GOD INDWELLING IS....

Jesus became a highly contrived problem-solver for our own guilt and fear (a problem that was inevitable if God was not indwelling) instead of the Archetypal Blueprint for what God has been doing all the time and everywhere. -- Fr. Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," May 31, 1915

There. That parenthetical phrase, "(a problem that was inevitable if God was not indwelling),"  explains everything...according to me.

God indwelling is the driver, producer, agent of our soul, always using our own chosen tools, i.e., defects of character or personal assets, to get us where we need to be for our still more spiritual growth...no matter how ego-shattering it looks and feels to us and/or our world.

I am the source of all my woes, I am the good I seek.

Thank you.

TO LET IT BE IS GRACE

Life's perfect answer...love and laugh...is in my face right now and has been for awhile. Today, I received a temporary add-on...learn.

• Love - to consciously live a life in acceptance.
• Laugh - no matter how "it" looks, because we live in acceptance, we can laugh.
• Learn - this is labeled "temporary" because it is the daily discipline necessary to develop a consciousness of acceptance so that we can laugh at our reaction to whatever comes.    

Laughing, we come to learn, is simply not taking our self too seriously when we do meet a life's "oh-no." A child's illness, for instance, or a friend's betrayal, a foe's superiority...or Alzheimer's. Within, they are all the same...us trying yet again to take control from God.

What is, is. To let it be is grace.

Thank you.

MY HEAVY LIFT

Regrets are just resentments in fancy dress. At least they are to me. Regret keeps our focus turned inward blaming our self; resentment keeps our focus turned outward looking for someone to blame.

My test: When I'm into my rues, regrets and remorses, all I need do is picture you as their source...all gone before my heart beats twice. Unfortunately, I am instantly heavy duty peeved at you...and justifying it.

I am the source of all my woes. I am the answer I seek. 

I long ago learned both of those truths in my search for still more spiritual growth. It was obvious that there was no way my reasoning mind would get me there. I might get the gist, but the actual realization? Not likely.

Here's the really good news...my "regrets are resentments" came to me this morning when I was regretting something. I picked up my God Calling, and today's first words? "Regret nothing," and I recognized my regret/resentment as an angel aborning.

Don't tell me God isn't with me, within me, all-knowing, and perfectly capable of telling me exactly what I need to hear.

I know I am blessed, and I am grateful...it's remembering it that is my heavy lift.

Thank you.

ALL IT TAKES IS LOVE AND LAUGHTER

It is such a relief...or maybe it's just a boost to my confidence...to read a really smart, well-known author write something that I already have come to believe. Eknath Easwaran writes a lot about the necessity of bringing ourselves closer to those with whom we do not particularly choose to be close. It is amazing how well this works when I choose to do it...which I call "remember to do it."

I look back and see specific instances where I've simply upgraded my opinion of another, not by their doing something that meets with my high standards for them, but by my making a decision to think kind thoughts about them...and then thinking kind thoughts about them.

What brings this on is another line of Easwaran's, "...every one of us is trying to break into the bank inside...." To break into the bank inside of ourselves. I felt absolute exhilaration on reading that...and I've already underlined it in every color ink that I own. There's the joy...every time I read it I know again its truth.

I am reminded that we started out at birth as winners with all we will ever need right there inside...love, patience, kindness, supply, forgiveness, all we will ever need, and all we need do is use them. Be loving, be patient, be kind, give, forgive. Yet, we're still "trying to break into the bank inside."

And really...all it takes is love and laughter.

Bingo!

The door to our heart swings open...we're free at last, thank God almighty, we're free at last!

Thank you.

THE PERFECTION OF POWERLESSNESS

I'm reading my Gita this morning, and there is this line: "The Self within enjoys sense objects and acting through the gunas." [NOTE:  I just call the "gunas" my "I See Me."]

This really registered as the possible explanation for my throwing mud in my face with my recent innocent/ignorant remark. That was Self within using my I.S.M. for my own personal enlightenment. I needed (and still need!) to eyeball-see how I am the source of all my woes and laugh at me in the seeing.

I did see me, and I am laughing about it...since there's nothing else I can do. There. That's the perfection of powerlessness...laugh and love.

I have no idea if that's God's truth, but it sure is mine right now.

