Daily Miracles: Lesson 1

 Welcome to Daily Miracles, a running commentary on the 365 lessons of A Course in Miracles, an influential spiritual text from the 1970s. I am James Leroy Wilson and I invite you to join me as I go through this material for the first time.

Nothing I see in this room [on this street, from this window, in this place] means anything. (ACIM, W-1)

First day, and this seems hard already. What do you mean this pen doesn’t mean anything? If an object has a name, or is a member of a class that has a name, such as “pens,” that has to mean something. When I see the pen, I know and appreciate that it’s in my immediate vicinity and I can grab it if I want to write something down.

But to play along, I see two possible (and complementary) ways that the pen doesn’t mean anything. (There may be more ways, but these are my thoughts today.)

The first is that the pen is not really real, and nothing is. This is all a dream, an illusion, a simulation, or some other manifestation of the mind.

The second is that the pen means nothing to me. That is, I have no emotional attachment to it. This might be easy enough to say about most things around the home that can be replaced by an equivalent. Lose a book, even a favorite book? That’s alright; you can get another copy. But to lose an autographed copy with a personalized note from the famous and beloved author? That might be a cause of deep disappointment and regret. That copy means something.

Or does it? Perhaps the meaning is in what you can’t see: the thoughtfulness and kindness of the author for having written a message just for you. So perhaps that book and other objects in the room that may seem to “mean something” don’t really mean anything in and of themselves.

Perhaps it is the invisible love with which they were given that means something.

James Leroy Wilson writes Daily Miracles, Daily Bible Chapter, JL Cells, and The MVP Chase. Thanks for your subscriptions and support!

(Photo credit: Ivoronwik)