The Laws of Healing

I got this picture out of "Spirit and Life" yesterday; the magazine published by the Benedictine Sisters of Perpetual Adoration where I lived for 4 years. The picture is a mosaic from their chapel. It surprised me today. I can see in it a need for me to have re-birth, a new life; and all the powers of heaven rejoicing in my willingness to accept God’s gift. I am astounded at this idea because it is the first good one I've had about Christmas so far this year.

This idea is a light in my darkness as I looked at my negative thinking this morning.

I can't believe I was a nun for 4 years. I cannot really believe I am Roman Catholic and attend Mass frequently. Before I went to the convent, I spent decades trying to find a husband but never connected. It still amazes me because the lack of a husband has in so many ways changed my life's course, freeing me from the misery I would have been as a drunken wife, following in the miserable footsteps of my drunken mother. I can't believe I was an alcoholic 24 years ago. It amazes me I am still a long distance runner and engineer.

My life has been all over the map. The outward images seem disconnected. Running and engineering and my search for God are the common threads. Spirituality is an exercise in ego transcendence. Whatever happens in my life seems tied to ego deflation and the emergence of my spiritual self.

I am attempting to make heads or tails of the “Laws of Healing” (below). I struggle with solitude vs my place in the 12 Step Fellowship and the Church. I think I should go to meetings; yet despite my spiritual work, the meetings upset me and I leave with my ego hysterically hammering me. So I quit going to meetings and I feel much better; but I now feel like I’ve failed ACIM forgiveness. 12 Step meetings for me have taken a place as a spiritual exercise of ACIM forgiveness; they are not for the purpose of recovery or helping others. No wonder they are such a disaster for my ego. I am using them as a mirror and what I see is my own projected hate. I approach them as I would any difficult undertaking: with trepidation and the knowledge that I’m about to have a painful lesson. On the side of Church attendance, I quit going to the big Sunday Masses and attend the quiet weekday Masses because I leave without the ego hammering.

My prayer this morning is for further guidance from my COMPANION. God cannot fail in His purpose so I am assured of healing. I must accept the healing found in the practice of forgiveness. I know my ego is obstinate about this whole issue; but surprisingly, I am getting better. I am far less hateful, fearful and angry than I used to be. I have more inner peace despite the periodic encounters with ego hammering.

The Laws of Healing, excerpted (ACIM text chapter 26.VII):

Forgiveness is the only function here, and serves to bring the joy this world denies to every aspect of God’s Son where sin was thought to rule… Forgiveness takes away what stands between your brother and yourself. It is the wish that you be joined with him, and not apart… What is forgiveness but a willingness that truth be true?... Forgiveness is the answer to attack of any kind. So is attack deprived of its effects, and hate is answered in the name of love.

Salvation, perfect and complete, asks but a little wish that what is true be true; a little willingness to overlook what is not there; a little sigh that speaks for Heaven as a preference to this world that death and desolation seem to rule.

All sickness comes from separation. When the separation is denied, it goes…

Guilt asks for punishment, and its request is granted.

Perception’s laws are opposite to truth, and what is true of knowledge is not true of anything that is apart from it…. What is projected out, and seems to be external to the mind, is not outside at all, but an effect of what is in, and has not left its source…Perception’s laws must be reversed, because they are reversals of the laws of truth.

Cause and effect are one, not separate. God wills you learn what always has been true: That He created you as part of Him, and this must still be true because ideas leave not their source.

The miracle is possible when cause and consequence are brought together, not kept separate…God gave to all illusions that were made another purpose that would justify a miracle whatever form they took. In every miracle all healing lies, for God gave answer to them all as one… The miracle but calls your ancient name, which you will recognize because the truth is in your memory. And to this name your brother calls for his release and yours… Your ancient name belongs to everyone, as theirs to you. Call on your brother’s name and God will answer, for on Him you call.

To use the power God has given you as He would have it used is natural… The gift of God to you is limitless. There is no circumstance it cannot answer, and no problem which is not resolved within its gracious light.

Abide in peace, where God would have you be. And be the means whereby your brother finds the peace in which your wishes are fulfilled…. to bless but one gives blessing to them all as one.