NOTHING IS BY CHANCE

I awoke this morning wrapped up in justified judgments. I slowly realized that I'm met again with my own self. The knowledge that the answer to everything, including self-inflicted wounds (my own trash talk), is a mental "I forgive" and move thoughts on, has its work cut out for it. For yesterday I ran into a known avoid-at-all-cost person, and my thoughts did not go to forgiveness.

I give myself points though...I spoke courteously and left. I'm just grateful that I remembered that rude is never the right answer, or, my golden rule, "Just don't be as nasty as you want to be."

So I pick up my God Calling this morning and there, dated 1986, are my own written words: "My mind connected today that I, the Christ within, is Gertrude, who appears today to be my nemesis...the lesson is to love the nemesis, not to win over it or beat it at its own game...love it. 'Agree with your adversary quickly' is my goal." There it is, my answer to me...quick, fast and in a hurry.

I feel awe that my own 29-year-old words fit me so perfectly right this minute. Then I read the text of today's God Calling which states, "Nothing is by chance." Don't tell me God doesn't direct us...mind, body and spirit.

God has my back...front, sides and center, too, for that matter. I know it, and I show it...and I'm glad.

Thank you.

FREE FROM OUR NEMESIS OF THE MOMENT

It made my life considerably simpler when I began to believe, to do, what I was told...such as, we go to God for God and that is all or we become what we meditate on. I was one who joyed in disproving, or at least in doubting, most spiritual things I heard. I tended to over analyze, so to speak.

In going to God for God and that is all, we are blessed with many insights. Those insights are our ponderables. Which does not mean we talk it indiscriminately for there's where we get into the intellectual proving/disproving...there's no spiritual freedom there. No, we just ponder...or meditate on it until "we become what we're meditating on." We make that insight our own by realizing its very essence to us personally. As in, what is that to me?

Right now, I am pondering forgiveness...not at all by trying to figure out how to do it, but by simply thinking "I forgive" when I realize I'm at a mental stumbling block...another resistant (judgmental) thought. I do not stop to justify me or to excuse them...that's just more mental meanderings. I think or say "I forgive" and move my thoughts on to, say, lilies of the valley.

I am a far piece from reaching the break-through where I know forgiveness as I breathe...where I realize that freedom. But I do know that moving my thoughts off my nemesis of the moment frees me from my nemesis of the moment, and I walk free in my own head. That's close enough to perfect for me.

Thank you.

SECURITY IN SERVICE

I read my Easwaran this morning, and a sentence I'd highlighted but forgotten spoke to me, "To be truly secure, we must begin to find a source of security within ourselves."

At the bottom of the page I noticed a quote I had long ago written, first said by whom I do not know: "It is not what we are called, but what we answer to," said a black man about being called "nigger."

To me, that is profound.

But, underlying, I suspect "what we answer to" refers also to our own thoughts about ourselves...those ugly mental slings and arrows we shoot inward. Those will ever be with us, I am told, so we must needs "find a source of security without ourselves" for when those mental mice start gnawing.

We must exercise the Spirit of God within us often and oftener if we are to experience the Spirit of God in our lives. For it is, I believe, God and God alone which is the source of security within that overcomes our mud-slinging thoughts and allows us to move out of self into service for others.

And there we find peace, love and joy.

Thank you.

LOST IN THE BUSY-NESS OF EGO

We must ever be aware that what we speak, what we share as ours, is indeed ours by the living of it. It comes to us, we live it, then it passes on. Skip the living of it and we miss "making it ours" which is our only chance at realizing it as our own truth.

Some of the best lessons I've ever received have come from my own mouth, and no one has been more surprised than me. But that's just surface stuff for then the task begins...we must learn to live that "best lesson" and not just talk it. Again, it comes to us, we live it, then it passes itself on. Miss that second part, and we just continue to live in the busy-ness of ego.

Then, too, if we are just quoting others and calling it ours, we are not growing in our own consciousness. That is what Joel Goldsmith calls,  "...mentally perceived, and not spiritually discerned..." [The Heart of the Mystic, at p. 1135], and Fr. Richard Rohr in his Daily Meditation of January 21, 2015, describes as "an idolatry of words."

Thank you.

