First written in May 1993 Miracle Link

Our special relationships are obvious sources of pain. When the pain becomes intolerable and we feel we can suffer it no longer, we fall to our knees asking for help which always comes in some form of forgiveness. Much subtler is the special love relationship that comes in a very different package completely disguised, as the opposite to special hate although it is one and the same. In the Course it is described as the ego's most boasted gift. We can see it in any addictive behavior with people we are involved with, such as our romantic love and close family relationships. Once aware of what is really going on, we realize how the need for these attachments stems from our own feelings of emptiness and inadequacy.
It is not hard to see how we try to belittle our brother when we attack him. It is much more difficult to see how we are doing the same thing when we elevate a person to idol status thereby reducing the importance of all our other brothers. Idols come in many forms: they could also be material objects, sickness or other sought after experiences 'good' or 'bad'. When we believe in idols we are teaching fear not love to our brothers who look to us as teachers of God.
God planted within each one of us a compelling and unalterable desire to return to Him where we can once again know His all-encompassing Love. Aware of this yearning, our ego, the great deceiver, warns us to fear God lest he destroy us for our 'sins', and proceeds to convince us it must be something or someone else we are seeking. It is to these idols we worship and seek to find our salvation. The Course says this world was made as an attack on God ( p. 403/413) and we came here to find idols as a substitution to God.

Despite the instruction by Jesus not to hold him in awe (text p. 5/7) we still try to 'raise' others into idols, implying there could be something greater than a totally loved Son of God who shares all His Fathers attributes. God has no secrets He gives to special people denying them to others.
In the early 80's when everybody seemed so excited at finding A Course in Miracles® for the first time, groups were large and flourishing everywhere. Our group at Woolwich grew to an average attendance of 35 people every week. We were delighted at the response and felt we were really achieving something of value. We had fallen into the trap of believing numbers were important until one night a regular student announced to our group "I don't know how I could get through the week without coming here on a Wednesday night." Suddenly it dawned on us, we were not teaching A Course in Miracles®, we were teaching a 'spiritual' form of dependency. Nowhere in the Course does it say we can find salvation at a Miracle group or anywhere else outside ourselves, so we proceeded to change the whole format of our meetings into more a class situation rather than a weekly social event, to ensure people would not become dependent. Numbers dropped off dramatically and I began to understand stories about gurus sometimes insulting their followers if their adoration turns into dependency.
The perfection we require from people we elevate to idols denies their right to call for love, as we do when we are in a state of fear. When they inevitably fail to live up to the impossible standards we prescribe for them, we feel let down and are left with our feelings of guilt, which were at the base of our neediness all along. A common reaction would be to attack our former idol, reverting from special love to the special hate that always lurked below the surface. Woe betides them if they disappoint us and display even a trace of ego. Not only do they fall but also when we are through with them, we often give them a 'helpful' push to speed their demise, denying them the love we owe every brother. We may think for example "Holy people do not charge for their services, neither do they take out insurance, read newspapers, watch television, eat take way food, pick their noses or behave in other ways of which we do not approve". Of course they are absolutely forbidden to ever be sick, grow older or ever leave their bodies".
What are these not negotiable standards we so vigorously uphold and what do they have to do with who anybody is? Judgement is judgement no matter how we dress it up or how holy and righteous it seems to be. Everyone who walks this earth has an ego or he would not be here. Jesus says in the text (p. 48/53) "I will never attack your ego" and if we are to find peace we need to follow his example. All judgement leads to fear and depression where acceptance leads to love and forgiveness. We always have that choice. Why should it be of any concern to us what anyone does here? There are neither rewards for good behavior nor punishment for bad behavior in the ultimate sense, even though the world metes out its punishment with relish. We learn from the Course that there is no good or evil: only expressions of love or calls for love.

Spirit and matter are mutually exclusive

There never was and never will be a meeting ground for Spirit and matter since they cannot co-exist, because one is real and the other illusion. However, while we believe we are in the world, we can teach love while doing all the normal things of this world. This does not mean we condemn those who don't conform to our version of normal behavior, as that would surely hurt us and delay us still further. The Course merely asks that we remain vigilant for truth, knowing all here is illusion. That way we will not take what appears to be going on so seriously. It makes no sense for me in my dreaming state to attack a brother for my perception of him and I have no right to expect him to behave in ways that I condone.

In the eyes of God, behavior is nothing, no matter how reprehensible it seems to be. Murderers and saints are one to Him. According to A Course in Miracles® "Nothing we can do can change Eternal Love" (TM 84/88) and "God's Son will always be as He was created. (T.p 222/238.) The image anyone presents to us is no more real than the image we present to the world.
Idols are just another form of magic in which we have an investment. We came here seeking idols to take God's place. We make people, things and new experiences into idols because man has always imagined he will be saved by someone or something outside himself. Unaware of our own Holiness we hang on to the hope that in the eleventh hour someone or something will rescue us and like a knight in shining armor, take us away from the cruel world which is holding us prisoner. We continue to seek outside ourselves for what can never be found, completely unaware that we are the only ones who keep ourselves here and we are the ones who must accept the atonement for ourselves before we can wake up with the help of Holy Spirit and Jesus. Material objects are not worthy of our adoration. They are impermanent trinkets and toys that cannot last and obsession with them merely delays our journey back to God. Experiences no matter how lofty or meaningful they seem to be will fade away while our ego exists. What then of our brothers, living or dead we have made into idols? If, by their dedication to God they have wisdom to impart to us, we would be foolish not to learn from them, as long as we believe that we are unable to receive our own advice direct from Holy Spirit and Jesus ever within our mind. It isn't that we love our brothers too much when we see them as special and 'elevate' them to idol status.

The truth is we don't love them enough.

According to A Course in Miracles® we have not the slightest idea of our true magnificence and to the extent that God loves us. The concept of idols palls into insignificance and could not begin to be compared to the Christ light shining within us all.

Nothing in form (and as a consequence, not of God) can save us. As students of A Course in Miracles® we have chosen a pathway of love and forgiveness as our method of 'getting off the wheel' and waking up. We will be ready to do this when we have no investment in the special attachments keeping us here, leaving us with only a realization of our oneness with all our brothers and God.

Bill McDonald