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21 I am determined to see things differently.

MT: I know this lesson. It states my determination to change my point of view and surrender to God's guidance.

JC: Yes. But yesterday you totally forgot the lesson all day long.

MT: I got into the usual pickle of trying to run my day "productively."

JC: That's quite a judgment.

MT: Let me share with you what is. I'm afraid my life is slipping away. More and more of my time is spent on maintenance, and the few moments that I really enjoy have become scarce.

JC: You do need to forgive your body for the limitations your mind puts on it. How about being an elder? By trying so hard to maintain the body of a 20-year-old, you overlook the role of the elder—to guide the young. Relax and be gentle with yourself today.

MT: Look where gentle has gotten me: nowhere.

JC: And efforting slows you down even more.

MT: JC, let's back off for a moment. Looking back on what I've written, I'm really angry and trying to do be civilized. Never works.

JC: So what's the blame? Who needs to be forgiven, and for what?

MT: I don't know. There is an undercurrent of anger under my calm surface. I don't want to do the lesson, although I can see it definitely applies to my emotional state today! Come to think of it, the anger is energy I'm not using. It felt good to go for a bike ride yesterday. To get the blood moving in my legs.

JC: For a moment right now, you saw things differently, didn't you? That’s what the lesson is all about.

22 What I see is a form of vengeance.

MT: God, please help me apply this lesson where I need it in my life.

God: Done.

MT: But where's the explanation?

God: Your head is crawling with words. Stop your thoughts and come to your senses.

MT: You borrowed that from Fritz Perls.

God: Sure. Everybody has something to contribute.

MT: But what about everything I see being a form of vengeance?

God: OK, ok, I'll explain. When you name something, you carve it out of unity. You put boundaries around it. You do that with your computer screen, with the chair across the room, with the rose on your desk, with your mate. You see these things/people as separate, dull, boring, seen one seen them all. That's because it requires work to keep things separate in your head. Your perception is fatigued and dull from all this work. So come to your senses and see the glory of Creation.

MT: Guess I have to be silent to do that. . .

God: You can't work at it. You have to let it happen. It is the gift of grace.

**************

22 What I see is a form of vengeance.

MT: I see a drab and uninteresting world of dusty, colorless, mixed-up pieces of junk. I see nothing that will last. Advertising tells me a diamond is forever, but try and drop your ring in the garbage disposal! Yes, JC, nothing I see will last. My nice leather moccasins have become scuffed and shapeless. My body is perishable. My house will be gone in a hundred years or less, either flattened by an earthquake or scraped off to make way for a new one.

JC: What you see is a form of vengeance.

MT: Now, that's a theoretical statement to me. The connection between the transitory nature of the world, on the one hand, and vengeance on the other, is tenuous at best.

JC: You made up an impermanent world and an impermanent body.

MT: Yes, I accept that, but vengeance?

JC: Your judgments condemn everything you made. In fact, everything you see was put together by judgment. The observer cannot be separated from the thing observed.

MT: So. . . ?

JC: Your perception is based on avoidance. Wake up.

MT: Wake up and smell the (perishable) roses that are a form of vengeance?

JC: Wake up to the transcendence all around you. For that, you must see what really is, instead of what you would like it to be. Wake up to the "ding an sich," the thing in itself, shimmering with life and energy.

MT: That's your promise. . . I want to go home today.

JC: Today you will be with me in Paradise.

23 I can escape from the world I see by giving up attack thoughts.

MT: I returned to attack thoughts after knowing the truth of this lesson. My excuse was, I can if I want to! I'm a free citizen!

JC: Yes, you can if you want to, and you ARE free to indulge in illusions of persecution. There's even a hydraulic theory of anger making the rounds: the theory that anger is like the water behind a dam, and that pressure will lessen when it is released. Even if it gives momentary relief, this dubious practice ignores the origin of anger: attack thoughts about a world that you made up.

MT: My experiment taught me something, however. This pseudo- freedom is not one I want. To shake the bars of one's cell is a pathetic form of free speech. Mother comes to mind. . . She hated the whole world, and she prayed for a UFO to take her away. Meanwhile, I felt so guilty that my own mother wanted out! Must be my fault, I thought. But I digress.

JC: Anger, attack, guilt; guilt, anger and attack. The world you see with unforgiving eyes goes round and round in its sorry way. How much longer, Holy Son of God?

MT: But, good news! I can choose to escape today. Great lesson, JC. Thank you.

24 I do not perceive my own best interests.

MT: Radical statement, JC!

JC: But once you apply it, it will no longer seem radical. You will think, why didn't I see this before?

MT: Applying it to my life right now, I would like to take better care of my finances. I would like to incubate my nest egg and die rich. I would like to pay close attention to returns on the dollar and to balancing my portfolio, but I find myself avoiding even touching it, because I am afraid of making a mistake. I judge myself as sloppy and careless and stupid for waiting for someone else to do it for me, so I'm probably going to die destitute, and deservedly so. But I do not perceive my own best interests in this situation.

I am preoccupied with fitness and health. I would like to lose 15 more pounds, and I think I need more aerobic exercise, and I would like to have the body of a 30-year-old (may as well say it!). But I do not perceive my own best interests in this situation.

Having stated this, JC, pray tell, what ARE my best interests in these two aspects of my life?

JC: You won't know your best interests as long as you try to solve the problems as you have stated them, because you are demanding your answer to your question. You want a certain outcome that is seen as desirable, such as being rich, fit, and skinny. These two situations have a fear-based goal, one, to be "safe," and the other, for your body to last forever. It is only when you accept that no amount of money can keep you safe, and you accept that you are not your body and the body will not last, only then will you begin to perceive your best interests. These two concerns of yours push away the peace of God, which is your best interest.

