[Please note: ACIM passages quoted in this article reference the Foundation for Inner Peace (FIP) Edition.]
Last month, I think, I wrote about the concept of not making error real. That idea still has me in its grip. It is such a powerful idea. The idea being that the errors of others are not real, which means they have no real effect. All of that I knew, of course (or should say “knew”). But the next part is crucial: Since they aren’t real, it makes no sense to look for them, focus on them, interpret them, or correct them. That is the part that is really getting me.
I think where I have been going wrong is in saying, “Yeah, I know that errors aren’t real,” but then still looking for, focusing on, interpreting, and correcting them. And then I try to forgive them. The problem is that the act of looking for/focusing on/interpreting/correcting makes them real. And then I have a real error to forgive, which the Course says is not really possible. It is one of those mysteries that actually doesn’t make any sense and so is simply impossible.
As I have been practicing with this idea, I am noticing that the errors of others certainly do seem real. Indeed, a person’s error-laden behavior seems to be pretty much the sum total of that person, if you are looking at him or her from an earthly standpoint. When you look with your physical eyes, that’s what you see. You see a body misbehaving, at least a lot of the time. (Can you tell I live with small children?)
So I have been struggling with how to actually keep the errors from seeming real, or at least how to undo the sense of reality they seem to me to have. It’s not comfortable to be in that place where you are saying “It’s not real” while the error seems to be screaming in your face, “I’m REAL, sucker!” There has to be a way out of that bind.
The other day in one of my practice periods, I was pondering this issue, and the image from the Course came to mind of clouds. The Course uses that image very effectively, especially in Lesson 69 and in T-18.XI. The great thing about clouds is that they look solid and substantial, but they are just mist. If you dropped a button or even a feather into a cloud, it would drop right through,as the Course points out. I was telling this to my daughter Miranda the other day and she was really surprised. She thought they were solid. So clouds stop light, they stop sight. But they don’t stop anything else. They are not solid and substantial enough to stop even a feather. That is why they are such great metaphors for the illusions of this world—like the body, and like errors.
Then I combined this with the image, found in those same two places I just mentioned, that past the clouds is the light, the sun. So I did an exercise in which I first saw the person’s errors, which looked completely solid. But then they turned out to be clouds, so I could pass right through them, brush them aside, and keep going on the way to the sun. The sun, of course, represented their reality. So you have the clouds, which are only apparently solid and substantial; and then hidden by the clouds you have the sun, which is really there, a truly substantial reality. It felt very important, both the exercise and the image.
So I want to continue to use the exercise and also try to make the image something I build into my way of seeing. Those misbehaving bodies are just clouds blocking my view of the sun. But being clouds, they are just mist, such that anything real can pass right through them.
I’ve also compiled a list of Course passages about my brother’s errors. Most of them start with “His errors.” And I’ve changed them into lines to practice. In case they might be of benefit to you, here are those lines:
Your errors are not of you, any more than mine are of me.
Beyond your errors is your holiness and my salvation.
The Holy Spirit does not perceive your errors
If I perceive your errors and accept them as real, I am accepting mine.
Your errors do not come from the truth in you, and only this truth is mine.
Your errors cannot change the truth in you, and can have no effect at all on the truth in me.
If I accept your errors as real, I have attacked myself.
Your errors are forgiven with mine.
Your errors are all past, and by perceiving you without them I am releasing you.
I freely choose to overlook your errors, looking past all barriers between myself and you.
Any instant serves to bring complete correction of your errors and make you whole.
Your errors cannot withhold God’s blessing from yourself, nor me who see you truly.
I let all your errors be to me nothing except a chance to see the workings of the Helper given me to see the world He made instead of mine.
My acceptance of the Atonement enables me to realize that your errors never really occurred.
