The Fear of Redemption

Chapter 13 – 4 – The Fear of Redemption

You may wonder why it is so crucial that you look upon your hatred and
realize its full extent. You may also think that it would be easy enough for
the Holy Spirit to show it to you, and to dispel it without the need for you to
raise it to awareness yourself. Yet there is one more obstacle you have
interposed between yourself and the Atonement. We have said that no one
will countenance fear if he recognizes it. Yet in your disordered state of
mind you are not afraid of fear. You do not like it, but it is not your desire
to attack that really frightens you. You are not seriously disturbed by your
hostility. You keep it hidden because you are more afraid of what it covers.
 
You could look even upon the ego’s darkest cornerstone without fear if you
did not believe that, without the ego, you would find within yourself
something you fear even more. You are not really afraid of crucifixion.
 
Your real terror is of redemption.
 
Under the ego’s dark foundation is the memory of God, and it is of this that
you are really afraid. For this memory would instantly restore you to your
proper place, and it is this place that you have sought to leave. Your fear of
attack is nothing compared to your fear of love. You would be willing to
look even upon your savage wish to kill God’s Son, if you did not believe
that it saves you from love. For this wish caused the separation, and you
have protected it because you do not want the separation healed. You
realize that, by removing the dark cloud that obscures it, your love for your
Father would impel you to answer his call and leap into Heaven. You
believe that attack is salvation because it would prevent you from this. For
still deeper than the ego’s foundation, and much stronger than it will ever
be, is your intense and burning love of God, and his for you. This is what
you really want to hide.
 
In honesty, is it not harder for you to say “I love” than “I hate”? You
associate love with weakness and hatred with strength, and your own real
power seems to you as your real weakness. For you could not control your
joyous response to the call of love if you heard it, and the whole world you
thought you made would vanish. The Holy Spirit, then, seems to be
attacking your fortress, for you would shut out God, and he does not will to
be excluded.
 
You have built your whole insane belief system because you think you
would be helpless in God’s Presence, and you would save yourself from his
Love because you think it would crush you into nothingness. You are afraid
it would sweep you away from yourself and make you little, because you
believe that magnitude lies in defiance, and that attack is grandeur. You
think you have made a world God would destroy; and by loving him, which
you do, you would throw this world away, which you would. Therefore,
you have used the world to cover your love, and the deeper you go into the
blackness of the ego’s foundation, the closer you come to the Love that is
hidden there. And it is this that frightens you.
 
You can accept insanity because you made it, but you cannot accept love
because you did not. You would rather be a slave of the crucifixion than a
Son of God in redemption. Your individual death seems more valuable than
your living oneness, for what is given you is not so dear as what you made.
You are more afraid of God than of the ego, and love cannot enter where it
is not welcome. But hatred can, for it enters of its own volition and cares
not for yours.
 
You must look upon your illusions and not keep them hidden, because they
do not rest on their own foundation. In concealment they appear to do so,
and thus they seem to be self-sustained. This is the fundamental illusion on
which the others rest. For beneath them, and concealed as long as they are
hidden, is the loving mind that thought it made them in anger. And the pain
in this mind is so apparent, when it is uncovered, that its need of healing
cannot be denied. Not all the tricks and games you offer it can heal it, for
here is the real crucifixion of God’s Son.
 
And yet he is not crucified. Here is both his pain and his healing, for the
Holy Spirit’s vision is merciful and his remedy is quick. Do not hide
suffering from his sight, but bring it gladly to him. Lay before his eternal
sanity all your hurt, and let him heal you. Do not leave any spot of pain
hidden from his light, and search your mind carefully for any thoughts you
may fear to uncover. For he will heal every little thought you have kept to
hurt you and cleanse it of its littleness, restoring it to the magnitude of God.
 
Beneath all the grandiosity you hold so dear is your real call for help. For
you call for love to your Father as your Father calls you to himself. In that
place which you have hidden, you will only to unite with the Father, in
loving remembrance of him. You will find this place of truth as you see it in
your brothers, for though they may deceive themselves, like you they long
for the grandeur that is in them. And perceiving it you will welcome it, and
it will be yours. For grandeur is the right of God’s Son, and no illusions can
satisfy him or save him from what he is. Only his love is real, and he will be
content only with his reality.
 
Save him from his illusions that you may accept the magnitude of your
Father in peace and joy. But exempt no one from your love, or you will be
hiding a dark place in your mind where the Holy Spirit is not welcome. And
thus you will exempt yourself from his healing power, for by not offering
total love you will not be healed completely. Healing must be as complete
as fear, for love cannot enter where there is one spot of fear to mar its
welcome.
 
You who prefer separation to sanity cannot obtain it in your right mind.
 
You were at peace until you asked for special favor. And God did not give it
for the request was alien to him, and you could not ask this of a Father who
truly loved his Son. Therefore you made of him an unloving father,
demanding of him what only such a father could give. And the peace of
God’s Son was shattered, for he no longer understood his Father. He feared
what he had made, but still more did he fear his real Father, having attacked
his own glorious equality with him.
 
In peace he needed nothing and asked for nothing. In war he demanded
everything and found nothing. For how could the gentleness of love respond
to his demands, except by departing in peace and returning to the Father? If
the Son did not wish to remain in peace, he could not remain at all. For a
darkened mind cannot live in the light, and it must seek a place of darkness
where it can believe it is where it is not. God did not allow this to happen.
 
Yet you demanded that it happen, and therefore believed that it was so.
 
To “single out” is to “make alone,” and thus make lonely. God did not do
this to you. Could he set you apart, knowing that your peace lies in his
oneness? He denied you only your request for pain, for suffering is not of
his creation. Having given you creation, he could not take it from you. He
could but answer your insane request with a sane answer that would abide
with you in your insanity. For his answer is the reference point beyond
illusions, from which you can look back on them and see them as insane.
But seek this place and you will find it, for Love is in you and will lead you
there.