Part 1 Undoing the Way We See Things Now
Lesson 103 God, Being Love, is Also Happiness.
- Happiness is an attribute of love. It cannot be apart from it. Nor can it be experienced where love is not. Love has no limits, being everywhere. And therefore, joy is everywhere as well. Yet can the mind deny that this is so, believing there are gaps in love where sin can enter, bringing pain instead of joy. This strange belief would limit happiness by redefining love as limited and introducing opposition in what has no limit and no opposite.
- Fear is associated then with love, and its results become the heritage of minds that think what they have made is real. These images, with no reality in truth, bear witness to the fear of God, forgetting being Love, He must be joy. This basic error we will try again to bring to truth today, and teach ourselves: God, being love, is also happiness. To fear him is to be afraid of joy. Begin your periods of practicing today with this association, which corrects the false belief that God is fear. It also emphasizes happiness belongs to you, because of what He is.
- Allow this one correction to be placed within your mind each waking hour today. Then welcome all the happiness it brings as truth replaces fear, and joy becomes what you expect to take the place of pain. God, being love, it will be given you. Bolster this expectation frequently throughout the day, and quiet all your fears with this assurance, kind and wholly true: God being love is also happiness. And it is happiness I seek today. I cannot fail, because I seek the truth.[1]
Fear is so mixed with love in my mind. It colors every single relationship that I have. I am afraid to love people, afraid that they are going to take something from me, suck me dry, use me up, and than cast me off like an empty bottle. Throughout my life most relationships bring me love and pain through psychic torment. There are many supposed reasons for this particular disorder of mine. As a prevention educator, I became familiar with the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) study. Proposed by the Center for Disease Control as a means to understand tendencies for violent, chaotic, unhappy relationships as an adult, the study is useful as a tool to prevent, through education and social change, health and well-being deficits throughout the lifespan.[1]
According to the medical professionals who developed the ACE questionnaire[2], the chance for health in relationships and otherwise diminish drastically with a score of four or more on the 11-statement test. My score is a seven. At one point in my life’s journey, this troubled me greatly. I was driven, not only to understand my own challenges, but to help others become aware of the critical role that preventing childhood abuse, sexually and otherwise, play in well-being throughout the natural life.
However, Holy Spirit called me to address separation. There is no study in the world that will begin to touch upon the ultimate adversity, terror, and long-term ill effects of being ignorant of our true identity in God. Our religious holy books attempt to do this. Spiritual practices, such as outlined in A Course in Miracles also draw us close to our reality. Ultimately, it is the Voice for God within, which informs us and gently guides our return – when we are ready to listen.
Jesus tells us in today’s lesson that happiness is an attribute of love. Happiness cannot be experienced without love, and love is everywhere, because God is love. Joy and love are everywhere then, and it is the ego that tempts our mind to experience and to believe otherwise. The ego implants the idea of love’s opposite which is an impossibility given that love and joy are, as an attribute of God, everywhere. We fall into this temptation when we take on bodies and forget our spirits. Our bodies bear witness to the fear of God – we forget He is Love and forget that Love and Joy are one. As long as we identify with our body, we will not learn this lesson – as long as we bear grudges toward other bodies, we will not accept that God, being Love, is also happiness. It is an impossibility to apply this lesson to the symbols of the ego.
When our political leaders behave like wayward teens, when friends deceive us, when our parents abuse us or allow others to relate to us in inappropriate ways, when beloved family members wear us down with bad manners and lack of respect, when people take more than they give back – we experience the ego’s call to fear. We are tempted to fight or take flight. We are tempted to forget that we are not bodies, but Spirits. We are tempted to believe that time is real, and that bodies – what they do or fail to do – can take our salvation away. When atrocities fill our minds with dread and horror, we have forgotten that we are in a separated state, and that it cannot be real because it is not forever. We are tempted to blame God, to fear Him, to believe that He is punishing us or stealing our joy to teach us a lesson.
Jesus tells us to correct this false belief today by allowing our minds to meditate upon our lesson idea. God is not fear, God is love. God being love, is happiness. Seek happiness today. When we seek happiness, we cannot fail, because we are seeking the truth.
[1] A Course in Miracles. Workbook for Students. Lesson 103 God, being Love…Foundation of Inner Peace, Second Edition (1992). p. 185.
[1] https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/childabuseandneglect/acestudy/ace-brfss.html
[2] https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/acestudy/pdf/BRFSS_Adverse_Module.pdf
the friar patch 