You get a grievance! And you get a grievance!
Motley Mystic Monday Moment: Why you can't have a miracle
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Welcome to the Motley Mystic Monday Moment. Each week I'll be providing you with a tool you can use for your spiritual growth and giving you an invitation to think differently about your spirituality and how you're connecting with the Divine (God, the Universe, the Holy – however you may understand this overall life-giving force).
During a sermon a while back at Jubilee! Circle, I taught on Lesson 68 from the daily Workbook of A Course in Miracles. The lesson for the day was, "Love holds no grievances," and from the back of the room I heard a voice ask plaintively, "None?"
That voice sounded just like my ego, hoping against hope that I could keep a couple of my most valuable grievances – some grudges I enjoy visiting, some snarky judgments of others that tickle me when I think of them. Leave me something to ruminate over, to be cynical about, please.
If, however, we truly want to remember who we are – that we are the light of the world – this is impossible. Just like being a little bit pregnant, we can't be a little bit enlightened. Holding any grievance – even if we believe it's just a tiny one – splits our mind between ego and spirit and a split mind is an unhealed mind. This is why the Course tells us that we can either have a grievance or a miracle, but we can't have both.
Perhaps, though, we should back up and talk about what a grievance is. It certainly is those areas we feel outraged about – the suffering and injustice in the world, the leaders we blame for causing it and those others we blame for not doing anything about the leaders who are causing all the suffering. But grievances can appear to be tiny as well – that irritation you feel when the lines are long, or someone cuts you off in traffic, or when it rains on your picnic plans.
Just as there is no order of difficulty in miracles there is no scale of grievances. Tiny grievances are just as prohibitive to miracles as those we consider huge. This lesson, then, asks us to think about someone with whom we have a grievance. Think about that person.
The one that has occupied my mind for the past five years or so is our now former president. His manner of being – the lies he tells, his selfishness, greed and other pathologies – still drive me around the bend when I think of him and cause me, even now, to feel anxiety, anger, isolation and yes, superiority. I cannot see him as anything but someone who thrives off the suffering of others.
This is quite a large grievance, and even now that he's out of office, if it is preventing me from experiencing miracles in my life, I want to rid myself of it, pronto. This does not mean that I will fall in love with the man or give tacit approval to things he does that may still cause suffering in the world.
It does mean that I will let go of my hatred for him. It means that I will ask for a miracle – so that I can see him differently – as a child of God who has been hurt so deeply and has subjected himself to the ruthless dictates of his ego for so long that his light of divinity (yes, he has one) has become so covered with the ego's hatred and fear that it has become invisible to him.
When I think about him in this way, I feel compassion and I realize he and I are not all that different. He sets me off because he reminds me that I also possess the qualities of selfishness, greed, anger, fear, jealousy and attack. When I think about those faults that I see in him, it leads me to do exactly what he does – attack those I blame for the problems in the world. He could not spark me that way if we did not share some egoic similarities.
I did, however, have a spark of hope for him last year when he talked about how COVID-19 would disappear "like a miracle." "Yes!" I shouted. I was eager for his words to come true. That's a miracle we can all have. It's totally possible for COVID-19 to disappear like a miracle. Not for the former president, though, because the next thing he said after invoking the possibility of a miracle, was a grievance – words drenched in attack and blame.
Every choice we make in this world, the Course reminds us, is for either a miracle or a grievance. I keep wondering what would have happened if he had made a firm choice for the miracle and abandoned his grievances. He could have chosen the miracle for all of us, but he chose a grievance for himself.
We all do it, though, because grievances are seductive. They make us feel good by making us either the victim or hero – or both at the same time – the hero being treated terribly by the world. We could all be having a miraculous life, but too often we're choosing attack and perpetuating our own sense of suffering and grandiosity.
How do we get rid of our grievances? I think the first step is to see them clearly – to bring that darkness we feel into the light. You may feel completely justified holding a grudge against someone for some harm you feel they have done to you, but aren't you just keep that wound open? Whoever you're blaming for hurting you, someone you love, or the world, is going on their merry way, living their best life. The only one who suffers from a grievance is the one who harbors it.
You may say that I don't understand – that what they did was terrible and evil. If they're no longer doing it to you or to the world, why are you still holding on to it? If they are still perpetuating harm and evil in the world, what are you doing to mitigate that? Ruminating over old wounds or simply complaining about those you blame for the state of the world does nothing but keep a miracle from appearing in the world. Imagine how much space you'd have in your heart and mind without all those old grievances. Imagine the miracles that would be showing up if you'd clear out the garbage of grievances and make room for them.
This week, I invite you to examine your grievances, both large and small. No matter what their size, they are preventing you from receiving miracles – that change in perspective that allows you to fulfill your function as the light of the world. Grievances prevent you from realizing that you are created out of love, joy and peace because grievances bring only fear, loathing and war. What we nurture inside of ourselves shows up in the world around us.
I invite you, when you think of those with whom you have a grievance, instead of dwelling on their faults, dwell on the commonalities you have with them. Even if that commonality is being human, being a parent or even being a child at one time. When we can dwell on our commonalities, instead of our perceive differences, grievances drop away, and when that happens Muslim mystic poet Hafiz says we're opening ourselves up to some pretty mind-blowing miracles.
He writes:
Picture the face of your Beloved becoming your face.
And His body fitting on you like a coat
you won't take off again.
Don't move so fast now, when such a rare kiss
is being offered. For what lips can really connect
with a body wired to a mind that is darting about
in a manic hurry?
From this new perspective, look inside the Heart
you have sought so long to be near. Try and go
deep into it. Is it not your own, and mine, too?
We are one on the level of spirit, and if we can dwell in that place, grievances can have no hold on us. Try it this week and let me know how it goes.
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The Beauty in Ugly - Jason Mraz
About the Motley Mystic:
The Motley Mystic is an online community for people who have realized that the truth speaks with many voices. There is no one religion, philosophy, institution or dogma that captures the whole Truth and nothing but the Truth. No one needs to swear allegiance to one line of thought or belief to discern Truth, because Love is the only thing that’s real. That’s what we explore at the Motley Mystic - all the tools and strategies we need to remove our barriers to Love and live fully as our true, Divine Self.
Candace Chellew is the founder of Motley Mystic as well Jubilee! Circle, an interfaith spiritual community in Columbia, S.C. She is also the author of Bulletproof Faith: A Spiritual Survival Guide for Gay and Lesbian Christians published in 2008 by Jossey-Bass. She is also a musician and avid beer drinker.