WE ARE ONE...HAPPY, JOYOUS AND FREE

As I look back over my 2013, and forward to my 2014, I feel the grace of gratitude...I have no regrets, I dread nothing.

And that's the truth. The further truth is, if I took five minutes to ponder my 2013, my 2014, I could have regrets, I would have dreads...and someone to blame. My ego is not dead, nor does it sleep. But neither does the God of my understanding. All I need do is kiss my ego on the lips (i.e., resist not) and keep my focus on God, and all will be well...all in my world is well.

The best part? I know, if I keep my focus on God, I can be a channel for the same no regrets/no dreads for my friends and/or my perceived enemies. For we become one...happy, joyous and free.

Thank you.

NOT TO DISCOVER BUT TO RETRIEVE

It is such a comfort to me, when a problem looms, to remind myself that that problem has already been solved. 

I usually want to get in the midst of it, figure it out (to my advantage), get all concerned to agree with me, but I need to quiet my mind, to listen. To listen...not for the answer to my perceived problem (for in God's world, there is no problem), but for the discipline of simply sitting quietly and listening. 

As Fr. Richard Rohr writes, "...spiritual knowledge is more like retrieving than discovering." 

Whatever answer we need (which likely has not an iota to do with what we're thinking we need) will come to us. That answer may look less than wonderful and a butt-biter into the bargain, but it is, in truth, our gold mine.

All we need remember is the promise: "Be not afraid...it is I."

Thank you.

GOD CAN AND WILL IF ASKED

Our goal is not to agree with that which we know to be wrong...our goal is to not disagree with it. It is the disagreement that is the glue that holds our ego together...our ego's sword and shield in truth. As long as we allow our ego to believe that we need a sword and shield, our ego will be our god. 

Just this morning, in his "Daily Meditations," Fr. Richard Rohr wrote, "The contemplative [quieted] mind does not need to prove anything or disprove anything. It’s…a reading of [our literature] that looks for wisdom instead of quick answers. It first says, 'What does this text ask of me? How can I change because of this story?' And not 'How can I use this to prove that I am right and others are wrong...?'”

This is the path we get to walk in order to cease fighting anything or anybody...that which, when first we read it, we know is either a misprint or a forget it, I can't/won't/don't want to learn how. 

Again we find that the hardest thing life asks of us is to simply change our mind. I can't, God can, It has my work cut out for me, thank you. 

Thank you.

THE GIFT OF TAKING NOTHING PERSONALLY

I had a disrupted friendship once over something I said. The friend was so angry, she wouldn't talk about it, and the friendship stayed disrupted for a long time. When finally we talked, it all boiled down to what my friend heard and what I actually said. 

We must become willing to change our minds. We hear what we hear...why would we change our mind about that? Because how we are interpreting what we heard is causing us pain...we are taking it personally. Even if Gertrude calls us ugly to our eyes, if we don't take it personally, it cannot hurt us, harm us, irritate us or take us down. 

We do not take it personally by allowing the possibility of another way of interpreting what we know we heard. There. That's our open invitation to God to do our thinking for us because we have let go of reliance on our reasoning mind.

We hear A, and we react with anger. We open our mind to another way of looking at A which does not change A, only our interpretation of A...God enters, and we know peace. 

This is a practice that will take this lifetime and the next to do as we breathe, I'm guessing, but it gives us hope. Doesn't that beat living in our own mind...discontented, hopeless and blameless (i.e., put-upon) to boot?

Thank you.

LOVE AND LAUGH. TRUST AND PRAY.

Love and laugh. Trust and pray. -- "God Calling," December 27.

For this coming year, I hope to continue to love and laugh, to trust and pray. That is the open secret of living happy, joyous and free. To me, that's the inner circle of life.

Before first thought, wake up, feel God's love and smile. That smile becomes a feeling of laughter, of all's right with the world...which we recognize as trust that God is in control, all is exactly as it should be. And we pray our thank you.

Then we get up.

And all the rest is a matter of self-discipline...the discipline of turning our material world thoughts (usually self-centered fear thoughts) over to the care of the God of our understanding. It helps me to just take a short-cut and consciously say, "I've no doubt made a decision based on self that's going to bite me today...I'd best get ready now to admit it and laugh about it."

