Sunday Sermon - Removing the blocks to the awareness of Love through forgiveness.

It reads in the introduction to A Course In Miracles (ACIM), "The course does not aim at teaching the meaning of love, for that is beyond what can be taught. It does aim, however, at removing the blocks to the awareness of love's presence, which is your natural inheritance. The opposite of love is fear, but what is all-encompassing can have no opposite."

The premise of ACIM is that our human problems are created by our denial of our separation from God and the resulting unconscious guilt we feel that leads us to believe that we will be punished. So we live our lives defensively, in fear, attacking what we feel threatened by which are most of the things in our distressful lives. We believe that even if we are momentarily happy, it is only a matter of time before we are found out, our fraudulent existence is unmasked, and we will be punished if not killed, and we will lose the lives we have created for ourselves and have told ourselves  have, or should have, made us happy.

ACIM assures us that Love is there all the time and we would know this if we could only remove the blocks to the awareness of Love's presence. The biggest blocks to our awareness to Love's presence is our attack thoughts which spring from our fears, and ACIM teaches us that the way to remove these blocks is by forgiveness.

The first step we must take to forgive the people and things that frighten us is to realize that "I am not a victim of the world I see." and rise above the things that frighten us.

It reads in the introduction to ACIM, "Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the peace of God."

As Jesus was being crucified He said, "Father forgive them for they know not what they do." 2,000 years later we realize that Jesus was right. He had done nothing wrong. He had done nothing to deserve the attack He suffered, and yet, He refused to play the victim, and instead forgave his attackers.

In the ego world this is a very uncommon and difficult thing to do, but with the help of the Holy Spirit, it can happen all the time. Where will we put our trust, in the ego world of projections and drama, or in the place of forgiveness and Love?

Here in Brockport miracles ( a change in our thinking) happens all the time, every day, in many situations where we choose forgiveness over separation. We can hasten the Atonement by practicing forgiveness more often. Would that we would and peace and joy could be ours.