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Little Easy Steps

Little Easy Steps

There is a song I like a lot. It?s called Little Easy Steps. I like this song because it reminds me of my spiritual practices. Each practice is a process made of many little steps. I told you about my grandson’s experience at his school in my last entry. With help from the Holy Spirit, I was able to forgive myself and the school. That forgiveness process is a good example of how I can take many little steps and finally get where I want to be. When I first heard about Julian?s problem at school, I got angry. I knew that wasn?t where I wanted to stay, but I couldn?t just move from anger to forgiveness in one giant step. My legs aren?t long enough, so to speak. So, I took it one small step at a time. I started with a willingness. True, it wasn?t much of a willingness at first, but it was all I had. God doesn?t need much. He just needs for me to offer Him what I have. Remember, he only needs faith the size of a mustard seed to move mountains. My anger felt like a mountain, that?s for sure. It felt like a mountain sitting on my chest. That?s why I had to get rid of it.

So I offered God my willingness to see the situation differently. Pretty soon I was entertaining thoughts that maybe the teacher wasn?t a demon from hell. I considered that a good start. It was a tiny step, to be sure, but a step in the right direction. When I got comfortable with that new idea, I moved on to the next step. Next, I decided to reconsider the conspiracy theory I was working on. Maybe the entire school wasn?t ganging up on my darling grandson. This step didn?t take as long. All this time I?m gaining spiritual strength through prayer. I am asking the Holy Spirit to heal my thoughts. It has become something of a mantra for me.

Anytime I am practicing forgiveness, I am doing God?s work and He sends me all the help I need. I have the Holy Spirit which God placed in me to be His Voice. I have His angels who look after me and cherish me. I am heartened by these thoughts.

Another tiny step brings me closer to forgiveness. The Holy Spirit whispers in my heart that my grandson is in His care and that he is invulnerable and so am I. This, He tells me, is my lesson and what I am to teach, not through words, but with my actions. And so I understand that by showing others I am invulnerable, I am teaching them that they are invulnerable. This kind of invulnerability comes only through Love, which is another name for God. I cannot express my invulnerability through fear because fear is not of God.

Another small step takes me nearly to forgiveness, as I receive the vision of all the people involved as little children striking out in terror, trying to defend what they think they need to feel safe. Then the Voice for God gently reminds me that everything is either love or fear. If it is not love, it is fear no matter what it seems to be. In my heart He said to me, ?This is your brother calling out for love. Can you respond with anything but love??

And finally, the last tiny step brings me to forgiveness. After much healing, the Holy Spirit is able to show me the face of Christ in each of my brothers. Now I understand that I don?t have to grapple with their behavior, trying to make sense of what is nonsensical. I was never going to succeed at that. I don?t have to look at what they did and see that they were wrong and then give them forgiveness they didn?t deserve. I am simply going to look past all of that and see that the teacher is not what she did. Behind the mask of what she did is the child of God, perfect as He created her. And, that is forgiveness.

It took me a while to get there one small step at a time. But I noticed that after the first step, each step got easier and as each step brought me closer to forgiveness, my steps quickened in anticipation. I think the next time, I won?t take quite as long. One thing I learned during this process is that if I hold someone prisoner to guilt, I, who am their jailer am prisoner with them. I had been saying to the school, you are guilty of making me miserable and of making me afraid for Julian. In order to keep them guilty though, I had to be constantly on guard with new accusations or they might escape their just rewards, which meant I had to be constantly miserable and afraid or they wouldn?t be guilty of anything. Good grief, no wonder I felt so good when I forgave.

I was thinking of another spiritual process where I used the one tiny step method; praying. I pray differently now than I used to. I started out like a child asking a favorite uncle for a gift. I would tell God what I needed to make me happy and ask Him to supply it. If it didn?t fall in my lap, I would try to wheedle it out of Him. If that didn?t work I would try making bargains with Him. If I didn?t get what I had asked for I would feel bereft and wonder why God didn?t love me when it seemed He loved others.

My first step past this childish attitude toward God was to understand that you cannot bargain with God and that you do not need to beg. God does not want our subservience. He wants only our love. But there were still times when my prayers seemed to go unanswered and I still felt afraid that there must be something wrong with me.

I took another small step which brought me a little closer to real prayer. I lost a lot of my fear of God. I began to believe that God really did love me and that He never wants sacrifice from me. He doesn?t think I ask for too much, but rather, too little. Also, I began to realize that often I was asking for things when what I really wanted was love and comfort.

