XPost: alt.politics.usa.congress, alt.atheism, talk.politics.misc
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"Can you imagine how beautiful those you forgive will look to you? In no fantasy
have you ever seen anything so lovely. Nothing you see here, sleeping or waking,
comes near to such loveliness. And nothing will you value like unto this, nor hold so dear. Nothing that you remember that made your heart sing with joy has ever brought you even a little part of the happiness this sight will bring you. For you will see the Son of God. You will behold the beauty the Holy Spirit loves
to look upon, and which he thanks the Father for. He was created to see this for
you, until you learned to see it for yourself. And all his teaching leads to seeing it and giving thanks with him.

This loveliness is not a fantasy. It is the real world, bright and clean and new,
with everything sparkling under the open sun. Nothing is hidden here, for everything has been forgiven and there are no fantasies to hide the truth. The bridge between that world and this is so little and so easy to cross, that you could not believe it is the meeting place of worlds so different. Yet this little
bridge is the strongest thing that touches on this world at all. This little step, so small it has escaped your notice, is a stride through time into eternity,
beyond all ugliness into beauty that will enchant you, and will never cease to cause you wonderment at its perfection.

This step, the smallest ever taken, is still the greatest accomplishment of all in
God's plan of Atonement. All else is learned, but this is given, complete and wholly perfect. No one but him who planned salvation could complete it thus. The
real world, in its loveliness, you learn to reach. Fantasies are all undone, and
no one and nothing remain still bound by them, and by your own forgiveness you are
free to see. Yet what you see is only what you made, with the blessing of your forgiveness on it. And with this final blessing of God's Son upon himself, the real perception, born of the new perspective he has learned, has served its purpose.

The stars will disappear in light, and the sun that opened up the world to beauty
will vanish. Perception will be meaningless when it has been perfected, for everything that has been used for learning will have no function. Nothing will ever change; no shifts nor shadings, no differences, no variations that made perception possible will still occur. The perception of the real world will be so
short that you will barely have time to thank God for it. For God will take the
last step swiftly, when you have reached the real world and have been made ready
for him.

The real world is attained simply by the complete forgiveness of the old, the world you see without forgiveness. The great Transformer of perception will undertake with you the careful searching of the mind that made this world, and uncover to you the seeming reasons for your making it. In the light of the real
reason that he brings, as you follow him, he will show you that there is no reason
here at all. Each spot his reason touches grows alive with beauty, and what seemed ugly in the darkness of your lack of reason is suddenly released to loveliness. Not even what the Son of God made in insanity could be without a hidden spark of beauty that gentleness could release.

All this beauty will rise to bless your sight as you look upon the world with forgiving eyes. For forgiveness literally transforms vision, and lets you see the
real world reaching quietly and gently across chaos, removing all illusions that
had twisted your perception and fixed it on the past. The smallest leaf becomes a
thing of wonder, and a blade of grass a sign of God's perfection.

From the forgiven world the Son of God is lifted easily into his home. And there
he knows that he has always rested there in peace. Even salvation will become a
dream, and vanish from his mind. For salvation is the end of dreams, and with the
closing of the dream will have no meaning. Who, awake in Heaven, could dream that
there could ever be need of salvation? How much do you want salvation? It will
give you the real world, trembling with readiness to be given you. The eagerness
of the Holy Spirit to give you this is so intense he would not wait, although he
waits in patience. Meet his patience with your impatience at delay in meeting him. Go out in gladness to meet with your Redeemer, and walk with him in trust out of this world, and into the real world of beauty and forgiveness."

Jesus Christ
A Course in Miracles
Chapter 17, Forgiveness and the Holy Relationship;
Section 2, "The Forgiven World"
https://tinyurl.com/A-Course-In-Miracles-pdf

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