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Study of Text, Chapter10: III. The God of Sickness, P 7. 6-9-15

III. The God of Sickness, P 7
7 When a brother is sick it is because he is not asking for peace, and therefore does not know he has it. The acceptance of peace is the denial of illusion, and sickness is an illusion. Yet every Son of God has the power to deny illusions anywhere in the Kingdom, merely by denying them completely in himself. I can heal you because I know you. I know your value for you, and it is this value that makes you whole. A whole mind is not idolatrous, and does not know of conflicting laws. I will heal you merely because I have only one message, and it is true. Your faith in it will make you whole when you have faith in me.

Journal
I have been sick in body as well as spirit, which makes absolute sense. What I believe is projected outward and outward includes the body I identify with.  Jesus says elsewhere in the Course that if we use the body only for communication (communicating love) it will be perfectly healthy. There are times when I still choose fear or anger over peace, and it is this choice that comes from a sick mind, which is then projected onto the body causing it to appear sick.

While tests were being done, they threw in a thyroid test. It showed a bit high and I thought that maybe that explains why I have had so much trouble with my weight lately. I normally can lose weight as easily as I gain it, but that hasn’t been true in the past few months. So I thought it would be nice to get a pill and fix this problem. Then I laughed at myself. Does my body need to be repaired, or does my mind need to be healed?

If there is a thyroid problem then it came from an unhealed mind. This is the cure, this mind healing. A pill is just a temporary magical solution to a magical problem. When I get too involved in the medical community, I can temporarily lose my perspective. I began to think the body is what needs to be healed when really it is the mind that needs healing.

I am asking my dear brother right now to heal me in all ways, my sick mind, which when healed, will also reflect as a healed body. I ask that I be healed and that in my healing, I can heal others with my renewed faith. The outward appearance of the sickness in the mind is simply reflective of our belief that we have somehow damaged ourselves and God in our decision to play around with separation. It is not true and could never be true. This belief is ultimately what needs correction. Everything else will follow.

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Study of Text, Chapter10: III. The God of Sickness, P 6. 6-8-15

III. The God of Sickness, P 6
6 There are no idolaters in the Kingdom, but there is great appreciation for everything that God created, because of the calm knowledge that each one is part of Him. God’s Son knows no idols, but he does know his Father. Health in this world is the counterpart of value in Heaven. It is not my merit that I contribute to you but my love, for you do not value yourself. When you do not value yourself you become sick, but my value of you can heal you, because the value of God’s Son is one. When I said, “My peace I give unto you,” I meant it. Peace comes from God through me to you. It is for you although you may not ask for it.

Journal

In Heaven there is great appreciation for everything God created, and this is because it is known that each one is part of Him. I want to remember this even here, and I think I can. I think this must be what I am to do here now. Can I appreciate everyone I meet, not because of how they look, or how they act, but because they are part of God? Can I have the calm knowledge that this is true?

I do not value myself so it is hard to value everyone else. I don’t always accept that I am part of He Who created me, and so I don’t always know my value. But Jesus does know this and knows it for me. He gives me his peace. I need only accept it. I am amazed at myself sometimes, that I seem so unwilling to accept this gift so freely given. The peace of God is all I want … until I want something else.

I was experiencing some physical challenges recently and I got very caught up in body beliefs. Untangling completely from these beliefs took a couple of days. Each time I returned my mind to God, I could feel the ego mind calling me back, telling me that the body needed my attention and that this is real and serious. Saying that I dared not turn away.

But in the turning away I felt such relief, like a great weight being lifted from my shoulders. This morning it happened again. I could feel the little tug of war returning to my mind as I looked first to the ego and then to God. This morning’s lesson riveted my attention on God. It brought the truth fully to mind, and felt tears of relief slide down my face.

Again, after a few minutes I could feel the ego try to call me back, planting little doubts and fears in my mind. I am not so interested now, but I do find it interesting to watch the ego at work. With some detachment now, I can see how sly the mind can be when it wants to plant an idea that will take root and yield a tangled garden of weeds to block my vision of the beauty that was there only a moment before.

