ACIM Workbook Lesson 7 – for Friday, January 7, 2011
Affirmation: “I see only the past.”
Selected Passage:
“Old ideas about time are very difficult to change, because everything you believe is rooted in time, and depends on your not learning these new ideas about it. Yet that is precisely why you need new ideas about time. This first time idea is not really as strange as it may sound at first. (WB11)”
Reflections:
1 – Incapable of Living Only in the Present
We are, at this point, totally incapable of living only in the present. We will become better at present-living experience as we progress in ACIM. Our minds constantly rehash what has happened before, and how can this lead to progress when our minds have been insane (a tenet of ACIM)?
2 – Strange Lessons
These first lessons do appear strange to the uninitiated to ACIM. But, as we live with the ideas, we come to understand, and we learn that the world is really a welcoming place when the mind is at peace.
3 – Finding Peace
And that is what we are trying to become–peaceful, having a mind filled with peace. Elsewhere in ACIM we are told that the aim is to be “perfectly calm and quiet” all the time. At this point in our ACIM training, we might not welcome this idea. We might think it too non-dramatic to lead a satisfying life. But as we learn more, we will be happy for the peace that “perfectly calm and quiet” brings. We will not regret the learning that we are assimilating.
Prayer:
Dear Father/Mother,
May I live a day today in which I do not seek the past in the present. The past has overshadowed my life for my entire lifetime. Let this dynamic end today.
I would be perfectly calm and quiet today. I would have peace of mind. Neither of these two sentences can come true with Your guidance. I ask for Your guidance today, to make of this day a memorable one that will presage better days ahead.
Amen.