Thank you.

IT ONLY APPEARS WE ARE LEADING

My morning's blinding flash of the obvious: Our lives are akin to snail slime...laid out behind us every step of our way, every minute of our day, always traceable right back to us, never showing someone else's trail...just our very own.

Flinching from "slime," I call that God's foot path that originates within our own self, goes to the soles of our feet and trails behind...ever pointing toward us.

Just another paradox, according to me. In leaving the tracks of our lives behind us, it appears we are leading, but it is God's path we are walking. God's will is ever done whether we agree with it or not. The longer we resist by relying on our free will, the longer it takes us on our path to reach that which we're trailing behind us...God.

Thank you.

DON'T LAMENT, PRAISE

[The following is a reprint of my blog of May 31, 2011.]

My blinding flash of the obvious this morning: Where two or more are gathered, do not lament, praise.

I’m not a big “lamenter,” but I natter to Ruckus a lot. So I pondered my BFO, and I have decided as an exercise each day to take some time to consciously praise that which I am nattering about.

Two things instantly popped up…both itsy-bitsy items of no account whatsoever, except to my nattering mind. One had to do with a cartoon that a friend sent that I interpreted and resisted as politicizing Memorial Day, the other a remark a friend had made about watering plants. I hadn’t even realized I had personalized that remark until I heard me nattering about it this morning.

I consciously took some 10 minutes to just think each of those through, being thankful for seeing each as pure, just pure, nothing personal attached to either. I felt better for just having done the exercise…we’ll see what, if any, results I get (meaning how natter-free I remain).

Thank you.

May 25, 2015 Update: Praising my two items must have worked...I have no memory of what they were about even. If , however, praising the two teeny problems isn't what did it, then aging no doubt is...so I'll praise my age because why not? Lamenting it is just a downer. There. That's proof positive that praise is better than lamenting...anything! 

Again, thank you.

I CALL THE WIND....

I call the wind Maria. Those words from the song come to me as I sit in the quiet.

And my thoughts go to God...I can call the wind God,  the air I breathe God,  everything I see, think, hear, feel...God. I need not discern good, bad, ugly, pretty...know it as God.

Know it.

And let it Be.

Thank you.

LIVE, LEARN, LOVE AND LAUGH

More proof that God works in my life...and perfectly, but not according to my ego's wishes!

Recently, I, in all innocence/ignorance, slung mud that then landed in the middle of my own face. The mud has been picked up and passed along with my name attached. Because it was done in honest innocence/ignorance, I kept thinking God was going to do something tangible to show the mire has been wiped clean in other's eyes.

No! We are lifted up and we are changed from within...meaning we get to laugh at our self.

I see my part in slinging the mud that landed in my face, and all I can honestly do is laugh at my own bad behavior in giving others good reason to call me less than. I get to accept my part and forgive myself with love and laughter. THAT is the change I kept foreseeing...only my ego-victory idea wasn't even close to that!

Thank you.

AND ALL WE NEED BE IS GRATEFUL

We shall find

peace.

we shall hear

angels.

we shall see the

sky

sparkling with

diamonds!

-- Chekhov

This is surrender, and it is ours...and all we need be is grateful.

Thank you.

A GIFT TO THE HEART NOT THE HEAD

Peace comes when we quit taking outside upsets literally...seriously. Truth is not truth to us personally until we prove it by living it...we can quote it till our face falls off, but it is just so many pretty words until we're showing it by living it. The proof is when, without a word from us, others start seeing it in us.

I can bring healthy, whole and happy thoughts along to any situation my eyes see, but I must admit I am leery of those who are afraid of negative thoughts...just repeating "I am healthy, whole and happy" out of fear of bringing unhealthy, not whole and unhappy is still fear...fear driving our thoughts.

I have read "Words to Live By" by Easwaran since 1993, and today's reading spells out my goal in life: If you curse him, he will bless you; if you harm her, she will serve you; if you exploit him, he will become your benefactor. 

Admittedly, an actual wanting that in my life was slow in coming. But because it is the last thing my reasoning mind would choose, I have tried it and experienced the gift of it...not often, but once is a miracle. I have looked like a cow pie while s/he looked like a rose, and still I knew me to be blessed. With that as the end result, why not live it?

