LIKE WALKING THROUGH AN OPEN DOOR

[The following is a reprint of my blog of July 29, 2011.]

Last week I crossed a line.

I crossed that fine line that nobody that I know looks forward to crossing…the line between being a senior citizen to being officially “elderly.”

The heat was my determiner. We’ve broken a few records with this heat, but not an inordinate number…meaning, I’ve been here before. I didn’t like it overmuch then, but you do what you gotta do, inside/outside, makes no never mind.

Last week, all that changed. And, of course, my darling Ruckus played the lead role in my change…or my learning of my change or, even truer, my accepting my change, my upgrade, don’t you know, to elderly.

I took him out at 5:30 one morning, and it was so stifling that I could barely breath…he wasn’t panting, I was. We cut the walk short.

Then the heat index rose to the triple digits, and I spent the days trying to figure how long my little guy could go between actually going. For the rest of the week, I lived with one eye on the clock, and one eye on him to catch any signs of discomfort, as in him getting his leash and saying out loud, “I need to go out.”

The official elderly upgrade came when I got out an old rag, iced it, wrapped it around my neck, laid another iced cloth on top my head, and took the boy out for his 3:30. Somewhere in the back of my mind, two thoughts blinked on and off, like a dying neon sign: “Just five years ago, I would not have been caught dead wearing iced cloths, no matter how hot,” and “Wow, this was inspired!”

This morning I read, “Inspiration teaches us that transformation must begin with trust that a higher intelligence exists and knows how to contact us.” There. That’s my story and I’m sticking with it.

Thank you.

DON'T BE A MULE...DON'T BE A FOOL

I'm struck by the similarities between being a "mule" for dopers (i.e., one who smuggles dope for others) and being a "mule" for haters. (Someone tells us something ugly about another person, it is too delicious not to want to believe so we accept it...then pass it on as truth.)

We don’t want to be a mule for someone else’s hate. Foremost because we can’t find forgiveness for hurting another when it’s not our own hate that we’re doing our thinking with. Our reasoning mind will justify our bad behavior because someone else..."who wouldn't lie so it must be true"...has told us the story.

Don’t be a mule for someone else’s hate. Not to mention, don't be a fool for our own.

It is impossible to trudge the road of happy destiny for long with hate in our heart.

Thank you.

THE HARD NUT TO CRACK

Real love is the result of a lot of hard work over a long period of time. It is developed through trust and loyalty and patience, learning not to say a harsh word or even show disrespect when we are provoked. -- Eknath Easwaran, "Words to Live By," June 28

There is the hard nut to crack..."learning not to say a harsh word or even show disrespect when we are provoked." That is and has been my inner goal for lo these many years. And, hey, I can generally do that today...I can not say a harsh word or even show disrespect. That's what I call not responding in kind when I am feeling disrespected.

But the Lord has some rough road ahead if we're going to get my thoughts pacified. I was walking Ruckus this morning and my head was really chewing someone or other a new one. I was peeved and getting peeve-der.

And the situation I was peeved about has never happened...and the chances of it ever happening are slim to nil. (But s/he would do it if s/he ever thought about it, shouts my ego...it's always something with my ego.)

Clearly, that's where the bottom line pays off...the "love and laugh" line. Because when one's thinking like a butt-head, and it is so very obvious, realistically, what else can one do?

Thank you.

OUR NEED IS OUR SALVATION

Fr. Richard Rohr has written that we don't come to God by eliminating our imperfection, but in fact by rejoicing in it because it makes us aware of our need for God's mercy and love.

We who have stumbled and fallen, got up, trudged on...and stumbled and fallen, got up, etc., and repeatedly...we can know what Rohr said is true. And isn't it interesting that although we may know it, we have a hard time welcoming it. Probably and purely because it hurts when we stumble and fall...and, depending on how long we stay there in anger, shaming and blaming, it hurts a lot! Doesn't matter if we're blaming our nemesis or shaming our own self (hoping that's humility), it hurts.

Without fail, the way to move forward is to love and laugh...love our nemesis and laugh at our resistance to that may be as good as we can do, but that's a start.