The more clearly I see the ego manipulations the less I am fooled by them. I want the peace of God, and the peace of God is all I want. I don’t have to do anything for this because Jesus offers it to me. Peace comes from God, through Jesus, and to me, and all I need do is accept it. I open my heart and I receive, I give what I received, and then I know it is mine. That is the way salvation works.

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Study of Text, Chapter10: III. The God of Sickness, P 5. 6-4-15

III. The God of Sickness, P 5

5 Look calmly at the logical conclusion of the ego’s thought system and judge whether its offering is really what you want, for this is what it offers you. To obtain this you are willing to attack the Divinity of your brothers, and thus lose sight of yours. And you are willing to keep it hidden, to protect an idol you think will save you from the dangers for which it stands, but which do not exist.

Journal
I wonder how I could have ever thought of the body as my salvation. It is such a frail and weak thing, subject to sickness, and every kind of suffering and finally and inevitably to death. And yet, given to the Holy Spirit for His use and never used by ego to defend and attack, it is a useful tool for as long as I need it. I was thinking of how I am to use the body and especially how I am not to use it. This weekend, I joined with several of my dear brothers and sisters to share in our love of God. Our words represented true communication because all we said was said in love.

On the other hand, I have experienced a lot of conflict at work lately. I have been aware of divisive thoughts in my mind, and even in my words. This is an example of using the body to attack my brother’s Divinity. I thought I was protecting this body as I protected my source of income, which I use to clothe and feed and take care of this body. I was protecting this small self, as I defended its position in the hierarchy of the company. In defense of this self, I attacked. I saw my brother as smaller than me, less important than me, and all of us as less than Divine.

This weekend I have been joyful. When I was defensive at work, I was anxious and unhappy. Each of these effects witnessed to the thought system from which I was operating. It is my choice, a decision I must make. With which mind will I think? Will I give this body over to the use of the Holy Spirit or to the use of the ego? It is a choice between joy and pain, between Heaven and hell. What I have seen is that if I remember my brother’s Divinity, it is easy to look past his ego actions and words and see the Light of his being. I can remember his Divinity. Maybe I should write it on my hand as a reminder, just to be sure. ~smile~

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Study of Text, Chapter10: III. The God of Sickness, P 4. 5-28-15

III. The God of Sickness, P 4
4 To believe a Son of God is sick is to worship the same idol he does. God created love, not idolatry. All forms of idolatry are caricatures of creation, taught by sick minds too divided to know that creation shares power and never usurps it. Sickness is idolatry, because it is the belief that power can be taken from you. Yet this is impossible, because you are part of God, Who is all power. A sick god must be an idol, made in the image of what its maker thinks he is. And that is exactly what the ego does perceive in a Son of God; a sick god, self-created, self-sufficient, very vicious and very vulnerable. Is this the idol you would worship? Is this the image you would be vigilant to save? Are you really afraid of losing this?

Journal
I have made a lot of progress toward accepting that the world is not real, that my life as I am experiencing it is not really my life, and that everything I see, everything I experience through my senses is an image I have made, including the body that experiences it.  I am spirit, awareness, mind, whatever name I choose to give it. I am part of God, in God, and that is as far as I can go with it without feeling a little anxious.

Yes, I say I am the Son of God and I know this must be true for any of the rest of it to be true.  But if I am in God, if He created me as an extension of Himself and like Him, then I am a God, too. Oh my, that is just too strange for me to say. I feel like I must say this, and yet I feel like apologizing for saying it. I don’t know if I am ready to step into that, yet.

God created me to be like Him and so I must be, but I just have trouble with completely embracing this thought. Well, of course I do. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be running around her pretending I am an aging body, moving relentlessly toward death. If I believed, no, let me rephrase that, if I knew what I was, I would know that all others are part of the same God Mind and I would treat them as if they are Divine as well.

Maybe that is why I choose sickness and other forms of suffering. Maybe I am too afraid to be what I am and so I deliberately choose to be small in every way I can. I have been stepping out of that self-created image I made of myself, and I am writing about this so maybe I am closer to accepting my own Divinity than I think. But writing this helps me to see how resistant I am still, and that I am afraid to re-claim my true Self. This helps me to understand why it is that I am constantly, moment by moment, sustaining this false image of self.

