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21 I am determined to see things differently.

MT: But am I? The truth is, right now I'm just saying the words. There's a touch of sadness--that these powerful words have become like the Baptist homilies of my youth: empty words that don't pertain to me.
JC: Instead of taking what fit and discarding what didn't, you threw out the whole thing.
MT: I was angry. They were a bunch of hypocrites.
JC: No, you were angry with yourself for repeating meaningless words. It diminished you. And now, are you angry with me? With the Course?
MT: Oh dear JC, no, you are my life raft! How about giving me new lessons? Or the same in a different form?
JC: You can learn this Course by learning Aikido, you know. Or taking up dance. Or playing Mozart on the guitar that you didn't buy the other day. Do different things, try new venues, buy a muffin for the homeless man downtown. All things are lessons God would have us learn.
MT: Guess I just did the lesson, didn't I!

Lesson 22 What I see is a form of vengeance.

MT: So, JC, perception is a form of vengeance. Because I see things and people outside myself I see them as about to attack me.
JC: You "defend" yourself with sunscreen and dark glasses and thick clothing. You shut yourself off from those who have less, lest they take your money, and you shut yourself off from those who have more because they might look down on you.
MT: That's about everybody!
JC: That IS everybody and everything. All perception derives from judgment. 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, and boring. That's because it requires work to keep things separate in your head. Your perception is fatigued and dull from all this work.
MT: It does feel fatigued and dull. I long for the eyes of a child. That longing--I should honor it, shouldn't I.
JC: Your Self longs for the Father's house. Wait no more. You can be with me in Paradise, today.

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. The ego's hydraulic theory of anger is popular: anger is like water behind a dam, and it will lessen when it is released. Although it offers momentary relief, this dubious practice leaves intact 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--my own mother wanted out! Must be my fault! But I digress.
JC: Anger, attack, guilt; guilt, anger and attack. The world you see with unforgiving eyes goes round and round its petty way. How much longer, Holy Son of God?
MT: But, good news! It is my privilege to escape today. Great lesson, JC. Thank you.

24 I do not perceive my own best interests.

MT: I am resisting this thought, JC. I could lecture others, but me? Surely I know better. Yet I know I constantly sabotage myself.
JC: The resistance to this thought is how you sabotage yourself. You ask for guidance, then go on with life as usual. A request for guidance must be truly open-ended. Your ego will want to hear what it knows already. It's what you don't know that needs to be revealed.
MT: I went through the lesson and singled out three situations in which I do not perceive my own best interests (but thought for sure I did). Curiously, I fell asleep several times! What's that all about! Today, I open myself to God's guidance in these and other situations in my life.

25 I do not know what anything is for.

MT: Good reminder. I do not know what the ding in my car is for. I do not know what I want to fix it for. JC, this is getting nowhere.
JC: Getting nowhere. Think about it.
MT: That we are all going nowhere? That the world isn't "about" anything?
JC: The world isn't "about" anything, and the ways of the world lead nowhere. You've seen the truth of this, time and again.
MT: I want the peace of God. The ding is immaterial, the money to fix it an illusion, my need for a car but a dream. I could do without any of it. One gets engaged in a certain configuration, emotion is activated, people kill over a ding, and for what?
JC: Whatever happens is in your best interests. When you can consistently see the world in this way you see how utterly pointless vengeance is. Peace is then at hand.
MT: Wow, JC, something just occurred to me: if only this country had seen 9/11 as being in our own best interests!

26 My attack thoughts are attacking my invulnerability.

MT: God's presence this dawn is like a fluffy comforter wrapped around my body, like the perfume of honeysuckle, like the moving, living flame in the fireplace. I need do nothing.
JC: You set out to write on the lesson.
MT: I haven't got any attack thoughts right at the moment! Although, you tell me, perception is itself a form of attack. I do see things around me in this totally mundane American living room. Perception has softened and become less urgent, less judgmental, but it's still there.
JC: What do you have to say about invulnerability?
MT: Clumsy word, JC. Like "sinlessness." You are the only one who uses words like that. And the affirmation kind of wraps around itself--attack thoughts attack, whom? They attack me! I thought to make myself invulnerable by not needing anyone, by having money house car computer, by looking attractive, by being polite, urbane, nice to others. Now you tell me that all I need do is think differently. Or stop thinking altogether, since every image I make is a form of attack.
JC: Whoa! Not so fast! No need to attack yourself. The search for spiritual perfection, too, leads nowhere.
MT: Let me not embark in another useless journey. I am with the God I never left. I am with God today, now.

27 Above all else I want to see.

MT: JC, I am fighting a thought--the idea that an expansion in perception, a going-beyond perception, requires nothing of me. That vision is something I allow to happen. As a child, when all I really wanted was to run about in the sunshine and corral minnows in the creek, Mother lectured: "Nothing comes without effort." That was The Fall--my personal fall from Paradise.
JC: Vision returns naturally. No need to sweat and puff.
MT: Could this really be true? No need for a To-Do list?
JC: To-Do lists are now officially obsolete. Forgive your mother today, because she knew not of which she spoke.

28 Above all else I want to see things differently.

MT: The gift of an open mind is what you offer me.
JC: Yours for the asking. The only price is surrender. Surrender the need to figure things out.
MT: I want to see myself differently today. Actually, I think I received this gift upon waking up this morning!
JC: To give yourself the kindness you rehearsed offering Bill in his death bed, yes. Everybody deserves this kindness, you no less than anybody else. You do not have to be in extremis to receive it.
MT: In the recent past, kindness to myself has been associated with weakness--sleep too much, eat sugar, play yet another game of Snood to avoid making a phone call . . . to watch life go by through wet window panes.
JC: You do not know, yet, what true kindness is. Open yourself to the experience of God's love today. Light and strength are one.

29 God is in everything I see.

MT: What comes to mind is fractals--a visual metaphor of evolving, changing life, the universe replicated in every living cell. But you are talking about inanimate matter also.
JC: There is no inanimate matter. Every rock, leaf, and water droplet is made up of dancing energy.
MT: Dancing energy! I like that. I salute a dancing God. I look back on the grim God of my parents, the judge and executioner who upheld their draconian laws. I look back on my deep sorrow when dread, darkness and decay took the place of radiance.
JC: Look back no more. The nightmare that never was is over. God is inevitable, impossible to contain by your imaginings. Invited or not invited, God will be there.

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

JC: Yesterday we looked at the beauty of fractals, a metaphor for the mind.
MT: And the idea of a dancing God. If my mind is moved by a dancing God, I can help the world dance. To dance instead of setting off IEDs and burying land mines, what an idea!
JC: Do not lose sight of your first goal: to accept Atonement for yourself. To come from an unhealed mind is to be part of the problem.
MT: Today, I will dance and the world shall dance with me. Or, at least, those who are willing!

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