It is amazingly hard to finally and fully comprehend the simple instructions to love and laugh. For years I understood them. It was only fairly recently that I realized their import...and this time next years, I'll no doubt be laughing at myself for thinking that I realized their import.

It seems to me that all spiritual truth deepens...we may never fully grasp God's truth. And there it is...we may never fully grasp God's truth because it is our very need that keeps us seeking. Indeed, that is our salvation, that "makes us aware of our need for God's mercy and love." Still and forever, always and all ways.

Thank you.

OUT OF SELF TO FORGIVENESS

I am struck by the different ways the people of Boston and the people of Charleston are dealing with their separate tragedies. It being a given I know from my toenails up that we each must deal with our own tragedy in our own personal way...however that may be and without judgment.

I use the people of Boston and of Charleston because their tragedies are current, and their reactions are polar opposite. To me, and very generally, Boston is dealing "an eye for an eye" and Charleston is dealing "forgive 70 x 7."

The "eye for an eye" folks are hurting. In their hurt, they are showing forth anger...seething and seeking payback...probably hoping the murderer will die hurting at least as much as their loved ones hurt.

The "forgive" folks are hurting. In their hurt, they are showing forth compassion...sobbing, and seeking the solace of forgiveness...probably hoping for repentance for the murderer.

Each of the tragedies is beyond my heart's comprehension...almost more than my brain can process. I cannot possibly know exactly how I would react. I tried to imagine someone stealing Ruckus and...there. I cannot even write the words. So in my mind's eye seeing me loving the perpetrator is purely fantasy.

But I want to, and I want to because I can see with my own eyes how anger does but burn the angry; compassion heals the compassionate. I never thought I would see it so out there...in the proverbial black and white.

I wonder if American blacks know forgiveness is the answer because in their history they have had no other road to go...lashing out in anger was (is?) quite simply a death wish. As a people, American whites have never been forced to forgive...individuals may have but not as a people. They have had the fool's gold choice of anger, resentment, payback...which turns out to be a dead-end street leading to all the traps of self...self-pity, self-hate, self-aggrandizement, and, finally, if willing and blessed, out of self to God and forgiveness.

I am grateful that I can see...I can only pray that's how I will be.

Thank you.

NO PRIDE...JUST BLESSED

My morning blinding flash of the obvious: I pray God to forgive me when all I really want is to walk free, paying no price, with peace as my prize.

I ponder that and recognize that when I pray God for forgiveness of a past incident caused by me through malice or ignorance, what I'm wishing is that he will erase it from ever having happened or, next best, that he will wipe clean any memory of it. End result: That I walk free of me...painlessly.

There are no freebies in life. We must each do the actual footwork of facing, taking responsibility for, our own behavior. Whether we acted out of malice or ignorance, or indeed had good intentions that went awry, we must take full ownership. Ideally, with any one or more affected fully aware of our taking responsibility. They get to do with that whatever they will...forgive or not, that's on them.

It is my facing myself, with God as my guide, that frees me...with God as my guide being the key. 

Me facing me as a self-determined objective usually doesn’t do anything but risk offending more...because self is the driver and self’s objective is always CYA or ego-victory. And that is precisely what others see, feel, know. There is no God in that, no forgiveness of others or of self in that. We wind up with an unfinished feeling, a vague feeling of regret. And there's never a doubt where that leads...to more regrets. Rues. Remorses.

We know God is present by the absence of any feeling of pride. We feel blessed. Undeserving. Humbled. But no pride. No self. And no regrets.

Thank you.

ONLY I CAN PARDON....

Only I can pardon my persecutors...only I can set them free.

Isn't that a wonderful thought? Doesn't it quiet your mind?...even when there are no known persecutors in your life.

The clarion call that lifts my heart is the realization that simply changing my mind sets me and my persecutor free...s/he now walks free in my mind.

And it is possible to know, to gut-bucket know, that we are right and to let our persecutor off the hook at the same time. We saw the living example of just that last week in Charleston, SC...those agonized family members crying uncontrollably, speaking to the murderer of their loved ones, and simultaneously saying, "I forgive you."

