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.

THE CHRIST NEVER SLEEPS

This morning's blinding flash of the obvious: Our daily goal is to awaken the sleeping Christ within.

The second BFO: The Christ never sleeps...the goal is to release the imprisoned Christ within.

In pondering that, I realize that we do that by becoming entirely willing then ready to change our mind...that is all. And that's when we learn that we are unable to change our own mind without help from on high deep within us...this is the imprisoned Christ breaking the mental chains that bind us. In short, doing our thinking for us.

Loose him and let her go.

For there is our spiritual freedom, the real freedom...freedom from want. Freedom from want, a.k.a., lack...lack of anything ever...for that freed Christ within knows our every need and supplies it before we know of it.

Thank you.

TOSS IN WITH WHATEVER GOD HAS IN MIND

Yesterday, I was talking with a friend who was deep into self-pity, of which there is no more sincere feeling...and she was deeply sincere.

My suggestion to her was that she change her mind about the way she was looking at that which was hurting her. That suggestion was met with more sincerity, only this time it was sincere resistance. So we talked. Turned the situation this way and that, and she finally understood the concept.

Her response: "But then there'd be no issue at all!" [Note the "But," the ego's hidey-hole for "No."] She understood the concept, she just didn't agree with it.

For the concept is, as Chief Joseph so eloquently put it, "I will fight no more forever." As is just as eloquently stated elsewhere, "We have ceased fighting anything or anyone," and "Agree with your adversary quickly." Not to mention, "Acceptance is the answer to all our problems."

I can surely understand my friend's resistance...all those words sound good when we're applying them to someone else's self-centered fear. But ours is real, cries our ego.

It is only by giving up the siren song of our ego that we can honestly turn to God and toss in with whatever he has in mind...knock yourself out, God, you got the power. That's my favorite reminder to me that, whether I agree or not, God is in charge of my heart, my soul, my body, my brains, my bones, my blood,,,me. And I am grateful.

Thank you.

LIKE A TSUNAMI...ONLY GOOD

All things will be made clear...just this morning Fr. Richard Rohr's "Daily Meditation" is titled You Become the God You Worship. I was immediately taken back some thirty years to the time when my mentor said, a lot, "I am the image of the God I adore." 

I could not grasp that concept, and we discussed it...repeatedly. 

I finally made my breakthrough when I worked for a man who lived totally in his intellect...totally and proudly. It was clear that his towering intellect was his god, and he had become a towering intellect...which is a very limited and limiting god and draws few people in. He was a not happy man.

I have since seen the same thing play out in people's fears...fear of financial insecurity is primary. We often hear stories of someone who has a comfortable income but lives like a miser for fear of running out of money. Money is his god and can never bring peace of mind...it takes away peace of mind is what it does.

Anything that our mind can conceive of that we make our god will fail us...there's an old affirmation I still hear sometimes: If my mind can conceive it, I can achieve it. Which I don't even doubt...the trouble is, achieving and maintaining are two different things. Maintaining requires that we live in the reasoning mind, a wondrous thing it is true, but living there does not bring lasting peace, nor joy, nor love. 

It is in surrendering...surrendering our self-determined objectives, our wants, our perceived needs...to an unseeable, unknowable, untouchable power of pure good that we first glimpse, experience really, the real power, the Higher Power, God. Whose only job is to flow forth from within us as love for any and all...every person, place, thing it meets. Like a tsunami, only good.

All we need do in order to surrender is hold our nose and take a leap of faith. We will be caught. We will be transformed.

Thank you.

STOP THE ATTACK...APPRECIATE

Am I ever proving myself to be a slow learner! I'm glad I decided a long time ago that slow is the best way or I'd really be chagrined this morning.

There is a lady, a friend of a friend, with whom I'm less than enchanted who, apparently, is enchanted with me. Every time I'm around her, I feel like her prized pig on parade, and it drives me bats.

I'm journaling this morning, and I write, "She hears only as she chooses to hear...as it reflects on her, to her glory." My following line: "Don't we all though...in some manner or means? I need to find her good behind that...find the gold in her."

There. That is my blinding flash of the obvious.

I have been preaching "find the gold" since the '70s, but I never thought of it with people...only with dreaded situations, events, happenings. With the dreaded person, I've always called it "upgrading my opinion" of her, but I like "finding the gold" in him better. For sure, it is at its most inner fulfilling to find the gold in the person I'm obsessively attacking in my mind...the one I feel attacked by (or overly prized by, I'm seeing). Nothing stops an attack mind like appreciation.

