Look at the picture, Do not let the frame distract you. This gift is given you for your damnation, and if you take it you will believe that you are damned. You cannot have the frame without the picture. What you value is the frame, for there you see no conflict. Yet the frame is only the wrapping for the gift of conflict. The frame is not the gift. Be not deceived, by the most superficial aspects of this thought system, for these aspects enclose the whole, complete in every aspect. Death lies in this glittering gift. Let not your gaze dwell on the hypnotic gleaming of the frame. Look at the picture and realize that death is offered you.
That is why the holy instant is so important in the defense of truth. The truth itself needs no defense, but you do need defense against your acceptance of the gift of death. When you, who are truth accept an idea so dangerous to truth, you threaten truth with destruction. And your defense must now be undertaken to keep Truth whole. The power of Heaven, the Love of God, the tears of Christ, and the joy of His eternal Spirit are marshaled to defend you from your own attack. For you attack Them, being part of Them, and They must save you They love themselves.
The Holy instant is a miniature of Heaven, sent you from Heaven. It is a picture too set in a frame. Yet if you accept this gift you will not see the frame at all, because the gift can only be accepted through your willingness to focus all your attention on the picture. The holy instant is a miniature of eternity. It is a picture of timelessness, set in a frame of time. If you focus on the picture, you will realize that it was only the frame that made you think that it was a picture. Without the frame, the picture is seen as what it represents. For as the whole thought system of the ego lies in its gifts, so the whole of Heaven lies in this instant, borrowed from eternity and set in time for you.
Two gifts are offered you. Each is complete and cannot be partially accepted. Each is a picture of all you can have, seen very differently.
You cannot compare their value by comparing a picture to a frame. It must be the pictures only that you compare, or the comparison is wholly without meaning. Remember that it is the picture that is the gift. And only on this base are you really free to choose. Look at the pictures. Both of them. One is a tiny picture, hard to see at all beneath the heavy shadows of its enormous and disproportionate enclosure. The other is lightly framed and hung in light, lovely to look upon for what it is.
You who have tried so hard, and are still trying, to fit the better picture into the wrong frame, and so combine what cannot be combined, accept this and be glad: These pictures are framed perfectly for what they represent. One is framed to be out of focus and not seen. The other is framed for perfect clarity. The picture of darkness and of death grows less convincing as you search it out amid its wrappings. As each senseless stone that seems to shine from the frame in darkness, is exposed to light, it becomes dull and lifeless, and ceases to distract you from the picture. And finally you look upon the picture itself, seeing at last that unprotected by the frame, it has no meaning.
The other picture is lightly frames, for time cannot contain eternity. There is no distraction here. The picture of Heaven and eternity grows more convincing as you look on it. And now, by real comparison a transformation of both pictures can occur. And each is given its rightful place when both are seen in relation to each other. The dark picture brought to light is not perceived as fearful, but the fact that it is just a picture is brought home at last. And what you see there is what you will recognize as what it is; a picture of what you thought was real, and nothing more. For beyond this picture you will see nothing.
The picture of light is clear-cut and unmistakable contrast, is transformed into what lies beyond the picture. As you look on this, you realize that it is not a picture, but a reality. This is no figured representation of a thought system, but the Thought itself. What it represents is there. The frame fades gently and God rises to your remembrance, offering you the whole of creation in exchange for your little picture, wholly without value and entirely deprived if meaning.
As God ascends into his rightful place and you to yours, you will experience again the meaning of relationship and know it to be true. Let us ascend in peace again to the Father, by giving Him ascendancy in our minds. We will gain everything by giving Him the power and the glory, and keeping no illusions of where they are. They are in us, through His ascendancy. What he has given is His. It shines in every part of Him, as in the whole. The whole reality of your relationship with Him, lies in our relationship to one another. The holy instant shines alike in all relationships, for in it they are one. For here in only healing, already complete and perfect. For here is God, and where He is only the perfect and complete can be.