u/Salvationsway

You HAVE done miracles, but it is quite apparent that you have not done them alone. You have succeeded whenever you have reached another mind and JOINED with it. When two minds join as one and share one idea equally, the first link in the awareness of the Sonship as one has been made. When you have made this joining, as the Holy Spirit bids you, and have offered it to Him to use as He knows how, His natural perception of your gift enables HIM to understand it, and YOU to use His understanding on your behalf. It is impossible to convince you of the reality of what has clearly BEEN accomplished through your willingness as long as you believe that you must understand it, or else it is not real.

To you the miracle CANNIT seem natural because what you have done to hurt your minds has made them so UNNATURAL that they do not remember what is natural to them. And when you are TOLD about it, you cannot understand it. The recognition of the part as whole, and of the whole in every part, is PERFECTLY natural. For it is the way God thinks, and what is natural to Him IS natural to you. Wholly natural perception would show you instantly that order of difficulty in miracles is quite impossible, for it involves a contradiction of what miracles mean. And if you could understand their meaning, their attributes could hardly cause you perplexity.

There is a tendency to fragment, and then to be concerned about the truth of just a little part of the whole. And this is but a way of avoiding or LOOKING AWAY from the whole, to what you think you might be better able to understand. For this is but another way in which you would still try to keep understanding to YOURSELF. A better and FAR more helpful way to think of miracles is this: You do not understand them, either in part OR whole. Yet you have DONE them. Therefore, your understanding cannot be necessary. Yet it is still impossible to accomplish what you do not understand. And so there must be something in you that DOES understand.

You still think holiness is difficult because you cannot see how it can be extened to include everyone. And you have learned that it must be extended to include everyone to BE holy. Concern yourselves not with the extension of holiness, for the nature of miracles you do not understand. Nor do YOU do them. It is their extension, far beyond the limits you perceive, that demonstrates you did NOT do them. Why should you worry how the miracle extends itself? ONE attribute is no more difficult to understand than is the whole. If miracles ARE at all, their attributes would HAVE to be miraculous, being part of them.

YOU will attempt to do this only in secrecy. And you will think that, by meeting the needs of one you do not jeopardize another because you keep them separate, and secret from each other. That is not the way, for it leads not to light and truth. No needs will long be left unmentioned if you leave them all to Him Whose FUNCTION is to meet them. That is his function, and not yours. He will not meet them secretly, for He would share everything you give through Him. And that is WHY He gives it. What you give through Him is for the whole Sonship, NOT for part of it. Leave Him His function, for He will fulfill it if you but ask Him to enter your relationships, and bless them FOR you.

The meaning of love is lost in any relationship which looks to weakness, and hopes to find love there. The power of love, which IS its meaning lies in the strength of God, which hovers over it and blesses it silently by enveloping it in healing wings. LET this be, and do not try to substitute YOUR “miracle” for this. We once said that if a brother asks a foolish thing of you to do it. But be certain that this does not mean to do a foolish thing that would hurt either him or you, for what would hurt one will hurt the other. Foolish requests are foolish for the simple reason that they conflict, because they contain an element of specialness. Only the Holy Spirit recognizes foolish needs as well as real ones. And He will teach you how to meet both without losing either.

The triumph of weakness is not what you would offer to a brother. And yet you know no triumph BUT this. This is not knowledge, and the form of empathy that would bring this about is so distorted that it would imprison what it would release. The unredeemed cannot redeem, yet they HAVE a Redeemer. Attempt to teach Him not. YOU are the learner; He the Teacher. Do not confuse your role with His, for this will never bring peace to anyone. Offer your empathy to Him, for it is HIS perception and HIS strength that you would share. And let HIM offer you His strength and His perception, to be shared through you.

True empathy is of Him Who knows what it IS. You will learn His interpretation of it if you let Him use your capacity for STRENGTH, and NOT for weakness. He will not desert you, but be sure that YOU desert not HIM. Humility is strength in this sense only; to recognize and accept the fact that you do NOT know is to recognize and accept the fact that HE DOES know. You are not sure that He will do His part because you have never yet done YOURS completely. You will not know how to respond to what you do not understand, be tempted not in this, and yield not to the ego’s, triumphant use of empathy for ITS glory.

Your part is only to remember this; you do not want anything YOU value to come of the relationship. You will neither to hurt it nor to heal in in your own ways. You do not know what healing is. All you have learned of empathy is from the PAST. And there is nothing from the past that you would share, for there is noting there that you would KEEP. Do not use empathy to make the past real, and so perpetuate it. Step gently aside, and let the healing be done FOR you. Keep but one thought in mind, and do not lose sight of it, however tempted you may be to judge Any situation, and to determine your response BY judging it. Focus your mind only on this:

“I am not alone, and I would not intrude the past upon my Guest. I have invited Him, and He is here. I need do nothing except NOT TO INTERFERE.”

