Published in New Realities Magazine – March 1982
"The Gifts of God"
By Judith R. Skutch
We were enjoying a pleasant visit in my New York City apartment a few years ago- Willis Harman, Helen Schucman, and I. The topics of conversation ranged from scientific protocols to wor1d affairs and back again. Charming, chatty, warm and responsive, it was clear that Helen, "scribe" of the spiritual writings called A Course in Miracles,was enjoying the company. We had lost track of time when suddenly Willis – senior futures scientist at SRI International and president of the Institute of Noetic Sciences – realized he had to catch a plane westward.
"Helen," he remarked, "we've talked of just about everything except what I'd like most to discuss, your true feelings about A Course in Miracles. Would you 'object to sharing your opinion of the Course with me?"
Helen looked at Willis thoughtfully as if to assess how open she could let herself be. Then with a penetrating glance, she replied, "You see, Willis, I know it's true, but I just don't believe it!"
Recalling this incident now I realize how much that ambivalent statement summed up Helen's attitude toward the self-help system of spiritual psychotherapy she agreed to "scribe." She often told me half in jest, "I promised to take it down, but I never said l'd practice it." Somehow Helen's slightly irreverent approach made the Course less threatening to me as a student of it-to start unlearning everything I thought I'd been taught by the world. And what a teacher she was! "Do as I say, not as I do" became the rule. I was given so many opportunities to be startled by her profound understanding of the lofty belief system represented by the Course, which was in constant contrast to her thoroughly consistent ego reactions to the world.
I still remember how thrilled I was later when Helen first decided to let me read her inspired poetry. I knew she felt it was an intimate glimpse into her hidden self, and I felt grateful for that gesture of friendship and trust. Although the Course was a collaborative venture entered into by both Helen and her close associate Dr. William N. Thetford (then tenured Professor of Medical Psychology and her boss in the Department of Psychiatry, College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University), the poetry represented a much more private expression of her spiritual search. I treasured particularly the emotional impact of specific poems and found here and there a special turn of phrase which would leap out and grab my heart.
"Peace is a woman, mother to the world" she wrote, and I knew I would echo that thought often when I spoke publicly. "Hold out Your hand my Lord. I am not far/From home. But still I do not see the way/As yet. . ." reminded me poignantly that it was not just Helen who sometimes felt despair. And then when I read the lines, "It happens suddenly. There is a Voice/That speaks a Word and everything is changed," I felt an early childhood mystical experience was validated. I was especially touched by the poem "Long Darkness," which begins "Father, Your child is crying in the night/Because she thinks that she is all alone/In darkness and in fear." I felt transported from anguish to the comfort of the closing, "She is afraid. But let her hear the sound/Of Heaven's reassurance, and the years/Of almost helpless waiting and despair/Shrink to a holy instant and are gone." Helen's final "assignment" as a "scribe" came in the form of a very long poem in iambic pentameter entitled, "The Gifts of God." A soaring sense of flight engulfed me as I repeated this paragraph to myself:
"Rest could be yours because of what God is. He loves you as a mother loves her child; her only one, the only love she has, her all-in-all, extension of herself, as much a part of her as breath itself. He loves you as a brother loves his own; born of one father, still as one in him, and bonded with a seal that cannot break. He loves you as a lover loves his own; his chosen one, his joy, his very life, the one he seeks when she has gone away, and brings him peace again on her return. He loves you as a father loves his son, without whom would his self be incomplete, whose immortality completes his own, for in him is the chain of love complete – a golden circle that will never end, a song that will be sung throughout all time and afterwards, and always will remain the deathless sound of loving and of love. "
When Helen Schucman died last year, she knew by the welcoming response
to A Course in Miracles hat she and Bill had left a loving legacy
to countless seekers throughout the world. However, her revealing
poetry had been seen by very few. After her death, when some of us
gathered to recall Helen in love and gratitude, we recited a few of
our favorite verses. As we reflected and felt the impact on our emotions
engendered by the words and rhythm, it impressed itself upon us that
the entire collection of poetry was indeed a miracle, too, and was
now to be shared with all as a book – "The Gifts
of God."
(Used with permission. Copyright © 1976/1985 James Bolen. All rights reserved.)