Dear Spiritual Family,
Our Wayshower asked us, well really he told us, to “judge not by appearances but rather judge with righteous judgment.” In another place in scripture, he simply said, “don’t judge by appearances.” What did he mean by this?
In a few words, he was teaching “look past appearances, to ‘see’ with vision.” He talks a great deal about vision in A Course in Miracles. It is defined in The Glossary-Index for ACIM by Dr. Ken Wapnick: “Vision is the perception of Christ or the Holy Spirit that sees beyond the body to the spirit that is our true Identity. Charles Fillmore wrote of spiritual vision: “Seeing the good, the true and the beautiful everywhere…in this manner is the eye single and vision perfected.”
No doubt, there is a lot to “see” in our world today. As we look at our own bodies for example and those of others, our ego wants nothing more than to judge: “Too old, too big, too thin, infirm, attractive, plain, well-dressed, shabby, too many tattoos, not enough tattoos” – the list is long.
So, if we are not to focus on appearances, what are we to do? If we truly desire to mature spiritually, we must practice developing our gift of vision. This requires a willingness to see past the body and have faith that in all cases, the Spirit is there waiting to be acknowledged. For example, using a kind word or connecting with a sincere smile can open your heart to a holy encounter.
There is a prayer of sorts, offered in ACIM, a favorite of ours in our efforts to see with vision: “Give me your blessing, Holy Child of God, for I would behold you with the eyes of Christ and see my perfect innocence in you.” Easy to do? No, not in most cases. But the rewards are great when we earnestly give such a gift.
We all possess “the eyes of Christ” but we must acknowledge them and use them if we are to be the blessing God calls us to be. And as we do, we are blessed beyond measure, God is honored, and the real world comes more to the forefront as the world of illusion recedes.
The ancients gave us the perfect salutation to hasten our awakening in one word, “Namaste,” meaning “the Divinity in me, recognizes and salutes the Divinity in you.” Let us endeavor to live it.
Namaste,
Rev. Steve and Mary
“Everything will be all right in the end. If it’s not all right, it is not yet the end”……. Patel, Hotel Manager, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel”
Above is one of my favorite movie quotes about looking past appearances. I like to agree with MLK that the arc of the moral universe bends towards justice. My very favorite movie about perceiving Love as an actual force or energy is Interstellar. One of the astronauts wants to use the power of Love to make a decision about how to save the human species: While some of the characters in Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar grapple with the concept of quantifying and manipulating gravity, others posit that even when understanding of the physical forces of the universe fail you, love remains greater than everything else. Anne Hathaway’s character Dr. Amelia Brand says as much, in the movie’s most polarizing speech:
Love isn’t something we invented. It’s observable, powerful, it has to mean something… Love is the one thing we’re capable of perceiving that transcends dimensions of time and space.