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January-March, 2025

One Function Only

by Rev. Joyce Peebles, Ordained Ministerial Counselor

On Sunday afternoons, I attend a zoom call where we are presently studying the lessons in the workbook. Lesson 66, “My happiness and my function are one.” Was helpful. My function is to practice forgiveness, it is not to understand anything in the world. It is not to try to change anyone in this life. I have this one function only.

A few days prior to this zoom call I went on a road trip to a workshop for back pain. It was created by Esther Gokhale who wrote “ 8 steps to a Pain-Free Back.”

I took Gary Renard’s Advanced Forgiveness CDs with me. We were asked to think of someone or a situation we think it hard to forgive.

The following is a summary of a meditation on that CD: “Visualize a beautiful, pristine, white, comforting Light. It’s very soothing, very healing and wonderful. The Light expands and is everywhere. There is no place where the Light is not….

Those are our gifts to God because they tell Him we have no other gods before Him, that we need no love but His… then the altar disappears. For just a split second we felt that maybe we were giving something up because we are so attached to the idea of being a body. Now as we become One with God, we realize that we haven’t given up anything and instead we have been given everything. We feel whole and complete. There’s no feeling of lack or scarcity in wholeness. What is more, everybody is there too in our awareness, because nobody can be left out in perfect Oneness.”

Gary Renard’s book, The Disappearance of the Universe has a sample prayer for forgiveness. It is as follows:  “You’re not really there. If I think you are guilty or the cause of the problem, and if I made you up, then the imagined guilt and fear must be in me. Since the separation from God never occurred, I forgive “both” of us for what we haven’t really done. Now there is only innocence, and I join with the Holy Spirit in Peace.”

The idea in the meditation is to acknowledge what I think I need to be happy or what I have substituted for the love of God.

On that particular day, upon this altar, I gave the anxiety over my 93-year-old mother who has dementia. I put my husband with cancer and chemotherapy, and the severe pain in my back.

My focus was on these things, imagining how much happier I would be if things were different.

I no longer use these exact words in the example prayer above, but the idea of taking responsibility for being the writer of the dream is done, along with knowing the belief in guilt is in my mind and that I projected it onto someone else so that I could see the guilt in them instead of me. Then I remind myself the other person or situation is innocent and has no power to upset me.

Dr. Kenneth Wapnick, PhD. says, ”In meditation, Jesus brings us back to the mind, where the problem is.  Thus, our day should be spent in realizing that what we feel comes from the mind’s choice, and if we have chosen a feeling, it is because we want it. The Text helps us to understand that we are insane enough to want to be upset and in pain in order to hold someone else responsible for our victimization and suffering. The outcome is that we maintain separate identities, but without being responsible for them. And so we gladly choose not to be at peace.”

Look back at the three things I put on my altar. These show my self-deception and desire to identify with the ego/body self.

I have spent decades studying A Course in Miracles and I’m still struggling with practicing forgiveness.

Focusing on bodies does not change the fact that in reality the world does not exist, and that nothing outside of my mind can hurt me. Time to get on with the program. I have suffered enough and do not want to spend any more lifetimes without integrating ACIM’s teachings.

I accept that distress is a choice, and I can have peace if I want it. The price is letting go of my individual self. As I write this my mind is clear and certain.

I’ve done similar meditations before and taken my perceived troubles to the Holy Spirit. And then almost immediately, I decided to keep them. I know this because of how I felt. When I have left them upon the altar or with the Holy Spirit, I feel a lightness, a relief. When I take them back, I feel like there’s something I need to do. I continue to plan, scheme, worry, trying on my own to make things more to my own liking.

Part of the definition of forgiveness is to “merely look.” I am simply asked to recognize that I am projecting guilt outside of my mind, and I think of the forgiveness prayer written above, with sincerity and belief.

Then I wait in patience, a practice I am slowly getting better at now. At first, I failed miserably. It is becoming easier with practice. I tell myself I need change no one and nothing in the world, only in my mind. I have one function that is needful, practicing forgiveness.

When an ego thought occurs, I think of Lesson 254: “When such thoughts occur, we quietly step back and look at them, and then we let them go.” (W-254.2:2) I do not get upset with myself if it returns. I am learning to be gentle with myself and allow the thoughts to pass by. It is true I am happier now, but this was a byproduct of my surrender at the altar and practicing forgiveness.

The following words by Kenneth Wapnick Ph.D., spoke to me. “We are all pressured by these burning impulses such as romantic or sexual passions, urges to eat, or needs to save the world and make an impact on others. Jesus is teaching us these are not the source of our strength or happiness, which come only from the love of God within.”

I can identify with Kenneth’s words. There is one word to describe what makes it easy to practice forgiveness. It is surrender. I recognized that the ego’s plan for happiness is a lie. When I surrender, there is no confusion or uncertainty in my mind. My own efforts are exhausting. Giving up or surrender isn’t losing something. It’s allowing the strength of God to be, and the byproduct is peace.

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