Looking for a miracle

November 11, 2020

This morning, talking to Bobbi, I thought about the way that misery cascades through society—and through each of us.

I have a friend who hates Trump. My friend is easily triggered by Trump, and after he’s ranted for a while, I start to get mad at him.

My friend’s anger solves nothing. It wastes my time. It hurts my equanimity.

I feel compelled to either get mad at Trump—which solves nothing—or to defend Trump—which I don’t like doing, and which also solves nothing. So I get mad at my friend, which solves nothing.

And then then I get mad at everyone else who is making everyone else mad.

Fuck them!

Which solves nothing.

And makes things worse.

I can’t do anything about Trump. I can’t do anything about my friend. And I can do almost nothing about myself. And that pisses me off, too.

Almost nothing is still something

“Almost nothing” is still something. But it takes so much time and so much effort to change myself. And the changes reverse themselves so fast. And that pisses me off. And that doesn’t help.

And if I can’t do anything much about myself, who am I to criticize my friend for being what he is?

And who am I to criticize Trump for being what he is?

Somewhere on the internet, I read this: “…remove the beam out of your own eye, and then you can see clearly to remove the speck out of your brother’s eye.”

You can’t believe everything you read on the internet, but that seems like good advice.

There’s more than one beam in my eye, and they are so fucking hard to remove.

I know they can be removed. Years of meditation, therapy, Scientology, yadda yadda have taught me that I can remove them.

When I put in enough work, I can get all the beams that are currently in my eyes out, along with the bad thoughts that are in my brain.

When I do that, I discover the tranquility that was always there.

My experience has taught me that everything that is my mind—even the bad shit—is there for a good purpose—or it was at one time.

I have yet to find a truly bad impulse in myself.

Under anger, I’ve always found love.

Under fear, I’ve always found serenity.

Always.

I’ve spent a lot of time looking for bad shit, and when I find it and confront it, it always turns to good.

I am confident that with enough work, I can move from any bad place to The Good Place (I mean the real Good Place.)

But has always been so much work to get from a bad place to a good place.

And it never lasts.

What do I want?

I told this to Bobbi, and I said: “I know what I want. I want to get to that good place and live there always.”

“But,” I continued, “it seems like it would take a miracle for that to happen.”

And that’s when I realized: that’s what I want: a miracle. And that’s the miracle that I want.

About a year ago I wrote about a book I’d found called “A Course In Miracles.” I’ve been reading it. Even took a swing at doing the course—but never really buckled down and got serious.

But today, I realized that I might be able to get the miracle that I want if I did the work.

I want the miracle of my mind being whole and at peace and the miracle of my mind staying there, no matter what happens.

I want that miracle for myself, and I want it for anyone else who would like that miracle.

Including you, reader.

If that’s a miracle that you would like, I hope it will come to you.

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