There. That's God's hand in it. Not in the murders, that's ego gone evil, but in the hearts and minds of those left behind. God's hand healing their hurt, and in that healing, bringing the possibility of good to the city, the state, the country...and even maybe, please and thank You, the murderer.

Resist not evil and be free.

Thank you.

FORGIVENESS - GOD'S INTERVENTION

[The following continues my thoughts of yesterday about forgiveness and how our decision to be a forgiving person is our invitation to God to intervene in our lives in our behalf.]

We make our decision, and then we experience the hook...the uh-oh. Because we are going to get the opportunity, and in very short order, to be that forgiving person. No, that does not mean our loved one is going to be murdered, or, worse, our dog is going to be run over by a texting crazy lady. It means we're going to get to meet our ego face-to-face. We're going to get to walk right up to our I-me-mine boundaries and choose against our self.

I've done it once or twice. So have you. And felt like a saint. [Note: If we felt like a martyred saint, we get no credit. Do over!]

But having done it, having felt so good about our self and taking no credit for our self, why don't we, why will we not, do it more often? Why not look for opportunities to simply get over our self. For that's all it is. Just me getting over me.

The answer, probably, is that we can, it just takes daily discipline...the daily discipline of agreeing with our adversary quickly, of judging not, of resisting nothing (also known as acceptance).

When we do that consistently...as we breathe...we'll know for certain sure that God has intervened in our life for we now are a forgiving person.

Thank you.

FORGIVENESS - EGO DEFLATION IN DEPTH

Forgiveness. Sometimes that's just a word to me. An unattainable desire. Sometimes I only know forgiveness when I see how badly you need to do it.

We saw it walking, talking, crying this past week in the broken hearts of the relatives of the murdered at Mother Emanuel in Charleston, SC.

I was reminded of my beloved Sandy whose daughter was murdered, and, upon being told the awful news, he was able to tell God that this would not change his love for God, that he forgave the murderer.

He said he was able to do that because he had made a decision sometime back to be a forgiving person...to be, not to become which just keeps the want to out in front of us. And he made that decision some twenty years ago when he saw a woman on television whose son had just been murdered in a street fight. A TV newsman thrust a microphone in her face and asked her what she thought of the murderer. She answered, "I've already forgiven him."

Sandy said he knew he could not do that, and that's when he made his decision. There it is...that's what opens us up to God's perfect work. Our decision. We decide to do, to be, different than we are, and we gut-bucket know, on our own, we are incapable of making that change.

That's our invitation to God to intervene in our lives on our behalf.  Our only job from that point on is to hold to our decision...then get out of the way for change is a'coming.

Thank you.

TO BETTER SERVE YOU

[The following is a reprint of my blog of June 24, 2011.]

I am the dough, knead me as needed.

As the dough is being worked, it is constantly changing…becoming at each stage something other than what it was, into what God would have it be…a perfect loaf of bread, an imperfect roll, a so-so bun.

God is the builder, so the imperfections are only in our eyes. The perfect, the imperfect, the so-so…all are perfect in God’s eyes, all from the same dough…One.

Build of me, do with me, as you will, so that I may better do your will…I am yours to perfect.

Thank you.

ON MEANDERING THOUGHTS AND LOVING THEM

My thoughts are meandering this morning, and I remember again that in the midst of any apparent disaster or simply unwanted situation, to realize that God's hand is in it is all that is needed to bring peace.

In pondering that, it occurred to me that that realization ought to bring peace not only to me, realizing it, but to any others in the situation. But ought schmought...I cannot direct it, I can only know it. If the other is not on my spiritual wavelength...being higher or lower...s/he will miss it.

Spiritual power, however, is like water...it goes to its own level. That realization at that time may touch someone I have no knowledge of...and come as a needed blinding flash of the obvious to him or her. Maybe that's one way I get my blinding flashes of the obvious...from someone in meditation 100 miles away!

I love that image but what do I know? Just enough to know that if I'll love and laugh I won't have to analyze these things...and call it pondering.

God loves me so much.

Thank you.

