WE ARE THE KEEPER OF THE KEYS

Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.... -- from The Lord's Prayer

That passage is the only one in the Lord's prayer in which we commit to doing our part...all the rest we're just stating our expectations of the Lord. Letting him know he's got his work cut out for us. But on those eight words hang all the rest of the prayer...all the rest of our lives in fact.

Broken down to the specifics, the prayer states:

thy kingdom come
thy will be done

give us this day our daily bread
forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us

lead us not into temptation
deliver us from evil

I submit if we live to forgive...friend or foe, known or unknown...Thy kingdom is ours because Thy will is being done through us. We will be forever fed by that forgiving heart which cannot be led into temptation, and we are thereby delivered from the evil of our ego.

In a perfect world.

And we are the keeper of the keys to that perfect world.

Thank you.

GRACED AND BLESSED

I am convinced that the only thing blocking our doing God's will consistently is our resistance to what he's offering. And, of course, that resistance is based on our own idea of what he's offering.

We hear, "Let go and let God." We say it...repeatedly. Nine times out of ten, even as we pray for God's will, we're picturing our want, our self-perceived need. Then we're gifted with what appears to be the exact opposite of what we perceived we needed! In fact, it often seems to be the one thing we're praying it won't be.

Having no choice, we accept what we got, and, through gritted teeth, thank God for it. Then, YOWZER. it comes to be that what we got was and continues to be much...oh, so much...better than our initial desire. We are forced to realize and accept that only God could have pulled it off.

A thank you prayer: Thank you, God, that I want your will done in my life more than I want my own will done in my life no matter what. Open-ended. Knock yourself out, God. Do your thing. You got the power, use it. You're nothing but good so nothing but good can come from you no matter what it looks like to my eyes. You'll make it clear to me when it needs to be clear to me. I am graced with gratitude and blessed with love. Amen

Thank you.

BELIEVING, TRULY BELIEVING

Reason is like an officer when the King appears. The officer then loses his power and hides himself. Reason is the shadow cast by God; God is the sun. -- Rumi

We cannot solve the problems of the mind with the mind. -- The Buddha

We must one day pass beyond discursive thinking and enter into a higher mode of knowing. -- Eknath Easwaran

Guess who is driving herself bat-stuff crazy trying to figure out how to be a forgiving person. How to reason her way To Be...A Forgiving Person.

I read those quotes and I agree with them 100 percent, not for the first or the 41st time, may I say. There is nothing in me that disagrees, nothing that says "Yes, but...." Unfortunately, the names of half dozen people who need them pop up, and my name is not one of the half dozen.

From my eyebrows up I've got how to do it: The minute I have a judgmental thought...real or fancied...mentally say, "I forgive." Do not get into specifics of what I am forgiving, else the specific becomes my hook. Just "I forgive" and let God fill in the rest by forgiving. Could it be any more simple?

Blinding flash of the obvious: It is the part about letting God do the forgiving that my reason resists.

It comes back to believing, truly believing, that God can and will intervene in my life in my behalf. Or as God Calling says on this very date: "For prayer, believing prayer, is based on the certainty that I am working for you and with you and in you."

I'll realize that I am already a forgiving person when God knows I'm ready to realize that...and God is never too early or too late.

Thank you.

LIVING LOVINGKINDNESS

[The following is a reprint of my blog of December 22, 2008.]

I was thinking this morning of lovingkindness, and what a peaceful word that is.

Then I thought simply of kindness, and a little prayer started to form, in effect asking for more kindness. Before the prayer formed, the answer was there…I already have all the kindness there is to have…all I need do is show it, put it out there, use it.

This is not new information, of course. I learned long ago that as long as I keep asking to be kinder, more loving, more generous, less judgmental…all the goodies…the more I deny the kindness I have, the love I am already filled with, and so forth.

The real problem is the fool-myself Catch-22…I feel downright righteous about asking for all these fine-sounding, God-approved things, totally ignoring the fact that all that I seek was bestowed in me before conception.

It is the act of giving over to another, in lovingkindness, that primes the pump for all the goodies to flow. And it is the lovingkindness that requires still more spiritual growth. My human nature, my ego-victory mind, does not give over just because I want to. To give over by keeping my mouth shut (and thinking judgmental thoughts) is just breeding a resentment.

Living lovingkindness, then, is the goal.

Thank you.

THE DIVINE PARADOX

How privileged we are to understand so well the divine paradox that strength rises from weakness, that humiliation goes before resurrection; that pain is not only the price but the very touchstone of spiritual rebirth. -- Anonymous

There is a divine paradox and it is that strength does rise from weakness, humiliation does go before resurrection; that pain is not only the price but the very touchstone of spiritual rebirth. 

We who are forced by our own decisions to know this paradox for truth...to realize it by walking through our weakness, our humiliation, our pain...we are blessed. But the greater truth is that this is a divine paradox for all, everywhere...or it is not truth at all, it's fantasy...or luck...or magic thinking.

We who are "privileged to understand" are blessed because we gave away our choice to accept or not such as "divine" or "spiritual" or "God."  If we want to live happy, joyous and free (and who doesn't?), we throw in with divine and spiritual...with God. According to me. 

Thank you.

TO FORGIVE WITHOUT THOUGHT

Forgiveness...the very act of forgiving. I still have a hard climb over my ego trying to embrace just the word "forgive." It sounds sanctimonious to me. Holier than thou. Yet the majority of my prayers for (that which I preach about not doing, i.e., praying for) is a prayer for forgiveness of myself...for not forgiving.

The only thing in this world that keeps me from forgiving is my unwillingness to change my mind. Just on the basis of how it sounds, I keep me wrapped up in self, pondering.

See why we're advised not to analyze? Until we're willing to seek and accept another's help (which we belatedly realize as seeking God), the only thing self-analyzation leads to is more self-analyzation.

To forgive without thought...ah, there's the grail.

Thank you.

THE THIEF WAITING BY THE SIDE OF THE ROAD

The thief waiting by the side of the road in order to steal all our worldly goods? That thief is ego. The worldly goods? Those are self-determined add-ons. They begin with fear...namely, fear of losing all our worldly goods.

I am reminded: My gifts are not of this world...be of good cheer I have overcome this world.

I want to remember that it seems every time I hear of or read about a better or deeper or easier or harder Way, I immediately KNOW I am (and have been all along) doing it wrong, and I need to try this other Way.

What I really need to remember is that that is the thief waiting by the side of the road.

Thank you.

THY ROD AND THY STAFF THEY COMFORT ME

We know this because the still small voice has told us so.

That was a blinding flash of the obvious which I wrote about a couple of days ago. The trouble with rereading is I see, or think I see, my own arrogance. It is towering. Or is that just more ego?

I woke up this morning with Edith Piaf's song about no regrets playing in my head. That's one of my favorites from way back in the '60s when I was a walking-around regret and didn't even know it...had not a clue.

But the song made me realize that I have no reason for regrets today. Which isn't to say I don't have regrets, I just have no reason for them. But I read that sentence and blushed from my toenails up. It sounds so arrogant to my eye.

There. That's no doubt the key to "tell no man" which refers to spiritual lights going off in our head and trying to tell another about it. Nothing extinguishes the light quicker, and we lose our inch forward into the bargain.

I just give myself points that I didn't delete the sentence when I reread it...let it stand, if it really is my arrogance on parade, let it march. Hiding it won't stop the arrogance, but it will allow me to believe I've taken care of it. Just another CYA waiting to spring out somewhere else to take me unawares.

That's a "thy rod and thy staff they comfort me" as he shepherds me through my life.

Thank you.

SILENCE IS THE KEY

For those of us who seek, the value of an unquiet mind is this: We are  required by its very demands to think that unquietness through.

The kicker is that "through" means to surrender...think it through unto surrender. It does not mean until we've figured it out. By the very process of analyzing, we come out more convinced than ever that we were right to begin with. And the unquiet continues its painful ride.

To try to still the unquiet without surrender is to nurture that unquiet...and thus it becomes our perceived reality. What we suspected, dreaded, just knew is now "real," and that reality becomes our god. And we live in that unquiet mind...with the added spurs of guilt because we "can't help it."

The hardest part of the whole process is accepting the fact that our reasoning mind is clueless as to the perfect outcome. We have conditioned our mind to believe it has, or should have, the right answer and to seek help is be a loser.

It is the beginning of spiritual growth when we realize that the word "help" is of God. It is a complete thought...sentence...paragraph, and silence is its key.

There is no ego gold in spiritual growth. Like charity, spiritual growth is its own reward...and, again, silence is its key.

Thank you.

GOD AS LOVE...ONLY LOVE

Sit quietly with our attention focused on the Within, the still small voice will thunder....Only one thing is necessary and that is to wait until there is a stirring or a feeling which is our assurance that God has uttered His voice. -- Joel Goldsmith, "The Heart of Mysticism," at p. 1135.

We sit. We get still. We see God as love, only love, love flowing without boundaries. Love as a source and a force of love, that is all. In all the world, there is only love. We see each of everybody and everything, every grain of sand and every drop of water, as that very love shaped into the form chosen before conception.

We know this because the still small voice has told us so.

Thank you.

AND THE BEAT GOES ON

All disagreements, all arguments, all wars start with self-centered fear (for what other kind is there?). And I believe that that fear births disrespect, the driver of all disagreements. One person, one side, one party, one country disrespects the other simply by not listening.

The disrespect is in the first one's belief that she is right and he is wrong, and the other's belief that she is wrong, that he is right...so why listen?

