Workbook · Part I · Review
Lesson 172
Review of lessons 153–154
What this lesson is saying
Today is a review, not a new idea. The workbook asks you to take earlier lessons — 153 (“In my defenselessness my safety lies.”); 154 (“I am among the ministers of God.”) — and use them on one real irritation. Reciting titles is not the review.
Pick one person, one thought about yourself, or one situation that is actually bothering you. Run each reviewed idea on that same thing. Notice which one you want to skip. That one is the work.
You still need not believe any of it. Use it. Then live the hour — work, home, the next encounter — from the one you actually used.
This is not saying
This is not a lighter day and not a reading assignment. A review that never touches a real face is how the ego keeps the year as a book report.
Why this can change a day
The early ideas only become yours when they meet a life. Review is the test: which sentence did you actually use on a judgment, an attack thought, a belief about yourself, or a relationship? That is the curriculum.
In your day
Same idea, three ordinary places — a relationship or encounter, the case against yourself, and a situation at work or at home. You do not need a special mood.
With someone
A child, a dog, a home — something you love, and the tug when the lesson touches it.
What to do
Say the words as written: “Review of lessons 153–154.” The tug is the teaching — an argumentative position in the mind, not a failure. They are unchanged. The glue was yours.
Toward yourself
You received a kindness and want to store it as specialness, or you are counting what they owe.
What to do
Say the words as written: “Review of lessons 153–154.” Give the thing you want: patience, a clean word, attention. Let it pass through. What you hoard, you lose sight of.
At work, at home, or in a situation
You notice you do not actually want to see — you want to be right. The day already feels decided.
What to do
Say the words as written: “Review of lessons 153–154.” Determination is a decision, not a mood. Make it. Badly is allowed. Then look at one actual face or one actual thing.
Two voices in the same mind
Hear which one is running. Then today’s idea, on a real person — or on you.
Unloving thought
This meaning is sacred. Taking it off is cruelty. The tug proves the lesson is wrong. Reciting the titles is enough. This situation can wait.
Jesus’s way
“Review of lessons 153–154.” Review is whether you used the ideas on a real person — this situation, not a new philosophy. The ones you only admired are the curriculum.
Spalding · 2019 · episode #376
Jesus’s commentary for Lesson 172
Tina reads the official workbook lesson first. Then she channels. The video is the source. The notes below are study notes of that sitting — not a transcript, and not A Year of Forgiveness.
After the reading
In the video · Jesus speaking
This is the channeled portion — after Tina has read the lesson. Study notes of that sitting. Not a transcript.
- After the reading, this sitting is a review. He checks whether you used the ideas on an irritation — not whether you can recite “Review of lessons 153–154.”
- The ideas under today: 153, 154. Which did you actually use on a person? The ones you only admired are the curriculum.
How to sit today
Review V · Lessons 151–170
The idea is above. This is the one sitting this number asks — how often, how long, and the words. Not a second lesson.
“God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”
- How often
- Start and end the day with the refrain. Surround every practice period with it. Use it as you fall asleep and as you wake
- How long
- The review does not set a clock. Give real time and effort — more than in earlier reviews. Let the words give way to the experience they point to
- Through the day
- Hold the refrain in mind throughout the day, and use the two reviewed thoughts to keep it clear.
How
- With the refrain we start each day. Then Lesson 153, held in that refrain; then Lesson 154, held in that refrain. End each sitting the same way.
- Words are aids. Except at the beginning and end of a sitting, use them only to recall the mind to its purpose. Wait for the experience. Conviction is there, not in the sound of the sentence.
Longer sitting
Start and end the day with the refrain. Give real time — more than in earlier reviews. No clock is set
- Say, slowly: “God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”
- Then Lesson 153: “In my defenselessness my safety lies.”, held in that refrain.
- Say, slowly: “God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”
- Then Lesson 154: “I am among the ministers of God.”, held in that refrain.
- Say, slowly: “God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”
- Words are aids. Except at the beginning and end of a sitting, use them only to recall the mind to its purpose. Wait for the experience.
Short / hourly
Surround every practice period with the refrain. Use it as you fall asleep and as you wake
- Say, slowly: “God is but Love, and therefore so am I.”
- Hold “In my defenselessness my safety lies.” or “I am among the ministers of God.” to keep the refrain clear.
Ideas in this review
These scripts follow the workbook’s own method for this number — duration, frequency, and the sentences it asks you to use. They are a study paraphrase, not a replacement. Read the official lesson at acim.org and follow any wording it gives that is more specific than this card.
Words you may not know
Full glossaryCourse words do not mean what church, psychology, or ordinary English usually mean. These notes are for this lesson — tap a word.
Other voices — Tina, Ra, Carla
Short notes from the four streams. The teaching above is the lesson. These are doors if you want them.
Spalding
Review is not a lighter day. In the 2019 commentary he treats “Review of lessons 153–154” as a check: which of these ideas did you use in a real situation, and which did you only admire? Skimped ideas are the curriculum. Do the review as the workbook asks, then let him speak to the ones you still argue with.
Watch this lesson’s commentaryRa
This lesson is practice in polarizing with the person in front of you. Service to others is not a slogan. It is whether you treat them as the same being you are.
Open streamRueckert
A wanderer on Earth does not need a different lesson. She needs this one, done with her hands. Carla's whole archive is the proof: contact follows a life, it does not replace it.
Open stream