MT: Sometimes I don't like what you tell me.

JC: But know that I love you, and that I have your best interests at heart.

25 I do not know what anything is for.

MT: Let me bring up my goals of yesterday: to take better care of my finances, and to keep fit. You are telling me that I do not know what they are for. I realize that financial success may be a crass goal with no socially redeeming value, but keeping fit? Surely you don't want to argue with that! I could easily become a slob, eating chocolates and watching DVDs from Netflix.

JC: And what do you suppose becoming a slob would be for?

MT: Death by chocolate comes to mind. Behaving like that would just depress me.

JC: And exercising?

MT: It energizes me.

JC: And what is the energy for?

MT: It's good in itself, JC. Everybody likes energy.

JC: But they like chocolate and movies better, no? If they liked the energy from physical activity, wouldn't everybody be slim and fit?

MT: But one has to relax sometimes, and stuffing one's craw is definitely a comfort.

JC: And what is the relaxation for?

MT: To help me be willing to exercise again. . . I see where this is going: nowhere.

JC: Round and round goes the world in its petty pace. There is no meaning, and death waits at the end. Is this what you want?

MT: So that's why I need God's meaning in my life. . . and my focusing on limited goals is keeping God out.

26 My attack thoughts are attacking my invulnerability.

MT: I know this one, JC.

JC: But do you believe in it enough to refrain from attack thoughts? You drink plenty of water and eat vegetables. You avoid saturated and trans fats. You look before crossing the street, any street, even an empty one. You wouldn't dream of tasting the gopher poison in the garden shed, would you? Were it that you exercised this much control over your thoughts! When you indulge in attack thoughts, even when they "only" amount to blaming yourself, you are ingesting poison, over and over.

MT: Wow. You make quite a case.

JC: You want to be a better financial manager so as to be safe. You want to care for your body so it will last a long time still. But you indulge in the one thing that consistently robs you of safety and destroys your body, not to mention denying your role in the Atonement: your thoughts of attack.

Today, come home to your Father. Your feet are sore from wandering the world, looking for what the world will never give you. Wait no longer, Holy Son of God.

27 Above all else I want to see.

MT: But do I, really? What will vision give me that I don't have already? Why want vision?

JC: You have studied this Course, with a few detours, for twenty years now. In this lifetime, only your children earned such dedication.

MT: A wisp of attack enters my mind: why haven't I "seen?" How come God denies me this, the most basic of gifts? I know, I know, it is I who have shut myself off from the Source. But. . .

JC: What is the "but?"

MT: But I haven't wanted vision above all else. I've given other aspects of my life--taking care of my body, tending to finances, to mention recent concerns--a higher priority. I feel sad to say this, JC. I wish vision were a priority, but right now it is not.

JC: That is also how you procrastinate, in so many aspects of your life, not just the spiritual. Mañana. . .

MT: I've thought myself into quite a pickle, haven't I? I think so much, and still I don't have a sure yardstick with which to assess my priorities.

JC: Because God holds the yardstick, not you. You can also examine your priorities today, and see how they compare with vision. God is here any time you call.

28 Above all else I want to see things differently.

MT: I need a new way of seeing, not least because my eyes begin to fail! What's all this business about seeing, though? I see what I see--furniture and photos of people and the shifting flame in the fireplace.
JC: When you let go of assumptions, true seeing will show you a world of wonder.
MT: I am willing, JC. What I can do--and you will call this a puny effort, which it is--is to practice a relaxed look, to practice eyes of kindness and love.
JC: No effort is puny. Action affirms your intent. Every effort is a statement of your willingness to return to God.
MT: But you used the word "puny" somewhere along the way, in reference to my efforts.
JC: Compared to what God can do, and compared to what you can do when your will is aligned with God's, yes, human effort is like the wave pushing the ocean, convinced of its importance.
MT: So God hears and welcomes my intent, no matter how small and insignificant.
JC: Yes. God hears your intent, and responds with joyous haste.

29 God is in everything I see.

MT: God is in this computer. God is in this chair, this fireplace, this candy jar. Because . . .
JC: Because God is in you, and you are making things up as you go. Continuity of form exists only because you ascribe continuity to things. You hold the belief that the things you see remain in existence when you are not looking, but that is not so. You are making them up as you go. Your will congeals energy into forms.
MT: This is pretty esoteric.
JC: But it is essential that you accept this fact. It is thus that you take your place next to the Creator.
MT: The possibilities are staggering. I can make up anything I wish, if I accept this. I rule the Universe if my will is one with God's.
JC: Exactly. Now, how much longer will you believe that you are powerless?

30 God is in everything I see because God is in my mind.

MT: Well, maybe I do want to see above all! This has been my goal for twenty years. Isn't it about time I actually did it?

JC: You ask yourself. But there is fear.

MT: Instant fear. But love replaces fear, so if I look lovingly on all things perhaps this is doable. I've been waking up with a sense of futility about the confusion in my life. Living like this is not living. It's not worth it. I ask God to either let me die or give me a different way of seeing my life.

JC: You can't die, so there is a different way of seeing awaiting you!

MT: My body could go, of course. What you're saying is that I would return to face the same challenges in another body and another several decades. . . But I need help with the fear. Send me a good friend, please. Preferably a friend in the flesh, who is on the same journey as I am! The people around me are of very little help.

JC: You'd be surprised. Why don't you give it a try?

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