Lesson 140: Only salvation can be said to cure.
I write today’s lessons the morning after President Donald Trump emerged from the White House after days of unrest, protests and violence on the streets of America over the murder of George Floyd at the knee of a Minneapolis police officer.
Trump, after being mocked the day before for hiding out in his official bunker while protesters circled the People’s House, was desperate to repair his image. He believed he could do this by using tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse a peaceful crowd of protesters in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church across from the White House. He then proceeded to hold up a Bible in front of photographers at the historic church and give a militaristic-style speech about “law and order.”
Instead of projecting strength, the move was seen by many as a weak man shoring up his cowardice with a pandering photo opportunity. Strong leaders would be comforting the nation right now. Strong leaders would be seeking to unify us in the face of our national shame of hatred and racism. Strong leaders would seek to understand and not turn to brute force to get their way.
The bishop for the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, Mariann Budde, put it succinctly: “What I am here to talk about is the abuse of sacred symbols for the people of faith in this country to justify language, rhetoric, an approach to this crisis that is antithetical to everything we stand for,” Budde said, “everything that this faith stands for.”
What is the cure for our national illness, especially as those elected to lead us have so thoroughly abdicated their role as comforter and uniter to become dictator wannabes?
“Only salvation can be said to cure,” this lesson tells us. What it means is this: We have convinced ourselves, after the election of the nation’s first black president, that we were in a “post-racial” society. Both the pandemic and the protests in the wake of Floyd’s death have shown us we believed in an illusion of healing. The wound of racism is just as open and just as festering as it always has been.
“Our salvation can be said to cure.” Our problem is we believe more in the sickness of racism than our ability to cure it. Albert Einstein said that we cannot correct any situation with the same mindset that created it – and here we are, trying to heal racism with the same minds that created it in the first place.
We need the salvation of what this lesson calls “the happy dream.” When we embrace Who we truly are – innocent spirits, all children of God – then, and only then, will a new, healed mindset emerge within this bodily illusion. This evolution of our mind is needed to achieve “the happy dream,” because that is the moment that God can bridge the gap and bring us all back into unity. While we remain in the nightmare – the hell that our ego-infected minds have created – there will be no justice and no peace.
Atonement is the only thing that “takes away the guilt that makes the sickness possible,” this lesson says, “and that is cure indeed.”
Remember, Atonement is what we must accept for ourselves to heal the sickness in our minds that believes we are separate, that believes we are many bodies instead of one spirit. Accepting the Atonement for ourselves is not a form of spiritual bypass or a call to withdraw from the world. It is, instead, our responsibility in this world. If we are to change the world, we must change our own minds first – we accept the Atonement to heal the prejudice, the hatred, the animosity and fear within ourselves – and then we bring that into the world.
We are not healed alone. As we do our own inner work that allows us to remain in the peace of God even as chaos surrounds us, we invite others to do the same. By cultivating our own peace within, we create peace without and we show our Holy siblings on this earth that peace within and without are possible.
We cannot do that with violence. We cannot do that with hate. We cannot do that with fear. We can only do that with gentleness, with compassion and with Love. Those who protest in peace, who can bring the force of their Holy soul onto the frontlines of this battle will change the world.
Blessed are the peacemakers, Jesus has said, and in Reality, this is all of us, because we were all created from peace to be peace. We must take responsibility for cultivating this kind of peace within ourselves. It’s not easy work. We want to lash out in violence at the violence we’ve experienced. We want to return hate for hate, but that only perpetuates the hatred and fear.
I invite you to do this lesson today – to take it seriously – to take it up as your responsibility to the world. Meditate on, and speak these words to yourself, today:
“Only salvation can be said to cure.
Speak to us, Holy One, that we may be healed.”
Take up your function in this world – to be the Love, the joy and peace that is missing. It is the reason you are here.
If we are willing to do this, then the words from today’s lesson will come to pass in this moment: “This is the day when healing comes to us. This is the day when separation ends, and we remember Who we really are.”
And so it is.
Photo by Vlad Tchompalov on Unsplash
Thank you for this. I was reflecting just now on the joy I felt just imagining being again with dear friends in Africa. And that joy comes from recognizing the oneness that we are, so much more than individuals…but instead all part of a beautiful completeness. When we can reach this point, all of us, then we will see there will be no racism.