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October-December, 2010

Who Is Responsible

by Rev. Steve Ruohomaki

The story of my current life includes a tidy assortment of victim themes which have been the material for “convincing” me of shortcomings, maladies, disease, incompetence, and unacceptability. If these weren’t enough, throw on the additional phenomenon of aging! So with all of this, shouldn’t I at least deserve to be a little grumpy and irritable? How is it that I have a shot at being happy and at peace? It would seem to take some kind of miracle to pull that off. A miracle of mind to be exact; but I am getting ahead of myself. What would I have to do to feel happy and at peace?

A couple of decades ago, while I was busy “shopping” for a new church, A Course in Miracles showed up in my life via Ken and Gloria Wapnick. They came to Chicago to present a weekend seminar. They rattled the cages of my mind, blowing circuit upon circuit in the constructs of my beliefs systems. Since then I have assumed the student role as I take my journey home to where I truly belong.

As I believe Ken describes, we learn in circular fashion, going around and around the same themes learning more deeply each time we go around. So here I am once again at the core of the “victim themes” that dominate the history of the story, pondering the deeper meaning of who is responsible for creating the story in which I’m currently playing the part of me — knowing that the story originates with a “tiny mad idea.” It’s kind of like a kick in the gut to have to say: I am responsible for the tiny mad idea! I can honestly report reasonable progress in my practice of consciously remembering the existence of my “right mind” with greater frequency, but I must also be honest and say it hadn’t really surfaced to consciousness that I was the guy who had that original idea. My ego had cleverly used the illusion of time to allow me to think that this idea occurred long ago, therefore, alleviating me from any responsibility for that in the present.

Well it is certainly a bad news — good news situation. It is the teaching of A Course in Miracles that has been the source of my understanding of where this idea came from; but, thankfully, the good news is that it also tells me that this idea is not true just because I thought it. Whew! So, since I originally had this idea, I have been very busy in my “wrong mind” creating billions of scenarios based on it, complete with victim themes, misery, war, strife, disease, and general pandemonium. The Course very explicitly instructs me to stop projecting the blame on you for all these messes and to hold myself accountable. Once I do this, I then have the extreme privilege to be informed that all this crap never really happened and that everything and everybody remains in perfect peace.

So the answer to the question: What would I have to do to feel happy and at peace in my story at my age? Answer: Take responsibility for the (tiny mad) idea that I had, see it in whatever form it shows up in my (wrong mind) story, remember Who will help me to correct it, then forgive it by realizing it was only an illusion. So since it was my idea in the first place, I wanted to let you all know that my idea has been rejected by the Truth. Thank you, Jesus!

© 2010, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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