Father, today I am your Son again.
This can be a confusing lesson. It invites us to anticipate a time “when dreams of sin and guilt are gone, and we have reached the holy peace we never left” (W-pI.234.1:1).
That is, it invites us to imagine a future which is already here. “Nothing has ever happened to disturb the peace of God . . . ” (W-pI.234.1:4). But if that’s so, then why do we have to pretend it’s not here but in some faroff future?
More plaintively, why are we being invited to suffer when we clearly don’t have to?
The answer is, because we don’t actually believe the peace of God is here in the present. If we did, we wouldn’t need the Course or any other spiritual or psychological practice. We really do think the peace of God is far off in the future.
Thinking that way allows us to spiral out in ten thousand directions – different teachers, traditions, therapists, healers, books, classes. None of them ever solve the problem. But they do keep us distracted. That is their whole function – to keep us in fear and away from love.
What we would we look at if we were not so invested in perpetuating separation through a projected healing process that never works?
Eventually, we would look at the decision to project in the first place. We would take seriously the idea that we are doing this – “this being suffering – to ourselves (e.g., T-27.VIII.10:1). We could ask: absent projection, what is the external world?
So here we are: two hundred some odd lessons into A Course in Miracles, half a dozen runs through the Text, maybe a dive into the Manual for Teachers, and we are still incapable of realizing that God is Love, that Love wills only to create, and that we are Love’s Creation, created to create like our Creator.
What are we so scared of?
A moment ago I used the word “incapable.” It felt right in the moment. But is it true? Are we actually incapable or is it more like unwillingness? Like deep down we are stubbornly clinging to our right to say no, decide for ourselves what is true and what is false, bow to no man or woman, deny God, take what is ours by force if necessary et cetera?
For me, the study and practice of A Course in Miracles invites me over and over to this precise interior confrontation – of what am I so scared? What function does all this spiritual and pyschological drama serve?
All we really have to do is look within and see ego for what it is, without fear or resistance. Nothing hidden, nothing projected, nothing mysterious.
What happens when we do that? When I do that, what do I see?
Honestly, I see a child. I see a hurt child, a damaged child, a doubtful child. I see Robert Bly’s thirty-thousand year old boy who had to make up his mind how to save me from death. I see Alice Miller’s wounded inner child. I don’t see evil. I don’t see anyone to blame. I feel what I always feel for wounded children, within and without: Love.
When ego is reconfigured as an inner child then healing becomes possible. It’s like setting aside fear in order to parent; doing so is a form of communion with God. I can be kind to myself and, by extension, to you. Why not? Comfort and consolation are second nature to Love.
Maybe you say, well, that sounds great Sean. I’m glad you figured it out. But HOW do we do that? What’s the trick? What’s the insight? What’s the key to unlocking the happy dream?
Lesson 234 has a suprising answer, one that neatly sidesteps the whole rigamarole of ACIM. How do we remember innocence? Undo guilt and fear? See the Face of God and live?
Be grateful.
As you learn, your gratitude to your Self, Who teaches you what He is, will grow and help you honor Him. And you will learn His power and strength and purity, and love Him as His Father does (T-16.III.7:5-6).
In other words, when you seek that which obstructs your awareness of Love, take thankfulness with you. Take gratitude with you. Then, when you find ego, it will not be scary. It will be a wounded child and you will remember naturally what you are because what you are will take over in that moment. In the absence of fear, you will remember Love, because Love is all there is.
And yes, this practice of Remembering God Through the Practice of Gratitude takes time. But it also takes time with it. And yes, it also takes intention and devotion, and a context for their application, but also, it takes intention and devotion and the context for their application with it.
Today, let us be grateful for each other – that we are not alone, and do not have to figure all this our ourselves. God goes with us because we are together. What else could we be grateful for?
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