And neither one will sit down, get quiet within and without, and ask for the grace of guidance. Not for how to win him over, not to get her to see the right way...according to her, she is already seeing the right way, and it is her way. Nor will either ponder ways to see the problematic issue from the other's viewpoint.

That is at the core of disrespect. Which is also the core of fear. The fear being I may be wrong...and will look like a fool, be laughed at, humiliated.

So, humanity itself rests on the minute feeling of self-centered fear from which disrespect blooms and nuclear bombs are born which prove too annihilating to use so heads are chopped off which make nuclear bombs seem like the only answer.

I'm guessing the whole world knows the right answer...and we wait for the other side to do it first lest we look like the loser.

Please. Thank you. Amen.

LOVE, LAUGH AND GET OVER YOURSELF

We no longer have anything to prove or protect, so we can let go and surrender to Reality/God, which are now experienced as the same thing.  Fr. Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," 12/20/14

Now there's an old idea put into a new concept to me...reality and God as the same thing. And my ego immediately goes, "Well, what do you think you've been learning all these years? How dense are you?"

The good news is I have been learning all these years, and the most important thing I've learned is to let my ego say whatever it wants...I have ceased fighting. Right behind that most important thing, and the key to its importance, is: Love and laugh. That's takes both the sting and the self-importance out of the ego's words.

Immediately after having my uplifting talk with me, I happened to glance into my foyer. My beloved Ruckus had peed there...on the marble foyer. I neither loved nor laughed. All the while I'm cleaning up and having a real hissy fit, Ruckus is sitting there looking at me with adoring eyes. I had to hug him.

As I hugged him, I thought, "There. That's the answer...whatever is coming at you, pee on the marble or rose petals on the wind, look at it with adoration.  And adoration will be returned."

At least in my dog's world.

Thank you.

THE COMFORT OF UNCOMFORTABLE TRUTHS

I just love when I hear or read something that perfectly describes me and comes from someone I consider a spiritual giant.

Like today, Fr. Richard Rohr in his Daily Meditation wrote: "I’m so aware of what I’m not and of how phony I am and of how I say it so much better than I live it."

I have said those very words often and often...to myself at first, but now to others. The impossible truth is that  every time I have admitted that, I have felt comforted. How can that be? And who would think it possible..especially before actually out loud sharing it?

I thought it a long time before I ever risked saying it aloud to another. The first time we share a less-than-wonderful truth about ourselves it feels like a monumental risk. I mean, what if the listener gives a resounding, "Ain't that the truth?!" Or, worse, titters, "Oh, no, that's not true, dear."

Interestingly, when I first felt that I knew how phony I was, it turned out to be an ego trip in reverse...beating up on me hoping that was humility. It's not. It's just ego still playing its siren song. The fact is, how phony I am today means I'm not all that much. I'm fairly straight forward, as in, what you see is what you get...unless someone catches me unawares, and I go to my default CYA. All I can do then is admit it and move on.

The one that is as true today as it was the first time I ever admitted to it is, "I say it so much better than I live it."  I expect that will be true three days after I am dead. Here's the gold: That's what keeps us seeking still more spiritual growth. Why seek if we think we already have it all?

Thank you.

GOD WILL FLOW FORTH

Trying too hard to "get it" is as detrimental to spiritual growth as dismissing it all as happy talk. Mainly because we can't get spiritual growth.  Seeking to get is the ego-victory mind determining and dictating. As long as that is the case, we will be seeking our wants...dressed up pretty with a lot of spiritual-sounding words, but they will still be wants.

Wants are of the ego, needs are of God.

We have within, at our core, the Spirit...God. If we are seeking still more spiritual growth, our need is to detach from our reasoning mind, go to our center, and open our heart, our mind, our Soul. God will flow forth...in Its own good time.

According to me.

Thank you.

LOVE BEGETS LOVE

My dream: I'm all bent out of shape over what I think they think. I'm judging them for judging me. I know they have found me guilty without ever talking to me to hear my side. I know they all agree that I am wrong and they are right, and they will shame me silently in the public square.

I awoke to the thought that this is my greatest fear, being secretly shamed in the silent open.

In pondering my dream, I'm hit with the realization that I keep my greatest fear riding herd by my reactive judging...it is not their judging me, it is me judging them that causes my obsessive pain.

I tested this for several minutes and found when I turn to any kind thought toward them...any kind thought at all...I am quieted. There comes a feeling of peace which, when held, grows and becomes loving...until I invite a defensive thought up and out. The fear with its lash-back springs forth as if it had never gone away.

I had the dream last night, and these are from my readings this morning:

We all needed to prove we were right. Have you noticed that people who need to prove they are right cannot laugh or smile? * * * My true identity and my deepest freedom comes from God’s infinite love for me, not from what people think of me or say about me. Both the people who praise me and those who hate me are usually doing it for the wrong reasons.  -- Fr. Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," December 17, 2014.

Love begets love. - Eknath Easwaran, "Words to Live By," December 17.

I love when I realize a spiritual answer and right after read that which tells me I'm on the right track heading in the right direction.

God loves me so much...you, too.

Thank you.

GOD PROTECTS US FROM NOTHING

Sometimes I feel like I'm learning spiritual principles just so I can beat myself up for not living by spiritual principles.

It was a heart breaker and a mind bender when the writings of Mother Teresa were published after her death. I identified way more than I wanted to. And in what world is that an acceptable reality...I identified too much with Mother For Heaven's Sake Teresa! But she was some kind of hard on herself for not living up to her own God standards.

That's one of the giftees I get from journaling...I can look back a year or more later and read about what I was mentally arm-wrestling with back when. It is usually a jolt when I realize...and fairly often...that that problem has been cleared...either resolved in my favor or transmuted as another piece of gold for me to learn to love.

And there's the joy...recognizing a personal rue, regret, remorse as the gold I get to love.

I'm probably putting on airs, but I'm reminded of Fr. Richard Rohr's writing in his "Daily Meditation" of December 4th:  However, as a person ripens in unsayable intimacies in God, they ripen in a paradoxical wisdom. They come to understand God as a presence that protects us from nothing, even as God unexplainably sustains us in all things.

Thank you.

EXQUISITE WILDFLOWERS HIDDEN WITHIN

[God] creates exquisite wildflowers in hidden valleys that no human eye will ever see—just for the inherent joy and beauty of it! -- Fr. Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," December 15, 2014

As I read that the thought occurred that this exquisite place is within us, and it is only reachable through attunement with God.

To realize our attunement, first, we come to believe there is that place within. Then that it is reachable only through God's lifting us deeper into it. The  reasoning mind cannot get us there, and thinking, trying only creates a more impenetrable mental block.

Meditation in whatever form we meditate is one path. Opening our mind to the unacceptable as God's gift to us is another.

We make ourselves available to God...we clear our mind without straining,,,we sit and wait on the Lord.

No one knows the day or hour the bridegroom will come. [From somewhere in the Bible.]

Thank you.

GRATITUDE AND GRACE

Gratitude is the handmaiden of grace. Grace leaves us with our facts unchanged, but our feelings about our facts upgraded, uplifted, enlightened.

We know peace by developing and maintaining an attitude of gratitude. Then, no matter the appearance to our reasoning mind's eye, grace through our own gratitude lets us realize...again and again and, yes, again...that this, too, is God's will. All is well.

Thank you.

DEBATING ONLY DELAYS ARRIVAL

So I'm talking with a friend who was a construction worker until he was like 40 years old. He is now a professor at a well-known university and pretty happy about it...as who wouldn't be?

He is now seeking more, and the more he is seeking is spiritual growth. And resisting every spiritual concept he is given, or is led to, or arrives at on his own. To him, spiritual concepts do not make reasoning mind sense...which is indeed true and is the whole point!

My friend does not yet know that he is delighting in shooting down every concept through logic. His bottom line being, why would one change one's mind when one is provably right?

Which I am (delighting in) resisting obsessively.

My ah-ha! My fretting about convincing John that he needs to get out of his reasoning mind world is ME still in my reasoning mind world.

I can't convince spiritual consciousness onto or into anyone. I have a hard enough time staying put...or, actually, bringing myself back there when I get up in my own head.

All I need to remember is...all paths lead to God, we'll get where we need to get to when we get there. Debating only delays arrival.

If we are growing spiritually, we are depending less on our reasoning mind and more on our intuition, and that really cannot be black-and-white proven, according to me.

Thank you.

WHETHER WE REALIZE IT OR NOT....

Whether we know it or not...whether we understand it or not...whether we believe it or not...God has already provided for our every need.

Whether we know it or not...whether we understand it or not...whether we believe it or not...every fear of past, present or future is ego born and reasoning mind bred. There is no God there.

Whether we know it or not...whether we understand it or not...whether we believe it or not...we are God's vessel...now...for his use in pouring himself forth...now.

We do not earn this, we cannot go get this, praying for it blocks our realization of its truth. We need only say "thank you," and be at peace.

Thank you.

ON THE ART OF FOREVER CHANGING

Just change your mind...seems simple enough. Who knew there's a real process to it? Which process begins with our not trying to change our minds.

We get to experience the trepidation of un-knowing: We don't know, and we don't know what we don't know. That can leave one feeling clueless and powerless...the mother of hopeless. Which is fairly hard to love.

Then we are gifted with the why of our feeling so clueless and powerless. It is because we start off in our own mind trying to think of ways to change it. And that can't be done. That's akin to staying in our own bed trying to think our way into a new home...in a different city.