ON WALKING FREE IN OUR OWN MIND

We will never be free of our nemesis by badmouthing him, by responding in kind to her, by using their brains to do our thinking with.

Whatever victim-memory we are clinging to, from childhood unto now, that is the God of our own understanding purely because it holds all power over us, over our thinking, feeling, doing, being. This is especially true if our memories are right, and we really were unloved, unneeded, unwanted and unappreciated and made to suffer for it.

Our freedom, our peace never comes from garnering understanding sympathy in the reliving of those memories for there is no love in that. In fact, we are not seeking love in the retelling, we are seeking validation of our hurt. In getting that validation, we seek more of the same for it proves we are right in the castigation of our tormentor(s). We will never walk free in our own mind because we are not choosing freedom...i.e., love; we are choosing pay-back, revenge...i.e., hurt.

We consciously choose the freedom of forgiving by turning our thoughts to God, or more specifically, by concentrating on the things of God...rosebuds, rainbows, babies, puppies...love.

We do not to seek to know how God can help us forgive since we do not know how...for we never will know how. Forgiveness is God's, and we get to go anew each necessary time to God, humbly trusting thy will be done. 

We rest there knowing we have handed it off to God...by our "I forgive" and "Thank you."

Thank you. 

LET THE GRACE OF GOD FLOW

Blinding flash of the obvious: "Thank you for softening my mind, my thoughts...that they are receiving not resisting...soft not hard; grant that I may seek to understand rather than seek to be understood."

I have often thought that that is the one line from the Prayer of Saint Francis that is the entire How-To Manual for ego reduction in depth: Grant that I may seek to understand rather than seek to be understood.

I'm also convinced that all debates, arguments, skirmishes, battles, wars would stop if each individual in the debate, etc., would sincerely seek to understand the other rather seek to be understood by the other.

Which does not mean we give over a sincerely held belief, become a doormat, cease to have an opinion...no. It only means we each let the other keep his or her beliefs and accept that we do not have to be a doormat to be nonresistant. It's called "live and let live."

We can start by deciding not to be as nasty as we want to be which opens the door for the grace of God to flow...without which, there's gonna be war.

Thank you.

ON WALKING FREE

[M]atter is the outer lovely form, but Spirit is the inner source. -- Fr. Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," January 20, 2015.

My morning blinding flash of the obvious: I walk free in Thee...I cannot walk free in me, I can only walk free in Thee.

Outer form, always of the reasoning mind, includes conscious thoughts, words, desires, debates, etc.; the inner, the blinding flash of the obvious or other intuitive thought, is of Spirit.

Within, there is no possibility of  debate, even of discussion. It is known, and it lives and grows in silence. It shows forth without conscious thought.

It is when we get up in our head and let our reasoning mind take us over that we are drawn into debate. There resistance is born with resentment following right behind.

Peace, be still.

Thank you.

BUILDING OUR UNDERGROUND SKYSCRAPER

I own a thought, a not-pretty thought, that flits through me whenever it wants. I call it my "I see me" thought. It is ever the same: "There is something wrong with me."

This morning a blinding flash of the obvious followed right on that thought: Yes, it is the human part of me...of all peoples...only God within is perfect.

And again (seems like for the first time) I get it. This is why we must needs make time every single day for quiet contemplation...to meditate in our chosen way...to be still...to sit and wait on the Lord...to sit and serve the Lord in that quiet. Not by thinking, talking, planning, doing but by silent invitation.

We're building our ultimate trust. It's our underground skyscraper, and it takes time.

Thank you.

LOVING SELECTIVELY IS NOT THE ANSWER

[The following is a reprint of my blog of January 26, 2009.]

Love the whole world as a mother loves her only child. - The Buddha

First thought: What a high standard that is.

Second thought: What other standard can there be?

I mainly concern myself with the well-being of friends within my sphere, those friends of my little world…with “Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me” thrown in in the mornings just to cover my bases.

I remember my reporter friend who started out as a jerk, pure and simple, and ended as my good friend. I recall a lady, with whom I once argued (in my mind) on a daily basis, who today is a lovely person I look forward to seeing. Nothing about them changed, but when I dropped my resistance to them, they changed in my heart, in my head and in my experience.

I wonder if this is the principle by which I could be the peace that I ask for every morning…the peace on earth, not just the peace in my yard.

