LISTEN TO LOVE

I am convinced that the universe is under the control of a loving purpose and that in the struggle for righteousness man has cosmic companionship. -- Martin Luther King, Jr.

I find it interesting that so many of us on reading that, believe it...or don't object to it. Yet, if King had said he was convinced that the universe is under God's control and that in the struggle for righteousness man has the companionship of God, a good many would squawk and squeal like a stuck pig. God does not have a good rep to many...no, it's not God, it's that word God, actually.

And don't even think of the word Jesus. People expire before your very eyes with that word. The name Jesus Christ is a flamethrower to a good many.

Yet, in my world today, Buddha is not only acceptable...and I'm talking words only here...Buddha gives one bragging rights. [Human nature being such as it is, pray for Buddha...he's in for a fall.]

People in general dodge the word Allah altogether. Jehovah, too. And nobody that I know uses the word Yahweh...I've only ever seen that written in spiritual tracts and spoken in the class I took ages ago on the Old Testament.

According to me, there's nothing wrong with relating to any one of them...I'm a believer that whatever speaks to one personally, use. Use being the key. It is the almost universal refusal to let others use whatever/whomever speaks to them that is bothersome.

There are those who flinch on hearing Jesus mentioned...with the universal alibi of blame, "the way I was raised." Here's a 30-, 40-, 50-years-old and older person still blaming the way she was raised, the religion he was taught for not taking responsibility for her own inner beliefs, his very core.

Religion seems to me to be the last holdout of the justified-hate crowd. If we're ever going to face our own ego down, and by that I mean, let God out from within, we need to consider giving our ears freedom. Freedom to hear others speak their truth...neither rejecting it nor buying it whole cloth.

Just because we listen, doesn't mean we must respond, vocally or mentally. We can give a silent shrug or hug and keep on walking. We can do that...but only by disciplining our own mind. Our own attack mind.

We can pray for peace until our face falls off, but peace will not be ours until we give peace away. We have it within us now...we use it by listening with the ears of God, Buddha, Jesus, Jehovah, Allah, whoever speaks to us.

Listen to love.

Thank you.

TOUCHED, HUMBLED, TORN...BLESSED

'We should be willing to act as a balm for all wounds.' -- The last words in the diary of Etty Hillesum who died at Auschwitz in November, 1943, at the age of twenty-nine. [From "An Interrupted Life, the Diaries of Etty Hillesum 1941-43"]

I do not believe there is a snowball's chance of any human becoming "willing to act as a balm for all wounds" without herself being an authentic spiritual experience. An authentic spiritual experience is said to come from profound love or intense suffering. Haunting and hurting pain, both.

I used to pray for an authentic spiritual experience, and believe me intense suffering was not in my plan of action...and profound love was all about rainbows, roses and butterflies. Imagine my resistance when I realized they are one.

I wonder, though, as I read again "An Interrupted Life," how far have I come from my starting point, really? Oh, from my eyebrows up, I'm light years advanced. I have suffered deeply and I have come to love deeply the very source of my suffering.

But we're talking the Holocaust. Being a victim of evil beyond imagining during the Holocaust. Being taken to Auschwitz...to the showers at Auschwitz. And up to the end, thinking of...even desiring to be...a balm for all wounds.

All who read of Etty Hillesum and are touched, humbled, torn are strengthened by our weakness...our desire to lighten such a load seventy-some-odd years later is in itself of God.

Etty Hillesum lives.

Thank you.

OPEN OUR HEART...LET GRACE FLOW OUT

I wonder if spiritual growth doesn't start with the grace of silence. We know that there are two ways to  view everything...through our reasoning mind's eyes (ego based) and through our spiritual eyes (God based).

Silence, too, is two-tiered...there's the mouth-taped-shut silence, self-will all the way, and the silence where no conscious thought is involved, only the grace of gratitude pervading us. It is ours to choose which way we will go in the midst of personal chaos.

Interestingly, we, who are just beginning to accept silence as the answer, will almost always go for the scotch-tape route first. And that is right and proper...keeping the mouth shut however we can buys us time. Our second thought, though, must be toward God...a "thank you" will do that just fine.

