WALKING FREE IN OUR OWN MIND

It is fruitless to expect to forever walk free in our own head...we can only walk free in our heads right now. Right this very minute. It is our own self-discipline of denying our future wants that sets us on the right road, and meditation is the starting point. The discipline of making ourselves available to meditate...imperfectly, bass-ackward, two minutes today, three tomorrow...just do it.

We begin to learn how to pull back, detach from, let go of our own thoughts. Those thoughts which are the very things that deprive us of freedom in our own heads.

Those thoughts that are usually some form of judgment. Walking free in our own head requires us to give up judgments of others. Or, more to the point, resistance to others. That is, of course, in the nature of being a human being...to judge, to resist.

We find, however, that the older we get, the less we can excuse our uglies by claiming, "I'm only human."

If our goal is still more spiritual growth, that very claim of I'm only human must be embraced and refused. We embrace it for the comfort it gives when we once again sit in judgment of another, and we refuse its comfort by seeking to remember where and when we acted and/or reacted in the exact same way as the person we are judging so harshly now. For it is there...it is there.

Interestingly, I do not judge harshly (that is, personally) murderers, pedophiles, rapists and their kind. I am so personally sickened by their acts that I can only react in prayer for them, their minds, their victims...just blanket prayers.

However, you scratch me, wrong my ego wants...you are in trouble. In my mind. Which means, of course, I'm in trouble. My reprieve comes in having learned to say "Thank You" p.d.q. Which today I do...except when I forget. Again, the self-discipline...embrace, refuse and look within.

The reason so few of us realize the gold in this exercise is we never follow all the way through. It is in the doing, the continuing to do, and still doing that God perfects our actions, our reactions.

At some point we realize: Wow, I haven't had a busy mind in a long time. I haven't seriously sat in judgment of anyone in I can't remember when. And I've had this mindless feeling of comfort, peace, one-derment. I'm walking free in my own mind! Ah,  there's God's gold.

Thank You.

SELF-WILL DYING...GRATEFULLY

Self-will. I am reminded of the story of the man who was driving in the high Sierras far from the urban world late one September. He was taking a short cut on a road that was only open in the summer months, and his SUV broke down half way to the other end. An early snow started, quickly turned into a blizzard, and they closed the road without checking that it was clear. He was stranded. To his reasoning mind, his SUV was his safety, to get out and try walking down the mountain in a blizzard was certain death.

He was found inside that SUV in the springtime, starved and frozen, with his daily journal beside him. In it, he had written daily, begging God to save him...promising how he would change if God would show him a way out. But he never opened the door of his SUV except to get snow for his thirst. He simply would not change his mind in order to allow himself to believe that his security was not in remaining in that SUV.

He prayed but he didn't listen...he chose not to give God a doable chance. His own reasoning power apparently told him it was better to die in his known security than risk stepping out, giving up his known for the unknown...for help that might or might not be there for him. He obviously wanted to believe in God...his journaling proved that. But he could see his SUV, he could feel it around him. It was useless to save him but it was there.

Can't I just see myself in that? I remind me again: All we need do is change our mind. It all starts there. I wonder if all miracles don't start in our willingness to look at "it" from a different angle…not as a nightmare but as a gift. All the while inwardly screaming, "But I don't want it to be the gift!" And there it is. We don't want it to be the gift, but we need it to be. We need it to be whatever God wills it to be.

The first inch we take towards changing our minds begins with the thought, "This before me that looks like a nightmare? It may be grace. It may be God's gift to me."

Then we finally accept that the only way to know for sure is to rest in unknowing. We accept that we can never reason unto realization, and we take a leap of faith. Just that slight shift, called willingness, opens our mind. The prize, grace, looking like that same nightmare, rushes in and changes our awareness to: "This that looked like a nightmare is my personal pearl beyond price...and I am grateful."

Thank You.

PLEASE, THANK YOU, AMEN

In downtown Albuquerque, there is a sidewalk where the homeless often sit against the wall to catch the winter sun. Once I saw fresh graffiti chalked clearly on the pavement in front of the homeless. It said, “I watch how foolishly man guards his nothing—thereby keeping us out. Truly God is hated here.”  - from Fr. Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation of July 8, 2013.

I am reminded of the United States Congress today.

Thank You.

ACCORDING TO ME

For the Marigolds: We study spiritual works in order to discipline our conscious mind, our reasoning mind, into realizing that it is not our answer. It is God's tool, God's channel, to use in order for us to receive our answer.

