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Goof Off!
by Alan Cohen
Recently I signed up with a new
trash removal service which requires each rural customer to mark their address
on their garbage cans. I bought a can of white spray paint, etched my street
number on the plastic can, and drove it to the end of my road where I left the
garbage. When I got home I was irked to notice that some of the white paint had
rubbed off on the back of my seat; apparently it had not fully dried. I tried to
remove the paint, but could not — it was stuck fast.
Over the next weeks and months,
every time I noticed the paint marks on the back of the seat, I felt foolish;
the voice of judgment chided me, "If you had paid closer attention and
left more time for the paint to dry, this wouldn’t have happened. Now you have
ruined your car seat, and every time you look at it, you are to be reminded of
your carelessness." (Do you know this voice?)
Then one day I was in a hardware
store with a friend who was looking for some paint. On a shelf I noticed a small
can called "Goof Off," — a remover of paint and other
hard-to-get-out stains. I grabbed a can, took it home, and applied it to the
defiant stain. To my delight, it worked.
I now see this product —
especially its name — as symbolic of forgiveness. The name acknowledges that
you made a mistake ("goof") — but it also acknowledges that it can
be undone ("off"). If you have been subject to the tyranny of guilt,
this offers an especially important lesson. A Course in Miracles
distinguishes between a sin and an error: a sin requires punishment, but an
error simply requires correction. The Course goes on to tell us that we have
made many errors, but we have never sinned. All of our sins ("Self-Inflicted
Nonsense") are undone the moment we step into the healing light of love.
The story is told about a woman
named Josephine who claimed to have daily conversations with Jesus. A cynical
priest heard about this woman and sought to debunk her. He went to Josephine and
asked her, "Is it true that you talk to Jesus every day?"
"Yes, I do," she
answered affirmatively.
"Then the next time you
talk to Jesus, would you ask him what was the sin I committed when I was in the
seminary?" The priest left smugly, certain that he had cornered the
charlatan into exposure.
A week later the priest returned
and asked Josephine, "Did you ask Jesus what was my sin?"
"Yes, I did," she
answered.
"And what did he say?"
asked the priest.
"He said, ‘I forgot’."
There is no sin so heinous that
it cannot be undone by regarding it through the eyes of compassion. Love has no
consciousness of our sins; God sees us only as pure and innocent souls. It is we
who have fabricated the concept of sin and crushed our life force under it. A
Course in Miracles tells us that "God does not forgive because He never
has condemned." In the inspiring movie Brother Sun, Sister Moon, the
Pope tells St. Francis, "In our obsession with Original Sin, we have
overlooked Original Innocence."
All self-judgment can be undone
by recognizing that we deserve only love. I met a man who, during his senior
year in college, was walking past the college bookstore where he saw a large
display of yearbooks just outside the store. As this fellow had no money, he
grabbed a book and kept walking. Over the next few days he began to feel guilty
about his theft, and he decided to return the book and confess. He went to the
bookstore manager and guiltily admitted, "I stole this book."
The manager smiled and told him,
"Come with me." The manager led the student to the display where there
was a sign that the young man had not seen: "Free — please take
one."
I am not suggesting that you go
out and steal anything or hurt anyone. This true story serves as a metaphor: for
every sin you can find about your life, God can find a way to forgive it. For
every way you have separated yourself from love, higher consciousness reminds
you that you have never for a moment been outside of love’s embrace. And for
every paint stain that you berate yourself for leaving, there is a can of Goof
Off to remove it.
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& articles by Alan Cohen.
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