Dear Lisa

Dear Lisa
Being robbed twice in one week was an important lesson for me. Here in Ibiza following an intense process that ended with my getting a replacement Visa card and some emergency cash, showed me how incredibly blessed I am. Poverty for me is a temporary situation, not a way of life that makes thievery necessary.

I am not sure where I am going next, after I recuperate here in Ibiza, but I have started writing, and that is good. I read a book called The Boy Who Loved Anne Frank about what would have happened if Peter lived. I am realizing I must go there, and to Poland where my mother was born to trace back this feeling of fear and guilt that entered me when I was nine and was attacked in the woods. The idea that I lost my innocence for some reason has haunted me. I am still filled occasionally with the misinterpretation of God's Will for me. I mistakenly think that I am being punished for something mysterious and unknown, but all-pervasive that only God can see. This, of course is completely wrong. The fear of God's Will is one of the strangest and most all pervasive beliefs ever created by mankind. It seems to stem from this idea that God gives life and takes it away, and if we do not live correctly we will be punished ultimately by death, but worse than that, eternal Hell! This is the one misperception core to the fear of God's Will that the Course attempts to correct. In listening to the Voice of God in silence, I am told that I am innocent, and that is the truth that replaces all illusion. Salvation is merely the release of illusion, and the restoration of truth, which is that death is an illusion, we do not die, and God's Will for us is that we heal and experience complete and utter bliss and joy when we recognize that we are loved and protected eternally. God does not punish sinners. Sin is merely a misperception based in fear and guilt, and once that misperception is recognized and forgiven, healing is inevitable. All healing is in the Mind of God, and in that sense, the world is affected by my personal healing. Multitudes of minds are affected by this one simple shift in perception which is the nature of a miracle. The test, of course, is if you can keep your peace WHILE the upset is occurring, and I can assure you, I lost mine! But in the days since I have been examining my mind to see what I actually believe, and I have realized that ever since that unexpected attack when I was a child I have harboured terror at the core of my being where innocence once lay. To restore myself to Childhood innocence has actually been my life's work, and it will be completed with the writing of my book and the healing work that I will do for the rest of my life. As I write, I realize that I am a messenger of God, and He is incomplete without me.

I have so much appreciated your comments on my blog, and knowing you are reading it has made a great difference. You write beautifully, and YES, when you write you are divinely inspired. I am learning to detect the subtle difference between the voice of the ego, and the Voice for God. Get David Paul and Candace's book, The Journey Without Distance, How to Hear the Voice of the Holy Spirit Regardless of Your Religion. Do the exercises. Take one of their on-line workshops. They are brilliant teachers and their work is making a huge difference on the planet. I consider them, Gary Renard, Dennis Gaither, Jon Mundy, among the greatest teachers on the planet. And I will be joining with Judith Skutch, and Kenneth Wapnick to study more deeply so that I can be an even more effective teacher of the Course, in ACTION, as Dennis says in his forgiveness process.

My blog is taking a turn in a different direction. It is no longer just a story of a journey, but now a story of a journey home to Truth. The healing on this journey is one of the belief that giving is a way to lose, that by giving money or having it taken, it establishes guilt. I am forgiving myself for being afraid of God, and fearing that I deserved to be punished by being robbed of my money which was a symbol of my guilt. A child has no need of money, yet it was money that I promised to the boy who terrified me by attempting to steal my innocence. And when I saw him in handcuffs, I felt ENORMOUS guilt. I had sent him to jail! I had promised nothing would happen to him if he let me go, and he was going to jail because of ME! Now I understand the pattern of attack that has followed me all my life. And, as the Course says, unless all attack is relinquished, it is not relinquished at all. And ALL attack is SELF attack. Definition of guilt? Self-attack. Seemingly simple, isn't it? But once this profound truth, that the world is merely a reflection of what I have projected on it, and I am not a victim of what I THINK I SEE, then the way out becomes clear. Release the projection, reclaim your innocence through forgiving yourself for believing that by punishing. "Forgive them for they know not what they do?" Forgive yourself, for there is nothing to forgive! I asked God this morning the real meaning of giving and receiving, and His answer was simple. To give is to give LOVE, and to receive is to receive LOVE. The exchange of money for goods is the world's understanding of giving and receiving, which is why we think giving is the way to loss, and that to protect ourselves we must hold tightly to our purse strings. In fact, the tighter I held, the more skillfully I was robbed! The illusion that money is real was burst like a bubble in that moment in which I discovered that she had skillfully tricked me out of my so-called treasure. The REAL treasure came the next day when Judith told me that they had been waiting for me to emerge. Now I know that I am truly being guided, and the lessons of forgiveness that I am learning are invaluable, priceless, and the lesson IS finally being learned. Today I gave to a beggar, without resentment. I no longer see myself as a guilty, deceptive beggar and thief. I no longer feel guilty and responsible for the pain of all the world's poor, as I did for that poor boy who mistakenly thought the way to achieve manhood was to steal it from a child's body. I had the wisdom and the courage to forgive him then, and now I am finally reaping the reward for that act of kindness that my parents condoned, allowing him to go free if he promised he would never do it again. I am sure he never did. It was a mistake. And it is healed, finally, in a Holy instant, for "my Holiness envelops all I see."

Shelora