On Bodies, Creativity, and the Law of God

Letting go of right and wrong

I

What does it meant to say that the body is a limit on love (T-18.VIII.1:2)?

What does it mean to say that folks who see themselves "within a body" cannot also know that they are an idea (T-18.VIII.1:5)?

Everything you recognize you identify with externals, something outside itself. You cannot even think of God without a body, or in some form that you recognize (T-18.VIII.1:6-7).

One of the things I find most challenging about A Course in Miracles is the utterly categorical nature of its language (which frequently shows up in its teacchers). It is so sure of itself!

In my experience, when I - or anyone else - utilizes that kind of language, it is usually a sign of fear. The one using the categorical language is trying to convince themselves of something, because the alternative is rank terror, and they need you to go along. If you don't, it might mean they're wrong, and they really really don't want to be wrong.

This is not a crime against God or nature! We are all fear-filled, and we are all working on undoing fear, and we are all allowed to to learn at the pace - and with the language - that works for us.

We forget sometimes that A Course in Miracles began as a healing project involving a single relationship and two people: Helen Schucman and Bill Thetford. The language and ideology (the course is ideological, which most of us ignore because it's not an especially tolerant ideology) are suited to Bill and Helen. It was created to work for them.

Here is a writing prompt, if you are interested. If ACIM reflects Jesus talking to Helen and Bill - using language and ideas that worked for them - if that’s a thing Jesus does - then how does he speak to you?

I mean this: sit down and invite Jesus to talk to you via writing. Don't judge yourself or the writing, just write. If all you do is write, "this is bullshit" over and over, okay. Give yourself permission to be messy. Give it time.

For Helen, it made sense that Jesus be so rigorous and absolute. But for you it might not. For you, Jesus might be funny or chatty. He might ask a questions. He might ask you to take dance lessons or go swimming.

He might even say, A Course in Miracles isn't working, is it? Let's think about what might come next.

What would you do then?

II

In my experience, when folks are confident - when they know and know that they know - they are gentle and devoted to consent. If Truth is true, then it doesn't need to be defended, and nobody needs it shoved down their throat. We get it when we get it. It's not a crisis.

Long ago, I taught writing classes, and in those classes, in the beginning, I was pretty rigid. Don't use passive voice! Show don't tell! Adjectives are crutches!

But as I went along, and became more confident in writing as a craft, I began to relax. I was less interested in forcing folks to follow rules than just helping them find their way to what worked for them. It was about a relationship with writing as a process, rather than a finished product. It was about flow, not following.

It was about cooperating rather than enforcing.

This reflected an inner shift away from "right vs. wrong" thinking and towards "what helps? What works?" And what helped and worked was being present and attentive. I realized I wasn't “teaching” so much as holding space for a dialogue that I needed as badly as the so-called student did.

III

Helen and Bill's own shared writing project ended up connecting to various cultural and spiritual zeitgeists of the 1970s which led to its (somewhat messy) dissemination, eventually reaching our own (also somewhat messy) lives.

Why do you study A Course in Miracles?

What is your practice - the application of your study - like?

The first question has to do with what we want; the second with our willingness to pursue that want.

My own answer to those two questions looks like this:

1. I study the course because I want inner peace; and

2. My practice is a little half-assed, a little performative, and a little intellectually arrogant but I do show up with care and regularity and it is working because I am more peace-filled than when it began.

For me, part of that showing up means cracking the text, reading the two quotes at the beginning of thise essay and thinking, what the hell is that supposed to mean? What were Helen and Bill thinking? What problem were they trying to solve? And what does this have to do with me?

IV

The body is a limit on love when we insist that the body contains us. But that is just a way of looking at things, right? A hammer is useless if you're using it to paddle a canoe but that doesn't mean the hammer is wrong or bad.

We just have to make an adjustment in how we're thinking, which is to say, how we are putting the world together. The form of anything is subordinate to its function, which is why Jesus-in-A Course in Miracles is always asking us to ask ourselves, what is it for?

What I am saying in this essay is, ask that question even of A Course in Miracles. Ask it of Jesus and ask it of your body. Ask if about other bodies - the ones you want, the ones you don't, the ones you don’t even notice (when was the last time you truly gave your love to a blade of grass?).

Ask: what is all of this - or any of this - for?

Slowly I am learning not to rush into the answer. For me, the first answer - and sometimes the second, third, fourth and fifth answer - is usually wrong. It's usually me imitating someone or something else in a vain attempt to please authority. This "authority" might take the form of my mother or Tara Singh. It might take the form of an old girlfriend or a long-dead ancestor.

It might take the form of Jesus or His Father in Heaven, whose methods and ways are obscure to me.

But when I don't rush - when I let go of my interior addiction to authority figures, which means letting go of my need to be an authority - a funny thing happens.

I remember that there is no right answer! Nor is there a wrong one. Therefore, as Tara Singh once said, there are no consquences.

In that world - free of cause and effect, and beholden to no body - what are you? What do you want to do?

Why do I want your answer to those two questions be “Love?”

~ Sean