The Great Rays / Little Edges of Light

ACIM Workbook Lesson 208 – for Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Affirmation:  “I am not a body.  I am free.  For I am still as God created me.”

“The peace of God is shining in me now.  (WB391)”

Reflections:

The passage selected for today is a reason to pause and be thankful.  If we can feel the peace of God shining in us, we can walk a glorious pathway today.  Let us open our hearts to gratitude and accept all that God holds out for us.  We will not be disappointed.

There are a number of instances, early in the Text, in which Jesus explains “light” moments.  Notably these are the Great Rays and the tiny edges of light that surround objects when we have newly found the Way.  Why “light” experiences?  I think that the answer lies in the New Testament, where we are told that we are the light of the world.  The Great Rays beam down upon us when we have accepted the pathway of A Course in Miracles, and this experience, mystical that it is, can be frightening.  The little edges of light  around objects is a perceptual experience, a miracle, and will not last.  We ought not to be afraid of it.  It is simply a harbinger of better things to come.

Little more is said about light in A Course in Miracles about either the Great Rays or the edges of light around familiar objects.  Why not?  Likely it is because we are not to place great emphasis on this type of miracle.  Displays of miracles are not Jesus’s way.  He causes shifts in our perception, which are the real miracles.  When these shifts happen, we have an “aha” moment, but we do not dwell on it.  There are no coincidences in salvation (a Manual tenet), and we will find our way to home by following the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

Thank You for the time that I experienced the Great Rays.  Thank You also for the earlier time in which I experienced the little edges of light around familiar objects.  Neither of these experiences lasted, but I understand that the miracles that they were would not last, were not meant to last.  The experience, the memory of the experience, has stayed with me.  For that I thank You.

May I walk through this day attuned to the miracle readiness of my brothers and sisters.  May I perform a miracle, if Jesus would have it so.  I ask that he guide me in what I do in regard to the miracles that he wants performed.

Amen.