All of this is because my Ruckus is not 100% yet, and I'm still a little shaky because of that. I give myself a bye with Ruckus, because perfection is not my goal (she excused herself without even blushing).

I do know that if my reasoning mind's worst case happens with Ruckus, that will be my pearl beyond price...and it will be gifted to my heart not my head.

Thank you.

JUST SAY YES!

There is always a spiritual solution. 

There...that is the magic pill we seek. That is the solution to all life's problems, real or imagined. (And aren't they all imagined in the end?)

It must be that a spiritual solution is so hard to trust because we cannot know in our own mind what such a solution looks like. 

Which, by the way, is the new test of the reasoning minders: What does love look like? What does patience look like? What does get-over-yourself look like? According to me, "What does it look like?" started out in life as a reasonable tool that we have overused till now its just another way to stay stuck in our own mind, resisting the move up to a spiritual solution.

The reasoning mind is never going to get us to a spiritual solution for a spiritual solution looks like respect...love, patience, each and every one of them look like respect.

And respect looks like, "Yes, thank you."  

Thank you.

RESISTANT AS OPPOSED TO TRANSPARENT

When a simpleton abused him, Lord Buddha listened to him in silence, but when the man had finished, the Buddha asked him, ‘Son, if a man declined to accept a present offered to him, to whom would it belong?’ The man answered ‘To him who offered it.’ ‘My son’, Buddha said, ‘I decline to accept your abuse. Keep it for yourself.’ 

It’s not what we’re told, it’s what we hear for which we are answerable. Likewise, it’s not what is said to us or about us, it’s what we hear and how we interpret what we hear that determines our actions.

Here's our choice when, say, someone badmouths us: We can let them as per the Buddha or we can badmouth them right back. For those seeking still more spiritual growth, that's a no-brainer...but do we do it? A no-brainer sometimes means we act as if we had no brains. I'm a believer that our resentments live in what we choose to hear and/or how we choose to interpret what we hear.

Why is that such a hard lesson to learn? Very likely because we'd rather feel the victim, hurt and/or angry, than be at peace...resistant as opposed to transparent.

Resistant, we're in control; transparent...uh-oh...where's me?

Transparent is the ultimate detachment...our decision to turn our will and our life over to the care of God come true, and it's utterly invisible. The only way we know it is through our own trust in God which brings "the peace that passes understanding."

The peace of mind so many of us seek is already ours, has always been ours, cannot not be ours simply by our choice to trust God...and row.

Thank you.

ALIGNING OUR WILL WITH GOD'S WILL

[The following is a reprint of my blog of February 27, 2012.]

Nothing has more strength than dire necessity. -- Euripides

That pretty much describes how needs are met. “The Father knows our needs” does not mean that the Father will either gift us with our need fulfilled or make our need disappear. No. He gives us strength we know naught of to do what needs doing.

Wants, on the other hand, are pretty much dependent on our willingness to do other than beg God for a freebie. In general, God isn’t going to do for us what we can do for our self. Plus, there are a lot of wants that God isn’t about to touch and neither should we, but that seldom stops us, does it?

There…that’s an excellent reason for aligning our will with God’s will.

Thank you.

EITHER WAY, GOD'S CHOICE

My boy is in the Emergency Animal Hospital, I.C.U.

Woke up at 5:30 this morning to a lot of bright red poop most everywhere...we were at the E.R. by 6:00. This has happened twice before in his life, but this time he got sicker while there and started throwing up.

My hardest part was in signing him in for overnight when I was asked if, in direst case, I wanted "resuscitate" or "don't resuscitate." She was very gentle and explained that they must ask that even if we're talking broken toenail, but the very need to ask just destroyed me.

On the way home...alone...I told God that I am at peace knowing that he  knows our needs. He has already programmed our best end-case, and I'm leaving that all up to him, that I'm going to picture my boy bounding around Heaven and/or playing with his squeak-toy right here with me...God's choice. If it's his time to go back to God, he'll be trading up for sure.

I got home and cleaned up all the mess. Sat down with my spiritual dailies, and I couldn't see to read. Went in to check my macular degeneration grid, and it was all broken and faded, unreadable to me. My instructions are to contact the eye doctor immediately if there's any grid change.