We are nothing but a shadow on the wall all by our only. The joy is in knowing that "the Father and I are one." The Father, of course, being the One and that One walks and talks as you and me. We are his hands and feet, we are her heart and soul, brains and bones. We are God's representative on earth, without substance except as our ego believes us to be.

We all come from the Before Conception pool, God, and as we are born we are gifted with our ego-based reasoning mind which we get to use in our life's journey, or to let it use us. Either way, it must lead us finally to the divine decision to turn away from our many self-determined objectives toward God's perfect objective, i.e., God's will.

Thus we begin our journey Home where we regift the One with our ego. This is known as ego reduction in depth, and I'm guessing it takes several lifetimes to fully get there.

All of this boils down to, if you want to live happy, joyous and free, hold your nose and take a leap of faith. Wherever you land...joy in it.

Thank You.

SILENCE IS A POSITIVE ACTION

A human being fashions his consequences as surely as he fashions his goods or his dwelling. Nothing that he says, thinks or does is without consequences. -- Norman Cousins

Short form of the above: What goes around, comes around.

My take: Take care to not respond in kind for our reaction will be our bane.

The only one I know for a personal fact who pulls this off without fail is my dog Ruckus. I disrespect him, he thinks it's a new game, he's ready to play it out...I laugh, and we play.

Why don't I remember that when I feel disrespected? Or, more apt, why don't I consistently remember that? I only need remember it long enough to not respond in kind....which gives me that necessary moment to change my mind, to divorce myself from my own reaction. And I have done it enough to know that that is where the gold is.

It's also good to remember that any decision we make to not respond in kind must not have punishment at its core. That's just covering a bad motive with a good one. It fools no one but ourselves and leads to the folly of spiritual arrogance.

Silence is a positive action when spiritual realization is the goal.

Thank You.

GIVING GOD A CHANCE

All my 6s & 7s right now are me looking at them through my ego-eyes...lift up my eyes that I may see. (My note to me written in my "God Calling" on this day in 2010.)

Lesson learned: We should never chit-chat about our spiritual insights for we only reveal how puny our spiritual insights are. But if we don't talk about them, if we don't reveal their puniness to our own selves, we will believe our own press...that we are spiritually enlightened (and probably more than you are).

The good news is I have hard evidence that that learned lesson may be sticking. I was chatting with a friend last night and mentioned a spiritual truth in passing...which was met with sticky silence. I made a seamless u-bie in mid-air, and continued talking about a new author I've discovered, Bill Bryson, and his book, A Walk in the Woods. (It is, by the way, one of the funniest books I've read in ever.) Our conversation went on with no more sticky. 

I just realized that a separate lesson proven here is that my being aware of another's needs, whether in reception or perception, gave God his opening to take care of me. I look out for another, God looks out for me. I like that balance! 

And, oh my yes...that's the very dynamics that could make John Lennon's Imagine come true.

Thank You.

MINDLESS HAPPINESS

I believe there is an intelligence that exists within us on a higher plane and deeper than the reasoning mind can grasp. I believe it is all good and it exists for the simultaneous benefit of everyone. The reasoning mind, driven by ego, cannot or will not, comprehend the gift in that. Everyone comes out a winner is a "whatever" to the ego.

Those who live by their reasoning mind miss the gift of unexpected, unearned love...and the realization that the best part is giving that unexpected, unearned love away. They live in a world of planning how to get that which they already have...and looking for someone or something to blame for not getting it.

They also miss the gift of learning that their reasoning mind, too, is a gift. The joy is in learning that it is a channel for that higher intelligence, accepting that we must discipline it according to spiritual principles if we are going to get full use of and joy through it.

It's like getting a smart phone and only using it to call people...a mind run by self-will, an undisciplined reasoning mind, says, "It's a phone, you use phones to call people, so call people. The End."

Mindless happiness is always ours if we don't think about it.

Thank You.

LIVING IN THE PROMISED LAND...OF NOW

The reasoning mind is the greatest enemy of attaining higher consciousness, according to me. Those who rely solely on their reasoning mind cannot or will not let go of it as their safety net. If the mind cannot reason it out, think harder, seems to be the solution.

I am a believer that all of our problems can be solved by spiritual principles, and that spiritual principles cannot be fully processed by the reasoning mind. There is always that place we come to, the depth and breadth of which is unknown to us, where we must hold our nose and take a leap of faith.

