Part 1 - We’re Never Really Upset For The Reason We Think

Sometimes I don’t hear the whispers of the Holy Spirit. Sometimes I simply imagine another scenario. It works just the same for me.

I have discussed many times in these messages some of the basic principles of A Course In Miracles (ACIM):

• ·      All is perception,
• ·      We’re never really upset for the reason we think, and
• ·      The 3-step process of forgiveness – We forgive the perceptions we’ve created, we forgive ourselves for projecting those perceptions, and then we ask the Holy Spirit for a different way of seeing things, still our mind, and wait for Him to show us another way to view the situation, event, or person.

Recently, I read a little booklet called “Temptation, Blame, and Forgiveness” by Mary Manin Morrisey (Living Enrichment Center, Wilsonville, OR 97070).  She opens the discussion with a story of a woman who had volunteered to cook at a spiritual retreat and who was having a difficult time with a volunteer helper. He was not much help at all.

“…She stayed in the kitchen…hand-squeezing orange juice for dozens of people….[S]he  turned around and her young helper [had taken] the orange juice … and gulped down every last drop. She thought: ‘Hmmm…well, okay.’ So she went back to squeezing. She had squeezed about an inch in the pitcher, turned around and he had poured that orange juice again and downed it! She felt so frustrated she wanted to scream. She wanted to squeeze his head into the pitcher.

“However, she took time to be introspective, to allow a new thought to enter her mind. As she did that, she asked herself: ‘Why am I feeling the way I’m feeling? What is going on for me that I should be so angry and upset and frustrated that he has taken this orange juice? If I am [doing this to be] in service, what does it really matter?’

“As she checked inside herself to find the source of her irritation, she realized that she wasn’t in service at all. She wanted the approval and the accolade of the group in the morning. She had imagined the group saying in delight, ‘Oh, you made us fresh orange juice! Isn’t that wonderful!’

“That young man with the vitamin C habit was a threat to her getting what she really wanted out of the squeezing of the orange juice. He threatened her reward.

“What a huge revelation!”

Using different words, Morrisey’s small tale is a story of the forgiveness process as taught by ACIM. It works for me when I allow it, although it is still very difficult for me to remember those three little steps when I’m in the middle of an upset. Several hours later, I remember. But by then the angry, judgmental, biting words have been spoken. The damage has been done. I know I am to look for the Christ in someone. I know I am to look for my humanity in someone else. How am I to do that?

Continued in Part 2 - Msg 2, July, 2012