GOD WRAPS US IN LOVE

When your material goal is reached, then the material will serve only to attain the spiritual. -- "God Calling," June 19

It seems to never fail...I read that sentence every year on this day, and my first thought is "When, not if...so I am going to reach my material goal?" Clearly, my first thought is eager anticipation of dollars coming my way...a lot of dollars a'coming my way. It is a flash, gone almost before it comes, but it does come.

Here's the great, glorious, Free At Last fact: A transformative thought then sweeps through me. It feels like my own personal warm velvet blankie, and it smothers my over-zealous free-floating guilt with the inner certainty that I have reached my "when." There is no "if" for me today.

I reached my material goal when I was freed from fear of financial insecurity. And not because of the amount of dollars in my savings account for sure. I was gifted with a consciousness of enough...of everything.

That fairly well exemplifies the nature of my spiritual growth...I need to be reminded that I have spiritual growth. And the reminder is not mine...it is God's. There. There's the gold in over-zealous, free-floating guilt...God wraps it in love, and it is gone.

Thank you.

GOD BREAKS ME FREE OF ME

I suspect many of us at one time have been unjustly accused of something and found that there was nothing we could do about it. At least nothing we could do about it that satisfied our reasoning mind.

The way to peace of mind in a seemingly unfair situation is to accept that God's hand is in it. Then focus on realizing that as truth. We will come to understand that we are the source of all our woes whether or not we know it, want to be, or aim for it.

According to Fr. Richard Rohr, "Franciscan spirituality *** incorporates the seeming negative and moves our life to its hard edges, thus making things like failure, tragedy, and suffering the quickest doorways to the encounter of God."

Rohr's Franciscan "negative way to freedom" made a home in my heart immediately because it was my own laughter at me slinging mud in my own face that freed me to realize it as God's gift.

We can be grateful that it is our imperfect but willing self that God uses to break us free. Since we are the source of all our woes, that's what we bring to him. I mean, God doesn't use Joe to purify Jill.

Thank you.

BOTH SIDES MUST COME OUT THE WINNER

There are two ways of seeing anything that life offers...the material, or reasoning mind, way and the spiritual way. By "what life offers," I mean, primarily, the crapola. It applies to everything, it's just that the less-than-wonderful makes a home in our ego-victory thoughts.

I've found it best to to accept my reasoning mind's view first...accept it and find my part in it, or I'll muddle everything, trying to excuse, justify and/or deny my part in it. Because the reasoning mind is linked with the ego and always legislates for itself, believing that I'm seeing God's will in my want-to is a pretty much inevitable result. I wind up believing my own press which explains the muddle.

We need not fret about the spiritual side...if we are willing, it will be revealed albeit seldom on our timetable...God is a drag foot to ego. That may be why "Sit and wait on the Lord" is so emphasized in spiritual work. It's easy to gift our self with insight as to God's way when it's really us making the circle complete...and in our favor.

Rule of thumb...p.d.q. and one-sided is not God's way; when and whenever both sides come out the winner, God's hand is in it.

Thank you.

CONDEMN NOT, LOVE

"Judgment isn’t the problem – it’s condemnation that’s the problem."  I wish I could remember where I read that so I could give credit, but there it is, unattributed, but truth to me.

A mistake we so often make is believing that we must show our individualism...maybe just to prove we can stand alone. All we prove is that we are against you, your good idea, your way...as in I-me-mine is better. That is the way of separation...from God and others.

I'm always disappointed when someone I like a lot is disrespected to me by another. (I wish I would think to be as disappointed in me when I do it.) But it brings cause to wonder...what's in it for him, for her, for me, that disrespect? What is it covering that the disrespecter isn't even aware of in himself? Why doesn't she look there, inside her own self, instead of trying to turn someone else's good opinion to bad?

Which takes me to the quote that judgment isn't the problem...it is necessary to make judgments daily, hourly, it seems. But condemnation? Condemnation is the problem because in the every day course of life, condemnation is rarely if ever called for...never the right answer.

Condemnation is practically a certain-sure way to receive condemnation from others...remember that individualism? Others do it, too. It comes back at us almost before our lips stop moving...whereupon we feel hurt, get angry, lash out at a safe bystander, and birth a resentment. There ain't no God there...plus, now we've got an unsafe bystander.

