Miracles News
Summer 2003

Moving Past the Fear of Conflict

by Rev. Robert Stoelting

From early childhood, I was very shy. In my adult years, I worked on overcoming the shyness, but I was aware that this aspect still affected me at times. One day in a meditation, I asked for help with letting it go. Following is what experienced in that meditation.

I had an image of blue green water… like a tropical bay. Off in the distance I saw a canoe coming into the bay with several people paddling — at least four. They move through the water very easily. I seemed to be viewing the scene from out in the water. The canoe came from my right. When they got right in front of me they pulled their canoe up on the beach. They were still quite far away from me so I couldn’t make out who the people were.

They built a campfire on the beach, back in the trees a little bit. I moved in closer. I saw that one of them was Jesus. His back was partially to me. I couldn’t see his face, but I knew that’s who he was. There were two other men and a woman. They were all sitting around the fire, looking at it. Every once in a while they would put another stick on the fire.
I moved closer to the circle and they noticed me. Jesus motioned for me to join them and sit down. I sat between him and the woman.

Jesus said, “This is a story about a little boy. This little boy was born into a loving environment. He chose that environment because he knew it would be a helpful starting place for what he came to do. He came knowing that he had a purpose.

“While this little boy felt safe at home, in the world outside of his home he felt unsafe. He felt different and not understood. He didn’t seem to fit in. Because he felt unsafe, he withdrew and avoided people as much as he could. He learned to be quiet and not express his thoughts. This seemed to protect him and help him avoid conflict or confrontation with others. So he learned that a good way to feel safe was to stay alone and avoid contact with others. He believed that the safest way to avoid conflict was to hide by not saying anything, by being quiet so he wouldn’t be noticed, or by going someplace where he couldn’t be seen. He decided that this strategy worked pretty will, so it became a pattern, a life-style. Fitting in was very important to him and since he didn’t seem to fit, he could avoid some of the pain of not fitting by just withdrawing.

“This withdrawal created an inner conflict because the purpose he came for required him to be with people. So he was doing the opposite of what fit his purpose. He felt the conflict but did not understand what it meant or where it came from. He did the things that he thought would help him fit in. But still he felt different. He felt a yearning in his heart to be helpful, but he didn’t know what that meant. He didn’t know how to go about it. He thought of different things he could do, but he didn’t seem to have enthusiasm about any of them. He felt discouraged and alone.”

I walked with Jesus on my right, holding my hand. He said the story he just told was to show me that I had made some decisions that became beliefs I still carry: A belief that a way to avoid conflict is to withdraw and be quiet; a belief that being different causes conflict, and a belief that being different makes me unacceptable and unworthy.

Jesus continued, “This is a perception twisted by the ego to reinforce your sense of isolation and aloneness. It is true that believing you are separate from your Source leads you to feel unworthy because that belief in difference from your Source cuts you off from awareness of your Source of infinite worth. The ego does not want you to recognize that this false belief in being different is the source of feeling unworthy. If you recognized a false belief was your source of pain, you would let it go immediately. You are not and cannot be different from your Source of worth. You and your Source are one. But you can believe you are different. And believing makes it so in your experience.

“It is this belief in being different that is the central foundation of the ego. To protect this belief from being recognized for its falsity, it needs to make the sense of difference appear to be in a different place, so it appears that you are different from other people. To reinforce the sense of separation, the sense of difference appears to cause conflict. The fear of conflict leads to believing that isolation can protect against conflict. Thus the sense of separation is further reinforced. It now appears that there is no way out of the sense of isolation and unworthiness because everywhere you turn, the sense of difference means conflict and conflict is something to be avoided. Once again this avoidance of conflict is a twist of the ego.

“Deep within you there is a memory that peace is your natural state and conflict is unnatural. The ego takes your desire to return to your natural state of peace and twists it into believing that you need to avoid conflict at all costs. It never questions the reality of the conflict. To the ego, conflict is a given, for the ego is maintained through conflict, differences. It would never question the basis of its existence. Your need to avoid conflict is a clever ego disguise for your innate desire to return home to peace. Your belief that conflict is real holds the need to avoid it in place.

“You are not different. Your loving Father created you out of His Love and gave It all to you. Because you are His Thoughts of Love, His Idea of Love, you remain safely in His Mind. All His Love is yours, for His Mind is yours. You contain everything that is God. You contain all Love. Love never changes so you remain the Thought of Love with all the attributes of the Thought of Love. Since Love always continuously extends, you continuously extend. Your Love extends as God’s Love extends.

“Love is all there Is. Love is all that exists. Love always joins with Love, for Love is the Idea of Oneness. There can be no conflict in Love, for Love is all the same. Without conflict, there is peace, so peace is an attribute of Love. The extension of Love brings joy. Because Love is always extending, Love is always joyous. Peace and joy are attributes of Love.

“Conflict and sadness are attributes of separation. Since separation is a false idea that could never be true, conflict and sadness are false ideas. The way to protect yourself from feeling different and alone is to recognize that you are safe at Home in the Love that created you. In this world of seeming differences, conflict between differences is inevitable. But this seeming conflict has no effect when you remember it is not real.

