Greg Mackie's Blog Archive January 2006
January 24, 2006
Since the beginning of this year, we at the Circle have been going through the Text of A Course in Miracles with a group of over a hundred students who signed up for our long-distance learning program. We'll be going through the entire Text in one year. We're in the early chapters now, and those chapters have deepened my conviction that Jesus is really training us to be literal miracle workers. Just as he performed miracles two thousand years ago, he wants us to do the same today. When he says "this is a course in miracles," he means exactly that.
We've been supplementing our reading with material from the Urtext (Bill's original typing of the Course). In that material, Jesus talks a lot about bringing forth and expressing our miracle impulses, which lie deep in the unconscious mind below all the garbage the ego has placed there. One passage has impacted me so much that I've made it a focus of my recent Course practice:
Tension is the result of a building-up of unexpressed miracle-impulses. This can be truly abated only by releasing the miracle-drive, which has been blocked.
Wow! That's the last thing I would identify as the source of my tension. I think of tension as coming from all sorts of other factors, especially the pull of various conflicting drives. My drive for pleasure and satisfaction of physical needs conflicts with my drive to put my nose to the grindstone and get my work done. My drive to get my work done conflicts with my drive for sleep. My drive for sleep conflicts with my drive for intellectual stimulation (in other words, I stay up late reading a lot). My drives in general conflict with other people's drives. It seems that no matter what I do, one drive or another will be thwarted and that is the source of my tension.
But here we are told that tension really comes from the thwarting of the miracle drive: a drive to extend miracles to others and truly join with them. I didn't even know I had a miracle drive. True, I've known for some time that I have a desire to be truly helpful to others-to work miracles. I've learned that doing this is a great source of happiness. But I've never really regarded this as a drive. Instead, it has felt more like a noble but weak desire which is usually overwhelmed by those strong drives for other things. My hope has been that over time and with diligent practice, I could strengthen that weak desire to the point where it would at least have a chance to compete with those drives. This has felt like a pretty daunting prospect.
In the Urtext, though, Jesus completely overturns our conventional understanding of drives. The drives that seem to run our lives are actually distortions of the miracle drive. (The specific distortion he mentions is the sex drive, but I think it's safe to say that all of our drives for satisfaction apart from God qualify; after all, we are told that "all real pleasure comes from doing God's Will" [T-1.VII.1:4.]) We try to relieve our tension through satisfying those other drives, but since those drives are distortions that don't bring true satisfaction, this doesn't really work. The only way to truly relieve our tension is to release the built-up pressure in that steam engine of "unexpressed miracle-impulses," to uncork "the miracle-drive, which has been blocked." The only thing that will bring us true satisfaction is to work miracles.
This reframes the entire situation for me. I don't have to desperately stoke the embers of my weak miracle-working desire in the hope that someday it will overcome the "burning impulses" (W-pII.252.1:4) that drive me to do other things. Instead, the truth is that my miracle drive is the most powerful drive I have-in fact, the only drive I have. I just need to clear out the blocks, to let my distorted drives be transformed back into the pure miracle drive at their core, to unleash what is already in me, begging to be released. Once I do this, working miracles will be as natural and inevitable as eating and sleeping are to me now.
How can the miracle drive be released? The entire Course is a course in how to do this-it is, after all, "a course in miracles." But one practice I've found helpful is an Urtext practice where Bill and Helen would invite Jesus to change their inappropriate sexual impulses back into miracle impulses. I like to apply this practice to all of my ego-based drives, offering them to Jesus and inviting him to transform them back into the miracle drive. Now of course, I still have those other drives, and I don't expect to be completely free of them anytime soon. But I'm doing what I can to offer them to Jesus for his use, because I really want to release that miracle drive. What could possibly relieve my tension more than dedicating myself to the joyous calling of extending salvation to all the world? Respond to this post
January 15, 2006
I haven't posted a new blog entry in a while because I've been spending a great deal of time writing Text commentaries for the Circle's new Text reading program. We're going over the early chapters of the Text, and digging into them has been illuminating. The following are some themes that have really stood out for me as we've gone over those early chapters:
1. The purpose of the Course: This is "a course in miracles." We are really being trained to become literal miracle workers who extend miracles of healed perception to others, just as Jesus did two thousand years ago. Jesus says, "I have asked you to perform miracles" (T-2.II.1:2), and he really means it. Everything we are taught in the Course's pages is for the purpose of preparing us to fulfill this calling.