Getting ready is learning that we must keep coming back to: "I am the source of all my woes. Without fail." Else we get stuck in the outer circle of life...where reasoning mind and I'm right/you're wrong live.

And that, too, is for loving, laughing at, trusting God and praying, "Thank you."

Thank you.

MY DREAM

[The following is a reprint of a blog of mine from May 9, 2012.]

I dreamed recently of my grandparents’ home in Kentucky. I had gone to visit but they were not home. It seems that I stayed for a very long time. 

The house had everything except an indoor bathroom. There was, however, an outhouse way back of the house. I made it my job to put it in pristine condition…I white-washed it, I put fresh lye down every day or so, I tatted little lace curtains to cover the hole in the door. It wanted for nothing.

One day my grandparents returned, and my grandmother asked how I liked their beautiful bathroom…with which, she opened a door I had not noticed. There was a spectacular modern bath. She said it had “always” been there, I just hadn’t looked for it.

When I awoke, I thought about my dream, and I realized it was all about my Father within. My God who is ever with me, never needing anything to be added unto Him.

I get so caught up in looking “out there,” in search of the perfect Something, person, book, talisman, to change me, make me more, better, different…maybe simply acceptable. Landing on first this, then that…like my pretty outhouse, facade is everything…make it prettier, more admirable…uh-oh, not right, not good enough, start again.

All I need do is look right here, right where I Am…go into the silence and give over to the God of my understanding who is already here, here in my heart, my Soul.  

Thank you.

WE KNOW IT AND WE SHOW IT

We are celebrating the feast of the Eternal Birth which God the Father has borne and never ceases to bear in all Eternity....But if it takes not place in me, what avails it? Everything lies in this, that it should take place in me. -- Meister Eckhart

And that's the whole message.

What good does it do us to worship a God-sent person if we aren't willing to do as that one did? Be it Mohammad, Jesus, the Buddha, our mentor, our mother...whom we are adoring makes no matter, that's just tinsel on the tree if we're only adoring. 

We get to adore AND look within to find It, to release Him, to let Her take wings from within us...and coo our names as It soars. When we hear it, we will know...when we know it, we must show it, or we don't know it.

Thank you.

SAME OLD, SAME OLD...THANK GOD

I ponder the Sermon on the Mount almost daily, and I remind myself that we need to accept that its words are literal to the material mind, but the underlying meaning is where the goldmine is. Begin to realize the difference between living in the material world of dual thinking (the literal word) and living in the spiritual world of Oneness (the underlying meaning).

My toughie is the one that says if someone slaps you upside your head, you get to turn the other cheek. I got my understanding, my realization, of that...nonresistance, that's all. It's the doing it that my ego will fight until three days after I'm dead...apparently.

In not resisting, i.e., giving up self-determined objectives through God consciousness, we do not respond in kind to any perceived negative action or reaction from another. (Actually, any perceived action, but I'm about the negative here.)

I have been able to do that a few times with a few people; it is their reaction that is my bramble bush. [Sidebar: I suspect my problem has been I did it as a self-determined objective (ego strutting its stuff), not through God consciousness (love).]

What happens then, when ego is driving and love is not there, is that the giving over to another is interpreted as anything from cowardice to dismissive (condescending)...or just being ignored, the ultimate insult.

So, yet again, ever and forever, I get to look within for the solution...for the spiritual solution. I must admit, my ego will, and repeatedly, take the inventory of all those heathens who don't appreciate my higher intentions.

It's the same old, same old...we have ceased fighting anything or anyone. Which is the good news. At least I don't have to learn a whole 'nother something...this one is tough enough.

Thank you.

OUR GIFTEE MUST BE TO GOD

Too often, after a difference of opinion with a loved one (i.e., an argument), we think the air is cleared, and we want to give a little giftee to our loved one...flowers, a new high-tech tool, whatever. The problem being is that the air may be cleared, but our thoughts are not.

It is those I-really-am-right thoughts that we are holding in ready reserve that we get to gift...to God. And we gift them by accepting them...another paradox! 

The minute we start fighting them, they are Velcroed within...in our heart and on our brain. Our ego has won, and those thoughts will rise up in righteous indignation again. No more need be said there. 

With our realization unto acceptance that our thoughts are our real problem, the task of changing our mind becomes considerably easier. We want to change our thoughts? We hug them, we kiss them, and we let them go. We have no good use for them, so we consciously ask God to take them...or he can hold them in ready reserve, and if he ever feels we need them, he knows what to do. There. That's the real gift we are called to give.

