Working the Text

• Be vigilant for God and His Kingdom.
• The third step (above) is a statement of what I want to believe, and entails a willingness to relinquish everything else.
• The Holy Spirit will enable you to take this step.
• Your vigilance against this sickness (the ego's harsh voice) is the way to heal it.

Many people who read A Course in Miracles, do not really understand it. Some give up. Some turn to published commentaries. I just go slow and contemplate deeply. When I don't understand, I talk to Jesus and wait patiently. The understanding comes. I don't read other people's opinions because then that would be a filter or overlay between me and what Jesus is trying to say to me. ACIM is about a divine relationship and allowing the Holy Spirit to shape and change me.

Many people who attempt ACIM work the workbook. Me too. But, right now, I am working the text. I have never heard anyone say they were working the text; doing homework exercises from the text. There are many places in the text where something needs to be learned. Just reading it and moving on won't teach that thing to you. In chapter six, there are three steps. How many people pause long enough to study these steps and take them?

The first step is: To have, give all to all. Quite frankly, when I read this, I only had a materialistic understanding of this and giving away my stuff isn't exactly what I plan to do. Even giving away my time isn't going to happen. But the text says we won't understand what is meant by this step. We need only turn toward it. So, I prayed and meditated and wrote down my fears. I asked for help from Jesus.

I had two people situations yesterday that left my ego complaining about theses people. How dare she assume that about me; or how dare she send me these chain e-mails. In the evening, as I sat down with ACIM, to read a little and meditate, the thought struck me: I don't have to be negative. I was suddenly in the spiritual sunlight and free from my ego's jail of opinions about what others do. Having accepted this sudden perception shift (miracle), I realized that as I didn't think anything negative (ego thought attack) about these other people, they were free too. I had given them freedom by giving up my negative thinking.

To have freedom, I gave freedom. "To have, give all to all." This experience is how the Holy Spirit taught me the meaning of the first step.