Genuine Relationships Are the Soul of Love

“Some of you have had more experience with new beginnings than others. For most mature adults, some form of new beginning has taken place or been offered. Often, those within the relationship of marriage have had occasion to choose to forgive the past and begin again to build a new relationship. Others, in a similar relationship, might have chosen to let the past go and enter into new relationships. Parents have welcomed home errant children to give them the chance to begin again. At all stages of life new friendships are formed and the relationship with each new friend provides for a new beginning.” (ACOL, T3:15.1)

We are caught in a new beginning right now, the culmination of the joining of heart and mind into wholeheartedness, and the joining of unity and relationship to form our place in this world. We can be optimistic about the future, or we can let fear overcome us, and drop into depression and self-doubt. All self-doubt, Jesus tells us, is really fear, and he has also in A Course of Love (as in A Course in Miracles) told us that there are only two emotions, love and fear. Of course, he asks us in this new beginning to choose love. And we know from our own new beginnings in our lives that the most successful of new beginnings are those that have been welcomed by love.

Relationship is everything, actually. Our individuated portions of the Self have come together in relationships that will destroy, or will transform, our world. Each of us is an individuated portion of the Self, for the Self, in unity, is One. Understanding this takes a mystical frame of mind. But mystical experiences are known to many of us, and they can be known by all of us if our mind does not close down, lost in skepticism that what we are experiencing is real.

So let us consider our new beginnings from our lives. If we formed a new relationship with our beloved after a rupture, if we formed a new relationship with a new beloved, if we welcomed home a wayward child—then we are easily led to follow Jesus’s thinking, because we know, first hand, what he is comparing real relationship to. Real relationships are the soul of Love. First, we meld together heart and mind to form wholeheartedness, and so we have an inner relationship to truth that serves us in good stead. Then we reach outward with the Self, the Christ-Self Who has been cloaked in the depths of our psyche for eons. This Self, shared with all others, forms relationships with our brothers and sisters in Love. And then we know that we will need never feel alone again.

Our union with our brothers and sisters, in relationships that are full of love, will allow us to proceed peacefully in our world. We will know intuitively and mystically that we are One with everyone, and when we know that, we cannot harm, for we know that we would only be hurting ourselves.

Prayer

I seek to expand my circle of close friends to even more brothers and sisters. This expansion of relationship will give me a broader community and help me to follow more precisely the tenets of A Course in Miracles and A Course of Love. The way back to God is paved by our relationships, our real relationship honed in love. There is no other answer as to how to live well in this world.

Be with me today, as always. Give me good energy to succeed in making a contribution to this difficult world. May I come to see this world as less difficult as I walk ever closer with You.

The way is not difficult with You hold my hand.

Amen.