I considered that the morning of stress plus all the bending over to clean up the dried bloody mess had put a serious strain on my eyes, plus I'd told the vet that I would be at my home phone number all day, so I made the conscious decision to just go lay down and rest. When I rechecked the grid later, I saw it as pale but whole...close enough to perfect for me.

When I went to read my Easwaran daily reader, it opened to a Meister Eckhart quote: "It is permissible to take life's blessings with both hands provided thou dost know thyself prepared in the opposite event to take them just as gladly."

There. There's the gold in relying on the spiritual versus the reasoning mind...we get to know when God is talking directly to us. And there's nothing to hate about that.

Thank you.

CHOICES...IT'S ALL ABOUT CHOICES

Remembering (so probably misquoting) the Buddha, "I but point the way, it is yours to swelter at the task," I realize that it was no wonder I used to feel so many of my prayers went unanswered.

Somewhere in the Bible there is the promise that he goes before me to make the crooked places straight. He makes those places straight, however, using my hands and my feet. My reasoning mind, being ego based, could not but believe that I was being asked to do all the work and would resist...too hard, too much, not fair. 

If I just "keep my mind stayed on Thee," I can rest in the fact that the work/the task is being done through me for me by my tools and God's effortless will.

That is hard to comprehend before the fact...when I'm facing a Big Ugly, and I'm wondering what to do, what to do? But when I look back, it is clear that all my "miracles" have been done through me...by my hands, my feet. If not, where would I go to get them? The Father and I are one.

Show up, follow directions, miracle. That's our "sweltering at the task" that our ego resists and our Self welcomes. 

Choose you this day whom ye shall serve. -- Joshua 24:15

Thank you.

WALK HIS PATH, USE HIS WILL

I just read a note I wrote in my God Calling on this day last year: "Contretemps with Seniorcize instructor today...she incorrectly thought I was dropping the class and went off...I 'won' and yet I am continuing to run my mind on it, proving that winning is no answer for stilling the mind."

The rest of the story is that she continued to be short with me to which I consciously responded with respectful silence. Her last class, my Ruckus was not well, but I did go, albeit late, and only to sign the book we gave her and to wish her well. She clearly appreciated that. I note this because how things end are every bit as important to a stilled mind as how they begin.

That "rest of the story" is the most important for it is by continuing to walk in the right direction (away from self) that our consciousness is raised.

Per Easwaran's Words to Live By today: "You don't snuff self-will out in one day; you have to keep turning away, in meditation and then during the day, especially in your relationships. This world is a place where we learn to return goodwill for ill will and love for hatred, to work harmoniously with others, and to put other people's welfare before our own. [This takes years] and one day the fire of self-will goes out."

God is uninvolved with our daily bouts with life, meaning he will not shut our mouth, make us kinder, etc. He is present everywhere always and all ways, but it is in "this world," this material world, by our doing, our walking his path, using his will as our guide, that we are unselfed...are lifted ever higher into God consciousness.

And we keep our mouth shut out of kindness.

Thank you.

UPGRADE...OUT OF EGO INTO GOD

All that we are is the result of what we have thought: it is founded in our thoughts; it is made of our thoughts. -- The Buddha

That quote came to me this morning as I was pondering something I realized last night...a 25-year-old happening in my life that I realized from a new angle...and my whole world around that happening shifted. It had been a less-than-wonderful fact in my life, and it is now proof of God's perfect protection without my knowing or previously needing to know it.

There. Our rues, regrets and remorses by our thinking (and no other way for each is a done deal) can be transmuted into our gold. "Upgrade our attitude, upgrade our problem" proven.

Our rues, regrets and remorses are just our ego's hold on its reality. Through still more spiritual growth we shake off ego's hold and are lifted into a new way of understanding. Not by self but by Self.

Thank you.

FLOW...GRATEFULLY

I read in the Gita this morning that "to run not after the pleasant or away from the painful" pleases God.

I'm guessing that is because to chase either is to stay attached to results. For it is our own self who determines our pleasant, our painful. One man's trash is another man's treasure as the adage goes.

It proves the truth that acceptance really is the answer...no exceptions. To accept the unacceptable is to simply change your mind about the unacceptable...if it is, it is acceptable purely because it is. Not accepting it is continuing to try to "run away from the painful."

