The Gift of Opposites

"What is an idol? Do you think you know? For idols are unrecognized as such, and never seen for what they really are. Let not their form deceive you. Idols are but substitutes for your Reality. In some way, you believe they will complete your little self, or have the power to supply your lacks. An idol is a false impression, or a false belief; some form of anti-Christ, that constitutes a gap between the Christ and what you see." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 29, Section VIII, 1:1-3, 2:1-4, 3:1

"In erring mortal thought the Reality of Truth has an antipode, the reality of error. God has no opposite in Science. To Truth there is no error. As Truth alone is Real, then it follows that to declare error real would be to try and make it truth." -- No and Yes by Mary Baker Eddy; Page 5, Lines 4-9

We live in a dream world of mental constructs. The thing about constructs is that they are constructed ON something. A house is constructed on a foundation. Mental constructs are either constructed on the foundation of assumed material reality or on the Truth of Oneness. These are the only two choices, and assumed material reality is the foundation for the mental constructs of opposites that populate our dream world.

Jeshua ben Joseph spoke in parables to illustrate such things. He reminded us over and over that judgment is not our function here, and that when we judge (see things as this or that), we remain asleep and lost in the dream. He told the following parable about hearing this, but not practicing it:
"Whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock. And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house, and it fell not, for it was founded upon a rock. And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand. And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell. And great was the fall of it." (The Bible; Matthew 7:24-27)

So it's not that we shouldn't judge... it's that we can't. How can you build a world (or a true idea) on what is constantly shifting and changing? Like the house built on sand, we fall again and again. There is no truth (not some truth, but NO truth) in the ideas of the world, and there is absolutely no true cause and effect nor reality in matter.

Mary Baker Eddy said it this way: "If disease is real as health, and is itself a state of being, and yet is arrayed against being, then Mind, or God, does not meddle with it. Disease becomes indeed a stubborn reality, and man is mortal. A kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation." (No and Yes by Mary Baker Eddy; Page 5, Lines 18-22) How can the Oneness and Allness of God, the unchanging Good ItSelf, contain or behold anything other than ItSelf? When we base a world on this insane possibility, we are indeed a kingdom divided against itself.

This world of seeming opposites becomes a gift when we heed the words of Christ. When we see what shifts and changes and vacillates from this to that, we know it is not true. We would not build our house upon the sand. Instead, we look for what is unchanging in every seeming circumstance and appearance. We build our house on the Ground of Being that lies beneath every seeming person, place, or situation, unchanging and sure.

The gift of seeming opposites is that they are so easily and transparently seen as arbitrary judgments, based on selective and exclusionary mental tactics. We mentally try to split Reality in two. There is in Truth nothing opposing Reality... nothing at all. There is only One, and this unchanging One holds All in its changeless embrace.

The gift of opposites is that through ceasing to judge them, we come to see that only thoughts in isolation project our illusory world of separation and loss and pain. They are a "thought without the power to change one blade of grass from something living to a sign of death. Their form is nowhere, for their source abides within your mind where God abideth not. Where is this place where What Is Everywhere has been excluded and been kept apart? Christ's enemy is nowhere. It can take no form in which it ever will be real." The real gift of opposites is revealed as we forgive and rejoin what has been separated only in our dreams. And the memory of Wholeness dawns at last.

"God has not many Sons, but only One. Who can have more, and who be given less?" -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 29, Section VIII, 9:1-2