T. 31. II. 9 – 11. Jesus: “Forgive your brother all appearances! They reflect but ancient lessons you have taught yourself of what you thought was sinfulness in you!
Hear but your brother’s call for mercy and for your release of him, from all the fearful images he holds of what he is and what you must be. He is afraid to walk with you, and thinks ‘perhaps a bit behind, a bit ahead’ would be a safer place for him to be.
Can you make progress if you think the same, advancing only when he would step back, and falling back when he would go ahead? For so would you forget the journey’s goal, which is that you come to walk with him, so neither leads nor follows. Thus it is a way you truly go together, not with each alone and separate. And in this choice the stage is freshly set, with learning’s outcome changed, for Christ has been reborn to both of you!
An instant spent without your old ideas of who your great companion is and what you think he ‘should be asking for,’ will be enough to let this happen. And in this holy instant you will perceive his purpose is the same as yours. What you will hear him ask for now is what you really want, and you will see his needs the same as yours.
Your brother’s asking takes, perhaps, a different form in him, but it is not ‘the form’ that you now answer to! He asks and you receive, for you have come with but one purpose; that you learn you love your brother with a brother’s love. And as a brother, must his Father be the same as yours, as he is like yourself in truth! Together is your joint inheritance remembered and accepted by you both as one. Alone and separate, it is denied to both of you!
Is it not clear by now, that while you still insist on leading or on following, you must think you walk alone with no one by your side? This is the road to nowhere, for the light cannot be given while you walk alone, and so you cannot see which way you go. And thus confusion still must reign and with a sense of endless doubting, as you stagger back and forward in the darkness and alone!
Yet these are but appearances of what the journey is, and how it must be made. For next to you is One Who holds the light before you, so that every step is made in certainty and sureness of the road.
A blindfold can indeed obscure your sight, but cannot make the way itself grow dark. And the One Who travels with you is the One Who has the light!”