I know not why, but I feel blessed with the thought:
God-hunger
God-starved
God-fed
God-led
Thank you.
Thursday, July 31, 2014
ALL-IN-ALL...GOD
It is hard for me to remember and to hold onto the fact that my mind, body and spirit are hindered right now.
I know not why, but I feel blessed with the thought:
I know not why, but I feel blessed with the thought:
Wednesday, July 30, 2014
Tuesday, July 29, 2014
TO FORGIVE, JUST CHANGE OUR MIND
If the heart wanders or is distracted, bring it back to the point quite gently and replace it tenderly in its Master's presence. And even if you did nothing during the whole of your hour but bring your heart back and place it again in Our Lord's presence, though it went away every time you brought it back, your hour would be very well employed. -- Saint Francis De Sales
That quote has comforted me for years and will for years to come no doubt. I suspect that its encouragement to keep on keeping on is what led to my blinding flash of the obvious: Instead of praying "Father, forgive me," I need to pray "Father, change my mind."
That quote has comforted me for years and will for years to come no doubt. I suspect that its encouragement to keep on keeping on is what led to my blinding flash of the obvious: Instead of praying "Father, forgive me," I need to pray "Father, change my mind."
I had two getting-over-myself experiences yesterday...both having to do with two people I've never been delighted with so have pretty much ignored. Yesterday, without thought or purpose, I welcomed each into my space (for lack of a better word), and they both felt the welcome and responded in kind...lovingly.
When we're mentally resisting someone, the resistance shows and that someone resists right back...in our obliviousness, we feel justified in mentally bashing them because of their unloving-ness, which is simply their resistance to ours.
In learning to walk the spiritual path, we finally realize that when we have unkind thoughts of others, we're better off within our own selves if we shoot a quick "Father forgive me." My experience yesterday, however, expands that to "Father, change my mind." For that is all that happened yesterday when I was gifted with my getting over myself. My resisting mind was changed to a welcoming mind. And the love I gave was the love I received.
Thank you.
Monday, July 28, 2014
GRACE...LEFT WITH NOT A THOUGHT
The scariest moment in our lives comes when we realize that we are standing at the abyss...that right then, when we need them the most, we have completely run out of ideas, excuses, remedies with which to protect ourselves. Paradoxically, that moment is the grace of God.
It is the nature of the spiritual world, of fourth dimension consciousness, that that is our moment of glory when we have not a thought to build on, not a hope to cling to. For that "cloud of unknowing" is the opening, the gates ajar, for the grace of God to flow through...to flow out from within, enfolding us, and we are blessed with gratitude.
In that moment, we know there is no problem that the grace of God has not already solved. We weep happy tears, knowing God does have our back...cannot not have our back. And we know peace.
And this is true whether or not the perceived problem happens exactly as our worst fear said it would. It is, in fact, especially true then.
Thank you.
It is the nature of the spiritual world, of fourth dimension consciousness, that that is our moment of glory when we have not a thought to build on, not a hope to cling to. For that "cloud of unknowing" is the opening, the gates ajar, for the grace of God to flow through...to flow out from within, enfolding us, and we are blessed with gratitude.
In that moment, we know there is no problem that the grace of God has not already solved. We weep happy tears, knowing God does have our back...cannot not have our back. And we know peace.
And this is true whether or not the perceived problem happens exactly as our worst fear said it would. It is, in fact, especially true then.
Thank you.
Sunday, July 27, 2014
WANT TO SOAR? GET GROUNDED
This must be my heart’s message to my soul: “If anyone wants to be first, he’s got to make himself last of all and servant of all” from Mark 9:35. There...that is paradox.
Paradox has been defined as "order within disorder, redemption through tragedy, resurrection through death, divinity through humanity." We realize the purity of paradox by letting go of the reasoning mind's want-to-know in order to be right.
As my beloved David told me, oh so many years ago, "Cling to nothing...fly!"
Thank you.
Saturday, July 26, 2014
OUR ONLY NEED IS TO LET GO
Forgiveness is the religious word for letting go, according to Richard Rohr, and that makes perfect sense to me. Which doesn't make forgiveness a bit easier to do, but it does stop the incessant mental debate: "What does forgiveness mean, actually?" It means, actually, let go of resentment...any resentment.
That brings to mind the heart-burn commercial, and I paraphrase, don't get a resentment in the first place. Which, since we're given to mental debates, begs the question, "How?" How do we not get a resentment when, to our reasoning mind, we have been deliberately and with malice aforethought slighted, snubbed, ignored, dissed...and worse?
Here are a few life lessons: "Let nothing that others do to you alter your treatment of them." This may be the most effective, albeit least-used, spiritual direction there is.
Another, with a dual personality is, "Do not respond in kind." The duality is, when treated shabbily, do not respond in kind; however, when treated kindly, with love and laughter, do respond in kind. Resentments cannot even take seed if we will stay our focus here.
Then there is my personal favorite: "Just don't be as nasty as you want to be." I originally read this in a column by Henry Mitchell in "The Washington Post" back in the '80s. It made a home in my head and my heart, and I can actually do it better than most of the other lessons.
In the end letting go is all about denying our reasoning mind's perceived need to protect self. The wonderment is that protecting self is not only God's job, that's his perfect plan. His perfect plan conceived before time began, with you and me, personally, on his mind. Our only need is to let go to receive it.
Thank you.
That brings to mind the heart-burn commercial, and I paraphrase, don't get a resentment in the first place. Which, since we're given to mental debates, begs the question, "How?" How do we not get a resentment when, to our reasoning mind, we have been deliberately and with malice aforethought slighted, snubbed, ignored, dissed...and worse?
Here are a few life lessons: "Let nothing that others do to you alter your treatment of them." This may be the most effective, albeit least-used, spiritual direction there is.
Another, with a dual personality is, "Do not respond in kind." The duality is, when treated shabbily, do not respond in kind; however, when treated kindly, with love and laughter, do respond in kind. Resentments cannot even take seed if we will stay our focus here.
Then there is my personal favorite: "Just don't be as nasty as you want to be." I originally read this in a column by Henry Mitchell in "The Washington Post" back in the '80s. It made a home in my head and my heart, and I can actually do it better than most of the other lessons.
In the end letting go is all about denying our reasoning mind's perceived need to protect self. The wonderment is that protecting self is not only God's job, that's his perfect plan. His perfect plan conceived before time began, with you and me, personally, on his mind. Our only need is to let go to receive it.
Thank you.
Friday, July 25, 2014
AN ODE TO SI
I awoke this morning torn between spiritual knowledge and reasoning mind emotions.
Spiritually, I know it is God's grace that my beloved Si has passed from sight...that now he is free in the consciousness of the Lord, One with All.
