This essay originally appeared on Susan Dugan’s blog on Oct. 27, 2016.
I pulled into the local district police station, climbed out of my car, and walked the long way around the parking lot to the ballot drop-off box to cast my vote. Attempting to avoid what appeared to be a local newscaster apparently interviewing other early voters about the presidential election and no doubt one candidate’s allegations of probable fraud, as crimson and golden leaves cascaded to the cement sidewalk in the gentle October breeze. As if this was just another idyllic day in my favorite of all seasons. A season this year seemingly tainted by the acrid stench of projection even the most devout bliss ninny must find nearly impossible to ignore.
After all, the election had, from its earliest moments, provided an epic spectacle of the ego thought system at its worst (which is saying quite a lot). Within which every damning-to-hell word of one candidate in particular had been quoted, recorded, filmed, posted, tweeted, shared, debated, condemned or applauded endlessly. Within which the base behavior of said candidate had inexplicably somehow almost completely eclipsed the impressive credentials and accomplishments of the other. As if the false “fairness” of an unfair world invented to defend against unassailable loving unity somehow required the consideration of both candidates at the same shallow level, squeezing the other candidate into the same incredibly dark, narrow horizontal frame.
I had driven out of my way a few days after the final presidential debate; two-and-a-half weeks before Election Day in an effort to purge the guilty evidence of the incriminating ballot sitting on my kitchen counter awaiting decision from my home as if disposing of some kind of hazardous material. Anxious, as well, to cast my vote and thereby possibly prevent the barrage of phone calls and canvassers ringing our front doorbell.
But surprise, surprise! Although I no longer held the vile envelope in my hands, I didn’t really feel any better. Maybe I would just have to dig one of those sage smudge sticks I’d purchased years ago at the reservation in Taos out of the kitchen junk drawer. Light it up and perform one of those ritual cleansings of our abode I’d learned years ago to remove the negative energy this election seemed to have spread throughout every nook and cranny of our living space. Wafting through the airwaves as it had from radio, television, and digital sources. Asserting the lingering possibility, however implausible; that this one candidate in particular might actually assume control of what we used to call when I was a kid “the free world.” You know, the planet superheroes endowed with superpowers springing to life from the pages of naïve comic books had promised to save from the Commies.
It was in this unreasonable state triggered by my decision for the inner teacher of unreasonableness currently presiding in my apparently feeble decision-making mind that I soon after found myself standing at said junk drawer rummaging around for said smudge stick; and happened to notice in my peripheral vision my imaginary inner professor benignly watching me; his lips twitching in undeniable amusement.
“What?” I said.
But he just shook his head, eyes merry.
“It’s not like I’m actually going to use it,” I said, feeling a little like the proverbial kid caught with her grubby little hand in the cookie jar, placing the woodsy magic device back in the drawer, slamming it shut, and hugging my arms to my chest. “I just wanted to make sure I knew where it was, you know, just in case.”
His brows shot up the way they do.
I looked away. Because, really, who was he to swoop in so late in the electoral game after making himself so incredibly scarce for weeks? Where, for example, was my trusty inner professor during the first debate when I’d vowed to use my viewing only as a classroom for forgiveness and nonetheless ended up within minutes engaging in a rampant volley of outraged texts with my daughter over one particular candidate’s treatment of the other and the moderator’s inability to rein him in?
Or during the second debate before which I’d assigned students in my A Course in Miracles class the homework of questioning the real cause of the judgments that would inevitably arise as they found themselves choosing sides and entertaining the possibility that they were wrong about the meaning of the striking differences they might discover themselves registering between the two candidates. Or when, in the midst of attempting to practice our homework during that debate, I found myself noticing one candidate physically intimidating and constantly interrupting the other and within minutes, became so angry at the travesty the debates had become that I vowed to stop watching them entirely! (You know–next time.)
Or during the third and final debate for that matter, in which I became so rattled by one candidate calling the other a “nasty woman” and what had been revealed about his treatment of women prior to the debate that I polished off an entire quart of ice cream with Hershey’s syrup on behalf of my entire long maligned, disrespected, sexually harassed gender before fuming upstairs to bed. Remotely aware I could choose again for the AWOL inner teacher of sanity but completely unwilling in my sugar-and-fat-saturated condition and its painful, overheated consequences to so much as consider doing so.
“Can you believe he called her a ‘nasty woman’?” I asked him now.
But he only shrugged. “We’ve talked about this,” he said.
I hate it when he says that, but, still, he had a point. God knows, he always does. “I know what you’re thinking,” I said, after a while.
“You always do.”