I wonder if this is the principle by which Jesus raised the dead, healed the sick, fed the hungry.

Thank you.

TO BRING PEACE, BE AT PEACE

As I walked Ruckus this morning, I had a blinding flash of the obvious: If it is true as it is said, that as we lie dying, every second of our life flashes before our eyes, then life really is a picture show.

I had that BFO and toyed with it in thought for the rest of my walk:  What if that is true, that this life is just a picture show? Then we all are just acting out the part we personally chose to play, and once one frame passes, it is gone with no more force or effect than we choose to give it by recalling it to mind (ruefully or pridefully, neither of which has aught to do with God's reality). This would prove Now as all we have. Life in this very instant...infinity on the point of a pin. Now.

However, since we are born into this material world, we must needs learn to live here and now in this world. The trick is learning to live by spiritual principles. We start by learning to be at peace as we play our part, as we pass on through. And if we are to know peace...if we are to bring peace, the pearl beyond price...we come to understand that peace comes not from out there inward, but from within us outward. 

Peace comes not from our head, the hidey hole of our ego, but from our heart, the mansion of our Father/Mother/Spirit.

I guess that means we learn to be in this world but not of it.

Thank you.

THE DEFINITION OF VICTIM

I have heard the definition of victims as "willing to lose everything in order to hang on to their 'triumphant unhappiness.'"  In my mind that cannot be improved upon.

According to me, self-pity, a victim's womb unto tomb hidey-hole, is a human's sincerest emotion. It warms us as no other emotion can. Even love, when we're in the midst of self-pity, can't hold a candle to it...for, in fact, that is what self-pity is, love of our hurt.  We are enchanted with the unfairness of the cause of our hurt, enraptured with the gut-bucket knowledge that nobody, not one soul, can understand how deeply and unfairly we are hurt. There. There's our "triumphant unhappiness."

Getting a clue about that was the basis for my first understanding of the difference between growth through psychiatry and growth through spirituality. In my opinion, psychiatry helps us find the cause (the who or what to blame) and then, in the ultimate good end, how to detach ourselves from the need to blame and to grow from there. Unfortunately and too often, too many find that the validation of our hurt by another is too delicious to let go of. We just sound more educated when we talk about it...and talk about it...and hang onto our "triumphant unhappiness."

Spiritual growth, however, leads us to a healing without scars. Scarcely with a memory of the cause...the who, the what. And I speak specifically from experience here. Someone who went through all that led up to my IRS experience recently said that it wasn't my fault, that I got hosed back then. I was shocked and pretty much just shut the conversation down...that is the last thing I need to let in for it does not apply to me today.

On the other hand, I talked with my sister recently. May I say, upfront and right here, that I have seen more than one shrink about my relationship with my sister. I've pretty much left each shrink believing my hurt to be validated, and that felt gooood. You'll note I said that I've seen more than one shrink about this which means that good feeling was not permanent...was just another Hershey bar so to speak.

My sister and I finished our phone conversation of a few days ago, and I hung up feeling a certain "triumphant unhappiness." To which I laughingly thought, "Here's me, still looking for the comfort of my thorns." I thanked God that I knew just because I don't need them anymore doesn't mean I'm not going to try them on for size...one more once.

And then...AND THEN...I thought, "I forgive." God is so good to me.

Thank you.

IT IS NEVER TOO LATE

Blinding flash of the obvious: The difference between knowing God as Santa Claus and God as present to me for me without space in between is the difference between praying to God for a perceived lack to be filled or fixed and praying thank you to God for what is, just exactly as it is.

God as the giftor is of the reasoning mind; God as gratitude is of the Spirit.

It is very difficult when a problem comes into our lives (as problems do), to immediately accept it as a gift. We shouldn't even try at first for that's when it becomes Velcro to our reasoning mind. Our resistance precludes the grace of gratitude.

Our goal is to remember to say "thank you." Note that the goal is not to say "thank you," but to remember to say it. No goal is reached instantaneously or it wouldn't be a goal, it'd be a done deal. Knowing this gives us permission for when we forget, then to say it as soon as we remember.

It is never too late to say "thank you" to God.

Thank you.

LOVE IS GIVEN TO BE GIVEN

I've been given a real gift...an inside gift, an awakening as it were.

