Miracles are seen in light, and light and strength are one.
1. The idea for today is an extension of the previous one. ²You do not think of light in terms of strength, and darkness in terms of weakness. ³That is because your idea of what seeing means is tied up with the body and its eyes and brain. ⁴Thus you believe that you can change what you see by putting little bits of glass before your eyes. ⁵This is among the many magical beliefs that come from the conviction you are a body, and the body’s eyes can see.
2. You also believe the body’s brain can think. ²If you but understood the nature of thought, you could but laugh at this insane idea. ³It is as if you thought you held the match that lights the sun and gives it all its warmth; or that you held the world within your hand, securely bound until you let it go. ⁴Yet this is no more foolish than to believe the body’s eyes can see; the brain can think.
3. It is God’s strength in you that is the light in which you see, as it is His Mind with which you think. ²His strength denies your weakness. ³It is your weakness that sees through the body’s eyes, peering about in darkness to behold the likeness of itself; the small, the weak, the sickly and the dying, those in need, the helpless and afraid, the sad, the poor, the starving and the joyless. ⁴These are seen through eyes that cannot see and cannot bless.
4. Strength overlooks these things by seeing past appearances. ²It keeps its steady gaze upon the light that lies beyond them. ³It unites with light, of which it is a part. ⁴It sees itself. ⁵It brings the light in which your Self appears. ⁶In darkness you perceive a self that is not there. ⁷Strength is the truth about you; weakness is an idol falsely worshipped and adored that strength may be dispelled, and darkness rule where God appointed that there should be light.
5. Strength comes from truth, and shines with light its Source has given it; weakness reflects the darkness of its maker. ²It is sick and looks on sickness, which is like itself. ³Truth is a savior and can only will for happiness and peace for everyone. ⁴It gives its strength to everyone who asks, in limitless supply. ⁵It sees that lack in anyone would be a lack in all. ⁶And so it gives its light that all may see and benefit as one. ⁷Its strength is shared, that it may bring to all the miracle in which they will unite in purpose and forgiveness and in love.
6. Weakness, which looks in darkness, cannot see a purpose in forgiveness and in love. ²It sees all others different from itself, and nothing in the world that it would share. ³It judges and condemns, but does not love. ⁴In darkness it remains to hide itself, and dreams that it is strong and conquering, a victor over limitations that but grow in darkness to enormous size.
7. It fears and it attacks and hates itself, and darkness covers everything it sees, leaving its dreams as fearful as itself. ²No miracles are here, but only hate. ³It separates itself from what it sees, while light and strength perceive themselves as one. ⁴The light of strength is not the light you see. ⁵It does not change and flicker and go out. ⁶It does not shift from night to day, and back to darkness till the morning comes again.
8. The light of strength is constant, sure as love, forever glad to give itself away, because it cannot give but to itself. ²No one can ask in vain to share its sight, and none who enters its abode can leave without a miracle before his eyes, and strength and light abiding in his heart.
9. The strength in you will offer you the light, and guide your seeing so you do not dwell on idle shadows that the body’s eyes provide for self-deception. ²Strength and light unite in you, and where they meet, your Self stands ready to embrace you as Its Own. ³Such is the meeting place we try today to find and rest in, for the peace of God is where your Self, His Son, is waiting now to meet Itself again, and be as one.
10. Let us give twenty minutes twice today to join this meeting. ²Let yourself be brought unto your Self. ³Its strength will be the light in which the gift of sight is given you. ⁴Leave, then, the dark a little while today, and we will practice seeing in the light, closing the body’s eyes and asking truth to show us how to find the meeting place of self and Self, where light and strength are one.
11. Morning and evening we will practice thus. ²After the morning meeting, we will use the day in preparation for the time at night when we will meet again in trust. ³Let us repeat as often as we can the idea for today, and recognize that we are being introduced to sight, and led away from darkness to the light where only miracles can be perceived. (ACIM, W-92.1:1–11:3)