God’s Name is holy, but no holier than yours. To call upon His Name is but to call upon your own. A father gives his son his name, and thus identifies the son with him. His brothers share his name, and thus are they united in a bond to which they turn for their identity. Your Father’s Name reminds you who you are, even within a world that does not know; even though you have not remembered it.

So what is this Name?  Clearly, the Name isn’t “God”. 

Repeat the Name of God, and little names have lost their meaning. No temptation but becomes a nameless and unwanted thing before God’s Name. Repeat His Name, and see how easily you will forget the names of all the gods you valued. They have lost the name of god you gave them. They become anonymous and valueless to you, although before you let the Name of God replace their little names, you stood before them worshipfully, naming them as gods.

We name our ideas “God”; profess belief in them and show our reverence to those ideas through worship.  It’s truly insane.  But still - what is this Name of God???   Is it Taoism or Buddhism, I forget, that talks about the pathless path and the nameless name?

Repeat the Name of God, and call upon your Self, Whose Name is His. Repeat His Name, and all the tiny, nameless things on earth slip into right perspective. Those who call upon the Name of God can not mistake the nameless for the Name, nor sin for grace, nor bodies for the holy Son of God. And should you join a brother as you sit with him in silence, and repeat God’s Name along with him within your quiet mind, you have established there an altar which reaches to God Himself and to His Son.

We call upon the name in silence, within our quiet mind.  The Ancient Hebrews said that God’s name was unutterable.  The moment the Name is spoken, it ceases to be God’s Name.  To think we can speak the name of God is to confuse God’s reality with our idea of God.

…Think not He hears the little prayers of those who call on Him with names of idols cherished by the world. They cannot reach Him thus. He cannot hear requests that He be not Himself, or that His Son receive another name than His.

The way I read this is that we remain in illusion when we call upon God to satisfy our desires.  I’m not sure that would be a popular interpretation among ACIM students, however.  Especially given the Unity Church’s propensity toward Master Mind and all of that crap that is really just a way to manipulate the universe to give you what you want.    Every Unity Church I have ever attended has been deeply involved in ACIM study and Master Mind prayer.  It is likely unfair to say this is true throughout all of Unity and I apologize if this offends anyone.  But I have to say, the  Master Mind prayer groups were especially disturbing to me because the focus was on “little prayers”.   Universe - please give me that red sports car I’ve been wanting.  OK, maybe not that bad, but close.  Sure, you can play withe the pychic plastic of the universe and manifest your desires.  What we think about expands.  But really, to place our focus upon our egoic desires is nothing more than means for the ego to distract us from the truth of who it is we truly are and who God is.

Turn to the Name of God for your release, and it is given you. No prayer but this is necessary, for it holds them all within it. Words are insignificant, and all requests unneeded when God’s Son calls on his Father’s Name. His Father’s Thoughts become his own. He makes his claim to all his Father gave, is giving still, and will forever give. He calls on Him to let all things he thought he made be nameless now, and in their place the holy Name of God becomes his judgment of their worthlessness.

Our release?  From our ego?  Illusion?  It’s about our release from fear!!

All little things are silent. Little sounds are soundless now. The little things of earth have disappeared. The universe consists of nothing but the Son of God, who calls upon his Father. And his Father’s Voice gives answer in his Father’s holy Name. In this eternal, still relationship, in which communication far transcends all words, and yet exceeds in depth and height whatever words could possibly convey, is peace eternal. In our Father’s Name, we would experience this peace today. And in His Name, it shall be given us.