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191 I am the Holy Son of God Himself.

MT: I've given the world the role it had for me: jailer of the Son of God. Prison guards become like those they guard. I became a prison guard, holding the keys to the Kingdom in my clenched fist. Today, JC, let me be here with you and with God for a few moments.
JC: God is the silence between sounds, the spaces between and within things, the Spirit that hovers over the void. God is a mystery, a wonder, and so are you.
MT: As well as a cosmic joke! Virginia Satir used to call us cosmic jokes AND cosmic wonders.
JC: Gentle laughter is one way of owning the mystery of your creation.
MT: Where are you taking me with this?
JC: I am bringing in--or rather, you are bringing in--aspects of your past that might be relevant. You have met many good people on the path that brought you to this moment. Be grateful, Holy Son of God.
MT: Gratitude is new for me. I used to be a master fault-finder. After I left the Satir community, I wrote a long letter to Virginia enumerating the faults of the community. Only later did I realize that we're all cosmic jokes, including Virginia! I made a clear decision not to play when I was growing up. Because what I had to give was not perfect, I refused to contribute, to give of myself. I waited to graduate into perfection before I allowed myself to contribute.
JC: Now you know that the process of contributing is itself a learning. One perfects the tools of contribution in the process of using them.
MT: I had to abandon an old idea, the idea that school is for learning, and when you enter the world of work you do so as a finished being, never again to learn one single thing.
JC: Today, reclaim your identity: You are the holy Son of God. You have come to set the world free, and there is nothing you cannot do.

191 (2006) I am the holy Son of God Himself.

MT: So I've given the world the role it had for me: jailer of the Son of God. Prison guards become like the people they guard--so I became a prison guard, holding the keys to hell in my closed fist. Today, JC, let me be here with you and with God for a few moments.
JC: God is the silence between sounds, the spaces between and within things, the Spirit that hovers over the void. God is a mystery, a wonder, and so are you.
MT: As well as a cosmic joke! Virginia Satir used to call us cosmic jokes--as well as cosmic wonders, both.
JC: Gentle laughter is one way of owning the mystery of your creation.
MT: Where are you taking me with this?
JC: I am bringing in--or rather, you are bringing in--aspects of your past that might be relevant. You have met many good people on the path that brought you to this moment. Be grateful, Holy Son of God.
MT: Gratitude is new for me. I used to be a master fault-finder. After I left, I wrote a letter to Virginia complaining about the community. Only later did I realize--we're all cosmic jokes, including Virginia! We're all cosmic wonders and cosmic jokes, both. I took quite a wrong turn during my growing years, my decision not to play. Because what I had to give was not perfect, I refused to contribute, to give of myself. I waited sullenly to graduate into perfection before I allowed myself to contribute.
JC: Now you know that the process of contributing is itself a learning. One perfects the tools of contribution in the process of using them.
MT: I had to abandon an old idea, the idea that school is for learning, and when you enter the world of work you do so as a finished being, never again to learn one single thing.
JC: Today, reclaim your identity: You are the holy Son of God. You have come to set the world free, and there is nothing you cannot do.

192 I have a function God would have me fill.

How fleeting this journey! It's nasty, that habit we--I--have of thinking we must be somewhere else than where we're now. The people who must be forgiven are the relatives who overstay. The moment to be seized is this moment, not some time next month when we've meditated and purified ourselves. The lesson to be learned is right here in front of my nose.

Grief is here, I can almost touch it. Grief over what might have been, those grand plans of the ego, the image I constructed of myself as successful, a winner, a leader, sought-after, rich and famous, all to happen tomorrow to redeem yesterday. Grief over losing the ego that I worked so hard to build. Grief over who I thought I was. This is all there is. This moment is the only time there is.

It's like this: God brings us back down to the ground, after all these years of floating about in dreamland. We get down to this moment, the golden opportunity to build anew, the opportunity I missed so long ago. Here it is, God says, here you are! Except that there is no "I" to be here, nothing left to defend, no plans and no goals. There is only God and the eternal Now.

192 (2006) I have a function God would have me fill.

