[Please note: ACIM passages quoted in this article reference the Foundation for Inner Peace (FIP) Edition.]
I’m too negative. I don’t think that is any secret. I am inclined that way in the first place, but the more I learn about how things work in this world, on both personal and collective levels, the harder I find it to stay positive. It really is a jungle out there. And the last thing I want to do is use spirituality to whitewash the truth. I’d rather chuck the whole spiritual thing than do that. Once we start denying truth in order to feel good (which is how I see much of what we call spirituality), I want out. But anyway, I digress. See how negative I am?
So my big struggle is to really believe in and love people in spite of the shoddy construction of the human ego, in spite of all the fangs hidden behind the smiling lips. Lately I’ve been putting some things together from the Course that are really helping me with this.
It started with me reading “The Healed Relationship” (T-17.V) which basically says that the Holy Spirit appreciates our “good efforts” and doesn’t even see our mistakes, and in looking on our brother, we should do what He does. “Have you consistently appreciated the good efforts, and overlooked mistakes?” it asks. Or have you let his mistakes blot out his good efforts? “Or has your appreciation flickered and grown dim in what seemed to be the light of the mistakes?”
This inspired me to do research on “not making error real,” which I reported in a recent post, because it is the same idea as overlooking or not seeing people’s mistakes. Then I’ve been factoring in the idea of the call for help, which I have also been using and also wrote about recently.
What all that has gotten me is a simple shorthand for how I should see people in this world:
1. Focus on their good efforts. Their “good efforts” (or “loving thoughts”—T-17.III.1:1) are all that is real here. They are what matters. I should see people in light of those good efforts. That is what I should focus on and look for. That is what I should remember about the past. And for those good efforts I should be in a continual state of gratitude and appreciation.
2. See their errors as unreal. Their errors (or “attack thoughts”) are not real. They don’t actually do any real damage. They are not relevant to evaluating the person. It’s not that I deny they are happening, or even that they make up the greater part of a person’s expression. It’s just that I don’t see them as being worth focusing on, evaluating, looking for, opposing, or reacting to. It’s as if they never happened. And so when I look back in the past, I don’t see them.
3. Answer their calls for help = convey the unreality of their errors. However, the people themselves believe in the reality of their errors. They think the errors were real, had real effects, did real damage. And this is the real cause of their pain. This pain is their call for help. The call for help is the pain inherent in the attack. How do we help them? By conveying to them, through our undiminished love, that their errors were not real, that they never really happened.
Over the years, my primary focus in seeing people differently has been reminding myself of Who they really are (which I’m not talking about here but which of course is central) and letting go of my judgments and upsets about their behavior. The above picture, however, is a new focus. I’ve known most of the theory I’m presenting above, but for some reason, as a kind of mental posture for how to see people, I’ve put comparatively much less effort into it.
It’s almost like there is something in the middle between Who they really are and my upsets over their behavior. In between those two things there is the question of how I’ll regard their earthly persona. What will I focus on? What will define their earthly persona for me—their errors or their good efforts?
God, I feel like such a remedial student. But then again, the Holy Spirit sees my good efforts, and as “The Healed Relationship” says, “Nor does He see the mistakes at all.” So rather than wallowing in my remedialness, I’ll try to adopt His perspective.