Jesus is helping me, in this paragraph, to see that what I am doing is a form of idolatry. I have chosen an image of a sick god to represent me. That has to be the most ridiculous and clearly insane choice of all. And yet, here I am, worshiping this frail, weak, and very vulnerable image of my self, and sickness, in all its forms, is a most effective defense against what God made me to be. As Jesus intimates… really? That’s what I want to protect?

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Study of Text, Chapter10: III. The God of Sickness, P 3. 5-27-15

III. The God of Sickness, P 3
3 To believe that a Son of God can be sick is to believe that part of God can suffer. Love cannot suffer, because it cannot attack. The remembrance of love therefore brings invulnerability with it. Do not side with sickness in the presence of a Son of God even if he believes in it, for your acceptance of God in him acknowledges the Love of God he has forgotten. Your recognition of him as part of God reminds him of the truth about himself, which he is denying. Would you strengthen his denial of God and thus lose sight of yourself? Or would you remind him of his wholeness and remember your Creator with him?

Journal
When Jesus talks about sickness he means that the mind is confused to the point that we do not know who we are. This is reflected in our lives as stories of suffering. We experience ourselves in lack, we suffer loss, our bodies become ill or injured, our relationships cause us pain. It doesn’t matter what form suffering takes, the cause is the same. We have chosen to see ourselves as if we could be outside Love.

In this paragraph Jesus is explaining to us that the remembrance of love will bring invulnerability with it. As I remember who I am, I suffer less. I have less sickness and my relationships are more loving and less conflicted. I am at peace far more than I am in fear. He also is reminding us that it is our function to remember the truth for everyone. I do this very well most of the time. A confused brother is in my presence and I see through his confusion to the truth about him. I know he is not his suffering. I know that he is the love in which he was created.

But I don’t see clearly all the time. Sometimes I am triggered by someone else’s confusion. This happens when I am confused about the same thing, and actually, when this happens it can be helpful to me. Sometimes I am surprised by my reaction because I didn’t realize that this was a problem for me. In that moment I can ask for healing of my mind, which is also healing of my brother’s mind.

It can be difficult for me when the one suffering is very close to me, such as when it is one of my children. I might find myself suffering with him or her. I used to think this was love, but now I understand that it is not loving to strengthen someone’s denial of God. It certainly doesn’t help either one of us. Again, I have another option. I can use this moment to ask for healing. Jesus tells us that it does not matter where in the Sonship healing occurs, because we share one mind. As I am healed so is everyone else, including my sick child.

How do I remind someone of his wholeness? Sometimes, if it is appropriate, I use words. At other times words would not be helpful. I can simply listen without judgment, waiting for the Holy Spirit to guide me to do what is needed. Regardless of what is said or not said, love is the intention, and so sometimes all I need to do for someone is love them. And always, whether this is expressed out loud or not, I know for them who they are.

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Study of Text, Chapter10: III. The God of Sickness, P 2. 5-26-15

Chapter 10: III. The God of Sickness, P 2
What Comforter can there be for the sick children of God except His power through you? Remember that it does not matter where in the Sonship He is accepted. He is always accepted for all, and when your mind receives Him the remembrance of Him awakens throughout the Sonship. Heal your brothers simply by accepting God for them. Your minds are not separate, and God has only one channel for healing because He has but one Son. God’s remaining Communication Link with all His children joins them together, and them to Him. To be aware of this is to heal them because it is the awareness that no one is separate, and so no one is sick.

Journal
Oh, dear Jesus, brother of mine, please help me to understand and fully accept what you are saying here. I am to awaken the Sonship. This is my purpose. I understand that it is everyone’s purpose because we are all one. But from where I see myself, it is my purpose. This is not hard to do and not more than I can do. It is simple, really.

I have already accepted as deeply as I can right now that I am God’s child, and that I share His Will. I live this as much as I am able. While I live this, I have no trouble knowing my brother is also part of this Sonship. No matter what seems to be happening in their lives, no matter how confused they might be in any moment, in my right mind I know who they are.  What I know they know, because we share the same mind.

I ran into someone from the office yesterday while shopping. There used to be animosity between us. Recently there has been a lot of conflict and she is in the center of it.  But when I saw her, I felt only loving affection for her. No matter what she does, no matter how she feels about me, I know who she is.  The ego mind keeps warning me that she is not trustworthy and brings up past behavior. That in no way changes who she is and I am so happy that I can be the channel for God’s healing power.