I was talking with a friend yesterday. She was widowed fifteen years ago; a couple years later, she met a man who became her companion. He passed away last year.

She had said before, and I really hadn't picked up on it until she said it again yesterday, that, now that her partner is gone, nobody loves her...that she really has nothing to live for because nobody loves her. She is a really likable lady, lots of fun, and she has many friends so I suspect that's why I missed the import the first time round.

We didn't get into a deep conversation about it, but I thought about that later. And I realized that she apparently sees "real" love as boy-girl love only...all else is nice but really, who's kidding whom, not real love.

Did that ever flash me back. The lady is my age, and I know that is what I believed for way too long...we discounted any love but a man's love. Probably because that is what we were raised on; i.e., the one essential in life is true love. True love is between a man and a woman, all else...friends, parents, pets, plants, jobs, hobbies...nice, but naught to do with love.

Clearly, our concept of love was sorely limited. Which probably explains why I couldn't comprehend having a pet until I was in my forties..and then, truth to tell, I had to learn to love him! I wonder if most of us back in the day weren't raised in the belief that the only love that counted was the physical love of another, all else was nice but not essential in life...to happiness in life.

Today, probably the most important fact in my life is that I have finally and fully accepted that the love I get, and, equally, the love that I give...to any other (to this bloody blog for heaven's sake!) is essential in and to my happiness...to my very being.

The ability to love and to be loved is a precious gift from God...freely given to be given. Pass it on.

Thank you.

FAITH WITHOUT WORKS IS FANTASY

Faith without works is fantasy. In other words, we must prove our "realization," our "blinding flash of the obvious," our "truth."

Without our own walking around proof, they are just so many words. Pretty words. Sound good. But what are they good for? Just like war...absolutely nothing. Well, not really...not absolutely nothing. For we must start somewhere, and a thought leading to words is our beginning.

The fantasy is when we get stuck there...enchanted by our own thoughts and words but unable, unwilling really, to walk them.

Say we read the line from the Bible. "He goes before us to make the crooked placed straight," and we really like that. Then we are gifted with a blinding flash of the obvious, knowing it for truth. THEN, here we are facing a crooked place.

We get to decide whether to go forward, trusting that the crooked place will be made straight, or...to ponder it. Ponder, of course, means we start trying to figure out how to fix the crooked place...how to make it straight by not walking to and through it, fixing it on this side of the crooked place. Understanding it, you see...at which we can never completely succeed. And we've now got a crooked place made into a personal problem with a resentment aborning.

It takes courage (also known as faith) to risk believing unto doing. We have a boatload of courage within us...we have the same amount of courage as the mother giving birth, as the soldier under fire. We're just not yet consciously at the place where we have no choice but to use that courage.

We can dodge our chance to prove our truth, to show forth our courage, our faith. We can deny, we can justify...but that chance will only come around again, and it will come as a much, much harder choice. For that is the law, according to me.

Once we take that first choice of trusting and walking forward, we prove our truth. Interestingly, no longer do we need to tell others...in fact, they tell us! We find ourselves drawing others to us without effort or thought. We feel lighter, we know gratitude as we breathe...we are grateful not for specifics, but for fact.

And, oh look!...another crooked place is heading our way...if we're doing it right.

Thank you.

FOR THE BENEFIT OF OTHERS

This morning I am bolt-from-the-blue jolted into a new thought: All my "positive" thinking must be for the benefit of others.

Years ago, I went around saying "Every day in every way I am getting better and better." There was no appreciable difference in my well being so I upgraded to "Every day in every way I am healthier, happier, wealthier, wiser."  Again, no appreciable difference, so I...I forget, but I am sure I tried some new more positive song to sing to me. Then I met a lady who was truly terrified of a single negative thought...any negative thought. I call her name blessed for I saw where I was heading...and it wasn't positive.

I do believe in keeping a positive attitude, and I do look for the gold in whatever comes to me, looking good or not. I accept that it does rain on the just and the unjust alike...we just need to keep an umbrella handy.

The good news is we get to decide what our umbrella will be. Do we want an umbrella that keeps us reasonably dry, and that's it? Then trot on over to the closest store and buy one.  Or do we want an umbrella that keeps us feeling safe, secure, warm, loved? Then, as it says on this day in "God Calling," Abide in My Love. An atmosphere of loving understanding to all men. This is your part to carry out, and then I surround you with a protective screen that keeps all evil from you. It is fashioned by your own attitude of mind, words, and deeds, toward others.

