Trust your Broken Heart
. . . so other hearts can heal
Miracles do not distinguish between that to which they are applied - cancer and a stubbed toe are identical to the miracle because they arise from the same mistaken belief, i.e., that we are bodies and thus subject to the body's adventures and misadventures.
Sometimes when things go sideways in a way society says really matters - school shootings, hurricanes, et cetera - people get confused about how A Course in Miracles is relevant. They ask how the Course applies, they wonder how it possibly can.
It's only an understandable question if you grant its premise - that the distinctions we perceive matter.
They don't.
Our assumption is that miracles distinguish between events the way we do - school shootings are a big deal, stubbed toes are not a big deal, and my wife's cancer diagnosis is the hugest deal ever, period. And this is wrong, of course. A Course in Miracles approaches the shooting in Uvalde the exact same way it approaches my recent stress about rising price of Halloween candy.
This really sucks for the ego, which depends on our willingness to trust our judgment to survive, but it is peace itself for those of us who are too tired and worn out to go on with the same old song and dance. When you hit bottom with ego, the Holy Spirit, Bill Thetford-like, reminds us there is another way. Thank - literally - Christ.
Easy to say but hard to practice, right? How exactly am I supposed to be as relaxed about death as I am a runny nose?
One way to go into this is to intentionally look away from the so-called big stuff. Step back and scale down. You don't have to surrender judgment entirely, just make it more local. What's happening out the window? On Main Street? How's the uncle nobody ever talks to?
In his short poem "Games" the poet Jack Gilbert suggests something dangerous can happen when we give attention to what is going on right around us.
Imagine if suffering were real.
Imagine if those old people were afraid of death.
What if the midget or the girl with one arm
really felt pain? Imagine how impossible it would be
to live if some people were
alone and afraid all their lives.
The first time I read that poem - many many years ago - I cried because of how true it was. Why do we look away from the suffering right in front of us? The squirrel hit by a car taking long minutes to die, the lost dog whose ribs show, the child nobody plays with whose eyes are always haunted . . .
When we go into it - when we give ourself permission to feel it - then all of a sudden yes. There's too much suffering and it's all right here.
And so we deny it. That is what Gilbert is saying - that’s what “dangerous,” if we are serious about love. We pretend the suffering before us isn’t real. We refuse to gaze at the crucifixion right in front of us, prefering to focus on the one down the road or in another town or that we heard about on the news . . .
A Course in Miracles starts where Gilbert ends. Projection, denial, fantasy . . . all that is what we are healing. And how are we healing it? By giving attention to the world as it appears to us. Attention is not just mental; our whole body goes into it. A hug, a gentle touch, a kind word - these aren't just things that bodies do. They are ways the Holy Spirit has of using the body to express love "in a loveless place" (T-14.IV.4:10).
I am suggesting that you find the local moment or event that cries out for your attention and breaks your heart and I am suggesting that rather than deny it, intellectualize it, you lean. Right. Into. It. Forget about the so-called big stuff. The whole problem of the separation is right in front of you right now. So is the solution.
I am saying, stop focusing on the scale of the problem - stop trusting your judgment about what matters - and just feel the cry for love. It is here. Feel it in your body - that's how the Holy Spirit listens - and then let the Holy Spirit use your body to respond.
Child of God, you were created to create the good, the beautiful an the holy. Do not forget this. The Love of God, for a little while, must still be expressed through one body to another, because vision is still so dim (T-1.VII.2:1-3).
Don't fight this - use this. We don't have to understand it. We aren't breaking any Course rules. Every moment all we are asked to do is recognize the call for love and be willing to respond. The Holy Spirit and Jesus will take care of the rest.
This is salvation. I promise.
Love,
Sean
Thank you Sean, thank you for your gentle yet powerful words today. I realize how easy it is to be pulled in to what our eyes are seeing or our ears are hearing and take that as reality and once again your words remind me that love is the answer. I remember reading a book by Stephen Levine and one chapter was titled 'Keeping your heart open in hell'. When he was working in a cancer ward he said his simple practice was to not focus on the pain and suffering and to focus instead on the light of each individual regardless of what he saw or heard. He said this allowed him, by keeping his heart open, to connect with each person on a genuine level of Oneness. Today Sean, your words were a reminder of that way of responding.
You always seem to write exactly what I need to hear…..thank you! Your words are deeply felt……..