Day 101

Today's Lesson:

God's Will for me is perfect happiness.

Today we will continue with the theme of happiness. This is a key idea for understanding what salvation means. We still believe it asks for suffering as penance for our "sins." This is not so. Yet we must think it so while we believe that sin is real, and that God's Son can sin.

If sin is real, then punishment is just and cannot be escaped. If that is the case, then salvation can only be purchased through suffering. If sin is real, then happiness must be an illusion, for they cannot both be true. If sin is real, salvation must be pain. Pain is the cost of sin, and suffering can never be escaped, if sin is real. Salvation must be feared, for it will kill, but slowly. Its wrath is boundless, merciless, but wholly just.

Who would seek out such savage punishment? In this case, who would not flee salvation, and attempt in every way he can to drown the Voice which offers it to him? Why would he try to listen and accept Its offering? If sin is real, its offering is death, and is given in cruel form to match the vicious wishes in which sin is born. If sin is real, salvation has become our bitter enemy, the curse of God upon us who have crucified His Son.

We need the practice periods today. The exercises teach us that sin is not real, and all that we believe must come from sin will never happen, for it has no cause. We must accept Atonement with an open mind, which cherishes no lingering belief that we have made a devil of God's Son. There is no sin. We practice with this thought as often as we can today, because it is the basis for today's idea.

God's Will for us is perfect happiness because there is no sin, and suffering is causeless. Joy is just, and pain is but the sign we have misunderstood ourselves. Fear not the Will of God. But turn to it in confidence that it will set us free from all the consequences sin has wrought in our feverish imaginations.

Miracles I'm noticing:

Our minds always seem to fill any voids with negative. We've been conditioned, from the time we are little, to believe that whenever we get called into an office we are in trouble. Whenever someone doesn't return a greeting in the hallway at work, they must be mad at us. If we don't know the outcome of an event, we immediately imagine the worst. We are great at catastrophizing!

Yet how often does the worst happen? We have spent all of our energy being fatalistic when today's lesson tells us that sin isn't even real. We don't have to worry about being punished and can free up our energy to be creative, which is what our natural state would call us to be.

I had a very serendipitous encounter yesterday as I delivered the closing keynote for a banking conference in Bismarck. Brooke Stephens, the opening keynote speaker, who I didn't get a chance to hear, needed a ride back to Fargo (a 2 1/2 hour drive) where she would be catching her plane back home to Brooklyn today. I offered to drive her and met a new friend.

Despite the fact that we were driving through a blizzard most of the way, the drive seemed to fly by as I learned all about her life and her career - and got a much more personal view of this woman who has been on CNN, Bloomberg TV and even on a soap opera than I ever would have gotten if I hadn't met her. We even connected on a deeply spiritual level as we shared our paths in that realm. She is an author, and will be publishing three novels in the near future in addition to her most recent book Wealth Happens One Day At A Time. The advice and information she shared with me was relevant to my own life on so many levels - I know for certain there are no coincidences.

In addition to my visit with Brooke, I also learned a lot about myself at our Course gathering last night as everyone shared the miracles that are happening in their own lives. Since we began our studies with this group in January, four people have left their jobs and are following their hearts and either starting their own companies or finding deeper fulfillment in their current careers by really living what we're learning. I saw for myself last night that I have been playing too small, and do want to step my career up a few notches. Instead of letting my ego speak last night as I heard all the wonderful things people are seeing for themselves ("they're doing so much more than I am, why can't I be as fabulous as they are"), I felt genuine love and happiness for them and realize that we are all connected and will all benefit from happiness over ego-driven fear or resentment or jealousy.

So as I choose happiness over being right, I realize that God's Will for me is perfect happiness and I can let go of the notion of sin. What a miracle that is in my entire life!