By admin 
Loyalty is a curious thing.
We usually think of it as something beautiful. A loyal friend is someone we can trust. A loyal partner stays beside us when life becomes difficult. We admire people who stand by their families, their friends, their colleagues, their communities. Nobody particularly dreams of being described as wonderfully disloyal.
And yet loyalty is not necessarily love.
Sometimes loyalty is simply fear wearing very respectable clothes.
We may remain loyal because we are afraid of losing someone. We may defend a person because admitting that they are wrong would threaten our own position. We may remain silent because speaking honestly could cost us friendship, approval, status, security, or the comforting feeling that we belong somewhere.
Then loyalty quietly becomes a bargain.
I protect you, and you protect me.
I do not question you, and you do not exclude me.
I defend your story, and in return I am allowed to remain part of it.
There is nothing particularly mysterious about this. Human beings have survived in groups for thousands of years. Being accepted by the tribe once had very practical consequences. Being thrown out of it could mean hunger, danger, or death. Somewhere deep in our psychological history, belonging and safety became closely connected.
And perhaps that ancient mechanism is still much more active than we like to admit.
We see it in families. Someone behaves badly, but nobody talks about it because “he is family.” We see it among friends, where questioning one another can feel like betrayal. We see it in organizations, religions, governments, political movements and spiritual communities. Once our identity becomes attached to a group, defending the group can begin to feel like defending ourselves.
That is where loyalty becomes interesting, because what exactly am I being loyal to? The person? The truth? My own security? Or the image of myself that depends upon belonging to that person or group?
A Course in Miracles approaches this from an entirely different direction. It does not ask us to divide people into those who deserve our loyalty and those who do not. Its central distinction is much simpler and much more uncomfortable: there are two fundamentally different ways of seeing… through fear or through love.
In that sense, the real question is not whether I am loyal.
The question is what I am loyal to within my own mind.
To fear, or to love?
Fear says: If I question you, I may lose you.
Love says: I do not need to lie in order to stay connected with you.
Sometimes what looks like disloyalty may actually be the most loving response available…
A friend who tells me something I do not want to hear may be more loving than ten friends who agree with me. Someone who refuses to support my anger may be giving me something far more valuable than agreement. A person who says, “I love you, but I cannot follow you there,” has not necessarily abandoned me. Perhaps they have simply refused to abandon themselves.
But when belonging, security, money, reputation, friendship or family are involved, our beautiful principles suddenly acquire sweaty palms. Then we discover what we actually believe.
That is why loyalty can become such a useful mirror.
The next time I feel the urge to defend someone simply because they are mine…..my friend, my family, my group, my teacher, my country, my side….
I can stop for a moment. Not to judge myself, but just to become curious:
What am I protecting right now?
ACIM invites us to discover a loyalty that does not depend upon sides at all.
And perhaps that is loyalty in its most beautiful form.
With love and light,
Gonny