Gossip Is a Distraction
The Miracle of Forgiveness
The Holy Spirit has a Purpose for the world: the miracle of forgiveness. Words, like all symbols, are neutral. It is their purpose which makes them helpful or not. Words that inspire and bless and are used to expose and release error are helpful indeed. Words that are used to support or reinforce past associations are always a distraction from attentiveness to the present moment. It is the present moment, free of past and future definitions and concepts, in which freedom and innocence are experienced.
The human condition is the drama of persons, places, and events seen through the ego lens of linear perception. In A Course in Miracles this is called wrong-mindedness. In simple terms it is a grievance called gossip. What seems to occur (the script or story) is fiction, not fact. Christ is the fact. The closest experience to the fact that perception offers is the miracle of forgiveness, the Holy Spirit’s Purpose for the world.
The deceived mind is frightened by the Light of Christ and frightened by the Holy Spirit’s Purpose, as if there was “something” threatening its little story. The ego’s identity is synonymous with the storyline, and thus the details of the story are not only fascinating to it, they are used to maintain and reinforce the storyline. The focus on the storyline is thus used as a distraction from the focus on the Holy Spirit’s Purpose, Which renders the storyline meaningless.
The I-Am Presence, the Christ, is All Meaning. Christ is Reality and Reality is the Fact. The fiction of the storyline is the illusion of drama, and drama needs characters that are acting or pretending to be something they are not. Persons, places, things, events, and seemingly separate situations are the fabric of the storyline. The underlying ego belief in private minds with private thoughts is the weaver of the fabric.
The miracle of forgiveness shows the dream, in this moment, as a dream. There is but one dream the Holy Spirit sees, and its Purpose has been changed from one of death to one of forgiveness. There are no separate characters in the forgiven world, for mind is singular and the world has not left the mind that dreamt it. Causation has been returned to mind, and what is not a real cause (ego) cannot have real effects. Such is the forgiven world the dreamer perceives in healed perception, for perception is seen as whole and indivisible. Healed perception reflects the Light of the Kingdom, for nothing is seen as separate or apart in its kind light.
Dear God, let all words be used to lead to You. Let not my mind wander into the judgment of gossip, for I would release all past associations and behold the joy of the present moment. Holy Spirit, give me Your Words today that I may bring a blessing where hatred had seemed to be. Lead me to see that I am the Word of God as the Living Christ! And as I rest in Your Divine Silence today I leave all words behind in quietness, that I may know Your Will and My own are One Spirit. Thank You, God!
In peace and love and joy,
David Hoffmeister