MT: Function, schmunction. I'm tired of this function business.
JC: You are tired and bored.
MT: My life needs to move forward.
JC: Can you own that? Who is the mover?
MT: I am, I guess.
JC: You guess, or are you sure?
MT: OK, OK, I'm sure. My life won't move unless I move it. But people will get tired of hearing this. I get tired of telling myself this. Yet I have lead in my feet.
JC: Your function is right in front of your nose, day after day, moment after moment, yet you look elsewhere. Let go of that. Your function is not at great remove and through mighty effort. Your function is happening right now, effortless, joyful, and spontaneous.
MT: I forgive myself for thinking I needed to be somewhere else, doing something else that's more important. I forgive myself for leaping ahead. I forgive myself for being absent from life.
JC: In that moment of forgiveness, you are here, you are now, you are eternal.

193 (2006) All things are lessons God would have me learn.

MT: Here I am, JC. After being stuck in a traffic jam for forty-five minutes, I finally made it to the meeting. I wonder what the lesson was.
JC: Patience?
MT: I had difficulty letting "all things be exactly as they are," that much is clear.
JC: You knew you would be very late for your meeting, and you hate to be late.
MT: Yes, I do. I pride myself on being on time. I'm ashamed to keep others waiting.
JC: Perhaps you can learn that being late is not a crime, and it's no reason to forget your Self. There is no reason to forget your Self.
MT: I have all these judgments about airheads who smell the flowers and forget responsibilities.
JC: So this is trying to emerge for you: to get in touch with your airhead, flower-smelling nature.
MT: This is ego stuff, you know, JC. I feel a step removed from you and God. We're using too many words here, and I want God's Silence.
JC: Ask and you shall receive. . .

194 I place the future in the hands of God.

Fears of the future: will I go blind eventually? will I be paralyzed by a stroke? will I use up my savings and be out in the street? will world oil finish and a global depression ensue? I'm such an expert worrier! My ego says, there are "good reasons" to worry, looking at a century of wars and devastation: for instance, look at the fate of European Jewry. A few, very few, took shelter from the approaching storm, but most trusted God and died in the camps.

JC: These are the Lamentations of Jeremiah all over again. You have not starved one single day in this lifetime. Your mother sang a dirge of apocalyptic woes that never came to pass. She died miserable, and she was not even right!

MT: OK, JC, I visited my Room of Lamentations one last time. MOTHER WAS WRONG. I will deal with disasters when they happen, if they ever happen, which they will or will not. Meanwhile, I may as well be happy!

194 (2006) I place the future in the Hands of God.

MT: But do I? Or am I just saying the words?
JC: God and your brothers need to be seen differently. There is a deep mistrust that could be gone in a moment but usually takes years to undo.
MT: I need a miracle, then. God's miracle.
JC: Look at the currency in your pocket. In God We Trust.
MT: I wish the sentiment would infuse me by osmosis. I would like to trust.
JC: Try the words: I want to trust.
MT: I want to trust. I am willing to trust. In God I trust. What will happen will happen, and it will not change one atom of who I am: the Holy Son of God.

194 I place the future in the hands of God.

MT: Not the ego's. God's hands. My ego is master of catastrophe.
JC: Not the ego, who has never taken you where you wanted to go.
MT: So what now, JC? If I don't worry about the future--or even don't look forward to it--what do I DO?
JC: You need do nothing. Not-doing is challenge enough, in a world filled with doings.
MT: So I just go about being. Being happy.
JC: Freed of the machinations of the ego, freed of the misuse of your mind, yes. All that is left is to be totally, completely happy.
MT: To be as God created me!

195 Love is the way I walk in gratitude.

MT: Today I look for what is right, not what is wrong. My cup is half-full today. No, my cup overflows today! Yes, I know this means I still live in the ego's world instead of the Real World, but that's where I am at, and it is perfect.
JC: Want to talk about the thread you discovered during meditation?
MT: The one I noticed when looking at this incarnated personality I carry around like a snail shell? Yes, my teaching function. How I avoid it. I am scared of my teaching function. I am afraid to teach. I manifested a sister who constantly reminded me: "who are you to presume?" I can blame her . . .
JC: There is a risk in teaching. But it is a risk to your snail shell only.
MT: Snails die without their shells, so perhaps that was an unfortunate analogy. My exoskeleton, perhaps. My snakeskin. My suitcase full of lead bricks. My full-body lead suit.
JC: Enough . . . you are avoiding something right now.
MT: I also have little time right now, JC. But tonight, talk to me about my pain over being a teacher. It is a thread that runs through my present life.
JC: I wait on welcome only.