Emotionally, I cannot remember ever feeling such gut-burning rage. I know anger is said to be one of the stages of grief, and I say BULL! This ain't no stage, and I will not be pacified by platitudes. I refuse to release my memories of his laughter, his droll manner in speaking his truth...how he brought lightness into our rooms.
My heart is broken.
And still I filter through...whispering words of peace and joy. From the bottom of my grateful heart, comes a song of praise and thanks that Si was physically present in my life for any time at all and now present in consciousness forever.
We can rest with that joy singing in our Soul...joy that he is with us even now, his very essence flowing through our world.
It is our beloved Si himself who brings us peace.
Thank you.
Spiritually, I know it is God's grace that my beloved Si has passed from sight...that now he is free in the consciousness of the Lord, One with All.
Emotionally, I cannot remember ever feeling such gut-burning rage. I know anger is said to be one of the stages of grief, and I say BULL! This ain't no stage, and I will not be pacified by platitudes. I refuse to release my memories of his laughter, his droll manner in speaking his truth...how he brought lightness into our rooms.
My heart is broken.
And still I filter through...whispering words of peace and joy. From the bottom of my grateful heart, comes a song of praise and thanks that Si was physically present in my life for any time at all and now present in consciousness forever.
We can rest with that joy singing in our Soul...joy that he is with us even now, his very essence flowing through our world.
It is our beloved Si himself who brings us peace.
Thank you.
Thursday, July 24, 2014
BLESSED...OR BLINDED BY THE LIGHT
I am the Way. *** I Am that I Am. -- The Bible
It is not the constant repetition of affirmations and/or denials that count toward our spiritual growth. It is not saying that I can or I can't...that just indicates our mindset which gives or denies permission to ourselves. But permission does not cause nor refuse, neither opens the door nor bars it.
It is in our personal realization of the mystical I that I am that the seed of enlightenment is planted.
It is our potato to grow...ours to grab the hoe, but, more importantly, ours to know when to put that hoe away. When the seed has taken root, then comes the hard work of not hoeing, of detaching ourselves from the process of growing the potato...while doing all we can to make ourselves available to the process.
Learning the art of detaching, of letting go, takes the rest of our lives...or it happens in an instant. In that instant, we are blessed or blinded by our deepest/highest realization that truly I am that I am, the Way, and we know neither how nor why.
We can read, study, ponder, meditate, all of which are helpful, but our "getting there" is majorly enhanced by our works...our selfless works, our care and concern for other than self. For that is God's home...within us for others.
Thank you.
It is not the constant repetition of affirmations and/or denials that count toward our spiritual growth. It is not saying that I can or I can't...that just indicates our mindset which gives or denies permission to ourselves. But permission does not cause nor refuse, neither opens the door nor bars it.
It is in our personal realization of the mystical I that I am that the seed of enlightenment is planted.
It is our potato to grow...ours to grab the hoe, but, more importantly, ours to know when to put that hoe away. When the seed has taken root, then comes the hard work of not hoeing, of detaching ourselves from the process of growing the potato...while doing all we can to make ourselves available to the process.
Learning the art of detaching, of letting go, takes the rest of our lives...or it happens in an instant. In that instant, we are blessed or blinded by our deepest/highest realization that truly I am that I am, the Way, and we know neither how nor why.
We can read, study, ponder, meditate, all of which are helpful, but our "getting there" is majorly enhanced by our works...our selfless works, our care and concern for other than self. For that is God's home...within us for others.
Thank you.
Wednesday, July 23, 2014
THE INFINITY OF GOD'S WORD
Just because we know no words to speak to ease a dying man does not mean the Spirit within us has no words.
Because we live knowing God's means of communication are infinite, not ours to fret about, we go with gratitude to the dying man knowing grace will speak God's words to us and through us for the benefit of all.
Thank you.
Because we live knowing God's means of communication are infinite, not ours to fret about, we go with gratitude to the dying man knowing grace will speak God's words to us and through us for the benefit of all.
Thank you.
Tuesday, July 22, 2014
SHOWING FORTH MY GOOD
[The following is a reprint of my blog of July 30, 2010.]
It is after I get it, then begins the work…and the work is to not work. It’s all about sitting in the silence, relaxing into Myself, not striving to attain…anything. Detach, detach, detach.
It is the unseen, the unformable that is the gold I seek. I already know that I contain within myself all the patience that I will ever need, all the love, all the happy, all the forgiveness, all the unseens as it were. For if it is not within me, where do I go to get it? Knowing that, however, serves me no good if, for instance, the clerk at the store takes his own sweet time and holds me up from my ego-driven things to do, places to go, people to see, and I shoot him a nasty (not even a nasty word, but a nasty thought!)…then, the cosmic rule “what goes around comes around” goes into full force and effect. And I will rue my response.
It is in letting go of those ego-driven thoughts and words that brings the change within me/without me. No matter how egregious the action I perceive, to react in kind is more egregious to my inner being…and thus to my outer.
Imagine my joy when I realized that of myself, I am utterly incapable of making any ego change. That is precisely why I must go to the silence, relax and thank God Almighty that He’s got my back, that I have no pony in this race, no dog in this fight…it is my life, and God lives it for me.
Thank you.
Monday, July 21, 2014
ON SHUCKING OUR SHIELDS
Blinding flash of the obvious: The Word made flesh. The Word is consciousness on Its own level...higher, deeper, broader than imagining. Always present for us to bring ourselves to.
We must shuck our shields, all of our shields, though, in order to enter...in order for our consciousness to become one with that higher, deeper, broader consciousness...i.e., God consciousness.
That is our life-time job...shucking our shields.
Thank you.
We must shuck our shields, all of our shields, though, in order to enter...in order for our consciousness to become one with that higher, deeper, broader consciousness...i.e., God consciousness.
That is our life-time job...shucking our shields.
Thank you.
Sunday, July 20, 2014
UNITED IN SIMPLICITY WITH GOD
The message in "God Calling" today is about My Simplicity bringing rest and peace. My handwritten note to me: "1984 - Simplicity = love - just love the lack and see God there - I cannot pray for prosperity without accepting lack - which is the whole picture."
That was important to me for I had just come to understand that we have to realize that when we pray for anything, we're praying from a mental position of lack. Our perception of lack is our focus in the prayer. When we pray for wealth, our focus is on financial insecurity; a prayer for health is focused on sickness...it is just two sides of the same coin.
It was a big breakthrough when I caught the simplicity of a coin as representative of my universe. The two sides...one side Pro, the other side Con...with God, Oneness, the core of the coin. That which brings Pro and Con together is gratitude. The reasoning mind will not willingly find that common ground, and the spiritual mind lives there.
When we learn to pray in gratitude, a simple thank you, for whatever we have or do not have, for wherever we are in our journey, we will be at the "core of the coin," united, quite simply, with God and man.
