy, because he would not accept the fact that, although he was a creator, he had been created. Yet the Son is helpless without the Father, Who alone is his help. We said before that of yourselves you can do nothing, but you are not of yourselves. If you were, what you have made would be true, and you could never escape.
 
97 It is because you did not make yourselves that you need be troubled by nothing. Your gods are nothing because your Father did not create them. You cannot make creators who are unlike your Creator any more than He could have created a Son who was unlike Him. If creation is sharing, it cannot create what is unlike itself. It can share only what it is. Depression is isolation, and so it could not have been created.
 
98 Son of God, you have not sinned, but you have been much mistaken. Yet this can be corrected, and God will help you, knowing that you could not sin against Him. You denied Him because you loved Him, knowing that if you recognized your love for Him, you could not deny Him. Your denial of Him therefore means that you love Him and that you know He loves you. Remember that what you deny, you must have known. And if you accept denial, you can accept its undoing.
 
99 Your Father has not denied you. He does not retaliate, but He does call to you to return. When you think He has not answered your call, you have not answered His. He calls to you from every part of the Sonship because of His love for His Son. If you hear His message, He has answered you, and you will learn of Him if you hear aright. The love of God is in everything He created, for His Son is everywhere. Look with peace upon your brothers, and God will come rushing into your heart in gratitude for your gift to Him.
 
100 Do not look to the god of sickness for healing but only to the God of love, for healing is the acknowledgment of Him. When you acknowledge Him, you will know that He has never ceased to acknowledge you and that in His acknowledgment of you lies your Being. You are not sick, and you cannot die. But you can confuse yourself with things that do. Remember, though, that to do this is blasphemy, for it means that you are looking without love on God and His creation, from which He cannot be separated. Only the eternal can be loved, for love does not die. What is of God is His forever, and you are of God. Would He allow Himself to suffer? And would He offer His Son anything that is not acceptable to Him?
 
101 If you will accept yourself as God created you, you will be incapable of suffering. Yet to do this, you must acknowledge Him as your Creator. This is not because you will be punished otherwise. It is merely because your acknowledgment of your Father is the acknowledgment of yourself as you are. Your Father created you wholly without sin, wholly without pain, and wholly without suffering of any kind. If you deny Him, you bring sin, pain, and suffering into your own mind because of the power He gave it. Your mind is capable of creating worlds, but it can also deny what it creates because it is free.
 
102 You do not realize how much you have denied yourself, and how much God in His love would not have it so. Yet He would not interfere with you because He would not know His Son if he were not free. To interfere with you would be to attack Himself, and God is not insane. When you denied Him, you were insane. Would you have Him share your insanity? God will never cease to love His Son, and His Son will never cease to love Him. That was the condition of His Son's creation, fixed forever in the Mind of God. To know that is sanity. To deny it is insanity. God gave Himself to you in your creation, and His gifts are eternal. Would you deny yourself to Him?
 
103 Out of your gifts to Him, the Kingdom will be restored to His Son. His Son removed himself from His gift by refusing to accept what had been created for him and what he himself had created in the Name of his Father. Heaven waits for his return, for it was created as the dwelling place of God's Son. You are not at home anywhere else or in any other condition. Do not deny yourself the joy which was created for you for the misery you have made for yourselves. God has given you the means for undoing what you have made. Listen and you will learn what you are.
 
104 If God knows His Children as wholly sinless, it is blasphemous to perceive them as guilty. If God knows His Children as wholly without pain, it is blasphemous to perceive suffering anywhere. If God knows His Children to be wholly joyous, it is blasphemous to feel depressed. All of these illusions and the many other forms which blasphemy may take are refusals to accept creation as it is. If God created His Son perfect, that is how you must learn to see him to learn of his reality. And as part of the Sonship, that is how you must see yourself to learn of yours.
 
105 Do not perceive anything God did not create, or you are denying Him. His is the only Fatherhood, and it is yours only because He has given it to you. Your gifts to yourself are meaningless, but your gifts to your creations are like His because they are given in His Name. That is why your creations are as real as His. Yet the real Fatherhood must be acknowledged if the real Son is to be known. You believe that the sick things which you have made are your real creations because you believe that the sick images you perceive are the Sons of God.
 
106 Only if you accept the Fatherhood of God will you have anything because His fatherhood gave you everything. That is why to deny Him is to deny yourself. Arrogance is the denial of love because love shares and arrogance withholds. As long as both appear to you to be desirable, the concept of choice, which is not of God, will remain with you. While this is not true in eternity, it is true in time, so that while time lasts in your minds, there will be choices. Time itself was your choice.
  
107 If you would remember eternity, you must learn to look only on the eternal. If you allow yourselves to become preoccupied with the temporal, you are living in time. As always, your choice is determined by what you value. Time and eternity cannot both be real because they contradict each other. If you will accept only what is timeless as real, you will begin to understand eternity and make it yours.

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