As Easwaran writes in his today's daily reader: "Instead of criticizing...we can focus all our attention on what is best in them."

Thank you.

IN THE END, ALL THAT MATTERS...

[The following is a reprint of my blog of December 29, 2009.]

“In the end, all that matters is what you have done for Christ.”

Some years ago, I saw that message, framed picture-like, at the home of a lovely lady who was my mother’s friend.

I’ve thought of that message over the years, and it becomes truer to me as I open my mind to it…true for all, when one realizes “for Christ” as for God, for Allah, for Buddha, for Mohammad, for Mary, for Self, for Spirit, for….

In the end, all that matters is what you have done…selflessly…for others.

Thank you.

MEAN, MAD AND PUT-UPON

In his October Community Assistance Letter, my beloved Mac wrote, "Dorothy Day wrote that Jesus 'made heaven hinge on the way we act toward Him in his disguise of commonplace, frail and ordinary human beings.'"

I told Mac that I believed that I'd met Jesus at the Hospital Center’s new pay-for-parking kiosk. Never having seen one before, and being absolutely machine-phobic, I was approaching it with trepidation, also known as gut-bucket fear...fear that I'd never figure it out, that me and my car would be stuck in the garage at this ugly place forever, and Ruckus would starve to death for lack of love and food.

It happened that an old man was there ahead of me. He was kinda twisted and bent over, dressed a tish shabbily. He looked like I felt...mean, mad and put-upon. He was trying to figure out this new thing, and clearly, he didn’t have a clue. I knew that I didn’t either, but that I, too, would have to learn. 

The man was muttering and cussing...talking to himself. So I answered and we got to figuring the thing out together. We finally did, he got his ticket to ride, we shook hands, and he walked away. 

I turned back to the machine and here comes the main ticket for him...the first ticket is a receipt, apparently (sheez!)  I quick call to him as I tear off the ticket and hand it to him. I go back to figuring it out for me, and I did good. I got my ticket, turned away, and he’s still there and he laughingly says, “You’re doing the same thing I did!” My main ticket was just coming. He pulls it out and hands it to me just as I’d handed his to him. We were giggling like teenagers when we parted. 

Here's why I know that was divine intervention: The fact is when I'm all alone and attempting anything new, I nearly always fail on my first attempts. I get utterly frustrated, quit, cry, and have to take an hour's break...at least. If I have anyone, from a five-year old child to a ten-year old dog, beside me, I stay calmer. Also, the man was not intimidating or threatening to me. He was not a well-dressed professional who might not know what he was doing but would not welcome a little old lady's intervention...nor was he a muscle-bound younger man with tatts in a wife-beater and bandanna. In either of those cases, I would have waited out-of-sight and felt sorry for myself.

In my heart, soul, body and brain, I know that I met Jesus yesterday. He's very human.

Thank you.

IN THE WELCOMING WE BECOME ONE

We seek still more spiritual growth not for the knowledge but for the experience...to experience the Father within/without.

I'm guessing spiritual growth is so difficult to honestly seek because the charge is to seek nothing but still more spiritual growth.

We come to know, from our eyebrows up at least, that if we're expecting our good to come to us, we're going down that wrong road again. We're learning that we must quit asking for our good and open out a way for our good to escape from us.

Think of kindness. Where would we go to get kindness but from within? All the kindness there is is already within us just waiting to be used.

It is our reasoning mind that decides when and where to parcel out that kindness...who deserves it, who doesn't. It is our developing spiritual light that shines on all, on everybody, without our deciding the deserving or undeserving.

Thus begins our deeper lesson: It is not our opinions that need to change, it is our mindset...from resisting to unresisting. Here's where we realize that to welcome the good, the bad, the pretty, the ugly, the different, the indifferent is to know Oneness...in the welcoming they become one.

And then the lesson goes deeper to a higher lever...we realize we cannot do that by our unaided will or want...both of which are subject to our reasoning mind. We must go beyond our reasoning mind to love...and there find peace of mind.

Thank you.

GOD'S SENSE OF HUMOR

I just read over a recent blog of mine, and I'm cracking up. Because every word of it is true to me, was written from my heart not my head...in short, it was all about the answer is and always will be love...just love.

Yet, here's me, trudging around my place this morning, sipping my coffee, mentally reaming out my world. I just told off John for what I know very well he was thinking last Sunday...and Gertrude, too, for that matter.

I barely got them set straight and...whoa! There's Sylvia who has been doing it wrong for long enough already. I got her told, too.

