Specialness is a lack of trust in anyone except yourself. Faith is
invested in yourself alone. Everything else becomes your enemy;
feared and attacked, deadly and dangerous, hated and worthy only of
destruction. Whatever gentleness it offers is but deception, but its
hate is real. In danger of destruction it must kill, and you are drawn
to it to kill it first. And such is guilt’s attraction. Here is death
enthroned as savior; crucifixion is now redemption, and salvation can
only mean destruction of the world, except yourself.

What could the purpose of the body BE but specialness? And it is this
that makes it frail and helpless in its own defense. It was conceived to
make YOU frail and helpless. The goal of separation is its curse. Yet
bodies HAVE no goal. Purpose is of the MIND. And minds can change as
they desire. What they are, and all their attributes, they CANNOT
change. But what they hold as purpose CAN be changed, and body states
must shift accordingly. Of itself the body can do nothing. See it as
means to hurt, and it is hurt. See it as means to heal, and it is
healed.

You can but hurt YOURSELF. This has been oft repeated, but is difficult
to grasp as yet. To minds intent on specialness it is impossible. Yet to
those who wish to heal and not attack it is quite obvious. The purpose of
attack is in the MIND, and its effects are felt but where it IS. Nor is
mind limited; so must it be that harmful purpose hurts the mind as one.
Nothing could make LESS sense to specialness. Nothing could make MORE
sense to miracles. For miracles are merely change of purpose from hurt
to healing.

This shift in purpose DOES “endanger” specialness, but only in the sense
that all illusions are “threatened” by the truth. They will NOT stand
before it. Yet what comfort has ever been in them, that you would keep
the gift your Father asks from Him, and give it there instead? Given to
HIM, the universe is yours. Offered to THEM, no gifts can be returned.
What you have given specialness has left you bankrupt, and your treasure
house barren and empty, with an open door inviting everything that would
disturb your peace to enter and destroy.

Long ago we said consider not the means by which salvation is attained,
nor how to reach it. But DO consider, and consider well, whether it is
your wish that you might see your brother sinless. To specialness the
answer must be “no.” A sinless brother IS its enemy, while sin, if it
were possible, would be its friend. Your brother’s sins
would justify itself, and give it meaning that the truth denies. All
that is real proclaims his sinlessness. All that is false proclaims his
sins as real. If HE is sinful, then is YOUR reality not real, but just a
dream of specialness which lasts an instant, crumbling into dust.

Do not defend this senseless dream, in which God is bereft of what He
loves, and you remain beyond salvation. Only this is certain in this
shifting world which has no meaning in reality:When peace is not with
you entirely, and when you suffer pain of any kind, you have beheld some
sin within your brother, and have REJOICED at what you thought was
there. Your specialness seemed safe because of it. And thus you saved
what YOU appointed to be your savior, and crucified the one whom God has
given you instead. So are you bound with him, for you ARE one. And so is
specialness his “enemy,” and YOURS as well.