NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION

Most students of the Course are familiar with the New Year's resolution that comes at the end of Chapter 15, where Jesus says, "Make this year different by making it all the same," and Helen took those words down at New Year's. What I'd like to talk with you about this morning as we approach the New Year is a different kind of resolution. It ends up the content is the same, of course, and that's the resolution that we would pledge to ourselves. That each and every time during the course of the day, when we find ourselves in a situation that seems to bring up some reaction of the ego—anger, anxiety, fear, guilt, depression, rage, holding onto grievances or on the other side, any kind of expectation that we have of people, any kind of expression of a special love relationship, which carries within it a demand that our needs be met without really thinking about the welfare of the other person—that whenever we find ourselves getting caught in the ego web, that we stop and ask ourselves, "Is this something that would further my Atonement path or would it set me back? Is this something that will express the vision of the Holy Spirit or the judgment of the ego?" After all, the Course tells us that vision and judgment are our choices but never both of these, meaning we can't have vision and judgment at the same time; it's always one or the other. And so this is something that would behoove us as serious students of A Course in Miracles, as people who really—more than anything else in the world—want to escape from this dream and return home, that it would really make the most sense that we devote every second of every minute of every hour of every day in thinking about this issue; this is our goal. "Is my goal to be filled with judgment and reinforce it and justify it? Or is my goal to really look at the world the way Jesus does, wherein everyone falls into one of two categories: either they're expressing love or they're calling for love?" And as their brother or sister in Christ then all that I would want to do is share that love that I know is my true Self, my true Identity and by sharing it, it's how I reinforce it in myself. This New Year's resolution is really for our benefit. It comes from purely selfish motives, because this is how we would feel better about ourselves, and this is how we would feel at the end of the day, at the end of the week, at the end of a month, at the end of our life, that this has been a meaningful journey; not a meaningless journey in which we sought after all the various toys of the world only to be disappointed in the end. But a meaningful journey in which we would have taken great strides towards our goal, which is in the end to accept the Atonement for ourselves, to realize that the thought system of separation, the world that arose from it, our personal world that arose from that thought system…all of this was made up. That's what the Course means by saying it's an illusion; it's just not real. And it's not real in the practical sense in that the perceptions of the ego don't bring me the peace of God. It's the way that I look at the world that shows me whether I really want this peace or I want a piece of the ego or a piece of the other person (pardon the pun), and that I want to devote every waking moment and—actually if I do that it would also include my sleeping moments—I want to devote every waking moment towards really putting this Course into practice. A line I frequently like to quote is where Jesus says, "Teach not that I died in vain; teach rather than I did not die by demonstrating that I live in you." And so do I want my life to demonstrate the resurrection of God's Son, which is awakening from the dream of death and not being bound by all the snares of the ego, or do I want to demonstrate that the ego's alive and well and the god of crucifixion is my god and therefore should be everyone's god? The choice is always ours, and so at New Year's, which is always a good time to take stock of our life and look forward to a coming year that we hope won't be as terrible as the preceding year, is to realize, again, what is most important to me. Is it most important that I have my needs met, that I justify all my judgments and accusations or do I really want to have this year express my desire—my sincere, fervent desire—to go home? And I will realize how sincere I am in that resolution by whether I'm choosing vision or judgment, whether I'm choosing to see everyone's the same or to make everyone different. Do I see this world as a prison from which I will never escape, except hopefully by death and then realizing that death is not the answer, or do I see this world as a loving classroom with a loving Teacher Who will instruct me minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day in how to return home with Him, and returning not only with Him but with all my brothers and sisters? So, let that be our New Year's resolution, and have a Happy New Year!

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 Kenneth Wapnick, Ph.D.