That's when I got my jolt...when I read "toward others." Specifically, "I surround you with a protection screen [there's our umbrella]...fashioned by your own attitude of mind, words, and deeds, toward others." And there's the secret...our mental, physical, spiritual treatment of others. That's what keeps all evil from us.

And Easwaran in today's "Words to Live By" states, "...it is by discovering the unity between ourselves and others -- all others -- that we find our unity with God."

Our unity with God...the pearl beyond price.

Thank you.

OUR NEVER-ENDING SEARCH

I can't help myself...I am still amazed when I read a quote from the Bible, and it's so simple and understandable that I cannot believe that that is what the Bible actually says. It must be a paraphrase, I think. So I read my Bible (which is about the only time I read it...trying to catch somebody out), and there it is in black and white...and ancient.

For specific instance, just this morning in Fr. Richard Rohr's "Daily Meditation," he has written: 

Moses said it poetically: This law is not beyond your strength or beyond your reach. It is not in heaven, so that you need to wonder, 'Who will go up to heaven and bring it down to us so that we may hear it and keep it?' Nor is it beyond the seas, so that you need to wonder, 'Who will cross the seas for us so that we might hear it and keep it?' No, the word is very near to you. It is in your mouth and in your heart" (Deuteronomy 30:11-14).

I'm like, who knew? Who knew that Moses, for heaven's sake, preached that God, the Law, the Word, lives within us, is in our mouth and in our heart? Let me quickly add, I'm not entirely ignorant...I studied the Old Testament...once. So I have read that, I have heard that...I just didn't believe it apparently.

And here it is...here's my gold. That's what builds my trust. Proof that God is doing for me, "intervening in my life in my behalf," all the time. All. The. Time.

I can see now, as I ponder it, that is my foundation which grew from the seed that was planted, unbeknownst to me, back then...the kernel from which my much later blinding flash of the obvious sprouted. That came in the early 70s when I was reading C.S. Lewis's "The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe."  Aslan told the kids who had been searching for him that there was nothing for them to fear, that they had been safely in his care for he had been with them the entire time. And...my big bolt of realization: I knew God as love and that It is within us, without us always and all ways.

We can never be where God is not purely because God is within us/without us. Coming to believe that as we breathe, unto utter trust in it, is our job, our never-ending search. And that right there is what keeps us heading in the right direction...our never-ending search.

Thank you.

NOT TO BECOME BUT TO BE

I am convinced that our sacred goal is to be a forgiving person. Not to become a forgiving person...to Be a forgiving person.

Desiring...praying...to become a forgiving person just holds forgiveness out in front of us, just out of reach. So we pray harder. That's  just another self-determined objective...the reasoning mind still on the job. And still trying to figure it out, get it right, succeed!

To Be a forgiving person is to BE. To stand in the light and in the sight of Almighty God within us, without us, and not know. Not know how to Be a forgiving person. But willing to name our own self a forgiving person. Simply, I forgive. To repeat that as we breathe. The only thing difficult about that is remembering.

The good news is God doesn't punish...God just loves. Forget, and get loved. Remember, and same deal, be loved and in the same measure.

We, however, will self punish...with ugly words and thoughts about self, me, my stupidity. That, yet and yet again, is ego, trying to bypass God's will, God's way. And there's the hook: God's will is forgiveness. I get to forgive myself...and my ego.

My sacred goal is to be a forgiving person...I forgive.

Thank you.

THE LILY OF THE VALLEY

My Dream: My head is aflame. I know that God has lit the match that set the fire. I know that God...only God...can put out the fire.

I see my nemesis...my rues, my regrets, my remorses...in the flames, taunting me. Sobbing, I fight my nemesis...I lie, I justify, I deny. All the while, my nemesis dances on in the midst of the flames, laughing.

I begin to understand that it is my resistance to my nemesis that gives it the power to dance, to taunt, to laugh. Understanding, I still fight, I still resist...until I finally realize that I am powerless over my own resistance. I collapse in utter defeat.

Instantly, the fire is gone...with lilies of the valley, wholly beautiful, complete including their fragrance, there for me.

