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October-December, 2017

Your Peace Is with Me, Father

by Rev. Myron Jones, O.M.C.

Now that I have been studying the Course for a number of years I have a certain perspective. I can look back and see how I have changed, though, like most words we use, change is not really accurate. I have not changed, being a changeless creation of God. A better way to say it would be I can look back and see myself as I appeared while deeply engaged in the ego, and compare that to myself as I am slowly revealed. It looks like layers of the mask are falling away as I allow the ego thoughts to be corrected by the Holy Spirit, and so it looks like I have changed.

One apparent difference is that I now understand better than I did before that there is indeed nothing for me to do in the world. I will do things, of course, as directed and guided, but it is different than I imagined. I used to think that once I knew something worth sharing, I would be a teacher, a guide, a minister, a writer. Maybe I would do workshops or speak in public. Well, I do all those things, but that is not what I am here to do. Those are just outward forms of the one thing that makes a difference.

I forgive. The effects of forgiveness look like peace, love, and joy. I express those effects in my writing, talks, counseling and all the things that occupy my time. I could do none of those things and still, the effect would be peace, and that would be a gift to all I meet. If I met no one, the peace would spread throughout the Sonship anyway because the Sonship is mind, not bodies. I really need do nothing to make any of this happen. All I need to do is forgive and everything else happens naturally.

My ego mind had a lot of resistance to this idea at first. It balked at the thought of having so little importance in the scheme of things and insisted there was much to be done, and so it kept me quite busy and distracted. But there is the part of my mind that knows the truth, and so I just kept forgiving behind all the busyness. Slowly I surrendered to the thought that I need do nothing, that I am not special, and that all things are done not by me, but through me. I surrendered to the realization that I am a vessel for God and in no way the director or creator of that Force. It does not feel like a loss. It feels like peace.

And so I give peace more the way God gives, simply being peace and so having peace I give peace. It extends itself naturally with no effort on my part. Everything goes as it was meant to go until I decide I want something else. I fully understand the phenomenon of only being able to handle so much happiness and then retreating into fear for awhile. But another apparent change I am noting is that over the years, those retreats are further apart and don’t last as long.

I might give up my peace a dozen times in a day, but I notice I have done it and change my mind very quickly. I used to go from one drama to another with only brief moments of respite, so this is quite a difference. Now, once in a while, maybe once a month, I look at some deeply held ego thought and it may take awhile to get through it. But even that is better because it is more deliberate. I choose to look so that I can allow healing. And even in the chaos of an ego storm, there is a calm center, which holds on to the truth. This is my observer, I think, the decision maker who is watching the effects of ego thinking and deciding which teacher to follow, and in the end, always chooses peace.

One thing that remains a mystery to me is that, when I broach some ego thought I am attached to, I still feel a very strong ego response. I can be deeply afraid or angry. Guilt can be almost overwhelming. It is a foregone conclusion how I will choose in the end, so why this visceral reaction as I look at the ego belief? Depending on how much of my value system is invested in this ego belief, it can feel like a little quake shaking the structure of my belief system. The good thing about it is that all that shaking makes it impossible to pretend nothing is happening. I am very aware that something needs to be looked at with the Holy Spirit.

For the last few days, I have been torturing myself with the belief that I can see insanity in someone else and think it is really in someone else. This insane belief has kept me hostage to suffering and worse than that, it has kept me from knowing myself as peace and thus extending that peace. I have done all the crazy ego things we do when we feel threatened. I have defended myself and attacked and gathered evidence and invited others to join my insanity. I feel like I have emerged from the pits of hell.

I want to say it was a waste of time and the ego wants to say I should be ashamed and embarrassed and that it was a sin. But here is the truth. It was a burning away of an idea that has held a place in my mind for eons, the idea that I can project my worst beliefs about myself onto someone else and be rid of them. Is it all gone, completely and forever? I don’t know, but I don’t think it has the same hold on me. If that idea shows up again, perhaps it will be only a shadow of its old self. 

I read something today written by someone who has Awakened and she said this: Sometimes it is not a pleasant process; it hurts like hell. It is not like growing wings and soaring over an abyss. It is like crashing, falling down an endless cliff of rocks with jagged edges, razor clouds and fire burning every last shred of anything you held to be true. Not like an angels kiss but like a stint in a Dante painting of hell.

So the next time you feel like you must be doing something wrong and that you are going backward, or like you will never Awaken at this rate, just consider that maybe awakening is what is happening and you are doing just fine.

Holy Spirit, You know what I am ready to look at. I am patient and loving with myself, as I can afford to be since you assure me that I am as God created me and so there is no danger of failure. I will not fail to accept correction of all ego thinking. I will not fail to wake up. I surrender to the process.

© 2017, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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