And if I forget, if I get caught in the ego web of deception and fail to be that channel, I will change my mind. I will change from using the ego mind to judge the situation and her part in it, to using the God Mind to see that there is only God and His Son is in that Mind. No one is separate from God and in God there is only Innocence. This is the way I save the world. I feel overcome with gratitude that this is so. I begin to understand what Jesus has told us, that every encounter is a holy encounter.

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Study of Text, Chapter10: III. The God of Sickness, P 1. 5-22-15

III. The God of Sickness
1 You have not attacked God and you do love Him. Can you change your reality? No one can will to destroy himself. When you think you are attacking yourself, it is a sure sign that you hate what you think you are. And this, and only this, can be attacked by you. What you think you are can be very hateful, and what this strange image makes you do can be very destructive. Yet the destruction is no more real than the image, although those who make idols do worship them. The idols are nothing, but their worshippers are the Sons of God in sickness. God would have them released from their sickness and returned to His Mind. He will not limit your power to help them, because He has given it to you. Do not be afraid of it, because it is your salvation.

Journal
What a relief to read the first sentence. I have not attacked God and I do love Him. The belief that this is not true is the reason I am still dreaming, and since it is time I woke up, I am glad to know that I am innocent, that I do want to return to my Father, and that it is safe to do so.

The next reassurance I get from this paragraph is that I am not really attacking myself even though it seems like I am. I am actually only attacking what I believe about my self, what I think I am. This body and this personality that I call Myron and think of as my self is not really who I am. Jesus says that this strange image I have made of myself can feel very hateful and destructive. Yet the destruction is no more real than the image I have made and called my self.

As I read these paragraphs I feel guilt fall away. I am remembering a sentence in the Course where Jesus reassures us that the ego does sin, but we are not the ego. He is giving this same reassurance now.  All those times when I acted selfishly and all the times when I failed to be the person I wanted to be, are not of consequence. They are important only as they allow me to see what belief in my mind needs to be released to the Holy Spirit.

Here is something interesting. Jesus refers to the images we made as idols and says that when we make idols we worship them. So this little self I made, the body and its personality and the whole story I made around it, is my idol. I am attached to it because I made it and I worship it. That sounds very strange.  Thinking about it, though, I suppose I do.

I’m thinking about how I spend money on this body to decorate it, to make it attractive to other bodies. I spend time, money and energy to make it stronger and healthier. I take it to the doctor every year to forestall any possible problems. I defend it from other people, from outside influences of every kind. I worry about it and care for it like it was something precious and of the utmost value. I treasure it above all other bodies. It is my special idol.

Jesus says this is sick behavior and that God would have me released from this sickness and returned to His Mind. Is this a sickness, this worshipping of the body? We think of it as normal and even commendable to take care of the body, though we see it as sickness if taken too far. But when I think about what the body really is, that it is just an image that I made and projected outward so I could pretend to be separate from God and separate from my holy Self, then I understand what Jesus means.

It is a sickness to worship something that doesn’t actually exist, that isn’t real. Even in the world and in time, it is a fleeting image, a frail and pathetic thing that begins the process of dying the moment we bring it into existence. It is not what we are and what we are is not in the least affected by what happens to this image we made. Is it something to be worshipped, this imaginary thing? Is it something so important that we would trade it for eternal bliss?

God would have us be freed from this strange idolatry and returned to His Mind Which is our true Home. He has given us the power to do this, to return the Son of God to His Father. We are told that we should not be afraid of this power. I had an experience as I was reading something in the Course that put me, just briefly, into that flow of power. It scared me. I felt myself contract away from it. I realized I was afraid of that responsibility.

I was surprised by my reaction, but it is evidently common and expected, so much so, that Jesus is addressing it here. I suppose that our misuse of that power and the unexpected and unfortunate results have left us power shy. But God gave us the power to save ourselves and so it is ours to use. God would no more give us something harmful than you would give your child sharp objects to play with. I am ready to embrace this power and I open my heart to healing. I release the fear I felt at the thought of doing so. I release it to the Holy Spirit to be removed from my mind.

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