But a bouquet of flowers, a hi-tech tool? Probably not an altogether bad idea.

Thank you.

LIVING IN GRACE-FILLED GRATITUDE

[The following is a reprint of my blog of December 28, 2011.]

Why is it so hard for me to remember that God knows my needs?

The instant I hear you wishing for something, I know God knows your needs. Then I’ll hear my head asking for patience or kindness or love…and aren’t those pretty wishes? Clearly, I’ve upgraded them from my two banes: glory and money…probably my ego thinking that if I make my wants pretty enough, then God will give me them.

I have read, and I believe it to be true, that to know God aright is to never seek anything…is to live in a state of grace-filled gratitude. 

Knowing it is the first step, proving it is the test.

Thank You.

FAITH WITHOUT WORKS IS FANTASY

Love has no errors, for all errors are the want of love. -- William Law

I think the reason for a "want of love" is the want of knowing what love is. Too many of us are still thinking that the feeling of love should be warm and wonderful and good and happy and uplifting and freeing and joyous and bippity bippity tra la la. If just one of those feelings is missing...uh-oh, not love. In fact, disrespect is hovering near: Why, he/she really doesn't like me...I am utterly innocent, offering nothing but good and happy, etc., etc., etc., and look what I'm getting in return. Dissed. All that in the blink of an eye, the beat of a heart.

Love, to me, is simply nonresistance...to whatever comes my way. Especially the feeling of dissed, which I apparently have an affinity for since I can manufacture the feeling on my next breath. Ruckus always comes running when I get out his leash. Except when he doesn't. I guarantee, without thought, I can feel unloved...rejected...in that instant. After all I do for him.

Sidebar: I used to laughingly say that feeling unloved/unwanted/unneeded/unappreciated must be my favorite place, I go there so often. Imagine my surprise when an unhealthy majority of the people to whom I shared that said, "Me, too!" At least we got a laugh out of it.

Back to my thinking that love is simply nonresistance...which is another word for acceptance, which is another word for surrender which is sometimes known as crash-and-burn. Take it back to that taproot, and it becomes clearer why we'd rather think of love as happy, happy, tra la. 

Surrender is a hard act to want to experience. There is no warm and fuzzy around surrender. 

The paradox is, if we live a nonresistant life, we don't have to surrender...we're there. And one cannot live a surrendered life in a vacuum...there must be a guide, a guiding light, a guiding force. A higher power. To whom we surrendered.

That's the gold in nonresistance...we have given up resisting anything and anybody and found a power greater than ourselves who can and will intervene in our lives in our behalf. (To paraphrase a great teaching.)

On that rock we build our faith...knowing that faith without works is fantasy.

Thank you.

ACCEPTANCE, THE ROOT OF THANK YOU

Never seek anything or any condition in prayer. Let harmony define and reveal itself. Let your prayer be letting the IS appear. -- Joel Goldsmith, "The Heart of Mysticism," at p. 790.

We have a defect of character that has finally become an irritant to us...to our friends' relief, I might add. The usual path is that we decide we're going to stop doing/thinking/feeling/being that.

We can't.

We immediately start praying for God to remove the shortcoming, and we discover that anything we ask God to remove then owns us. The problem, of course, is that we are in truth telling God what to do and how to do it. We are binding ourselves to our defect ever more tightly and calling it prayer.

We remember that our prayer must ever be, "Thank you." That is all. As Meister Eckhart wrote, "If 'thank you' is the only prayer you ever say, that will suffice."

The root of our thank you is acceptance...it is that root that we nurture unto full growth that changes all. That is the aligning of our will with God's will, the working with rather than working for...with God, for self.

Our thoughts will go back to our perceived problem. Repeatedly. We welcome them. The instant we resist them, they've won again, and we'll not realize it until we're dragging butt, crying the blues, hoping nobody can tell.

Again, we go to our "Thank you, God, for my everything just as it is right this very minute." We are opening our mind...changing our mind quite simply. Changing our mind from "I know what I need" to "God knows what I need. Knock yourself out, God. And thank you."

Thank you.

IS FEAR JUST DOUBT OF SELF?

