Your beliefs can’t hurt me

Lesson 69 of A Course in Miracles

Welcome to Daily Miracles, a running commentary on the 365 lessons of A Course in Miracles, an influential spiritual text from the 1970s. I am James Leroy Wilson and I invite you to join me as I go through this material for the first time.

My grievances hide the light of the world in me. (ACIM, W-69)

In yesterday’s commentary, I was thinking about interpersonal relationships. But I realize that a substantial portion of my grievances aren’t against other people. They are against abstractions: institutions, systems, and ideas. My grievance is often toward the beliefs other people hold that cause them to do things with good intentions but which I believe are damaging.

You could say it’s nothing “personal” toward, say, a judge who hands down a harsh and unjust sentence because of the constraints in sentencing guidelines. I might wish he’d resign in protest, but my bigger grievance is with those who passed the law with the harsh punishments, people whose names I don’t know. More than that, my grievance is with the beliefs they held when passing it.

But what is my grievance toward another person’s belief? Can they make me believe as they do? No. Can their beliefs harm me? No more than their negative emotions can harm me. Again, it’s how they’re coping through this maze

My anger about war, or social injustice, or pollution, or crime, corruption, or cruelty, only hides the joy I have the right to have, and which others have the right to see in me.

James Leroy Wilson writes Daily Miracles, The Daily Bible Chapter, JL Cells, and The MVP Chase. Thanks for your subscriptions and support!

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