Thank you.
That was important to me for I had just come to understand that we have to realize that when we pray for anything, we're praying from a mental position of lack. Our perception of lack is our focus in the prayer. When we pray for wealth, our focus is on financial insecurity; a prayer for health is focused on sickness...it is just two sides of the same coin.
It was a big breakthrough when I caught the simplicity of a coin as representative of my universe. The two sides...one side Pro, the other side Con...with God, Oneness, the core of the coin. That which brings Pro and Con together is gratitude. The reasoning mind will not willingly find that common ground, and the spiritual mind lives there.
When we learn to pray in gratitude, a simple thank you, for whatever we have or do not have, for wherever we are in our journey, we will be at the "core of the coin," united, quite simply, with God and man.
Thank you.
Saturday, July 19, 2014
FREE OF SELF THROUGH GRATITUDE
We plant the seeds for growing our gratitude when we realize the first time that we never again need to pray FOR anything.
Over the years, we have learned, and we now know, when we get to the place of our perceived need, God will be there for we, ourselves, are bringing God there. When we realize that "Oh, please, God," is just so many words, that "Thank you, Father/Mother/Moon and Stars" can be our mantra, we experience grace for we are free...free of self at that moment.
Grace here is the gut-bucket knowing, before it happens, that at the final outcome, we may well find exactly what we were dreading, what we were praying not to happen, and we will realize it for the best possible outcome for all...for all others and for ourselves, personally.
In that instant we experience gratitude at a whole new level...depth and height. We realize how much better God's outcome is always than our poor faculties can ever imagine, and we are changed by the grace of gratitude.
Thank you.
Over the years, we have learned, and we now know, when we get to the place of our perceived need, God will be there for we, ourselves, are bringing God there. When we realize that "Oh, please, God," is just so many words, that "Thank you, Father/Mother/Moon and Stars" can be our mantra, we experience grace for we are free...free of self at that moment.
Grace here is the gut-bucket knowing, before it happens, that at the final outcome, we may well find exactly what we were dreading, what we were praying not to happen, and we will realize it for the best possible outcome for all...for all others and for ourselves, personally.
In that instant we experience gratitude at a whole new level...depth and height. We realize how much better God's outcome is always than our poor faculties can ever imagine, and we are changed by the grace of gratitude.
Thank you.
Friday, July 18, 2014
GOD'S HAND IS IN IT...GIVE OVER
It is hard to comprehend but it is my truth that when faced with a cluster-curse, we can count on God's hand being in it.
I've believed this from my eyebrows up for a long time because I've so frequently seen it play out in the lives of others. Then I was gifted with my very own cluster: I invited three of my nearest and dearest friends to dinner, let them know what I'd be serving in case there were any food allergies, and waited. I got not one response. Nada...zip, zap, zero.
This was so egregious...unexplained and unexplainable...that I truly had to say to me that God's hand just has to be in this. I mean, I'm talking three of my nearest and dearest (and it's not like that's three of a multitude!), and no response from even one?
Here's how I really, honest and true, knew God's hand was in it: My feelings weren't hurt. I did not obsess on the many and varied things I could say that would set them straight...and make them feel ashamed (my big pay-off). PLUS: We all continued and continue to be friends. With it never being mentioned, much less explained.
Sidebar: I knew for certain they had all received the invitation...that fact was never in doubt.
I'm not even sure today when this happened...over a year ago but under two years. I never pondered it overmuch; it's only come to mind now because I was talking with one of those friends last night and alluded to it in passing. Nothing in depth needed to be said and it wasn't. It's just this morning while journaling that I was checking myself out...in that phone call, did I need to allude to it, or was I fishing?
That's when I re-realized (and felt like I was wrapped in a velvet blanket) that God's hand is in everything...cluster-curses and allusions to cluster-curses.
God's got it...give over and get grateful.
Thank you.
I've believed this from my eyebrows up for a long time because I've so frequently seen it play out in the lives of others. Then I was gifted with my very own cluster: I invited three of my nearest and dearest friends to dinner, let them know what I'd be serving in case there were any food allergies, and waited. I got not one response. Nada...zip, zap, zero.
This was so egregious...unexplained and unexplainable...that I truly had to say to me that God's hand just has to be in this. I mean, I'm talking three of my nearest and dearest (and it's not like that's three of a multitude!), and no response from even one?
Here's how I really, honest and true, knew God's hand was in it: My feelings weren't hurt. I did not obsess on the many and varied things I could say that would set them straight...and make them feel ashamed (my big pay-off). PLUS: We all continued and continue to be friends. With it never being mentioned, much less explained.
Sidebar: I knew for certain they had all received the invitation...that fact was never in doubt.
I'm not even sure today when this happened...over a year ago but under two years. I never pondered it overmuch; it's only come to mind now because I was talking with one of those friends last night and alluded to it in passing. Nothing in depth needed to be said and it wasn't. It's just this morning while journaling that I was checking myself out...in that phone call, did I need to allude to it, or was I fishing?
That's when I re-realized (and felt like I was wrapped in a velvet blanket) that God's hand is in everything...cluster-curses and allusions to cluster-curses.
God's got it...give over and get grateful.
Thank you.
Thursday, July 17, 2014
ON TAKING OUR TROUBLES IN STRIDE
Love always needs a direct object. - Fr. Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," July 12, 2014 [We're on the right track when that direct object is God...according to me.]
The secret to having peace of mind is to take nothing personally...be it compliments or complaints, snubs or snarks. That includes death itself...especially death itself. Nothing is personal to us individually or as a whole for we are but God's image out-pictured by him with his blessing to us to do as we freely will. On our return journey, we become his blessing by our gratitude.
Well-grounded people seem to have the ability, by God's grace, to take our calamities of life in stride and turn them into demonstrations of faith. -- Anonymous
Thank you.
The secret to having peace of mind is to take nothing personally...be it compliments or complaints, snubs or snarks. That includes death itself...especially death itself. Nothing is personal to us individually or as a whole for we are but God's image out-pictured by him with his blessing to us to do as we freely will. On our return journey, we become his blessing by our gratitude.
Well-grounded people seem to have the ability, by God's grace, to take our calamities of life in stride and turn them into demonstrations of faith. -- Anonymous
Thank you.
Wednesday, July 16, 2014
GATHER NOTHING; RELEASE ALL
Probably all, or most of us anyway, have heard it said that it is better to give a resentment than to get one...and if we've done that, we have learned that there is no worse advice. Because now that resentment we thought we gave away is going to come back when we are way beyond the original occasion. It is going to come back and slap us right upside our head without a word of warning, and an even deeper resentment is born.
That's why our first instruction is to not get a resentment in the first place...but how do we let it go if/when we fail that first instruction?