This is where we arrive at the realization that the path to deeper spiritual growth is in our becoming unselfed. It has been said that a higher consciousness evolves through unselfed living, giving and sharing. The reasoning mind, with ego as its leader, will balk at that every time.

The paradox is that the reasoning mind is our channel to still more spiritual growth. That is where self-discipline pays off. It is through our willingness to chance God's will being better than our self-will that we place our reasoning mind second in line. To turn our reasoning mind over to the care of God is to open ourselves...body, brains and soul...to a living without a net.

This is living in the now, in this very moment, where the reasoning mind is, but has no place to wander off to. It is stilled...we are unselfed, at last.

Thank You.

LOVE...GIVE IT OR FORGET IT

If grace and gratitude...if love itself...are not within us this very minute, where are we going to go to get them?

There is no store on the corner, at the mall, on-line where we can go to order up a single helping...or a double dip.

There is within us from before conception unto this very minute a lifetime supply of peace, love and joy. All we need do is realize that, then use them...first.

If we do not give the love we have, we will never get the love we seek.

Thank You.

OUR JOB IS TO LET IT

The trouble with resentments is they do not have to be our own to do our thinking for us. Gertrude's resentment of something I said, John's resentment of something you did become our resentment if we take their resentment personally.

Taking anything personally is resistance walking. Resistance, a.k.a., push back, which we call "taking care of myself," "setting boundaries," or, my personal favorite, "venting." Venting is a favorite to so many of us because it allows us to badmouth others under a high-tone label.

There are many counselors, psychiatrists, advice columnists...advice givers...who can nail any problem and its solution in a heartbeat.

It boils down to: The problem is, "You're taking it personally." The solution is, "Don't take it personally."

And all have their own all-but-guaranteed "how to" not take it personally. Most of which work sometime, none of which work on a daily basis...according to me.

I'm a believer that the only fail-safe solution to our taking life personally is spiritual in nature, and all it asks is that we give over. We must give up the idea that we need to take care of ourselves against anything. We do need to take care of ourselves...and the way to do that is to  turn our will and our life over to the care of the God of our own understanding.

It can and will light the path on which we walk, speak through our mouths, think through our brains...in short, intervene in our lives in our behalf. Our job is to let It.

Thank You.

LOOKING FOR LOVE

I have a new friend who is heavy into a different brand of spirituality that I am unfamiliar with but it has all the same bells and whistles that mine has so I'm cool with it. It reminds me, though, why I'm so attached to the Sermon on the Mound.

The Sermon says, in effect, if someone slaps you upside your head, turn the other cheek. How you going to claim you don't understand what that says? You can think it's not right, or you don't agree with it, or you plain don't like it...but it ain't like it's too deep, too esoteric for your poor brain to glom onto.

I think that's why so many people pass the Sermon by...its directions are down and dirty and specific: If someone steals your coat, run after them and give them your cloak. Or its bottom line: Resist not evil.

Actually, to my mind, that's what all truly spiritual teachings are about...they just make it so pretty that you don't realize up front what you've gotten into.

I knew going in with the Sermon that this was going to be really hard...and, who's kidding whom, I RESISTED. Cried like a baby, cursed like a sailor...and did it anyway. And am still doing...the difference now being, I joy in the paradox of the seemingly impossible being the easier way.

The gift is in realizing that it's all about consciousness. Take, for instance, someone slapping your face. In our walking-around world, someone is most likely not going to slap you, more like they're going to badmouth you (or tell the truth about you, which sometimes hurts worse). That's when you can appreciate that a slap upside the head would be preferable to the hurt of the feeling of betrayal.

You reread your directions and there's your answer. It is...let them. It is your mental resistance to your own feeling of betrayal that causes your pain.

Hug them and kiss them and let them go. "Them" being every part of the perceived problem...the person, the words, the betrayal, the hurt, the anger...each are a part of God's gift that drives you deeper into a higher consciousness. A consciousness of nonresistance. Love...that for which you seek daily. You've been "looking for love in all the wrong places" as the great old country song says.

The miracle is that you may never have found this love you seek if you had not been gifted with the betrayal you hated but did not resist.

Love. That's all ego reduction in depth is. That's all the Sermon is about. And I may joy in the paradox, but it's still hard.

Thank You.

ALL IT TAKES IS DISCIPLINE...SELF-DISCIPLINE

All the sixes and sevens in our lives at any given moment stem from our resistance to the resistance of an Other (person, place or thing, but most often person)...and our refusal to change our mind.