I suspect silence in the midst of turmoil is so difficult because our ego is always ready to defend...first, last, always. The ego-based reasoning mind perceives we are being victimized by our own silence and, without a thought of God, its only reasonable response is attack.

The lesson we're learning is that when we feel victimized by our own silence that is simply our ego telling us that we need to respond in kind...in short, to stand up for our self. Yet, the fact is when defense is the answer, we are stuck in the problem.

We need to change our mind...or, put another way, upgrade our attitude. We do that by opening our heart and mind to let God's perfect will flow out...a new way of responding can and will open a channel toward peace for all involved.

The main drawback with this way is it takes longer than shooting a person in the back of the head. But the consequences are oh so much better...they are consequences we can live with.

Thank you.

HOLDING THE TENSION

We are transformed when we neither project our anxieties, angers, fears and hurts on to others nor use them to castigate our own self, according to me.

I believe one of the greatest blocks to spiritual growth is the way we allow ourselves today to bitch, carp and complain...i.e., we "vent." Nobody holds the tension (as Rohr calls it) anymore.

This has been an almost incomprehensible gift to my spiritual growth...and my examples are so puny! But they're mine, and until we have our own, we have no base on which to build.

One recent situation of mine was my not responding in kind to the friend who called me a bald-faced liar. This was a gift straight from God. The gift being, I did respond but I responded with kindness, courtesy and love... just like we're supposed to! Like we tell others they need to.

It really does feel as warm and wonderful as we're promised, but only if we do it not through grim determination to say nothing, but by silently thanking God for guarding our tongue...saying or not saying...as he willed.

The best part of my experience is the friendship is still intact. Our friendship, albeit changed, has grown deeper...certainly more loving.

Holding the tension is a process, not a one-shot deal. I went to God with my thank you p.d.q., early and often. I don't remember but I don't think it took a full 24 hours for my head to move on. I do know I would have blown that friendship away had I never heard of spiritual growth through holding the tension. And I'd still be "venting" about it.

God is always on call...it's just not our call that determines his way.

Thank you.

GOD'S GIFT AND WANTING IT

I believe that life's spiritual test is how well we can comprehend and live the promise that the God we seek is already ours...already within me, within you, within us which includes every living thing, and every living thing includes stone and steel. Cats even. Everything. Everywhere.

The word is that there cannot be a place that the living God is not. This becomes ours to prove, and the battle begins...within. Between the reasoning mind's view and the spiritual view.

"Ours to prove" takes a lifetime for most of us. It is life itself that teaches us that only through surrender do we reach our gold. The paradox is that we learn to resist not, yet the only way to surrender is to resist! For how are we ever going to surrender if we never resist? 

We can accept that our road to God is to resist a little less each day. To find within our self daily the love necessary to give over to another, specifically to give over to the one we are resisting...there's always someone to our ego-victory mind.

Maybe God's gift to use is an attack mind and the spiritual tools to overcome it. We get to supply the want to.

Thank you.

TO CONQUER SELF, SURRENDER

The way of conquest over the material, the temporal, which all should know, is learned by the conquest of the physical, the self-life, in each of you. -- "God Calling," October 25

There. That is the main message of spiritual growth itself: Conquer self.

My concept is that in conquering self, all good within is unblocked...and will flow out from our center (where God lives) to others, returning to us with twelve bushels full left over.

Conquering self to me starts with not being as nasty as I want to be, not responding in kind to less-than-wonderful remarks, acts or attitudes, and then moves up to being...truly feeling...care and concern for the other. The other being the original slinger of the less-than-wonderful.

Amazingly, I have been able to do that today...with an extremely few others. I just give me points big time that I've gotten over myself with two or three. And that's all it is...getting over our own self. No matter what mud is slung, if we don't take it personally, it is not ours, it cannot touch us.

This I know from my own experience, so I can guarantee it...so why are there only "an extremely few" I've succeeded with? Because getting over one's own self is not a job for self...and our ego does not cede its control period.

We must go to God. Ah, there's the hook. It is really, really hard to remember that we go to God for God and that is all when we see our problem, we know the solution, and we cannot do it. So we go to God and ask him to help us, to do something about it, to even help us accept it as unfixable, to do this, that, etc., etc., etc.