The realization that we want to...that we need to...change our minds begins the process. Then we learn through trial and error that the change is not in saying how right you are or how wrong I am. No. The first step in the right direction goes beyond reason, giving us a strong sense of  "this feels wrong." That's because our reasoning mind has always been our safety zone...our ultimate security.

Here comes God to save the day!

We discover our great gift is our hopelessness. It's the necessary that sets us on the path into a new consciousness. We get a glimmer of the fourth dimension within us. Ever so slightly and oh so seldom, but we know from our toenails up that this now is where we want to live...and that it is possible.

We have changed our mind. We have been lifted from the false and fleeting security of the mental and delivered deeper into the true and forever security of the spiritual.

The bad news...we get to do this repeatedly, daily, forever most likely. The good news...same goes.

Thank you.

BEING IN THE WORLD BUT NOT OF IT

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. -- Attributed to Edmund Burke

Every time I read that, I immediately think that that justifies war.

Then I remember the anonymous quote, We have ceased fighting anything and anybody.

And I realize again the difference between living in a reasoning mind world and living in a spiritually based world.

I am a believer that we get to choose which mindset we will live in. And neither is the right way or the wrong way...if our mind is set in the reasoning mind world and we're happy there, why change?

However, for some of us, life makes our decision. By our choices, our very life itself hands us an unfixable-to-our-reasoning-mind problem, and it is horrendous, and we are hurting beyond our capacity to accept it. There. That's when our minds are changed for us.

In a heartbeat, we bump into the fourth dimension, and, knowingly or unknowingly, we have made a U-turn...somehow a higher power we may never have considered necessary or even "real" is in our lives.

We begin to realize the necessity for daily contact with that higher power, which we find by getting quiet and seeking a new way to live our lives. Acceptance sneaks into our consciousness...as a good thing.

All our efforts now are not in "getting" but in detaching from...from our old ideas, our reasoning mind solutions. There's very little, if any, physically running around activity required. It's much harder than that...our answer is in getting quiet and waiting. We get to sit and wait on the Lord...all the while carrying out our daily life. We're learning to be in the world but not of it.

The process of detaching daily from self, listening for the still, small voice, brings a peace beyond reason. We can now aim, like Chief Joseph, to "fight no more forever."

Thank you.

ALL IS WELL

A dear friend of mine had to let her little dog go back to heaven yesterday, and I feel like my heart is ...missing? All the usuals...heavy, burdened, sad, broken. It is a gray day in my soul. And I know this gray mantle is also for my other beloveds...Si and Carlton and Lily and Sandy and now Nellie.

This is a clear example of what we know doesn't determine how we feel...feelings trump knowledge in the p.d.q. of life. But isn't that (or something like it) what our seeking still more spiritual growth is all about? Our quandary is the fact that denying our feelings is a shortcut to more misery, and whoever was able to just not think? Especially about something we don't want to think about!

And a bright light flickers...our need is to quit depending on how we feel, what we think (key word, "depending").

So we don't deny. We give ourselves permission to feel whatever, without self-censor, in the certain knowledge that dwelling there is a no-go. We then begin to change our mind. To make the turn from our reasoning mind's very legitimate recognition of our broken heart to the equally very legitimate recognition that gratitude is our answer. And we pray, "Thank you."

Thank you.

WE SHALL HEAR ANGELS

Oh, to go forward a'singin'. There. That's whats missing this morning. I'm feeling burdened, there's no...what? I guess, even humming in my heart. But, thinking on it, the real uh-oh is there's no concrete awful in my life either. Nothing is hanging fire in my worry zone. I just feel dissatisfied.

I went to a wonderful memorial for a friend on Saturday, and in talking it over with friends later, we all agreed we were feeling a tish melancholy...not the morbid melancholy, but the how-sweet-it-was melancholy.

Maybe my well, hell feeling is just a hangover from the melancholia, and my feelings aren't paid to know good melancholy from bad melancholia...if it don't feel good, it's bad, according to them.

That's what happens when we let our feelings dictate our mood...I guess I need to take my own advice: If I upgrade my attitude, I'll upgrade my problem.

And my eyes fall on a Christmas card I received some years ago that I keep on my bulletin board beside me:

we shall find

PEACE,

we shall hear

ANGELS.

we shall see the

SKY

sparkling with

DIAMONDS!

(chekhov)

God loves me so much.

Thank you.

GOD IN THE CHANGED MIND

A Truth: God can and will if sought.

How It Works: Change your mind about the end result of your want, i.e., how and when you get what you want.

Example: I prayed for a million dollars. I was gifted with a dollar. I thought, "Well, I'm not surprised...one lousy dollar isn't going to do me anything. Poor, pitiful, put-upon me. There is no God."

I Changed My Mind: I thought, "Thank you! This is a step in the right direction...if he can gift me with one, he can gift me with more than one. How can I help out?"

Fact: I'm still getting my million, one dollar at a time, but I have never gone hungry, I've never been without a roof over my head, and I've had enough to give something to others.

The Pearl Beyond Price: I haven't thought of myself as poor or pitiful or put-upon in a long time. That's worth more than a million dollars...that's priceless.

Thank you.

MY GRACE IS THY SUFFICIENCY

[The following is a reprint of my blog of December 13, 2009.]

“My grace is sufficient for thee.”

God’s grace is always available. It is not waiting for me to do, think, say some special thing…to earn it. Grace is mine now. God’s grace is the sufficiency I seek…all ways and always.

Just as air is not waiting for me to earn it…it’s there for the breathing.

Thank you.

OUT OF MATERIAL INTO SPIRITUAL

What we see is always ourselves.

It's never what we think it is...when we're fighting, struggling, resisting, after all's said and done, we're amazed to realize, the problem was within our own self to begin with.  And that's if we're doing it right.

If, however, we're thinking, "I sure showed him or I don't take nothing from nobody or she'll think twice before she comes after me again," we've just lost another round to ego.

What we see is always ourselves. There. That's the great cosmic truth, and the only way we ever come to believe that is by simply changing our minds...mental upgrade if you will. Out of the material into the spiritual.

In the reasoning mind world, developing healthy self-esteem is right up there at the top of our wish list. To develop healthy self-esteem we are taught that it is necessary to "take your own part," "stand up for yourself," "make yourself heard."

Healthy anything is better than unhealthy so we never negate healthy self-esteem, but we must change our minds about how we release our unhealthy and let our healthy walk free. Spiritual principles is the how-to key. Learning to live by spiritual principles, we walk free.

Remember...never forget...we must go beyond reason to love, and Eknath Easwaran's instructions for transforming consciousness (or, changing our minds) are profound. He writes,  "To begin...you have to look for the right spot [within yourself ]. In some people it is a particular compulsive craving; in some it is jealousy; in some, blind fury. Some may be fortunate enough to have all three." [Emphasis added.]

That is the nut, the going "beyond reason" core. For how can it make sense to feel "fortunate" to have compulsive cravings, jealousy, blind fury? We are fortunate to have these deep defects of character because nothing else would make us dig as deep as we must, trying to rid ourselves of them only to find complete defeat. This is our lesson...we can dig to the bone, but on our own we're not going to get free.

We must go beyond reason to a power greater than our own reasoning mind if we are ever to be free..."free of me." We must dig deep to be raised higher.

Thank you.

FREED FROM OUR OWN IDEAS

God protects us not from the belly of the beast; God transmutes the belly of the beast to our streets of gold.

This morning's blinding flash of the obvious takes me back to my first deeper realization of love...of the expandable, flexible nature of love. Love not just of other humans (or of another human, two at most), but love as a way of living my life. Filleted, in a word. Because that is what living love as we breathe does...splits us open, leaves us without defenses, invites any and all in...and showers us with joy immeasurable in the doing.

But we have to invite the filleted part before we can know the joy immeasurable part, and there's the stumbling block. I mean, consciously, who isn't going to try to make an end-run around the filleting, going for the joy?

For me, it's just like the biblical "Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven and all these things shall be added unto you." I could never not think of the added things first, all the while believing I was seeking the kingdom of heaven.

Maybe it all comes back to getting out of our reasoning mind...for we're not stupid, and getting filleted, willingly!, will never qualify for smart to the reasoning mind.

Here comes paradox to save the day! We finally accept that we have to become willing to walk utterly un-self-protected in this world if we are ever to know the utter security of love...of the love we have and have always had within us, waiting to be used.

When we become willing for God to do with us as he will, we are freed from our own idea that we can get the kingdom on our own terms...and we know love.

Thank you.

SPEAK THANK YOU TO GOD, KNOW PEACE

The miracle working power of "thank you" begins the instant we quit fearing that saying "thank you" will cause the disaster we're fearing to happen.

We've probably all heard about the need to develop an attitude of gratitude. I had heard that many times, seriously tried to practice it. I got stuck trying to feel gratitude for the roof over my head, for the air I breathe. My feeling was, I've always had a roof over my head, and everybody has air to breathe...what's in this for me?

Then one day I read, "Meister Eckhart said, 'If the only prayer you say in your life is thank you, that would suffice.'”

Thank you as a prayer! I  knew in the instant that was truth.

I still had to speak it (repeatedly) and have it "work" "not work" "work" before I realized the full miracle. Thank you changes the fact of nothing. It does better than that...it changes our attitude about that fearsome fact.

Thank you in the face of a self-perceived disaster relieves us of our resistance...our panic, our self-pity...our rigid, righteous and right. There. Right there is where we are changed...for our fear at that moment is the God of our understanding. Speak thank you to God, to God in whatever form we perceive God to be...and know peace.