“See, here I am stomping around feeling so justifiably, righteously abused, completely forgetting that everything I see on all big or little screens seemingly ‘out there’ is always and only an ‘outside picture’ of the ‘inward condition’ (A Course in Miracles text Chapter 21, Introduction, line 5) of guilt in my one mind over believing my idle declaration of independence from indivisible, undifferentiated union had complicated, dangerous consequences that continue to threaten an imaginary ‘free world.’ But if you think about it, I am being so disingenuous. Because a part of me can’t wait to click on my phone, computer, radio, and TV and guzzle another shot of unfair treatment seemingly delivered by this over-the-top bully. Who seems to represent as blatant an exception to your assertion that there is ‘no order of difficulty in miracles’ as I could possibly imagine in the wildest of my wild dreams of exile from our shared reality in Heaven, if you know what I’m saying?”
He nodded.
“‘Can you believe he called Hillary a nasty woman!’ we exclaim. ‘Can you believe this mockery of an election, we cry!’ Trying with all our might to believe we don’t believe it when deep down we believe it to its guilty, rotten core!
See, we believe with all our broken heart that the bully we believe we are, the one that rose up against its creator and waged an all-out battle for president of eternity, refusing to accept the outcome of its assault unless it actually did triumph, actually got his way then and is getting it now,” I continued. “And look, there he is again! Strutting and fretting his hour upon the stage, confounding detractors, invigorating supporters, relieving us from ever confronting the bully within that, as it actually turns out, is nothing more than a big, terrified baby. Only our own inner toddler, throwing a temper tantrum of colossal proportions over the possibility that he may have lost his imaginary battle for celestial control. All the while yearning deeply, hopelessly, to learn he is somehow wrong about this abhorrent persona he created that seems so helplessly bent on self-destruction. Dead wrong about himself, just like …”
I trailed off, because I finally got it. I mean, not just with my mindless brain but with my capital H Heart. I swallowed hard, drew a sharp breath.
“Just like whom?” he asked, softly, after a while. But he already knew. He always does.
“Me,” I whispered, finally.
We were quiet then, standing beside each other now, leaning against the kitchen counter. Gazing out the windowed walls into the garden, where the last of our herbs and roses somehow continued to bloom, upon which honey bees that were not yet extinct after all somehow continued to feed.
“But Jesus,” I said, voice rising again. “There’s the freaking rub! Because in my failure to recognize the child lurking within this seeming larger-than-life villain that has hijacked the national dialogue and seized the airwaves as the same child screaming to be told she’s wrong about herself within me and every other infantile fugitive from love roaming this world hopeless and alone, lies my refusal to experience the true consolation and innocence that would save me!”
“But you recognize it now,” he said.
He had a point. He always does. I lost track of how long we stood together then in deep silence. At last, I yawned, suddenly pleasantly exhausted from another school day learning I am happily wrong about, well, everything.
And so it was that Jesus and I settled in on the sofa with a pot of “Breathe Deep” tea (because who couldn’t use a little help with that these days?) and some pumpkin bread I’d whipped up (from a foolproof mix I’d scored at Trader Joe’s) to catch up with some DVR recordings. “You get to choose,” I said, clearing my throat, because he was the guest, after all.
“Designated Survivor, The Exorcist, or How to Get Away with Murder?” I read, scrolling through the list.
His eyes widened.
“You can’t make this stuff up,” I said.
We started to laugh then, I mean really laugh! Then he said I could pick, just like always. And so I did.
“You, my child, are afraid of your brothers and of your Father and of yourself. ²But you are merely deceived in them. ³Ask what they are of the Teacher of reality, and hearing His answer, you too will laugh at your fears and replace them with peace. ⁴For fear lies not in reality, but in the minds of children who do not understand reality. ⁵It is only their lack of understanding that frightens them, and when they learn to perceive truly they are not afraid. ⁶And because of this they will ask for truth again when they are frightened. ⁷It is not the reality of your brothers or your Father or yourself that frightens you. ⁸You do not know what they are, and so you perceive them as ghosts and monsters and dragons. ⁹Ask what their reality is from the One Who knows it, and He will tell you what they are. ¹⁰For you do not understand them, and because you are deceived by what you see you need reality to dispel your fears.” (ACIM, T-11.VIII.14:1-10)
“Do not accept your brother’s variable perception of himself for his split mind is yours, and you will not accept your healing without his. ²For you share the real world as you share Heaven, and his healing is yours. ³To love yourself is to heal yourself, and you cannot perceive part of you as sick and achieve your goal. ⁴Brother, we heal together as we live together and love together. ⁵Be not deceived in God’s Son, for he is one with himself and one with his Father. ⁶Love him who is beloved of his Father, and you will learn of the Father’s Love for you.” (ACIM, T-11.VIII.11:1-6)
Susan Dugan’s books – Extraordinary Ordinary Forgiveness, Forgiveness Offers Everything I Want, and Forgiveness: The Key to Happiness – are available at RMMC and on Amazon. She writes about ACIM based on Ken Wapnick’s teachings at ForaysInForgiveness.com and teaches online via Zoom on Tuesday nights.