Changing our mind simply requires us to accept that the Other is being just as we are perceiving that One to be...if it is a person, we usually are perceiving disrespect. So that One is as disrespectful as we choose to interpret it...if we do not pick it up mentally, it cannot do our thinking for us.

All this takes is discipline. The discipline of changing our mind...from interpreting ill-will to perceiving peace. That discipline is based on our understanding that this entire situation may very well be a part of our initiation process...life itself is an initiation process according to me.

Our only job, then, is to accept that the always answer is for us to seek a deeper, fuller realization that God lives within us, without us...as our protection, our shield, our bounty, our blood. Every hiccup is an opportunity to recall and reaffirm that unto realization.

Then, when the still, small voice speaks, we know. We know that all our sixes and sevens are God’s gift to us. Nothing else would turn us to Him with such an open mind. That’s why it’s called the gift of desperation.

Thank You.

WANTS DRESSED UP AS NEEDS

Thank you for X just as he is right this very minute. She is giving me exactly what I need right this very minute in order for me to get over myself...for me to open to another, right or wrong. Right or wrong in my ego's eyes. There is no wrong in my Soul's eyes...there is only God.

There is my gift. I can turn my back on it, the gift, but that will not make it any less the gift...I just won't get my bennies (i.e., a peaceful heart) from the gift. I will only hold onto my ego's resentment.

Just so long as I resist X in any way, that's how long I resist my gift...which is just how long I will live in the pain of my own resentment. The more I try to release my resentment by tattling to others (euphemistically known as "venting"), the more "justifiable" my resentment...and the more attached I am to my ego-victory wants, dressed up as needs and fooling only me.

Lord, hear my prayer, Thank You. Amen.

Thank You.

THERE IS NO GOD IN VICTIM THINKING

Don't get mad, get even. It's better to ask forgiveness than permission.

It seems to me that those two thoughts have become dogma in today's world. To me, however, they are simply the rocky road toward victimhood.  

Take, for instance, don't get mad, get even. There it is...resentment on the hoof. How long do you get to carry around your resentment before you get sufficiently even? My resentment would have resentments by the time I believed I'd gotten sufficiently even.

And, it's better to ask forgiveness than permission? Talk about living in a self-centered-fear world. Fear...fear that we won't get something we want or we'll lose something we have...dictates our actions. We barge right on, doing whatever we want and grabbing whatever we believe we need, then being shocked, shocked!, when we're not only not forgiven, but seriously disliked into the bargain.

Victim thinking takes one of two paths...anger or hurt. Anger: "I'll pay you back and suffer the constant pain of my own resentment." Or, hurt: "I'll pick up mud and sling it in my own face. Then you'll be sorry for me."

The bottom line...there is no God in either of those thoughts, there is only me, my, mine. It is only when we turn our thoughts to others, to being of some help somehow to others, that we can realize that God has our back...me, my, mine is no longer a concern.

Thank You.

WINNING RELEASE FROM OUR EGO

Only an unselfed person can let the slings and arrows of outrageous fate fly through her, through him without attachment (resentment). Thus the goal is to shuck self...i, with my reasoning mind, cannot; I, within the fourth dimension, can (and that with unlimited patience).

Victimhood is precious to our ego. It justifies either our hurt or our anger, both of which are born of self-centered fear.

Only unselfed persons can win release from our ego, and we must return daily to that release...and in gratitude. A simple "thank you" will suffice.

Thank You.

THE GIFT IS IN UNKNOWING

Spiritual growth isn't so much in our actions toward another as it is in our thoughts about another. Say, for example, that I know Sylvia does not like me, and, that's not all, Sylvia peeves me mightily. However, I always show her a courteous face...with an UGH mind. That is not returning "love for hatred" (as we are instructed) nor is it a heart deed...that is a self-determined objective. There is no God there. (It goes without saying that it is better to show her pretty rather than UGH just on general principles.)

There are always two paths to the same objective...our reasoning-mind way and God's way. God's way does not take longer, it is just that our way gets more immediate wrong results.

Our spiritual growth is in learning to give over to God at the first wrong result, immediately turning our objective toward aligning our will with God's will. The human condition is such, however, that we usually try our way again...and again...until we give ourselves the gift of desperation at which point our will is released to God, and he does his perfect work. Usually with the result not in us getting our way, but in our being gifted with something much better than we could have dared consider praying for.

