No Respecter of Persons

[For those that are interested, I hold a weekly ACIM conference call every Saturday morning at 9 a.m. central time. All are welcome. The call-in number is 605-475-4333, and the access Code is 101546.]

"Then Peter opened his mouth and said, "Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons." -- The Bible, Acts 10:34

"All that is ever cherished as a hidden belief, to be defended though unrecognized, is faith in specialness. And difference of any kind imposes orders of reality, and a need to judge that cannot be escaped." -- A Course in Miracles, Chapter 24, Section I, 3:1, 6

While questioning the presence of a particular issue in my life, I was given the above guidance. The answer is abundantly clear. Why would this issue be different? Why would it have anything to do with what I do or don't do? The Will of God is One, and is endless Love and Substance and Goodness and Wholeness, Divine Harmony in the Allness of Being. How could there be an exception to Allness?

And then I turned to this passage in ACIM: "Those who are special must defend illusions against the Truth. For what is specialness but an attack upon the Will of God?" To think that my problem or issue or even my love is especially fascinating, especially good, especially hard, especially important, or unique in any way, is to keep the illusion of separation from Self intact. It's amazing how the ego creates the illusion of separateness, keeps the identity of specialness one way or another, in order to establish itself as god. Notice how often we describe things to ourselves or others as 'so good,' or 'so awful,' or 'so easy,' or 'so hard.' Anything to make it stand out as unique and special, worthy of attention, worthy of assumed reality. Ha!

"There is no order of difficulty in miracles. One is not "harder" or "bigger" than another. They are all the same." -- A Course in Miracles, Chapter 1, Section I, 1:1-3

So the sameness of Good, the universality of Good, the duplicability of demonstration through the miracle of healed perception is not because we do anything to deserve it or do it right, but because God IS, everywhere, always, forever. It is hard at first to see that imagined problems are perceived specialness, just as imagined personal love is specialness... and that both have exactly the same goal. The goal is always separation, autonomy, something apart that is yours alone. And this can never be, in Truth. Oneness remains the Truth of Being, and in that Oneness, the Allness of Being is equal and free.

As soon as we stop generating imagined differences, we see that there are none. It's not that it's bad or wrong to generate and live by illusions... it's simply that there are none in reality, and so we suffer through our endless quest to make the illusory and ephemeral be real and eternal. It can never be. As soon as we stop respecting persons and all material illusion, we begin to see as God sees. For make no mistake about it, whether we awaken and see or choose to remain asleep, we remain together in the Oneness of Self, the pure and Holy reflection of God.

"Comparison must be an ego device, for Love makes none. Specialness always makes comparisons. Pursuit of specialness is always at the cost of Peace." -- A Course in Miracles, Chapter 24, Section II, 1:1-2, 2:1

"You are not special. If you think you are, and would defend your specialness against the Truth of what you really are, how can you know the Truth? What answer that the Holy Spirit gives can reach you, when it is your specialness to which you listen, and which asks and answers? You can defend your specialness, but never will you hear the Voice for God beside it." -- A Course in Miracles, Chapter 24, Section II, 4:1-3, 5:1