“Help me to use the eyes of Christ today, and thus allow the Holy Spirit’s Love to bless all things which I may look upon, that His forgiving Love may rest on me.”
– Lesson 295, A Course in Miracles
According to the Course, a miracle is simply a change in perspective. I say “simply,” but, of course, we know that while we are under the spell of the ego, there’s nothing “simple” about changing our perspective on the world.
The ego, which speaks first and loudest, tells us to just look out onto the world for proof that it’s all going to hell in a handbasket. A pandemic, political power grabs, ongoing wars, division and the growth of sectarian tribalism, violence and the threat of violence. “It’s all there. See for yourself,” the ego tells us.
There’s something inside of us though that knows its not true. We may call it “hope,” we may call it “optimism,” we may call it a sense of desperation that things will right themselves and everything will be all right. Whatever you call it, it’s the quiet part of ourselves that begs us to turn away from the ego’s illusion of fighting, fear and fetidness.
This “hope” is our true, divine Self – the Christ within us who asks only one thing of us – to use our eyes, “and thus redeem the world.”
Christ is constantly asking us to accept the miracle of changed perspective – to see the world as it really is – clouds that block our vision of truth. There is only one of us here – all seemingly in separate bodies having disparate experiences of life. We are all here to learn our specific lessons, but the outcome is the same – to awaken from this dream of separation and realize that we remain in our true home – safely within the mind of God.
What Christ asks us to do is to allow him to see himself through us. As Mother Teresa once remarked, “Whenever I meet someone in need, it’s really Jesus in his most distressing disguise.”
The ego wants us to focus on the distress. The Christ within beckons us to see the divinity behind the illusion of distress. If we do – if we will allow Christ to see the world through us – this lesson tells us the Holy will “offer peace of mind to me, and take away all terror and all pain. And as they are removed from me, the dreams that seemed to settle on the world are gone. Redemption must be one. As I am saved, the world is saved with me. For all of us must be redeemed together.”
This does not mean we abdicate our responsibility to change the world. We are, after all, here to save the world together. What this means is that we must be the ones who break the chain of violence, who bring in those from the margins, who refuse to choose sides and instead will do the hard work of seeking and revealing the common ground we all share.
When we allow Christ to see the world through our eyes, the Holy Spirit will bless everything we look upon. Instead of a world torn by strife and fear, we can see a loving and forgiving world. The ego will protest, loudly. Our task, however, is to ignore it – to see the truth behind the illusion – unmask the man behind the curtain and show everyone that this world of fear, hatred and greed is simply a nightmare we have allowed our collective egos to create.
We can create a different world – one where Christ only sees Christ and all of our distressing disguises melt away.
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