I am free.

Thank you.

DEFENSELESS...PERFECT PEACE

To live intuitively is the road I've been given to walk, and I am grateful. Which doesn't mean with no reasoning mind thought which would be impossible...or very unhealthy at any rate. But I have learned and am learning to lean more on my intuition than on my reasoning mind.

Living intuitively gifts us with the ability to stay open...without the resistance of victim anger or victim hurt. Open to the appearance of an oncoming or remembered ugly. We divorce ourselves from our own fast-forming opinions. Outwardly, we get no gold star, no reward, no glory. Inwardly, what we get is freedom. Freedom from self-centered fear, freedom to laugh at how seriously our reasoning mind takes life.

This is hard work, it takes time, and, most importantly, it takes the willingness to laugh at our own repeated failures.

When I was in my early forties, I lived in the self-centered fear of being thought of as an "old maid." I could bring myself to tears, picturing you picturing me as an old maid. "She's nothing but an old maid," I'd hear you thinking.

Then a friend of mine had a serious operation...I found a get well card that said "When first I heard you got laid up, I was happy for you." That cracked me up, and I sent it to her, signed "Old maid humor, Kath...Love, Stace."

My reasoning mind was not present for the decision to find that funny...nor for the reason (old maid humor) that I found it funny. It was that reason, the why I found it funny, that broke my fear. Tell me God doesn't have a sense of humor. Well, the God of my understanding does...and it's weird, warm and wonderful, and not available to me through my reasoning mind.

To me, living intuitively equals defenseless. Here's the surprise...there is perfect peace. It does not come through thinking about it, for the reasoning mind can only take one side, and then fight to win the other side over. Only intuition will...CAN...know both sides in a blinding flash...and show it. Only after that does the reasoning mind get on board...and claim it as its own.

Thank you.

REALIZING GOD'S WILL

The presence and power of  God are within each of us right now...it is not offshore somewhere waiting for a signal to come floating in to save the world.

It is doing its necessary work within each of us for the benefit of each of us even as we breathe. It is available to each of us through our individual consciousness only.

We are busy working on what we have self-determined needs God's attention while God is seeing to our Soul's need. We, being busy taking care of our perceived needs, may not realize that (i.e., God's will) for days, weeks...or ever in this lifetime.

That's the why of it. The why we keep coming back until we get it right...according to me.

Thank you.

LOVE IS ALL ENCOMPASSING

It is here, my daughters, that love is to be found--not hidden away in corners but in the midst of occasions of sin. And believe me, although we may  more often fail and commit small lapses, our gain will be incomparably the greater. -- Saint Teresa of Avila

I'm flabbergasted. I read the words "in the midst of occasions of sin," and again, yet again, I realize that I find love in the midst of being sinned against and forgiving even as the sin is happening.

[And let me be clear...I do not use the word "sin" in my everyday thinking or speaking, but it's Saint Teresa of Avila who said it...I'm not about to correct her. (And I'm not at all familiar with the lady, but she's a saint and I ain't.]

It seems that every time I read that quote, my first take is that it is referring only to my own "occasions of sin." With just a moment of silent reflection, it becomes clear that at no time can love be for just one side of anything.

Love is all encompassing or it is not love.

Thank you.

GOD AS ONE

I am enchanted with the ways the many different religions say virtually the same thing about their beliefs...in particular, their God...yet quibble unto bloodshed about which one is "righter" (or "rightest!").

Fr. Richard Rohr in his January 9 "Daily Meditation" quotes Matthew Fox,  a prophetic teacher, as describing God as One as such (and I've lifted Rohr's word in toto):

"From Hinduism we hear: 'Many are the paths of humans, but they all in the end come to Me.' ... In the Bhagavad Gita, God says: 'I am the thread that runs through the pearls, as in a necklace.'

"Rumi, the Sufi mystic from the Moslem tradition, grounds the likeness found in every mystical tradition to the depth of the experience of the Divine one touches in a particular tradition. Love is the key: 'For those in love, Moslem, Christian, and Jew do not exist....Why listen to those who see it another way? --if they're not in love--their eyes do not exist.'

