Cameo 2 My Strength Will Support You

January 5, 2021

This cameo essay highlights Jesus’ demonstration as a master teacher. It is important to take a look at how he treats Helen in this glimpse of their dynamic. It is Jesus’ devotion as a teacher to Helen and Bill that we ought to expect for ourselves. By examining this exchange between them we can make some valuable assumptions about what to expect from Jesus on our journey.

Can you see the similarity between how Jesus handled Bill’s difficulty focusing during meditation and then Helen’s difficulty with distractions during his dictation? In both scenarios Jesus remains loving, supportive, patient, kind, and firm in dealing with their distractions, offering them both consistent and attainable suggestions for overcoming them. He is nonjudgmental but firm in insisting they not allow these distractions to interfere with their learning.

Note that Jesus is consistent in pointing out that Helen’s distraction is not wrong; he does not feel anger about it, but her lack of focus causes his ability to teach her efficiently to deteriorate. We can assume then that in the case of our own lack of focus, only a delay of our learning of the lessons will be the result. This is not good nor bad, and we can expect no anger, and no judgment from him. He will only firmly redirect our wandering minds to the task in which we have joined him as it was in Helen’s case. Therefore, we should expect Jesus to remind us to return our focus always to what he is teaching us and away from any distractions.

“Embarrassment is only a form of fear, and actually a particularly dangerous form because it reflects egocentricity.”

Questions for Reflection

1.       We can likely understand embarrassment as a form of fear. How can embarrassment be reflective of egocentricity?

2.       How do the first three miracle principles address Helen’s sense of awe in what is happening to her with Jesus?

3.       How will this review help her understand what is happening?

4.       What is the real miracle here? How should she be viewing her interaction with Jesus?

5.       How does this discourse offer us a view of Jesus that is quite different from the traditional Christian understanding?

6.       How can we use Jesus’ example of consistent love but firm insistence not to allow our distractions to interfere with our learning, as we study his Course, in our meditation, and in our group setting, in order to facilitate optimum learning conditions?

Suggested Practice

Jesus’ loving strength will support me even through my doubts and the truth will come to me.