The power of the universe is given and received constantly in support of the creation of the new. This is what creation is! The entire universe, the All of All, giving and receiving as one. This is our power. And our power is needed for the creation of the Covenant of the New in this time of Christ. D:3.23

Since I’ve been home from Philadelphia, I’ve been tending to family needs and have felt myself to be “too tired” for anything else. But when I’m feeling too tired to do anything, I also begin to feel bored. Then, when I rest, the old tapes run. They tell me I “shouldn’t” be so tired. I have to catch these wayward demons and wrestle them down. This often starts in this way: “Well…I did this and that and this today…and so it is no wonder I need to rest. It’s okay.”

Sound familiar?

I admit it. I often “start out” with old thoughts, especially when I’m too tired even to read. The other side of that though, is that once I’ve done my wrestling hold on the thought(s), I’m also too tired to think.

Out of that blank place today, there came an idea I needed to explore and I’d like to share it with you. It began with me looking up “beyond desire” in ACOL. I looked up “beyond desire” because I was wondering about it. “What is going on,” I asked myself, “with this lack of desire? I have utterly no ambition.”

The words “beyond desire” are first spoken in The Dialogues where it is said that desire is replaced by reverence.

I knew this to be true with the receiving of A Course of Love and have often spoken of it. I give an elevated place to the desire that grew in me to “work for God” and even the near despair it led me to before the receiving of ACOL finally began. I felt that the almost excruciating desire I experienced had a very central place in the coming of the Course. I knew I had to feel that desire fully before the revelation could come. And . . . when my “work for God” came in this way, desire was replaced with reverence.

But then desire returned. Desire for ACOL to find its place in the world. The desire to continue to create. Desires to live newly.  Desire to share.

I found the words “beyond desire” in Chapter 3 of the Dialogues: The Covenant of the New. Strangely enough, this was the very chapter I shared at the initial meeting of my recent Philadelphia trip. This “meet and greet” was hosted in a private home and I’m guessing attended by close to twenty women and men involved in ACOL groups. I’d been drawn to the chapter the night before, and because of this, I asked if we could share it during our time together.

What a surprise to find beyond desire there! Now I get to remind you, as well, of this phenomenal chapter.

The idea of a Covenant of the New is first introduced in Chapter 2:

This is the agreement God asks of you, your part of the shared agreement that will fulfill the promises of your inheritance. This is the Covenant of the New in which you honor your agreement to bring heaven to earth and to usher in the reign of Christ. To usher in is to show the way, to cast your palms upon the path of your brothers and sisters. D:2.23

Covenant comes from the word convene: com: together, + venire: come, and then covenant is about agreement: so…to come together in agreement.

I found “beyond desire” again in Chapter 17, where Jesus speaks of the interrelationship between desire and fulfillment and says, “Desire asks for a response.” (D17.19) And one more time in Day 3: I do not ask you to give up what you desire, but to expect and accept a response to what you desire. Remember that we are headed even beyond desire, and know that desire must first be met before you can be taken beyond it. D:Day3.27

There is so much more that could be said, but for now I’m taking these ideas that “came to me” and I’m going to rest with them for a while.  The wonderful Chapter 3 also seems to give abundant permission to accept the needs of the body:

[T]here is a difference in form between the Self and the elevated Self of form. The Self was and will always remain more than the body. The body, however, is also newly the Self. The body is also, newly, one body, one Christ. D:3.18

Perhaps in resting when we need to rest, we fulfill our desire and are met with response.