The attraction of guilt produces fear of love, for love would never look
on guilt at all. It is the nature of love to look upon only the truth,
for there it sees itself, with which it would unite in holy union and
completion. As love must look past fear, so must fear see love not.
For love contains the end of guilt, as surely as fear depends on it.
Overlooking guilt completely, it sees no fear. Being wholly without
attack, it COULD not be afraid. Fear is attracted to what love sees not,
and each believes that what the other looks upon does not exist. Fear
looks on guilt with just the same devotion that love looks on itself.
And each has messengers which they send forth, and which return to them
with messages written in the language in which their going forth was
asked.
Love’s messengers are gently sent, and return with messages of love and
gentleness. The messengers of fear are harshly ordered to seek out
guilt, and cherish every scrap of evil and of sin which they can find,
losing none of them on pain of death, and laying them respectfully
before their lord and master. Perception cannot obey two masters, each
asking for messages of different things in different languages. What
fear would feed upon, love overlooks. What fear demands, love cannot
even see.
The fierce attraction which guilt holds for fear is wholly absent from
love’s gentle perception. What love would look upon is meaningless to
fear, and quite invisible. Relationships in this world are the result of
how the world is seen. And this depends on which emotion was called on
to send its messengers to look upon it, and return with word of what
they saw. Fear’s messengers are trained through terror, and they tremble
when their master calls upon them to serve him. For fear is merciless
even to its friends. Its messengers steal guiltily away in hungry search
of guilt, for they are kept cold and starving, and made very vicious by
their master, who allows them to feast only upon what they return to
him. No little shred of guilt escapes their hungry eyes. And in their
savage search for sin, they pounce on any living thing they see, and
carry it screaming to their master, to be devoured.
Send not these savage messengers into the world, to feast upon it, and
to prey upon reality. For they will bring you word of bones and skin and
flesh. They have been taught to seek for the corruptible, and to return
with gorges filled with things decayed and rotted. To them such things
are beautiful because they seem to allay their savage pangs of hunger.
For they are frantic with the pain of fear, and would avert the
punishment of him who sends them forth by offering him
what they hold dear.
The Holy Spirit has given you love’s messengers to send instead of those
you trained through fear. They are as eager to return to you what they
hold dear as are the others. If you send them forth, they will see only
the blameless and the beautiful, the gentle and the kind. They will be as
careful to let no little act of charity, no tiny expression of
forgiveness, no little breath of love escape their notice. And they will
return with all the happy things they found, to share them lovingly with
you. Be not afraid of THEM. They offer you salvation. Theirs are the
messages of safety, for they see the world as kind.
If you send forth only the messengers the Holy Spirit gives you, WANTING
no messages but theirs, you will see fear no more. The world will be
transformed before your sight, cleansed of all guilt and softly brushed
with beauty. The world contains no fear which you laid not upon it. And
none you cannot ask love’s messengers to remove from it, and see it
still. The Holy Spirit has given you His messengers to send to each
other, and return to each with what love sees. They have been given to
replace the hungry dogs of fear you sent instead. And they go forth to
signify the END of fear.
Love, too, would set a feast before you, on a table covered with a
spotless cloth, set in a quiet garden where no sound but singing and a
softly joyous whispering is ever heard. This is a feast which honors
your holy relationship, and at which everyone is welcomed as an honored
guest. And in a holy instant grace is said by everyone together, as they
join in gentleness before the table of communion. And I will join you
there, as long ago I promised and promise still. For in your new
relationship am I made welcome. And where I am made welcome, there I AM.
I am made welcome in the state of grace, which means you have at last
forgiven me. For I became the symbol of your sin, and so I had to die
instead of you. To the ego sin MEANS death, and so Atonement is achieved
through murder. Salvation is looked upon as a way by which the Son of
God was killed instead of YOU.
Yet would I offer you my body, you whom I love, KNOWING its littleness?
Or would I teach that bodies cannot keep us apart? Mine was no greater
value than yours; no better means for communication of salvation, but
NOT its Source. No-one can die for
anyone, and death does not atone for sin. Yet you can LIVE to show it is
not real. The body DOES appear to be the symbol of sin, while you believe
that it can get you what you want. While you believe that it can give
you pleasure, you will also believe that it can bring you pain.
To think you could be satisfied and happy with so little is to hurt
yourself, and to limit the happiness that you would have, calls upon
pain to fill your meager store and make your lives complete. This IS
completion, as the ego sees it. For guilt creeps in where happiness has
been removed, and substitutes for it. Communion is another kind of
completion, which goes beyond guilt, because it goes beyond the body.