The pursuit of specialness
is always at the cost of peace.
– A Gift of Peace: Selections from A Course in Miracles –
Have you had times when it feels like things are clearer? I am experiencing that at the moment. Not that it is easier. Would, oh would that it were! Listen…this is how it goes for me.
It feels to me like I can see how life works. That I can sort of see the wheels turning. I see the workings and I experience myself inside of it. At present I am still just noticing what I do with great and sometimes downright horrifying clarity once I have actually done it. I still rush to judgement. Too often my first response is still assuming that I am right, really wanting to be right, acting out of being right. I feel slightly strange talking about this, because it feels that it is this way just for me but so be it. I know why it is like this for me, I know really well why I am this way, but I am, at least, thank goodness, way beyond justifying my behaviour.
So: an example: I have made a 9 am appointment. I arrive early at the closed door of the establishment. There is someone else waiting there. She says straight away: “When they open you can go first”. I am instantly affronted. I, after all, have an APPOINTMENT. I say, thankfully, quite mildly, that I have an appointment. She smiles and says, yes well, it really is fine for you to go first. I stand waiting (not then recalling that Ghandi had said he never waits, he only stands) doing a sort of low-key fume all to myself. Then I have a glimpse of all this from the outside, myself acting as I was, this friendly person and I turn and start chatting about how things have changed in this small mall. Then the door opens and she says again: You can go first. Now I say thank you while thinking but I have an APPOINTMENT and I march in: Well, I had been waiting in front of the wrong place!!! The establishment I was aiming for has two entrances… this place had an entrance in between the two!
And in the short time it took me to go to the right door all of this did this instant replay in my mind. I hear this stranger keep repeating:” You can go first”. I feel myself asserting my rights, not even noticing the message, the kindness in that phrase: You can go first. I see how I was at the right place at the right time to step into this class to show me how to be in this world, and that it was for that I had had an APPOINTMENT.
Lay down your arms
And come without defence into the quiet place
In this quiet place alone is strength and power.
– Accept this Gift: Selections from A Course in Miracles –
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