We do not need joy in the unacceptable...just don't resist it. I know from experience...repeated experience...that to resist just holds it more closely in our ego's heart.

I wonder if a mind at peace isn't, in the end, learning to flow with what is...gratefully.

Thank you.

GET BACK ON TRACK ANYWAY

Hurt people hurt people. Payback is a bitch. Bad business gets you bad business.

On the other hand, transformed people transform people. Transformed people know naught of paybacks and bad business.

In a perfect world.

There. I'm convinced that is our ego's only  aim...for perfection...even when our reasoning mind knows that progress is our best bet. Without a higher power to legislate for us, our lips may tell our brains that it's progress we want, but our ego's siren song will prevail. Then we  walk around, having not met our ego's high standards, feeling less than...a little off kilter...like our skin's on crooked.

Progress, on the other hand, gives room to breathe, to be human, to make mistakes, and get back on track anyway. -- Anonymous

That last phrase, "and get back on track anyway," may be one of my very favorites. It reminds me of my mission...to be a transformed person. In other words, to continue to be a decent person whose goal in life is to be of help.

Through the grace of God and more than a little help from my friends, I'm on track today. 

Thank you. 

THE ANSWER TO EVERYTHING

If we keep praying for God to change us, improve us, we clearly don’t think he’s done it or we wouldn’t keep praying for it. Consider this: God loves us just exactly as we are...why would he change us?

We have free will...that's our own personal tool to use if we sincerely want to change, and the change, of course, is in our consciousness. The ultimate higher consciousness is the realization that God loves us just exactly as we are...warts and all.

But we are on this earth, and we do have work to do to get to that higher consciousness. The best way to effect such change is to find a spiritual director who will point us in the right direction.  I personally was pointed in the direction of 14th century mystics, 20th century writers. 1st century and way before the 1st century spiritual figures...not to mention Dear Abby of old and Miss Manner of today.

There are everyday people and ancient writings that speak to our heart and our head. That heart/head connection is essential if we are seriously seeking still more spiritual growth for we must needs open our mind to higher thought...a.k.a., changing our mind.

We'll sometimes find we've misinterpreted what we thought we learned. Fear not the mistakes we're bound to make...God has our back, and we know our intention, our goal, today is for still more spiritual growth. We learn that even being wrong to the point of stupidity (in our own mind) is just another lesson in humility which lesson I'm guessing we'll never not need. And that'll send us to our knees praying for God to change us! There. If we've been paying attention, we'll laugh.

That is the exact point where we learn the answer to everything is to love and laugh. And trust God.

Thank you.

FREE WILL RETURNED FOR GOD'S WILL

[The following is a reprint of my blog of September 24, 2008.]

It is a comfort to me to know that the God of my understanding gifted me with free will to use as I choose. It is in returning my free will to God in exchange for His will that I’ve found my challenge.

I made my life’s goal the search for still more spiritual growth when I read that all my problems can be solved with spiritual principles.

I’ve had to start small, as in learning to deny myself my petty wants. For instance, it was a breakthrough for me when I realized that I got better “within” results when I chose to give over to another when I felt that the other had stepped on my toes, so to speak.

The learning starts with my thoughts. Learning to live an attitude of gratitude…to discipline my thoughts so the first thing that comes to mind is “Thank You.” No matter what occurs and without the same-old-same-old, meaning, "Why should I think 'thank you?' It wasn’t my fault. I’m innocent, s/he’s guilty."

I sometimes feel like I’m arm wrestling with God when I know, I know, I know what I need do...smile and step back...not give in to the almost irresistible urge to shoot a dirty look, saying nothing, just letting the offender know that s/he was wrong and I know it.

The pearl beyond price is the realization that it is only by returning my free will to God, for Him to use as He chooses, that He can and will use His will through me in my behalf...to go before me to make my crooked places straight.

Thank you.

FROM ME TO THEE...EVERY TIME

Seeing a defect in our character and finally coming to the acceptance of that defect as ours and unwanted is the first and most necessary step in any personal defect ever being removed (or transmuted as it were).

Not being qualified to do the removing ourselves, we learn to rely on a higher power...and there's the rub. That reliance is entirely incumbent upon our willingness to change our minds...to turn our thinking in a new direction.

