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May-August, 2024

A Child’s Daydream

by Rev. Robin Singler, Ordained Ministerial Counselor

Imagine yourself as a child living in a big, beautiful home. Imagine this home is God‘s Home, God‘s Kingdom of formless, eternal Love. This Home contains everything you could ever want: endless joy, protection, warmth, care, love, kindness, and strength. There is nothing lacking in this Home. There’s complete trust in the Father who provides this Home for you and all is well, beyond measure.

Now, imagine that you decide one day to wonder what might be outside of this Home. The child imagines a window to look out of, where there is another world, another place to be outside of this perfect, loving Home. The child imagines a world that is quite different from the Home they are accustomed to. There are sights and sounds and smells, there are playgrounds, classrooms, dangers, pleasures: All the unique, specific elements that make up the imagined world of form outside of this big loving Home of eternal Love. The curious child imagines an outside world as attractive and interesting.

The child suddenly questions themselves, “Oh no, what have I done? I’ve imagined myself playing outside of my perfect Home! What will my Father think of me? I’ve made a terrible mistake.” From that moment on, the belief in the idea of separation has begun, and the child’s guilt against themself, through the power of their Mind, hurls them into another experience. The child forgets that they are merely daydreaming of a made-up window in their Home, and that they still remain within their Father‘s Home, safe and secure as they always have been.

The child becomes lost in daydreaming, believing they are stuck in this new world because of the guilt they feel for imagining themselves apart from their perfect Home in God. The once serene, Love-filled Mind is covered over with a special new world that is meant to take the place of the Home that they never left.

Parts of this new world are very attractive. There are playgrounds to play in, people to meet and everything is different and adventurous and exciting. But as the daydream goes on weariness sets in, and what was once fun about this new world has become very tiring and frightening. Increasingly this innocent child, who is still safe in their Father‘s house, longs for the experience of safety and consistency that they are unaware of because of this special daydream founded on guilt and self-judgment.

While the child dreams, their Father has no concern at all, for He knows they are still at Home. There’s nothing to be upset about, for He knows nothing has happened to his beloved Child. He created the Child as an eternal extension of Himself, and so He knows that all is well and holds nothing against the innocent child, who has simply made up a little silly mistake in their mind that has had no ill effects on Reality.

As children, we all experience the desire to run out of our safe homes and go play on the playground. As a child, I would stubbornly stay outside, even as I grew very tired, hungry and cold. Even after skinning my knee or stubbing my toe, I didn’t want to give in and go back in the house. I wanted to have things my way and to hold onto my special playground even as it hurt me. I was also reluctant to give in and go back home because I thought I’d be punished for being away for so long, so I thought it better to keep away as long as I could to avoid the consequences of what I thought would be coming to me.

Nothing has changed. I am still a child experiencing the effects of the ego thought system’s aim to keep me believing in the daydream through guilt. I am working through my resistance to returning Home and facing the ego guilt that still resides deep in my mind, with Spirit’s help. And I am tired of staying away from Home. But I am an innocent child, in a pretend playground in a daydream, so all is well as it always has been. There is no need to be afraid of God’s punishment, for He hasn’t changed His Mind about me, and my dreaming is harmless.

There is no reason to judge anything in a child’s daydream either, for it all serves a Holy Purpose. Everything in the dream calls me back to my Father‘s House because it wears me out, because it is tiring, because it’s unfair and painful. It calls me back to my Father‘s house because His House is free of all ego pain and suffering and death and I do still remember, however faintly, that there is another reality.

The contrast experiences I have between when I believe in the daydream of guilt and when I believe in the Truth of my Home give me all the incentive I need to keep facing the guilt, to keep asking Spirit to help me let it go, and to give up more of my child’s toys. The fear of punishment when I return Home is diminishing, so I am giving up the games that seemed fun but turned out to be unsatisfying.

The preceding parable from Spirit has been helping me so much in forgiving myself for what I think I’ve done. Imagining myself as the innocent child, looking out an imaginary window of my Father‘s House is very helpful as I deepen my practice of A Course in Miracles. Seeing myself as a little child wandering around a neighborhood that I’ve imagined for myself is such an innocent reinterpretation of what the ego thoughts in my mind tell me. The ego tries to convince me that I am guilty for dreaming, guilty for the images of the dream, and that I am also guilty for being afraid to let go of the dream. But, my daydream has not changed my Father‘s House nor His affection for me. Period, end of story.

Now I practice imagining myself as a little child skipping along, walking through the neighborhoods that I’ve imagined with my brothers and sisters, all of us walking back Home to our Father’s House. Each brother and sister is gathered together and our group grows larger as we walk hand-in-hand, with our strength growing as the momentum and willingness to let go of the pain of the dream of separation grows stronger and stronger.

Now the playground leads me not into more shame and pain, but back to my Father‘s House, safe where I never left. I look forward to fully accepting the dream as a harmless nothingness and accepting my rightful place in my Father‘s House that I’ve never left.

The journey is getting easier and more light-hearted, and I feel younger and more innocent than when I thought I had a child’s body. It’s a wonderful experience and I am grateful.

© 2024, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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