The Tiniest Gesture of Love
For instance, yesterday I read the Text section “Being Truly Helpful” (T-4.XI). It was drawn from guidance to Bill that spoke of how he recoiled from people with broken bodies, because it reminded him of the weakness and vulnerability of his own body—reminded him that he could be where they are. The answer was to stop obeying his ego’s urge to recoil and to instead unleash his own “natural impulse to help.” This was essential, for rehabilitating others was the way that Bill would find his own rehabilitation.
How could the Course get any more applicable than that? In the face of what is happening, it is so easy to withdraw into a state of self-concern, in which every person just reminds us of the fact that we could get the virus. Yet now is when our need to be miracle workers is the greatest. Each of us has a part to play. After reading the section yesterday, I practiced the “truly helpful” prayer (which comes at the end) and it reminded me that I don’t have the luxury of descending into self-concern. Jesus is looking to me to play my part in a bigger picture. How can he use me? What ripples might go out from this interaction if I give a miracle? Those are the questions that need to be on my mind, and that are on my mind after praying that prayer throughout the day yesterday.
It’s like this with everything I read in the Course right now. It all seems so applicable. Because it is. Let’s turn to it, then, at this trying time. Let’s take everything we read in the Course and apply it to this situation. Many of us are home, which makes it an even more perfect time to ground ourselves firmly in our practice of the Course. We need to do this, for our own sake, and for the sake of all those lives we can touch with even the tiniest gesture of love.