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January-March, 2014

Why Do You Imprison Your Brother?

by Rev. Michael Ciavarella, O.M.C.

It happened suddenly. I was not prepared for what the Voice would tell me that day. Of course, I know better than to allow myself to think ill of a brother, but nonetheless, there I was mumbling words of condemnation. “And there he is, doing…”

What he did doesn’t matter here. You know the story. I thought someone did something to me, so of course, I must find fault and tell myself that he is guilty of some imagined act.

That’s when it happened. Holy Spirit was as clear as any voice I could hear with my physical ears. The message was given in the usual gentle tone, but it pierced me like a razor-sharp sword.

“Why do you imprison your brother?”

Huh? Imprison who?

“Your brother. Why do you wish him to remain in prison? In the process, you are holding yourself in the same prison. Why would you do that?”

It hit me. Whenever I roll my eyes and complain about someone, anyone, I am holding both of us in prison. I remember reading something like this in the Course.

As a minister of the Course, I have opened myself to the call to free myself and my brother from this illusion we know as hell. Yet, here I am, closing the gate on him while the gate behind me also slams shut.

Over the next several days, whenever I begin to point a finger of guilt at a brother, those words echo once again. “Why do you imprison your brother?” Those words rise before me each time I begin my barrage of accusatory thoughts. It didn’t take long for those words to stop me in mid-mental slander and I changed my thought to, “Be blessed.”

This went on for several days. It is getting where “Be blessed” comes just as the thought, “Why, you dirty, rotten…” (or something like that) slips from my thought process.

I understand that this is something that needed healing from the beginning of my journey through the Course. I asked my Mind Healing Partner, who I was working with in an ACIM Practitioner course, how she exercised great patience as we went through the courses I took with her for ordination.

Holy Spirit must have seen fit that this day was the day to bring healing to my error; to give opportunity to forgive and open the prison gates freeing my brother and me.

Today, when I think someone is doing something to me, the first thought is, “Be blessed.” I don’t even want to hear that prison gate slam. I would rather hear the cheers of freedom than the cries of imprisonment.

Be free my brother. Step out into the Light. Breathe the fresh air and touch the beauty that surrounds you. Know that you are perfect, invincible, eternal and utterly free.

You are Spirit. Neither God nor I want you in a cage. Take my hand. Let’s step out together. Do not fear. Only Love exists.

© 2013, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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