Fear is a stranger to the ways of love. Identify with fear, and you will
be a stranger to yourself. And thus you are unknown to you. What is your
Self remains an alien to the part of you which thinks that it is real
but different from yourself. Who could be sane in such a circumstance?
Who but a madman could believe he is what he is not, and judge against
himself?
There is a stranger in our midst, who comes from an idea so foreign to
the truth he speaks a different language, looks upon a world truth does
not know, and understands what truth regards as senseless. Stranger yet,
he does not recognize to whom he comes, and yet maintains his home
belongs to him, while he is alien now who is at home.
And yet how easy it would be to say, “This is my home. Here I belong,
and will not leave because a madman says I must.”What reason is there
for not saying this? What could the reason be except that you had asked
this stranger in to take your place, and let you be a stranger to
yourself ? No-one would let himself be dispossessed so needlessly unless
he thought there was another home more suited to his tastes.
Who is the stranger? Is it fear or you that is unsuited to the home
which God provided for His Son? Is fear His own, created in His
likeness? Is it fear that love completes and is completed by? There is
no home can shelter love and fear. They cannot coexist. If you are real,
then fear must be illusion. And if fear is real, then you do not exist
at all.
How simply, then, the question is resolved. Who fears has but denied
himself and said, “I am the stranger here. And so I leave my home to one
more like me than myself, and give him all I thought belonged to me.”
Now is he exiled of necessity, not knowing who he is, uncertain of all
things but this; that he is not himself, and that his home has been
denied to him.
What does he search for now? What can he find? A stranger to himself can
find no home wherever he may look, for he has made return impossible.
His way is lost except a miracle will search him
out, and show him that he is no stranger now. The miracle will come. For
in his home his Self remains. It asked no stranger in, and took no alien
thought to be Itself. And It will call Its Own unto Itself, in
recognition of what is Its Own.
Who is the stranger? Is he not the one your Self calls not? You are
unable now to recognize this stranger in your midst, for you have given
him your rightful place. Yet is your Self as certain of Its Own as God is
of His Son. He cannot be confused about creation. He is sure of what
belongs to Him. No stranger can be interposed between His knowledge and
His Son’s reality. He does not know of strangers. He is certain of His
Son.
His certainty suffices. Who he knows to be His Son belongs where He has
set His Son forever. He has answered you who ask, “Who is the stranger?”
Hear His Voice assure you, quietly and sure, that you are not a stranger
to your Father, nor is your Creator stranger made to you. Whom God has
joined remains forever one, at home in Him, no stranger to Himself.
Today we offer thanks that Christ has come to search the world for what
belongs to Him. His vision sees no strangers, but beholds His Own, and
joyously unites with them. They see Him as a stranger, for they do not
recognize themselves. Yet as they give Him welcome they remember. And He
leads them gently home again where they belong.
Not one does He forget. Not one He fails to give you to remember, that
your home may be complete and perfect as it was established. He has not
forgotten you. But you will not remember Him until you look on all as He
does. Who denies his brother is denying Him, and thus refusing to accept
the gift of sight by which his Self is clearly recognized, his home
remembered, and salvation come.