Want to scare yourself silly? Just say to yourself, "Fear is a lack of faith," or "You can't have fear if you have faith,” or any variation on that theme really. Which, to me, immediately translates into, "There is no God in your life because you fear, and it's all your fault and shame on you into the bargain."

Personally, I have learned to substitute the word "doubt" for "fear" which is closer to my reality. I think of doubt as seeping into my consciousness, settling in, then directing my feelings...not coming in a flash and leaving devastation behind. Fear does...that's exactly how my fear operates. The devastation left behind is anxiety.

I wonder if doubt isn't born in the ego and is actually doubt of self. Doubt is probably the mother of most fear, beginning as the smallest of niggles in our mind, ignored (or stuffed) until it grows legs, feet and a mind of its own...steps right on out and tramples rational thought.

Those little niggles are the ones we learn to pull up, look right in the eyeball and mentally allow them to be as bad as we don't want them to be. For we also learn that the more we try to mentally make them go away or change them to pretty, the uglier they become, the tighter they cling. 

This is when our "Thank you" grows its legs and feet...for, of sheer necessity, we turn our own idea of our needs over to God. We allow ourselves to believe that this...this fearsome ugly that is living in our mind...this, too, is of God, is God's personal gift to us, and we don't need to know how. 

From my own experience with an incurable, progressive disease, I have learned there is nothing so ugly to my reasoning mind that cannot be God's gold to me, his beloved. And I am grateful.

Thank you.

WE ARE CHANGED THROUGH PRESENCE

We hear, "If you will upgrade your attitude, you will upgrade your problem," and after awhile we learn that is exactly true.

However, between the hearing and the learning...long period of bumbling and doubt. Mainly because we start out trying to upgrade our attitude by calling what we are feeling, i.e., the "bad," something acceptable or pretty, i.e., the "good."  That is just exchanging one judgment for another. We are still into self-determined objectives, underlying which will always be self...which most often is just ego victory through resistance.

We learn that we cannot upgrade our attitude by self-will alone. We get to bring in the Peacemaker (and not a Colt 45). We begin building our inner connection with a power great than ourselves. This is the cornerstone of meditation...being led down into the silence...turning our reasoning mind over (within) to anything other than self. 

We turn our attention away from the bad and/or the good, and we focus on...the wings of a dove, a dogwood tree, mine is always the lily of the valley. Then we sit and let...that is all. A blinding flash of the obvious will come, a click-click will be felt.

And our attitude is upgraded...not through will, through presence. God is present...heed It.

Thank you.

USE GOD'S EYES TO SEE

My prayer of peace: "Thank you, God, for me, for my life, for my everything just as it is right this very minute."

I've prayed this since I first heard it back in the '70s, and it has been invaluable in turning my focus from what I thought I needed to acceptance of what is.

I then branched out and started praying it for others. It has become my go-to prayer for such as my friend diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, another's daughter with autism, more than a couple others with cancer, another with degenerative neuropathy, another with chronic back problems...and the list goes on.

“Thank you, God, for him/for her, for each one’s life, for each one’s everything just as it is right this very minute." 

This surely removes the self-determined objective prayer...the prayer of the narcissistic ego which immediately knows what needs to be done, tells God, and then determines that it's probably hopeless...oh woe, woe, woe. 

God knows our needs...we get to stay focused on, say, a lily of the valley, and let all be well. No matter what our lying eyes tell us…for unless we are using God’s eyes with which to see, ours are lying eyes.

Thank you.

SELFLESSNESS...AND SELF-ABSORBED

Selflessness. Selflessness does not come naturally to me...to few of us, truth be told. This past couple weeks, we've all been reminded of Nelson Mandela's selfless life which brought me to Martin Luther King, Jr., and then Gandhi...it's the measure of my ego that I compare myself to them! Come up short, of course, but staying there is just an excuse to not even try to be a tish more caring and considerate. To everyone. Period.

I had an experience of another's selflessness toward me just yesterday. To my reasoning mind, it is such a little thing that it's taken me nearly 24 hours to process the layers of it...and there may be even more that I haven't gotten to yet.

I came in from walking Ruckus, and we followed a man onto our elevator here. I asked him to push 5 for my floor, and he did. As Ruckus and I got off at 5, I glanced over my shoulder, and the man was pushing G...he was going to the Garage! When I asked him to push 5, he did not demur, did not turn a hair...simply said, "Sure," and smiled. As the elevator doors were closing, I called back what I had just realized and apologized, but I can't be sure he heard me.

