Kenneth Wapnick - The Arch of Forgiveness

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Volume 15 Number 3 September 2004

THE ARCH OF FORGIVENESS

K e n n e t h W a p n i c k , P h .D .

I. Between the Pillars of ForgivenessOne of the central themes of A Course in Miracles, most clearly expressed in

the workbook for students, is Jesus’ request that we frame our lives withforgiveness. From the time we awake to the time we go to sleep, we are to think ofthe day’s right-minded purpose: a classroom in which we learn the Holy Spirit’slessons of undoing guilt through forgiveness. Thus we read, for example:

Be sure both to begin and end the day with a practice period. Thus you will awaken

with an acknowledgment of the truth about yourself, reinforce it throughout the day, and

turn to sleep as you reaffirm your function and your only purpose here (W-pI.61.6:1-2).

And from the closing pages of the manual for teachers we read a similarexhortation to remember our daily purpose:

If you have made it a habit to ask for help when and where you can, you can be

confident that wisdom will be given you when you need it. Prepare for this each morning,

remember God when you can throughout the day, ask the Holy Spirit’s help when it is

feasible to do so, and thank Him for His guidance at night (M-29.5:8-9).

Without the Holy Spirit’s Presence in our lives, the days are governed by theego’s fierce injunction to continually feed its insatiable hunger for existence. Inother words, we orient everything around satisfying the multitudinous needs theego has established for our survival, which of course means the ego’s survival.

These range from the basic physical needs necessary for our existence—oxygen,water, food, rest, and shelter—to the psychological needs craved by our quasi-infinite need for specialness. Indeed, from the moment we awaken, our attention iscommanded by satisfying these various needs. As we age, moreover, the physicaldemands made on us increase, as our bodies slowly—and sometimes not soslowly—break down, requiring more and more attention, care, time, and effort.

One could not ask for a more potent symbol of the hopelessness inherent in abody framed by need, than our need to breathe. The lack inherent in the egothought system is projected onto the body, which continually experiences a lack ofoxygen. We inhale the molecule that sustains our existence, only to repeat the

respiratory process again some fifteen to twenty seconds later, and again and againand again, until all breathing ceases at death. The same pattern, of course, is foundwith food and water, though not quite as temporally persistent. On thepsychological level of our special relationships, we find a similar dynamic ofscarcity, wherein our need for love, attention, and approval is virtually insatiable.

We can conclude that almost every waking concern is for the betterment ofour self, very often at the expense of others. All this nicely serves the ego’s hiddenpurpose of maintaining our separate existence, but holding others accountable forour happy or unhappy lot. Moreover, its strategy entails our living in a perpetualstate of mindless- ness—i.e., the body—wherein our focus is placed anywhere but

the mind, where the original decision for the ego is held in the shrouded vaults offorgetfulness. This decision can never be reversed, for in the mindless condition weno longer know we have a mind, let alone one that can choose the correction forthe ego thought system.

Into this world of unsated need—dependency and cannibalism (special love),



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(The Gifts of God, p. 64)

The trivial is the ego’s world of guilt and specialness, minimized by the HolySpirit’s world of forgiveness and shared purpose, which assumes its proper statureof magnitude. This shift is almost always experienced in our relationships, whichbegin as ego set-ups, wherein we seek to entrap others—much as a spider traps itsprey in its deadly and seductive web—to satisfy our need for victims to take the

role of victimizers, so we can justify our faces of innocence. The shift Jesus offersus for our happiness is to release the world of our special relationships from theneed to attack and judge. Thus, rather than seduce and ensnare, we invite ourerstwhile special partners to join us within the arch of forgiveness. In this manner,we have undone the ego’s thought system of separation and needs, having learnedthe lessons of forgiveness. Anticipating our discussion in part II, we can say,paraphrasing the text, that in undoing our judgments, we have given Jesus controlover our egos, that he may guide us to loving responses in thought, words, anddeeds (T-2.VI.1:3).

This article drew its inspiration from the image of an arch—later transmuted

into a rainbow—immortalized by D.H. Lawrence in The Rainbow, his magnificentnovel of the lives and loves of a three-generational family living in England. AfterTom and Lydia Brangwen, the story’s first two protagonists, heal their unsteadymarital relationship, Lawrence describes the protective love within which theirdaughter Anna can now grow, her life framed by the pillars of love and strengthrepresented by her parents:

Anna’s soul was put at peace between them. She looked from one to the other, and

she saw them established to her safety, and she was free. She played between the pillar of

fire and pillar of cloud in confidence, having the assurance on her right hand and the

assurance on her left. She was no longer called upon to uphold with her childish might the

broken end of the arch. Her father and her mother now met to the span of the heavens. Andshe, the child, was free to play in the space beneath, between.

Jesus thus asks us to see our days as framed between these pillars offorgiveness, beginning and ending the same, allowing its quiet strength and gentleprotection to nourish our experience and sustain our learning. Each moment is filledwith the single thought of healing, as we move from darkness to light, grief to joy,pain to peace, sin to holi- ness—there to rest with all the Sonship beneath the spanof the heavens and the arch of his love.