Until we can go to God for God and that is all, we're being our ego's spokesperson...going to God to ask for that which cannot touch our ego...our will. We were gifted with free will at birth, our journey is ever to give that free will back. As long as we're asking for our will's solution, we're playing our ego's game...there is no God in that.

To conquer self, surrender self. And that is all.

Thank you.

GOD CAN AND WILL...ALWAYS AND ALL WAYS

In his Daily Meditation of this past October 22nd, Fr. Richard Rohr wrote that we must come to "an awareness that I am the enemy and the enemy is me. I cannot destroy the other without destroying myself. I must embrace my enemy just as I welcome my own shadow."

I dreamed last night that I came face-to-face with a person unknown to me yet I realized her as an alienated friend who clearly wanted to set me straight...again. Among other things, I knew we had not seen each other in over 30 years, yet she had stored deep within her the original peeve, plus 30 years of raging self-pity with my name on it.

When I awoke, I felt the alienated friend's presence, and I said, "You're just going to have to let me off the hook. That's your only road to freedom." With which I recognized my alienated friend as a stand-in for my undeserved suffering, my nemesis as it were.

I felt my heart and soul soar with the certainty that God can and will...always and all ways...find a way to speak my truth to me.

Thank you.

SIMPLIFY...AND LAUGH

My little guy is at my feet, sound asleep. Apparently he has absolute faith that he is taken care of and that he will be taken care of.

I don't think that his faith comes from the fact that he can see me. I think he just uses the love he was born with, lets it grow and flow like the proverbial mustard seed whose only job is to grow, so grow it does. No nattering, coaxing, worrying, analyzing...it grows because God formed it, gave it its job to do, and set it free to be. Which, if we would only accept it, is just what he did for you and me.

So here's my theory: Animals, plants...all nonhuman living things...do God so well because they neither want nor believe they need to think about it...plus they don't have opposable thumbs.

Simplify. Detach. Love. Laugh.

Thank you.

LOVE THE UNLOVABLE, LOVE OUR SELF

You learn to speak by speaking, to study by studying, to run by running, to work by working; in just the same way, you learn to love by loving. -- Saint Francis de Sales

What the good Saint does not say is that the one we need to love is the one least lovable to our reasoning mind. We must go beyond reason to love. To go beyond reason is to divorce our self from our own opinion, according to me.

The unfortunate truth is that there is always and without fail someone we believe who is not our friend...and it is not our fault. Here's an exercise: Imagine that one's face, then say, "I can love you" to the mental image. Thus begins the process of allowing our self to go within, there to experience the freedom in changing our mind.

We can think the exact opposite of what we're believing if we are willing to give up our rigid, righteous and right self-justification for believing ill of the other to begin with, i.e., s/he said or did it first and worse. Our goal now is to return goodwill for ill will...and we will need inside help.

I'm convinced the hard-to-bear-with is so difficult because she is me. What we see is always our self...we find that difficult to accept because we refuse to take the necessary time to really look...to look with newly opened eyes and an inviting mind. We generally are so put off by the difficult one that we will not allow that we are anything like him, thus we refuse to look behind the façade.

It'll probably take a "thank you, God" or two to get started, but the payoff is priceless. We wind up feeling really, really good about our self...because our Self is at the wheel!

Thank you.

LIFE REALLY IS LIKE A BOX OF CHOCOLATES

Life is a conundrum, a paradox, an enigma:

How do we get love?  We give love away.

How do we get a vibrant, alive and spirit-filled mind? Through silence.

How do we overcome our enemy? Embrace him.

How do we win an argument? Agree...quickly. 

How do we know for certain sure there is a God? We don't.

How do we accept not knowing? We laugh.

How do we laugh when reliance on God is apparently essential in our life? We love and laugh.

Where do we go to learn how to love and laugh? Within...to God.

Thank you.

BE SILENT...DO NOTHING

Do nothing.

A friend told me that is an ancient Japanese or Chinese adage, I don't remember which, and it doesn't really matter, it is the direction that is important. That direction speaks to me of learning detachment...about which we can never learn enough.