To me, his action is pure selflessness. Especially with our elevators. I often think they have a mind of their own, and they sit and ponder whether they're even going to answer a call. As often as not, I get on one and it'll go to whatever floor it chooses...I'm just grateful the things don't go from side to side, or I'd never get where I want to go.

Oops...clearly the elevators and I have issues...uh-oh, I have issues with our dim-dam elevators.

Back to the man's selflessness (back to me trying to be spiritual). I did feel badly that I hadn't been able to let him know how impressed, how touched, I was by his unselfish action. In particular that he said not one word, not one eyeroll did he give, nothing to indicate that he was going out of his way for a total stranger. And even more particularly with our elevators...but I've been there, haven't I?

It finally occurred to me that my words would have been nice, but they were not really necessary. His reward is in his gift. Whether he realizes it or not, his own will come to him.

Our lives are made better not by what we get but what we give.

Thank you.

ABTW, we're getting new elevators next year...praise God!

THE COMFORT OF THY ROD AND THY STAFF

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

Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. - The 23rd Psalm

I like to think of “thy rod and thy staff” as my rues, regrets and remorses. Then, when my memory brings up a rue, a regret or a remorse, I can imagine that as the Shepherd’s rod and staff, letting me know not to go there…i.e., bringing the lamb back from danger of hurt or harm to safety.

The lamb (my mind) is always going to go gamboling, frequently landing where it oughtn’t…that’s why it has a Shepherd.

The key is to never forget the Shepherd...which I do when I beat myself for going gamboling where I oughtn’t.

Thank You.

THE INNER ROAD TO FREEDOM

I dreamed last night:

Tom disrespects me. I react in kind, then I gossip to Sylvia about Tom's actions. I immediately regret the gossip, and I want to walk it back...but my objective for walking it back is just so Sylvia (and I) will think it shows spiritual growth.

I recall lecturing others: "Just so you'll not be blind-sided again, it is always you...it is never them.'" My upset with Tom over Tom's upset with me is mine. Tom's upset with me is Tom's.

The question is: What if what Tom does with his upset with me is entirely contingent upon what I do with mine?

What if that is the "Way of the Cross?"

What if the "Way of the Cross" is the inner road to freedom?

Maybe the inner road to freedom is, quite simply, forgiveness. That's all...forgiveness of you, of me, of us...forgiveness of all known and unknown prickly pears or atomic bombs. With the kicker being that self cannot forgive...forgiveness is of God.

When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me, speaking words of wisdom, 'Let it be, oh, let it be.' -- "Let It Be," The Beatles

Thank you.

ACCEPTANCE, I.E., LET IT BE

We hear, "God has my back." We like that...what's to hate? We start saying that...that becomes our go-to phrase. Then SPLAT...we get a less-than-wonderful right upside our head.

This is when we start building our trust in that which we have been mindlessly repeating,"God has my back." That beginning feels like we're just whistling by the cemetery all the while repeating, "I expect the best," "All is as it should be," etc. Those are the exactly right words, we just need to raise our expectations deeper. Which means, give up our idea of what is "best" and/or "as it should be." Our idea of what is best at that point is just that, our idea. Which is, in fact, just another self-determined objective.

We get to give up any personal idea of what is best. We begin by UNknowing our idea of best by changing our mind. We come to believe that our impersonal best, that which is of God,  is already ours through the power of God within us/without us now.

Our job is to stay focused on the fact that God is only good. I keep my focus by saying unto believing, "You got the power, God. Knock yourself out. I'm on your side no matter what my eyeballs tell me."  We are building a gut-bucket belief that God does have our back...that's our only construction project. Digging deeper to let what is in out.

This is acceptance in a word...if we will accept that which is, no matter what it appears to be to our reasoning mind, we will live in peace. All that is required is that we learn to say "no" to whatever freak is appearing...because, after all, God not only has our back, but our front, sides and center. So let It.

Thank you.

THE CLOUD OF UNKNOWING

We know God's hand is in the mix when we get a win-win. The trouble is our ego is ever with us, and we have to be wary of a win-win that we have engineered...or manipulated if we want the word with the bark on it.

We must be wary because the ego, always legislating for itself, can pull off an apparent win-win when, in fact, it is a "You win, but I win a tish more and/or better." This, of course, leaves the other with a less than wonderful feeling, wondering what just happened...and that he's going to have to pay somebody back about something.

