Our Invitation to Healing

When we pull up to an intersection and somebody approaches us looking for some change, the rubber of our spiritual journey indeed meets the road of our everyday life. The practical application of our study, our path, meets us head on. Do we drop some change in the cup?

Thankfully, this isn’t A Course in Behavior.

Remember, the problem isn’t where we think it is. The question isn’t A or B.

Most of us could construct a moral argument for giving the dollar or not giving the dollar, and many would argue about what the “loving” thing to do is. Isn’t it amazing that we think that we know? Isn’t it funny that we think that we know AND that we think that there could be an alternative to Love? That simple conflict should be a fairly significant clue that we have no idea about Love. Our judgment about the receiver of the dollar, the giver of the dollar, and the value of the dollar, keeps Love from our awareness.

The only question worth asking of anything in this world is “What is it for?” What is its purpose? The dilemma over the dollar has a clear purpose. It says that the problem is out there and so is the solution. It reinforces the judgment that makes A or B meaningful. It clouds our vision of our brother.

Like every other external question in our lives, the seemingly conflicted form can serve a new purpose, too. It can remind us that the problem isn’t out there, and the problem isn’t a question. The problem is a decision.

The decision for guilt is the glue that binds the fragmented world of form together in one twisted purpose. It is the decision for guilt that gives A or B meaning. It is this decision that imprisons us to conflict, attack, and pain. When we recognize that the problem is a decision, we’re halfway home. Now, all that is required is the little willingness to give up what we’ve chosen by recognizing that we no longer want it.

Practically, when we are willing to decide against all of the obstacles (our judgments) that we’ve erected between ourselves and Love, Love is free to flow through us and inform whatever situation or circumstance in which we find ourselves. In other words, when I forgive myself for judging my brother, judging myself, and judging the value of my gift, Love will take whatever form best symbolizes that decision in that moment. It could be that I give a dollar; it could be that I do not. It could be that I offer a smile; it could be that I offer a meal. Again, it isn’t the form that determines value; it is the content. What am I offering? What is my brother offering? When the answer to those questions are the same, peace is the result.

Remember, ACIM is not a positive course in that it doesn't teaches us what to do; it is a course in undoing the negative. ACIM is a course in removing the obstacles that we’ve placed between who we think we are and our True Identity. ACIM is a course in looking. It is in the looking that we recognize what we’ve chosen and that we no longer want it. That’s where healing starts. That’s what every brother is offering. That’s what everything is for.

But look upon a forgiven world, a world released from guilt, and you are transformed. The sickness that we perceive is but our invitation to heal.