Day 15
4. WHAT ARE THE CHARACTERISTICS OF GOD’S TEACHERS?
1 The surface traits of God’s teachers are not at all alike. They do not look alike to the body’s eyes, they come from vastly different backgrounds, their experiences of the world vary greatly, and their superficial “personalities” are quite distinct. Nor, at the beginning stages of their functioning as teachers of God, have they as yet acquired the deeper characteristics that will establish them as what they are. God gives special gifts to His teachers, because they have a special role in His plan for Atonement. Their specialness is, of course, only temporary; set in time as a means of leading out of time. These special gifts, born in the holy relationship toward which the teaching-learning situation is geared, become characteristic of all teachers of God who have advanced in their own learning. In this respect they are all alike.
Jesus says God’s teachers don’t look alike and that their personalities are distinct. That caught my attention because when I first started studying the Course I thought His teachers would be perfect in their outward appearance. I don’t mean looks of course, but I thought they would act like they were already awake, and it was confusing for me when that didn’t happen. In fact, it seems that many of them have lots of personality flaws.
I had to learn to not confuse the messenger with the message, and of course it was an opportunity to practice forgiveness and look at my desire to judge. I would not be able to take my place among the teachers of God until I let go of this mistaken belief because I would never live up to my standards and so would never feel worthy.
The special gifts Jesus speaks of would be things like the ability to channel and to scribe such as Helen did and Regina does. Maybe the ability to write like I do. I have always had the desire to write but every time I tried to do that it would be just awful. I decided to just settle for being a reader. Then one day I felt a strong desire to write an article for Unity Magazine. I knew I couldn’t write, but I felt such a strong desire to share that I asked God to help me. The story just flowed from me and it was published.
I think that was the first time I listened to the Holy Spirit and wrote down what I was given. I had no idea that this is what happened and had never heard of such a thing. Afterwards, I was so impressed with my writing I tried to write a fictional story. It was as awful as before. I didn’t understand it but assumed it was a one time shot and forgot about writing for a long time.
The next time I wrote was for Pathways of Light and I did it because I felt I was supposed to, and I knew that it should be my personal story and completely open and honest. Since up until that time I had always been reluctant to share on a personal level I was very surprised by what I wrote, but never questioned it.
I always began the writing by asking Holy Spirit to guide my words and I’ve been writing like this ever since. I now simply accept that the writing doesn’t come from me, but through me. I know that the Myron personality is not responsible and gets none of the credit. In fact that part is funny. The ego self wants to grab all the credit and be a famous Course writer and have everyone be amazed at her accomplishments.
Then she is afraid and feels like stepping back and pretending to barely exist, so as not to draw attention to herself. She thinks that she will fail and everyone will know what a fake she is. It is so typical ego it is funny. But in this one area of my life I hear the ego and am completely clear that it is just the ego and meaningless. I am simply following directions; my only part is to not get in the way. Sometimes I do that part well, and sometimes not. It doesn’t matter. The Holy Spirit works around all that stuff.
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