Achieving our self-determined objective through prayer for anything, or doing any spiritual-growth work through self-will alone, leads to spiritual pride...we give God credit with our mouths and ourselves credit in our minds.

It is in our giving over our will (i.e., our God channel) and then keeping it clear of our ego-victory thoughts that heads us in the right direction.

The realization of God is in unknowing.

Thank You.

THE AFTERMATH

[The following is a reprint of my blog of September 29, 2011.]

Lessons learned:

• Do not ever believe that what you heard was what was said.
• Do not accept that you’ve done enough homework.
• Do not allow your mood to dictate your feelings…good or bad.
• Pain does not have a memory…the most intense pain you’ll ever feel is the pain you’re feeling at the moment.
• Never forget that God can and will if sought.
• This, too, shall pass is a fact…cling to it.
• Anything that has the tool within it to help me lose ten pounds, pdq, has good in it somewhere.
• I am more willing to ask for help if another is helped by it.
• God is good.
• So are people. 

Thank You.

PATIENCE, THE HANDMAIDEN OF LOVE, I.E., GOD

I may be wrong but it seems to me that the surest way to God consciousness is through patience, patience and more patience.

Patience, like all else, is within us before birth, at birth, right through unto now...just like kindness, love, concern for others, et al. They're all within us before, at, unto now, but until we use them, they are undeveloped, thus unknown to us.

I wonder if that's how, when and where their opposites...impatience, meanness, hate...spring forth. They are the mirror opposites of our birthright...from God. They come later, after our ego gets its footing...and, since the ego's only job is to legislate for itself, they will always be for self, against others.

Patience may be the handmaiden (or determiner) of all the other goodies...say, we make a decision to be kind to all the people we meet today. Having tried this enough, we know we will fail...unless we bring out our patience, too. And then rely on patience to carry kindness through. Patience softens our teeth-grinding attempts at kindness, and moves self out of the picture.

That may be patience's core job...to remove the ego-victory self from the picture. There is no greater job.

Thank You.

CENTERED AND SURRENDERED

My morning blinding flash of the obvious: Go for the opposite of reason and work your way back.

Pretty much my given is whatever my reasoning mind lands on as my answer, the opposite is my truth.

It also being a given that my quest daily is for still more spiritual growth which makes mincemeat of reason from the get-go. Like, it is in weakness that we find strength...it is in hopeless that we find hope. Go tell that to the reasoning mind.

I will say that it was major growth when I...without thought...gave up my perceived need for a Rolex. ("Rolex" being short-hand for thin without working at it, a money tree in my back yard, and a man in my bed.) That cleared the way considerably for "centered and surrendered" as my daily goal...falling short, picking me up, moving on as my reality.

God loves me so much...the grace of gratitude is my proof.

Thank You.

WANT IS EGO, NEED IS GOD

Quite often my desire and God's will are the same thing...it is how I get that desire to align with God's will that is my path today.

A self-determined objective will direct my thinking...the very words "self-determined" make that clear. When I am focused on a want, that want becomes the God of my understanding.

Turning my thoughts to the Power within, I simply ask, "If it be Thy will that this want comes to me, how do I go forward toward it." Then I wait. And remind myself that I do not need the absolute answer this very instant...I want it, I do not need it. Want is of the ego, need is of God.

Then I follow my own inner Self's guidance...let God speak through me, for me. Here is where my want is transmuted into a need (and for that matter the last thing in the world my ego would have considered). This comes without fail when I sincerely seek to do God's will, not my will. My concentration is completely on God, not on my want.

Again a paradox: The way forward is through the self-discipline of shucking self.

Today I practice.

Thank You.

MAKE A JOYFUL NOISE AND GET GRATEFUL

I am reminded this morning that my prayer, bless me and keep me, is not asking, it is thanking. God does bless me and keep me...it is my remembering that is at fault. The key is to live in that fact, then we cannot forget. It is when we slide over into our ego-world that we forget God and become the Source...of all our woes.

We are the source of all our woes the instant we forget that God, the source of all our joy, lives within us. We stay the source of all our woes only as long as we forget that we are God's channel...to happy, joyous and free.

Remembering that means we need to discipline our minds...every time it slides over into ego wants, bring it back to "Thank You" which encompasses all, everything we have or don't have, want or don't want. Thank You, in effect, gives God's gift to us of free will back to God to do with us and build of us as He chooses.

