It is with innocence that you appreciate Me. It is not with sophistication. Sophistication thinks it knows Me already. Innocence finds Me again and again by surprise. Innocence sees more of Me because it does not expect it, not in the same way that sophistication does. Sophistication has its standards and wants to credit Me with meeting them. Sophistication has already decided a lot about Me and lines Me up with what it already knows, or thinks it knows. Innocence sees Me new each time, the same way innocence greets each springtime as if for the first, as if a crocus sprouting from the snow is an unheard-of event. With innocence, nothing is routine. Innocence knows only renewal, resurrection as if never before.

Be glad of innocence. Then you are the new-fallen snow. Then you are the crocus popping its head up. Then you are the Knower.

Every morning awake with a new heart. Jump out of bed as if for the first time. Live your life with new eyes, eyes that have never seen before, fresh-born eyes, new from Heaven, clear eyes that bring nothing to life but what is in front of them. No old pictures to discard or to keep. Just clear-seeing eyes that behold everything for the first time and therefore see what is and not what has seemed to be — only what is at this moment of perfect eternity. Why carry the past? It is heavy on your shoulders.

Take off your clouded glasses. What have they been tinted with? Get a clear lens that does not cast color nor shadow.

Have you been wearing the glasses of a judge? A movie reviewer? A literary critic? A teacher? A highway patrol officer? What citations do you hold ready in your hand?

Take off your shades.

Be wide-eyed.

You may be sure that I do not carry an old photograph of you. I see you as ever new. Of course, I see the eternality of you, but I do not tote up your performance and mark things on or off. I do not keep a record. I just keep you. In My heart. Safe and warm there, you in My heart. Let Me be in yours the same.

What record have you kept of Me? Do you give Me a report card, or do you put the card aside and just enjoy Me, never old, ever new? If I am your discovery today, I am new. Let's be out of time, you and I. Let Us just be this palpable moment again and again. No holdover's. Just new. Our first date. And of course it is. No matter how many times We have met, this is the first time. This is Our one meeting. We come to it as never before. We come to it in the innocence of Our love.

You are to Me what you are to Me. You are not less. You cannot be more.

Can you even imagine the energy you will have when you accept this? That you are My own heart? That you are precious to Me beyond your ken? That you are My ultimate creation? Then you can toss away just about all of your previous thinking. What a relief that would be to you! That is what Truth is. It is great relief. It is starting new every day. Starting over isn't the same as starting new because starting over holds an accumulation. Starting anew is only starting right now, right now, just Us riding high, riding the waves of eternity.