The clearest proof that empathy as the ego uses it is destructive lies in the fact that it is applied only to certain types of problems, and in certain people. These it selects OUT, and joins with. And it never joins except to strengthen ITSELF. Make no mistake about this maneuver; the ego always empathizes to WEAKEN, and to weaken is ALWAYS to attack. You do not know what empathizing means. Yet of this you may be sure; if you will merely sit quietly by and let the Holy Spirit relate through you, you will empathize with STRENGTH, and BOTH of you will gain in strength, and not in weakness.

To emphasize does not mean to join in SUFFERING, for that is what you must REFUSE to understand. That is the EGO’S interpretation of empathy, and is always used to form a special relationship in which the suffering is shared. The capacity to empathize is very useful to the Holy Spirit, provided you let Him use it in His way. He does not understand suffering, and would have you teach it is not UNDERSTANDABLE. When He relates through you, He does not relate through the ego to another ego. He does not join in pain, knowing that healing pain is not accomplished by delusional attempts to enter into it, and lighten it by sharing the delusion.

So will the year begin in joy and freedom. There is much to do, and we have been long delayed. Accept the holy instant as this year is born, and take your place, so long left unfulfilled, in the Great Awakening. Make this year different by making it all the SAME. And let ALL your relationships be made holy FOR you. This is our will.

Amen.

This is the weekend in which a new year will be born from the time of Christ. I have perfect faith in you to do all that you would accomplish. Nothing will be lacking, and you will make complete, and NOT destroy. Say and understand this:

“I give you to the Holy Spirit as part of myself. I know that you will be released, unless I want to use you to imprison MYSELF. In the name of MY freedom I will your release, because I recognize that we will be released TOGETHER.

God offers thanks to the holy host who would receive Him, and let Him enter and abide where He would be. And by your welcome does He welcome you into Himself, for what is contained in you who welcome His is RETURNED to Him. And we but celebrate His Wholeness as we welcome Him into ourselves. Those who receive the Father are One with Him, being host to Him Who created them. And by allowing Him they remember the only relationship they ever had, and ever WANT TO HAVE.

The lesson I was born to teach, and still would teach to all my brothers, is that sacrifice is nowhere and love is everywhere. For communication embraces EVERYTHING, and in the peace it reestablishes love comes of itself. Let no despair darken the joy of Christmas, for the time of Christ is meaningless apart from joy. Let us join in celebrating peace by demanding no sacrifice of anyone, for so will you offer me the love I offer you. What can be more joyous than to perceive we are deprived of NOTHING? Such is the message of the time of Christ, which I give you that YOU may give it, and return it to the Father, Who gave it to me, For in the time of Christ communication is restored, and He joins us in the celebration of His Son’s creation.

In the holy instant the condition of love is met, for minds are joined without the body’s interference, and where there is communication, there is peace. The Prince of Peace was born to re-establish the condition of love by teaching that communication remains unbroken even if the body is destroyed, provided that you see not the body as the NECESSARY means of communication. And if you understand this lesson, you will realize that to sacrifice the body is to sacrifice NOTHING, and communication, which MUST be of the mind, cannot BE sacrificed. Where, then, IS sacrifice?

So is it that, in all your seeking for love, you seek for sacrifice and FIND it. Yet you find not love. It is impossible to deny what is, and still RECOGNIZE it. The meaning of love lies in what you have cast OUTSIDE yourself, and it has no meaning at all apart from you. It is what you preferred to KEEP that has no meaning. While all that you would keep AWAY holds all the meaning of the universe, and holds all the universe together in it meaning. For unless the universe were in YOU it would be apart from God, and to be without Him IS to be without meaning.

So is it that, in all your seeking for love, you seek for sacrifice and FIND it. Yet you find not love. It is impossible to deny what is, and still RECOGNIZE it. The meaning of love lies in what you have cast OUTSIDE yourself, and it has no meaning at all apart from you. It is what you preferred to KEEP that has no meaning. While all that you would keep AWAY holds all the meaning of the universe, and holds all the universe together in it meaning. For unless the universe were in YOU it would be apart from God, and to be without Him IS to be without meaning.

As long as you perceive the body as your reality, so long will you perceive yourself as lonely and deprived. And so long will you also perceive yourself as a victim of sacrifice, justified in sacrificing others. For who could thrust Heaven and its Creator aside WITHOUT a sense of sacrifice and loss? And who can suffer sacrifice and loss without attempting to RESTORE himself? Yet how could you accomplish this yourselves, when the basis of your attempt is the belief in the REALITY of the deprivation? For deprivation breeds attack, being the belief that attack IS justified. And as long as you would retain the deprivation, attack becomes salvation and sacrifice becomes love.

You who believe that sacrifice IS love must learn that sacrifice is SEPARATION from love. For sacrifice brings guilt as surely as love brings peace. Guilt is the CONDITION of sacrifice, and peace is the condition for the awareness of your relationship with God. Through guilt you exclude your Father and your brothers from yourself. Through peace you invite them back, and realize that they are where your invitation bids them be. What you excluded from yourself seems fearful, for you endowed it with fear and tried to cast it out, though it was part of you. Who can perceive part of himself as loathsome, and live within himself in peace. And who can try to remove the perceived conflict of Heaven and hell in him by casting Heaven out and giving it the attributes of hell, without experiencing himself as incomplete and lonely?