OrEd-T-19.5-Obstacles to Peace.2
a.The First Obstacle.2
The Attraction of Guilt
49. The attraction of guilt produces fear of love, for love would never look on guilt at all. It is the nature of love to look only upon the truth, for there it sees itself, and would unite in holy union and completion. Love looks past fear, and fear does not see love at all. For love contains the end of guilt as surely as fear depends on guilt. Love is attracted only to love. Overlooking guilt completely, love sees no fear. Being wholly without attack, love could not be afraid. Fear is attracted to what love does not see, and each believes that what the other looks upon does not exist. Fear looks on guilt with just the same devotion that love looks on itself. And each has messengers which are sent out, and which return to them with messages confirming and proving what the messengers were sent to find.
50. Love's messengers are gently sent and return with messages of love and gentleness. The messengers of fear are harshly ordered to seek out guilt, and cherish every scrap of evil and sin they can find, losing none on pain of death and laying sin and evil respectfully before their master. Perception cannot obey two masters, each asking for messages of different things in different languages. What fear would feed upon, love overlooks. What fear demands, love cannot even see.
51. The fierce attraction which guilt holds for fear is wholly absent from love's gentle perception. What love would look upon is meaningless to fear and quite invisible. Relationships in this world are the result of how the world is seen. And this seeing depends on which emotion was called on to send its messengers to look upon the relationship and return with word of what they saw. Fear's messengers are trained through terror and they tremble when their master calls upon them to serve him. For fear is merciless even to its friends. Its messengers steal guiltily away in hungry search of guilt, for they are kept cold and starving and made very vicious by their master, who allows them to feast only upon what they return to him. No little shred of guilt escapes their hungry eyes. And in their savage search for sin, they pounce on any living thing they see and carry it screaming to their master to be devoured.
52. I would not send these savage messengers into the world to prey upon reality. For they will bring me word of bones and skin and flesh. They have been taught to seek for the corruptible and return with things decayed and rotted. To them such things seem to allay their savage pangs of hunger. They are frantic with the pain of fear and would avert the punishment of him who sends them by offering him what they hold dear.
53. The Holy Spirit has given us love's messengers to send instead of those we trained through fear. They are as eager to return to us what they hold dear, as are the others. If we send them forth, they will see only the blameless and the beautiful, the gentle and the kind. They will be careful to notice every little act of charity, every tiny expression of forgiveness, and every little breath of love. And they will return with all the happy things they found, to share lovingly with us. We are not afraid of them. They offer us salvation. Theirs are the messages of safety, for they see the world as kind.
54. If we send forth only the messengers the Holy Spirit gives us, wanting only their messages, we will see no more fear. The world will be transformed before our sight, cleansed of all guilt and softly brushed with beauty. The world contains only the fear we laid upon it. And we can ask love's messengers to remove all fear that we have laid upon the world. They have been given to replace the hungry dogs of fear we sent instead. The Holy Spirit has given us His messengers to send to each other, and return with what love sees. They go forth to signify the end of fear.
55. Love would set a feast before us on a table covered with a spotless cloth, set in a quiet garden where no sound but singing and a softly joyous whispering is ever heard. This is a feast which honors our holy relationship, and where everyone is welcomed as an honored guest. And in a holy instant, grace is said by everyone together, as they join in gentleness before the table of communion. Jesus will join us there. For in our new relationship Jesus is made welcome, and where he is welcome, Jesus is there.
56. Jesus is made welcome in the state of grace, which means we have forgiven him at last. For Jesus became the symbol of our sin, so Jesus had to die instead of us. To the ego sin means death, and so Atonement is achieved through murder. Salvation is looked upon as a way by which the Son of God was killed instead of us.
57. Yet, knowing its littleness, Jesus would not offer his body to us. He would not teach that bodies can keep us apart. His body had no greater value than our bodies have, and no better means for communication of salvation. His body was not the Source of salvation. No one can die for anyone, and death does not atone for sin. Yet, we can live to show that death is not real. While we believe that it can get us what we want, the body appears to be the symbol of sin. While I believe that the body can give me pleasure, I will also believe that it can bring me pain.
58. To think we could be satisfied and happy with so little is to hurt ourselves, and to limit the happiness that we would have. Fear calls on pain to fill our meager store, and make our lives complete. This is completion, as the ego see it. For guilt creeps in where happiness has been removed and substitutes for it. Communion is another kind of completion which goes beyond guilt because it goes beyond the body.
