Friday, November 20, 2015
Lesson 324: “What is Creation?” “I merely follow for I would not lead.”
In God’s world no one leads. No one is better than anyone else. We don’t make a hierarchy and place everyone in seeming specific spots. When we do this, we lose sight of our equality. We all tend to believe sometimes that we have to divide up everyone into separate categories so we can function within the world. God wants everyone to know that we are all equally loved and we are equally lovable. Almost everyone in the world preaches the story that we all deserve only a pittance of what others deserve. We hear we have to interact while we believe some are more worthy.
This makes a sad story for all of us because we can never relax when we carry the ego’s view. This implies we have to divvy everyone up and make some the leaders some who follow some who can do neither. We judge this fact and make our differences to be seen as problems instead of blessed uniqueness that nourishes and strengthens the breadth of our lives in sharing our individual strengths and unique ways of facing obstacles.
What Jesus wants us to do is not be overwhelmed with our insanity of judging what God tells us in the Course is not meant to be judged. This always sets us at odds with everything and everyone. Instead we are invited to demonstrate what makes us uniquely us and celebrate it since it is the great gift we share within the masses.
In the world we believe we are not good enough if we aren’t leading. We believe that people are superb who are in leading roles. We assume this is the desired trait to have. Jesus tells us that this is such a small portion of the people amongst us. We are learning rather that everyone has value and all skills are appreciated and helpful. We all need to appreciate this about ourselves and others. Often we carry the word’s definition of how we are supposed to lead our lives. We tend to get bombarded with the ideas that nothing but the seemingly most superior roles mean we are of value.
Then we criticize everyone including ourselves or people we love if they are not currently procuring those roles. This is a tragedy to be critical of those who are in the other roles the world deems lesser. The Course says everyone is necessary. Everyone needs to play a role and everyone does play a role. It is all equally important. If everyone suddenly had leadership roles, then the systems of learning would cease because there would be no one left learning. Everyone would simply be teaching. This is why we just need to sit in the gratitude that the world works and we can play our appropriate parts in creating what God calls the happy dream. But within that there will be some people who lead and some who follow. And then everyone changes roles sometimes in the interim as we grow and change.
The Course says that we must let ourselves also enjoy our roles whatever they may be. Lots of us may discover that we feel guilty if we are not “good enough” at something to be in the leadership role. We are invited to stop this insanity within. Just be sure to include ourselves when we allow the acceptance of all our individual roles. We want to know that we in no way need to feel badly for being in following roles or leading roles.
I think the Course’s ideas regarding following is so that no one is last. We are all first and we are all last because we are all simply taking a journey together in this life where no one is degraded for not measuring up to the world’s standard. In the Course’s philosophy we are invited to understand that when we follow God instead of trying to keep pace with the ego’s insanity in trying to stay ahead then there is no sense of urgency. When we accept that in God’s world we don’t have to try to outdo everyone else because we are all equal, then all we have to do is sit quietly with a quiet heart and allow ourselves to follow. When we know God is present to guide us and when we are sitting in the certainty of our perfection, we know God is our happy guide and thus, will bring us to our mind of salvation. We can enjoy following because there is no ego urge or panic to try to get anywhere else but in line with God’s mind.