Recently,  I was driving home after work and was met with the most road rage I have ever witnessed. Evidently, I had been going too slow in the turn lane for the woman behind me. I don’t think she even saw the driver in front of me who was making the slowest U-turn on record. I waited for him to finish his wide-range, Driving-Miss-Daisy arc around the median and then as I hung my left, this car zipped around me then curtly cut me off – close enough to remove my front fender. I released my foot from the gas, braked hard and moved into the other lane to give the woman her road rage space. Traffic was stopped at another light. I was a good two cars behind her and in another lane.

Then, a weird thing happened. She slammed her car to a halt, got out and started screaming at me. “You bitch!” The vitriol spewed in spit formation slinging its arrows at me. She pointed at me and stepped forward. “You bitch!” she screamed. “I have had enough of you!” Her eyes were on fire and I thought from her mannerisms that her head might explode right in front of me she was so mad.

Two years ago, I might not have done what I did in that moment. Two years ago, I might have met her with a fiery look or incited her with my middle finger. But, I slowly turned my head to give her a calming signal as dogs do with other dogs (people should, too). With her in the moment, I said aloud: “You are a spirit, whole and innocent, all is forgiven and released.”  The light changed and she, on the rules of this planet, had to return to her car and go. I was relieved and forgave her again.

Gary Renard taught me this forgiveness lesson in the three books of his I have read. His ascended masters (my mom calls them angels) who have arrived here to teach him (and, in turn, us) the way. Now, as a Course student and facilitator at a new group, I am imparting those same words.

Why?

The children.

If there had been an eight-year-old child in the car with me or younger . . . or anyone, really, my response to choose forgiveness as a “reaction” instead of anger would have been my only right function in that moment. As a matter of fact, the woman full of road rage may have been that child in another car years earlier in a similar situation watching, perhaps, an adult yell at someone else with the same kind of rage she was now spewing at me.

For all I know, this woman was mad at someone or something entirely foreign to me sitting in my Honda Fit (almost made a tiny smashed SmartCar three seconds earlier). She may have been drunk or on drugs or had just not gotten her way for the millionth time. We’ve all been there, right? Who hasn’t been mad at the world. I have, myself, been angry more than a time or two. I myself have driven drunk more than once. I myself have slammed doors and thrown bottles of beer at my fence. Pissed off I have not gotten my way.

In my class on the metaphysical masterpiece, A Course in Miracles, I jokingly sometimes call it “The First Breakfast.” The idea sparked as a silly response to the finality of The Last Supper. Instead of “The End” . . . it is “The Beginning.” Which, of course, is signaled in this season of Easter and resurrection.

Children need signs of forgiveness and joy from us. When we do this, we assist them in the very thing the Course is trying to teach us in 1200 pages. That the peace of God is an inside of all of us. When we forgive, we tap into that altar of light He has placed there.

The cool thing about the Course, is that it reminds us that we are all children. The Holy children of God – spirits, whole and innocent. Everyone on this planet. No one is left out of this picture . . . not the angry, raging lady in the middle of the street yelling at me. No one. She is with us. She is calling for love and we need to respond.

Choosing forgiveness assists her and it assists me. My altar of light meets her altar of light in that moment and we are both okay. Nothing more, nothing less.

The past is nothing. No need for me to repeat it with anger towards this woman or to anyone.

I’d rather be awake in peace than unconscious in conflict.

Peace on earth, brothers and sisters . . . The Answer is here – YOU. It just takes a little willingness.

Love to you all,

Ruth