ON DISCOVERING THE TRUE SELF

Seasoned contemplatives like Thomas Merton describe letting go, letting be, letting come, and setting free as discovering the true self. -- McLaren, "Daily Meditations," August 20, 2025

There...letting go, letting be, letting come, and setting free...that may tell the tale of our seemingly unending search to live not from our head but from the Power within, the Power within each of us. The more we search out there for the Power, the farther away we take us from its discovery.

Our search is another self-determined objective, or our block. It is akin to searching for breath even as we breathe...we stop breathing, looking for our breath. Uh-oh.

We do not obtain the most precious gifts by going in search of them but by waiting for them. -- French philosopher and mystic Simone Weil

Thank you.

GOD, GRACE AND GRATITUDE

Brother Lawrence’s guidance, 'Live constantly in the experience of that sacred presence, the ground of all being.'

I gotta wonder, does the Brother's guidance include living with and within incurable illness? Incurable, as in dementia, my ongoing fear that looks like is no longer a fear but a fact. 

Let it be....

If only.

I return again to my perfect panacea, i.e., the worst thing that could ever happen to me, did happen...and turned out to be the best thing that has or can ever happen to me. 

That being true, then so can this be...another best thing. 

All it takes to turn a worst to a first is God, grace and gratitude. I have all three...now they get to earn their keep, with me remembering that their keep is mine to walk. 

I walk not alone...I walk with God, he holds my hand.

Thank you.

THE ROUGH AND RUGGED ROAD...GOD'S GIFT

Persist at that deeper place in yourself where the “both-and” is located. This is the place of the soul and the place of wisdom toward which we have to move. -- Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, August 8, 2025 

According to me, most desires for other than still more spiritual growth are the reasoning mind want dressed up as a spiritual need. 

God's will, God's way is for our benefit always and all ways...the rockier it feels, the surer our Way. It is the rough and rugged that plows our field of resistance, i.e., self-will. 

When I was blessed with the realization that the seed of spiritual growth is in detachment...specifically, detaching from reasoning mind wants...I realized that does not negate wants, for they, too, are God given. Ah, but their place is never first in line. 

Our spiritual growth thus begins when we make a decision to turn unborn wants over to the care of a Higher Power. As they are born daily, we resist them not as we remember what we resist, persists...we leave them to God's care. 

There...that is the rough and rugged self-will plowing our field of resistance...unbeknownst to us, with God at the helm.

The good news, a.k.a., the God news: The more we detach from self's wants, the deeper our spiritual comfort grows so the more we detach.

God loves us so much.

Thank you.

RESIST NOT...MOVE IN WITH

Pure consciousness is never just me, trapped inside myself. Rather, it is an observing of “me” from a distance—from the viewing platform kindly offered by God (see Romans 8:16), which we call the Indwelling Spirit. -- Fr Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation, August 17, 2025

My morning blinding flash of the obvious: Resistance is acceptance in a hair shirt. 

Ah, it is the hair shirt that we resist. We must needs resist not but move in with, i.e., seek deeper, welcome...resist not.

To move in with is found in our still more spiritual growth...spiritually we cannot move in with as it appears to our reasoning mind eyes in the moment. Our gift is in our raised consciousness...the realization that nothing is personal to us. 

All is of God...the gold in our dreams, the worms in our fears...all in, around, between, above and below are of God and for our spiritual benefit.

Resist not evil. -- Matthew 5:39

Thank you.

IT'S ALL IN AN EXCHANGED MIND, I

[The following is a reprint of my post of August 3, 2021.]

Simone Biles is still teaching us. She competed again for the first time since she hit the wall with the Twisties, which I take to be a gymnast term for pea-green-purple petrified in the midst of a required upside-down contortion.

This being the last women's gymnastics event for this Olympics, the apparatus she got to compete on was the balance beam, known to be the hardest of all.

She won the Bronze.

I can't think any Olympic contender ever prayed to win the Bronze; yet, according to me, for Simone Biles today, her Bronze can forever be her most cherished medal.

By bowing out, simply letting go, she hung on, hung in, and hung tough, and won an Olympic medal first time back. There, that is showing the world how it's done...with God, grace and guts, the not-just-for-Sunday Trinity.

Don't tell me God's will isn't perfection wrapped in toilet paper. All we need do is change our mind, and lo! it's now toilet tissue. Love and laugh.

Thank you.

ON 'THINKING BACKWARDS' OR GOD'S WILL

Paul is dictating a letter to some people he loves on a subject he loves, expressing the honest, unedited, natural flow of his thoughts and feelings…. If we read Romans keeping these realities in mind, I think we will become more sensitive than ever to the wonderful dace of the Spirit of God and the mind of a man in the context of a community in crisis. -- "Richard Rohr's Daily Meditations," August 15, 2025

To me, this explains the gift to me of "thinking backwards" being the Way to God consciousness, i.e. the wonderful dance of the Spirit of God and the mind of a man....

My "thinking backwards" floated into my consciousness many years ago...I did not question it, nor have I over-talked the concept. To the best of my inner knowledge, I have lived it without questioning.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but my "thinking backwards" is putting the reasoning mind in its rightful place...behind my spiritual insights while ever letting it have a say in my life. God allowed our reasoning mind, too, so our job is to keep it finely tuned...ready for God to use when, if or as the need arises.

In short, this is our life today: God's will, God's way.

Thank you.

 

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@8/15/25 Brian McLaren: Paul is dictating a letter to some people he loves on a subject he loves, expressing the honest, unedited, natural flow of his thoughts and feelings…. If we read Romans keeping these realities in mind, I think we will become more sensitive than ever to the wonderful dance of the Spirit of God and the mind of a man in the context of a community in crisis. [To me, this explains the gift to me of "thinking backwards" being the Way to God consciousness, i.e.  the wonderful dance of the Spirit of God and the mind of a man....] 

RELEASE TO RECEIVE, I

[The following is a reprint of my post of August 13, 2012.]

If we are to have any lasting spiritual growth, we must learn to get closer to those who irritate us.

There is the place, that is the way we learn to live patience, forgiveness, freedom from personal wants...the either/ors, the likes/dislikes of life...freedom to love...unconditionally.

It is in letting go of protection of self...which is different from self-protection...that one finds the freedom to love...unconditionally. Until we realize unconditional love is within us right now, we will ever seek and not find unconditional love.

We must release it to receive it.

Thank you.