My next small step showed me that I could trust God. I began to believe that when I learned how to ask for what I needed, it would be provided. I saw this happen, though not consistently, and I yearned to know why it wasn?t consistent. I knew it had to be something I was doing. I knew that God wasn?t inconsistent because, well, because He?s God.

Finally, I took one more tiny step and understood that I was asking God to fix things for me and then telling Him how to do it. I was telling Him I was lonely and then telling Him who to send me. I was telling Him I was needy and then telling him how to fill that need. And I wasn?t doing a very good job either. Sometimes I would get what I asked for, but I know it wasn?t from God, because God gives perfectly. Now when I pray, I bring my needs to God and lay them at His feet. I trust that He will provide exactly what I need. I trust that He doesn?t need my advice. I don?t believe God deals in form. He is not Santa Clause. I would wake up every morning and check my desk and, no, there wouldn?t be a laptop there. But, when I laid my need at His feet, sans advice, He gave me a terrific idea and now I have a laptop. God deals in ideas and inspirations.              .

It was important that I take it one step at a time because I was not ready for the last step until recently. Before that, I did not trust God enough to just turn things over to Him. I was still too full of fear. But, each small step I took, brought me closer to that truth. I can trust God. Which reminds me of another spiritual practice where I had to take small steps. I had to learn where to look for answers. Like most people, I was taught as a child to look to myself for answers. I was encouraged to become independent and to be careful not to depend on anyone else. As I grew older and matured, I learned to follow this advice. Like some other lessons I learned as a child, this was not helpful.

I had to unlearn some things. I associated maturity with independence. Now I had to learn to become as a little child and turn to my Father for guidance. He meant for me to have His guidance in all things, and so placed His Voice in me as the Holy Spirit so that I would always have access to It. It took many small steps over many years before I would return to my natural state and become as that little child again.

My first steps were all about coming to realize that I wasn?t ever going to make consistently good choices. It finally dawned on me that I would have to know everything there was to know about all facets of every situation. And further, I would have to know how any action I chose to take would affect every person involved now and in the future. It?s truly amazing that it took me so long to figure out I couldn?t do this.

My next steps were all about finding an alternate plan. I knew that I wasn?t doing a very good job of making decisions, but I didn?t know what to do about it. I tried giving the job to a variety of persons that, for some reason, I felt were better equipped for the task, but found they tended to fall into one of two categories. Either they were willing to make my decisions for me and were not any better at it than I was, or they were too wise to take on the job.

When I finally figured out that God had this covered with a plan of His own, I was more than ready to listen, but I had forgotten how. These were my next small steps. I had to relearn how to hear the Voice for God. This was pretty frustrating at first. I spent a lot of time asking God why He made it so hard. I understand now that He didn?t make it hard; why should He? He wants me to succeed. It was my stubborn resistance to giving up my pitiful independence that was making it seem hard.

I am still taking small steps in this direction. I have gotten much better at remembering to turn to the Holy Spirit and much better at listening to His answer, but I have a ways to go yet. The Holy Spirit is very patient and very gentle with me. If I am resisting His help, He waits until I am ready to listen. If I don?t understand what He is trying to tell me, He finds another way to get the answer to me. He sends His answer in a comment on a forum, or through the Course or, through a group discussion,  or a book or even a movie.

I remember a friend telling me once about his frustration at not being able to figure out God?s Will in a particular situation. He had asked and absolutely knew that God answers all His children when they call. But some part of him must have been resisting the answer because he wasn?t getting it. ?Finally,? he said, ?I just told God that I wasn?t doing anything until I heard from Him.? He then got into his car and took a ride hoping the solitude would break something loose. He stopped at a red light and there on a bumper sticker on the car in front of him, was the elusive answer to his quandary. He had to laugh out loud at the beautiful absurdity of it all.

I know how he feels because I can be just as dense and Spirit doesn?t seem to mind. He works with me where ever I am. He uses whatever is available to answer my questions. All I have to do is ask, and give Him whatever willingness I have, to hear His answer. He will work out the details. It?s very simple really, no matter how complicated it may seem. I have only two choices. I can choose to follow my own ego or I can choose to follow Christ. Once I make that choice, the rest will work itself out.

I had been thinking that my strength lay in my independence, in relying on my small self. That is false independence, weak and unsure, built on unreliable sources. What I am learning now is that my strength lies, not in separation, but in unity; unity with my God and unity with my brothers. I can choose my teacher and I choose the Holy Spirit.

