“You are the work of God, and His work is wholly lovable and wholly loving.” (ACIM, T-1.III.2:3)
Exploring the topic of observing how 1) ego perceives its split and splintering self as unloving, unloved and unlovable and 2) Holy Spirit knows that our One All-Inclusive Self is eternally loving, loved, and lovable, in this YouTube video, Susan Dugan and Bruce Rawles read and commented on part of the Introduction to Part II to of the Workbook of A Course In Miracles:
“Now do we come to Him with but His Word upon our minds and hearts, and wait for Him to take the step to us that He has told us, through His Voice, He would not fail to take when we invited Him. ²He has not left His Son in all his madness, nor betrayed his trust in Him. ³Has not His faithfulness earned Him the invitation that He seeks to make us happy? ⁴We will offer it, and it will be accepted. ⁵So our times with Him will now be spent. ⁶We say the words of invitation that His Voice suggests, and then we wait for Him to come to us.
Now is the time of prophecy fulfilled. ²Now are all ancient promises upheld and fully kept. ³No step remains for time to separate from its accomplishment. ⁴For now we cannot fail. ⁵Sit silently and wait upon your Father. ⁶He has willed to come to you when you have recognized it is your will He do so. ⁷And you could have never come this far unless you saw, however dimly, that it is your will.
I am so close to you we cannot fail. ²Father, we give these holy times to You, in gratitude to Him Who taught us how to leave the world of sorrow in exchange for its replacement, given us by You. ³We look not backward now. ⁴We look ahead, and fix our eyes upon the journey’s end. ⁵Accept these little gifts of thanks from us, as through Christ’s vision we behold a world beyond the one we made, and take that world to be the full replacement of our own.
And now we wait in silence, unafraid and certain of Your coming.²We have sought to find our way by following the Guide You sent to us.³We did not know the way, but You did not forget us.⁴And we know that You will not forget us now.⁵We ask but that Your ancient promises be kept which are Your Will to keep.⁶We will with You in asking this.⁷The Father and the Son, Whose holy Will created all that is, can fail in nothing.⁸In this certainty, we undertake these last few steps to You, and rest in confidence upon Your Love, which will not fail the Son who calls to You.” (ACIM, W-pII.in.4:1–7:8)
… as well as this paragraph from the essay “How Is Peace Possible in This World?”
“Again we come to the question of judgment. ²This time ask yourself whether your judgment or the Word of God is more likely to be true. ³For they say different things about the world, and things so opposite that it is pointless to try to reconcile them. ⁴God offers the world salvation; your judgment would condemn it. ⁵God says there is no death; your judgment sees but death as the inevitable end of life. ⁶God’s Word assures you that He loves the world; your judgment says it is unlovable. ⁷Who is right? ⁸For one of you is wrong. ⁹It must be so.” (ACIM, M-11.2:1-9)
We’re all the “electricians” of our minds that can elect to change the “wiring” we made to have everyone else “push our buttons” that appear to upset us, denying our complicity and intentional booby-trapping to provide a seemingly endless supply of external grievances, annoyances, victimhoods and martyrdom opportunities. In order to keep the insane ego game of guilt going, we’ve (mostly unconsciously) “wired” (pre-judged) nearly every person, situation and circumstance to trigger a defense/attack reaction, forgetting entirely that we set-up the up-set. Once we begin (with Holy Spirit’s help) to see that we have been attracted to guilt (and every unlovable related trait of the ego mind), we can begin to see how silly and insane this masochism is, and practice forgiving instead of adding more munitions and armaments to the battles we wage in our minds. A split mind is always at war and has no capacity for seeing that our real nature is eternally loving, lovable and loved. In fact, it is incapable of holding anything but the opposite assessment of both itself and its countless adversaries; the erroneous belief that we’re all unloving, unlovable and unloved.
“Beware of the temptation to perceive yourself unfairly treated. In this view, you seek to find an innocence that is not Theirs but yours alone, and at the cost of someone else’s guilt. Can innocence be purchased by the giving of your guilt to someone else?” (ACIM, T-26.X.4:1-3)
Ultimately, consistent peace is happily inevitable, despite our ephemeral ego doubts, protestations and sabotage to the contrary. Once we let our Inner Kindness Teacher’s (a.k.a. Holy Spirit’s) sinless vision of our true Identity replace our sinful (unworthy, unloving, unloved, and unlovable) self-concept, what remains for us all is the lovely, loving, loved, and lovable Self we incorrectly feared we had forsaken, but which has been kept for us in eternity.
For further reference, here are 9 instances of “unloving” and 1 of unlovable in ACIM (the latter noted above in bold type.)
There are 67 instances of “worthy” (or variations of that word) in ACIM.
“When everything you retain is lovable, there is no reason for fear to remain with you. This is your part in the Atonement.” (ACIM, T-2.VIII.5:10-11)
(This video was recorded on August 16, 2024.)
If you have questions or comments about this video, previous videos in this ACIM-related video series, or other Course-related topics, please email them to us via the ACIMblog.com contact form. Susan and Bruce will review and try to respond to questions and suggestions for future conversations. We look forward to extending the conversation with you!
If you are interested in Susan’s excellent weekly Tuesday evening classes based on the teachings of Kenneth Wapnick, you can contact her here.
Here are some prior ACIM-related conversations with Susan Dugan and Bruce Rawles.
We like to remind those who have enjoyed these conversations to check out the latest releases from FACIM as well as support the work of Susan and Bruce (via PayPal links at the bottom of the sidebars on their respective websites) if you feel inspired to do so. THANKS!
