A children’s story based on the teachings of

A Course in Miracles

by

Raveena Nash

with illustrations by

Lucy Grossmith

(Excerpt)

One warm sunny summer’s day a young boy, aged nine, was strolling along a narrow country lane watching the butterflies flitting from flower to flower. After a while, he decided to sit down under a shady tree as the hot summer sun was quite strong. As he approached the tree, he noticed an elderly man sitting underneath it. “Welcome young man,” he said. “Will you tell me your name?” “My name is Adam,” he replied. “What’s yours?” “Joshua,” said the man. “Would you like to sit and have a chat?” Adam didn’t hesitate; there was something about the man that interested him. “Oh yes,” he replied. “I expect you have a few questions about the world that you would like answers to,” remarked Joshua. “How did you know?” replied Adam, rather surprised. “Well, it was just a guess, but fire ahead. What would you like to know?” “Well, my first question is about butterflies. Why do they have such short lives?” said Adam. “They are so beautiful but I know they only live a few weeks.” “Ah,” said Joshua, “You have noticed something important. Most things in this world don’t live very long, do they? In fact, all living things eventually appear to grow old and die.” Adam felt sad as he remembered his loving grandmother who had recently passed away, and he nodded in silence. “Let me tell you a story, which may make everything a bit clearer to you,” said Joshua in a kindly manner…

… “Why are there wars and people who don’t have enough to eat in this dream world?” asked Adam. “The ego doesn’t have God’s powers to create a perfect world of love, abundance and eternal life. It can only create a world of conflict, where people believe there isn’t enough of everything to go around, and so they fight each other to get as much as they can for themselves,” replied Joshua. “You also need to know that the ego feels very guilty for splitting away from God, and it is frightened that God will be revengeful because of this. And so the ego sends out feelings of anger and fear and guilt into the world, and puts the blame on other people to make it feel better about itself. But God is a God of love, and He would never punish any of us. Don’t forget, we haven’t really split away from Heaven, therefore we haven’t done anything wrong, although it seems like that in our dream. So God has no reason to punish us…”

… Adam was silent for a few moments, lost in thought. In the short conversation he had had so far with Joshua, he had learnt so much. He wondered what he would have to do to awaken from the dream. So he turned to Joshua and asked him, “If we are all dreaming, what can we do to wake up?” “That’s another very good question,” remarked Joshua. “One very important thing you can do is to learn about the truth and then share what you have learnt with others. But the most important thing you can do is to offer love and forgiveness to others. A Course in Miracles says that if we forgive each other for whatever we seem to be doing to each other and if we are able to let go of all our illusions, then we will eventually awaken from the dream of separation and find ourselves back in Heaven again…

… “’Forgiveness is my function as the light of the world.’ That’s Lesson 62 in A Course in Miracles, and it shows that each time we forgive someone we call upon the strength of Christ in us. You should realise that forgiveness means letting go of illusions—of things that are not real. Forgiveness also gives us inner strength and stops us from being afraid or guilty. Once we stop being afraid or worried about God wanting to punish us (which He doesn’t) and as we let go of illusions, the truth about ourselves will return to our memory. We will remember that we are still one with God!”. “Wow!” exclaimed Adam. Joshua continued with his explanation about forgiveness. “True forgiveness means looking beyond the body of the person who has harmed you and seeing his divine spirit instead.  If you do this, you gradually get rid of the ego because the ego sees everyone as a body, separate from each other and from God.” “So it’s as though the ego slowly dissolves bit by bit each time you forgive,” said Adam. “Exactly!” exclaimed Joshua…