48. The miracle is a learning device which lessens the need for time

The miracle is a learning device which lessens the need for time.

The sudden shifts from horizontal to vertical perception, which the miracle entails, introduces an interval from which the doer and the receiver both emerge much farther along in time than they would otherwise have been.

A miracle thus has the unique property of abolishing time by rendering the space of time it occupies unnecessary. There is no relation between the time a miracle takes and the time it covers. It substitutes for learning that might have taken thousands of years. It does this by the underlying recognition of perfect equality and holiness between doer and receiver on which the miracle rests.

It is unstable, but perfectly consistent which means that it does not occur predictably across time, and it rarely occurs in comparable forms, but, within itself, it is perfectly consistent. Since it contains nothing but an acknowledgment of equality and worth, all parts are equal. This establishes the prerequisite for validity.

We said before that the miracle abolishes time. It does this by a process of collapsing it. It thus abolishes certain intervals within it. It does this, however, within the larger temporal sequence.

The validity of the miracle, then, is predictive, not logical, within the temporal schema. It establishes an out-of-pattern time interval, which is not under the usual laws of time. Only in this sense is it timeless. By collapsing time, it literally saves time, much the way “daylight savings time” does. It rearranges the distribution of light.

The miracle is the only device which man has at his immediate disposal for controlling time. Only the Revelation transcends it, having nothing to do with time at all. The miracle is much like the body, in that both are learning aids which aim at facilitating a state in which they are unnecessary. When the Soul is finally in the original state of direct communication, neither the body nor the miracle serves any purpose.

While he is in the body, however, man can choose between loveless and miraculous channels of creativity. He can create an empty shell, but he does not create nothing at all. He can wait, delay, paralyze himself, reduce his creativity almost to nothing, and even introduce a real developmental arrest or regression. But he cannot abolish his creativity. He can destroy his medium of communication, but not his potential.

He was not created by his own free will. Only what he creates is his to decide. The basic decision of the miracle-minded is not to wait on time any longer than necessary. Time can waste, as well as be wasted. The miracle-worker, therefore, accepts the time-control factor of the miracle gladly because he knows that every collapse of time brings all men closer to the ultimate release from time, in which the Son and the Father are one.

The real meaning of “are of one kind” is “of one mind, or will.” When the will of the Sonship and the Father are one, their perfect accord is Heaven.

Equality does not imply homogeneity now. When everyone has everything, individual contributions to the Sonship will no longer be necessary. When the Atonement has been completed, All talents will be shared by all of the sons of God. God is not partial. All of his children have His total love, and all of His gifts are given freely to everyone alike.

“Except you become as little children” means that unless you fully recognize your complete dependence on God, you cannot know the real power of the Son in his true relationship with the Father.1