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| "Toboggan Run at the Great Wall of China" photo by Aaron Springston |
ACIM Workbook Lesson #248
“Whatever suffers is not part of me."
"Whatever suffers is not a part of me". This is not a heartless statement. It doesn't deny the feelings we have in favor of a hardness which excludes emotion. On the contrary! It's a pure Love which allows us to pass through the hard times with a firm understanding of the beauty of Truth. Losing a loved one is difficult in many ways, but I really think the myths we have concocted surrounding death do more harm than good. We tell children they'll see grandma in heaven. We say things like, God took him to be with him because he was so good. What lies we tell ourselves in the name of kindness! As we begin to understand divine reality, we are able to let loose the stories we tell ourselves in favor of the Truth which sets us free. I'll always remember reading in "Beloved Prophet" the story of the woman who loved Kahlil Gibran. She sat at his funeral with a smile on her face. When asked how she could do such a thing she replied that she had never felt closer to him. Never born, never dying -- Life eternal.
Mary Baker Eddy quote:
“A blundering dispatch, mistakenly announcing the death of a friend, occasions the same grief that the friend's real death would bring. You think that your anguish is occasioned by your loss. Another dispatch, correcting the mistake, heals your grief, and you learn that your suffering was merely the result of your belief. Thus it is with all sorrow, sickness, and death. You will learn at length that there is no cause for grief, and divine wisdom will then be understood. Error, not Truth, produces all the suffering on earth.”
Science & Health Page 386:16-25
