41 God goes with me wherever I go.

Silence is the only appropriate reaction to this lesson. I do not need to seek God; He is present here, now, in and around me. My mind is part of God's. I am very holy. Now will I open myself to the awareness of God's Presence, my natural inheritance.

42 God is my strength. Vision is His gift.

MT: You are making a connection between strength and vision. For me, that's a tenuous connection.

JC: Strength, the God within, the surge of energy you feel in your body. Vision is the use of that energy.

MT: A natural outcome of the energy that I feel at times. How do I work toward this goal, then?

JC: How about doing the lesson exactly as it is? You are much too lenient with yourself in some ways, unbelievably harsh in other ways. There is no need to dwell in judgments of others, to feel criticized by some comment or other, to see yourself as inadequate because a client cancelled on you. That is indulging—making up a problem so you can worry about it. Let go of it! Vision is like a baptism, a complete surrender of the past. Vision happens when your mind is no longer preoccupied with past thoughts. This is about a new beginning, but to begin anew you must let go of past attachments.

MT: To be born again, no?

JC: The ritual of baptism is very symbolic, but it needs to happen more than once. Each day, each moment you have a chance for a new beginning. All you need do is ask.

43 God is my Source. I cannot see apart from Him.

MT: I like this lesson, JC. I have a Source--I did not create myself. I get a hint of vastness, of worlds beyond my puny understanding. The picture I get is of a stem of brussels sprouts I buy at the farmers market. God is the strong, thick stem, I am the sprout coming off of it--I and countless others. The sprout cannot exist without the stem to provide nourishment. It can pretend it is separate and get all puffed up at being so unique and different and intelligent and so on, but the reality is--it cannot leave its Source. And it cannot see apart from its Source.

44 God is the Light in which I see.

MT: Good morning, JC.

JC: Good morning, dear Monica. Thanks for checking in today.

MT: This light business. . . The Course is much more than just an intellectual exercise, isn't it? I've long had the uncomfortable feeling that I was shortchanging myself, that I was missing something. I "learned" the Course, and it did help in my relationships, but it seems that you are shooting for something much more esoteric here.

JC: I can only say yes. Some call it en-lighten-ment. Enlightenment, at its most elementary level, is intellectual knowledge, but it is much more than that. It is a rearranging of the very cells in your body by the awesome power of God. It is death and rebirth. I am asking you, in this lesson, to go beyond anything you've experienced before, and to trust me to guide you in these uncharted waters.

MT: I am willing. I can also feel the fear. What am I getting into! My life works pretty well, why am I messing with it?

JC: But. . . there is a but, isn't it?

MT: But this is the goal I've been working for all these years. If I don't push through, I'll regret it.

JC: There is nothing to regret. You won’t miss out if you don’t do it today. Everybody gets there eventually, it's guaranteed. But for some the journey is needlessly long and painful. I am trying to save you time, effort and suffering. Take the shortcut and learn to fly. You can be with me today in Paradise. Open up to God, He is the light in which you see. There is no life but His.

45 God is the Mind with which I think.

MT: As I reach for the Thought of God, I have a feeling of leaving my body.

JC: That is exactly the point. You are not a body, and you must disidentify with it.

MT: I am not a body. I am free. How nice. When I look through the cosmetics department at SavOn, I'm struck by the hundreds and thousands of potions and paints people buy to take care of and decorate the body. Also, to stave off its decline.

JC: Those are not thoughts of God. They are (pricey) thoughts of man in his separation.

MT: JC, study of the Course has installed in my mind a magnificent BS detector, for which I am forever grateful.

JC: Well, I am grateful too. Heaven rejoices with you at every step. And this is only the preview of coming attractions ; )

46 God is the Love in which I forgive.

MT: Old lesson again.

JC: No matter. You still need it. What you haven't done is forgiven yourself. Why don't you accept Atonement for yourself and be done with it?

MT: Awwwww. . .

JC: I really mean it. You have a few things to apologize for, but nothing major. Why do you carry yourself as if you were guilty, even when you are not?

MT: The original sin, perhaps?

JC: No, I really mean it. This is feedback for you: stop taking yourself so personally! Stop taking others so seriously! You've heard it from your partner and from your sons, now you are hearing it from me. You try to "respect" everybody to the utmost, which is very laudable, but you end up not respecting yourself. Talk about terminal uniqueness! And it puts others on a pedestal where they don't belong.

MT: Sheesh, you are really confrontive today.

JC: I'm going for a change of mood here. Remember that in the flesh I lost patience with the money changers in the temple. I didn't ask where they were coming from or whether they had been abused as children. I just threw them out.

MT: So this is an inner money changer I need to throw out?

JC: Yes, your money changer that struck a craven deal, so long ago: you filter your feelings and make public only the "good" ones. You handle others like Waterford crystal. In this way, you make them guilty so they won't tell YOU how they feel, because you are afraid that, deep down, they really hate you! That's your contribution to the illusion, cloaked as virtue.

MT: Peace. . .

JC: Check inside. You don't love me any less for confronting you, do you? You know I'm coming from a place of love. Love doesn't mean you have to turn your spine into limp spaghetti. There is strength in love, but you won't find it until you try.

47 God is the Strength in which I trust.

MT: Trust? I immediately have the Charlie Brown reaction: will I fall flat on my back as Lucy withdraws the ball?

JC: You learned not to trust, growing up with your shattered parents. But remember that it was other egos that betrayed you. Back then, you didn't know there was a difference between trusting other egos and trusting God.

MT: But what if this is all a hoax?

