“Just for today I will not be afraid of anything. If my mind is clouded with nameless dreads, I will track them down and expose their unreality. I will remind myself that God is in charge of me and mine and that I have only to accept His protection and guidance. What happened yesterday need not trouble me today.” (ODAT, 23 November)
Nameless—and named—dreads are unreal because I made them.
Making doesn’t make real, but what’s made will have the appearance of reality.
The past is gone, and the future is an infinite range of possibilities, none of which is more real than another.
They have no reality, either.
Anything I think about them is a fantasy about a thing that has gone or exists only as a possibility.
What I think about the future and the past is thus two stages removed from reality.
Reality is already real enough, thank you, and cannot be added do by making, wanting, thinking, or dwelling.
Reality takes up all the space there is.
There is no space for more.
The lily refuses the gilding.
God is the Creator.
I’m the maker of illusions.
God is in charge of me and mine and you and yours and everyone else and everything else.
If God needs to intervene, He will, and He certainly has the resources to do so.
If he doesn’t, there’s good (God) reason.
His protection and guidance are offered.
When they appear not to be forthcoming, it’s because I do not have the empty hands to receive.
What are empty hands?
No plans, no plots, no schemes, no designs, no machinations, no views, no opinions, no notions, no conceptions, a tabula rasa of absolute nothingness and unknowingness.
Then I might be able to receive.