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Gentle Healing Lesson 178, Text, Manual for Teachers. 12-17-19

LESSON 179

God is but Love, and therefore so am I.

1 (167) There is one life, and that I share with God.

God is but Love, and therefore so am I.

2 (168) Your grace is given me. I claim it now.

God is but Love, and therefore so am I.

My heart goes to the idea of grace. I looked up the meaning in Kenneth Wapnicks glossary. It says this:

Our natural state as spirit, awareness of which returns to us when we complete our lessons of forgiveness; an aspect of God’s Love in this world, past learning for it cannot be taught, but the goal of learning, for all lessons point to its love.

I then looked in the Course itself for meaning.

Grace as it applies to the Atonement

The lamb “taketh away the sins of the world” in the sense that the state of innocence, or grace, is one in which the meaning of the Atonement is perfectly apparent. T-3.I.6

And so, in this reference to grace we are told that the state of innocence is synonymous with grace, and it is our state of innocence (grace) that undoes the idea of sin.

Grace as it applies to forgiveness

The grace of God rests gently on forgiving eyes, and everything they look on speaks of Him to the beholder. T-25. VI.1

This seems to say to me that it is grace that we are able to see with forgiving eyes, grace that speaks of God to the one who looks with forgiving eyes.

Grace as it applies to healing

Grace is not given to a body, but to a mind. And the mind that receives it looks instantly beyond the body, and sees the holy place where it was healed. There is the altar where the grace was given, in which it stands. Do you, then, offer grace and blessing to your brother, for you stand at the same altar where grace was laid for both of you. And be you healed by grace together, that you may heal through faith. T-19. I.13

First, we are to understand that grace is given to heal the mind, not the body. It then tells us that the mind that receives it looks instantly beyond the body. I have noticed that since I stopped asking for the healing of the body, and instead asked for healing of the mind which is the source of either sickness or health, that usually, the healing of the body occurred fairly quickly. That makes sense because if you heal the source you can expect the manifestation to change. Sometimes that does not happen and I think it is probably because of circumstances within the script of which we are not aware. But while we are experiencing the body it seems to matter to us a great deal, in reality, what matters is the healing of the mind.

The next thing we are told about grace in reference to healing is that it is our function here to offer grace to our brother. It is emphasized that we are healed by grace and that this is done together with our brother. Further, he says that healing through grace, we are healed through faith.

Those who are healed become the instruments of healing. Nor does time elapse between the instant they are healed, and all the grace of healing it is given them to give. L 137. 11

Again, we see that healing is by grace, and it is emphasized that it is to be given by those who receive.

Grace and the holy instant

And now we ask for grace, the final gift salvation can bestow. Experience that grace provides will end in time, for grace foreshadows Heaven, yet does not replace the thought of time but for a little while. Lesson 169. 12-14

Grace, like the Atonement and miracles are only useful to us while we are still in time. Once grace has blessed us and we are released, it will no longer exist. Jesus says it is the final gift salvation can bestow.

Here is a way I see grace in my life. I had to tell someone something they didn’t want to hear. I felt uneasy long after the situation was resolved. This is not a one-off. I often have this reaction even on things that hardly matter. So, what I needed was a holy instant. I asked for grace to see this differently, not just this one situation, but the idea of fear of confrontation so that no situation causes this for me again.

I sat in silence waiting to see what came up. I was shown my fear of rejection, abandonment, and unworthiness and how that was causing the distress I always feel in any situation that is even a little confrontational. I have already moved past acting on these feelings, but I want to be free of them all together so I asked for more.

I was shown how this is just a repetition of the moment of separation in which I told myself that God had rejected me and abandoned me because my desire for a different experience made me unworthy. I was shown, again (because this is not the first time) how everything here in time is just that one moment repeating over and over in different ways so that we can decide each time whether we want to keep doing this or release those foolish thoughts.

Now that I see the situation clearly and understand why it is happening, and now that I have fully experienced the distress of believing these ideas, I am ready to receive the grace of forgiveness in this holy instant. I can’t think about it past this because thought has nothing to do with grace or healing. I have nothing to do with this part.

There are many other ways in which grace shows up and many ways it applies to our lives. I have to stop now but I am going to continue to look at grace as I am able. This was a profitable use of my time.

Manual for Teachers
3. WHAT ARE THE LEVELS OF TEACHING? P 4
4 Each teaching-learning situation is maximal in the sense that each person involved will learn the most that he can from the other person at that time. In this sense, and in this sense only, we can speak of levels of teaching. Using the term in this way, the second level of teaching is a more sustained relationship, in which, for a time, two people enter into a fairly intense teaching-learning situation and then appear to separate. As with the first level, these meetings are not accidental, nor is what appears to be the end of the relationship a real end. Again, each has learned the most he can at the time. Yet all who meet will someday meet again, for it is the destiny of all relationships to become holy. God is not mistaken in His Son.