"From the Buddhist tradition, Thich Nhat Hanh speaks of the centrality of going deep if we are to do inter-faith work when he says: 'Through the practice of deep looking and deep listening, we become free, able to see the beauty and values in our own and others' traditions.' Yet, to get to the point of seeing the beauty and value in others' traditions, one must look and listen deeply into one's own. One must practice some path along the journey that leads to depth. One must enter the well of mystical experience."

I have to keep everything as simple as possible so I'm working on sticking with Rumi's "love is the key" which encompasses forgiveness, surrender, patience...all the toughies in a word.

Thank you.

INVITE BOTH BEAUTY AND UGLY IN

The ancestor of every destructive action, every destructive decision, is a negative thought. -- Eknath Easwaran, "Words to Live By," January 9.

As I read that this morning, I realized if that be true, then disrespect is not the initiator, the originator of all wars...a single negative thought is. And with that thought came another...a single negative thought is resistance. That's all. Just resistance.

Just as a negative can't be proved, negative thoughts cannot be overcome by resisting them. It is in resisting that we invite them into our consciousness. This simply proves that which we already know (if only from our eyebrows up): The way forward is to cease fighting anything and anybody...to agree with our adversary quickly...to resist not evil.

We must learn to appreciate both the beauty and the ugly within and without as each appears...for they only exist as such in our own mind's eye. Look at everything...every single thing...through the eyes of love, through God's eyes. And there's the key. For, in truth, we want God to see through our eyes.

When we pray for...for anything...we are trying to get God to see though our eyes. This cannot be done. It is hard enough to see through God's eyes...or rather, to want to see through God's eyes. Our ego will always be throwing up shadows and shields. Let it. Resist it, and we're back fighting...disrespecting...losing our own battle with and to self. And blaming God.

Loose it and let it go.

Thank you.

MY THANK YOU PRAYER

I am reminded this morning  of my own thank-you prayer...apparently I need to be reminded.

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

Thank you.

WHAT IS THAT TO ME?

One of my most personally leveling biblical quotes is Jesus's question to either Martha or Mary when one was carping to him about the other. He asked the carper, "What is that to you?"

Asking "What is that to me?" has saved me more times than anybody but me needs to know. The trouble is people think once someone gets old, they know more than they do. Having arrived at old, I get asked for advice a lot. Through hard-learned experience, I've gotten fairly good at giving generic answers or making listening noises and moving on.

I don't so much get up in my head randomly judging, but later, taken unawares, I can start mentally tweaking an answer to their question. I know to shut it down before it grows its own voice because it is amazing how right my ego can be and how completely it knows they need to hear it. 

When I find myself mentally running another's life, I ask that question of me. 

Here's a measure of how much I've grown: At one time, I'd ask that of me and get really defensive with myself...as if they had accused me of not minding my own business. Today, I ask that and it cracks me up...that I still need to ask it!

This may be why the song "Still Crazy After All These Years" is one of my favorites.

Thank you.

TO ATTAIN GOD CONSCIOUSNESS...THAT IS ALL

I stand at the door and knock. -- from somewhere in the Bible

That thought crosses my mind ever so often, and it's always a pleasant shock when I remember that
I stand not outside and knock to come in, but I stand within and knock to come out.

I seek to be released with all My wonder-working power; i.e., forgiveness, non-resistance, surrender, serenity, patience, gratitude, peace...love in a word.

And I am reminded again that my objective in life is not to overcome a problem but to attain God consciousness...that is all.

Thank you.

IT IS THE LOVE WE EXPRESSED THAT LIVES

I used to wonder if life wasn't "just a bump in the road." I remember saying as much to my sister when my dad died at this time twenty years ago.  I never dwelt on that...it was more a feeling than a belief actually. It just came on strong when a near-and-dear died. I'm guessing that's why I so distinctly recall when I said that to my sister for I got a jolt...a "that can't be true" jolt.

Since then I have come to understand that we ourselves determine whether our lives are just a bump in the road or we live on. We can do nothing for anybody but ourselves, live an entirely self-protected life...doing neither good nor ill...and be a bump in the road. Dead and gone...not even a memory left behind.

Or we can live on. It is the love that we expressed through our thoughts, words and actions in the service of others that make the difference...that lives on.

My realization came fully clothed recently when I heard a recorded talk of Sandy B's. It was shortly after his death, and his talk was about making a decision to be a forgiving person. The light came on in a specific area of my life, and I consciously thought that Sandy is still doing service work from heaven. And he will be every time anyone hears, say, "drop the rock." He lives on.

