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The following is adapted from Lesson 153 of the Workbook for Students that accompanies the book “A Course in Miracles”. Though I am finding this book surprisingly different from what I had imagined from the title, I have found this book to be very thought-provoking, enjoyable and well-written. Below are several excerpts from Lesson 153: You who feel threatened by this changing world, its twists of fortune and its bitter jests, its brief relationships and all the “gifts” it merely lends to take away again; attend this lesson well. The world provides no safety. It is rooted in attack, and all its “gifts” of seeming safety are illusory deceptions. It attacks, and then attacks again. No peace of mind is possible where danger threatens thus. The world gives rise but to defensiveness. For threat brings anger, anger makes attack seem reasonable, honestly provoked, and righteous in the name of self-defense. Yet is defensiveness a double threat. For it attests to weakness, and sets up a system of defense that cannot work…… The mind is now confused, and knows not where to turn to find escape from its imaginings. Attack, defense; defense, attack, become the circles of the hours and the days that bind the mind in heavy bands of steel with iron overlaid, returning but to start again…. The sense of threat the world encourages is so much deeper, and so far beyond the frenzy and intensity of which you can conceive, that you have no idea of all the devastation it has wrought. You are its slave. You know not what you do, in fear of it…. You do not realize what you have done to sabotage the holy peace of God by your defensiveness… Defenselessness is strength. It testifies to recognition of the Christ in you…. Choice is always made between Christ’s strength and your own weakness, seen apart from Him. Defenselessness can never be attacked, because it recognizes strength so great attack is folly, or a silly game a tired child might play, when he becomes too sleepy to remember what he wants. Defensiveness is weakness. It proclaims you have denied the Christ and come to fear His Father’s anger. What can save you now from your delusion of an angry god, whose fearful image you believe you see at work in all the evils of the world? What but illusions could defend you now, when it is but illusions that you fight? We will not play such childish games…. We would not exchange for foolishness the endless joy our function offers us. We would not let our happiness slip by because a fragment of a senseless dream happened to cross our minds, and we mistook the figures in it for the Son of God; its tiny instant for eternity. We look past dreams…. We cannot fear, for we have left all fearful thoughts behind. And in defenselessness we stand secure, serenely certain of our safety now, sure of salvation; sure we will fulfill our chosen purpose, as our ministry extends its holy blessing through the world…. Think how holy is your purpose, how secure you rest, untouchable within its light. God’s ministers have chosen that the truth be with them. Who is holier than they? Who could be surer that his happiness if fully guaranteed? And who could be more mightily protected? What defense could possibly be needed by the ones who are among the chosen ones of God, by His election and their own as well? God has elected all, but few have come to realize His Will is but their own…. Learn that light has come to you, and your escape has been accomplished…. Salvation can be thought of as a game that happy children play. It was designed by One Who loves His children, and Who would replace their fearful toys with joyous games, which teach them that the game of fear is gone. His game instructs in happiness, because there is no loser. Everyone who plays must win, and in his winning is the gain to everyone ensured. The game of fear is gladly laid aside, when children come to see the benefits salvation brings. You who have played that you are lost to hope, abandoned by your Father, left alone in terror in a fearful world made mad by sin and guilt; be happy now. That game is over. Now a quiet time has come, in which we put away the toys of guilt, and lock our quaint and childish thoughts of sin forever from the pure and holy minds of Heaven’s children and the Son of God……. " While this book was published in 1975, I have only recently stumbled onto it. I find myself wishing I had discovered this book much earlier. I am eternally grateful to the author of this fine work. While many of the ideas presented in A Course in Miracles can be somewhat difficult to swallow, the book text and its accompanying Workbook for Students offers a refreshing perspective that makes for inspirational reading.
Aka "Peace Brother", I am a health professional and writer interested in promoting global peace and justice.
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