A lot has changed for me since I first wrote about this paragraph, but I am keeping it the same as before because it is a good example of what Jesus is talking about here. Since I wrote it, all these past relationships have been healed.

Hah! Two people enter into a fairly intense teaching-learning situation and then appear to separate. That sounds exactly like my marriages. I was Catholic at the time of my first divorce. The priest said I would no longer be allowed to teach Catechism or receive the sacraments. I was very angry with God for about a year, but I’ve since forgiven Him. ~smile~

I experienced a lot of shame at not being able to sustain a marriage relationship and a lot of guilt. But Jesus tells us here that the relationships we have are deliberate. We don’t just form relationships accidentally and we get as much from the relationship as we are both able to at the time. That is a very comforting thing for me to know. Divorce was not a sin or even a failure. We learned what we could and then we separated, which when put like that, makes perfect sense. Why would we remain together if there was nothing else for us to gain from the relationship?

Jesus also tells us that all relationships are destined to become holy, so these aborted relationships will be fulfilled at some time. A part of my mind is relieved at this. I am here to save the world through forgiveness, and it would be disturbing to think I passed up a chance to do so and now it is too late. But another part of my mind holds the memories of all that went wrong in these relationships and really doesn’t want to go there again.  Holy Spirit, could you speak to me about this?

Holy Spirit: The memories you speak of are the memories of your judgments of what happened. As your mind is healed, the judgments and the desire to judge will fall away, and so will the pain and suffering. Your experience of the situation will be very different, indeed, as you see the one before you as he is rather than as you have thought you needed him to be. You have had some experience with this already, have you not?

Me: Yes, actually I have. I have seen the anger fall away as I forgave my last husband for all I thought he was guilty. I was surprised, too, that as I forgave myself for the mistakes I thought I made, it was simple to forgive him. It seemed a lot of the anger I directed towards him was just the projection of my guilt onto him. When I forgave myself, I didn’t need him to be guilty.

Oh, I see. That is what you mean when you say the experience will be very different when I see him as he is rather than as I thought I needed him to be. I still don’t want to return to that relationship, and there are others that I dread the thought of returning to.

Holy Spirit: Yes, these are the parts of the relationships that remain unforgiven, or to say it differently, that you are still judging. Continue the work you are doing now as you practice forgiveness. When you next meet your brother you will welcome him with a loving heart unburdened by judgment.

Me: This is hard for me to imagine in some cases, but I know this is just a measure of my desire to judge, and judgment is the cause of my fear, not the actual situation or person. I will gladly continue my practice.

Text
XI. Christmas as the End of Sacrifice P 6
T-15.XI.6. So is it that, in all your seeking for love, you seek for sacrifice and find it. 2 Yet you find not love. 3 It is impossible to deny what love is and still recognize it. 4 The meaning of love lies in what you have cast outside yourself, and it has no meaning apart from you. 5 It is what you prefer to keep that has no meaning, while all that you would keep away holds all the meaning of the universe, and holds the universe together in its meaning. 6 Unless the universe were joined in you it would be apart from God, and to be without Him is to be without meaning.

Journal
Everyone wants love but instead of love what we find is sacrifice. This is because we don’t understand love. We think it is about compromise and bargains and loss. Some people become so discouraged that they give up on love thinking love is the problem when it is their thoughts that are causing them distress.

Love is so very different than what we have thought it was. Love is God and God is all there is. Love is what we are and what everything is because nothing is outside of God and that means nothing is outside Love. It is the meaning of the universe and what holds the universe together.

This sentence gave me pause: 6 Unless the universe were joined in you it would be apart from God, and to be without Him is to be without meaning. We are joined with each other and with the universe. Have you ever thought of that? I wonder if the universe as referred to here is different than we see it. Is the universe a collection of planets and stars and moons etc. as we think of it, or is it simply infinite potential that Love forms in whatever way it wants to?

The universe is definitely something and it is joined in us and in God (Love) because otherwise, it would be meaningless, and this tells us that we are in God and so we are meaningful. The next time you think that you are less than keep this in mind. You are in God and nothing in God is less than. You are Love Itself and so you can never be less than. When you think you are without love, remember that you can never be unlovable and can never be outside love. The universe is in you. You are magnificent. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8g4d-rnhuSg

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