A good indicator of whether we're on the right track is when our reasoning mind says, "Huh?" "How?" "I don't get it." We remind ourselves, once again, "We must go beyond reason to love."

Thank you.

THE GIFT OF A NEW PAST

Looking back and longing for the freedom of my chains and lying in your loving arms again.

Why that line, from one of my once favorite songs, came to mind just now I don't know. And the OMG is I'm not sure I remember the name of the song...it may be "If They Could See Me Now."

The words that went straight to my heart are "longing for the freedom of my chains." The first time I really heard them, I knew that was where I was living at the time...looking back and longing for the freedom of the chains of my compulsive-addictive-ego-self. I didn't know it then, but that's the place where my rues, regrets and remorses are born, live and, if not transmuted, only grow more vindictive.

Here's the good news: We can let ourselves be gifted with a new past! We do our part, as in we clean up the wreckage of our past, make our amends, atone, forgive...then repeat each of those daily...and by our actions, the God of our own understanding flows forth.

There. That's where, what, why and how our rues, regrets and remorses are transmuted, are revealed as our gold. There's our gift of a new past. 

Without that as our goal, we have become a loving person whose joy is in others. In the peace, love and joy of others. Which showers peace, love and joy on us. 

God is so good to us...for only God could make such a transition.

Thank you.

GO WITH GOD AND BE

More and more I am learning that our wants, our hopes, our desires are in reality our blocks, our stonewalls, to experiencing that which we're wanting. As long as we're praying for anything, we are believing that we are in need of it, that we don't have it. That is the block to our realizing it is already ours.

We hold our deepest desire out in front of us, praying for it to come to us when, in fact, there is nothing we are seeking that we don't already have within.

Once we get the quiet word that what we want is already ours, that we just need to look within to find it, we waste a lot of time trying to make that come true. No...it already is! It is ours to do, to experience, to show forth, to be grateful for.

And the cynic wonders..."So where's my billion bucks? I've looked within and it ain't there." That's why the cynic only lives in the reasoning mind...there is no cynic in God's world. And as long as we're relying on the reasoning mind, we will keep wanting, wishing, desiring our good to come to us. And sometimes it will, sometimes it won't...but even when it does, it's not quite right. Off by a hair. Or it turns into the proverbial, "What was I thinking when I asked for this?!"

Go with God and be the good you want. For the source of our billion bucks is within us...the source of all our good is within us. There from before conception, there now, there three days after we're dead.

Now to live that.

Thank you.

DISRESPECT...THE CORE OF ALL ILLS

God loves me so much. It is impossible to comprehend how much God loves me.   I guess because God is love. He doesn't dole it out, hold it back, give a little, get a little...he just be's...he is and in the fact of his being that is all there is. All else is life appearing...as I choose to see life that is how life is to me.

Knowing that, gut-bucket knowing that, I've come to believe that disrespect is the core...not at the core but the very core...of all our ills today, individually and collectively. And it all starts with how we choose to see whatever comes through our own eyes to our own brain.

We learn to be at the ready when we sense "somethin' ain't right." The instant we sense that somethin' ain't right is when we realize we have a choice that will affect our next minute, hour, day. Our choice is to respond in kind ("not right") or to respond with respect.

Living in an attitude of gratitude makes our choice of respect a whole lot easier...practically painless.

Choose ye this day whom ye shall serve.

Thank you.

LEARNING THE ART OF UN-THINKING

Interestingly, I am watching the process play out for three friends each of whom took a teeny tiny itsy-bitsy step into a self-determined objective "because it's the best way to handle this." The most interesting part is the price for that teeny step has been coming due for one friend for weeks now, it is now coming due for another and has not yet begun for the third. But sure as God made you and me, the price will come due for him, too.  

It is the ego to whom we defer in that wee step. And the ego's price, which is impossible for us to know before hand, is anything the ego wants it to be. We have just made a self-justified side trip from God, the recovery from which leaves us at the mercy of our ego until we crash and burn...yet again.

We begin our recovery when we decide to divorce ourselves from our own thinking and not go with   another self-determined objective (as in, to never ever go there again which is demonstrably impossible for us humans). What we decide is to high-tail it back to God and open ourselves for whatever spiritual growth we're ready to receive.

We go for spiritual growth because it does work and 100% of the time (albeit rarely getting us what we think we need).  What we are forever learning is that God does not hold grudges ("You should have asked me in the first place." "It's your own fault." "I could have told you so.") What we are learning is that God can and will if sought...anything. 

We sit down, get quiet, and practice the art of un-thinking.  Drop the problem, and invite God out from within. What works best for me: "Do your thing, God, you got the power." 

When will we ever learn? When will we ever learn? Never perfectly...everyday if we're doing it right. 

Thank you.

CONFIDENCE IN SILENCE

[The following is a reprint of my blog of February 10, 2012.]

My head natters: I am misunderstood, I must explain myself so that I am understood…he’ll not hear me…she’ll turn others against me. My heart answers: In quietness and confidence shall be my strength.

My head natters: Yes, but….My heart answers: It is I, be not afraid.

My head natters: Only I can explain. My heart answers: Peace, be still.

Thank you.

FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY GRATEFUL HEART

Today I give thanks for the "words to live by" that have come to me over the years. I also give thanks that I have been gifted with the ability to hear the words, the desire to do the words, the patience to falter and to fail in the trying and then to laugh about it...eventually.

I particularly give thanks for my friends and for my un-friends...and for the God of my understanding who keeps reminding me that they are one and the same.

I love sharing my giftees, so here are some of my favorites:

Before one's life can be cleaned up, a single life purpose must take the place of variable conflicting goals, for it is these goals that provide the grounds for incessant mental activity. To reach this state you must come to have one, whole, all-encompassing reason for being alive, and this will be an experience of the heart and not the mere grasping of theory. [NOTE: This quote I copied and made my own many years ago. I do not recall the book or the author, although most likely the author is Hugh Prather, and the sense of it still guides me today.]

By all means, you must find at least one loving, honest friend to ground you, which might even be the utterly accepting gaze of the Friend. -- Fr. Richard Rohr

You must make a decision to be a forgiving person and to forgive in the instant of need. -- Advice from a friend.

You must go beyond reason to love. -- Thaddeus Golas

In the end, all that matters is what you have done for God. -- Author unknown

Thank you.

TO FORGIVE IN THE INSTANT OF NEED

I was given the most wonderful advice recently...pearls beyond price actually. I was told that I must make a decision to be a forgiving person and to forgive in the instant of need. That's it. 

I was gifted with the realization that to forgive in the instant of need is the secret to being a forgiving person: We must be ready the moment before the arrow of resistance enters our consciousness. Only in that instant can we with God's grace respond not with feelings of hurt, harmed or a desire for pay-back...all fear, simply fear...but with the certain knowledge that this, too, is ours to forgive. 

This is living in the now...in the consciousness of forgiveness. 

To be a forgiving person is to be released from the bondage of self, free from our reasoning mind's dictates. We cannot wait to "think it through" for therein lives the ego's trap. There is nothing to think through when we are going to forgive no matter what. 

None of this is news to me...all of us seeking still more spiritual growth have been learning it for years. It is that this is the difference between learning the words (which too often means "learning how you need to do it") and realizing that I personally need to be a forgiving person...now. Right now.

I will with the grace of God and a little help from my friends be heading in this direction for the rest of my life...no matter how falteringly. 

Thank you.

SELF-DETERMINED OBJECTIVES VS. GOD'S WILL

A hard lesson learning: Trying to be a good, true and loving person is just another self-determined objective. We can never achieve our goal to be a good, true and loving person simply because we keep it out in front of us as a goal.

We can always tell a self-determined objective from God's will...the word "trying" marches in front of the self one. God's will is...we do it. Self tries it on for size, alters it, makes it prettier, fancier, classier...no, not right, keep trying.

We can acknowledge until we come to believe, realize, that each of us is a good, true and loving person, a gift to us before conception, fully enclosed within us at birth, growing every minute we breathe.

It's our ego that is unaware of that and keeps trying to get more and better so it can show it off: Here's what a loving person looks like, as it elbows out others; i.e., God.

When we finally realize we are the loving person we seek to be, we be that. And fail. Repeatedly.

The great gettin' up morning is when we realize we fail only in our ego's eyes...God loves us exactly as we are...warts and wings together, all One.

Thank you.

IF RUCKUS IS HAPPY, I'M HAPPY

Just this morning I'm mulling an interesting situation between two friends. It is not a pretty situation. I happen to have (or think I have) a piece of information that may or may not be helpful to the situation. I am thanking God that I know this is not mine to fix...God already has it fixed, and it's going to take God's own time for it to become apparent to all. I'm feeling like a real grown-up...running from pillar to post, fixing things that are none of my business was once a favorite pastime of mine. What a change; thank you, Lord.

Then I hear a weather report...possible snow on Thanksgiving right here, right where I live.

My brain exploded. I'm surprised there aren't bits and pieces of it all over this room.

This is not fair! I've been been sick as a dog, missing my get-togethers, deaf as a post, feeling unloved, unneeded, unwanted, unappreciated, and what was the grand finale? Three straight days of emergency runs to the ENT, the eye doc and the dentist. And now this?!

Snow on Thanksgiving means I may not get to go to George and Martha's with my friends which we've been doing for ten years now...and loving it.

