“All that I do I do unto myself. If I attack, I suffer. But if I forgive, salvation will be given me.”
This post was written by John Perry, a longtime Circle friend and teacher.
During a 2 AM Greyhound bus rest stop, I was standing in the aisle of the bus when a muscular man walked up to me, and without a word or expressive warning: pop! He slugged me right in the mouth and my 145 pound 62 year old body landed in an empty aisle seat and on top of a young boy who occupied the window seat. Stunned and bleeding, I struggled to my feet. Then: pop! Right in the mouth again. As I fell he followed, unceasingly hammering my body with “fists of iron.” To some extent, I was able to hold the man off with my feet while I called out for the driver. Finally, a very large lady came to my rescue and essentially shamed the man by scolding him as if we were fighting children: “You stop hitting him! You sit down,” she repeatedly yelled until, at last, he took his seat ahead of where we were in the bus. Very gingerly, I rose to see that he was seated with his back to me. Quickly, I went past him and out of the bus. Standing there and seeing my bloodied condition, the bus driver said, “I’ve called the police.”
After I washed up in the terminal rest room, the police supplied a large band-aid for my bagel sized lacerated lip, and they offered to call a paramedic, but I insisted that I just wanted to be on my way. The fellow (who had been drinking) was taken to jail. When I again boarded the packed bus, I looked at the “angel” lady and said, “Thank you!” Then, before taking my seat, I asked the young boy if he was all right. Seated, I was carrying a great burden of guilt, although I had not consciously considered the reason for that state of mind. Having intensely practiced Lesson 216 for twenty hours and influenced by a previous lesson, I closed my eyes and silently said, “I will forgive, and this will disappear.”
Instantly, I took an enormous breath, and when I let it out I could feel the “life” flowing back into my body, which I think was in shock up until that point of beginning to revive. The oppression of that enormous guilt feeling just left, and what a relief! With that, the ego aspect of my mind was appalled, wanting to counter the “obvious” attack; notwithstanding, the positive clarity of my release ruled. It was perfectly clear that my wellness was a matter of mind and not body. I had not asked that the body be healed, but that awful guilt feeling. With hindsight, I realize that had I been able to analysis the feeling prior to release, I would have thought it was about my own stupidity and poor judgment landing me in the wrong place at the wrong time. But the release gave me such an experience of innocence that it instantly spilled over to include everyone. Having left self-blame, my ego was desperate for something to attack and tried to spark a fantasy of reliving the encounter and somehow hurting the man. No longer being totally insane, I could only bless him. It was perfectly clear that for him to be guilty, my “injuries” had to be real, and I saw that I did not want that negative confirmation.
I had thought I would get some sleep on the bus, but my ego’s efforts persisted through the night, and so did my refusal to entertain thoughts of counter-attack. At 8 AM when I looked into a mirror at the Phoenix terminal and removed the band-aid, my lip was normal size and the ugly gash was a thin red line. I could feel my teeth again, but they were sore for a while longer. I reached my home destination that evening in time to attend the ACIM study group, but no one seemed to notice any change in me, and I did not tell my story. Unlike the persistent nightmares that for many years trailed my other adult experiences of being on the receiving end of violent encounters, I did not dream of it that night, or since; nor was my body sore. Although for weeks I had counter-attack thoughts, including things like: “sue the bus company,” and “attack with a deadly weapon” (since it was clear to my ego that the man was a trained prize fighter, not a street slugger). But I would not go along, because the man had clearly brought me only eternal gifts. Grace and ACIM training enabled me to see his gifts. The past ten years since then have been nightmare free. This healing seems to have reached all the way back to my brutalization in childhood, Vietnam combat injuries, and, at age fifty-six, an impersonal beating by a gang of young men in one of Seattle’s “war zones.”
It can be but myself I crucify, but no more.