The first step in ridding ourselves of a resentment is to admit to God that we have one. Never believe that we can release a resentment on our own...by giving it to another, by calling it spiritual growth and kidding ourselves that we have risen above it, by talking it away...what is euphemistically known as "venting." Venting is just gossiping with a pretty dress on.
The major problem with resentments is simply that they do not leave easily, thus coloring practically all of our thinking, feeling, doing, being until we are brought to surrender. I doubt that they actually leave at all...they just get transmuted into the gold of unasked-for humility, of which we can never get enough.
It takes serious detachment to get grateful for humility that got born as a justified resentment (and what other kind is there?). But there it is. That's the secret to being freed of resentment: Still more spiritual growth.
Gather nothing, release everything. Attachment-to holds us back...detachment-from sets us free. It ain't easy...it's merely essential.
Thank you.
That's why our first instruction is to not get a resentment in the first place...but how do we let it go if/when we fail that first instruction?
The first step in ridding ourselves of a resentment is to admit to God that we have one. Never believe that we can release a resentment on our own...by giving it to another, by calling it spiritual growth and kidding ourselves that we have risen above it, by talking it away...what is euphemistically known as "venting." Venting is just gossiping with a pretty dress on.
The major problem with resentments is simply that they do not leave easily, thus coloring practically all of our thinking, feeling, doing, being until we are brought to surrender. I doubt that they actually leave at all...they just get transmuted into the gold of unasked-for humility, of which we can never get enough.
It takes serious detachment to get grateful for humility that got born as a justified resentment (and what other kind is there?). But there it is. That's the secret to being freed of resentment: Still more spiritual growth.
Gather nothing, release everything. Attachment-to holds us back...detachment-from sets us free. It ain't easy...it's merely essential.
Thank you.
Tuesday, July 15, 2014
ON THE GIFT OF ANXIETY
We try so hard to avoid pain, particularly psychic pain, that we cannot see that we are holding that very pain to us. Anxiety is a case in point. I have been assured by doctors, shrinks and friends that an actual anxiety attack lasts at most 90 seconds...it is in our trying to hold the anxiety off that we cause our own misery.
The greatest gift to our spiritual growth is feeling anxiety creeping into our heart, our soul, our body and our brains and daring to say, "Welcome. Come on in." For it is in that welcoming that we throw in with God.
We know from too much experience that we cannot control our anxiety, can't abate it, make it lesser (only more). So it is that very "welcome" that we speak through our fear to God's ears that sets us free...and not forever! That's the nature of growth...anxiety keeps coming back, and we learn to let it...not fight it, let it.
There has been no greater impetus to my spiritual growth than my anxiety, my golden goose. For nothing else did cause me to seek God so deeply, so completely.
According to Fr. Richard Rohr, "...we need to stand in that position for our own conversion. We need to be in a position to actually need the mercy of God, the forgiveness of God, the grace of God."
That's it. Our own need for God, in whatever form it takes (anxiety, illness, loss) determines his flow through us in whatever form that takes (mercy, forgiveness, grace...love).
Thank you.
The greatest gift to our spiritual growth is feeling anxiety creeping into our heart, our soul, our body and our brains and daring to say, "Welcome. Come on in." For it is in that welcoming that we throw in with God.
We know from too much experience that we cannot control our anxiety, can't abate it, make it lesser (only more). So it is that very "welcome" that we speak through our fear to God's ears that sets us free...and not forever! That's the nature of growth...anxiety keeps coming back, and we learn to let it...not fight it, let it.
There has been no greater impetus to my spiritual growth than my anxiety, my golden goose. For nothing else did cause me to seek God so deeply, so completely.
According to Fr. Richard Rohr, "...we need to stand in that position for our own conversion. We need to be in a position to actually need the mercy of God, the forgiveness of God, the grace of God."
That's it. Our own need for God, in whatever form it takes (anxiety, illness, loss) determines his flow through us in whatever form that takes (mercy, forgiveness, grace...love).
Thank you.
Monday, July 14, 2014
HEADING IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION
The ego moves forward by contraction, self-protection, and refusal, by saying
no. The soul, however, does not proceed by contraction but by expansion. It
moves forward not by exclusion, but by inclusion and by saying yes. -- Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," July 14, 2014
I love when I get a blinding flash of the obvious, and shortly thereafter it is validated when I read something written by a respected authority. I awoke this morning with my almost-first thought being, "Until I feel no resistance at all toward Herkimer's agitation, I will be tied to his agitation."
Later I read Rohr's Meditation, above, and I knew again that it is my ego dictating my resistance.
Here's my good news: I now believe that knowing it "again" is doing it right. I no longer expect (I still want) upon understanding an ego-mire, that, by that understanding, henceforth and forever I will walk free. No. I will henceforth be heading in a new direction...away from ego, toward God. The road, however, is rocky and the path is steep, and we take our rest stops as necessary. It is the rest stops that become less necessary!
Another paradox...the rest stop, our once longed-for respite, becomes our "Oh no, not again," and morphs into our, "I'm still heading in the right direction...thank you."
God is so good to us.
Thank you.
I love when I get a blinding flash of the obvious, and shortly thereafter it is validated when I read something written by a respected authority. I awoke this morning with my almost-first thought being, "Until I feel no resistance at all toward Herkimer's agitation, I will be tied to his agitation."
Later I read Rohr's Meditation, above, and I knew again that it is my ego dictating my resistance.
Here's my good news: I now believe that knowing it "again" is doing it right. I no longer expect (I still want) upon understanding an ego-mire, that, by that understanding, henceforth and forever I will walk free. No. I will henceforth be heading in a new direction...away from ego, toward God. The road, however, is rocky and the path is steep, and we take our rest stops as necessary. It is the rest stops that become less necessary!
Another paradox...the rest stop, our once longed-for respite, becomes our "Oh no, not again," and morphs into our, "I'm still heading in the right direction...thank you."
God is so good to us.
Thank you.
Sunday, July 13, 2014
LAUGH...THE BEST WAY TO LIVE LIFE
I have just finished a wonderful book, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows, and I have found myself in it.
Background: An old farmer was nattered into joining the book club and into reading Marcus Aurelius. Here's his take on Marcus:
"Marcus Aurelius was an old woman -- forever taking his mind's temperature -- forever wondering about what he had done, or what he had not done. Was he right -- or was he wrong? Was the rest of the world in error? Could it be him instead? No, it was everybody else who was wrong, and he set matters straight for them. Broody hen that he was, he never had a tiny thought that he couldn't turn into a sermon."
“Forever taking his mind’s temperature!” I don’t know which line I love more...that one, or “he never had a tiny thought that he couldn't turn into a sermon.”