Which sounds counterintuitive, doesn't it? We need to focus on getting rid of this that is causing us so much pain, don't we? Yet we're told the answer is to not think about it?

Continuing to mentally natter ourselves about it is the equivalent of our "Are we there yet?" of our childhood. Remember how that drove our parents nuts? Didn't get us there any quicker, but our mothers had the right answer...they learned to bring distractions for us.

And that's exactly what we must do...learn to distract ourselves with a different thought. There it is...the fine art of changing our minds.

The kick-my-butt-and-call-me-crazy part is we will wake up some fine day and know we are free. Not only that, we will see that we have been free for a long time...we just hadn't realized it.

God is always on the job. It is our faulty perception that needs upgraded...from me to Thee. That is all and every time.

Thank you.

THE PERFECTION OF PEACE

Blinding flash of the obvious: It’s not what is said to us, it’s what we hear that we are answerable for. 

When we hear a nasty or hurtful remark coming to us, we must stop, quick look within and ask, "Why do I choose to hear this in such a way?"

If we're willing to take the responsibility for what we are hearing, in no time (on God's timetable) we will clearly realize that our victim is doing our thinking for us. I See Me...again. It is unwillingness that bears the seeds of discord. Thus wars begin.

Even knowing that, it is still a minute-by-minute discipline learning to detach from our ego-victory want to lash out in anger or pout in hurt at another for our own interpretation of what we've heard.

I have long been a believer that all anger, all hurt is victim thinking. We keep that victim alive by buying the reasoning mind's story that we must "stand up for ourselves." This is a good example of having the opportunity to look at any one thing in one of two ways; i.e., the reasoning mind way or the spiritual way. The reasoning mind always legislates for itself, the spiritual mind does not legislate.

In reasoning, standing up for ourselves is to resist; in spirituality, we accept. To resist, we stand alone, spiritually, we stand with...it's s/he and me standing with God.

This is why it is in God's time. We must become willing to delay our wants (which always masquerade as needs) and "sit and wait on the Lord," which results are always for the benefit of all concerned. Perfection. Peace.

Thank you.

FIGHT NOT...FLOW

There is a famous saying that all it takes for evil to prevail is for good people to do nothing.

My blinding flash of the obvious is that it is not for good people to fight evil, it is for good people to bring evil to God for God's dispensation...vengeance/forgiveness is mine, saith the Lord.

This the reasoning mind cannot comprehend...the how-to. That, no doubt, is our tie to the material world...our insatiable desire to know why and how-to.

I wonder if the reason we are put on this earth is to learn acceptance without questions of why and how to.  To simply be the peace in this world, knowing and showing forth God? Without resistance if evil flows around us, without taking credit if good flows.

What if this is in the gene pool before conception from which we all come into this world? All of us born to be God's instrument of non-resistance through joy, peace and love?

Maybe that's why we are given free will...for that's the thing we must overcome. It seems to me to be the only thing, really, from which we must detach. All else is just cotton candy.

Thank you.

PARDON? YOU TALKING TO ME?

I know I'm going down that wrong road again when I make an error in judgment then go into compulsive-obsessive mode in justifying it...feeling an all-but-physical need to tell someone else my side of the story. Without a frill or a furbelow, my side is simply that I made an error in judgment. There. The wrong road again is simply taking myself too seriously.

What's the cure for taking myself too seriously? A U-turn. A U-turn in the form of laughter...love and laughter. Specifically, to love me even as I mentally project how you are thinking, feeling,  talking about me for my error in judgment...then to laugh at my projection. For, in truth, you're not even in my picture except as I project your necessary presence for me to change your mind about me, my error in judgment.

I say to God, "If that's not convoluted enough, you're not paying attention."

And God says, "Huh?"

God is such a card.

Thank you.

GET GRATEFUL

I realized this morning that I may be as spiritually "advanced" as I'm going to get in this lifetime even if I live to be 100. More important, though, in that realization is the certainty that that is enough...for God is the determiner. The God of my understanding knows me, knew me at my birth and before, and has my best already completed and in play.

It is for me to continue living that which I have, what has been passed on to me...even if much of it is mine only from my eyebrows up.

