The Voice.

Some people open A Course in Miracles, read the first sentence, and immediately close the book again.

“Holy Spirit?” they sigh… sometimes disappointed, sometimes allergic… and sometimes both at once, which is quite a talent.

And honestly, who can blame them? Names like Holy Spirit, Jesus, Christ, God…

they come with centuries of spiritual luggage, whole trains full of dogmas, guilt, statues, incense, and miracles that split people into teams instead of uniting them.

But the Course was never meant to start another team.

It belongs not to Christianity or someone else.

It’s simply a doorway… from the busy chatter of the personal mind to the quiet spaciousness of the Heart.

The Voice that spoke to Helen Schucman didn’t introduce Itself with,

“Hello, I’m Jesus of Nazareth, pleased to meet you.”

It used the symbols her mind could trust.

She was an atheist with a sharp, skeptical intellect and yet that same intellect had a soft spot for the idea of Jesus as a symbol of honesty, clarity, and love.

So her mind translated the content of a universal Christ-consciousness into the familiar shape of “Jesus.”

And because she was Helen, the world instantly assumed the form must be the message.

As usual, the ego went shopping for names and forgot to look at the essence.

For Helen, the name “Jesus” was a bridge…a warm, steady Presence she could lean into without feeling lost.

And if that name is your bridge too…

hold it close.

There is absolutely nothing to throw away.

Love never asks us to replace what feels holy; It simply uses whatever we give It and turns it into a doorway Home.

But as soon as a name appears, the world does what the world often does:

it builds fences.

Some people claimed the Course for Christianity (Jesus of Nazareth is the Voice in Helen’s head).

Others backed away the moment they heard the name.

Meanwhile, the Voice of Love quietly whispered,

“Do not let the form obscure the meaning.”

The Course says this in many ways:

names are symbols, not Truth.

“Jesus,” “Buddha,” “Spirit,” “Holy Spirit”…

every one of them is simply a door into the same Light.

Walk through any of them, and you’ll discover there was never a person talking to you at all, only Love recognizing Itself.

Even the word Christ does not refer to a holy man with long hair.

Its Greek root, Christós, simply means “anointed”… not with oil, but with awareness.

It points to a state of mind that remembers:

I am one with everything.

Jesus didn’t invent that Light, and He certainly didn’t keep it for Himself.

He demonstrated it.

And that same Light is already shining in you, waiting patiently while you check your notifications.

The Course puts it beautifully:

“Christ is the Self we share.”

So if the word “Jesus” still feels a bit heavy, let it breathe.

Let it soften…

hear instead:

“the Voice of my own true Self,”

or “the memory of what I have never stopped being.”

Forms shift, symbols change, but the message stays the same:

You are not separate from Love.

You are Love.

The miracle begins the moment we stop defending a word

and start feeling the Presence behind it.

That is where real communication opens,

beyond religion, beyond language, beyond belief,

into the quiet, joyful recognition that Christ is not a person,

but the pure Awareness we all share.

And perhaps that is what the Voice behind every holy name has been whispering to us from the beginning.

With love and light,

G.