I suspect we feel if we don't condemn another's bad behavior (which really is our own perception, our own interpretation of our perception), it'll mean we approve...when another's behavior is not ours to approve of or disapprove of.

We each have to do what we each have to do...God knows it, and karma sweeps it clean. Our job is to not get in the way...of God or karma.

Thank you.

MORNING PRAYER

Thank you, Father, for every single person who is, or has ever been, in my life...for every good thing that has come to me...for every good thing dressed as ugly that has come to me...that I am open to receiving the realization  of the dark-made-light...that I stay out of my reasoning mind, not intellectualizing but open-hearted/open-minded realizing deeper at a higher level the fact of you in us in you.

For this we were born...to return to you.

Thank you.

PROOF OF GOD'S LOVE

Here's proof that my God lives in me, for me, ever vigilant to bring to bear my own good out of my own missteps.

My yesterday's post told of a misstep of mine and the long haul I'd need to take to get free of me. The following three sentences (God-directions, actually) came to me after that post.

Forgiveness is giving up your investment in and identification with your own painful story. - Fr. Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," June 13, 2015

The other two are quotes of Francis of Assisi from Rohr's post of today, June 14th:

You can show your love to others by not wishing that they should be better Christians. 

We must bear patiently not being good . . . and not being thought good.

To me, those sentences are the How To guide for ego reduction in depth. I also believe that all three are applicable in all our lives at any minute of any day up to and including right this very instant.

Now, how do we apply them?

Love and laughter. Love of our self and others; laughter at our self, with others.

Thank you.

GOD'S HAND IS IN IT...ALWAYS AND ALL WAYS

It has been given me to see that whenever a really ugly, not my fault, undeserved, betrayal to the max, comes into my life, I need to accept, immediately if not sooner, that God's hand is in it. I mean, that must be true if I accept that God's hand is in everything, always and all ways...and I do.

For instance, something happened in my life nearly thirty years ago that was so overwhelmingly big and ugly, not to mention unearned, that I just accepted that God's hand had to be in it.

There was one person, Gertrude, at the center of the ugly who became a sort of tar baby to me. Every time I mentioned her name in any context at all, it seemed tar and feathers would descend upon me. Not being entirely stupid, I quit mentioning her name. But the situation, dripping venom, would come in and out of my life over the years, and I would vocally respond not at all. I would thank God that I knew his hand had to be in this, for what reason I could not imagine, and then usually I would mentally curse Gertrude.

There was another person, Sylvia, who had started the ball rolling in this situation who came to me at that time and told me (and me only) that she bet I was angry at her for starting this...then she simply moved to another state. Literally. I never thought of her again.

Stuff around this situation has happened recently, and this very morning I realized that Gertrude is my angel...I saw that I could never have "not responded in kind" without her as my angel. Any animosity I had felt, any negative feelings toward her, were simply lifted from me.

End of God's story.

But, bet your bottom, Baby, ego lives! I almost immediately, and for the first time, thought of Sylvia...that betraying, low-life! She was the initiator, the source of all my woes. What was wrong with me that I hadn't walked all over her mud-slinging, back-stabbing body, and rat-a-tat-tat and blah, blah, blah.

God loves me so much that he sent me a fit of giggles. Clearly, no freedom from Sylvia yet, but giggles heads me in the right direction.

And there it is. There's Love and Laughter on the hoof! Don't tell me God doesn't know funny when we hand it to him.

Thank you.

LIFE'S JOY...PURE AND SIMPLE

The Crucified revealed to the world that the real power that changes people and the world is an inner authority that comes from people who have lost, let go, and are re-found on a new level. Twelve-step programs have come to the same conclusion in our time. -- Fr. Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," June 11, 2015

That is the lesson to learn. Personal peace is all about our willingness to release, detach, let go...not store up, gather to, attach. The power of peace is in no personal power.

Real freedom is freedom from self, from our wants, petty piques, random ego victories. Even our perceived successes. Now that is joy...pure and simple.

