08.24.25 "Clear English Statements Are Not 'Metaphors'"

A recent Workbook lesson had a wonderful message for all of us Miracle Healers, "God in His mercy wills that I be saved." (WkBk.235) We can easily substitute the word "healed" for "saved" here. "God in His mercy wills that I be [healed]." (WkBk.235) Just what is God in his mercy saving us from? The first line makes it very clear. It's anything and everything that appears to hurt us. "I need but look upon all things that seem to hurt me, and with perfect certainty assure myself, 'God wills that I be saved from this,' and merely watch them disappear." (WkBk.235.1)

I need to apply this to something in my own life right now that keeps cycling through my mind, causing me anxiety. My ego is anticipating a future scenario that will be painful and hard to cope with. Why do we do that to ourselves? I will remind myself today that God Wills that I be saved from this dreadful future. "I place the future in the hands of God. – Accept today's idea, and you have passed all anxiety, all pits of hell, all blackness of depression, thoughts of sin, and devastation brought about by guilt." (WkBk.194.1)

When ACIM tells us that we will watch all the anticipated problems merely disappear it is obvious to me his is not just a mental, shift in thinking, "save" that is being offered to me. If I hold to this reasonable truth, the dreadful future I am anticipating will actually not happen in the world manifestation. It will disappear.

Some students relate to teachings in ACIM like this as metaphors and many ACIM teachers have promoted this type of interpretation, but there is nothing in the words which indicate it is a metaphor. Metaphors are supposed to be obviously symbolic, obviously metaphoric. Let's say a young teenager is being cocky and dangerous, driving way too fast down the road. One might say, "He was being a bat out of hell speeding down the street like that!" Okay. That is a metaphor. Everyone knows the car and driver were not actually a nocturnal, flying mammal escaping from the dark underworld. Everyone knows this was just a car being driven too fast for conditions and posted speed limits. The "bat out of hell" phrase is an obvious symbolic reference calculated to communicate something even better than saying "a car traveling way too fast." Metaphors are obvious symbols.

To say clear, plain English phrases, without obvious symbolic references, are "metaphors" is just a misuse of the word. Don't indulge in this distorted teaching. "You have surely begun to realize that this is a very practical course which means exactly what it says." (Tx.8.86) ACIM means what it is saying, and that statement certainly isn't a metaphor either. I mean just what the words are saying literally.

22 min.
SUBSCRIBE & SHARE