Intellectually, I accept that I am a Holy Son of God. I accept my unity with all that is. I accept that I am not my ego and that my seeming life in this body is an illusion. Intellectually, I am glad of it. But, it is taking many wonderful, easy little steps to reach an awareness of all this that goes beyond the intellectual. I am on my path. I am taking those steps. I am grateful for all the help I am given. I am grateful that my destination is inevitable. I am grateful.

 

© 2004, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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It’s All Really About Me

There are many opportunities to practice forgiveness during the day. Lots of times I forgive others for not meeting my expectations. Everyone from the store clerk who is talking on the phone when she should be checking me out, to the neighbors dog who thinks my front yard is a litter box. Then you have your circumstances to forgive; like there not seeming to be enough hours in the day. And of course, I have to forgive myself for all my seeming errors. It’s enough to keep a woman busy, believe me, just forgiving the little irritations that daily would rob me of my peace. Sometimes, though, I get an opportunity to forgive that really throws me; a real challenge to my decision to forgive all that disturbs my peace. I was blessed with just such an opportunity last week. Let me tell you about it.

My grandson is 12 years old and attends a private Christian school, the same school I had sent my son to. The kids attending come from variety of religious backgrounds, so they don’t teach a lot of theology, but stick to teaching morals. That usually works Ok, but as we learned this week, one can disagree on what constitutes moral behavior. Julian was suspended over just such a disagreement.

The class was asked to cut pictures out of a magazine and create a poster which represented how they saw their family. We’re talking a twelve year old boy here, and Julians poster was filled with pictures of rap stars and other heroes typical of that age. The trouble started with a picture of a famous Sumo wrestler which the teacher found inappropriate (she felt it was not culturally appropriate). The problem escalated with the replacement picture which showed a movie star smoking. As it turns out, he wasn’t smoking your usual tobacco product, but Julian didn’t know this and in fact no one did until a child recognized the picture from a movie that centered on the smoking of such products. The teacher, already unhappy with Julian’s poster, sent him to the office and he was suspended from school for a day. I know this doesn’t seem like a really bad punishment, but setting aside for the moment, the appropriateness of the punishment, at twelve years old getting suspended is a major deal and Julian was really upset.

Julian’s mom called the school to see what was going on. She was told that his pictures were inappropriate and did not represent the moral atmosphere they were trying to create at their school. There were pictures of Black rappers, a Mexican female artist, the Sumo wrestler. And, oh yes, the white, pot smoking, actor. It was very diverse, and my thought was how neat that Julian was so inclusive in his representation. Evidently, that attitude was not shared by the school. The principle explained that there were pictures of people with tattoos, people smoking, and she felt the picture of J-Lo was seductive. As it turned out, many of the same pictures were on other posters as well, but they stood by their decision.

Sheryl and I talked it over and she decided that it was important to take Julian’s side in this. She argued the point that, while the teacher may not have liked Julian’s choice of family members, there was no deliberate attempt on Julian’s part to be confrontational and he was not using this project as an excuse to act out. Everyone agreed on that point. Sheryl did not feel that he should be punished because he saw his family differently than the teacher did. She brought up the fact that, perhaps, his family is different. Like his poster, his actual family does include people with tattoos and people who smoke. He has a cousin who is Black and one who is Mexican. Admittedly, there are no actual Sumo wrestlers in the family tree, but he does have an aunt who is in a same sex relationship. He doesn’t see anything wrong with his family and, in fact, is proud of his family and loves all of them very much. She explained that her moral stance was founded on diversity and tolerance.

As it turned out, Julian accepted the suspension but without the penalties that went along with it. He did not have to accept failing grades for that day nor did he have to miss his basketball game. His mother handled it beautifully, both with his school and with him. I, on the other hand, didn’t handle it as well. I did OK as far as what I expressed out loud. I told Sheryl, that how she chose to handle this depended on what she wanted Julian to learn from it. I really meant that. But in my heart, I was raging. How could they have turned a simple assignment into something that made that stoic little kid cry? Boy, was I mad!

So, my rule is when my peace is disturbed I take it to the Holy Spirit for healing. This definitely qualified. Once I did that, I felt a lot better. For a while. Then I thought about how proud we are of Julian’s open minded acceptance of others and here these people are punishing him for it. How is that going to affect him? Well, here comes the anger and fear. Time to call on the Holy Spirit again. Ahh, peace. For a while. Then I started thinking about the Sumo wrestler and the school saying that it wasn’t part of our culture. Where do I live? I thought this was America, melting pot of the world. Oh, jeez, there goes my peace again!