And it does not matter if we pray the Lord’s Prayer, repeat the Buddha's wisdom or the Lama's Lament...modified, changed and or mutilated. It only matters that we pray in gratitude acknowledging a power greater than ourselves...and believe in that power.

Thank you.

SHOWING FORTH MY GOOD

[The following is a reprint of my blog of July 30, 2010.]

I am the good I seek. In order to benefit from that fact, my focus must be inside, within me, inner directed. It is not enough to know (because I read it somewhere and it rang true and I get it) that I am the good I seek. That’s just knowing from my eyebrows up…which is essential as a first step.

It is after I get it, then begins the work…and the work is to not work. It’s all about sitting in the silence, relaxing into Myself, not striving to attain…anything. Detach, detach, detach.

It is the unseen, the unformable that is the gold I seek. I already know that I contain within myself all the patience that I will ever need, all the love, all the happy, all the forgiveness, all the unseens as it were. For if it is not within me, where do I go to get it? Knowing that, however, serves me no good if, for instance, the clerk at the store takes his own sweet time and holds me up from my ego-driven things to do, places to go, people to see, and I shoot him a nasty (not even a nasty word, but a nasty thought!)…then, the cosmic rule “what goes around comes around” goes into full force and effect. And I will rue my thought-response.

It is in letting go of those ego-driven thoughts and words that brings the change within me/without me. No matter how egregious the action I perceive, to react in kind is more egregious to my inner being…and thus to my outer.

Imagine my joy when I realized that of myself, I am utterly incapable of making any ego change. That is precisely why I must go into the silence, relax and thank God Almighty that He’s got my back, that I have no pony in this race, no dog in this fight…it is my life, and God lives it through me.

Thank you.

BEGINNING TO SAVE THE WORLD

Without suffering, "love" is mere sentimentality and not nearly enough to save the world--or anybody. -- Fr. Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," June 10, 2015

In Rohr's meditation, he uses physical pain (i.e., St. Francis's stigmata) as his example of suffering.

In today's world with all the (according to me, too many) drugs and meds available for the relief of pain, I had to see Rohr's statement as referring also to mental pain, in particular, the ego-deflating kind we must suffer that comes from snubs, slights, our rues, regrets and remorses, i.e., our self absorption.

Fortunately, there is no permanent relief for that kind of pain...only the daily reprieve that comes by seeking still more spiritual growth.

We begin by inviting our ego-piercing pain out into the open. And, may I say, that is suffering. The suffering of making the decision to go against our reasoning mind which for sure is doubting the wisdom of that action. But that is the way the love of God, and only the love of God, can bring us relief...by our looking that very pain in the eyeball thereby transmuting that pain to love.

And that's it...our invitation is issued when we become willing to flow with the ego pain rather than stop it...flow through to utter acceptance of it as our gold...not trying to justify or condemn our or another's actions in relation to those slights and snubs, or to explain them away, or to guilt ourselves over them. 

We find that transmuted love within our own self. That is the love of God within us. There. That is the beginning of the way to save the world.

According to me.

Thank you.

ON DOUBTING THE FACT OF GOD

I'm convinced that the reason so many of us doubt the fact of God is that God doesn’t deliver his goodness as a one-shot deal or in the form we're seeking.

Say we’re facing bankruptcy...we pray for the one-shot solution of money, of course. And God gives us peace! Because we don’t get the money, we freak, miss his gift of peace, and deny there is a God. Thus, we never learn that in a peaceful place, we worry not, and ways open to us that walk us through the bankruptcy...in peace.

Or we pray for love...to be a loving person, not just to get love, but to be a loving person. We ignore or never accepted the fact that we have all the love there is to have within us right now, there from birth. The only way to prove it is there, however, is to use it...by giving it away. The tricky part is we can't give it only to those or that which we already approve of...that's not love, that's self-satisfaction. No. We think of the (way too many) people we don't approve of and decide to upgrade our opinion. Of one. Leaning on the Lord and risking being wrong, we change our minds...we let the braggart, the blowhard, the self-centered jerk be. Just be. And holy moley...that very jerk is now a friend, a compassionate and caring friend.

