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341  I can attack but my own sinlessness/And it is only that which keeps me
safe.

MT: Another reminder of the insanity we make up, the insanity we live by like a sacred rule. If we are one, then to attack another is to attack myself. My safety comes from recognition that nobody, including me (so much for my terminal uniqueness) is a sinner. We all make mistakes, and mistakes can be corrected. To call something a sin implies need for redemption through pardon. It implies a need for punishment, a denial of our magnitude. But a mistake, that's different. Even in our blindness, we recognize that everybody makes mistakes, and mistakes can be corrected and made whole. But what about the taking of a life?
JC: Yes, what about the taking of a life. . . this would seem to call for retribution, an eye for an eye. But I came to teach forgiveness. I did not call for the execution of those who broke my body, because I knew that I never was my body. They could not take my life. My life was part of something beyond comprehension, a vast Reality invisible to the eye, so pervasive that it is no longer seen.
MT: I want an end to the insanity. Let me be an instrument of Thy peace. . .

341 (2006) I can attack but my own sinlessness/And it is only that which keeps me safe.

MT: Where am I today? Had an unquiet night. The eye doctor tells me the spots I see come from macular degeneration. JC, I don't want to lose my eyesight. I love colors and flowers and photography. I love to see the smiles of my grandchildren.
JC: You are in grief, dear, dear sister.
MT: Yes. This is the year of loss--losing Nina, losing pets, now losing my lovely clear eyesight. I don't even want to write this. I am ashamed, like it's my fault that I am defective. I feel angry and separated as well. I want to get up and distract myself with busyness. I don't want to take in this lesson. I don't even want to see this differently!
JC: I hear you. Who needs to be forgiven, and for what?
MT: I need to forgive myself, right now. For what? I don't know. I am confused. I'm not even sure who I am blaming, but surely I am blaming someone. God, perhaps. It's easy to be a saint when all goes well, then I am brutally reminded that there is a body even if I'm not it, and it will deteriorate like everybody else's. Am I attacking my sinlessness? Probably.
JC: There is no "I" to attack or be attacked. There is only attack happening in the Great Void.
MT: Disembodied attack! It could be joy instead, or love . . . I could be reaching out with my (imaginary) hands to (imaginary) others. I could be playing the game of Atonement instead of the game of self-pity.

342  I let forgiveness rest upon all things/For thus forgiveness will be given me.

JC: All forgiveness is self-forgiveness. If you did not imagine sin in yourself, you would not project it out onto others.
MT: I sit here at the computer, thinking--I know all this, why are you repeating it.
JC: Call it Forgiveness 101. Everything you've put around is a reminder of the world you do not want and sought to escape when you embarked on this quest for peace. Without reinforcement, the mind relapses into the made-up world of the ego and it's as if you had never taken the Universal Course.
MT: Tell me, in my life right now, where am I blind to my projections?
JC: There's H, who doesn't return your calls! You are falling back into your old pattern of withdrawing at the barest hint of a slight. There is no need for this.
MT: Shucks, I asked. . . I get my answer, and don't know what to do with it.
JC: What could you learn from H? This is your chance to see things differently. Could you trust, and go with guidance instead of resisting
guidance?
MT: You are so right. I forgot that I prayed for guidance! Now help me return to God's Presence.
JC: Beyond the sun and stars, a world calls to you, a world hinted at and not quite believed. Its resonance enlivens every cell in your body. Its harmony calls on you to sing with it. You are silent in awe at the beauty of its glow.

342 (2006) I let forgiveness rest upon all things/For thus forgiveness will be
given me.

JC: Lightness of heart is yours today. Claim it for yourself.
MT: And lightness of seeing? I can't help to think that this eye issue has to do with spiritual sight.
JC: There's no need to analyze, find causes and reasons. It is what it is, and when you accept that, it changes of its own accord.
MT: Well, I had a good time with friends yesterday. I felt lighthearted. I pledge to let go of this "problem" that I see. Today I dream and laugh and play. Oh, and let me ask again: I want to bring lightness to driving around with Sarah this morning. Our interaction feels bound and constricted, and I know it need not be so.
JC: Be where she is. Do not condemn her seeming prison cell, but do not accept it as real, because it is not. Bring the light of forgiveness to her imaginary chains.
MT: And thus will forgiveness be given me. Thank you, JC.

343  I am not asked to make a sacrifice to find the mercy and the peace of God.
 
MT: It is a rule in this world that to get, we must give. That to everything there is a price. No pain, no gain. But this is telling me (once again) that salvation is free. 
JC: Free like sunshine and air. Yours whenever you choose it.
MT: I knew there was a rub! I've got to choose. 
JC: Would you rather be forced to accept salvation? Where would free will be, then?
MT: But to choose salvation I'd have to toss out that delicious feeling of being a victim. The relief of blaming someone else. The savage pleasure of resentment. 
JC: That's the confusion of pain and joy I talk about in the Text. You think that pain is really pleasure. But when, one day soon, you allow yourself to experience the joy of being one with God, you will never long for pain again.  
MT: Shoot. I really fight being powerful, don't I. 
JC: Go and fight no more. God is not selfish and grasping. The sun shines on just and unjust alike. Just don't hold up a black umbrella and then complain that you don't get a tan!