195 (2006) Love is the way I walk in gratitude.

MT: Checking in, JC. I intend to be aware of God's presence as I travel today. Please assist.
JC: I am here with you. I will never not be there, although you can deny or ignore my presence.
MT: I intend to offer the memory of God to those I meet. I need help in offering it to E. I lose my connection when I am with him. When we are together, I become a personality--one that I had hoped to leave behind--dealing with another personality.
JC: So what's your lesson for today?
MT: To walk in gratitude so I know what love is.
JC: Your task is to regard E with love and gratitude. Look past his anger because it is not real.
MT: I know . . . I make it real and in doing so I become its victim. So remind me, please, today and always, to walk in gratitude.
JC: So be it. Your word is law in the Universe. I walk with you, today and tomorrow and forever.

196 (2006) It can be but myself I crucify.

MT: Am I crucifying myself right now? Guess so. I am letting in aches and fever and malaise, to prove God a lie and the Son of God a passing flame that rises to the sky and is gone after a brief moment of glory.
JC: You are eternal like the Father. You are Spirit. Do not choose pain over the joy of God.
MT: I don't even feel like doing this. I feel like watching a movie instead.
JC: So what keeps you doing this? It is something you yourself decided. No one ordered you to post daily. You can decide otherwise.
MT: But then I'd be missing out on the benefits. . .
JC: Remember God's love today. These postings are about reminding yourself, every morning, that you are the Holy Son of God and that the Father is well pleased in you.
MT: So how could I not post. . . it just wouldn't be right, would it? I have to live up to God's good opinion of me!

196  It can be but myself I crucify.

MT: What a thought. I can be my own crucifier, my own torturer and persecutor. How about my own savior?
JC: You do not need to be saved. There is nothing to save you from.
MT: I feel so much happier, JC, than I did twenty years ago. I am forever grateful for this work. It cleaned up the Augean Stables of my mind.
JC: You can be completely free and light, all the time. This is God's will for you.
MT: And mine for myself. I won't waste another minute on suffering!

197 It can be but my gratitude I earn.

MT: So much for duality! I spent a lifetime pleasing others, in search of safety in a threatening world.
JC: And many built their life around pleasing you.
MT: That's a new thought, JC. That I might be as important, or unimportant, to others as they are to me. There is an element of fear in this thought. It has to do with being a teacher. I absolutely do not want anybody to cling to me for safety. I cannot keep anyone safe, because there is no safety in this world we made up. It was made to destroy us.
JC: It was made to destroy that which is passing, and then to lie that it could be made eternal, if you only tried harder.
MT: I want to let go of this personality I carry around. It was built of spit and straw anyway.
JC: Your function, forgiveness, will take apart the personality and replace it with God. It undoes the shaky constructions of the ego.
MT: And gratitude?
JC: Gratitude is the sweet reward of forgiveness. Practice gratitude for all that is, and watch the new world unfold.

197 (2006) It can be but my gratitude I earn.

JC: I am so grateful you are here, sitting here, talking to me.
MT: Why, JC, I wouldn't have it otherwise!
JC: Gratitude is a state of sharing. Sharing like the sun that spreads its bounty without a single judgment. I aimed at this lofty state while I walked the Earth. More recently, within your body's lifetime, you probably remember my gratitude to Helen and Bill, scribes of the Course: For they have come! For they have come at last!*
MT: Those words always send shivers up and down my spine. They have come, the Saviors, and I one of Them. The Son of God, who thought he was lost, now finds his way back. The carpet of time rolls back and is no more. How could I not be grateful for this! The streams of tears, the rivers of blood shed during the last century--these are no more. They have come to bring God's Silence upon the waters again. JC, I can feel the urgency. Everybody must hear that They have come.
JC: Keep in mind that They also come from gratitude. They earn their own gratitude. It feeds and houses Them. The state of complete, boundless love is what heals. Do not set yourself at odds with those who still practice the ways of the ego, but look with kindness upon their pain, and silently say: "Brother, choose again."

* A reference to the beautiful section of the same name in the Text, Chapter 26, IX.