There. That is my goal today...when (not if) there is someone who irritates me to the point that my palm itches to slap her, I lean on the Lord, etc. We're working on one right now...it takes time, but as long as I know my goal, I'm heading in the right direction. As my friend Sandy used to say, "Changing my mind is like turning the Queen Mary....slow, oh so slow."

This is my experience. It's not a truth I read in a book, but my very own experience. With that as my experience, you'd think I'd do it a lot more, but one or two to start with is a bona fide miracle, according to me. And I am beyond grateful.

Thank you.

A CROCK OF GOLD

According to me, we have but one rock-bottom need and that is to live opposite of the way our reasoning mind runs. There is the Divine Paradox. That is the secret of a mind at peace.

It also describes the Sermon on the Mount. The Sermon basically goes against our reasoning mind's dictates: If someone steals your coat, run after them and give them your cloak; if someone slaps you upside your head, turn the other cheek; agree with your adversary quickly; resist not evil...whose reasoning mind even agrees with that when first it's heard, much less would originate such? Clearly a person who had found the Source within and lived there.

The great gettin' up, sing hallelujah news is when we realize that if one has done it, it is possible for another...for us even! It all starts with that reasoning mind...training, disciplining our own thoughts, taming our attack mind...accepting that we have to lose in order to win. In short, we change our mind.

Even with a changed mind, we cannot get there on our own...for our own will return us to our reasoning mind every time. It all starts with the realization of that Source within us...that we can and must trust that Source to do right by us, not by our lights but by Its. This is called "Hold your nose and take a leap of faith." This is our first proof of trust in other than our reasoning mind.

Here's what I'm learning right this very minute: When, not if, the Shineola comes to us, trust that it is only Shineola, and that is all. That is also hard. The hardest part being simply our ability to trust our Source, and not our reasoning mind.

Once we accept that our Source is pure goodness thus can only bring good, the Shineola becomes our gold. Ah...there's our pearl beyond price.

Thank you.

ON GETTING OVER ONESELF

Authentic spirituality is always on some level or in some way about letting go. * * * We become free as we let go of our three primary energy centers: our need for power and control, our need for safety and security, and our need for affection and esteem. -- Fr. Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," June 7, 2015.

Letting go of our reasoning mind reality is the  ultimate freedom, according to me. And, of course, feels the wrongest, the riskiest...probably because it requires the ultimate trust in an unseeable power greater than our own reasoning mind.

All the spiritual books I read or have ever read have one common message...the reason we are born into this world is to return to God...which may take a thousand lifetimes, but that's a whole 'nother Bible verse. 

I know I am blessed because I feel blessed, and that is enough. It is not for me to explain that; in its authenticity, it is explained. My reasoning-mind explanation diminishes it. 

And I'm already in my own way, racing to get ahead of God's peace, love and joy. There. That's where my reasoning mind takes me...keeps me...in the weeds of rational, never daring to trust the seemingly irrational because it's just not rational.

Oops...there I go again. I feel like...was that Lindsay Lohan or Britney Spears? Whatever. It's for sure a less than wonderful place to find myself when I was tripping along so beautifully...in my own mind.

God loves me so much.

Thank you.

SELF, THE ONLY REAL BLOCK TO GOD

Gertrude is baiting me, and I am mentally responding in kind. My goal is to not take her bait and, more importantly, to not bait.

I speak from experience when I say that those who live a self-protected life live in fear of others' slings and arrows aimed at our heart. That is our bait, the bait that we take and the bait that we pitch. We take the bait...real and/or imagined...and react in kind, aiming our own slings and arrows at the other's heart.

I awoke last night with the thought: "I thank you, Father, for Gertrude's peace and joy."

With that thought, I knew that it is for this that I bring the past into the present...to use whatever, whomever I choose in order to help me to get over my own self...the only real block to God.

I bless Gertrude, I thank God for flowing through her, bringing her the peace that passes understanding.

Thank you.

THAT WALL OF SEPARATION

I received a gift this morning. I saw...like a picture before me, I saw...that my sister is me, that I am my sister. I resist this not in the least, but I recognize that she would resist it a lot. I laughingly suspect that she would regard it as her cross to bear.

