The Healed Relationship

Chapter 17 – 5. The Healed Relationship

The holy relationship is the expression of the holy instant in living in this
world. Like everything about salvation, the holy instant is a practical device,
witnessed to by its results. The holy instant never fails. The experience of it
is always felt. Yet without expression it is not remembered. The holy
relationship is a constant reminder of the experience in which the
relationship became what it is. And as the unholy relationship is a
continuing hymn of hate in praise of its maker, so is the holy relationship a
happy song of praise to the Redeemer of relationships.
 
The holy relationship, a major step toward the perception of the real world,
is learned. It is the old, unholy relationship, transformed and seen anew. The
holy relationship is a phenomenal teaching accomplishment. In all its
aspects, as it begins, develops and becomes accomplished, it represents the
reversal of the unholy relationship. Be comforted in this; the only difficult
phase is the beginning. For here, the goal of the relationship is abruptly
shifted to the exact opposite of what it was. This is the first result of
offering the relationship to the Holy Spirit, to use for his purposes.
 
This invitation is accepted immediately, and the Holy Spirit wastes no time
in introducing the practical results of asking him to enter. At once his goal
replaces yours. This is accomplished very rapidly, but it makes the
relationship seem disturbed, disjunctive and even quite distressing. The
reason is quite clear. For the relationship as it is is out of line with its own
goal, and clearly unsuited to the purpose that has been accepted for it. In its
unholy condition, your goal was all that seemed to give it meaning. Now it
seems to make no sense. Many relationships have been broken off at this
point, and the pursuit of the old goal re-established in another relationship.
 
For once the unholy relationship has accepted the goal of holiness, it can
never again be what it was.
 
The temptation of the ego becomes extremely intense with this shift in
goals. For the relationship has not as yet been changed sufficiently to make
its former goal completely without attraction, and its structure is
“threatened” by the recognition of its inappropriateness for meeting its new
purpose. The conflict between the goal and the structure of the relationship
is so apparent that they cannot coexist. Yet now the goal will not be
changed. Set firmly in the unholy relationship, there is no course except to
change the relationship to fit the goal. Until this happy solution is seen and
accepted as the only way out of the conflict, the relationship may seem to be
severely strained.
 
It would not be kinder to shift the goal more slowly, for the contrast would
be obscured, and the ego given time to reinterpret each slow step according
to its liking. Only a radical shift in purpose could induce a complete change
of mind about what the whole relationship is for. As this change develops
and is finally accomplished, it grows increasingly beneficent and joyous.
 
But at the beginning, the situation is experienced as very precarious. A
relationship, undertaken by two individuals for their unholy purposes,
suddenly has holiness for its goal. As these two contemplate their
relationship from the point of view of this new purpose, they are inevitably
appalled. Their perception of the relationship may even become quite
disorganized. And yet, the former organization of their perception no longer
serves the purpose they have agreed to meet.
 
This is the time for faith. You let this goal be set for you. That was an act of
faith. Do not abandon faith, now that the rewards of faith are being
introduced. If you believed the Holy Spirit was there to accept the
relationship, why would you now not still believe that he is there to purify
what he has taken under his guidance? Have faith in your brother in what
but seems to be a trying time. The goal is set. And your relationship has
sanity as its purpose. For now you find yourself in an insane relationship,
recognized as such in the light of its goal.
 
Now the ego counsels thus; substitute for this another relationship to which
your former goal was quite appropriate. You can escape from your distress
only by getting rid of your brother. You need not part entirely if you choose
not to do so. But you must exclude major areas of fantasy from each other,
to save your sanity. Hear not this now! Have faith in him who answered
you. He heard. Has he not been very explicit in his answer? You are not
now wholly insane. Can you deny that he has given you a most explicit
statement? Now he asks for faith a little longer, even in bewilderment. For
this will go, and you will see the justification for your faith emerge, to bring
you shining conviction. Abandon him not now, nor one another. This
relationship has been reborn as holy.
 
Accept with gladness what you do not understand, and let it be explained to
you as you perceive its purpose work in it to make it holy. You will find
many opportunities to blame your brother for the “failure” of your
relationship, for it will seem at times to have no purpose. A sense of
aimlessness will come to haunt you, and to remind you of all the ways you
once sought for satisfaction and thought you found it. Forget not now the
misery you really found, and do not breathe life into your failing ego. For
your relationship has not been disrupted. It has been saved.
 
You are very new in the ways of salvation, and think you have lost your
way. Your way is lost, but think not this is loss. In your newness, remember
that you have started again, together. And take each other’s hand, to walk
together along a road far more familiar than you now believe. Is it not
certain that you will remember a goal unchanged throughout eternity? For
you have chosen but the goal of God, from which your true intent was never
absent.
 
Throughout the Sonship is the song of freedom heard, in joyous echo of
your choice. You have joined with many in the holy instant, and they have
joined with you. Think not your choice will leave you comfortless, for God
himself has blessed your holy relationship. Join in his blessing, and
withhold not yours upon it. For all it needs now is your blessing, that you
may see that in it rests salvation. Condemn salvation not, for it has come to
you. And welcome it together, for it has come to join you together in a
relationship in which all the Sonship is together blessed.
 
You undertook, together, to invite the Holy Spirit into your relationship. He
could not have entered otherwise. Although you may have made many
mistakes since then, you have also made enormous efforts to help him do
his work. And he has not been lacking in appreciation for all you have done
for him. Nor does he see the mistakes at all. Have you been similarly
grateful to your brother? Have you consistently appreciated the good
efforts, and overlooked mistakes? Or has your appreciation flickered and
grown dim in what seemed to be the light of the mistakes? Perhaps you are
now entering upon a campaign to blame him for the discomfort of the
situation in which you find yourself. And by this lack of thanks and
gratitude you make yourself unable to express the holy instant, and thus lose
sight of it.
 
The experience of an instant, however compelling it may be, is easily
forgotten if you allow time to close over it. It must be kept shining and
gracious in your awareness of time, but not concealed within it. The instant
remains. But where are you? To give thanks to one another is to appreciate
the holy instant, and thus enable its results to be accepted and shared. To
attack your brother is not to lose the instant, but to make it powerless in its
effects.
 
You have received the holy instant, but you may have established a
condition in which you cannot use it. As a result, you do not realize that it is
with you still. And by cutting yourself off from its expression, you have
denied yourself its benefit. You reinforce this every time you attack your
brother, for the attack must blind you to yourself. And it is impossible to
deny yourself, and to recognize what has been given and received by you.
 
You and your brother stand together in the holy presence of truth itself.
 
Here is the goal, together with you. Think you not the goal itself will gladly
arrange the means for its accomplishment? It is just this same discrepancy
between the purpose that has been accepted and the means as they stand
now which seems to make you suffer, but which makes Heaven glad. If
 
Heaven were outside you, you could not share in its gladness. Yet because it
is within, the gladness, too, is yours. You are joined in purpose, but remain
still separate and divided on the means. Yet the goal is fixed, firm and
unalterable, and the means will surely fall in place because the goal is sure.
 
And you will share the gladness of the Sonship that it is so.
 
As you begin to recognize and accept the gifts you have so freely given to
your brother, you will also accept the effects of the holy instant and use
them to correct all your mistakes and free you from their results. And
learning this, you will have also learned how to release all the Sonship, and
offer it in gladness and thanksgiving to him who gave you your release, and
Who would extend it through you.