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No Compromise!

Salvation is simple, and when it starts sounding complex, a wrong turn has been taken. The ego thought system likes complexity because it confuses things and keeps us bogged down in the world. Simplicity keeps things clear, and makes it easy for us to choose the direction of our spiritual life. I have some few beliefs which hold true for me, and are important to my spiritual life. It is not important that I list my beliefs for anyone else. What is important is that I live by the ideals that I have chosen; that I not compromise those ideals.

The ego loves compromise because it keeps me from accomplishing my purpose. Compromise dilutes what would save me, and leaves me awash in a state of confusion about what is important, and guilt that I did not live up to my beliefs. Keeping my beliefs simple and keeping them forefront in my mind, helps prevent this.

The most basic of my beliefs has to do with love. God is love. While nearly all Christian theologies teach this most basic of tenets, do they stay true to it? Or do they dilute the message as they add more and more rules which must be followed-or else. Or else what?  Or else God will have to enforce, punish, do things which are unloving? If God is love, He cannot be unloving or He is not being Himself.

Soon even the very nature of God is called into question by followers who have, in their own minds at least, twisted reality to suit their vision of it, then reinvented God to reflect this false image. Instead of learning to see ourselves as an image of a God of love, we have tried to make Him into a God of hate; a punishing God intent on vengeance.

How do we get back to basics? How do we get free of this web of deceit we have accepted as truth? I choose to identify the few truths I know and to refuse to compromise on them. God is love. God is perfect love. God is perfect. I refuse to compromise on that. I will not see God as a punishing God because that would make God something that is not Love. It would make God less than perfect because it would mean that, in creating me, He made an error. God does not punish me because He knows He cannot make an error and so He knows I am perfect as well. Anything that shows me something that doesn?t look like this is a lie. God is perfect love. I will not compromise on this belief.

I will not see God as an abandoning God. The analogy presented in the Garden of Eden story has been used to prove that God abandoned His children; kicked us out; is mad at us. This interpretation sees us as guilty and in trouble, and no clear way to get out of it.

Let us re-examine this interpretation. This story, as interpreted by mainstream Christianity, suggests that Love created man as a flawed creature and then punished him for it. Where is the sense in that? Is God love? Is He perfect love? Did He create me like Himself? To accept this interpretation I must either believe that God is flawed, or I must believe that the popular interpretation of the Garden of Eden story is flawed. I will not compromise on my beliefs. God is love and I am created in His image.

Looking at my life, it is obvious that I have often chosen to believe I am something different from my reality as a perfect creation of a perfect God. Because that is where I put the power of my belief, my experience is one of an imperfect creation, as if I am really this vulnerable body, living in fear. Because God is perfect love, He allows me to dream this absurd dream for as long as I can stand the pain of feeling like I am separate from Him.

Yes, God so loves me that he created me with free will. I am free to will a hellish experience, but I am not free to make it the truth. What God created perfect cannot be undone by me. I am not my own creator. Because He is perfect love, God placed in me His Voice that calls me back to my Father and the reality of Who I really am, His holy child.

It is the Voice of God, or the Holy Spirit, Who reminds me that in order to remember who I am, I must start acting like who I am. I am love, just as is my Father. So, in spite of all the chaos that my insane thinking has caused, there is this compelling Voice which calls me to love. This is not the kind of love the world offers. The world would have me think that love is a bargain. You act in a way that validates my thoughts about myself, and I will love you. That is the world?s view of what love is. But God?s love is completely unconditional. Nothing I can say or do will affect God?s love for me.

God doesn?t need my validation. God doesn?t want anything from me, because God is complete and doesn?t need anything. This is the kind of love I need to practice. This kind of unconditional love, if put into practice, will awaken my mind to my reality. So this is what I am trying to do in my life. I am trying to practice unconditional love. The only way I can make this work, is if I refuse to compromise. The moment I start to compromise, my love becomes conditional, and so loses all meaning.

For love to be unconditional, it must be universal. In other words, I must love everyone in exactly the same way with no one left out. I cannot love your children less than I love my children. I cannot love my best friend in a way different that I love a total stranger. I cannot love you when you meet my conditions and then not love you when you ?sin? against me. I must love Saddam Hussein. I must love Hitler. I must love rapist, and killers, and thieves. I must love Buddhists, and Catholics, and all the people in every other sect. I must love them all equally.

Perhaps even harder than that, I must love my boss when he fires me, my husband when he is unfaithful to me, my children when they abandon me. I must love the one standing before me, no exceptions. If the person before me is loving me, then the only response would be to love him back. If the one standing before me seems to be attacking me, that person is just calling out for love, and the only response to a call for love, is love.

I was thinking about a time when Toby was just a toddler. He had a very volatile temper, and would lash out when he became frustrated. One time in particular, I remember him becoming frustrated with circumstances he did not understand. He tried to hit, scratch, bite, whatever he could do to express his anger. I knew that he wasn?t angry with me, and in spite of how it looked, he didn?t want to hurt me. He just didn?t understand what was going on around him and so he was expressing his fear of the unknown through anger.

This is something we all do at times. We tend to express our fear as anger and we lash out either physically or with words. Sometimes we bring it inward and it feels like depression. When Toby expressed his fear through physical attack, I didn?t hit him back. I wasn?t even angry. I knew that he was just asking that someone love and comfort him. The form of love he needed at that moment was for someone to put things right.

The only response for a child of God asking for love, is to love him. This is the same response appropriate for any child of God. This does not mean that one should accept abuse. I stopped Toby from hurting me, and then I addressed his needs.
If someone were physically attacking me, I would do what was necessary to protect myself, but then I would address the need.

I would love that person in whatever form would be appropriate. Sometimes it is an understanding word, an offer to correct what seems to be wrong, or just silent and intent listening. So often, people just need to be heard. It may be that the only loving response needed is that I not judge. Judgment is just as much an expression of fear as is attack.

What happens when we respond to attack with attack? War happens. It happens in our lives just as it does in our political world. War is not love and love is the only response I am interested in. I accept no compromise on this.

This would seem to be impossible, except that I am not inventing love, or manufacturing this love. I do not have to make myself feel this kind of love, I only have to learn how to allow it to come into my awareness.

Love is who I am. It was how I was created. There is nothing in me but love. If it seems otherwise, it is because I have put up blocks in my mind that keep me from being aware of who I am. My job now, as it says in A Course in Miracles, is to remove those blocks to my awareness of love?s presence. Once I remove the blocks, love will flow unimpeded without any additional effort on my part.

The way I remove the blocks is to practice forgiveness. I bring each and every unloving thought to the Holy Spirit and express my willingness to forgive. I ask Him to correct my thought. I simply want love, more than I want this grievance. I want love and the peace that love brings, more than I want the drama of the moment. I want love more than I want the other person to be wrong. I want love more than I want to be right.

It isn?t hard to do. It isn?t complicated. It does require great vigilance. But then, if I am not practicing love, what else do I have to do with my life except to live in misery, sprinkled with moments when I am not so miserable. It is said that Heaven is being with God, and hell is feeling separate from God. That means that I don?t have to be afraid of going to hell. It means I am in hell, right now. The way out is to awaken to my true reality. I awaken by listening to the Voice God gave me for that purpose. Awakening to my place with God, awakening to Heaven; is this something on which I can afford to compromise? I don?t think so.

© 2005, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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