Isn't that exactly what we do when we find a personal defect in our own self or any other? Sit down and reflect on it, analyze it, determine who's at fault, what's to be done about it, how to do it...with the defect continuing to fester. The last thought in our mind is asking God's opinion on the matter...much less his help in fixing it.
I totally, completely, absolutely identified with so much in this book which is written so that we see the humor of it all...the best way to look at life itself and ourselves in particular.
Thank you.
Background: An old farmer was nattered into joining the book club and into reading Marcus Aurelius. Here's his take on Marcus:
"Marcus Aurelius was an old woman -- forever taking his mind's temperature -- forever wondering about what he had done, or what he had not done. Was he right -- or was he wrong? Was the rest of the world in error? Could it be him instead? No, it was everybody else who was wrong, and he set matters straight for them. Broody hen that he was, he never had a tiny thought that he couldn't turn into a sermon."
“Forever taking his mind’s temperature!” I don’t know which line I love more...that one, or “he never had a tiny thought that he couldn't turn into a sermon.”
Isn't that exactly what we do when we find a personal defect in our own self or any other? Sit down and reflect on it, analyze it, determine who's at fault, what's to be done about it, how to do it...with the defect continuing to fester. The last thought in our mind is asking God's opinion on the matter...much less his help in fixing it.
I totally, completely, absolutely identified with so much in this book which is written so that we see the humor of it all...the best way to look at life itself and ourselves in particular.
Thank you.
Saturday, July 12, 2014
HOW CAN WE BLAME GOD IF THERE IS NO GOD?
This God that Israel—and Jesus—discovered is consistently seen to be 'merciful, gracious, faithful, forgiving, and steadfast in love.' -- Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditations," July 12, 2014
I read that this morning and wondered why it is for so many that we can desperately want to believe that God, that our own personal God, is “merciful, gracious, faithful, forgiving, and steadfast in love,” yet at our first molehill/Mount Everest, we immediately dismiss that idea and know, just know, that God is mean, vindictive, angry, and punishing. Plus, doesn't exist in the first place...has never existed for that matter.
For if God exists, is indeed "merciful, gracious, faithful, forgiving, and steadfast in love,” and we find ourselves all alone, jobless and homeless, isn't that the very time we most need all the merciful and steadfast love we can get?
Why would we then, at such a dire time of need, decide to go for a God who is mean, vindictive, angry, and punishing? Or no God at all?
Which reminds me, how can we blame God for all our woes if there is no God? That leaves our very own self alone to blame if blame we must. Our ego, of course, does not allow for the blame to be ours; it can and will find somebody out there to blame...a friend, an enemy, our spouse, our boss, a co-worker, terrorists. Our ego's sources of woe are endless with the focus always being outward.
Apparently we'd rather hold onto our own ideas than change our mind. For that is essentially all that is necessary...we must become willing to change our mind and than do it. Change our mind...then, trickier, keep it changed.
That, however, is the hardest part of all, changing our mind...for, just like acceptance/surrender, we cannot self-will a changed mind, just because we "know better" or just because we want to. Actual acceptance requires pain...psychic pain, in that no blood is let, no skin is broken, no bumps show. Changing our mind feels much more painful than that caused by mere bumps and bruises...after all, they go away fairly quickly.
I remember a story a friend told me long ago of when she was a little girl and went to the beach for her first time. She ran into the water and was promptly knocked down by a wave and couldn't get up. She fought till she was exhausted, and she knew...had the conscious thought...that she was drowning. She just gave up, had to just quit fighting...with which the next wave picked her up and brought her into the shore...to safety on the sand.
That's a picture we can try to hold to when we want, but are unwilling and cannot will ourselves willing, to change our mind...to surrender. Give up and wait for the next wave...to swamp us or save us.
The gift comes when we realize God may or may not bring us to our idea of safety. We find our peace when we pray for God's perfect idea of safety. And, in its coming, when it looks like a shark not an inner-tube...welcome that. Think "thank you."
Now that is a changed mind.
Thank you.
I read that this morning and wondered why it is for so many that we can desperately want to believe that God, that our own personal God, is “merciful, gracious, faithful, forgiving, and steadfast in love,” yet at our first molehill/Mount Everest, we immediately dismiss that idea and know, just know, that God is mean, vindictive, angry, and punishing. Plus, doesn't exist in the first place...has never existed for that matter.
For if God exists, is indeed "merciful, gracious, faithful, forgiving, and steadfast in love,” and we find ourselves all alone, jobless and homeless, isn't that the very time we most need all the merciful and steadfast love we can get?
Why would we then, at such a dire time of need, decide to go for a God who is mean, vindictive, angry, and punishing? Or no God at all?
Which reminds me, how can we blame God for all our woes if there is no God? That leaves our very own self alone to blame if blame we must. Our ego, of course, does not allow for the blame to be ours; it can and will find somebody out there to blame...a friend, an enemy, our spouse, our boss, a co-worker, terrorists. Our ego's sources of woe are endless with the focus always being outward.
Apparently we'd rather hold onto our own ideas than change our mind. For that is essentially all that is necessary...we must become willing to change our mind and than do it. Change our mind...then, trickier, keep it changed.
That, however, is the hardest part of all, changing our mind...for, just like acceptance/surrender, we cannot self-will a changed mind, just because we "know better" or just because we want to. Actual acceptance requires pain...psychic pain, in that no blood is let, no skin is broken, no bumps show. Changing our mind feels much more painful than that caused by mere bumps and bruises...after all, they go away fairly quickly.
I remember a story a friend told me long ago of when she was a little girl and went to the beach for her first time. She ran into the water and was promptly knocked down by a wave and couldn't get up. She fought till she was exhausted, and she knew...had the conscious thought...that she was drowning. She just gave up, had to just quit fighting...with which the next wave picked her up and brought her into the shore...to safety on the sand.
That's a picture we can try to hold to when we want, but are unwilling and cannot will ourselves willing, to change our mind...to surrender. Give up and wait for the next wave...to swamp us or save us.
The gift comes when we realize God may or may not bring us to our idea of safety. We find our peace when we pray for God's perfect idea of safety. And, in its coming, when it looks like a shark not an inner-tube...welcome that. Think "thank you."
Now that is a changed mind.
Thank you.
Friday, July 11, 2014
ON FEELING LIKE JOB
I note in my "God Calling" this morning that I wrote in 2005 that I felt like Job...then I listed a slew of reasons why. Interestingly, I also wrote in 2010 the exact same thing: "I feel like Job" with another list of reasons why. I've noted a "skin-on-crooked" feeling recently, and I thought this may just be what, back in the day, we called the "summer doldrums."
Which may be the whole story right there, but I'm reminded way back when I wrote: "If I will make the effort to remember to turn to God when I sense any unknown coming, good or bad, and simply say 'thank you,' that can open the door for God’s perfect will to come forth.
