Your Worth Is Not Established by Teaching or Learning

“Your worth is not established by teaching or learning.  Your worth is established by God. . . .Again,–nothing you do or think or wish or make is necessary to establish your worth.  This point is not debatable except in delusions  Your ego is never at stake because God did not create it.  Your spirit is never at stake because He did. (T54)”

Affirmation:  “My worth is established by God alone.”

Reflections:

1 – Conditional Love

This is a passage for those of us who were reared in conditional love, particularly achievement in the eyes of the world.  This achievement may have been good grades, more money, “success.”  It really doesn’t matter what form the conditional love took.

2 – An Insane World

This is an insane world, and so it stands to reason that we were reared with many errors being made.  Because we were young and vulnerable, we believed that we had to play by the rules that our elders made up.  And, of course, they too had been victims of faulty upbringing.

3 – Jesus’s Healing

The good news of ACIM is that Jesus can heal a neurotic.  We do not have to look back with lament to our past, thinking that there is no better for us because our childhood was so flawed by faulty reasoning.  We can overcome, with God’s help and the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

4 – We Are Acceptable to God

In this passage, Jesus tells us that our worth is not established by teaching or learning.  And he goes on to repeat the idea in the same paragraph.  Indeed, we are acceptable to God just as we are.  Of course, the point of A Course in Miracles is to bring us closer to God and to happiness.  And forgiveness of our brother, in the context of a relationship to him, is the way.

5 – God Loves Us Just as We Are

Keep in mind that our achievements will never be good enough, but they are not needed.
We may feel a great sense of reassurance at this point.  God loves me just as I am!  What a blessed thought, but have we ever believed it before?

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

You know that I was reared in conditional love, though I always tried to please my family, and I knew that they were happy with me.  They wanted me to achieve so that they could be proud of me.  But none of them had the joy of studying A Course in Miracles, and so the mistakes are easily forgiven.  I would not love anyone with conditional love.  Help me to reach out, always, with unconditional love.

May I be for my closest family what they do need in me.  May I eliminate the stress that gives me difficult times, and may I reach out with the love that You have shown me.  May I always remember to thank You.

Amen.

Vicious Dream Figures

“. . .[Y]ou would not react at all to figures in a dream you knew that you were dreaming.  Let them be as hateful and as vicious as they may, they could have no effect on you unless you failed to recognize it is your dream. (T588)”

Affirmation:  “I am living a dream.”

Reflections:

1 – An Insane World

This is the solution to individuals who, in our opinion, treat us badly.  It leads easily to forgiveness.  It suggests to me that we can call these lamentable actions “insanity,” and then let it go at that.  Over time, we may find that calling bad words or actions from another just “insanity” will help to initiate our own sanity, our own living in the real world.  At such times of forgiveness, when we are truly living ACIM, we recognize that there is really nothing to forgive.  But most of us have not reached this pinnacle yet.  We still need to have the gesture of forgiveness, as much for ourselves as for the other(s) involved.

2 – An Illusion

Of course, there are times that we will react first, and then, maybe much later, remember this passage from A Course in Miracles.  It is hard to recognize that the “reality” that we see all around us is not really real, especially if things happen in that reality that hurt us.

3 – Patience

May we have patience with ourselves when we fail.  There will be times when we do not handle an attack from another in the best way.  We will retaliate, only to recognize later that we have acted amiss.  Then we need to retrace our steps, and make amends.  But first we need to recognize our own frailty, and ask the Holy Spirit to guide our minds ever more carefully.

4 – Resist Attack

ACIM suggests the remedy in these two sentences in the passage, above.  May we incorporate this passage so firmly in our minds that we are able to resist striking out verbally (or any other way).

5 – It Is Our Own Dream

We are in a dream that we ourselves made up.

Prayer:

Dear Father/Mother,

I would remember today that I live in a dream, and so if someone attacks me for any reason, I can know that I had something to do with finding myself in that situation.  Attack can be forgiven as a call for help.  Help me to have the “happy dreams the Holy Spirit brings” today.  I would thank You repeatedly through the day for the gift of the Holy Spirit, Who will take me back home to You.

May I resist responding in attack.  Give me the forbearance to refrain from retaliating.  May my emotions remain calm, as well as joyous, and may Your presence keep me serene.

I love this life that You have immersed me in, and I thank You everyday for my many blessings.  Even though it is a dream, it is a good dream, and only with Awakening will I progress farther along the pathway to You.  May Awakening come sooner rather than later.

Amen.