January 2nd was the twentieth anniversary of Daddy's death, and I've been thinking of how he still lives on. He had a very quick wit, people loved to be around him because they usually walked away laughing. He was both a well-loved and well-respected man in my home town. Many still quote him. I think of his living example of good, and I try to be like him...and I’m sure his Masonic brothers do, too.

I'm glad I know my life will not be just a bump in the road...I'm equally glad the same is true of yours.

Thank you.

AGAIN WE PRAY OUR THANK YOU

[The following is a reprint of my blog of January 3, 2013.]

Regrets are resistance to what is, maybe to a happening once upon a time. By regretting we are trying to make what happened unhappen. Our regrets, however, breathe life into what was, and it now walks in our head...it now is.

Why is the very futility of that a spur to our ego to try harder? Why not say nay to our ego and go for still more spiritual growth instead?

Eckhart Tolle has written, "Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness." If that is true, then what we are regretting was and is necessary to our spiritual evolution.

And here come gratitude, riding in on its big white horse (whose name is "Welcome")! Again and again and yet again...we say, "Thank you."

Thank you.

FORGIVENESS IS LOVE IS FORGIVENESS

Only love is a conquering force.  -- from "God Calling," January 3.

In reading "God Calling" this morning, the above sentence popped out as brand new to me...and I've been reading this book for a lot of years. But I read that and immediately saw the connection between love and forgiveness. I caught that that is exactly why forgiveness is the answer, no matter the question, the problem, the perplexity.

All defenses fall before forgiveness...all defenses within ourselves that have been justifying resistance to what is. Clinging to the ego's need to believe that what is could be bettered...not by your way, not by God's way, but by my way.

Forgiveness takes us unawares...if we saw it coming and knew it for what it was, we'd no doubt dodge, duck and hide. Because we'd realize we were going to be giving up our belief that I am right...or, more honestly, that you are wrong.  

Forgiveness is pure love. It cannot be self-willed, it can only be welcomed. Imagine our surprise when we realize it comes from within...always there, always ready, just waiting for God's perfect time.

Forgiveness is pure love. And only love is a conquering force.

Thank you.

LET IT BE

The key to living a complete and fulfilled life lies in the realization that there is a mystical, transcendental Presence within us that has already provided our infinite supply unto eternity, that contains within itself our companionship unto eternity, and that has within itself the power of fulfillment. -- Joel Goldsmith, "A Parenthesis in Eternity," at p. 269

The key to living a complete and fulfilled life lies first in remembering that; second, in living that; third, in welcoming that it is true not just for me but for you, too; and, fourth, in accepting that it is especially true for those I consider to be knuckleheads, dolts or otherwise wrong.

This is the year I hope to realize "I forgive" as my way of living. Accepting that there is a mystical, transcendental Presence within me who has already provided walking-around forgiveness as my path lifts my heart in joy.

And I will forget...if I'm doing it right. Forgetting is what makes us double down in our efforts to accept that it is not for me to do, it is for Thee to do. Let It Be.

Thank you.

THE LION, THE LAMB AND WE....

The following is by Glenn Rudolph which was written in memory of the victims of the attacks of September 11, 2001. I received it from my friends Mac and Linda in their 2014 Christmas letter, and I post it with their permission. It perfectly describes my dream for the new year, every year.

Lions and oxen will sleep in the hay,

leopards will join with the lambs as they play,

wolves will be pastured with cows in the glade,

blood will not darken the earth that God made.

Little child whose bed is straw,

take new lodgings in my heart.

Bring the dream Isaiah saw:

life redeemed from fang and claw.

Peace will pervade more than forest and field:

God will transfigure the Violence concealed

deep in the heart and in systems of gain,

ripe for the judgment the Lord will ordain.

Little child whose bed is straw,

take new lodgings in my heart.

Bring the dream Isaiah saw:

justice purifying law.

Nature reordered to match God's intent,

nations obeying the call to repent,

all of creation completely restored,

filled with the knowledge and love of the Lord.

Isaiah's dream: "The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together, and a little child will lead them." Isaiah 11:6 

My dream: I shall cease mentally fighting anything and anybody.

Thank you.