http://www.alumni.northwestern.edu/2001/ed&travel/classes_wo_classrooms/02_2002.htm The Last Expression: Art and Auschwitz http://www.alumni.northwestern.edu/2001/ed&travel/classes_wo_classrooms/7_2001.htm The Myth of Expanding Universe http://www.alumni.northwestern.edu/2001/ed&travel/classes_wo_classrooms/10_2001.htm The Politics of Terrorism Dear Power of Forgiveness participants, You have undoubtedly noticed that I have been signing off my messages to you with the exhortation to "Stay in the grace." Since the terminology of "grace" tends to be familiar only to Judeo-Christian theologians, I am moved to share my sense of the importance of grace for everyone. Grace is unearned beneficence, as evidenced in the Biblical observation that rain falls equally upon the just and the unjust. Grace is evidenced in the universal harmony that maintains a balanced cosmos overall in spite of innumerable instances of local discord. As one of my spiritual mentors, Ernest Holmes, put it: "Everything in the universe exists for the harmonious good of every other part. The universe is forever uniting what is harmonious and diminishing what is not." At least one scientist has similarly described the complementarity of local entropy and universal synergy: "Local pain is forever being reconciled to cosmic joy." [See Herbert Morowitz, Cosmic Joy and Local Pain, at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0684184435/qid=1022676204/sr=1-3/ref=sr_1_3/002-7743120-7002453 ] Forgiveness is a grace, for as yet another witness to grace has commented: "When we forgive anything we give something for that thing. Then, if we call upon the Law of Forgiveness and ask to be kept under Grace, and not under karmic law, we will find a harmonious way out of every inharmonious situation." [See http://www.ascension-research.org/grace.html ] My favorite evidence of grace is the universal "handshake" known by newborn babies everywhere. As described in my forthcoming book entitled "Forgiving Myself: Being Who I Am by Forgiving Who I Am Not": "Each human being begins this life as a beneficial presence. We are born for giving, with the evidence of our innately beneficent nature quite literally in hand. In my own case, for example, during the first few weeks of my life, no matter who put his/her finger in my hand – regardless of the person’s color, race, creed, gender, ethnic origin, size, appearance – I gently enfolded it with my own fingers. I didn't grab or seize the offered finger, nor did I clutch, cling or hold on to it. Instead, I gently and unconditionally enfolded every finger that came to rest in my hand, for however long my acceptance was invited, and I just as unconditionally allowed its passage at the instant it was removed. I enfolded the presence of all persons and allowed them harmless passage without prejudice, distinction or other imposition. "In the beginning each of us accommodated the presence of all others, without imposing ourselves on any. Our initial gesture of enfolding and allowing is the primal human handshake known at birth and briefly offered by every one of us to every other one of us – also irrespective of our own race, color, gender, ethnic origin, etc – as beings who are universally and unconditionally willing to shake hands with all other embodiments of our presence, enfolding them "as is" without holding on, and allowing them equally harmless passage. This universal handshake is powerful testimony to and a demonstration of our innately non-imposing and forgiving selves. As we thus granted harmless passage to everyone, we witnessed to our original state of innately being 'all for one and one for all.' "And then we grew . . . all the while being told that we were growing “up.” Yet in encountering our ascent into adulthood, we also descended from the grace with which we were originally endowed. We profaned the authenticity of our being by becoming adult-erated children. Nonetheless, the good news is that this betrayal of our original beneficent state is not irrevocable. Our descent into inauthenticity is self-forgivable.... "We can forgive our way back to our endowed authenticity of being. We can once again be who we are, as we forgive who we are not." ************ My beneficial presence is no more subject to extinction by their shadowy shenanigans than is the sun to being extinguished by its surrounding darkness. Sunlight perpetually lights the entire solar system, though it becomes visible to us only via matter that reflects its radiance. Since darkness is nothing more than unreflected light, the original delight that my inner darkness obscures merely awaits my resumption of its reflection. Our relationsip to the grace of our beneficial presence is analogous to our relationship to sunlight. Communion with our original state of grace can only be eclipsed, never extinguished. Thus it is never too late for us to Be staid in the grace! Noel McInnis [For more on (y)our endowment as a beneficial presence, see http://www.pagl.org .]