What time but now can truth be recognized? The present is the only time
there is. And so today, this instant, now, we come to look upon what is
forever there; not in our sight, but in the eyes of Christ. He looks
past time and sees eternity as represented there. He hears the sounds
the senseless busy world engenders, yet He hears them faintly, for
beyond them all He hears the song of Heaven and the Voice of God more
clear, more meaningful, more near.
The world fades easily away before His sight. Its sounds grow dim. A
melody from far beyond the world increasingly is more and more distinct;
an ancient Call to Which He gives an ancient answer. You will recognize
them both. For they are but your answer to your Father’s Call to you.
Christ answers for you, echoing your Self, using your voice to give His
glad consent; accepting your deliverance for you.
How holy is your practicing today, as He gives you His sight and hears
for you, and answers in your name the Call He hears. How quiet is the
time you give to spend with Him beyond the world. How easily are all
your seeming sins forgot and all your sorrows unremembered. On this day
is grief laid by, for sights and sounds which come from nearer than the
world made clear to you who will today accept the gifts He gives.
There is a silence into which the world can not intrude. There is an
ancient peace you carry in your heart and have not lost. There is a sense
of holiness in you the thought of sin has never touched. All this today
you will remember. Faithfulness in practicing today will bring rewards
so great and so completely different from all things you sought before,
that you will know that here your treasure is, and here your rest.
This is the day when vain imaginings part like a curtain, to reveal what
lies beyond them. Here is what is really here made visible, while all
the shadows which appeared to hide it sink to obscurity. Now is the
balance righted, and the scales of judgement left to Him Who judges
true. And in His judgement will a world unfold in perfect innocence
before your eyes. Now will you see it with the eyes of Christ. Now is
its transformation clear to you.
Brothers, this day is sacred to the world. Your vision, given you
from far beyond all things within the world looks back on them in a new
light. And what you see becomes the healing and salvation of the world.
The valuable and valueless are both perceived and recognized for what
they are. And what is worthy of your love receives your love, while
nothing to be feared remains.
We will not judge today. We will receive but what is given us from
Judgement made beyond the world. Our practicing today becomes our gifts
of thankfulness for our release from blindness and from misery. All that
we see will but increase our joy, because its holiness reflects our own.
We stand forgiven in the sight of Christ, with all the world forgiven in
our own.
We bless the world as we behold it in the light in which our Savior
looks on us, and offer it the freedom given us through His forgiving
vision, not our own. Open the curtain in your practicing by merely
letting go all things you think you want. Your trifling treasures put
away, and leave a clean and open space within your mind where Christ can
come, and offer you the treasure of salvation. He has need of your most
holy mind to save the world.
Is not this purpose worthy to be yours? Is not Christ’s vision to be
sought above the world’s unsatisfying goals? Let not today slip by
without the gifts it holds for you receiving your consent and your
acceptance. We can change the world if you acknowledge them. You may not
see the value your acceptance gives the world. But this you surely want;
you can exchange all suffering for joy this very day. Practice in
earnest and the gift is yours. Would God deceive you? Can His promise
fail? Can you withhold so little when His Hand holds out complete
salvation to His Son?