When I got to, "Please, God...," I hesitated. I knew I was heading down that wrong road again. I did not thank God for snow on Thanksgiving if that be his will...I did think that snow could wait just one day, but I didn't ask for it.

But I remembered my earlier gratitude for learning not to stick my nose into business not my own...and the weather clearly is not mine to fix.

It occurred to me, yet again, how personalizing any perceived problem is my invitation for my ego to do my thinking for me...to resist, in a word, and that brings its own ugly with it. Resistance is like a tar baby...the instant I resist I've gotten involved and cannot, on my own, get away. To break free takes complete agreement with, acceptance of, surrender to that which my ego says cannot be allowed. For that, I must turn to God.

I remind myself of my decision that I'd rather have God's will done in my life than my will, no matter how pretty my will looks (and how not pretty God's will looks). I say, "Whatever, God."  Then I feel relief that the problem is no longer mine.

Snow on Thanksgiving? Ruckus will be ecstatic.

Thank you.

THE POWER OF PARADOX

I asked God for strength that I might achieve -- I was made weak that I might humbly learn to obey...

I asked for health that I might do greater things -- I was given infirmity that I might do better things...

I asked for riches that I might be happy -- I was given poverty that I might be wise...

I asked for power that I might have the praise of men -- I was given weakness that I might feel the need of God...

I asked for all things that I might enjoy life -- I was given life that I might enjoy all things...

I got nothing that I asked for -- But everything I hoped for!

Almost, despite myself -- My unspoken  prayers were answered.

I am among all wo/men most richly blessed!

-- Author Anonymous

GOD IS LOVE

You know when God is with you utterly, completely, endlessly, without fail? When you feel it least. When you feel you're really out there in the ether without a tether and all the slings and arrows are coming right at you directly, and it is personal, and it is not fair, and where's the great vaunted God now? That's when God loves you best.

But, should you forget...he also loves you best when you know it and you show it. Without trying to. Just by breathing in and out.

That's God for you.

Thank you.

THE NEED FOR WE...AWESOME

I've found my gold. I just reread my yesterday's blog and there, right in the midst of wanting to smack somebody, I was gifted with my gold.

I haven't been physically able to meet with my peeps on a regular basis for weeks now. And not my peeps that I talk to on the phone daily, but my peeps that I haven't even met yet. My soul mates who are still unknown to me, that I will never meet until we, say, gather at the river.

My heart sings at the reality...at the realization of need...needing to meet, needing to gather, needing to share. We. Experiencing the need for we and knowing it.  Awesome.

God loves me so much. It is impossible to comprehend how much God loves me. I know God's love by the force of my need...or is it by the source of my need? Or both.

Thank you.

KNOWING IT AND SHOWING IT...UH-OH

I decided to pitch all my journals. The problem is I started to read one. There in July of 2003 I wrote about a problem that I also wrote about on October 1, 2014. I was right in July of 2003, and I was right in October of 2014, and I know this because I wrote at length about the problem both times. (I hope I quit reading and just pitch because for sure I'll start counting how often I wrote about "the problem" in between those times and continue to miss the real message: It's not them, it's me.)

I'm reminded of this now in particular because the same problem in another person's body has just visited itself upon me...through, of course, no fault of my own. The trouble is I know from my eyebrows up that until I can overcome my own resistance, I will find it coming from everywhere and everyone.

God's cute. I just picked up my "God Calling," and there in my own handwriting is a note I wrote to me in 2007: "Practice living love by loving adversity the same as no adversity."

Knowing it and showing it are two entirely different things.

I'm back to just wanting to slap someone. Sigh.

Thank you.

FORGIVING OUR OWN WOUNDED SELF

Fr. Richard Rohr, speaking of Saint Francis of Assisi embracing a leper he had once shunned, said, "Francis identified with the poor, the marginalized and those on the bottom, which you normally cannot do until you embrace the wounded leper within yourself."

That is one important statement. It is that wounded leper within ourselves that determines our every experience. Until we embrace it fully, it will always be that which  we see,  feel, and think...and name Him, Her, Them.

What we see is always ourselves...and until we forgive our wounded leper within, we will not find the peace of forgiveness within or without.

Thank you.

LIVE IT OR REMOVE IT

The New Colossus

By Emma Lazarus, 1883

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she

With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

This poem on a plaque on the Statute of Liberty is either true for us or it is a bald-faced lie about us. Specifically: "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore, send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

I say, live it or remove it. 

Thank you.

THE JOY OF THE LORD

It seems as if we awake one day at the door of our own spiritual life. We open that door and almost the first thing we hear is that we need to change only one thing about ourselves. Which happens to be every single thing about us...which actually is just one thing: our thinking. Specifically the idea that "taking care of No. 1" will ever bring us joy. We begin our journey when we realize that i, me, my, mine is no longer any of our concern.

Our concern now is to realize the importance of I Am. To realize I Am as you, yours, me, mine, us, they, them, theirs...all of whom equates to We. To the fact that we are one with God, subordinate to and servants of. That is our function, that is our joy.

Joy itself now takes on a new meaning. God Calling today speaks of "the Joy of the Lord."  So live with Me in the kingdom of Joy, My Kingdom, the Gateway into which may be service, it may be suffering. Tell me your reasoning mind welcomes that opportunity...joy in service is questionable, but suffering?! Our ego-driven, ego-based reasoning mind will not ever agree.

There. That's the nut of the whole change we are asked to make as we enter deeper into higher consciousness: To change our minds, to upgrade our thinking, from me to we. In that process we do suffer, but it is the ego-pains of stripping ourselves of our me-first thinking, and changing our minds to we-thinking. Knowing that unaided we cannot do that, we invite God to do our thinking for us.

There we find "the Joy of the Lord." The joy we experience from God flowing through us in love for our "enemy" with us receiving the love of that same "enemy" in return.

Thank you.

ACCORDING TO ME

On the humanness of living spiritually...the hardest part is to be the human we are and know with trust that God is doing the heavy lifting, the transmuting of our heart, our soul, our body, our brain into his likeness.

We keep trying not to be our plain brown wrapper self...not good enough, not clever enough, not catchy enough, not loving enough...but to be what we imagine we should be according to how the one who sounds best comes across to us. The one we secretly judge as phony...that one.

God can do better...and proves it daily. God can bring joy out of heartbreak...peace out of discord...love out of anything. The only thing that holds God back is our reasoning mind, wrapped in ego, which knows it can do better. But cannot prove it.

God can and will if sought.

Thank you.

ON BELIEVING OUR OWN PRESS

Continuing from my yesterday's blog about the yoga kitty/top compliment: The reason why it is so important that the God of my understanding, my friends and I all know me, really know me, is we know that I lean spiritual, but, scratch me, and I can be just as petty as I ever was.

Too often, leaning spiritually, we start to believe our own press. The fact is none of us, or at least no one I know, is in danger of passing Jesus, the Buddha, Allah, or even the local preacher in our spiritual consciousness...but it is (apparently) easy to believe it when we're on a roll. [I speak, of course, from observation, not experience...she lied straight-facedly.]

At any rate, I'm still loving my card...and I don't even want to smack someone right now.

Thank you.

GOD KNOWS ME AND SO DO MY FRIENDS

Yesterday I received a "thinking of you" card from a friend. It is one of  the best I have ever received.

The front shows a kitty on her yoga mat with her bottle of water beside her. She is twisted into an incredibly complex yoga position, and she has a most disgruntled look on her face.

The inside reads, "I meditate, I do yoga, I chant...and I still want to smack someone!"

I told my friend I loved it beyond reason, and she said, "I knew you'd like it...it's so YOU." Now there is a compliment that cannot be topped.

Thank you.

A NOD, A WINK, A SILENT THANK YOU

I have come to believe and to accept that our one concern is the attainment of God-realization which is the destruction of material sense and all of its forms.

My spiritually attuned mind accepts that, desires that above all, and seeks more...just more. In my quiet time and on occasion throughout many days, I am in God's world...just filled with gratitude for what is in that moment. Living the lilies of the valley.

And then? Ego pops...looking for the razzmatazz. For sure, there ain't no razzmatazz in lilies of the valley, nor for that matter in loving that so-called friend who (I'm just sure) betrayed me.

There. That is where ego traps us. For it is ego's nature to look for the razzmatazz. It is our getting bogged down in trying to tame ego's nature where we lose the battle. The fact is that our ego cannot comprehend anything outside itself...to try to change that is to lose. A nod, a wink, a silent thank you and keep on moving is all that's necessary.

I'm guessing the reason that is so hard to do is because its only requirement is that we declare ourselves a loser to our ego. Our ego calls that winning out over God. It is not...it is learning to "resist not evil" as specifically directed in the Sermon.

Thank you.

WE MUST GO BEYOND REASON

Way back when Harry Truman was president, and particularly when he was on his so-called "whistle-stop" tours, when he spoke, people would call out, "Give 'em hell, Harry!" To which the president replied, he was just telling the truth, and people thought it was hell.

I think of that when "Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord" comes into my consciousness. My life got simpler when I realized that as "Forgiveness is mine, saith the Lord."

We seek God's help in making her pay for her bad behavior toward us, and there he goes, walking away seemingly free as a lark. Our answered prayer is the Lord's gift of forgiveness of our perceived enemy, but, as long as we stay in our reasoning-mind world, it will feel like vengeance toward us. Forgiveness goes entirely against our ego-victory reasoning mind. Forgiveness to the ego means, "They got away with it."