II. Beneath the Arch of Jesus’ LoveAs a result of the shift from the life of specialness outside the arch to within

its protective confines—the shift in perspective brought about by forgiveness—werest in safety and peace, beneath Jesus’ love that gently arches above us,sheltering all those who stand within, between its strong pillars of forgiveness. Howsafe we are, how protected and loved we feel, thus allowing ourselves to loveothers and bring succor to all who suffer! The obstacles to love’s flow have beenremoved by forgiveness, and all that remains is the blessing that love’s extensionbrings to us and to the sorrowful world. Beneath this arch of love we are freed ofenslavement to our needs, able to walk the world without tension and anxiety, no

longer armed with swords of judgment—the peace of God is ours at last.Once between the pillars of forgiveness, regardless of how mercilessly the

world may treat us, we look out and hear the plaintive calls for help of those whowould seek to exclude us. Attacks are seen as limitations calling for correction, notpunishment. Thus we undo the seeming attacks of our “enemies” by gently



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beneath his arch of love and life. We come to the arch a little child, but there,nestled between the strength of forgiveness, and nourished beneath its gentle love,we slowly grow as we are saved from the forces of fear that exist just beyond theseprotected confines. Safe in our home away from home, we, like little Anna inLawrence’s novel, are freed from the ego’s vicious parenting to play under the guid-ance of our loving elder brother, whose quiet strength gives us the freedom to growwithout fear of punishment, certain of the love that guides us to our Father. This

concept of growing from infancy is beautifully captured in the following passagefrom the text, which integrates the symbolism of Christmas and Easter:

The infancy of salvation is carefully guarded by love, preserved from every thought

that would attack it, and quietly made ready to fulfill the mighty task for which it was given

you. Your newborn purpose is nursed by angels, cherished by the Holy Spirit and protected

by God Himself. ... What danger can assail the wholly innocent? What can attack the guiltless?

What fear can enter and disturb the peace of sinlessness? ... Behold this infant, to whom you

gave a resting place by your forgiveness of your brother, and see in it the Will of God. Here is

the babe of Bethlehem reborn. And everyone who gives him shelter will follow him, not to

the cross, but to the resurrection and the life (T-19.IV-C.9:3-4; 10:1-3,7-9).Thus forgiveness has brought us to the calm certainty of who we are, and

Who loves us:

Think what is given those who share their Father’s purpose [forgiveness], and who

know that it is theirs. They want for nothing. Sorrow of any kind is inconceivable. Only the

light they love is in awareness, and only love shines upon them forever ... a perfect calmness,

and a sense of love so deep and quiet that no touch of doubt can ever mar [their] certainty. ...

(T-23.IV.8:1-4,8).

Here, in the stillness of purpose fulfilled, we find our peace and our rest,

which once found, can be left only at tremendous cost. The pain of stepping outsidethe arch, having experienced its love and peace, is enormous. We know its earlysymptoms well: “a stab of pain, a twinge of guilt, and above all, a loss of peace” (T-23.IV.6:3). Who, except the insane, would ever choose the disquiet of guilt overthe peace-filled life lived under the arch of love. Who, except the masochist, wouldever choose a teacher of lies over the teacher of truth? Or, as Jesus puts it:

... who would place his faith in the shabby offerings of the ego when the gifts of God

are laid before him? (M-4.I.2:3)

It is this comforting experience of love’s arms around us that providescontinual reinforcement for extending these arms to all people. Stepping outsidethe arch causes us pain, all the more since we have known the peace beneath itsdome of love. We know we have stepped outside its healing presence when weseek to exclude even one person from this arch of peace. Listen—and you will hearJesus call to you:

My brothers in salvation, do not fail to hear my voice and listen to my words. I ask for

nothing but your own release. There is no place for hell within a world whose loveliness can

yet be so intense and so inclusive it is but a step from there to Heaven. To your tired eyes I

bring a vision of a different world, so new and clean and fresh you will forget the pain and

sorrow that you saw before. Yet this a vision is which you must share with everyone you see,

for otherwise you will behold it not. To give this gift is how to make it yours. And Godordained, in loving kindness, that it be for you (T-31.VIII.8; italics mine).

Thus we become Jesus’ messengers on earth, walking the world as he did,our love calling from within the arch to all those who do not yet know it, sharing hisvision of God’s one Son. We indeed become his voice, eyes, feet, and hands



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through which he saves the world (W-pI.rV-in.9:3) from the empty andmeaningless existence outside his arch of forgiveness. As Jesus once walked theearth, manifesting the Holy Spirit’s Atonement, so now do we, representing thesame Thought—His Voice become our own, joined with Jesus as one, for such wehave become (C-6.5:1-5). Unified vision has come at last to replace the ego’s falseperception of differences and judgment, and we can see. Thus we call to all theworld to join us beneath the arch of love, safe at last within the loving arms of

God’s one Son—as Heaven and earth become one:

It is God’s Will that nothing touch His Son except Himself, and nothing else comes

nigh unto him. He is as safe from pain as God Himself, Who watches over him in everything.

The world about him shines with love because God placed him in Himself where pain is not,

and love surrounds him without end or flaw. Disturbance of his peace can never be. In perfect

sanity he looks on love, for it is all about him and within him. He must deny the world of pain

the instant he perceives the arms of love around him. And from this point of safety he looks

quietly about him and recognizes that the world is one with him (T-13.VII.7).

Kenneth Wapnick - The Arch of Forgiveness

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