I am at home. Fear is the stranger here.
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 were another home more suited to his tastes.
Who is the stranger? Is it fear or you who are 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.
God's 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 remain 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 Christ 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.
The Following is Forwarded from Pathwaysoflight.org
-
Lesson 160
"I am at home. Fear is the stranger here."
I am being asked in this lesson to let go of what I have identified with. I have identified with being a separate identity with a separate body and a separate mind. This is the stranger I have identified with. And yet I have identified with it so completely that my true Identity as part of God has been lost to me. God became the stranger. My one Self became a stranger.
This identity as a separate self seemed so real that it seemed very difficult to find God. But the good news is I am learning to let go of this false identity. I am willing to open to my one Self and let my mind be healed of all its false ideas.
One very effective way in my return is to remember to see the Christ in all my brothers, to see the Light of God in them, to see the truth about them. As I continue to practice seeing the truth in my brother, my mind continues to be healed and I gradually cease to identify with myself as a separate identity, a separate person, separate from God and my brother. I gradually learn that this whole world of separate identities is a false world. It is not the real world. The false world of separation has only brought belief in limitation and pain. None of it was ever true.
We are all still safe in God. We are all still as God created us. We are all still one in God. We never left God. We only dreamed that God was a stranger to us. We only dreamed that separate bodies were real. Now is the time to wake up from that dream. Now is the time to let go of that separate identity. Now is the time to wake up to our true Identity as one in Love. In truth all are at Home in God. Fear is the stranger in God's real world.
In this world, everyone feels homeless to some degree. Everyone feels that something is missing. There is always some unsettled feeling, sometimes overt, sometimes hidden beneath a facade of orderliness and seeming stability. It all stems from having denied our Self. The world is the effect of believing there is something more valuable, more desirable than the Home of Love created for us by God. The world is the desire for specialness, for having a unique identity we can call our own.
Yet God, being one, can only give all of Himself to His creation. He cannot divide Himself and give more of Himself to one and less to another. What is one can know no differences.
To identify with a special, unique identity, I must deny God and my Self as It was created. Thus I make myself a stranger to my Father and my Self. I cannot know the comfort and safety of my Father when I deny it. My Father is still there for me, but I am unaware.
Gently, methodically and consistently the Course is helping me to recognize that this image I have made and believe I am is not me. I can believe in a false image and experience it as if it were real, but I cannot make it real. Reality comes from reality, not from made up images. This is my salvation. Return to truth is guaranteed, for it is ever present. I need only cease to deny it and I will know the truth. And it sets me free.
Today I will practice again being open to Christ's vision to see past the false images to the Light of innocence everywhere. The Light of innocence is where I am truly at Home. In the Light of innocence I find all my brothers and I recognize my Father, my Creator, my Source, my strength.
©2003, Pathways of Light, Inc. http://pathwaysoflight.org You may freely share copies of this page with your friends, provided all copies include this notice.