"There are times when I’m searching for God’s will in a given situation…I talk with my mentor, my friends and confidants, I pray about it, I journal…in short, I do all the 'right' things. I go forth thinking I've got God’s will here, and KA-BOOM…wrong, wrong, wrong. That, too, is God’s will.
"If the end result initially looks wrong to me, I need to look deeper. I can’t think of any mistake I’ve made (and I’ve made way more than my share) that hasn’t eventually been beneficial to me…if only through a deeper sense of humility (of which I am never going to have too much).
"God uses what I give him to use…what I am is what He perfects."
"There are times when I’m searching for God’s will in a given situation…I talk with my mentor, my friends and confidants, I pray about it, I journal…in short, I do all the 'right' things. I go forth thinking I've got God’s will here, and KA-BOOM…wrong, wrong, wrong. That, too, is God’s will.
"If the end result initially looks wrong to me, I need to look deeper. I can’t think of any mistake I’ve made (and I’ve made way more than my share) that hasn’t eventually been beneficial to me…if only through a deeper sense of humility (of which I am never going to have too much).
"God uses what I give him to use…what I am is what He perfects."
Thank you.
Thursday, July 10, 2014
GIVE TO GET
Our world today seems to me to be going backward with "peace" seen as merely a panacea to speak of but not a reality to achieve. Which seems to prove the truth that everybody decries the bully and his ways, yet when the bully turns his hard eyes on them, they quick line up with the bully's ways.
"When will we ever learn? When will we ever learn?"
Truth to tell, all the pretty words have already been written, spoken, sung...now we're just looking for new ways to string them together.
It's not the learning we're lacking, it's the will to do.
Many of us go weekly to church, synagogue, temple, mosque hoping to hear new ways to do the words we already have heard and know to be true. Many of us just study our navel hoping enlightenment will spring from there.
It could not be surprising (shocking, maybe, but not surprising) to find 50,000-year-old graffiti on a cave wall saying pretty much what the Sermon says. The Sermon, which was spoken some 2,000 years ago, that we're still quoting, but not doing. I myself preach it way too much in comparison to how often I walk it. Seems like I'm forever catching disrespect from someone and responding in kind. And I know it is not what is said or done, it is our reaction to it that causes our interminable pain. Apparently, it's just that I know it for you...it's still elusive for me.
The doing is so hard, of course, because its only requirement is that we give over, give in, give up...GIVE.
We cannot get God until we give up our sense of self...hug it and kiss it and let it go. For self alone is the block to the higher power within...ready to flow forth.
Thank you.
"When will we ever learn? When will we ever learn?"
Truth to tell, all the pretty words have already been written, spoken, sung...now we're just looking for new ways to string them together.
It's not the learning we're lacking, it's the will to do.
Many of us go weekly to church, synagogue, temple, mosque hoping to hear new ways to do the words we already have heard and know to be true. Many of us just study our navel hoping enlightenment will spring from there.
It could not be surprising (shocking, maybe, but not surprising) to find 50,000-year-old graffiti on a cave wall saying pretty much what the Sermon says. The Sermon, which was spoken some 2,000 years ago, that we're still quoting, but not doing. I myself preach it way too much in comparison to how often I walk it. Seems like I'm forever catching disrespect from someone and responding in kind. And I know it is not what is said or done, it is our reaction to it that causes our interminable pain. Apparently, it's just that I know it for you...it's still elusive for me.
The doing is so hard, of course, because its only requirement is that we give over, give in, give up...GIVE.
We cannot get God until we give up our sense of self...hug it and kiss it and let it go. For self alone is the block to the higher power within...ready to flow forth.
Thank you.
Wednesday, July 9, 2014
ALWAYS AND ONLY: NOW
This morning's blinding flash of the obvious: The human mind always wants to benefit itself. The illumined mind cannot even entertain a want...it can only know fulfillment.
It is in the rocky road that we walk away from our origins, God, that makes the trip back so painfully fruitful. For it is in the trip back that we learn, among other things, the power of paradox...probably starting with the realization that all of our rues, regrets and remorses are our gold. And that we cannot fake. It's like acceptance; just saying "I accept this" has never brought anyone to acceptance...to resignation, maybe, but not acceptance. And resignation is just resentment aborning.
It's a full life lesson to realize that we go to God for God...that is all. Our human mind may grasp that fairly quickly, and it is that same mind that resists it right afterward. For where's the glory? We get God and that is all...where's the I-got-mine-which-is-better-than-yours in that?
I'm guessing we get it for good on arrival back home. It is comforting to know that we don't have to die to arrive back home. The illumined mind knows it is available now...always and only: Now.
Thank you.
It is in the rocky road that we walk away from our origins, God, that makes the trip back so painfully fruitful. For it is in the trip back that we learn, among other things, the power of paradox...probably starting with the realization that all of our rues, regrets and remorses are our gold. And that we cannot fake. It's like acceptance; just saying "I accept this" has never brought anyone to acceptance...to resignation, maybe, but not acceptance. And resignation is just resentment aborning.
It's a full life lesson to realize that we go to God for God...that is all. Our human mind may grasp that fairly quickly, and it is that same mind that resists it right afterward. For where's the glory? We get God and that is all...where's the I-got-mine-which-is-better-than-yours in that?
I'm guessing we get it for good on arrival back home. It is comforting to know that we don't have to die to arrive back home. The illumined mind knows it is available now...always and only: Now.
Thank you.
Tuesday, July 8, 2014
ON CHANGING OUR PRAYERFUL MIND
"All power is in the word of God within me." - Joel Goldsmith, The Heart of Mysticism at p. 994
One of the most important thoughts to use in building the God of our own understanding is that God is Spirit...not human, not of a certain form even..and that Spirit is presence itself, such as the wind, as the beams of the sun, as the air we breathe.
That Spirit is within us, without us, always present, and our only desire needs be to let it speak to us, to let it do for us as it wills.
As Fr. Richard Rohr writes this morning in his Daily Meditations, "Jesus was not changing the Father’s mind about us; he was changing our mind about God." There it is. We must change our mind about God.
In the changing of our mind (per Joel Goldsmith, The Heart of Mysticism at p. 993), "[w]hen you pray, remember that God is Spirit, and pray only for the word of God and its spiritual fruitage."
That, of course, means that we pray not for money, prestige, companionship or even good health...we pray only for knowledge of God's word and will.
The biggest change may well be in learning that our prayer starts...always...with "thank you."
One of the most important thoughts to use in building the God of our own understanding is that God is Spirit...not human, not of a certain form even..and that Spirit is presence itself, such as the wind, as the beams of the sun, as the air we breathe.
