11. HOW IS PEACE POSSIBLE IN THIS WORLD? P 1
1 This is a question everyone must ask. Certainly peace seems to be impossible here. Yet the Word of God promises other things that seem impossible, as well as this. His Word has promised peace. It has also promised that there is no death, that resurrection must occur, and that rebirth is man’s inheritance. The world you see cannot be the world God loves, and yet His Word assures us that He loves the world. God’s Word has promised that peace is possible here, and what He promises can hardly be impossible. But it is true that the world must be looked at differently, if His promises are to be accepted. What the world is, is but a fact. You cannot choose what this should be. But you can choose how you would see it. Indeed, you must choose this.
Journal
Jesus says that we can have peace even here and I know this is true because I often do have peace even in the midst of what others would perceive as chaos. This is not always true for me yet, but it is for some and so I know that someday it will be consistently true for me as well. Of course, we must come to believe this because it is God’s Word that we do.
It is also His Word that assures us that He loves the world. I have conflicting reactions to this statement. First, I feel relieved. For a while after becoming a Course student, I felt guilty for the world and so I hated it. It seemed to stand for my guilt and to be a constant reminder that I had made a terrible mistake. In spite of reassurances from Jesus, I still felt like maybe I was being punished for doing this. Maybe that was why the world is so horrible. But if God loves the world then so can I, and my fears are unfounded.
Another thought I had was how could God love the world if there is no world. This confounded me for a while this morning, but then I realized that God loves everything we do because of who we are. It is, perhaps, a poor analogy, but I do understand this love when I think of my children. They are all grown now and some have children of their own, and yet, I have pictures they drew for me when they were tiny. I have no idea what the images represent because they were so young when they drew them, but I love each one because I love the ones who drew them.
Then, Jesus says that what the world is, is but a fact and that we cannot choose what this should be. I think this is another way of saying that the script is written. I have resisted this idea for a long time because I didn’t want to believe that there was no way to change what must happen. I also could not reconcile miracles with an unchangeable world. Jesus says that a miracle is a change of mind and he also says that when the mind changes, the world must change as well.
I do not claim to have some kind of special knowledge and I think that there is much we cannot understand. But I also think that we are given an understanding that is helpful if we are open to receive. This means, we must empty our minds of what we believe in order to be enlightened. How can we be given an understanding if we think we already understand? I also believe that I have been given understandings that are helpful to me at the moment I receive them, and later, that understanding shifts, as I am ready for more. Helpfulness is the most important thing right now, rather than full understanding.
Here is an understanding that I have now about this part of the paragraph. When the tiny mad idea was conceived, it was conceived in every possible version of the world. We experienced all of them and now we remember the ones we want to remember and what we want is determined by what we choose to believe. So, for instance, I am remembering the story of Myron right now, and that story has many versions.
My purpose is to ask what the current chapter in this story is about so that I can be given a new way to see it and in this way to accept the Atonement or forgive it. If I do this consistently, I undo versions of the story and it drops away, not to be remembered again. And thousands of years are saved because I don’t revisit that version of the story of Myron, as it is now gone. I am not actually changing the world; I am choosing to continually refine the version of the world I want to experience until I am entirely through with this illusion.
I think that this is what happens when we Awaken here in the dream. We have undone the ideas that formed the world as we see it. The world continues because other aspects of our self are seemingly keeping the confused and chaotic version going through their desire to remember it. But no matter what it is we want to see in the world, it is still an illusion and it is an illusion that can be seen differently. Instead of seeing hatred and cruelty, an awakened mind sees a call for love and gives the love that is being called for.
When our mind is sufficiently healed, we will see the real world, which will not have the elements familiar to us through our belief in the ego. There will be no sickness, hatred, suffering, fear or death. Then God will take the final step and the world will disappear altogether, at least the world as we envision it. Perhaps the world will be transformed so that it is a world of light and love only without form of any kind that we would recognize. I only say that because of something I read in the Course that said God would honor what we made because of who we are.
I don’t know if this vision of things is correct or how correct it might be. But I do know that it is helpful because it contains that which is necessary. I am to look at the world and allow the Holy Spirit to show me how to see it. It also has the necessary elements of love of Creator for His creations, as well as the element of innocence. Everything else is just window dressing, but it does help me to envision a way this paragraph can make sense to me enough that I can use it.
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