Thursday, June 18, 2015
Lesson 169: “By grace I live. By grace I am released.”
One of the definitions of “grace” is courteous goodwill. This is when we exude the very best wishes to everyone and allow everyone consideration about being treated with kindness, gentleness and respect. We want to give all around us the best kind of love we can offer. This is the way we live in grace, we show up with a grateful heart and we thank people for all that they contribute to us.
We give people the benefit of the doubt. If our egos want to run instantly to a victim stance seeing others in judgmental ways, what we are asked to do is simply stop, breathe, take a moment to not react in the quick and violent emotional gestures. Stop this ego insanity run that says that we have to react to a perceived attack in some form of counter attack. This is always not the helpful response because it perpetuates the attack cycle. What we want to do is hold off on the quick jump into making acts of vengeance.
Then we can realize this was simply a call for love. When we see that someone else acting out in some unwanted way, we can see that they are just having their own moments of insanity. Since we are in the moment more sane than the other person, we can simply extend our forgiveness. Know that forgiveness gets us out of the attack mode. What the Course teaches us is to stay in our state of grace.
We are not asked to put ourselves in the line of fire. If we feel called to remove ourselves, that is totally fine. But we would do so with a heart of love and forgiveness even if we can’t have a sane conversation in the moment with the other person, we can within our own hearts get completely cleared of this energetic violence. We can then have neutral feelings toward the other person if we feel no attack. Then we will feel peaceful even if the other person doesn’t get to actual peace.
Or if we feel called to respond then we can speak with the other with a heart of love. This is the way we keep love being the center of all of our actions. When we know that every circumstance is one of potential of love, as either a call for love or love itself, then we don’t shy away from any kind of interaction because we know it can always result in a mind of peace and goodwill. When we understand that we can be empowered with others we don’t have to feel anxious ever in the world. We don’t have to be afraid that something will go awry. We get this unfailing gift of emotional sanity that we can apply always. There is never a moment we must dread some part of the world because we are more than adequately prepared with what the Course teaches and with God. This is why grace is possible all the time. God gives us all the support we need to carry this mind of grace, no matter what.
This lesson says, “Grace is not the goal this course aspires to attain.” Grace is the experience of living the “happy dream.” This is when we accept our salvation from God. We live in the state of peace because this is the highest goal and gift we can have in the world. This lesson reminds us that our experience of grace will come to an end when God makes the final ending. When time ceases because it no longer has purpose is when we will remember our joined connection with God and nothing will block us in any way with our oneness with God. We will be at a state of perfect joining because the world will cease at this time. Grace gets us on an energetic level closest to the joining with God when that time comes. This is why the Course teaches us how to live in grace.