That Spirit is within us, without us, always present, and our only desire needs be to let it speak to us, to let it do for us as it wills.
As Fr. Richard Rohr writes this morning in his Daily Meditations, "Jesus was not changing the Father’s mind about us; he was changing our mind about God." There it is. We must change our mind about God.
In the changing of our mind (per Joel Goldsmith, The Heart of Mysticism at p. 993), "[w]hen you pray, remember that God is Spirit, and pray only for the word of God and its spiritual fruitage."
That, of course, means that we pray not for money, prestige, companionship or even good health...we pray only for knowledge of God's word and will.
The biggest change may well be in learning that our prayer starts...always...with "thank you."
Thank you.
Monday, July 7, 2014
THE CHOICE IS ALWAYS OURS
I went to bed last night feeling in a brown funk...woke up feeling that I am a brown funk which feels worse so fits better. It's all Roger Federer's fault.
So I sat down to my Goldsmith reader, and there (again!) is God's personal message to me: "...even though God has placed you on that spiritual path and there is now no turning back, at this period of your unfoldment, there is still the opportunity for a choice: You can choose to let your progress be slow or to speed it up. Choose you this day whom ye will serve. (Joshua 24:15)"
Thank you.
So I sat down to my Goldsmith reader, and there (again!) is God's personal message to me: "...even though God has placed you on that spiritual path and there is now no turning back, at this period of your unfoldment, there is still the opportunity for a choice: You can choose to let your progress be slow or to speed it up. Choose you this day whom ye will serve. (Joshua 24:15)"
Thank you.
Sunday, July 6, 2014
ON FORGIVENESS
"Until we recognize the potential for evil in all of us, there can be neither atonement nor forgiveness." --from a letter to the editors, The Washington Post, July 6, 1997
"Only I can pardon my persecutors, only I can set them free." -- from my God Calling, June 24, 1997
"Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness." -- an Eckhart Tolle quote found in the comic strip Agnes, January 3, 2009
"Driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking, and self-pity, we step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate. Sometimes they hurt us, seemingly without provocation, but we invariably find that at some time in the past we have made decisions based on self which later placed us in a position to be hurt." -- Anonymous
Thank you.
"Only I can pardon my persecutors, only I can set them free." -- from my God Calling, June 24, 1997
"Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness." -- an Eckhart Tolle quote found in the comic strip Agnes, January 3, 2009
"Driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking, and self-pity, we step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate. Sometimes they hurt us, seemingly without provocation, but we invariably find that at some time in the past we have made decisions based on self which later placed us in a position to be hurt." -- Anonymous
Thank you.
Saturday, July 5, 2014
ASK GOD FOR NOTHING...AND RECEIVE GOLD
I awoke one morning very aware of just how hard it is to regret telling a bald-faced lie when one feels no real regret for the lie (because it was for the benefit of another...it was justified!) but instead feels only fear of being found out, like being pilloried in public.
I remembered my commitment to ask God for nothing...probably because I didn't know what to ask for. I clearly couldn't ask him to bless a lie, or to not count this one because it was justified...whose lie isn't justified? At any rate, I simply started repeating the holy name. I then went into my quiet time, and my very first reading quoted Pema Chödrön on the practice of tonglen. (I personally never heard of tonglen, but from this reading, we can figure it out.)
The following is what I read and is from The Practice of Tonglen by Pema Chödrön:
"....begin to do tonglen for what you are feeling and for millions of others just like you who at that very moment of time are feeling exactly the same stuckness and misery. Maybe you are able to name your pain. You recognize it clearly as terror or revulsion or anger or wanting to get revenge. So you breathe in for all the people who are caught with that same emotion and you send out relief or whatever opens up the space for yourself and all those countless others. Maybe you can’t name what you’re feeling. But you can feel it—a tightness in the stomach, a heavy darkness, or whatever. Just contact what you are feeling and breathe in, take it in—for all of us and send out relief to all of us.
“. . . [You] can do tonglen for all the people who are just like you, for everyone who wishes to be compassionate but instead is afraid, for everyone who wishes to be brave but instead is a coward....
“Breathe in for all of us and breathe out for all of us.
“Use what seems like poison as medicine. Use your personal suffering as the path to compassion for all beings.”
I love most of all "use what seems like poison as medicine." Paradox again.
What a perfect message to receive in answer to my silent repetition of the holy name. God is so good to us.
Thank you.
I remembered my commitment to ask God for nothing...probably because I didn't know what to ask for. I clearly couldn't ask him to bless a lie, or to not count this one because it was justified...whose lie isn't justified? At any rate, I simply started repeating the holy name. I then went into my quiet time, and my very first reading quoted Pema Chödrön on the practice of tonglen. (I personally never heard of tonglen, but from this reading, we can figure it out.)
The following is what I read and is from The Practice of Tonglen by Pema Chödrön:
"....begin to do tonglen for what you are feeling and for millions of others just like you who at that very moment of time are feeling exactly the same stuckness and misery. Maybe you are able to name your pain. You recognize it clearly as terror or revulsion or anger or wanting to get revenge. So you breathe in for all the people who are caught with that same emotion and you send out relief or whatever opens up the space for yourself and all those countless others. Maybe you can’t name what you’re feeling. But you can feel it—a tightness in the stomach, a heavy darkness, or whatever. Just contact what you are feeling and breathe in, take it in—for all of us and send out relief to all of us.
“. . . [You] can do tonglen for all the people who are just like you, for everyone who wishes to be compassionate but instead is afraid, for everyone who wishes to be brave but instead is a coward....
“Breathe in for all of us and breathe out for all of us.
“Use what seems like poison as medicine. Use your personal suffering as the path to compassion for all beings.”
I love most of all "use what seems like poison as medicine." Paradox again.
Thank you.
Friday, July 4, 2014
ONLY IF IT IS HIS WILL
My handwritten note in my daily Easwaran reader this day: "2003 - on 7/3 I asked for 'a state of listening consciousness' and on 7/4/13 I was gifted with: 'You've got the power.'" And all year whenever I've gotten stuck in thought, word or deed, I've consciously reminded God, "You got the power...use it."
This morning the question hit me: Do I have this bass-ackward...again? Is this, instead, God telling me I've got the power not me telling him?
Thinking it through, I don't see that it makes a lot of difference...because every time I remind him that he has the power, use it, I'm the one who gets to walk forward and do it.
It is my reasoning mind that doubts I can do it (and rightly so!). It is the power greater than myself within me that I must turn to first who then walks me through.
And then only if it is his will....
Thank you.
This morning the question hit me: Do I have this bass-ackward...again? Is this, instead, God telling me I've got the power not me telling him?
Thinking it through, I don't see that it makes a lot of difference...because every time I remind him that he has the power, use it, I'm the one who gets to walk forward and do it.
