It is 2005 and things in the world don’t look good. The US is at war with Iraq. It is an insane war against the Self, the One. I seem to live here. I do the laundry, wash the dishes, look after my boy. And try to remember that the Holy Spirit has a plan for us. Recently I read the Part II Workbook section entitled “What is the World?” After telling us that “the world is false perception … made as an attack on God. It symbolizes fear. [The world is] meant to be a place where “God could enter not,” we are told:

As sight was made to lead away from truth, it can be redirected. Sounds become the call for God, and all perception can be given a new purpose by the One Whom God appointed Savior to the world. Follow His light, and see the world as He beholds it. Hear His Voice alone in all that speaks to you. And let Him give you peace and certainty, which you have thrown away, but Heaven has preserved for you in Him.

Let us not rest content until the world has joined our changed perception. Let us not be satisfied until forgiveness has been made complete. And let us not attempt to change our function. We must save the world. For we who made it must behold it through the eyes of Christ, that what was made to die can be restored to everlasting life.

The Course says, “You are at home in God, dreaming of exile but perfectly capable of awakening to reality. Is it your decision to do so?” T.10.I.2.1-2.

I had two guides in 1989 when my spiritual life changed. One was the Voice in A Course in Miracles which I had been studying for four years. The other was Peace Pilgrim, whose commitment to the God-centered life was recorded in a book by her friends called Peace Pilgrim: Her Life and Work in Her Own Words.

If you are unaware of Peace Pilgrim, you can Google her or find her book at your local metaphysical bookstore. Much more information has become available about her since 1989, and videos and a film have been made on her life. With no organizational backing and only a blue tunic (Peace Pilgrim – 25,000 Miles on Foot for Peace) to define herself, she walked until given shelter and fasted until given food. “I don’t ask – it’s given without asking. Aren’t people good! There is a spark of good in everybody, no matter how deeply it may be buried, it is there. It’s waiting to govern your life gloriously. I call it the God-centered nature or the divine nature. Jesus called it the Kingdom of God within." Everywhere, even when she was jailed for suspected “communist activity,” she shared her songs and stories about what she called “the whole peace picture: peace among nations, peace among groups, peace among individuals, and the very, very important inner peace.”

Peace Pilgrim talked about contradictions in her childhood that were also familiar to me. She said, “On the one hand I was trained to believe that I should be kind and loving and never hurt anybody, which is fine. On the other hand I was trained to believe that if so ordered it is indeed honorable to maim and kill people in war. They even give medals for it. Now that one did not confuse me. I never believed there was any time under any circumstances when it was right for me to hurt anybody. .. and then I was trained to be generous and unselfish, and at the same time trained to believe that if I wanted to be successful I must get out there and grab more than my share of this world’s goods. These conflicting philosophies, which I had gathered from my childhood environment, confused me for some time. But eventually I uprooted this false training.”

It took her 15 years of “willingness to let God use me” before she had a vision and knew what God wanted her to do. God told her what she should wear and what she should say, and her message never changed. She never got sick; she too believed that illness was a manifestation of the self-centered (i.e., ego) nature. Her pilgrimage could be described in these sentences from the Course:

In 1990, doing a Peace Pilgrim-type walk was not unique to me. When the buildup to the War in Kuwait started in October, I went to Washington DC to protest. But “Anger is never justified. Attack has no foundation.” T.30.VI.1-2. I was not the same person I had been in the ‘60s, and I wanted the peace of God. I went back to New York and to the media’s selling of the war, which made me crazier than going to Washington! I read the Course. I thought about Peace Pilgrim. I prayed for guidance.

I decided to use the symbols of the world and get out of my apartment. I got two pieces of poster board and rigged up a sandwich. The back said, “Shalom,” “Salaam,” “Peace Person.” The front said (my apologies for this to anyone who might be offended) “Patriarchy Insane! Love Mother Earth! Pray, Om, Meditate, Chant for Peace.” And I carried a flyer which had short quotations about peace, love and non-violence from Jesus in the New Testament, Martin Luther King, Jr., Gandhi, H.H. The Dalai Lama, Peace Pilgrim, and A Course in Miracles. I also quoted John Kennedy, who said, “Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind. War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today.” I put an interfaith symbol in the corner of the sheet. For several months I left my apartment in the Village daily to stand on corners and in front of subway stops, schlepping the sidewalks of New York.

I didn’t stop the war. Neither did the organized teach-ins and marches. But my choice to walk was the most joyous choice I could make. After I had done it for a few days, the people who worked in the area started saying “hello!” They asked me what had happened to me when I had to skip a day! I had a long, interesting talk with a priest from Trinity Church who bought me some hot nuts and walked me to Battery Park. In Grand Central Station I was disdainfully ignored; the poorer sections of town were the friendliest. I stopped walking before Christmas, when a woman warned me that someone who looked violent was following me. She looked frightened and, turning around, I had to agree that the man did look very angry and deranged. I decided to stop then. We invaded Kuwait on January 15, Dr. King’s birthday, which I found tragically ironic. But maybe the peace forces had some impact: it was a short war and President Bush I decided not to extend it.

In 1990, I felt that both Peace Pilgrim and my brother Jesus lived in me and the action I took was clear and simple. Now that I have a little boy, what to do is not so simple. In making the decision for love as the only reality, I face certain challenges within the illusion which I will try to share with him as he grows up – and I share with you now. Here are a few:

This world of form and all if it’s institutions are based upon ego-centric or ethno-centric worldviews. The innocent belief that this 21^st century would be the age of information and communication has been co-opted by the ego thought system and is the age of dis-information and mis-communication. Do not be deceived by the various methods used by the world to establish your ego’s identity but recognize that you chose to be here and that it is your love, not your body and its serial adventures, that is the truth for you and everyone.

Chose a non-dualistic practice, whatever it be, and listen for the Voice Within on a daily basis. Focus your mind. Get quiet. Don’t let the ego’s fear of your doing this delay you.

The message of the Atonement is that God’s Son is guiltless and that the seeming separation from Him never happened. Commit yourself to living the miracle of forgiveness – not just for yourself but for the world. True forgiveness bears witness to the One.

Remember that everything is either love or a call for love, to be responded to with the Holy Light within you. To attempt to “fix” anyone who is calling for love would imply judgment. You are only to witness to the truth in them, which is also the truth in you.