Lesson 36: My holiness envelopes everything I see.
Today, I should feel outraged, angry and justified in feeling that way. My “side” of the political aisle appears to face an insurmountable amount of what I perceive to be hatred, fear, greed and cruelty from those on the other side of that aisle.
Just last night, the partisan pot boiled over with a president giving a State of the Union address filled with outright lies about the state of our nation, snubbing the House leader who led his impeachment and then her retribution as she tore up her copy of his speech after it was all over.
After nearly three years as a student of A Course in Miracles, I feel my outrage muted by my desire to see peace rather than this, by my desire to go within my own mind and find the holiness that resides there and instead of filling my Facebook feed with outraged screeds, I want to use my mind, my words, my very life, to create a new world – a happy dream where the bridge to unity can be built.
For as much as my ego rejoiced as Nancy Pelosi ripped up that speech, my heart hurt. One more petty action provoked by another petty action. This is not how we display love in the world. What should she have done? Hugged his neck? Endured his arrogance and handshake snub?
Honestly, I don’t know. The fear and anger in this world appear to be insurmountable, but I know there had to be a better way to show the president a fierce kind of love in this moment of fear and hatred. Tearing up his speech wasn’t it. All that did was deepen the separation, strengthen the egos of all involved and made everyone feel justified in their hatred of each other.
Today’s lesson is a step toward finding a better way.
“My holiness envelops everything I see.”
We established in yesterday’s lesson that our mind is part of God’s and we are very holy. That holiness, if we can accept it, can envelop everything – it can transform the world, if we believe in our holiness more than our pettiness.
As I watched coverage of the speech this morning, I said, “My holiness envelops this speech. My holiness envelops this president. My holiness envelops this House Speaker.”
If my mind is part of God’s and I am very holy, then the same goes for the president, the same goes for the Speaker. We are all one, all holy, even if we don’t yet realize it and are still dedicated to playing the ego’s game of separation and fear.
I cannot say that I have achieved what this lesson seeks to teach me – that we are all sinless because we are one in God. I can enumerate the sins of many people, including those of our nation’s top leader. His policies and actions create real suffering and needless pain in the world. I oppose everything he stands for.
But, I cannot begin to create a new world until I can understand that even he, as much as my ego hates it, is my teacher. If I hold him, or anyone, apart from my forgiveness, I will never be able to reach a state of unsurpassed peace that will allow me to take the actions that are needed to end the separation, to mitigate the suffering and save the world.
We cannot see a world of peace until all the weapons of fear, hatred and violence are gone from our minds. That takes a holy kind of vision – and a willingness to channel our outrage and fear into the kind of contemplation we need that will enable us to see and take the most effective actions that are grounded in love.
How will all this drama end? Meister Eckhart has a spoiler:
It is your
destiny to see as God sees,
to know as God knows,
to feel as God feels.
How is this possible? How?
Because Divine love cannot defy its very self.
Divine love
will be eternally true to its own being,
and its being is giving all it can,
at the perfect moment.
And the
greatest gift
God can give is His own experience,
Every
object, every creature, every man, woman and child
has a soul and it is the destiny of all,
to see as
God sees, to know as God knows,
to feel as God feels, to Be as God Is.
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