198 Only my condemnation injures me.

What have I got to lose? Only the yoke around my neck. Let me not condemn my body today. Let me not condemn my brother today. Let me not condemn George Bush today! Today I choose to spend the day in perfect peace.

198 (2006) Only my condemnation injures me.

MT: Is there a story when you get to the Kingdom? Or just a state of Being?
JC: You answered your own question, didn't you?
MT: I guess so! I can focus on the painful aspects of being in this body, or I can be in another state altogether.
JC: Your condemnation keeps you (unhappily) in the former.
MT: But condemnation of what and of whom?
JC: You condemn your body, and it responds by being injured. You condemn your brother, and you receive what you gave. Is the insanity not clear? Why would you judge your body as anything less than perfect? Why would you not see Christ in your brother, and thus see Christ in yourself? What have you got to lose?
MT: What have I got to lose? Only the heavy yoke around my neck. Walk with me today, and help me "let things be exactly as they are."

199 I am not a body. I am free.

MT: So I'm supposed to be Spirit, uh? How about that? I feel totally embodied right now.
JC: Time to reconnect with your Spirit-self.
MT: I feel totally disconnected right at the moment. I feel stiff and sleepy.
JC: I didn’t offer you a bed of rose petals--nor a bed of thorns, for that matter. This is the challenge: to continue to connect with Spirit even when your body shouts its reality.
MT: OK, JC. I just wanted my complaints to be heard. Remind me: who am I?
JC: Beyond the body, beyond the sun and stars, there is a light so pure and gentle, the mere remembering of it might bring tears of joy. Enveloped in that light your spirit soars, free of all that binds it to the earth. There is silence here, the silence and peace of the spheres. There is only God here. You know this place, the place you left to be of Earth for just a little while.
MT: The body rises like a brief flame, and then it is gone. We are here for only a blip of time, and then rejoin Eternity, where God would have us be.
JC: Amen!

199 (2006) I am not a body. I am free.

MT: So I'm supposed not to be a body, uh? How about that? I feel totally embodied right now.
JC: Time to reconnect with your Spirit-self.
MT: I feel totally disconnected right at the moment. I feel tired and sleepy and still vaguely ill.
JC: I didn’t offer you a bed of rose petals--nor a bed of thorns, for that matter. This is the challenge: to continue to connect with Spirit even when your body shouts its reality.
MT: OK, JC. I just wanted my complaints to be heard. Remind me: who am I?
JC: Beyond the body, beyond the sun and stars, there is a light so pure and gentle, the mere remembering of it would make you cry tears of joy. Enveloped in that light, your spirit soars, free of all that binds it to the earth. There is silence here, and peace--only God and you, you and God. You know this place, the place you left to be of Earth for just a little while.
MT: The body rises like a brief flame, and then it is gone. We are here for only a blip of time, and then rejoin Eternity, where God would have us be.
JC: Amen!

200 (2006) There is no peace except the peace of God.

MT: My body feels terrible this morning. Instead of trying to leap into holiness, let me look at the opposite: I am this body, there's nothing beyond it, when it dies I die. I am powerless over it but let me keep trying with weight lifting, botox, diets, collagen, hair treatments, designer clothes, jewelry. . . I've got to make it look good so other bodies will admire and envy it. Mostly envy. That is the sweetest reward: the green-eyed look women give other women. When I die, I will preserve ME in liquid nitrogen so that advances in science may bring life back to the carcass. But to what age will science restore me? Who wants to be 95!
JC: Crazy, no?
MT: When you take a good look at it, yes, but we all do it. What are we doing? Why are we spending unimaginable amounts of money on products to improve the body, when by definition it is out of control?
JC: The ego has a basic rule: ask but do not receive. Striving keeps it "alive." Confusion is its currency.
MT: Like a hamster on a treadmill, running desperately to get nowhere. The wheel could at least be attached to a tiny power generator! So, the nature of the illusion is to keep rolling in a confusing dustball. We need to question it at every turn, JC.
JC: I am thankful that you are.
MT: It helps to laugh at our insanity. Peace, then, is to be attained by letting go of all of it. Can't hold on to this one little illusion I'm especially fond of. Where the illusion is, God is not, or we try to keep it that way, but it is an impossibility to banish God. It would be like a fish trying to banish water. How would it even know where to begin!

Today, help me look for peace where it is: in the Real World. GOD IS.

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