It is the eyebrows-up part I am most grateful for. It is the eyebrows-up part that is the here-and-now gift for that is what will ensure I continue chasing the spiritual way, detaching from my reasoning mind fixes. That will take the rest of my life...bringing it from my head to my heart to my heart-center...for there is no end to that.

The great velvet comforter is knowing that this is not ours alone to do. We make ourselves available to our God often...and oftener. He flows us where we need be...in his time, for our benefit.

We grease the skids with gratitude.

Thank you.

AND I AM GRATEFUL

Having the single goal of still more spiritual growth sure simplifies life...or my life at any rate. I don't have to get all up in my head as to whether I'm doing a stupid thing or not...if my goal is to love...just to love...to know it and to show it...then the result of whatever I'm doing or planning to do is immaterial.

It's getting all tangled up in perceived results that stymie our growth. Because our perceived result is almost surely and simply fear...of looking stupid, of inviting gossip, of being thought wrong (which is worse than being wrong because when we are wrong, and know it, we can admit it...but being thought wrong? There's another mental bushwack-a-doo at two o'clock in the morning.)

All of this stems from an invitation I issued. It was accepted, and in a matter of hours, I was gripped with the mental grab-bag of I have reached out first...that's going to look like...people are going to think...what to do, I'm a fool. All that before my heart beat twice.

But then...here came the Sermon riding in on a thank you. And I reminded me that my goal is to live the Sermon...and as long as that is my heart-goal, my doubts, fears, stumbles, and pratfalls are as naught to me in my life...and I breathed free.

I realized sometime in the last week or so that today I am content. Something I never dreamed possible for me to know about myself...to aspire to, but never to own. And today I own it. Through the grace of God and a little help from my friends, and I am grateful.

Thank you.

THE GOLDEN RULE...SHORTENED

[The following is a reprint of my blog of May 12, 2010.]

I used to read and love columns written by Henry Mitchell, a columnist with “The Washington Post” who passed on some years ago. He once wrote a column in which there was one sentence that, when all else fails, I go to: “I try not to be as nasty as I want to be.”

I love the Sermon on the Mount. I try to live by it, failing more often than succeeding, but…good news…never failing completely since I count it as success when I remember to try to turn the other cheek, to agree with my adversary quickly, to bless them that curse me, etc.

But the times when I just don’t even want to try…when my reasoning mind/ego just rears up and takes charge…I have learned to stop, just stop. I’ve lost that battle too many times to even try to fight it…to fight it by self-willing sweet, kind and generous thoughts and actions that I do not feel. They all just amount to self-determined objectives (with a self-righteous attitude seeping through), and there is no God there.

That’s when I remind myself to try not to be as nasty as I want to be. I think of it as a short form of the Golden Rule…and, for whatever reason, it fits my “innards” better.

Thank you.

OUR HUMAN NEED

By sharing our food, or by coming empty handed and receiving from another's bounty, we enter true communion. Dependent on physical nourishment, we connect with the root of our human need. -- Fr. Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," May 2, 2015

A fellowship interpretation: By sharing ourselves, or by coming empty and receiving from another's Soul, we enter true communion. Dependent on that nourishment, we connect with the root of our human need.

Thank you.

THE ESSENCE OF GOD

I'm thinking that the answer to all relationship problems may well be in being the first to reach out to the other in respect...period.

The first step in that first step is in the willingness to change our mind...which, according to me, cannot be done by self-will alone. Self-willing a changed mind is just saying that we have. Then we grit our teeth and mentally take the inventory of the other...listing all the reasons s/he is keeping our changed mind from bringing peace.

I suspect becoming willing to change our mind is so difficult because we automatically assume that means we must admit that we are wrong, thus we lose. And our ego shouts, "Lo-ser! Again. Still."

No. The willingness to change our mind is simply becoming willing to see the entire situation from a different angle. Through spiritual eyes. Then we let the spirit within us guide our eyes and our thoughts away from self. We lift up our eyes.

That's when thinking of, say, a lily of the valley is invaluable. We can't be mentally fixing our problem if we're not thinking about the problem. We learn the art of refocusing...bringing our thoughts back, repeatedly, away from self to our spiritual picture.

In that exercise we lose our ego-victory need to be right. There is no right or wrong in a lily of the valley. Just the essence of God.

Thank you.