The real ego-tripper is winning by looking humblest...we both win, but I, being ruthlessly, scrupulously honest ("too much information" aborning) win bigger. Again, the other walks away feeling (but not knowing why) she's going to have to pay somebody back about something.

The source of all our ills may just be in the unconscious feeling that we must win. Just win. How to be an always winner? Be right. How to always be right? Know...never be caught not knowing.

In truth, unknowing is the source of perfect peace. That can only be, unknowing as perfect peace, if and as we trust that God has our back...lives within us/without us...is ever with us...and only shows/flows forth as good, our personal good.

There. That is truth. And we can never know exactly how that is...how it is that God is.

Thank you.

PROJECTING ANGER, EXTENDING LOVE

Without projection there can be no anger, but it is also true, that without extension there can be no love.  -- "A Gift of Peace, Selections From 'A Course in Miracles'" at p. 52

I had to ponder what the difference to me is in "projection" and "extension." I think of projection as a negative, as not attached to me, a throwing out; I think of extension as a positive, attached, a reaching out.

We are warned about projecting our outcomes and are encouraged to extend a hand to a fellow in need.

It's a real ah-ha to read that "without projection there can be no anger." But, really, aren't all feelings either projected or extended? Hate, a hard negative feeling, even when we think we are holding it within us, is flowing, seeping, projecting outward. Distrust, envy, jealousy...all the fears in fact. They form the basis of anger, and all are projected outward, at someone, something...and sometimes even ourselves. That's when they feel like they have a life of their own, walk up and slap us upside the head.

A similar process goes on with love, the basis of which is joy, gratitude, forgiveness, et al. Except that when we're feeling any of those, it doesn't enter our mind to hold those goodies in...each extends itself without our thought or effort. The best part is each draws the same back to us.

The book goes on to say: Accept only loving thoughts in others and regard everything else as an appeal for help. 

Now there's a high bar to aim for...but why not? A low bar doesn't even require that we aim...we just trip over that. I do know if I set that as my goal, I'll immediately fail. It is to hold it as my goal...then I'll return to it ever so often and be amazed that I've gotten an inch or so ahead of where I was.

Another cliché: It's hard by the yard, it's a cinch by the inch!  I love those things.

Thank you.

THE MORE WE GIVE THE MORE WE GET

It's an inside job. -- Anonymous

What is "it?" Easier to say what it is not. It is not diamonds or dollars, gold...or good health, even. It is all...peace, love, acceptance, gratitude, grace. That is, in truth, all there is, and it is within, awaiting release.

Really, if you can't find it inside, where are you  going to go to get it? Tiffany's? Amazon? Wegmans? It is a fact that we can get any material thing we could ever want or perceive that we need at a store near us...if we've got the money. We can even get a fairly good substitute for what we want for a little less money...and buy a resentment right along with it...because we don't have the money for what we really want.

What we get to do is very simply change our wish list...from "I want" to "Whatever." Our job now is to mean it...as in, get happy about it. Enough with the resigned to blahblahblah.

The trick is in finally seeing that all we need do to own all...is to give it away. We've got a storehouse full to overflowing, and the more we give, the fuller it gets...pass it on.

Thank you.

GOD CHANGES OUR MINDS

I am so glad that God doesn't hold resentments. Just yesterday, the following quote from Fr. Richard Rohr had me irritated, resistant and not happy about it. I could not...would not...let it lift me. It was a downer to my ego's eyes, and that was good enough for me.

This morning I read it, and I feel like singing, if I could sing...my heart can and is which is close enough to perfect for me. What a wonderful gift:  Struggling with one’s own shadow self, facing interior conflicts and moral failures, undergoing rejections and abandonment, daily humiliations, experiencing any kind of abuse or your own clear limitations, even accepting that some people hate you: All of these are gateways into deeper consciousness and the flowering of the soul. 

That just confirms that all my rues, regrets and remorses really are gateways into my deeper consciousness and the flowering of my soul. 

God is so good to me...he can and will change my mind for me! How great thou art.

Thank you.

