In feeling the devastation of
Katrina I know that many have asked how could God let this happen? I just received this by email:
Unnatural Disasters
-by Rev. Tony Ponticello
The big news this week was
Hurricane Katrina which hit the coast of Louisiana and Mississippi as a category 5 hurricane. Category 1 hurricanes have winds between 74 and 95 miles per hour. Category 2 hurricanes have winds between 96 and 110 miles per hour. Category 3 hurricanes have winds between 111 and 130 miles per hour and these are called "strong" hurricanes. Category 4 hurricanes have winds between 131 and 155 miles per hour and are labeled as, "very strong." Category 5 hurricanes, a level Katrina reached shortly before land fall, have winds over 156 miles per hour and called "devastating." Katrina was devastating.
Hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis are what the world calls "natural disasters." Insurance companies frequently call them, "acts of God." However my study of A
Course In Miracles (ACIM) has taught me that no disaster is "natural" and that God does not act by sending us: hurricanes, earthquakes, plagues and droughts. This is an Old Testament way of thinking about God. Hurricane Katrina and the tsunami at the end of last year are not natural, they are unnatural disasters.
A
Course In Miracles tells us this about disasters,
"
God did not create a meaningless world -- With eyes closed, think of all the horrors in the world that cross your mind. Name each one as it occurs to you, and then deny its reality. God did not create it, and so it is not real. Say, for example: God did not create that disaster [specify], and so it is not real. Suitable subjects for the application of today's idea also include anything you are afraid might happen to you, or to anyone about whom you are concerned."
The Course would have us say, very specifically, "God did not create
Hurricane Katrina, and so it is not real." There's nothing natural about the disaster in New Orleans.
A very difficult thought for many people is to accept is that there isn't anything "natural" about nature in general. Many in the New Age want to embrace nature as the supreme representation of the Divine / God energy in manifestation. However
ACIM is very clear this is not so. In this next passage the Course is talking about our tendency to see the cycle of birth and death as natural. Nature would tell us that we are born into the world frail and helpless, that eventually we mature physically into biological units able to care for themselves (hopefully). However, then as we age we get less and less able to care for ourselves and frequently leave this world after a protracted period of debilitating frailty and helplessness.
ACIM tells us this is NOT natural.
"This is regarded as 'the way of nature,' not to be raised to question, but to be accepted as the 'natural' law of life. The cyclical, the changing and unsure; the undependable and the unsteady, waxing and waning in a certain way upon a certain path, -- all this is taken as the Will of God. And no one asks if a benign Creator could will this." In this perception of the universe as God created it, it would be impossible to think of Him as loving."
Grace is our natural state. Invulnerability is our natural state. Experiences of death, fear, vulnerability, cruelty and inhumanity, they are NOT who and what we are. They are an illusion of ourselves. Think about calling these events, "Acts of God?" What a terrible image of God we have! Who could love such a God who would do such things. I'm not going to befriend a God of this sort.
ACIM tells us the following,
"This particularly unfortunate interpretation, which arose out of projection, has led many people to be bitterly afraid of God."
Thanks Tony...you took the words right out of my mouth.....there is only one mind. Yes. I can stand in the full responsibility as the dreamer of this dream...God didn't create this nightmare. I DID! So what is the solution? Awakening from the dream. By grace I live, by grace I am released. All power in heaven and earth is given me. At this moment I am using the power of God's mind to make this world
seem real. It is not so. I CAN'T SOLVE THE PROBLEM BECAUSE IT IS NOT REAL. It never happened. Sure it feels VERY real to those in
New Orleans right now. I make it real through my belief in seperation and my desire to be autonomous. I can at any moment through the power of my own mind decide I want only heaven. All I need say is "
I want the peace of God" and mean it. Please share this gift of peace.
"I Want the Peace of God"
