“Now, however, it is crucial that you come to acceptance of yourself–in the present, as you are–for only by doing so will you come to full acceptance of who you are and be able to allow the Self of unity to merge with the self of form, thus elevating the self of form. You will also, only in this way come to true expression of the elevated Self of Form. (A Course of Love: Dialogues, p. 136)”
Affirmation: “May I come to full acceptance of who I am.”
Reflections:
The title for Day Eight, “Accept the Present,” is particularly apt. Virtually everything in the chapter explains this assertion in some way. We need to accept the present of being in normal life as we spend this time on the metaphorical mountain top. We do not need to separate ourselves from our brothers and sisters, for they are the only way to the love that will give us unity with them. We also do not need to separate ourselves from our normal living routines.
We are not called, however, to accept what we do not like. We are not called to any passivity. We are called to total acceptance of our Self. Once we have accepted the Self, sometimes it will take some time for conditions to change, and sometimes conditions change immediately. This is one of our blessings. Change will not come without first having acceptance of our Self.
We should accept our own feelings. Distancing ourselves from our feelings is not only dishonest; it will prevent us from further movement forward. We are called to unity with our brothers and sisters through love. We cannot err when we follow our feelings–for these feelings have now been cleansed. If, however, we have not accepted all that Jesus holds out to us, we must be wary of feelings that take us away from the Self that we want to be, the Self of Christ-consciousness. Then and only then do we need to be wary of following our feelings. (This latter point is an interpretation, not a tenet of ACOL.)
Prayer:
Dear Father/Mother,
Help me to accept myself as I am, knowing that You do. I chastise myself so often, and I think so often that I am not worthy. Jesus would have me to drop these thoughts and the actions that result from them. I am not perfect, but I must accept that You accept me as I am.
If there are things about myself that need to be changed, please give me the grace to change easily. I understand that I have made real progress, and that the elevated Self of form is something that I can attain. I am apt to forget this. Help me to remember this. And thank You for the blessing of the Christ-consciousness that You hold out to me.
Amen.
ACIM Workbook Lesson for Day 101:
God’s Will for me is perfect happiness.
MIRACLES EACH DAY 
As we reflect on accepting the present, I wonder if it might be helpful to suggest looking at feelings that we label fear.
As seems to always happen when I re-read this Course, and The Dialogues particularly, I start seeing and feeling the messages demonstrated in my life. A friend who is reading along with me has mentioned this as well, and as part of our conversation about it, and life in general, we began talking about fear.
Later in the day I spoke with another friend who was calling herself fearful. I asked, “Is that really what you’re feeling?”
Like the word “ego” I’d love to see the word “fear” taken out of our vocabulary. If we’ve accepted that we have no cause for fear, couldn’t it be that things we label fear are not actually that? Maybe we feel that something is unjust, or that someone is deceiving us, or sometimes it is that we feel hesitant, or unsure which way to turn. And sometimes, the very things we call fear, are those that arise when we’re in the midst of change and being drawn in a new direction. There is no suggestion here, or from me, that any feelings be denied, only that we might look at some of them newly.
Jesus says that acceptance must come first. The use of words like “ego” and “fear” have become, in some useages, judgments on ourselves and others. One of my favorite passages from this day is when Jesus says that if we are intolerant of ourselves, we’ll continue to be intolerant of others. We can still have problems or things to work through without looking at them fearfully.
It seems only natural that as we move more and more fully into a reality of love, that we accept the end of the reality of fear. We may remember fears of the past and identify with them again when in a similar situation, but it can’t hurt, anyway, to stop and ask ourselves if the feeling, in the present, is still one of fear. What a lovely surprise if it is not! What a feeling of newness and freedom.
These three days we’re in now, of Acceptance, Freedom, and Power, always feel like a 1-2-3 wallop to me. Very powerful indeed.
Dear Mari,
I frequently feel fear in the form of stress. In fact, I learned shortly after I got married almost 24 years ago that I never get angry unless I am stressed. I still do feel stress from time to time, even in retirement, but I don’t think (as you indicate) that fear is a constant companion any longer.
I wonder if “A Course in Miracles” wrought this miracle in me. I know that my days of fear or stress are lessened when I am often in prayer. Prayer is not stressed a great deal, though Jesus prayed often in the Gospels, and maybe he simply assumes it in “A Course in Miracles” and “A Course of Love.”
I still read Norman Vincent Peale, who died in his nineties in the 1990s. He was a powerful teacher of God, though he would perhaps not have recognized how a reader of his books would embrace New Age thinking as I have. Norman advocates prayer in a practical sense, making Christianity something that works in our everyday life.
The latter concept–Christianity working in our everyday life–seems to me to be what Jesus is getting across in the Dialogues.
As always, Mari, thanks for sharing.
Fondly, Celia