ACIM Astonishment

I am astonished because: I seem to understand something.

From the ACIM Text 29.II:

• Your Guest has come. You asked Him, and He came. You did not hear Him enter, for you did not wholly welcome Him. And yet His gifts came with Him. He has laid them at your feet, and asks you now that you will look on them and take them for your own....
• He Who entered in but waits for you to come where you invited Him to be. There is no other place where He can find His host, nor where His host can meet with Him. And nowhere else His gifts of peace and joy, and all the happiness His Presence brings, can be obtained. For they are where He is Who brought them with Him, that they might be yours. You cannot see your Guest, but you can see the gifts He brought. And when you look on them, you will believe His Presence must be there.

My astonishment is that I realized that if I see joy in someone else, I am seeing Him and His gift of joy smiling at me. This smiling is how He gives me His gifts, even with His hands stretched out offering me to share in the joy that seems to be someone else's. No! Joy doesn't belong to anyone. It is His and theirs and mine and ours. If a miracle is a perspective change, surely, this realization is a miracle for me. If I allow it, then I know Him. I have joined Him and you and everyone. We are not separate as soon as I decide to see Him in what appears to be your joy, but is really Universal Joy.

ACIM is continually pointing out that my brother is my savior. Here is a way for me to see that. If I see Him in anyone's joy, anyone can be my savior. I just remember, joy is a seeing of Him. Seeing Him in joy brings me a step closer to looking beyond the dream of this world and seeing the face of Christ (forgiveness). If I believe seeing joy is seeing Him, then I have seen Christ in my brother.

For realizing this, I do want to fall on my face and thank my brothers who are my saviors. My hate will diminish if I remember this. I will remember it if I want to see Christ, Him, more than I want to hate. You might think the choice is a no brainer, but I seem to be a hate addict and love to find reasons for hating others.

In the text 29.III, it went on to say this:

• Within the dream of bodies and of death is yet one theme of truth; no more, perhaps, than just. a tiny spark, a space of light created in the dark, where God still shines. You cannot wake yourself. Yet you can let yourself be wakened. You can overlook your brother’s dreams. So perfectly can you forgive him his illusions he becomes your saviour from your dreams. And as you see him shining in the space of light where God abides within the darkness, you will see that God Himself is where his body is.

When I talked to Jesus this morning, I fervently knew I wanted to see God; its been my lifelong desire. So Jesus answered me today by pointing out how I can see God and see Him all the time and at the same time overlook (forgive) my hateful projections called this world.

This morning, it was very cold, so I decided to attend a fellowship meeting before going running. This gave a person at the meeting a chance to insult me by saying, "too cold for running?" Sitting here now, I realize I can take the remark however I want. I can find a messenger of God in it and hence I see the face of Christ in the person who said it. Another person said they thought I seemed happier today than the last time they saw me. I struggled to see joy in that remark. Then, out of the blue, a man called who I barely know. His new years plan was to call people off a certain phone list and try to get to know them better. I was a lucky winner being near the front of the list. Again I have a choice about what I want to think of this man and his phone call.

Now.....right now....I choose to see God Himself.

I did eventually get out running at 10 am. There was no wind so the zeroF temperature was not a problem. I crunched along a flat levy in a couple of inches of snow, wearing screwed shoes to keep from slipping.