Image by Keith Johnston from Pixabay
A whole new ball game is a wonderful baseball term. A team that was seriously behind can suddenly find themselves abruptly scoring runs and unexpectedly, they’re ahead.
Suddenly, it’s a whole new ball game.
It’s a great metaphor for life. At any point, we can start our day over again, we can “turn over a new leaf,” we can have a fresh start.
A Course in Miracles is over 1,200 pages long. The very beginning of the Course states that the Course,
“….consists of three books: a 669-page Text, a 488-page Workbook for Students, and a 92-page Manual for Teachers.
All that explanation exposition and commentary to give this simple message:
We live in a world of illusion, as if we are asleep in a dream.
Everything in the dream leads to more dreaming, except…
Forgiveness.
In Reality (which we could also call Heaven) we are there, right now! safe at home at perfect peace, eternally. There is no lack, no need to change or get better, because everything is perfect.
But because we fell asleep and are having this dream – nightmare really – we need some means to awaken out of the illusion.
And the Course says that there is only one illusion that leads out of the maze of illusion. There is one illusion that takes us, not deeper into more illusion, but to a dawning of the Light, of awakening.
That illusion is forgiveness.
I have been in a position lately where I really have had to step up my forgiveness game. A few things have happened that have disturbed me. The process of forgiveness provided me with the answer.
Especially difficult among these recent events was a need to forgive myself for the accident that happened with my little dog, Erica.
People told me to let it go, to accept it happened and that it was totally an accident.
It took some time, and took some intense prayer work, for me to fully let myself off the hook.
In one of my 12-Step meetings, a fellow often talks about forgiveness, of their self and others by saying, drop the charges.
These are good shorthand ways of reminding myself to forgive in all situations, as quickly and as completely as I can.
· Let them off the hook.
· Drop the charges.
· Live and let live.
· Forgive and forget.
· Let bygones be bygones.
· Bury the hatchet.
· Water under the bridge (or over the dam).
· Clear the air.
· Kiss and make up.
· Mend fences.
And the ever popular:
· Turn the other cheek, which, by the way, does not mean to let people slap you twice! Metaphysically, it means to turn your face in a new direction and see things from a new angle, from a new perspective! When we see what happened differently we can more easily forgive.
One powerful example of forgiveness is, of course, Nelson Mandela who, after spending nearly 27 years in prison, emerged, praised his “enemy” the man who imprisoned him, F.W. de Klerk as “an honorable man” and embarked on “Reconciliation Day” asserting that “Reconciliation does not mean forgetting or trying to bury the pain of conflict, but that reconciliation means working together to correct the legacy of past injustice.”
The message of the Course is that forgiveness gives us what we are all seeking: an end to strife, to misery, a way to escape this world of illusion and receive miracles – a miraculous, healing, enlightening awareness of Reality. For, in that Reality forgiveness is unnecessary because the things that happen in a dream are not real. They never happened!
Just like in a nightly dream, the people and events seem so real, but when we wake up in the morning, if we remember the dream at all, the people and events are now seen clearly, as the figment of our dreaming imagination.
The analogy holds for us in this dreamtime, this thing we often (mistakenly) call “real life” the place where money, sex, love, work, vacations, illness, clouds, music, acne, car accidents, Covid, weddings, etc. etc. etc. happen. Or seem to happen.
People, events, pets, places, everything seems to come and go magically, as if in a dream. One day we are filled with joy at the birth of a newborn. The next day we are filled with grief at an untimely death, or war in places (hopefully) far away from us.
The insanity, the uncertainty of a dream will never make any sense. The only way out is to wake up. And for that, we need a miracle!
The Course says,
Miracles are natural signs of forgiveness. Through miracles you accept God’s forgiveness by extending it to others.
You accept God’s forgiveness. How?
By forgiving others!
That’s the whole ball game!
The Course is a curriculum for students who want to learn how to help others (and themselves) by affecting miracles in this chaotic and indiscriminate world of illusions, to heal others (and themselves) and wake up!
However, it isn’t quite that simple, because our human/ego minds have an agenda: to stay asleep. The ego (a thing we made to keep us separate from, well…. everything) takes the idea of forgiveness and twists it to its own ends.
The ego sees forgiveness as a means to assert superiority over others, thus keeping us separate from others.
The Course says,
The ego, too, has a plan of forgiveness because you are asking for one, though not of the right teacher. The ego’s plan, of course, makes no sense and will not work. By following its plan you will merely place yourself in an impossible situation, to which the ego always leads you. The ego’s plan is to have you see error clearly first, and then overlook it.
In the ego’s way of seeing and doing things, you first see the “sin” that someone did, and then you try to overlook it.
Of course, by seeing the mistake we make the mistake real, we give it power. Then magnanimously, with superiority and a sense of noblesse oblige we deign to forgive the poor wretch, in our noble mercy (irony disclaimer here).
Of course, this is not what the Course means by forgiveness at all.
The Course says,
Miracle-minded forgiveness is only correction. It has no element of judgment at all. The statement “Father forgive them for they know not what they do” in no way evaluates what they do. It is an appeal to God to heal their minds. There is no reference to the outcome of the error. That does not matter.
The injunction “Be of one mind” is the statement for revelation-readiness. My request “Do this in remembrance of me” is the appeal for cooperation from miracle workers.
In other words, forgiveness is a correction of my mind which, because you and I are of one mind heals us both.
If there is a scintilla of judgment in my forgiveness, then it is not forgiveness. It’s something else.
Elsewhere the Course says,
Forgiveness is the healing of the perception of separation. Correct perception of your brother is necessary, because minds have chosen to see themselves as separate. Spirit knows God completely. That is its miraculous power. The fact that each one has this power completely is a condition entirely alien to the world’s thinking. The world believes that if anyone has everything, there is nothing left. But God’s miracles are as total as His Thoughts….
“Healing the perception of separation.”
Forgiveness is the healing balm that covers the world, in the eyes of the one doing the forgiving. When perception is cleared, when we can see clearly now, the rain is gone. We can see that all the obstacles in our way are mere mirages, nothing to worry about, nothing to fear.
The whole ball game is forgiveness, of ourselves, of others, of situations, of the world.
We can wake up from this dream/nightmare of a world and see Reality (Heaven) is in our midst.
You won’t be able to say, ‘Here it is!’ or ‘It’s over there!’
For the Kingdom of God is already among you.”
Luke 17:21
The place of perfect peace is not some place we will see someday. It is here now, and all we need to do is….
Forgive.
Happy Sunday!
Johnny
I am available to do Prosperity Now! individual or group sessions or general life-coaching, I Ching readings, dream interpretation or join us for our weekly Wednesday Course in Miracles group.
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