CLING TO NOTHING...SOAR

The following is from "Daily Meditations," Fr Richard Rohr, December 8, 2013 [the trouble with it is its probably true, every single word]: Struggling with one’s own shadow self, facing interior conflicts and moral failures, undergoing rejections and abandonment, daily humiliations, experiencing any kind of abuse or your own clear limitations, even accepting that some people hate you: All of these are gateways into deeper consciousness and the flowering of the soul. 

Don't you just hate it?

I get up this morning, ice is forecast so my mouth is complaining but my mind is cheering...I'm excused from doing anything at all this whole day (except walk Ruckus, of course, and that's serving the Lord). 

With that single thought, I'm off...I'm dreaming, not of a white Christmas but of winning...winning big time. A life of luxury and adulation are to be mine (a tish late, but hey...). I even remember that shaman’s "If you can see it, you can be it" which affirms my dreams as plain truth. 

Then a blinding flash of the obvious: God has but one desire for me and that is that I have but one desire: To wash the feet of the beggar man, of the bag lady. To seek and to be gifted with that honest desire is to soar...to cling to nothing...to soar.

Rats.

Thank you.

PONDER AND REMEMBER

I was talking with a friend, who happens to be an atheist, and she said something to the effect that these days make suicide look good. Nothing, to my thinking, makes suicide look good. As the cliché goes, suicide is a permanent fix to a temporary problem.

My ever-ready-to-fantasize mind has a full-blown story break forth: Gertrude commits suicide and the instant she's dead and gone, she's standing before her own concept of God. He's big, he's old (long white beard), he's meaner than a rattlesnake (angry eyes), and his forefinger is shaking in her face, and he is saying, "You little bitch." AND, her mother is sitting on his right side, knitting, and saying, "I told you so."

With that in mind, ponder suicide. There is nothing on this earth, in this life or the next, that would make suicide look good in comparison to that...according to me.

Thank you, God, that I know you are my fuel, my inspiration, my need. I am your hands and feet, your eyes and ears, your voice...all of which you use sparingly. My only job may be simply to remember that.

Thank you.

BY WHICH I MEAN GOD

"You got the power." 

That's the word. The word I keep forgetting to say to God when I'm stumped yet again with an ego biter. God has the power, and He can and will use it in my life in my behalf. 

I keep hearing friends talk about getting their power back. I do not want my so-called power back. When I had that power, I was a reasonably successful woman and eaten alive with fear that I couldn't hold it, would get it taken from me, would be shamed and blamed because I misused it. Living like that was never an option for me...but I hadn't yet found my inner strength (by which I mean God!) to turn from it. 

It took some time (all good things do), but one day I realized that all the power I needed was not of me but of We. And that power is not available to our ego...in fact, its goal is ego-deflation in depth. That fact is what our ego resists and trips us with at will. The ego always legislates for itself (seemingly for us!), and we can't hate that...it is our song of the Sirens. 

I suspect if it weren't for our warts, our uglies, our defects of character, we'd sit right there with our ego-legislating selves...all alone and feeling superior about it. Those warts though become too ugly, too hurtful to our own selves to live with. They drive us to a power greater than ourselves...and, like magic (sometimes in a year or two, sometimes longer, say 30-40-50 years!), our defects of character are transmuted. 

I am grateful to God, to my rues, regrets and remorses and to all my imaginary enemies that I know today: "You (by which I mean God!) got the power." 

Thank you.

"I WILL FIGHT NO MORE FOREVER"

The ego-based reasoning mind is ever with us. Our job is to transcend it, not "just stop using it"...which is not possible to the overwhelming majority of those of us living in this world.

It is the daily practice of surrendering unto acceptance of the ego-biters, the so-called "little" things, that will head us in the right direction. We'll know we got there (i.e., free of our ego-biter of the moment) when we laughing tell another about how we used to get crazy when she did thus and when he did so.

In that moment we are blessed with the grace of gratitude that we transcended our resistance...a.k.a., got over ourselves. For it was never the "thus" that she did, the "so" that he said, it was our reaction to it...our resistance to it.

We have been taught that nature abhors a vacuum...take away resistance and most of us will have a huge hole in our soul. Then is when we feel our most vulnerable...alone, scared and clueless. Now is when we shoot a "thank you," and it is never more appropriate for we are at the place we need to be...surrender. It is then that we are open for grace to flow forth and fill us with gratitude.