The single most important thing we can do...daily...is to remember that. Kiss it on the lips. Embrace it. Roll around on the rug with it. Skip, dance, sing and shout...make a joyful noise unto the Lord. In other words, get grateful.

Thank You.

GOD MAKES ITSELF HEARD

I'm heading in the right direction:

1. In "God Calling," yesterday: A consciousness of My Presence as Love makes all Life different. I've been reading this book for 40 years, and that is my first conscious awareness of that sentence. 
2. This morning as I prayed, "Bless her, change me," I was given an addendum: "You got the power, God...knock yourself out within me without me...for him. Always for others." 

Thank You.

DETACH AND CALL IT BLESSED

It never fails. Every time I think I've got God nailed down, I nail myself down.

God is love...and so much more. To think of God as love does help me let go of God as a form, a woman or a man or a lion (my Aslan, a great visualization for me). But to think of God as love alone...no. God is also mercy, kindness, goodness...as Goldsmith teaches, God is omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence...and more.

I know from my own experience that out of my own disasters (or disasters that befall me for it rains on the deserving and the undeserving), God can, will and does bring forth good. It is, however, necessary for us to cooperate with Him in the way that He is going...turn our free-will over to His will, quite simply.

All we need do is to detach from our want and name what we got "Blessed." In other words, change our mind, upgrade our attitude. A simple "Thank You" will get us headed in the right direction...then we let God lead us through.

Thank You.

RESISTANCE IS OUR OWN THOUGHTS

I had a passing thought this morning which I'm fairly sure springs from the Ken Keyes quote I read months ago; i.e., "More suffering comes into the world by people taking offense than by people intending to give offense." That spoke truth to me, and it just tucked itself away in my mind. I ponder it when the spirit moves me.

The spirit moved me this morning with the thought...what if all resistance were simply resistance to our own thoughts? Our own perceptions? Our own interpretations? If so, would that mean all we need do to get over our feeling of being slighted, snubbed and/or put-down is change our interpretation of that perception?

Once I started paying attention to others' responses...and to my own for that matter...I was amazed at how often most of us respond negatively to passing remarks. Either in anger or in hurt.

A remark is made, we interpret it in mid-air, personalize it within a breath, and react in kind to our own interpretation. And, depending almost entirely on our spiritual condition, a war is either started or avoided. If we are spiritually fit at that moment, we remember we have given up fighting everything and everybody, and we find a way to change our mind. If we're not spiritually fit, we fight.

I'm going to ponder this.

Thank You.

LOVE, OUR IMPERSONAL GOD

The concept of God as All...and All as One...is sometimes difficult to grasp. What has helped me the most is the realization that God is Love. I have heard that since Sunday school and thought nothing about it...just pretty words. Letting go of God with a form was my block.

One day I realized the oneness in God as Love...can't touch it, can't smell it, taste it, hear it with the physical ear, see it with the physical eye...it simply is. And it is everywhere...in every so-called nook and cranny, every joint in my body or for that matter every joint on every mean street in the universe. (It is not that it is not there, it is that so few look there.)

A major plus in understanding God is Love is God is it depersonalizes God in our mind...turns us from thinking of God as a form we can pray to for something. Who is going to pray to Love for a million bucks or a cure for cancer?

Love is within us, without us. It is not male, it is not female, and I can't imagine anyone thinking of it as such. Yet we get all wrapped around in our minds trying to decide whether to refer to God as He or She.

I try to keep my life and my learning simple...to me, Love is of the fourth dimension and, therefore, is everywhere, hate lives in the ego.

Love is spiritual, hate is material. Peace is spiritual, anger is material. Needs are spiritual, wants are material. When I want, my ego answers (and somebody else is going to at least get inventoried). When I need, God answers (and I know peace, a.k.a., love).

Thank You.

TRANSPARENT V. OPAQUE

[The following is a reprint of my blog of August 1, 2009.]

A book I once read (and reread) taught me the value of being transparent (nonresistant) versus being opaque (resistant). It opened me to the reason why we are told in the Sermon on the Mount to agree with our adversaries quickly, that if someone slaps us upside the head, to turn the other cheek, etc.  

I believe the reason is that when I disrespect another by thought, word or attitude,  the one I disrespect becomes opaque (resistant), which causes that which I sent out to bounce right back to me…and I, feeling attacked, become opaque causing the ugly to bounce back, etc., etc., etc. 

