Dear Monk: Pushing Love Away
Lonni wrote: I am still processing my unbelievably extreme reaction, but I finally remembered what triggered my reaction was symbolic of my seeming separation from God and my guilt. They were a reflection of me. And, I managed to forgive. Whew. That didn’t come easy!
Sounds like you got to the root of it. Nice work. One thing to remember: The ego loves attention, for us to obsess (especially over ‘big’ mistakes), to turn it over and over… because that says, ‘this is really something!’ Meanwhile, the Holy Spirit is over in the corner, filing his nails (he’s very ‘metro’), barely paying attention, mumbling ’same old same old’.
No matter big or small, every ego choice is same old same old. So when we make some errors big and some small, we’re listening to the ego, not the Holy Spirit.
The cool thing about the Course is that it’s the same mistake every time, and what you eventually remembered in this case, you’ll eventually remember for every problem, almost right away. That’s when we see a part of us doesn’t like this course too much, because it becomes so simple that we can no longer excuse our failure to forgive because ‘it’s so complicated, has so many threads, goes too deep, still needs to be untangled’.
When it comes down to ‘Oh, i pushed love away again’, and THAT’S THAT, then — without a long process to engage and distract our egos — we’ll see our resistance to letting it go, which will bring us to the heart of forgiveness, as i see it.
We don’t forgive ourselves for pushing love away as much as we forgive ourselves for WANTING to push love away.
That’s the shocking revelation that takes us back to where it all seemed to begin. As an ACIM student, when you realize this, it kind of stops you in your tracks. “If you knew your special relationship was a triumph over God, would you still want it?” (T-16.V.10:1). If we’re honest, the answer is… yes.
That’s the core idea to which we must gradually return.
And when we do, and we look at it again, with Jesus, we will finally answer, in perfect gentleness….
“No.”
