Joy to the World with a Good Laugh

          Our brains can be like a mom picking up after a teen-age boy. She notices his soccer shirt is stuffed in with his trumpet in its case, so with a frustrated sigh she pulls it out, folds it and puts it back in a drawer. Unbeknownst to her, this was a carefully planned strategy. When her son finished his soccer practice each week he must then head directly to his trumpet lesson. Whalaa! The trumpet would actually be with him rather than forgotten in his room. What made organizational sense to the mother, was a counter intuitive strategy for the son, and made perfect sense for remembering his trumpet. The mother, just like our brain, will organize information, grouping facts together in an already accepted plan, missing the important differences in some of the incoming info.

          

        Did I just lose you? Well, as ‘A Course in Miracles’ student this anomaly is crucial to understand. Let me put it this way. The hardest thing to learn is something that sounds and looks very close to what you already know. Here are two examples:

        The Course refers to miracles and healing and release of pain. Now, a student steeped in traditional religion then assumes the Course is all about miracles of healing the body. Study groups can take hours discussing this process, how it can happen medically and then pray together for specific healing results for those in need. Heck, isn’t that what fills the New Testament stories about Jesus? But, is it really what the Course in talking about? The brain heard words and concepts it already had a preconceived notion about, and dumped this new information read in the Course into already recognized brain files. The result – a belief reinforced that healing the body will bring about release of pain.

       Now, let’s take a look at the student who has embraced all things New Age. Miracles, healing, bodies and pain release now get dumped into the brain file with ‘change the mind and the body responds with health and release of pain’. The result – the reinforced belief the mind can heal the body. I heard with sorrow about a miracle student going to his sister in the hospital before a heart operation admonishing her to ‘just change your mind and think you are healthy, and get right up out of this bed’. He was actually haranguing her into tears with guilt, all with the best intentions and total misunderstanding of the Course.

   
       Well, let’s see what the Course actually has said by reviewing a few of the sentences from the Text, Chapter 2, subheading ‘Healing as Release from Fear’.

          “. . .The whole distortion . . .rests on the belief that there is a creative ability in matter which the mind cannot control. This error takes two forms; it can be believed that the mind can miscreate in the body, or that the body can miscreate in the mind.”

        Let’s take the first error – the mind can (effect, hurt or heal) the body. That sounds just like the New Ager who is focused on using the mind to heal the body.

Now let’s take the second error – the body illnesses will cause stress to the mind.

And what does the Course really mean? The body is an illusion, a mistaken belief about ourselves removed from our reality as spirit. Spirit is just fine and needs no healing, and trying to fix an illusion (the body) is just plain, well, stupid.

        But, just so we don’t get stuck on that sounding a little too cold and unemotional. Remember the other quote that begins Chapter 5, “To heal is to make happy.” And then, look back at Chapter 2’s title we just referenced, “Healing as Release from Fear”. Put that all together and you realize what the physical world looks like is not what is important, but only how much peace and happiness you are willing to share with yourself and others.

       Stuff happens. Our job is not to change this but to allow the Holy Spirit to show us how to release fear and guilt about whatever is happening. Being truly helpful is our job description as miracle students. My friend would have been much more helpful if he just spent the time cracking jokes with his sister before her surgery.

       So let’s get out there guys and gals and bring a sense of humor and peace to a world in desperate need of true healing. We all need a good laugh!