Well, you get the idea. This went on for several days. Every time I would forgive, I would later choose conflict and have to start over. Finally, I sat down with the Holy Spirit and asked for clarity in this situation. What I began to understand was that this just seems to be about Julian and Sheryl and the school. I had forgotten that this is really all about me. 

It seemed to me that Julian’s school was very narrow minded in what they considered acceptable. I resented that they were attempting to create this mind set in Julian. So, I asked myself how this was about me? What aspect of myself am I seeing in these people that is so upsetting to me? Immediately, I thought about my instinctive reaction when I am confronted with the homeless. I cross the road if I can. I don’t want them in my world. This is really no different than the school wanting to protect it’s view of the world by keeping out anything that makes it uncomfortable. Wow! They were mirroring a part of me that I am not very proud of, and I didn’t want to see that. I was projecting my guilty feelings onto them and hating them for it instead of myself.

Recognizing this was my first step. Then I took it to the Holy Spirit and asked Him to heal my thoughts. This freed me, and the teacher and principal as well. It left us innocent as we were created to be. It felt so good to no longer be burdened by this guilty anger, that I asked for help in uncovering all my secret fears.

Another way I felt threatened is that they awakened my sense of vulnerability through attacking Julian. When I saw that Julian was hurt, I felt hurt. If Julian can be attacked, I can be attacked. I hated that feeling and wanted to protect myself from it. I felt like lashing out. Actually, I wanted to hit someone, but would settle for attack through words, since that would be more civilized. But then, what is civilized about attacking a child of God? I guess there is no nice way to express rage, so I took it to the Holy Spirit.

He helped me to see that I am invulnerable and so is my grandson. Our peace is disturbed only as we choose to see it disturbed. They can punish, but it is only our decision to be hurt that has any effect on either of us. Other people can hurt us only if we choose pain. It is our perception of what happens that hurts us. No matter what course of action the school chose, it was only hurtful if we chose to see it that way. What seemed to be an attack on us could have been a lesson in forgiveness and love if we chose that for ourselves. I was able to see this more clearly when I chose to forgive. The release of anger and fear allowed me to see what was happening in a different way. I thought these people were being hateful and harmful, but now I saw them as frightened children, calling for love. Because they didn’t understand their own process of projection, their call for love seemed like an attack. I could get a mental image of little children cowering in a corner, slapping at what they are afraid of, trying to keep the unknown at bay. I had a choice. I could (mentally) hit them back, or I could (mentally)love and comfort them. My choice of reactions would determine my state of mind. I could choose to defend and attack and in so doing I would imprison myself, or I could choose to forgive and free all of us.

Sheryl did a wonderful job of convincing the school to take the sting out of the punishment. She did this by arguing her point without attacking so they felt no need to defend. What could have become a war, turned into peace negotiations. It was a great lesson for me. I had been thinking that the school was guilty of making me feel angry and victimized. By not holding them prisoner to guilt, I was able to become free. I am very grateful that I was able to, at last, regain my peace through forgiveness. Thank you, Holy Spirit.

© 2004, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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I Forgive

I Forgive

The Course tells us that every cirumstance in our life is to be used to learn forgiveness. The first time I read this (a lot of years ago) I really had no idea what forgiveness was. Nor did I grasp the scope of this job. Yes, I read the words. Lesson 193 says “All things are lessons God would have me learn.” But somehow that just washed right over me without really sinking in. I’m not sure which part I thought He didn’t mean…the “all things are lessons” or the “God would have me learn” part.

That is not to say that in all these years I’ve failed to learn anything. It’s just that I’ve used the “pick and choose” method. I’ve learned from the experiences I’ve brought to the Holy Spirit for healing. However, there have been many more that I’ve held back, that I’ve decided to keep for one insane reason or another. There have been oportunities passed over through lack of effort; not believing I’m worth that kind of consistent effort. There have been lessons I didn’t learn because I took them to the wrong teacher. The ego doesn’t know anything and so cannot help me. Turning to the ego for help to get out of the universe it created is just another insane choice. Sometimes I failed to use an experience to learn forgiveness because I thought my grievance had something to offer me and so I wanted to hold onto it.