We are reminded of Lincoln's "People are as happy as they want to be." Take away our own resistance, and...aha! Live, love, laugh and be happy. Those are all just words unless and until we choose to do just exactly that. In short, we give up fighting anything and anybody.

Thank you.

HUMILITY APPEARS WITHOUT VOLITION

Geez, just yesterday the thought flitted through my mind that my pride was peeking up from under its dark cover. Then today, in "God Calling" is the admonition: Do not seek too much the praise and notice of [others].

Humility is found within....ain't no going out and buying a bucketful...but, mercy, it is hard to want, much less to welcome, its appearance! I guess that's because, to me, humility feels like humiliation when it is being born. It appears without volition...that's its very nature. If we could self-will humility, it would not be humility...it'd be looking-good power!

Once again...stumped by my own ego. Looking for the gold, I remember that when the need arises, God appears.

Here's me...looking forward with dread.

Thank you.

NOT BY SELF, BY GOD

We are told the promises of God will always materialize if we work for them.

Why is it so hard to remember that the "working" for them is the "work" of maintaining conscious contact with our God? It is the work of aligning our will with Its will, of detaching from our wants (most often fear based and always of self), knowing our needs (always of God) are already met...are within us waiting to be released.

As we are released from our ego-victory wants, our needs flow forth, materializing as that which we need in that moment. And we think, "What a coincidence! I was just saying...."

"The spiritual life is not a theory. We have to live it." -- Anonymous

Thank you.

GOD'S WORKPLACE

I said something recently, another person was overly impressed, my ego grew wings and was within Ames' ace of soaring. The truth…my truth…is that an ounce of spiritual growth to those not in a like place can appear to be walking-on-water quality. From my eyebrows up, that is off-putting to downright scary…regrettably, the ego…my ego…loves it.  

The fact is it is written (and to paraphrase): “Spiritual growth requires that we go counter to our own natural desires…it requires ego reduction in depth.”

I was gifted many years ago with a reading in re paradox. At the time, I wasn't one hundred percent certain what a paradox even was. The reading made it clear, and I was enchanted. “You have to give it away to keep it.” “You have to lose to win.” All those oldies but greaties speak to me today with the same power they had when first I heard them.

The practical reason that I  try always to look for the paradox is it helps me change my mind which, to me, is the hardest thing life is ever going to ask of us...just change your mind.

That process begins with the gut-bucket belief that whatever comes to us, no matter how dreggy it looks in the coming, and on its arrival, there is gold (a.k.a., God) in it. All we need do is turn our attention from the dregs and look for the gold. That’s becoming willing to change our mind…from “Oh no” to “Thank you.” That’s it.

The rest of the process (which takes as long as it takes…God knows when we’re ready) is to stayed focused on the gold, no matter how tiny that nugget, that’s now our center of attention. BUT, say the word “lose” or “loser,” and see how we run! Half the time with me leading the pack. 

That’s the Catch-22. We’re not entirely stupid, and what we’re thinking is right…to our thinking! So what right-thinking soul is going to go for “loser?”

That’s why changing our mind is the hardest thing life can ask of us. It’s not just changing our mind from “this is good” to “this is bad,” and back again. No. It requires a new level of consciousness.

We must move away from self toward God…up from the reasoning mind, down to our spiritual center, God's workplace.

Thank you.

REALIZING THANK YOU

[The following is a reprint of my blog from December 5, 2011.]

If it is true that “God comes to us disguised as our life,” then God was/is in my rues, regrets and remorses. It was my (ego’s) invitation to my rrr’s which caused them to bloom, and God was with me, within me, as love, for every thought, word and deed, and it is through that love that all is forgiven, made whole.

Defects of character cannot be changed by the self…cannot be removed that is…can be made worse by the self, by self-will. Fr. Richard Rohr has written that being ”willing to creatively work with the hand that life and sin and circumstance and God have dealt [us], that is our deepest life of prayer and devotion.”

Today in Eknath Easwaran’s Words to Live By is his great line about changing compulsive craving, jealousy, blind fury (”some may be fortunate enough to have all three” [NOTE: That is not a misquote.]) and how each person must look for that defect where urgent work, i.e., the transformation of consciousness, must begin. 

That is my how-to for working with God, but not doing God’s work…being willing to creatively work with the hand I've been dealt. The only way I know to do that is through the grace of gratitude…not just to say thank You but to realize thank You for my worst defects…and yours.

Thank You.