Let me recognize my problems have been solved

Let me recognize my problems have been solved

“Don't take life too seriously. You'll never get out alive!”
-Bugs Bunny

The persona I keep forgetting I am not is such a drama queen. My father used to call her Sarah Bernhardt after the silent film melodrama star. My junior high friends called her Crusader Rabbit after the vintage cartoon character and sometimes, Susan of Arc for her impassioned pleas on behalf of truth, justice, and the American way. Fortunately I have no idea what choice terms her enemies came up with.

The thing is; I have always taken everything so freaking personally. We all do, of course, it is the ego’s way, but throughout my time on this planet I have perfected the art of suffering on behalf of myself and others to the level of fine art. (How “special” is that? ?) I am a shining star in a galaxy of glowing orbs that have laid their hearts on the line for love and goodness temporarily believing their darkness effectively eclipsed. But I am so tired of the whole celestial lie.

Let me recognize my problems have been solved.

The persona I keep forgetting I am not awoke this morning overcome with the problem of its secret, enduring unworthiness, unloved and unloving, fluttering its empty sleeves as in a Wallace Stevens poem I have long admired. But the decision maker in my mind that almost always now watches these bodily theatrics did not choose to indulge it. It remembered it wanted the peace of God, a goal it has identified only after years of mindlessly choosing its opposite, and, with the Course’s help, finally learning it had another choice and a mind outside the dream capable of choosing. And so it cried out for help. And the Holy Spirit answered. “Let me recognize my problems have been solved,” it (metaphorically) said, quoting workbook lesson 80. Reminding me again that there is always only one problem: our belief that we have separated from our source. And always only one solution: recognizing the preposterous nature of this belief with our inner teacher.

Later, after seeing my daughter and husband off I sat down at my desk and took a moment to once more connect with that light in my real mind and ask again for guidance. Then I randomly opened A Course in Miracles as I often do and read these words:

“Let me recognize my problems have been solved.” I am not making this up; there it was again. One problem, one solution. The separation from the one love we are the ego would have us believe we pulled off never happened! In the instant the thought of running away from home arose in the one mind it was immediately corrected. You cannot fragment whole love, this seemingly endless dream in which we find ourselves notwithstanding. None of it is real and the problem is already solved. We can continue to wage our ultimately defeating cartoon battles or we can open our eyes. And so, I decided to suspend my disbelief long enough to embrace this possibility. Because while the pull of the tear-jerker movie of Susan is strong, let’s face it; I know only too well how it ends. Besides, the decision maker’s growing commitment to realize the peace of God in an eternal identity beyond Susan is stronger.

“You are entitled to peace today,” I read. “A problem that has been resolved cannot trouble you. Only be certain you do not forget that all problems are the same. Their many forms will not deceive you when you remember this.”

Despite my problems’ many masks their nature never deviates. The underlying content of guilt over a separation that never happened remains the same. If I am feeling anything other than peace of mind I have chosen to believe the ego’s lie of competing interests in which someone always wins and someone always loses, just as it believes it triumphed at our creator’s expense. Recognizing the one problem and allowing the one solution completely simplifies, orders, and brings meaning to an otherwise meaningless, chaotic existence.

“Yeah, right,” the ego (metaphorically) said, emerging onto the screen of my perception seemingly out of left field, rolling its eyes like Bugs Bunny in the old aptly named Looney Tunes. A long, largely one-sided argument about the maddening characteristics of a particular individual currently making things exceptionally difficult for the persona I still at times believe I am and the personas I still at times believe my loves ones are ensued. But I am finally learning that arguing with the ego is no more productive or sane than conversing with animated rabbits. And I am learning that I cannot find the peace of God if I forgive everyone and everything else in my current dream except this particular individual, however tempted I am to make an exception based on his over-the-top, apparently unwarranted behavior.

The Course is not asking us to excuse or deny bad behavior. But it is asking us to recognize the reflection of the over-the-top, apparently unwarranted idea of separation when it arises in the classroom of our lives. It is asking us to recognize there is only one ego/wrong mind and only one Holy Spirit/right mind on the level of truth. My attempt to exclude this seemingly more difficult person or situation from the one love available when I choose my right mind prevents me from experiencing that love. I am merely reenacting the original decision to exclude God that got me into this illusory mess of a world to begin with. And it hurts.

Salvation lies outside the dream. So does the truth of what I am. So does the truth of this particular, irrational, at times even frightening personality. I am finally learning that I cannot awaken if I draw a line in the sand between myself and anyone else. I must recognize the fear and hatred emanating from this seeming nemesis as my own, remember what I really want, and choose again. With the Holy Spirit’s help I learn to look past the content of his behavior in this illusion we seem to be navigating to the one love we share. If I deny its presence in him, I deny it in myself and continue to feel secretly unworthy, unloved and unloving, despite the crusading mask I present to the world. In that moment of recognition of the one self I am I remember and receive the endless comfort of true love. I am relieved of the backbreaking burden of my personal resentment, undoing a little more unconscious guilt in the process. My grip on the ego thought system loosens. And I recognize, and, at least for a while believe, that my problems have been solved.

Now I am able to take whatever steps may be needed on the level of form to address the behavior while simultaneously recognizing with our inner teacher that the ego’s vicious attacks can, in truth, threaten nothing real. And that nothing the ego has seemed to pull off can ever truly alter the everlasting innocence we all share.