Pride and A Course in Miracles
Love does not exclude
On Saturday I marched with my daughters in a local pride parade. It was fun. We waved flags and rang cowbells. People were happy and celebratory. There was singing and dancing. There was a lot of hugging.
On Sunday, I went to the 2024 Metropolis Ministries award ceremony for the New England Greek Orthodox church. My parents-in-law were receiving a much-deserved award for decades of service to their local church.
During the ceremony the bishop offered a sustained and thinly-coded attack the LGBTQ+ community. He railed against a cultural permissiveness with respect to children who embrace “life styles” he believes are contrary to Christian values. He was fierce and angry. What is wrong with kids today? What is wrong with parents?
I walked out on that speech. Some people were rapt and nodding along but most looked bored. It was getting late. A lot of folks had long drives ahead of them.
It was an interesting contrast to the joyfulness of the march the day before.
We don't always talk about it but in A Course in Miracles, healing and happiness are closely aligned (T-5.In.1:1).
The light that belongs to you is the light of joy. Radiance is not associated with sorrow. Joy calls forth an integrated willingness to share it, and promotes the mind’s natural impulse to respond as one (T-5.In.1:4-6).
The course is not referring here to the happiness of getting what we want - like winning the lottery or getting a good deal shopping or a really good chocolate cake. Those things aren't bad - do them or don't - but they don't involve the healing-in-relationship so fundamental to ACIM.
To heal in the deep and sustained way promised by the course unites us with our brothers and sisters. It's not about persuasion or argument but about sharing. It’s natural. It’s about recognizing the radical depths of shared equality.
There is no difference between love and joy. Therefore, the only possible whole state is the wholly joyous. To heal or to make joyous is therefore the same as to integrate and to make one (T-5.in.2:3-5).
Healing calls our brothers and sisters in - it calls us in. It does not exclude the other (who is sometimes us). When we call each other into a state of acceptance, of shared being, the result is joyful not because of we are meeting some external cultural standard or political value but because we are one and deep down we know this. Of course we are happy when we live the truth of our shared oneness.
The Holy Spirit begins by perceiving you as perfect. Knowing this perfection is shared He recognizes it in others, thus strengthening it in both. Instead of anger this arouses love for both, because it establishes inclusion (T-6.II.5:1-3).
Our work as ACIM students is to seek happiness by practicing Love. And "practice" is the right word. It is not always easy to welcome folks who appear different in scary ways. It is not always easy to speak truth to power, to say, I think you're making a mistake, maybe there’s another way.
But healing in the dream requires us to do just this. The dream is the sleep of forgetfulness - we forget that God has only one Child and we are it (T-16.VII.12:4).
The Sonship in its Oneness transcends the sum of its parts. However, this is obscured as long as any of its parts is missing. That is why the conflict cannot ultimately be resolved until all the parts of the Sonship have returned (T-2.VII.6:3-5).
I know, I know. The wholeness to which the course refers has nothing to do with bodies. There is no world. Healing isn’t about behavior or politics or sex or whatever.
But listen.
That's not our experience (e.g., T-3.VII.3:2). Our experience is that we are bodies and there is a world. Therefore, it is that context that the course reaches and teaches us what love is. We affirmatively enact love (T-14.IV.4:10). Anything else is just the silly distractions of ego.
Am I saying you should find a Pride parade and march in it? That you should walk out on folks who preach hatred from a place of fear?
Yes!
But really really, I am saying that we are ACIM students, you and I. And together we are called to face our fear of the other and undo it where it is - in our shared heart and mind.
This undoing will take a form in the world. It will appear as injustice and error, you will intuitively know the loving response, and Jesus asks - right now Jesus asks - that you take his hand and respond in love. Over and over he asks us to actively demonstrate that all we perceive is our shared wholeness (T-6.V-C.8:1). What else could love possibly be?
Seek the happiness that comes from welcoming everyone by welcoming everyone. Become the collective that bars no body. Demonstrate a love that melts the fear of all who encounter it. It is not your love or mine that we share. It is God’s Love, which is our shared will that together we remember the joy and peace that is Creation.
Thank you, always, for allowing me to walk with you, and to learn with you how beautiful and perfect we are together.
~ Sean
I could spin off in so many different directions in response to this ringing and provocative and affirming post. As a gay man who grew up the son of a Pentecostal minister/father and who spent the first three decades of my life hearing how ashamed I should be of who I was and how frightened I should be for my immortal soul, clearly--as you might guess--Pride has become a pivotal concept and a transforming shift in perspective and in how I live my life. And, to be honest, the parades and festivals, although important and cherished, haven't been nearly as transformational as just understanding that at the most basic level, 'pride' is simply the opposite of feeling ashamed and afraid. It was and is the soul-shattering notion that I am, in fact, innocent of the crimes or sins or failures which I and so many others have been accused of when we refuse to hide or apologize or deny who we are. And who we are is, very simply, the Sons (and Daughters) of God, welcome in God's Heaven and in the fellowship of his children, even if not in all the churches or other institutions who claim some sort of inside information about what He requires or demands or allows. Just a week ago I was privileged to sing with a men's choir at the Salt Lake City Pride festival. There was so much joy everywhere. So much acceptance of remarkable diversity. So much laughter and fun. Such an utter absence of judgment. Many would call me sacrilegious or even blasphemous but no one will ever convince me that God wasn't there, loving every single one of us--every single one of His children who were there to celebrate not being ashamed or guilty or wrong or rejected or condemned. Where else would He be? Thank you as always, Sean, for the Love of God that you extend to all of us who follow your journey.
Thank you for this, Sean. So timely as insightful as always. I am currently dealing with family members who have disparaged a vacation I have just returned from because my family and I went to see the musical Cabaret on Broadway. We found it beautiful and moving in its way, of course. There were pages and pages of hateful messages from our conservative Christian family about the harmfulness and sinfulness of homosexuality. It was awful and is a constant for us. The battle I face is with myself. I am so angry and tired of this. Their attacks do not stop. Clearly, my husband, daughter, and I have left the church and truly seek to embrace everyone. We don't want to cut ties, literally, with all of our parents and my husband's siblings and families, but they are all in this camp. Sometimes I don't know what to do or how to handle this constant barrage of hatred on these types of topics. We have left the room at family gatherings when the sermons begin. It's difficult and upsetting. We love them. They are our family and all have wonderful traits and generally good hearts. But they won't stop. I am thinking more and more that the loving thing to do is to set clear boundaries with them about how they address our personal business, but it's very difficult. They become angry when we reject or ignore their hatred of others. I think they would ultimately choose us over their need to be "right." Continuing to endure abuse is not a solution at all. If they can't stop themselves from unsolicited opinions, walking/ staying away with love in our hearts may be our only choice.