344  Today I learn the law of love; that what I give my brother is my gift to me.
 
I cannot give without receiving. I can be blind to the gifts that I receive, and call my giving sacrifice, but it is impossible not to grow as we nurture others' unfolding of the Self.
Today I let go of sacrifice. Today I give to others what I want for myself, because there is no other. I am Other, the other is I.


344  Today I learn the law of love: that what I give my brother is my gift to me.
 
MT: You keep reminding me of that, don't you.
JC: As you found out yourself, repetition is key to learning.
MT: Any specifics apropos my struggles with my own particular ego?
JC: Ah, it's good you used that expression: particular ego. The ego is individual, God is universal. 
MT: At one point in my growing up from child to woman, I developed away from the universal.
JC: And now you find yourself on the reverse journey—rolling back the carpet of time—returning to the universal self.
MT: Your words take my breath away. I asked to hear specifics, but this is such a moving way to remind me of a basic tenet of the Course.
JC: He whom you forgive will give you gifts beyond the worth of anything on earth.
MT: I forgive out of selfishness!
JC: Out of love of self comes love of the Other, and vice versa. But you must accept Atonement for yourself in order to extend it to the Other. If you attempt to forgive while holding your self apart from God's grace, you give out of sacrifice, you give as the better of the two. The dance of guilt goes on, and nobody benefits. It happens all the time in your world.
MT: Out of love of self comes love of Other . . . but there is no Other. We are One. The journey's end.
JC: The journey ends where it began.

345  I offer only miracles today/For I would have them be returned to me.
 
MT: Now, how to stay in this miracle-minded frame of mind? JC?
JC: Do you believe for a moment that God would have you return to the illusion?
MT: Of course not! But then, there's my own mind. It's like a loose cannon. It shoots off in all sorts of directions.
JC: Your decision to offer miracles has all the power of God behind it. You do not walk alone. All manner of mysterious events and unforeseen circumstances will show up to move you along, if you remain open to guidance.
MT: My prayer today: walk with me, Brother. Guide me with your sure hand while I learn to see, for I have been blind too long.

346  Today the peace of God envelops me/And I forget all things except His Love.

MT: How easy to say these simple words, how many stumbling blocks I place in the way!
JC: It is work to place stumbling blocks on the road to freedom. Why keep
doing it?
MT: Because I don't really, really trust, JC. Not yet.
JC: Ah, the unbearably sweet moment of awakening, it eludes you still.
MT: But I've let go of the anguish over this unfinished business. The mind chatter that used to intrude has moved to a remote place in my head. The crowd is silent except for a boorish talker somewhere in the rear. Now please bring me back to the peace of God, it's all I want and need.
JC:  Beyond the body, beyond the sun and stars, past everything you see and yet somehow familiar, is an arc of golden light that stretches as you look into a great and shining circle. And all the circle fills with light before your eyes. The edges of the circle disappear, and what is in it is no longer contained at all. The light expands and covers everything, extending to infinity forever shining and with no break or limit anywhere. Within it everything is joined in perfect continuity. Nor is it possible to imagine that anything could be outside, for there is nowhere that this light is not. [T-21.I.8]

347  Anger must come from judgment. Judgment is the weapon I would use against myself, to keep the miracle away from me.
 
MT: Anger, fear, guilt--the infamous triad.
JC: With anger come the two mournful sisters, fear and guilt.
MT: This thing about judgment, please say more. Where am I punishing myself with judgment?
JC: Do I need to count the ways? The whole world you see is a product of judgment. The image of self you have made up--judgment. The bodies around you, sick, fat, sad and lonely, or, perhaps, ideally beautiful--all a product of judgment.
MT: You're talking about a vast illusion, so pervasive that it's like water to a fish: always present, therefore unrecognizable.
JC: So pervasive that you need a miracle to see beyond. Fortunately, God wrote in your birth certificate: Entitled to Miracles.
MT: This Course has a very lofty goal, doesn't it.
JC: Indeed. But it is a required course! Only the time you take it is voluntary. The return to God must happen eventually. How long will you stare at the garden of Eden from outside the heavy iron gate you work so hard to make real?

348 I have no cause for anger nor for fear, for You surround me. And in every need that I perceive, Your grace suffices me.
 
MT: Powerful words, JC. Peace Pilgrim comes to mind. Her every need was taken care of by God's grace. What an example of total trust. 
JC: So can you trust? Trust is a muscle that builds as it is used. You don't have to wander the country with only the clothes on your back and pennies in your pocket, unless that's your guidance. Just remember that God surrounds you, and practice trust in whatever ways are at hand.
MT: I've always felt like a chicken, and to prove I was not, I made myself confront danger, even expose myself to it.
JC: Such are the ways of the ego. God's strength is different from "being a chicken/not being a chicken." God's strength resides far, far, from the world of ideas in your head. Let go of ideas and be with God. This bears repeating: you are either with an idea, or you are with God.
MT: So I shall. Thanks, JC. You are such a good friend.
JC: Always here for you.

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