It is my reasoning mind that doubts I can do it (and rightly so!). It is the power greater than myself within me that I must turn to first who then walks me through.
And then only if it is his will....
Thank you.
Thursday, July 3, 2014
IS ALL DESIRE SUFFERING?
[The following is a reprint of my blog of July 3, 2008.]
Eknath Easwaran has written, “The Buddha is sometimes quoted as saying that desire is suffering. A more accurate translation is that selfish desire is suffering - in fact, the source of all suffering.”
However, Joel Goldsmith wrote exactly what The Buddha is quoted as saying, that desire…all desire…is suffering.
Eknath Easwaran has written, “The Buddha is sometimes quoted as saying that desire is suffering. A more accurate translation is that selfish desire is suffering - in fact, the source of all suffering.”
However, Joel Goldsmith wrote exactly what The Buddha is quoted as saying, that desire…all desire…is suffering.
Jesus the Christ is quoted as saying that the Father knows our needs…so what is there to desire?
As for me, I believe that all desire is based in self (no matter how pretty I dress it up, i.e., for the poor, for world peace, etc.) and is therefore a self-determined objective, not of God. On the other hand, the Sermon on the Mount is all about putting others first, thinking of and for others before one thinks of and for self. Wouldn’t it follow that desire has to be an acceptable learning tool?…one way toward learning the discipline of putting others first, of aligning my will with God’s will?
Maybe it’s all about where we are on the path…to the wholly enlightened, The Buddha, Jesus, desire would be suffering because by its nature it would take them out of their enlightened state. Desire to the likes of me is necessary to keep me on the path toward enlightenment…which at my stage is many lifetimes away, and I’d best keep that unselfish desire honed and at the ready.
As for me, I believe that all desire is based in self (no matter how pretty I dress it up, i.e., for the poor, for world peace, etc.) and is therefore a self-determined objective, not of God. On the other hand, the Sermon on the Mount is all about putting others first, thinking of and for others before one thinks of and for self. Wouldn’t it follow that desire has to be an acceptable learning tool?…one way toward learning the discipline of putting others first, of aligning my will with God’s will?
Maybe it’s all about where we are on the path…to the wholly enlightened, The Buddha, Jesus, desire would be suffering because by its nature it would take them out of their enlightened state. Desire to the likes of me is necessary to keep me on the path toward enlightenment…which at my stage is many lifetimes away, and I’d best keep that unselfish desire honed and at the ready.
Thank you.
Wednesday, July 2, 2014
AND WE ARE GRATEFUL
Except ye become as little children ye cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
To become as a little child is the subject of today's "God Calling." To me, the most important part in the reading is: "Seek...until the years have added to your nature that of the trusting child." That is another truth wrapped in a paradox: "Until the years have added to your nature that of the trusting child."
I have that underlined in many different colors, meaning every year that I read it, I am astonished again as if I'd never read it before. I've finally quit underlining, but here's me this morning...astonished again. And wonderfully so. Mainly because it was just very recently that I realized that becoming as a little child is to give up self-determined objectives...no, it is to give up the how-to-get our self-determined objective.
As a little child, we want, we say so, and we never give a thought about how the folks are going to get our want to us. That's probably our first glimpse at the difference between a want and a need...we may or we may not get our want fulfilled, but if it is truly a need, it will be provided.
The years have added to our understanding that a true need will be met by a power greater than self. We come to trust that it will get done, and we no longer natter God about "how to" or even "if." We have especially learned that a met-need may arrive looking like an "OH NO!" And we quick pray our "Thank you" anyhow...with fingers crossed at first, but that's how we learn.
We come to realize the deep abiding comfort in the words, "Thy will, not mine, be done." We have experienced the truth that God's will is better than our will no matter how right and true and good and pretty our will seems to our reasoning mind. And we are grateful.
Thank you.
To become as a little child is the subject of today's "God Calling." To me, the most important part in the reading is: "Seek...until the years have added to your nature that of the trusting child." That is another truth wrapped in a paradox: "Until the years have added to your nature that of the trusting child."
I have that underlined in many different colors, meaning every year that I read it, I am astonished again as if I'd never read it before. I've finally quit underlining, but here's me this morning...astonished again. And wonderfully so. Mainly because it was just very recently that I realized that becoming as a little child is to give up self-determined objectives...no, it is to give up the how-to-get our self-determined objective.
As a little child, we want, we say so, and we never give a thought about how the folks are going to get our want to us. That's probably our first glimpse at the difference between a want and a need...we may or we may not get our want fulfilled, but if it is truly a need, it will be provided.
The years have added to our understanding that a true need will be met by a power greater than self. We come to trust that it will get done, and we no longer natter God about "how to" or even "if." We have especially learned that a met-need may arrive looking like an "OH NO!" And we quick pray our "Thank you" anyhow...with fingers crossed at first, but that's how we learn.
We come to realize the deep abiding comfort in the words, "Thy will, not mine, be done." We have experienced the truth that God's will is better than our will no matter how right and true and good and pretty our will seems to our reasoning mind. And we are grateful.
Thank you.
Tuesday, July 1, 2014
FOR THE BENEFIT OF ALL
He prepares a table before me in the presence of my enemies.
Blinding flash of the obvious: The turmoil in our life right now is the invitation we sent out being returned to us...in order that we may see ourselves as we appear to others. This is the first step in our forgiving them for their actions/reactions toward us.
How we are perceived by others at any given time determines their reaction to us then. Our lesson is in recognizing that it, their reaction, is not personal to us. This, in order for us to see ourselves as we appear to be to others so that we may forgive them for their actions, their reactions.
In seeking to forgive, the vital first step is we go to God in praise that we are not taking the slings and arrows of daily life personally. I am a believer that forgiveness is not possible if we are taking the action personally...we have not accepted God's will, in other words.
Blinding flash of the obvious: The turmoil in our life right now is the invitation we sent out being returned to us...in order that we may see ourselves as we appear to others. This is the first step in our forgiving them for their actions/reactions toward us.
Our reasoning mind, linked with our ego, can never entirely get this. But we are learning to think on the spiritual plane, and we come to the realization that all negative actions or reactions that we perceive from others originated as an invitation we sent out.
Here's us, thinking, "This is me, just being me," with him thinking, "I never did anything to you to deserve such disrespect...take this!" And the discord begins...and/or continues.
In seeking to forgive, the vital first step is we go to God in praise that we are not taking the slings and arrows of daily life personally. I am a believer that forgiveness is not possible if we are taking the action personally...we have not accepted God's will, in other words.
He prepares a table before me in the presence of my enemies....this is our table where we are brought full circle, where we all find peace. We know God's hand is in it when it benefits all.
Thank you.
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