January-March, 2005
Acting on an inspiration that I assume came from a divine Source, I have been reviewing the Workbook lessons in Part II of A Course in Miracles. I have really been savoring them and they are opening new dimensions of understanding for me. Lesson 259 — “Let me remember that there is no sin”— brought a major revelation and spiritual breakthrough. I stayed on the lesson for a few days and had tremendous feelings of relief knowing that all of my phony petty “sins” amounted to nothing at all and how we really do imagine them as keeping us from God.
The Holy Spirit reinforced my lesson at my work place on the first day I considered the lesson. I work at a prison and a young man had broken his leg playing soccer. It was a bad break. He was young and spoke little English. The young man broke down and cried bitterly. All his miseries now compounded, he lost control. Some other staff laughed and snickered at him. I said, “Hey, come on, he’s just a kid.” “He’s a child rapist,” they responded. “He deserves punishment.” A line in the lesson says “What else but sin could be the source of guilt, demanding punishment and suffering?” What an appropriate lesson in life arranged for me by Holy Spirit to reinforce the lesson in ACIM.
Applying the lesson to a more global topic, I thought about the recent presidential election and the “moral vote” that supposedly influenced it. Osama Bin Laden “punished” us for our evil ways calling us “The Great Satan” by masterminding the 9/11 attacks. Just days later, Jerry Falwell, a spiritual leader of many of the “moral” voters, went on “The 700 Club” and told Pat Robertson “the pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians… the ACLU, the People for American Way, and other ‘Christ haters’ are to blame.” Pat Robertson agreed with him saying “Jerry, that’s my feeling, I think we’ve just seen the antechamber to terror.” Falwell went on, “All of them who have helped secularize America, I point the finger in their face and say, ‘You helped this happen.’” Robertson said this is only a foretaste of what is going to happen. (1)
Another applicable line from Lesson 259 comes to mind: “…and what but sin could be the source of fear obscuring God’s creation, giving Love the attributes of fear and attack.” The comments by Osama Bin Laden, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson are examples of giving a God of Love the attributes of fear and attack. They reflect the mistaken belief that something other than Love could be real. Bodies do appear to attack each other with words and weapons of destruction. But this could not be real because, as the Course tells us, only Love is real. And Love only extends Itself.
The ego loves to judge and condemn, and cherishes sin. Let us remember there is no sin.
1 Quote from CBSNEWS.com, 9/15/01 and 9/18/01
Rev. James Ramelis is a Pathways of Light minister who lives in Gould City, Michigan
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