In our judgmental place, we are rigid, righteous and right, totally opaque.  In our nonjudgmental place, we draw others to us without effort, are utterly transparent, have a tish of clairvoyance, and are fun to be with.

There my be a special reason why I saw this, and this morning. There may not be. Right now, I'm just grateful because I can believe if that is true of my sister and me, then it can be true of others I want to love but have a hard time of it.

It puts another tiny chink in my wall of separation...not just from my sister and others...but from God, too.

Thank you.

SILENT...BE SILENT AND KNOW

Blinding flash of the obvious: I see a change that needs be made. The change is "out there." My job is to be patient, ever aware of the change a'coming, and know that I am changing it. I will inform my heart and my head, as needed, as to what to do and/or not do to effect the change.

Silence.

Peace, be still.

Know: I have already made perfect the path.

Thank you.

EGO-STANDARDS V. GOD'S STANDARDS

[The following is a reprint of my blog of April 14, 2010.]

As I was brushing my teeth this morning, I got a blinding flash of the obvious: “You need to lower your standards.”  Since my standards aren’t extraordinarily high to begin with, I knew that could not mean what it seemed to say.  

I realized that I was being told to lower my ego-standards.  It is in letting go of ego-standards that one reaches God’s standard…Love.

Deep in the center of one’s being is that standard which brings perfect peace. It is known by various names…the Golden Rule, service, loving kindness, are a few. The practice of any one of those can and will bring one perfect peace, but, I’ve learned, one cannot practice them in order to get perfect peace…or indeed in order to get anything.

One practices love in order to love…ah, perfect peace.

Thank you.

OUR ONE GOAL...STAY THE COURSE

I'm reading this morning instructions for spiritual growth, one being, "Learn to be detached and to take joy in renunciation."

According to me, folks today, through psychiatry and the assorted self-help books, are more and more ignoring life's spiritual answer of ego reduction in depth, striving primarily to protect not our pure self but our ego-victory self. I mean, how likely is it that "detachment and joy in renunciation" will immediately sound like a plan to your ego? Mine either.

"The divine qualities lead to freedom; the demonic to bondage," That translates for me to "Ego reduction in depth, i.e., spiritual growth, is freedom; ego is bondage."

Those of us on the spiritual path for any amount of time at all, on reading these instructions, will know them for truth. Many of us already are striving to do them for we have learned that if we're not serving God, we're serving ego.

The good news is what counts is not how well we walk the path, away from ego toward God, but that we are headed in the right direction with but one goal...to stay that course.

Thank you.

EVERMORE

Sandy Bee, God rest his soul, is my example of one who got over himself. I know this because he never publicly castigated his so-called friends for their mud-slinging bumper sticker. More importantly, he never got any credit for that! He only got more and more people quoting the stickers as proof of his not being up to their high standards. Which never lessened his belief in the goodness of God and that God had his back. Now that is righteous.

I'm doing the mental arm-wrestle right this minute with a friend who is getting over on me. I'm justifying setting her straight, and I have the ammo to do it. Because I am right and she is just wrong. (Quoth the ego, "Evermore.")

Then I read today's Easwaran, and...here we go again...God talking directly to me. In the first paragraph, Easwaran writes that in personal relationships friends will dump on us and we will want to dump back: But that is just where the Gita or Jesus or the Buddha would say, 'No. That is the way of the weak.' Stick it out: not by becoming a doormat..., but by resolutely refusing to hurt anyone no matter how much you have been hurt.

I mentioned Sandy first off because of the fact that I knew him, I saw him DO that which I am trying to do. I believe the Bible, the Gita, Jesus, the Buddha, don't doubt any of them for a minute, but I personally knew Sandy. There's where the proof is for me.

I can believe in that which I have not seen till my face falls off, but seeing it on the hoof? That's what tells me I can do this. I have seen it done.

That is more proof that always and all ways God knows my needs. He knew that in my life I would need to meet up with Sandy, et al., that I would need the special tools they used, and by using those same tools I can get over myself with my latest "wrong" friend. Maybe I'll just name her "me."

Love and laugh.

Thank you.