To me forgiveness is just another word for surrender. And we all know what surrender means...it means we lost. We did not win. We got clobbered...snookered...skunked. The trick is, the sooner we accept...not resign ourselves to, but accept...our own worst possible meaning of that word surrender, the sooner we are freed of its personal stigma and our need to fight it (thus nurturing it by holding it closer). Only then can we experience a new freedom, a new light pouring from within, a new life.

As long as we stay in the belief that the Lord's idea of vengeance is the same as our idea of vengeance, we keep ourselves bound to vitriol, imaginings of payback, hate...outward and inward, despair...all acts of the ego-victory reasoning mind of which the Lord knows naught.

Again, and yet again, and still again: We must go beyond reason to love.

Thank you.

LOVE THE PROBLEM

We're told the answer is to always love and laugh. The secret is in realizing that we need to love the problem, laugh at the discord...when we realize that, there is no problem, no discord.

Intellectually understanding that gets us bubkes if we stay there...in the intellectual understanding. It is in the realization of that truth whereby the transition takes place.

When we realize the truth in life's paradoxes, we are lifted into God consciousness, the fourth dimension, and the realization lives us.

Or so I am told.

Thank you.

FEELING THERE...AT ONE

It is really hard to accept that a self-determined objective that looks good, sounds spiritual, is, in fact, quite fetching to the reasoning mind is not of God...is just another self-determined objective, maybe good, maybe not so good.

I determined yesterday when I awoke that twelve days was long enough to be ill. I determined that I am well...all well, and I am going to act like it. Which I did. I changed the sheets on my bed, washed the sheets, washed all my dirty whites, then all my dirty darks...was quite the busy lady, getting it done.

By afternoon I did not feel one bit better than I had when I self-determined myself all well. I did not feel one bit worse either. Exactly the same...still nearly deaf as a post and nearly hacking up a lung. Which is better than the original...really deaf as a post and really hacking up a lung.

The hidden hook is the objective underneath my self-determined objective. My hidden hook was not just to be all well but to FEEL all well. I got a lot accomplished for which I was grateful, but I still felt less than...not myself...a quart low so to speak.

God is the determiner of our daily life perspective...if we keep an attitude of gratitude to God for God, our daily experiences all fall in line behind. They determine nothing. It is our attitude of gratitude that shines the light. My housework (all necessary), done with an expectation of feeling all well, simply got done...which is good, but left me still feeling a quart low.

I got up this morning and said, "Thank you,  God. This morning I start my yoga again, after which I'll do my usual morning schedule, walk the boy, feel your love, mentally reach out to someone who is ticking me off and reinforce to me that I love them."

That's exactly what I did and am doing, and my mind is singing "Oh, What A Beautiful Morning." I feel all well...still deaf, etc., but feeling there, at one.

God loves me so much.

Thank you.

LOVE...THE FABRIC OF LIFE ITSELF

Rohr today writes, "Love is what we were made for..." and I read "Love is what we were made of..." and there was my blinding flash of the obvious. Love is the sum and substance of what all life is...love, simply love. That is its fabric, its content. It is the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat, the sunshine, the rain...God itself.

It may be only the human ego that misses this completely, denies it and in that denial is all about proving that ego is what we were made of.

Interestingly, on awakening, I flashed that everything in our life is simply our interpretation of what we are perceiving. I realized that years ago, but it came again this morning more urgently somehow.

Then I read an Albert Einstein quote, "A human being is part of the whole, called by us 'universe,' a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the rest -- a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."

To me, that says the exact same thing as my BFO...only more intelligently. Which led to my interpretation of that: It is the ego that experiences ourselves as something separate from the rest, the ego that interprets our perceptions and labels them "good" or "bad," "for" or "against."  The "goods" and the "fors" are legislating for the ego...all else must be resisted.

There. That is the very reason why we humans must seek still more spiritual growth for, of ourselves, we will always rely on the ego. We could be released from all resentments, any negative factors at all, if we were only willing to release the ego charge that is born in and flows from contempt, dislike, adverse judgments. The more we are in contempt, disliking and judging, the hotter the ego-charge, the further from the natural state of love that flows in us, from us, through us, is always present...but rarely realized.

It takes serious desire...not work, desire (willingness)...to detach from our ego values...to let our consciousness be raised through surrender of our own self-will. Self-will, that which tells us it is our only safety, our only protection. It never was, it never is, it never will be...loose it and let it go.

Thank you.

ACCEPTANCE...AN ACT OF GRACE

[The following is a reprint of my blog of February 19,2012, reworked.]

“If you do not transform your pain, you will always transmit it.” — Fr. Richard Rohr

To me, the rest of that thought is: in your search for someone out there to blame...“If you do not transform your pain, you will always transmit it in your search for someone out there to blame.”

There is no one to blame, not even our own self. There is no one to blame for anything, no reason to shame anyone. We are, however, responsible for our pain…no matter who or what the apparent cause.

It is through surrender that pain is transformed…and then becomes the instrument through which we can be of benefit to others.

We slowly, slowly learn that all pain is beneficial to us when we learn to take responsibility for it...and the instant we think, “Yes, but...,” we are going down that wrong road again.

There are two truths about pain...1) all transformed pain is beneficial; and 2) finding someone to blame nurtures, grows, our pain.

Another truth: Acceptance, like forgiveness, cannot be received through an act of will...it can only come through the grace of God.

Thank you.

COMING TO THE UN-NEED TO KNOW

Prayer is not the avoidance of distractions, but precisely how you deal with distractions. Contemplation is not the avoidance of the problem, but a daily merging with the problem, and finding its full resolution. It is a way 'to look over (our) shoulder' for God [the brilliant insight of the anonymous author of the 14th Century book, 'The Cloud of Unknowing,' Chapter 32].  -- Fr. Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," May 6, 2012.

If God is indeed in everything, doesn't it follow that God is in this viral infection? Wouldn't that mean this viral infection is good, too? Maybe this is just a step in my process of initiation...the initiation we are assured we must all go through in seeking God. In changing our mind...in divorcing ourselves from our own opinions...in coming to the un-need to know.

Thank you.

AMAZING GRACE

So I open my "God Calling" this morning, and the first thing I read is a note I wrote to me on this date in 1991: "I am right now being used by God, just exactly as I am." I thought back to the Fall of 1991, and I won't even go into the chaos in my life back then.

So I wrote under that note, "2014 - I can believe that right now in the midst of this viral infection." And I can. My choice, my life. With which came a blinding flash of the obvious, "God can and will intervene in my life in my behalf when I quit telling him where in my life he needs to intervene."

I mean for all I know God is right now putting out a major fire for me that I know nothing of because he knows this infection is an anthill that'll go when it goes.

There. There's another reason to love God. How many friends do we have or have we ever had that we could rail at and show our butt to just as if they wanted to see it, blame 'em and shame 'em even, and the very next day, they give us love, understanding, peace...with not one "I could have told you so" in it?

God is so good to me...to us.

Thank you.

I SEE ME

It has been one week to the day that I came down with this viral infection, and that is long enough. I'm not able to get together with my peeps, and I am not happy...in a sick, sad and sorry-for-me way. And if a friend did come over, I'd probably not answer the door, and then feel doubly hurt when they walked away. I wish I were kidding.

I'm still deaf...not as deaf as a post like I was, but who's kidding whom...deaf by any degree is still deaf. My head aches...I combed my hair, which ain't going to happen again, and I heard every single hair going through the comb, screaming as it went. I took a sip of water and it sounded like Katrina inside my head.

I had to wait till 8:00 AM to walk Ruckus because I didn't want to be out there in the morning darkness and trip on a loose brick, fall, and knock myself unconscious. He'd run and get hit by a car...no, someone would come along, see my little angel, snatch him and run, leaving me for dead. I'd never see my darling little baby boy again. I'd just better be dead.

And since I'm Seeing Me so clearly...I'll just say I've got the distinct feeling that God is off somewhere clipping his nails, waiting for his tea to steep, and here's me, quoting promising words (he goes before me to make the crooked places straight...uh-huh), and feeling unloved, unneeded, unwanted and unappreciated. And if this is his personal pique because I didn't know he does get his feelings hurt, then I'm sorry. He should have told me long before this for heaven's sake. He had ample opportunity back when I was all well...that's just dirty pool.

...well-grounded folks seem to be able, with God's grace, to take these calamities of life in stride and turn them into their demonstration of faith.

Thank you.

HIS WILL, HIS WAY

So I'm still feeling like 40 miles of rough, rough road, and I'm not shy about telling God about it...I mean, he's got all power, as I tell him repeatedly, what's he saving it for?...heal me already.

In the night God said to me, "Where's the 'thank you' that you're forever raving about? It fits for others but not for you?" (God doesn't take nattering quietly.)

I was immediately taken back to a book written in the early '70s, "The Lazy Man's Guide to Enlightenment" by Thaddeus Golas. In it, Golas tells many stories about getting out of self...through either LSD or meditation. I've never done LSD, and I don't recommend it especially since meditation works, and I can vouch for that.

He relates the story of trying to find love within/without, praying and searching and tripping and getting nowhere. So he drops acid, goes on a horrendous trip...a hideous scarifying monster is right in his face, and he's begging to get away from it.

Right at the height of his terror, he is gifted with the thought, "What was it that you thought needed to be loved?"

There it is...there's my answer. I'm not going to arise all healed, if that were God's will, it would have happened by now. What I get is to glory in the gold that has come to me through this viral infection. Wonderful friends who've walked and tended to Ruckus, repeatedly, who've brought me food and groceries, called just to let me know I'm being thought of. Am I blessed or what?

