by Beverly McNeff

After the shooting death of the mother of three and US citizen Rene Good by an ICE agent in Minnesota last Wednesday, peaceful protests have sprung up all around the country. People have said that they are peacefully protesting as a way to process their feelings of hopelessness and outrage in the face of the ICE attacks on immigrants and US citizens, and the lack of accountability and transparency from our current administration.

After Rene’s shooting, her wife, Rebecca, issued a beautiful and healing statement. It read in part…

“I want to extend my gratitude to all the people who have reached out from across the country and around the world to support our family.

This kindness of strangers is the most fitting tribute because if you ever encountered my wife, Renee Nicole Macklin Good, you know that above all else, she was kind. In fact, kindness radiated out of her…

Renee lived by an overarching belief: there is kindness in the world, and we need to do everything we can to find it where it resides and nurture it where it needs to grow. Renee was a Christian who knew that all religions teach the same essential truth: we are here to love each other, care for each other, and keep each other safe and whole…

We honor her memory by living her values: rejecting hate and choosing compassion, turning away from fear and pursuing peace, refusing division and knowing we must come together to build a world where we all come home safe to the people we love.”

This is more than a beautiful tribute; it is a blueprint for how people can turn their feelings of anger, despair, or fear into something proactive. It is time we understood that everything in this world gives us an opportunity to remember our unity and real power. It is time we take everything personally, not to complain or make others wrong, but so we can use each experience as an opportunity for our growth and healing — to become, in essence, the change we want to see in this world. As Renee’s wife so beautifully stated, we need to turn away from fear towards peace, refuse division in favor of finding ways to work together.

I hear from many who don’t know what to do in this current time in our history. There is so much divisive rhetoric and acts of lawlessness by the highest offices in our land. What can we do? It can feel overwhelming.

From the perspective of A Course in Miracles, when we are caught up in problems and feelings of helplessness, we need to open our minds to the One Who truly knows. We have made the problems of the world, and from our current perspective, they seem impossible to solve, but God’s Voice, through the Holy Spirit, focuses on the solution. He knows what we see and feel, and He does not ignore those feelings; instead, He stands beside us and helps us to shift our perceptions of fear and hopelessness to a miracle of love and healing.

“The ego made the world as it perceives it, but the Holy Spirit, the reinterpreter of what the ego made, sees the world as a teaching device for bringing you home. The Holy Spirit must perceive time, and reinterpret it into the timeless. He must work through opposites, because He must work with and for a mind that is in opposition. Correct and learn, and be open to learning. You have not made truth, but truth can still set you free.” (T-5.III.11)

This thought is a welcome reminder. We have a mighty Helper, and as this section says, we need to be open to learning another way. Again, in this world, it is so easy for us to feel overwhelmed or afraid when tragedies and injustices occur, but those feelings do not help us to be the miracle workers that are needed now more than ever before. Each event in our world becomes an opportunity to bring us closer to awakening to the truth of our oneness, our real power, and our true home.

Therefore, these events and all the things happening in our world give us an opportunity to make it personal — because it is personal; it is about us recognizing our oneness! This does not mean that we have to do anything in form, but we do see all those affected by these situations as our family who need our support. We may show this support with some outward gesture, but most importantly with our prayers and the way we hold them in our thoughts. All who are suffering do not need our pity but our strength to hold them in light and love; to remember the Christ for them when they may not be able to at the moment. To remember for them that they are as God created them, and they never walk alone.

Any crisis becomes a personal opportunity for us to see where we dwell — are we focused on fear or love? If we are sitting in sadness and feelings of impotence, then we are stuck in fear, and we need to look at that and ask for Help to lift us into love.

As we focus our minds on compassion and support for all those in need, we will be doing the greatest thing we can do — we will be proactive in love. And it is love that can move mountains and calm the storms of life, for it is love that reminds us of our eternal link with God.

In the 23rd Psalm, we read, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. For You are with me…” It may seem like many of us are walking through death and destruction right now, but God is here. We need to be the bringers of that message for those who are so overwhelmed by despair and fear.

We have a mighty job to do; we must be the bearers of love right now. Whatever you are thinking at this moment, remember love is the answer. Whatever fear or challenge you may be facing, love is the answer. Whatever crisis in the world, love is the answer. When love becomes the answer for all seeming despair, then we will finally be “home.”

“Do not be afraid of the ego. It depends on your mind, and as you made it by believing in it, so you can dispel it by withdrawing belief from it. Do not project the responsibility for your belief in it onto anyone else, or you will preserve the belief. When you are willing to accept sole responsibility for the ego’s existence you will have laid aside all anger and all attack, because they come from an attempt to project responsibility for your own errors. But having accepted the errors as yours, do not keep them. Give them over quickly to the Holy Spirit to be undone completely, so that all their effects will vanish from your mind and from the Sonship as a whole.” (T-7.VIII.5)

We join with you in this task of healing. The Center is here to be truly helpful. As we hold you all in our hearts, we invite you to join our worldwide prayer time each day at 4:30 pm (Pacific Time). It does not take time to join our minds in love; it only takes willingness. The prayer thought for January is “I am entitled to miracles.” (W-77) It is a declaration of our true power to lift us out of the insanity of this world to the truth. Tonight, in our free livestream meeting, we will discuss this. I hope you will join us.

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