A Hostage to Love

"The opposite of love is fear, but what is all-encompassing can have no opposite. This course can therefore be summed up very simply in this way: Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the peace of God." -- A Course in Miracles; Introduction 1:8 & 2:1-4

"Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you." -- The Bible, Matthew 7:5-7

"What we do not forgive we are destined to relive." -- Anonymous

The Allness of the Love of God is so immeasurably sweet, so all-encompassing. We are created Self-Complete, in the Image of God. The Allness of God is the Divine Completeness of Love that we all search for within the dream. And that makes it all the more ironic that we continually sacrifice ourselves to the illusion of love. ACIM says that "The body is itself a sacrifice; a giving up of power in the name of saving just a little for yourself. The world you see is based on 'sacrifice' of Oneness. The little that the body fences off becomes the self, preserved through sacrifice of all the rest. The body is a loss, and can be made to sacrifice. The memory of God must be denied if sacrifice is asked of anyone. What witness to the Wholeness of God's Son is seen within a world of separate bodies, however much he witnesses to truth? You can lose sight of Oneness, but can not make sacrifice of its reality. Nor can you lose what you would sacrifice, nor keep the Holy Spirit from His task of showing you that it has not been lost. Every instant can you be reborn, and given life again."

We have the power to be reborn every instant. This means simply that Love, which is everyone and everywhere, can be remembered every instant. When this happens, the illusion of sacrifice that we call love vanishes like the illusion it is. But meanwhile, most of us are hostages to a warped ego game that has co-opted the name of love. Love takes no hostages, and cannot be recognized in the fog of sacrifice and guilt that cloud the hearts of those who dwell in the fragmented, separated mind, who want to believe in this psychotic parody of love. And we wonder why we feel depressed, anxious, restless, and unfulfilled.

There is no giving and receiving in Divine Love. There is only BEING. There is no need or obligate in Divine Love. There is only WHOLENESS. There is no question and no answer in Divine Love. There is only KNOWING. There is no past or future in Divine Love, no grievances or failures. There is only the Completeness of NOW. Not now as the ego would define now, as in imaginary time and space. But the eternity of the Presence, the Holy Instant that reveals Love's Presence in the midst of everything. So in the Presence of the Reality of Love, there is only GRACE.

We are not hostages to love, and love is not fear or guilt. These are the lies that keep us in knots of drama and dysfunction, that keep us endlessly preoccupied with imaginary relationships and stories. Your real relationships in Divine Love are always safely Whole. They have never been otherwise. And once we stop struggling to improve the dream, to fix the illusion of relationship (whose only purpose is ever and always to hold your story of separation firmly in your mind and attention), we find the Oneness of Love that is our REALITY, the only Real Relationship. No longer a hostage to the lie of special love, we find ourselves safely HOME, where we have always been. Thank God.

"Nothing in boundless Love could need forgiveness... forgiveness thus becomes the means by which he learns he has done nothing to forgive." -- A Course in Miracles; Chapter 26, Section IV 1:3, 6