The real gold, I can stop nattering God about getting my way. He does indeed have all power, and the sooner I align my wishes with his will, the sooner I'll get happy about it.

Thank you.

THINK THE RESENTMENT THROUGH

[The following is a reprint of my blog of February 21, 2012.]

I love when a hard lesson learned back in the day stands me in good stead today.

Back story: When I had my first dog, a seven-pound Maltese, whenever I flew, I could take him with me in a carrier that fit under the seat in front of me. Once I was flying home so my dad could drive us down to see “the old home place.” I was excited because it was news to me that I hadn’t seen “the old home place”…I thought that’s where we went to visit when I was a kid.

So, in the preparations to go, I had a feeling that I needed to nail down my dog’s reservation to be in the cabin with me…only one pet per cabin was allowed. I went to the airport the day before, bought his ticket, got confirmation that he’d be allowed to fly under the seat in front of me…we were all set.

The next day, we’re at check-in, and the lady behind the counter was having a baaad day. Came our turn, she was having none of this dog-flying-in-the-cabin stuff. No matter the paid ticket I showed her, the reservation that was listed on her manifest…no and no and no.

I could feel my insides turning to stone, my jaw clenching tighter…and all the sudden the voice of reason spoke in my ear, “Think your resentment through. It is a 59-minute flight. That dog can survive one hour in the belly of the plane. If you do not give over, you are going to have a resentment that will be on your mind the entire time you’re at the old home place…all you will see, hear, feel will be your own thoughts grinding about the letter you’re going to write the airlines and the unfairness of it all.”

With which, in mid-sentence, I said, “Fine…whatever needs to happen, we’re fine with it.”

With which, the woman said, “Oh, good Lord, take your dog and go get on the plane.”

I am reminded of that this morning because I just saw Rev. Franklin Graham on television double-talking as fast as he could about President Obama being less-than a Christian and Newt Gingrich, et al., being white lights of Christianity.

I need to start thinking this resentment through, or that “hard lesson learned back in the day” isn’t going to mean a thing today…and hard lessons learned once mightn’t get seconds.

Thank you.

LEARNING TO WALK GOD'S WAY

Disagreements, spats, arguments...all ego driven...no matter how right we know we are. That's why it's vital that we immerse ourselves in the spiritual matter that specifically directs that we cease fighting...period, that we agree...period, that we imagine peace, then live that...period.

This is probably an over-simplification (because simplicity is what speaks to me), and it surely is counterintuitive, but it seems to be easier for us to blow up at another with others around than it is to ask the other if we might speak in private and then state our case away from others.

To blow up in public and then apologize in private is surely ego driven...there is no God there. For, if we're doing it right, we will realize that we were wrong and what we need is to get over ourselves...i.e., apologize first then make amends as needed.

The underlying personal problem seems to be that the audience that we played to is missing, will never hear us acknowledge our mistake that we so openly paraded, and the one we skinned alive is left wanting that very audience to know...but s/he'll look ego-driven if s/he quibbles, etc., etc., etc.

To blow up in public and then apologize in private is the exact opposite of God’s work. If we must disagree, then disagree in private, and we won't have to acknowledge in public...that's God’s work. 

Thank you.

ANGEL-FRIENDS AND ME

I'm reading this morning "All will be well, all will be well, all manner of things will be well," and I'm thinking, "Good luck with that."

Which means me and my still more spiritual growth split the blanket yesterday, and I'm still half blanketed in self. I spent the day in the ER, worried about Ruckus getting fed and walked, not to mention my own self...it was not pretty.

Finding the gold, I really wasn't as nasty as I wanted to be...I chewed the Lord a new one, but he's better at overlooking that than walking around peeps are.

And my baby got walked and fed and loved without me...which, in my poor, pitiful, put-upon-me state of mind, may be the good and the bad news together. Clearly I have my work cut out for me.

Not to end on a down note: one of my angel-friends took me to the ER, another is coming over this morning to walk the little guy, and another this afternoon. How can I stay in self-pity with friends like that?...I'm sure I can find a way, but I'm choosing not to.

Thank you.

FRIENDS

By all means, you must find at least one loving, honest friend to ground you, which might even be the utterly accepting gaze of the Friend. -- Fr. Richard Rohr, August 10, 2014

Aren't we blessed? We have a a boatload of loving, honest friends we haven't even met yet.

Thank you.

THINK VS. WORRY

Thoughts of themselves have no substance; let them arise and pass away unheeded. Thoughts will not take form of themselves, unless they are grasped by the attention; if they are ignored, there will be no appearing and no disappearing. -- Ashvaghosha

Learning to think aright is almost a lost art. "Think," "thinking" have a bad rep because we have never learned the difference between thinking and worrying.

We must think a resentment through if we are to avoid living in that resentment. The trouble is the "through" gets lost...we don't think the resentment through, we think the resentment into a worry. And, of course, the resentment has a face...a resentment doesn't have legs of its own. It is his face, it is her fault which we are resenting. We personalize the resentment.

We get the fault fixed in our mind, then we think about it...only we really worry. Worry, worry, worry...always legislating for our own idea that she is wrong and we are right. And if he would just listen to us, he would understand why, how we are right and s/he is wrong.

The way to think a resentment through is to not personalize it...which means we immediately go to God. Not with the resentment...God knows naught about resentments. We go to God in thanks that we can and do have love to give to the other, for the other's benefit, in praise of the other...for the other, in this very situation that the reasoning mind is resisting through resentment, is our angel. This person, this situation, this resentment is in our life right this very minute for our own still more spiritual growth.

We will only get that still more spiritual growth when we quit resisting the other, a near-impossibility for the natural self. So we make conscious contact with God knowing he performs that which is given us to do. [For he performeth the thing that is appointed for me....Job.23.14]

We thank God again for guiding us through...there's our "through," properly completed.

Thank you.

THE MEASURE OF OUR SUCCESS

 Your success is the measure of My Will that those around you have seen worked out in your lives. -- "God Calling," October 29

It is extraordinarily difficult for me to show to those around me the measure of God's will worked out in my life when those around me want to argue about it...to debate the issue.

The reason it is extraordinarily difficult is that debating requires ego's input.

God does not debate, God is. God cannot be proved by words, nor by thinking...God is. God is not mine to prove, and entering into a debate over the fact is my ego's problem...not the ego of the one challenging, but mine.

The challenge is merely a question. The answer is the measure of God's will that those around me see worked out in my life. Which the challenger may never see...nor is that mine to fix.

Mine to fix is that sometimes my ego lives in my mouth.

Thank you.

A NEED...NOT A WANT

[The following is a reprint of my blog of February 23, 2012.]

“I stand at the door and knock.” It is the Father within who stands at the door and knocks to be let out…to be released.

My needs are always met…by God. “The Father within knows my needs.”

My wants are sometimes met, sometimes not. It is my obsession with getting my wants filled that turns my wants into my god of the moment, and thus blocks the grace of God. It is known as free will, but there is nothing free about it.

Likewise, there is nothing, per se, wrong with having wants…that’s how life moves forward. It is when I get all bogged down with whether I’ll get my needs met (do I have enough money to last the rest of my life?) that my wants grow spurs and ride me. That’s when I confuse my want (enough money to last forever) with my need (to open the door of my soul to the Father who knows my needs and whose good pleasure it is to fill my needs).

It was during my 10+ years of taking care of the IRS that I learned that…which is exactly why I know my experience with the IRS to be of God, a need I had, but assuredly not a want, and for which today I am deeply grateful.

Thank you.

BECOME ONE WITH THE STARSHINE

In my college years, we used to ponder the mystery of life. With our collective and wondrous reasoning minds, we pretty much decided that we are born, we die, in between we are as bumps in the road. That's it.

Over the years, I've gone back there often, and may I say it was a great gettin' up morning when I got a new realization of life, death and the bump in the road.

I believe today that the task given the bump in the road between life and death is that it must needs rise above itself...to become one with the starshine (a word from the '60s that I love).

That is what we are tasked with before conception. As we are sent out, we are implanted with all the love, kindness, security, success, patience, peace that there is, but we can only access it by giving it away, by using it for the benefit of others...that is becoming one with the starshine.

Our own intelligence always legislates for itself...Intelligence (God) always legislates for others. (Helpful hint: I am, you are, we are others...we're the ones for whom God legislates.)

Joel Goldsmith maintains that the human mind is enmity to God. I maintain that until we learn we must rely on Intelligence, God, rather than our own smarts, we are as bumps in the road.

Thank you.

GOD'S HIDEY HOLE

We are ever being assured and reassured that there is a place within...within our own self...where grace resides, God's hidey hole if you will. Our great mistake is in trying to figure that out in order to make it true. It is in the trying that the ego lives...and calls itself spiritual growth.

It is not the fear of the pain of surrender that keeps us from holding our nose and taking a leap of faith into grace. It is self-absorption. The self wrapped in ego can never agree to the possibility of pain no matter the promise of peace to come...later on...through pain. No, the ego's siren song of nothingness draws us deeper into self-absorption, that's all.

"God can and will intervene in my life in my behalf." Now, to get out of the way and let that happen.

Thank you.

FAITH WITHOUT WORKS IS FANTASY

Blinding flash of the obvious: Everything I ever learned from a book, including the Bible, I must throw away and learn to listen to the still, small voice within...which tells me only things I learned from the Bible.