And I was just building up steam. My uh-oh came when I realized I was mentally fishing for another person to cut down to size. I consciously asked God if he wanted to share, and he opened that blog for me. Don't tell me God doesn't have a sense of humor. The best part is he knows how to laugh with us which shows us how to do the same.

And all those who needed my sharp tongue? They're let off my hook...for now.

Thank you.

Blinding flash of the obvious: For Si, for Sandy, for Carlton, for Rosemary...for all who have gone from here to the real and to the eternal: Your light still shines, your voice still rings, your presence is still felt. You will never be forgotten. Thank you.

GOD MAKING DEMANDS ON GOD

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil...

What is my valley of the shadow of death? Fear. Fear of what, specifically? Fear of being left out. Fear of being misunderstood.

for thou art with me....

Thou are not only with me, but thou are within me/without me. And within me/without me includes everybody...friend/foe, met/unmet, known/unknown. For thou art within us/without us....

I can never be left out for thou art with me. We can never be left out for thou are within us.

We can never be misunderstood for thou art within us/without us...as love. There is no understood or misunderstood, there is only love. The secret? When feeling misunderstood, seek to understand...lift up my eyes that I may see...thee.

All of this must be experienced by each of us in this world, in our very own walking around world, in order for us to loose our fear and let it go. It is experienced through the realization of I.

I am...God making demands on God. Not mine to achieve, but mine to experience. Not mine to get, mine to accept...through grace.

Thank you.

BE STILL AND KNOW

You don’t have to figure it all out or get it all right ahead of time. You just have to stay on the journey. All you can do is stay connected to the Source, which connects you to everything else. --   Fr. Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," October 1, 2014.

It came to me this morning that the biggest danger in thinking a problem through is we often wind up just honing our reasoning mind. (Which, may I say, is the last thing that needs honing because our reasoning mind, sometimes known as our attack mind, always legislates for itself.)

I pondered that, and it came to me that probably more arguments are won by not saying a word than all the fancy dancing on the head of a pin trying to think of the killing topper. Nor is "winning" silently turning our attitude loose to do our dirty work for us, nor is it responding in kind to disrespect, gibes or jeers. "Winning" is our own peace of mind, gifted to us simply by our staying on the journey, the spiritual course.

It is our reasoning mind that will not accept that and wakes us at 2:00 AM to tell us what we should have said, how we could have won. And there's our gold...that is the gift, the gift of another opportunity to learn the practical value of "thank you," the greatest gift of all for it buys us peace of mind.

A very practical hint: Nothing shuts our attack mind up quicker than agreement...and at 2:00 AM, all we really need is to shut our attack mind up. A silent "thank you for sharing" will do it. We agree, we turn over and go back to sleep; we disagree, and we're awake the rest of the night, thinking, "I shoulda said this...no, I shoulda said that, etc., etc., etc."

Be still and know that I am God. Be still and know that I am, God.

Thank you.

GRACE...GOD'S PERFECT OUTWORKING

Know all is well. You must not doubt. You must be sure. There is no miracle I cannot perform, nothing I cannot do. No eleventh hour rescue I cannot accomplish. -- "God Calling," October 6

That is the foundation we stand on to begin the process of changing our mind. We get a flash that changing our mind is not about changing it from "I disagree" to "I agree." In fact, the only part our reasoning mind plays in changing it is in our hugging it and kissing it and letting it go.

Changing our mind has to do with turning our own thoughts from analyzing a perceived problem toward welcoming God's perfection...however that manifests. That is aligning our will with God's will.

The natural (reasoning mind) reaction to losing a beloved pet, friend, relative to death is righteous indignation because we just thanked God for taking care of that beloved one, and s/he is now dead! Where's the eleventh hour rescue in that? Living in our reasoning mind, "There is no miracle I cannot perform," means we get that which we want, that which we believe is for the best...our beloved is up, all well, taking nourishment, laughing and scratching.

Thus begins our education in fourth dimension thinking. It is in the giving up of our own idea of the perfect outworking of anything that our will aligns with God's will...we can almost hear the click-click as it moves into place.

Peace washes over us...we know naught but that this outworking is the perfect outworking of God for the benefit of our beloved and for us, and we know grace.

Thank you.

MOVING INTO SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS

We have lost two extraordinary people this past week, and my heart weeps at the very same time that my heart sings...for I am knowing a new meaning of love. This is the process, this is the right road forward, moving from attachment to detachment...from the reasoning mind's resistance to spiritual consciousness, welcoming.