JC: What, for instance?

MT: The idea that there is a God I can trust. Maybe there isn't, so we may as well eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die.

JC: Ouch! What a bleak, cynical way of thinking.

MT: That's the thinking I embraced in my late teens. The only thing that kept me from killing myself was the thought that possibly I was wrong and there WAS a God, and he'd send me to roast in suicide hell forever and ever.

JC: No kidding! So the fear of God kept your ego in check. Interesting. It redefines God, by implication, into a vengeful, petty lawgiver.

MT: The fear of God kept me from carrying out my beliefs to their logical conclusion. So maybe it was useful that God was such a jerk. A loving God wouldn't do. Or perhaps it might. . . I might have reached for Him. But I wanted out, what with a God obscenely watching my every move for the slightest slip, ready to banish me to the depths of hell. Banishing myself was preferable to having others do it. It's hard to live with two completely contradictory beliefs: on the one hand, that you are fundamentally flawed, and on the other hand, that nothing but perfection will do. I can taste the bitterness in my mouth even now.

JC: Having visited that old state of mind, what do you prefer to believe today?

MT: Sigh. What a desperate state of mind. I am forever thankful for this magnificent Course and the interlocking chain of beliefs you put in my head. I choose to believe that God is my strength, now and forever. There is no conflict, for my mind is one with God's.

48 There is nothing to fear.

MT: What a flat statement! Nothing to fear! So every moment I spend in fear, which is most of the time, is wasted on nothing. It leads me nowhere. It does not keep me safe--quite the contrary. At times, fear has brought on exactly what I feared, and worse. A fear-based existence, besides being a sorry waste, actually makes up a world to be feared.

JC: Well stated, MT. Defenses generate what they would defend against. A river of money is spent on learning how to defend yourself better--against illness, against aging, against he who would take your property, and the whole thing is an illusion and does not exist.

MT: I long to lead a fearless life.

JC: Your life is fearless, about one-tenth of one percent of the time. I guess you'd like to have the remaining 99.9% too!

MT: You bet I want that. It is my natural inheritance, and I claim it now.

JC: That was a fearless statement.

MT: It surprised me. For a moment, I learned the lesson I set out to learn. It's not that difficult, really.

JC: There is strength and vision in that statement, because it is the Word of God. Sooner or later the Sonship will decide with God. History, time, and space will cease to exist.

MT: There is change in the air. People are demonstrating in the streets, and despots are powerless to stop them. What a great moment in history, and I am here to witness it. Let me today be part of this great evolution, by accepting that “there is nothing to fear.”

49 God's Voice speaks to me all through the day.

MT: God's guidance is there, all I need do is open to it. Enough of doing things on my own. Enough of trying to solve problems with limited resources. God offers the broader view, and that's what I need. Whenever my frantic imaginings show me a world I do not want, I merely stop and search inside for that calm, always at rest, and wholly certain voice. It can't really be a miracle, then, JC. It must be the most natural thing I can do. It must happen as "oh, that's what it was! How come I didn't see it before?"

JC: You are no longer untrained. You are practicing that listening whenever you talk to me. You are practicing it when you (however dimly) realize "there must be a better way." God's Voice will deepen and become increasingly natural as you practice listening to it.

MT: You are right. Even when I indulge in attack thoughts about myself or others, deep down there is a part of me that whispers, this is not real. I know there is a better way. You've put another layer in my mind, initially as small as the pea under the princess' mattress. I can attack if I want to, but there's the pea that doesn't let me be unconscious about it!

JC: Be you in peace!

50 I am sustained by the Love of God.

MT: You say, I am sustained by the Love of God. I ask, what does this mean for me, today, here? I am sustained by the Love of God. And the power went out right now, with an explosion. It's really early, and the house is totally dark now. All I see is the eerie glow of the laptop, and the warm glow of the fireplace. I think I am sustained by the electric power flowing through the wires, but I am really sustained by the Love of God. That was quite an explosion, though, JC! It resonated through the neighborhood.

JC: I know. I helped it happen.

MT: Really? And what was the point?

JC: To wake you up. You are not sustained by electricity. You are sustained by the Love of God. It's about time you got it.

MT: I am worried about the fireplace. Electricity drives it. How am I going to turn it off? Maybe it will run on and on and get the house overheated.

JC: And you let that disturb your holy mind. My, my. You don't trust that you will find the answer when you need it.

MT: OK, I found it. The remote works with the gas even though power is out.

JC: There you go.

MT: But how does it restrict the outflow of gas, if the power isn't there?

JC: I don't know the answer, and right now I don't think it matters. You worried about one thing, you took care of it, and now you worry about another--how the bloody thing works. Notice how you occupy your mind with your mistrust. You try to think ahead and solve problems so your world won't fall apart, as if it ever had fallen apart.

MT: Historically it has, yes. It fell apart for all of Europe in the last century. Some people got away in time. How did they do it? Millions did not, and I doubt they were any better or worse than the ones who got away.

JC: It wasn't by trusting their own power, and it wasn't by trusting their fears. Fear could have led them to stay in order not to lose money, or it could have led them to run away, or many other choices too numerous to mention. Fear is a confusing element. I guess the ones that got away, did so by the power of Love, didn't they?

MT: Scary to think that I have no other choice.

JC: But would you really want one?

MT: So the power of Love is like the instinct in animals. Animals seem to know even when an earthquake is coming, and we, who think we are oh-so-smart, do not.

JC: For today, remember. You are sustained by the Love of God. Do not forget. We are sustained by the Love of God.

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