I’ve been studying forgiveness through Course 906: Healing Through Forgiveness. When I first saw the title I wondered how forgiveness related to healing. Now I know that they are the same thing. In fact, now that I understand what forgiveness is for and how to use it, I realize that forgiveness is what life is for. My life has become a classroom for forgiveness. It is one continual lesson in forgiveness.

The first thing I learned about forgiveness is not to make anything real. The mistake I had been making before was that I was trying to forgive an actual wrong that was causing me to suffer. Well, that’s real hard to do! The best I could do was to think of decent excuses for the other person’s behavior and then decide that made his behavior understandable and something I could overlook. There were some problems with this approach. For one thing, I found that sometimes my imagination failed me. Hard as I tried, I wouldn’t be able to think of what could excuse certain behaviors. Motivation was a problem, too. Sometimes I couldn’t work up enough of it to do the job. Then there were the people who didn’t, in my humble opinion, deserve forgiveness. Even when I did a pretty decent job of it, the forgiveness often didn’t take. I would go to all that trouble and be thinking what a superior kind of person I was for doing it, and then some errant thought or another would bring my grievance back full force.

That whole thing was just too complicated for words, which should have been a clue that I was using the wrong teacher. The ego always complicates things so that I will not succeed. Trying without success is its prime objective. The hallmark of the Holy Spirit, on the other hand, is always simplicity. The truth is always simple. It doesn’t change or vary with circumstance. So, forgiveness with the Holy Spirit becomes a simple process I can always depend on in every circumstance. Forgiveness with the Holy Spirit is just the recognition that nothing really happened to forgive. I’m learning that anything I think I need to forgive is part of the illusion and so doesn’t really need to be forgiven. It didn’t really happen!

Here is an example of how this worked for me. I bought my daughter a birthday gift. I spent too much money on it and I used up a lot of time that I really couldn’t spare choosing the perfect gift. Well, she went out of town for her birthday and didn’t take the time to get her gift before she left. She has been home for a week and still hasn’t picked it up. The old way of forgiving would have been to list the excuses for her selfish and inconsiderate behavior. Well, you can see already that this doesn’t stand much of a chance of working. OK, now I’m going to take it to the Holy Spirit for healing. He tells me that the separation from God didn’t really happen and so all this stuff I think I am experiencing, including this thing with the apparantly unappreciated birthday gift, isn’t really happening. If it is not really happening, then there can be no consequences to make me feel unloved. Since it didn’t really happen, I can easily forgive both of us for what we didn’t really do.

The beauty of this is that it works exactly the same way in every circumstance. I don’t have to figure anything out. I don’t have to look for excuses for anyone. My forgiveness recognizes that it didn’t really happen. I forgive and it disappears. So, what about this gift sitting in my living room? It really happened. It happened to the tune of a hundred dollars and an hour of my time and it is definitely here. But, the funny thing is, after I asked the Holy Spirit to heal my thoughts and after I forgave her and myself for what we didn’t really do, that gift became lighter. It lost all that baggage I had attached to it. I no longer need anyone to pick it up. I no longer need anyone to appreciate my expenditure of money and time. The present is now just an expression of my love and love is light. Love has no expectations. If Susan never picks up her gift, it doesn’t matter. Forgiveness released all the strings I had atached to my love; they just disappeared. Forgiveness is just a change in perception. It helped me to see this whole thing differently. In fact, I’m thinking about re-wrapping it in red paper with hearts. I could get some real mileage out of this gift!

There are so many things that I need to forgive and this process works on all of them. It works on people, circumstances, things. Now I use forgiveness anytime I feel any form of discomfort whether it be guilt, fear, shame, anger or anything else. If I don’t feel complete joy then I know that there is something that needs healing. It is really so simple. I just forgive everything that disturbs my peace. I do it one disturbance at a time. Soon, there won’t be so many. The whole purpose of forgiveness is to see that what I thought was real and outside of me are only the projections of my thoughts. Now I am willing to see this and to allow them to be undone for me.

I used to think that forgiveness was something I could do or not do. It was good to do it,but not necessary. Now I see that forgiveness is necessary to my healing. It isn’t just a pleasant thing, but an essential thing. It doesn’t just release me from my misery, it returns me to who I am. Ultimately,forgiveness teaches me that there is nothing to forgive. Everything I forgive is just somethinhg I made up. It is really a process of un-building. I created barriers to peace and love. These barriers hold in place the guilt that makes separation seem real. Now, through forgiveness I am removing those barriers.

© 2004, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice is included.

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