The Tragedy of the World

There aren't enough roses to go around . . .

The great tragedy of the world and the source of all its conflict and grief is when we cannot love each love the way the other needs us to love them. Sometimes we experience this as rejection or loss. It should surprise nobody. The world was made to make love homeless.

Sometimes the failure of love is vast and historical - like the Rwandan genocide or September 11. For many of us it is closer to home. Our parents couldn't love us as we were, so they projected an ideal and loved that instead. Or we had a teacher who told us we couldn't do something we really loved doing, like drawing or writing poems. Who among us hasn’t been a wallflower at some point or other?

The stories themselves don't matter. Having a story matters. We all know what it means to feel unloved, which means that we have also all failed to love when love was what was called for. The mere existence of the story is proof of one’s belief in separation as real.

Perceive in sickness but another call for love, and offer your brother what he believes he cannot offer himself . . . You will be made whole as you make whole, for to perceive in sickness the appeal for health is to recognize in hatred the call for love. And to give your brother what he really wants is to offer it to yourself . . . (T-12.II.3:1, 3-4).

To restate the premise then: the great sickness of the world is the failure of love. That’s the bad news. The good news is, it’s not a fatal sickness. The even better news is that there is only one way to heal this sickness and nobody else but you to do it.

A Course in Miracles is not screwing around.

We are called - right now, right here, you and me - to respond to the failure of love. We don’t have to go searching for it. It’s right here. We can give attention to the misguided teacher, say. Admit that Mom and Dad weren’t monsters, just messed-up like the rest of us. We can hold a good thought for the one who left us in the shadows while the rest of the world danced.

Our goal in giving attention to these folks, by the way, is not to forgive their errors. It's not to understand why they made those errors.

Rather, we are simply looking for our own self in them. Only when we remember that to truly see our brother or sister means to see our own self, will we forgot all the guilt and fear, the anger and hurt that appears to stand between us and God. This is what it means to “love in a loveless place” (T-14.IV.4:10).

The specialness of God’s Children does not stem from exclusion but inclusion. All my brothers are special. If they believe they are deprived of anything, their perception becomes distorted. When this occurs the whole family of God, or the Sonship, is impaired in its relationships (T-1.V.3:5-8).

It is clear that we share at least one thing with all our brothers and sisters - we all, without exception, have believed we were unloved and we have all, without exception, failed to love. In this we are utterly equal.

We are utterly equal in one more thing, too: the reason we have failed to love, and have thus forgotten that we are love, is because we are scared of love.

A Course in Miracles is given to us so that the problem of fear - which is the cause of all suffering - can be undone at its source, which is in our mind. We enter into a relationship with the Holy Spirit, who teaches us how to change our mind in order to see the world - from the World War II to George Floyd, from an orgasm to a good meal - as a cry for love and to see ourselves as messengers of love (e.g., T-12.VII.8:5).

But how, you might ask, does this “change of mind,” this “learning,” happen?

“How” is the great deception. “How” is the ego’s subtlest - and most sinister - weapon of separation. Asking it is a sign that we still think it’s up to us to decide when to love and who to love and what love will look it. That’s a lie because we don’t do anything.

“I need do nothing” is a statement of allegiance, a truly undivided loyalty. Believe it for just one instant, and you will accomplish more than is given to a century of contemplation, or of struggle against temptation (T-18.VII.6: 7-8).

The Holy Spirit teaches us that nothing can be kept for ourself alone, and that the only way to know peace is to teach peace (e.g., T-6.B.7:5). In a very literal way, love is sharing (e.g., T-7.X.8:5). And when we share love, we learn that we are love. And then we are not scared of the symptoms anymore - the dysfunctional family or the unfair teacher or the murderous government. We enter into relationship with them by being willing to see them as our own self.

What happens in that relationship? What happens when we do not look away from the other in fear but towards them with love?

We learn that lovelessness is a choice we make, over and over. It is a choice we make. For the sake of all our brothers and sisters - broadly defined to include maple trees, whales, and sunlight, i.e., our very own self - are we not finally ready to make a new choice?

Your brother is you and you are your brother - why else am I writing? Why else are you reading? The only need either of us has is to remember our oneness by teaching it to each other. We have no other function. We want no other function.

Happy Valentines Day . Love and peace to all of us ❤️

Sean