As Fr. Richard Rohr has written, "The mind can only reprocess the past, judge the present, and worry about the future." It is in practicing our principles always and in all ways that we learn to move "from an egocentric, fear-based life to a love-based life."

Our fear-based thoughts cry, "We will never see them again," all the while love flows forth, surrounds us, singing, "Their light is shining within us/without us right this very minute."

Just because our eyes cannot see a visible form, doesn't mean we cannot realize...and bask in...their continuing bright light.

For our beloved Sandy, for our beloved Carlton...thank you.

FINDING NEW MEANING...IN THE SILENCE

Love consists not in feeling great things but in having great detachment and in suffering for the Beloved. -- Saint John of the Cross

In 2000, I read the above and noted out to the side: "Must find a new meaning for 'love.'"
In 2001: "Love equals One."
In 2002: "That needs refinement."
In 2003: "Respect"
In 2004: "Denial of self"

In 2007, I double underlined "in having great detachment."

In 2010, I underlined "in suffering."

In 2012, I underlined, in red, "for the Beloved."

In 2014, I got a blinding flash of the obvious: Love cannot be defined once and for all. From that BFO, I got a glimmer, then I got lost in my thoughts: Love, like God...no, love is God. Which words mean absolutely nothing. No wonder love can't be defined once and for all.

And there's where my reasoning mind throws in the towel, and my need for spiritual growth continues to seek...we've come to the fork in the road. We kiss our logical mind good-bye, and continue our quest to find a new meaning for love...in the Silence.

Thank you.

RESIST NOT...LET IT BE

We need to learn to distinguish between purely personal goals and those that include the happiness of other people. -- Eknath Easwaran, "Words to Live By," October 3

This may be the hardest inside lesson to learn: Putting the happiness of others first in my mind, my words and my actions ensures my happiness.

That's hard enough to learn just from the eyebrows up, putting it into walking-around action is a whole 'nother story.

Our ego-victory mind by its very definition is geared to self...self-protection, self-glorification in fact. This we accept if we are ever to move beyond our ego-victory wants. This is the place, the stage upon which our turn-around begins...by our setting the personal goal of aligning our will with God's will whatever that may be.

It is then that we discover that God's will is always about giving over to others whether that be people, facts or acts...resist not.

Our reasoning mind will never willingly accept that, so that it is in giving over to that other (i.e., surrender) that acceptance is gifted to us. And we learn the secret: The Power within me cannot but protect me, glorify me, intervene in my life in my behalf, love me. God within us/without us is our protector, defender, lover.

It is in giving over to the other that we open ourselves to that protection, God's love.

Thank you.

FIND THE FUNNY AND BE AT PEACE

[The following is a reprint of my blog of February 20, 2012.]

Every man has his own courage, but is betrayed because he seeks in himself the courage of other persons. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

I remember many years ago when I was learning who I am that I would pretend to be someone I considered to be brave when I felt I needed to stand up for myself. It sometimes worked, as in, I got what I felt I needed, but it never worked in my feeling particularly good about myself. In fact, it worked exactly opposite of the way I wanted…I wanted to become as brave as the person I was imitating, but I always had a niggling feeling underneath that I had lost what little bravery I had…that I should have been able to speak from my own guts. Which painful feeling gave me the gift of coming to believe that God has my back.

I speak for myself today. I rarely find it necessary to “stand up for myself.” I know this is the result of no longer living in my attack mind…my thoughts may go on the attack, but I can pull them back by a simple “thank you.”

If that fails, I just find the funny in the whole situation. There is always funny…and it is usually me, thinking I’m right.

Thank you.

ON INVITING EGO REDUCTION AT DEPTH

Blinding flash of the obvious: My gift is in letting any perceived non-friend see me just as s/he sees me and not resist by bad-mouthing her/him either to others or in my own mind.

This gift was given me before conception, always there within me. How, when, where I choose to unwrap this gift and use it in my daily life is entirely up to me.

An extension of the gift is the realization that I cannot use it with my reasoning mind since my reasoning mind always legislates for itself (me). The gift legislates for others. Thus the tug-of-war called life.

It is my job to give over to others, all others, because God has my back. I give over to others by my understanding unto acceptance of the other...which requires my following certain spiritual principles, all of which are about ego reduction at depth. My living those principles opens my heart and soul, my body and brain for understanding, i.e., love, to be returned to me.

The prayer of St. Francis says this much more succinctly and clearly, but we have to make these principles our own before we can walk them...according to me.

Thank you.