When I was growing up, for a while, I believed in Santa Claus. I wrote letters, craved gifts, put out cookies, tried to stay awake, et cetera. For a few years during childhood, Santa was real.
However, in the sense in which I believed in Santa, Santa was very much not real. There is no jocular man in the North Pole running the world's largest toy factory and delivering said toys via magical reindeer on Jesus's putative birthday.
Truth is true. It doesn't change based on what we believe or prefer or want to avoid. No matter how deeply or strongly I believed in him, Santa Claus was an illusion.
. . . truth is true. This is the hardest lesson you will ever learn, and in the end the only one. Simplicity is very difficult for twisted minds . . . The simple and the obvious are not apparent to those who would make palaces and royal robes of nothing, believing they are kings with golden crowns because of them (T-14.II.2:1-3, 7).
It is helpful is to be open to seeing where our beliefs - which are justifications for our desires and our fears - run counter to truth.
I say "be open." I do not say, go and hunt down the truth, slaying every fiction that stands between you and it.
When you are sure that X is real or not real, see if you can find out why. Would somebody else be less sure? More sure? Which one of you is right? Is "right vs. wrong" the most helpful way to frame these kinds of inquiries?
These are not questions we ask in order to reach a conclusion crystalized forever under the heading "Right Answer." They are questions that teach us how to live in peace with uncertainty, by shifting our focus to Truth (which is untouched by concepts like "right" and "wrong").
Yet the essential thing is learning that you do not know . . . all that stands between you and the power of God in you is but your learning of the false, and of your attempts to undo the true (T-14.XI.1:1, 9).
I said earlier that Santa Claus was not real and, in the specific way I imagined Santa as a child, he was not. But you can't blame me! My parents encouraged this belief, the adjacent culture didn't do much to oppose it, and most of the literature to which I had access reinforced it. Even the priest talked favorably about Santa Claus.
In other words, "Santa Claus" was a collective agreed-upon fiction imposed on me without my consent. It's benign, sure. But still. What other ideas are in our heads to which we did not consent? If it were up to you, would your mind work the way it does now or would it work better? Kinder, say? More gentle or more clear?
Most of the beliefs that we hold - especially those that seem impervious to inquiry, that are too obvious to even be noticed, let alone questioned - are collaborative. We didn't invent them; we learn and teach them together. This is why A Course in Miracles emphasizes that salvation is also collaborative.
The light in one awakens it in all. And when you see it in your brother, you are remembering it for everyone (T-21.I.10:6-7).
Here is another, less happy, story about how this works.
My parents had rigid ideas about good and bad behavior. I got in trouble a lot. Adults were angry and frustrated with me a lot. And once a child absorbs the "I'm bad" belief, it quickly becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, especially when it runs headlong into addiction and so forth.
I was - I am - a very fucked-up guy in a lot of ways.
Yet on the other hand, as Chrisoula and others patiently remind me, I am actually a kind, funny and helpful partner, father and brother. I did not follow "bad" to the bottom, dragging everyone I could with me. This is nontrivial healing! What happened?
What "happened" was in my early twenties I ended up in the company of women and men - deeply spiritual and erudite, but also radically pragmatic - who taught me how to be open to the grace of God. And in my half-assed, slightly desperate way, I have been practicing that openness ever since.
When we are open to the grace of God, even a little, then the grace of God is given, in the very form our confusion allows and requires.
God gives only equally. If you recognize His gift in anyone, you have acknowledged what He has given you. Nothing is so easy to recognize as truth . . . You have have trained yourself not to recognize it, and this has been very difficult for you (T-7.XI.5:5-7, 9).
The work goes on! So long as there is a body and a world, there will be a need for healing. Therefore, we can ask: what beliefs do we hold that become defenses against truth? That are blocks to the natural joy and fructive peace that are truth's gift to all of us?
By examining these beliefs with the Holy Spirit, in a spirit of collaboration, we reach a natural stillness in which it is possible to remember - and not forget - the cause for joy and peace, which is in us in a real way.
Thank you, as always, for reading and sharing the way with me.
Love,
Sean
Thank you, Sean. I know that I am certainly more teachable when the teacher is willing to be vulnerable. I grew up in a religion where the person behind the pulpit rarely if ever showed any vulnerability, and the concept of grace, supposedly so central to Christianity, wasn’t talked about. I know today these preachers weren’t bad, they were simply teaching what they themselves had learned. It was all about creating some unreachable ideal for human behavior (I’d better be good for goodness sake!) and it really gave me a warped sense of who I was. It also completely turned me off to organized religion by the time I became a teen. Not because it was bad (though I thought so at the time) but because it wasn’t helpful. Then my wife and I accidentally (another story there) heard a husband and wife preach at a dying downtown Methodist several years ago. Their sermons didn’t focus on churchy concepts about right or wrong, but on what it means to be human, and to have questions. They shared their own foibles, and their own questions. It was very refreshing.
We don’t attend church today, but the pastors, now retired, have become our dearest friends (interestingly they no longer attend church either).
I think we’re all “fucked up” to some degree, and in my case misguided theology was certainly a contributor. And I think part of my own healing must be tied to forgiving the church. ACIM would say I do this because it never really happened. I must admit I still don’t fully grasp that concept, and that’s where grace for me is so helpful, so comforting when I’m willing to accept it. I resonate with your words “God gives only equally. If you recognize His gift in anyone, you have acknowledged what He has given you.” A nice definition of grace.
Thanks Sean for your humility, and your willingness to be vulnerable. I think when any of us is vulnerable, it gives others permission to do the same. It’s an act of kindness.
Beautiful 😌