The Blame Game
After I wrote last week's post about Don Imus, my boyfriend called to say he thought I was being overly harsh and critical, even unfair. We had a minor upset over my right to free speech, and yet I went back and reread the post and realized he was right. I'd gotten caught up in a feeling of overwhelm and blasted Imus. So I rewrote the blog entry to say more of what I really meant. Then I realized that my boyfriend had been doing to me what I'd done to Imus, and what he'd done to the Rutgers athletes. What an insidious chain we get caught in: the blame "game," they call it. The Course in Miracles says we use blame, whether of self or others, when our ego, which is driven by fear, tries to distract us from deep anxiety or pain. Easy to throw away the hot potato, to project anger onto someone else and use up some of the emotional juice that way, rather than feel truly creepy, shaky, and alone.

The Course also says: "You cannot enter into real relationships with any of God's Sons unless you love them all and equally. Love is not special. If you single out part of the Sonship for your love, you are imposing guilt on all your relationships and making them unreal. . . No one who condemns a brother can see himself as guiltless and in the peace of God. . . You do not realize how much you have misused your brothers by seeing them as sources of ego support." It is this deeper understanding of how interrelated we all are, how we affect ourselves negatively when we affect others negatively, that I hope people of influence in our country will take to heart and act upon. But we can each set an example and become the new people of influence, can't we?