Let every voice but God’s be still in me / A sort of homecoming
Today’s lesson 254 ( https://acimce.app/:W-254:1 ) is so beautiful, but it also has brought something to the surface for me. I started my practice ridiculously early. It was a bit after 12 at night, I could not sleep, because I had a song in my head. I had, yesterday, revisited the wonderful “A sort of homecoming’ by the band U2, realizing how much this song has similarities with the Course. And how liberating was it for me to scream out aloud, together with Bono! It is my absolute favorite U2 song.
But there is a downside for me when I am busy during the day with a song like that: my ego takes the melody, puts it on “repeat” and then my brain starts playing it again and again and again. I cannot get it out of my head (I know: I myself want it to stay there in my mind). And then sleeping seems rather difficult since I cannot find the STOP button. It is ‘funny’, because it even overcries my tinnitus! And I have had many times that, even when I do fall asleep in the end, my brain (read: mind) keeps on ‘playing’ the song and I hear it in the background of my dreams. Quite bizar. But last night, I was wide awake because of the song. So, no sleeping!
But I did not want this to go on and I knew the only thing to do was to get the Book! (A Course in Miracles; acimce.app) My guidance took me to today’s lesson, because it was indeed already morning ? I was not surprised to find the answer for this situation in the lesson and I can here and now testify that this lesson, "Let every voice but God’s be still in me" [https://acimce.app/:W-254:1 ], is strónger as a mantra than Bono’s song repeated. Sorry Bono! The so called response to temptation worked, I fell asleep and when I woke up for a moment in the hours after that, the U2 song started again, but I used the same sentence "Let every voice but God’s be still in me" as a response to temptation again, and fell asleep once more.
And then dawn came and this lesson had much more in store for me! I always love lessons that have stillness and quietness in them. But there was also inner work to be done: watching my ego thoughts. I explored some things in me that were going on. And all of a sudden a deep, intense fear flowed through me. It almost made me panic. But I remembered, I had to step back from it. I had to look at it, to see the whole picture. And I saw now how I was consumed by time. I was totally controlled by the concept. I let it take me over! But then I looked closer and something else emerged of course: I myself wanted to control it, I wanted to be the controller. I always think "I don't have enough time", "I am running out of time." And that I have to hurry because there is not enough time for me. And also that I waste time. And it was not a pretty picture, because this was all about ME. I wanted time enough for me, for what I want. I did not want others telling me what to do with my precious time and fill it in for me. I want to rule my time as I see fit. And with that I can laugh really hard at God. Because then I can just do what I want, like a teenager that goes against her Fathers will deliberately. I am quite deliberate here! And because I do this, the guilt that lies underneath all of this, of what I am doing to my Father, is growing and growing. So now, time scares the hell out of me, because I get more and more controlling. It is TIME to STOP this!
The next phase of this lesson was going into the silence, and in that quietness, I became free for a moment. Free of the anxiety around the thoughts of time. I could sit in the silence and wait for what the Holy Spirit would bring me….
I felt liberated as He told me that I have now giving Him permission to dismantle this ticking TIME BOMB. I may now get to know a radical different view on time. Whenever I have ego thoughts about time again, I can rest assured that the opposite of what I think is true. My time concept can now be turned around!
I am now compiling some important quotes in a document for myself from different places in the Course, all about time, so that the picture will be clearer for me. I new this was a big and deep issue for me. But up until now, it have never dared to dive in it this deeply. I hope I will stay with this, also when it comes up again (and and that wil happen probably daily). Also it is likely to appear incognito, because it disguises itself for me in many different ways. A deep subject, and I am happy I am able to work with it.