I realize that the "everything" is "every spiritual thing," and that the still, small voice confirms only that which is of God...for there have been "truths" that were wishful thinking on my part. When I hear that which I already know from having read it in, say, my Big Book, and having stepped out in it, practiced it, lived it...then I know it for truth. All else is fantasy.

Thank you.

LEARNING TO LOVE THE RESISTIBLE

Between man and man, only spiritual forces will suffice to keep them in harmony. -- Anonymous

Every time we go within to return goodwill for ill will, love for hatred, we gain spiritual strength and are raised a tish higher into a new consciousness. According to Eknath Easwaran, The person who practices this can reach the summit of human consciousness, for it is only by loving people who oppose us and learning to bear with them that we heal ourselves and heal them too.

However, in learning to rely on spiritual forces, we must never introduce nor manipulate the introduction of our spiritual direction...we must let it naturally flow if we are to be heard as authentic. 

Thank you.

STILL MORE SPIRITUAL GROWTH...AND LOVE

I was with friends last night and Joe shared a story about our recently deceased friend, Sandy. Joe said that many years ago, when he was going through his own personal hell, he'd invited Sandy to share with him how he, Sandy, had gotten through his time in the crucible.

Sandy told Joe that he was not going to like the answer which he then laid out: Still more spiritual growth and love. That's all. There's the answer to any and all of life's muddles, puzzles and problems.

Not by speaking words of acceptance or of denial but by the unresisting silence of love can the slings, arrows and accolades of life flow through and disperse leaving nothing but a memory...in the form of our still more spiritual growth.

Thank you...and thank you, Sandy.

FROM LOVE TO LOVE

Blinding flash of the obvious: I will never be free of judgments as long as I continue to personalize anything. Even if/as/when I am snubbed, publicly scorned, humiliated by name, I can, with God's grace, not take that personally and not think of it again.

I know this is possible because my BFO just told me so, plus the Sermon teaches it...turn the other cheek, agree with your adversary quickly, resist not evil...all the how-tos for not taking anything personally.

I talk to God often about my judgmental mind...as in how to get shut of it. I heard a long time ago that we need to judge people in order to know if we're sticking with a "winner" or a "loser." My reasoning mind liked that...a lot.

But common sense knows that there is a difference between a judgmental mind and a discerning mind. A judgmental mind puts a price on its own perceptions...buying them for use later; a discerning mind simply understands and lets stand its perceptions without a lot of mental racket...knowing God will fill it in as needed.

It's hard to accept but nothing is personal to us. Nothing. Unless we chose to believe it is and then act or react as if it is...thus staying in our reasoning mind.

Depersonalizing is all about looking out at our own life through God's eyes...from love to love.

Thank you.

MIND MUST BE SUBSERVIENT TO HEART

I am fascinated by the repellent magnetism of some words...back in the day, the word "ain't" made teachers froth at the mouth and mothers freak out. So, of course, we kids used it as much as possible out of their hearing.

Today, there's a word we cannot say aloud at all...we call it the "N" word. Unfortunately, it is used behind closed doors by closed minds as often as possible.

Then there's the word "Jesus." Quite often today people hear that, and their minds snap shut...they quietly put distance between themselves and the speaker. I personally had such an aversion for years until I made the connection that it wasn't Jesus I objected to but Christianity as practiced by too many of its followers.

My heart, my mind and my seeking soul came together when I read that Gandhi, whom I admired long before I connected with Jesus, "admired the Sermon on the Mount (which shaped his whole philosophy of life)." That confirmed my acceptance of the Sermon as my go-to in life. The Sermon together with the only two commandments of Jesus sealed my spiritual base.

The simplicity...thus the mental impossibility...of those two commandments, love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, body and brains, and love your neighbor as yourself, proves Gandhi's contention that "Culture of mind must be subservient to the culture of the heart." Else, according to me, we'll stay in our mind, trying to think it through to our satisfaction, and miss God completely.

Thank you.

THE PAIN IS IN THE PUZZLING

The storehouses of God are full to overflowing but you must see this in your mind. Be sure of this before you can realize it in material form.

When we open our mind's eye to the "storehouses of God" as being our very own selves, we begin to understand our endless supply of kindness, of patience, of love that we were born with, have within us now, can release at anytime simply by using it.

It takes some prior proper planning to get started using any of God's gifts in the material world. For instance, we can picture a friend who has been snippy toward us...and our response being the opposite of snippy. How can we see our personal self doing that? Not Jesus or Mother Mary or Pope Francis, but us...me, personally. Get the picture to where it is realistic to us and our knowledge of our own self. Then the next time it happens (and we know very good and well there will be a next time), we'll have a better chance of being kinder than we would have been...that's what we get to build on. There are very few one-shot-to-perfect in spiritual growth.

There is a spiritual principle behind this, and it is found in the Sermon on the Mount: If somebody slaps you upside your head, turn the other cheek. I doubt anyone gets there from a standing still place...it requires practice. And the practice starts with choosing to let go and let God...in other words, become willing to detach from our own ego.

Once when I was pondering how to become willing to let go, to detach, the image came of my grandpa wringing the neck of a chicken for grandma to prepare for Sunday dinner. And I realized that is the mechanics of detaching from my ego. The picture seems painful (especially for the chicken) but I remember that it happened, it was over, in a flash. It is the mental gyrations, the thinking, puzzling, trying to find an easier, softer way (in short, trying to placate the ego and get God, too) that causes us the pain.

We must go beyond reason to love.

Thank you.

ALWAYS AND ALL WAYS...FOR OTHERS

When we're feeling lack of anything we must give from that place of lack...not by our self-determined objective but by our unwavering faith in God to fill that place of lack to overflowing...so that without conscious thought it passes from our hearts, our soul, to whomever is open to receive it...not necessarily the person we had identified as the one we want to show love to...for that self-identifying is still the ego victory mind wanting to dictate, to control, to get back that which we're supposedly freely giving.

The goal always and all ways is "for others."

Thank you.

STAYING MY FOCUS ON GOD

Just bits and pieces that help me stay my focus on God:

1. Fr. Richard Rohr wrote one of my all-time favorite lines: "The most amazing fact about Jesus...is that he found God in disorder and imperfection -- and told us that we must do the same or we would never be content on this earth." [My note to me: That to me is the first step toward self-acceptance, finding God in my own imperfection.]
2. My one desire: to know and to show that wo/man "shall no longer live by bread alone or by the sword but by the grace of God without taking thought, without supplication, but in the understanding that He that is within you already knows your need, and it is His good pleasure to give you the kingdom." [My note: This was stated in Joel Goldsmith's biography, @ p. 91, as his one desire, and I want it to be true for me.]
3. Fr. Rohr wrote "Parables, like Zen koans, are almost always counter-intuitive and resist your common sense intellect. That is their whole point." [My note: This is exactly why paradox is so vitally important to me...it does the same as parables, turns me from my reasoning mind toward a higher mind.]
4. Don’t think about this too much, and don’t compare, which is always the work of the ego. The Holy Spirit can only be experienced. Faith is not really for problem solving. Faith is that attitude which allows you to fully experience your experiences, and not to eliminate the mysterious, problematic, and threatening parts of those experiences. [My note: This was either Rohr or Easwaran...maybe my blending of their words...I try to remember always to note when I've lifted something, and there is no note here.]
5. The closer you get to the Light, the more you see your own darkness. And the closer you get to your own ordinariness (darkness?), the more you know you need the Light. [My note: Same goes here.]
6. Also from Rohr: Spirituality is always about you changing your own way of seeing and your own way of hearing (not changing other people!). [My note: This sure brings No. 1, above, home, i.e., that we must find God in disorder and imperfection or we will never be content on this earth.]

I spell these out for me. I need to keep God-focused now more than ever.

Thank you.

WE WILL BE CONTACTED

Some less than wonderful news has come to me having to do with Edra, a relative of mine. I'd recently had lunch with her and her daughter, and she seemed a tish confused. I later asked her daughter if I was being overly concerned or was she as confused as I thought. Her daughter said that I'm right to be worried, that she is confused about everything.

Since her daughter lives out west and was only visiting, the idea occurred that I might be able to be of some help in keeping her up-to-date by going to visit Edra on occasion. Unfortunately, Edra is less than enchanted with me...she has had a hard, hard life and I haven't is her take.

So, I'm journaling this morning and getting all wrapped around my own control-engine (brain): Edra lives an hour away. I'd have to go via the freeway to get to her, I avoid the freeway in good conscience for the benefit of myself and others, she doesn't like me to begin with, she has a son who lived at home until six months ago and now lives in Peru, he knew this was coming and split, that little weasel, but she has no one in this area except me...what to do, what to do?

I just at random opened Joel Goldsmith's "The World is New" to p. 69, and read: Ultimately, we shall realize that any and every obligation -- family or otherwise -- is not our personal responsibility, but that of the Christ***. No demand will be a drain...if we catch the central point that the demand is not being made upon us, but upon the Christ, and we shall look upon ourselves as instruments -- transfer agents-- through whom our family, friends, or relatives are supported."

I can offer to do anything that I want without fear, doubt or dread...I just need to remember first to thank God for whatever his will may be in this. After all, he might have other plans entirely. He might want me to stay away...or he might want me to go live with her. (Let it be noted, we'd have some serious talks before that'd happen...so says my control-engine.) Either way, it's not on me, it's on the Christ within me.

That is where my focus will be now...and I do know I will be contacted.

Thank you.