“Let’s go back now to some of those early experiences in which you felt unsafe because you felt different. See the others pointing out the difference. In your mind acknowledge the difference is unreal and look past it. See the Light of Love that lies beyond the cloak of fear. It is the fear that points out the difference. Join instead with the Light of Love and the cloak will fall away. Feel the joy of joining in Love. Feel the safety, the complete lack of conflict. This child that stood in fear, pointing out differences, is one with you in Love. There is no difference.

“The answer to feeling different is the opposite of withdrawing. It is joining with the Love Essence and seeing Its reality that clearly shows difference is unreal. All seeming differences are merely an ego attempt to make separation seem real. In the heart of all who see differences is a call to remember Love. Every seeming conflict is a call for Love.

“While you are in this world, there will appear to be differences. When you remember the differences are unreal, there will be no need to avoid them. Differences don’t matter. What people think of differences doesn’t matter. What purpose is given the differences matters. If the differences are used to hold in place a belief in the reality of isolation, they only lead to greater isolation. But if the differences are used to open doors for people to pass through and build bridges for them to walk over as they move toward the real world of forgiveness, of letting go of all judgment and seeing beyond the differences, then those differences serve to lead the way Home to peace, joy and infinite Love. It comes back once again to the question, what is this for?”

Robert Stoelting is co-founder of Pathways of Light and lives in Kiel, Wisconsin.

Email: office@pathwaysoflight.org

Son of God, Show Yourself

by Rev. Myron Goleman

I have something specific to be grateful for. I was doing a meditation the other day and was looking for people I need to forgive. There is a man I work with who really gets on my nerves. I’ve tried to forgive him before, thought I had, and then he would do something to annoy me and I’d realize I had not forgiven.

I had a hard time with the process and resisted it awhile. My mind would wander, I’d find myself unable to focus on him. Every time I tried to see him differently, I would see his face with this expression that has always rubbed me the wrong way. There he would be with his eyebrows raised, his eyes widened and this self-satisfied smirk on his face like he knows something no one else knows. He looked like some kind of demented elf. How was I supposed to forgive this ridiculous image?

I stuck with it, though, and finally I started thinking of him as an actor playing a role. I thought about how an actor is not his character. When the play is over, the actor walks away from that character and goes back to being himself.

Suddenly, my mind quit fighting the process. I realized that this person I didn’t like was just a character in the script that he wrote for his life. It was like he was wearing a mask and if he took it off, I would see his holy Self completely unchanged. When I tried to take that step and see him without his personality self, I was unable to do so. In my frustration, I finally said, “Holy Son of God, show yourself to me!” And he did! It was like a mask falling away and there was his splendid beautiful light Self, minus all the annoying habits and many faults I had always seen in him. Then suddenly I saw the raised eyebrows, the widened eyes, the smirk and it was like he was winking at our shared secret. I almost laughed out loud.

I came out of that meditation feeling differently about him and hoping the feeling would last. Yesterday, he was listening to one of my presentations and corrected something I did wrong in front of my customers. I was amazed that I didn’t feel angry with him because I used to use any excuse to dislike him. Later when I had the chance, I thanked him sincerely for pointing out the mistake and told him that it gave me the chance to rewrite that part so that it was better now. The pleased look on his face was my reward. The real reward, though, is harder to put into words. I feel like someone who has had a chronic illness and is suddenly healed. It is a real blessing.

Myron Goleman is a ministerial candidate living in Lake Charles, Louisiana.

Email: myrongdsl@xspedius.net

The ACIM Workbook — Labyrinth for the Mind

by Rev. Deb Frantz

Recently, a group of us attended an evening Labyrinth Illumination. The joining of one’s spirit with others, the insights, the peace — all of this we brought back home with us that evening. The next day I spoke with one member as he described his appreciation of the beauty of the labyrinth and the fact that he was not led to walk the path. Sometimes we may feel we just need to rest awhile on our journey and appreciate where we are right now. In actuality, neither he nor we needed the labyrinth to bring us peace or provide an answer. The labyrinth is just a helper along the way, pointing us to the center where God abides.

As I thought about this from the conversation, I likened it to the Workbook from A Course in Miracles. Using the Workbook is a gift. It is a “time-out” in our busy lives everyday. As we weave our way through the Workbook, we journey into “being” with God. We turn around to revisit lessons and then extend into a new quadrant of learning, just as the labyrinth leads us into its next section. We still follow one path leading to the center. A labyrinth differs from a maze. A maze has dead ends and false passages. A labyrinth and the Workbook continue on a single path until we reach our goal.

Just as the labyrinth has its purpose and pattern, so does the Workbook give us a “systematic way to a different perception of everyone and everything in the world.” (W-p1.Intro.4) We follow the lessons, not necessarily having to understand or even like what is being presented. We follow in trust, knowing that true perception will be the outcome.

As the member and I spoke, we discussed that labyrinths are tools, bridges to the Divine like so many other rituals. The same as the Workbook. The Workbook is a guide along the way. In Lesson 189, we are told “Forget this world, forget this course, and come with wholly empty hands unto your God.” It is telling us to not focus outside of ourselves for the peace we desire. Whether it is a labyrinth or the very Course itself.

“In peace we will continue in His way, and trust all things to Him. In confidence we wait His answers, as we ask His Will in everything we do.” (W-pII.Ep.6:2-3)

Deb Frantz is a Pathways of Light minister living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Email: revdeb@miraclesministry.org

TOP | MORE SUMMER 2003 ARTICLES | MIRACLES NEWS INDEX