My job is to remain nonresistant (transparent), i.e., agree with my adversary quickly/turn the other cheek, to that which feels like an unprovoked attack. It helps when I immediately remind myself that this originated with me and let it flow through and away from me…and I must admit that this is where my ego-centered fear fights for its life.

In general, I find it necessary for my peace of mind to look inside until I find where and what I sent out. That usually sends me to another book I read that tells me when someone steps on my toes, seemingly without provocation, for sure I've made a decision based on self that later placed me in a position to be hurt.

That helps keep my thoughts directed toward me, the cause of all my problems, rather than toward you, the excuse for all my problems.

Thank You.

GOD IS ALL

The eye with which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me. - Meister Eckhart 

It is impossible for our ego to allow that there is something bigger, better, more helpful to us than it, our ego, is. Especially when that "something" is always sending us out to do for others...turning our thoughts away from getting toward giving.

As long as we allow our ego to do our thinking for us, we will always be in a win/lose battle with life...and blaming someone else for our losses, taking all credit for our wins. 

Paradoxically, it is the taking credit that really does us in...for almost inevitably that credit turns out to have the zinger we didn't see coming. The zinger hidden in that which we've already crowed about so there we are with our bare face hanging out...to blame. Thinking: "It's not fair." "Why me?" "There is no God." 

There is never a God to the ego when it doesn't get its way...there is never a God to the ego when it gets its way for that matter.

It's a hard lesson learning, but it's the only lesson we need to learn: We go to God for God...that is all. Because God is All.

Thank You.

GRATITUDE CAN MAKE IT BETTER

Grant what thou commandest and then command what thou wilt. -- Saint Augustine

Every time I come across that quote, I feel uplifted...more like relieved, actually. 

It says to me that the battle really is not mine, but God's. Same goes with glory...the glory really is not mine, but God's. 

That which I mentally wrestle with at any given time of any given day is just a shadow on the wall...I can believe my shadows represent anything I choose, but I get to keep in mind that they are just shadows. 

Not real. 

Not of God. 

My own picture show...change the channel or get some popcorn and a Pepsi, relax and enjoy. 

The best part is always the surprise ending...whether I'm tuned into a mystery or a sitcom, my best thinking for the ending is rarely what happens. This is where my attitude of gratitude comes on strong...whatever the ending to my eyes, gratitude can make it better.

Thank You.

AGAIN...AND YET AGAIN

Another lesson learned...again. It is impossible to offend God...or Jesus for that matter. I throw a temper tantrum, I rant, I rave, I stomp my feet and toss my curls...He hugs me, She kisses me, It tells me It loves me. You get a whole bunch like that on your side, you gotta feel loved.

I almost asked God to remove my resentment again when He hit me with the realization again that this is what I need:

• this resentment of; 
• this reacting in kind to; 
• this p.o.'d at; 
• this inventorying toward; 
• this justifying inward.

These are the bane of my heart and mind, my body and soul...they do and they will drive this car until I get out of the driver's seat. 

This is exactly the path I got to walk in getting free of me with my co-worker who treated me poorly...and we became friends. The path I walked in getting over taking myself too seriously for taking myself too seriously.

I get to truly accept that which I am resisting in the other, my opinion of her being wrong (a.k.a., me being right). This acceptance does not come by wanting, wishing, straining my mind...no, it comes in some manner predetermined by God through me and flowing out of me at the perfect time as the perfect gift to me...and the one I am resisting. I can only keep my focus on me, my bad behavior; i.e., my ego-victory thoughts, and praise those thoughts for they are leading me to complete defeat.

I thank God for sending me the other and her response to me, her opinion of the path I walk, her very being exactly as I perceive it to be right this very minute. They, wrapped in her body, are my angel straight from Heaven.

This may be realization, it may be words leading to realization. My heart is grateful that I know the way, and it is aiming me in the right direction.

Thank you.

THIS ONE'S YOURS, GOD

Matthew 5:44 But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;

Matthew 5:44 is where I am this morning...which tells the state of my ego-victory thinking. I am resisting that verse with every drop of blood that's in me.

I'm lecturing me on how much I talk the Sermon, preach the Sermon, write about, think about...but here's me face-to-face with the opportunity to just do it (another phrase I lovelovelove...to hear me talk)....

I'll give me this: I am grateful for, and I welcome, the opportunity to pass this one on to God...I'm not even going to mess around with Jesus. Heavy guns today. 

Thank You.