2. The challenge: "To learn this course requires willingness to question every value that you hold" (T-24.In.2:1). The Course doesn't hold back in these early chapters. It tells us we have no real needs. It tells us all physical illness is caused by the mind. It tells us that the one and only way to peace is complete forgiveness. We are truly being confronted and asked to question the most fundamental aspects of what we think is real.
3. The liberation: This is the flip-side of the challenge. We look at the challenge and say, "It's so hard to give up these values and beliefs I hold so dear. Do I get to keep any of my goodies?" But from the Course's standpoint, this is like asking, "Do I get to keep hitting myself on the head with a hammer?" because our so-called goodies really bring us pain. If we truly get that-if we let our own false beliefs go and accept the Atonement as our protection against all those things that really bring us pain-we will learn the glorious truth that we are complete, whole, perfect, have no needs, and none of the horrible things we think we have done to ourselves ever occurred. So, giving up our "goodies" opens us up to radiant joy and freedom we cannot experience any other way.
4. Liberated to give: We come full circle back to our function as miracle workers. Accepting the gifts of God, accepting the truth that we have been given everything, we are secure and abundant. All of our needs are met, and we don't have to play the futile game of extracting things from the world. Now, we are in a position to give miracles. When we are free of care, we are free to care for others. "The miracle turns the defense of Atonement to your real protection, and as you become more and more secure you assume your natural talent of protecting others, knowing yourself as both a brother and a Son" (T-2.II.7:8). Respond to this post
January 1, 2006
There is a great paragraph about the new year (originally dictated to Helen Shucman on January 1, 1967) in Chapter 16 of the Text:
You have never given any problem to the Holy Spirit He has not solved for you, nor will you ever do so. You have never tried to solve anything yourself and been successful. Is it not time you brought these facts together and made sense of them? This is the year for the application of the ideas that have been given you. For the ideas are mighty forces, to be used and not held idly by. They have already proved their power sufficiently for you to place your faith in them, and not in their denial. This year invest in truth, and let it work in peace. Have faith in Him Who has faith in you. Think what you have really seen and heard, and recognize it. Can you be alone with witnesses like these? (T-16.II.9:1-10)
The essence of this paragraph is that the Course has already proven its worth to you, so this year, follow its path and apply it to your life as you never have before. I find it helpful to reflect on the claims being made here, to see if they are really true for me. I encourage you to do the same thing for yourself.
Is it true that I've never been able to solve anything for myself, but the Holy Spirit has solved every problem I've ever given Him? In all honesty, I'd have to say yes. I'm totally clueless on my own-my life experience in the "school of hard knocks" has proven this to me time and time again. Asking the Holy Spirit for guidance, on the other hand, has always brought positive results. Sure, there have been plenty of times when I didn't hear Him clearly, and I've made plenty of mistakes along the way. But the bottom line is that taking the time to ask and listen has always led to happier outcomes than relying on my own devices.
Is it true that the ideas of the Course have proven their power sufficiently for me to place my faith in them? Dear God, yes. How did I ever live without them? Oh, I've got a long ways to go on this path-no one will ever mistake me for a saint. But since I began the Course in 1991, my life has transformed in ways I couldn't have even imagined then. I have experienced and even performed real miracles. I have had tantalizing glimpses of the limitless Love of God. I have had tastes of deep stillness and peace. I'm quicker to forgive than I used to be. I'm blessed with some wonderful holy relationships, the healthiest relationships I've ever had. I have a meaningful special function in life, one that brings me deep fulfillment.
Yes, I have seen and heard plenty of "witnesses" that have testified to how much this course has done for me when I've really done what it says. Its Guide has guided me true. Its ideas have been mighty forces in my life. Its power has been demonstrated to me more times than I can count. I have all the incentive I need to make an even greater investment in the truth that works in peace, to place even more faith in the Teacher Who has such boundless faith in me. So, my New Year's resolution this year is to apply the ideas the Course has given me with greater dedication and devotion than I ever have before. The Course's track record so far has shown me that the effort is worth it. Respond to this post
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