My thoughts* on Workbook Lesson 289 for October 14, 2024. The past is over. It can touch me not.

The past is over. It can touch me not.

* If I understand this correctly, I am SAFE RIGHT NOW. THAT KIND OF BOGGLES MY MIND BECAUSE before I found A Course in Miracles EVERYTHING ABOUT MY EXISTENCE TOLD ME I AM NOT SAFE.

* To tell the truth even the Course did because it told me why I was not safe. It was not until I took a good look at the Urtext and found the Atonement that I realized there was a place where there was safety and that IT AND REALITY were INSIDE OF ME.

* I am safe though because the past cannot harm me.

* What this means is that the thoughts that I had that were without the Presence of God and UNION one with all that is were not real or lasting.

1. Unless the past is over in my mind, the real world must escape my sight.

²For I am really looking nowhere; seeing but what is not there.

* In other words, I am seeing something, but it is really not there. This is difficult to understand when one is outside of the witness or confirmation within that God IS.

³How can I then perceive the world forgiveness offers?

⁴This the past was made to hide, for this the world that can be looked on only now.

* Hear that language usage! It makes it sound so confusing when it is relatively simple. Argh!

* A world where God is recognized as being all that could be can only be seen if one is willing to let go of the idea of sin that resides in a past that could never have happened.

⁵It has no past.

⁶For what can be forgiven but the past, and if it is forgiven it is gone.

* This does not mean that you do not have to have healthy boundaries as long as others do not know that this is true.

2. Father, let me not look upon a past that is not there.

²For You have offered me Your Own replacement, in a present world the past has left untouched and free of sin.

³Here is the end of guilt.

⁴And here am I made ready for Your final step.

⁵Shall I demand that You wait longer for Your Son to find the loveliness You planned to be the end of all his dreams and all his pain?

* Acknowledging God, The Original, Universal Creator is how we relieve ourselves of the belief in sin and release the past. THIS is the Atonement.

(ACIM, W-289.1:1–2:5)

Till next time, God bless, debi.