Lesson 160

W-pI.160.1. Fear is a stranger to the ways of love. ² Identify with fear, and you will be a stranger to yourself. ³ And thus you are unknown to you. ⁴ What is your Self remains an alien to the part of you which thinks that it is real, but different from yourself. ⁵ Who could be sane in such a circumstance? ⁶ Who but a madman could believe he is what he is not, and judge against himself?

W-pI.160.2. There is a stranger in our midst, who comes from an idea so foreign to the truth he speaks a different language, looks upon a world truth does not know, and understands what truth regards as senseless. ² Stranger yet, he does not recognize to whom he comes, and yet maintains his home belongs to him, while he is alien now who is at home. ³ And yet, how easy it would be to say, "This is my home. ⁴ Here I belong, and will not leave because a madman says I must."

W-pI.160.3. What reason is there for not saying this? ² What could the reason be except that you had asked this stranger in to take your place, and let you be a stranger to yourself? ³ No one would let himself be dispossessed so needlessly, unless he thought there were another home more suited to his tastes.

W-pI.160.4. Who is the stranger? ² Is it fear or you who are unsuited to the home which God provided for His Son? ³ Is fear His Own, created in His likeness? ⁴ Is it fear that love completes, and is completed by? ⁵ There is no home can shelter love and fear. ⁶ They cannot coexist. ⁷ If you are real, then fear must be illusion. ⁸ And if fear is real, then you do not exist at all.

W-pI.160.5. How simply, then, the question is resolved. ² Who fears has but denied himself and said, "I am the stranger here. ³ And so I leave my home to one more like me than myself, and give him all I thought belonged to me." ⁴ Now is he exiled of necessity, not knowing who he is, uncertain of all things but this; that he is not himself, and that his home has been denied to him.

W-pI.160.6. What does he search for now? ² What can he find? ³ A stranger to himself can find no home wherever he may look, for he has made return impossible. ⁴ His way is lost, except a miracle will search him out and show him that he is no stranger now. ⁵ The miracle will come. ⁶ For in his home his Self remains. ⁷ It asked no stranger in, and took no alien thought to be Itself. ⁸ And It will call Its Own unto Itself in recognition of what is Its Own.

W-pI.160.7. Who is the stranger? ² Is he not the one your Self calls not? ³ You are unable now to recognize this stranger in your midst, for you have given him your rightful place. ⁴ Yet is your Self as certain of Its Own as God is of His Son. ⁵ He cannot be confused about creation. ⁶ He is sure of what belongs to Him. ⁷ No stranger can be interposed between His knowledge and His Son's reality. ⁸ He does not know of strangers. ⁹ He is certain of His Son.

W-pI.160.8. God's certainty suffices. ² Who He knows to be His Son belongs where He has set His Son forever. ³ He has answered you who ask, "Who is the stranger?" ⁴ Hear His Voice assure you, quietly and sure, that you are not a stranger to your Father, nor is your Creator stranger made to you. ⁵ Whom God has joined remain forever one, at home in Him, no stranger to Himself.

W-pI.160.9. Today we offer thanks that Christ has come to search the world for what belongs to Him. ² His vision sees no strangers, but beholds His Own and joyously unites with them. ³ They see Him as a stranger, for they do not recognize themselves. ⁴ Yet as they give Him welcome, they remember. ⁵ And He leads them gently home again, where they belong.

W-pI.160.10. Not one does Christ forget. ² Not one He fails to give you to remember, that your home may be complete and perfect as it was established. ³ He has not forgotten you. ⁴ But you will not remember Him until you look on all as He does. ⁵ Who denies his brother is denying Him, and thus refusing to accept the gift of sight by which his Self is clearly recognized, his home remembered and salvation come.