Day 133: I will not value what is valueless.

What is it you value in this world?  Perhaps it's your car?  Perhaps it's the food you eat?  Perhaps you value your children, your family?  Is it your home?  Do you value the trips you take?  The vacations away from home?

A Course in Miracles teaches us that this world has no Real value.  In describing today's lesson, here is a portion of what the workbook says:

You do not ask too much of life, but far too little.  When you let your mind be drawn to bodily concerns, to things you buy, to eminence as valued by the world, you ask for sorrow, not for happiness.  This course does not attempt to take from you the little that you have.  It does not try to substitute utopian ideas for satisfactions which the world contains.  There are no satisfactions in the world.

The Course goes on to describe "the real criteria by which to test all things you think you want."  Below is a simplified version of that list:

1. If you choose a thing that will not last forever, what you chose is valueless.  A temporary value is without all value.  Time can never take away a value that is real.  What fades and dies was never there.
2. If you choose to take a thing away from someone else, you will have nothing left.  This is because, when you deny anyone's right to everything, you have denied your own.
3. Why is the choice you make of value to you?  What attracts your mind to it?  What purpose does it serve?  Be wary of false appearances which the ego may lead you to believe.
4. If you feel any guilt about your choice, you have allowed the ego's goals to come between the real alternatives.  There are but two:  All things are valuable or valueless, everything or nothing.

The things of this world - including our bodies, including our families, our spouses, our friends and even our children - are at best representations of what Really awaits us in the world beyond this one.  Our bodies will wither, our families will fade, our spouses will pass on, along with our friends and, later on, our children.  It is inevitable that this will happen in time.  Yet the connections we have, the meaning we extract from these relationships - this is where the Real value lies.  When we shift our value away from the physical presence of a person and onto the relationship; when we value another person's spirit, the eternal part of their being, and the love and joy and peace they stir within us; then we have learned to place value where it is due.

With that it mind, here are our reminders for today.  The first is our fifteen-minute meditation, which the Course instructs us to practice once in the morning and once in the evening.  The second is to be used "should you begin to let yourself collect some needless burdens, or believe you see some difficult decisions facing you."

I will not value what is valueless, and only what has value do I seek, for only that do I desire to find.

I will not value what is valueless, for what is valuable belongs to me.

My hope today is for you and I and all of us to withdraw our values from the temporary appearances which are of this world.  Let us place our values upon only that which is eternal.  In so doing, we will also recognize that we, too, are of timeless value.  Lift up your gaze and behold a whole new world whenever you see another living being.  See their soul, and not their body, and you will See yourself there too.  In so doing, we shall be able to discern between the Truly Valuable and its mere representation.

I value each and every one of you, as I value myself and our Creator Who connects us all.

Until tomorrow,
Journeyman