My favorite lesson in learning detachment is, "Sit and wait on the Lord." That's in the Bible somewhere, and it is fairly hard to do. Mainly because our reasoning mind is continually nattering, wanting to know when the Lord is going to do something, and what, and how, etc.

Which reminds me of the other toughie...listening. Speak not, slow the mind, and...listen. Sitting with all those questions racing, rounding them up, bringing them back to zero, starting over...that, according to me, is how we go about learning how to sit quietly and listen.

We are in the process of building trust in the Lord. Because having faith and trust and belief... all the necessary intangibles... are gifts that aren't ours to get just for the asking...or for the wanting. It takes diligence...concentrated effort...to do nothing, to sit and wait...on the invisible, untouchable Lord.

Finally we understand. It is putting in our time...silently, reverently...that lets those necessary intangibles flow from the inside out. I have found the hardest part in spiritual growth is not outward activity but inward receptivity. How do we get a vibrant, alive and spirit-filled mind? We still our thoughts. Stilled thoughts bring a silenced mind is a receptive mind,

A receptive mind is open, allowing our inner Self to inform us...if, as and when It chooses. There. That is the pearl beyond price.

Thank you.

DISCARD SHIELDS...REMAIN OPEN

"In the end one has to discard shields and remain open and vulnerable. Otherwise, scar tissue will seal off the wound and no growth will follow. To grow, to be reborn, one must remain vulnerable -- open to love but also hideously open to the possibility of more suffering." -- Hour of Gold, Hour of Lead -- Anne Morrow Lindbergh

The book Hour of Gold, Hour of Lead is a compilation of Lindbergh's dairies and letters between the years 1929 and 1932. The hour of gold is of the years when she met and married Charles Lindbergh; the hour of lead, the years when their baby boy, Charles, Jr., was kidnapped, including the time of the trial of his kidnapper.

I read the book in 1974, and it opened me to possibilities beyond my imagining. It was akin to reading my own diary...written by me in another time and place. And believe me there is nothing about my life that was or is even vaguely similar to Lindbergh's...only our inner thoughts, feelings, fears and dreams. I wrote my first and last fan letter to Lindbergh after reading this book.

It was the above quote that took my breath away when first I read it. Which it still does every single time I reread it. I am jarred by the simple truth that we must remain "hideously open to the possibility of more suffering." I cannot wrap my mind around the fact that I knew that for truth in 1974. I could just barely comprehend what remaining open and vulnerable actually meant...the idea of desiring to be vulnerable was a real heart-thumper.

This quote is so utterly true to me that it never entered my mind that my whole world wouldn't adopt it as their own...just as I wanted to. In fact, it turned more of my friends off than on. The "hideously open to the possibility of more suffering"  made some go green...and they said some fairly blue things into the bargain.

The fact is, though, if we are going to live a turned-over life...if we are going to do what we say...then there is no earthly way we can weasel out of the possibility of more suffering. That is part of life's grand plan...how we deal with the suffering we deal our self (for we are our own dealer) determines how happy, joyous and free we are going to allow our life to be.

Every time we catch our self complaining, whining, being a drag on our own life and looking for someone to blame, we're simply being closed, hideously closed, to the fact of suffering, thus suffering all the more. There. That is the exact point at which we deal the dirt to our self...the instant when we pick up the mud and sling it in our own face.

Whenever we're feeling less than wonderful about anything...physical, mental or spiritual...we remember Saint Augustine has shown us how to give it to God through his,  "Grant what thou commandest and then command what thou wilt."

We can simply pray, "Thank you, God, for this gift. I'm willing for you to do your thing with it. You lead, I'll follow." Then quit kvetching and do.

Thank you.

SING IN THE SUNSHINE, DANCE IN THE RAIN!

This is what you are to do. Lift your heart up to the Lord with a gentle stirring of love, desiring him for his own sake and not for his gifts. --The Cloud of Unknowing, Chapter 3

Again, again, and yet again, no matter the question, the answer is, "We go to God for God and that is all."

My greatest teacher  was my first dog, Ari, a seven-pound Maltese. This was in the late '70s, and I loved...I still love...that little guy with every drop of blood in me. And he loved me equally. He loved everybody just as much, actually. You could not not love Ari. Much like Ruckus in truth.

My first deep learning with Ari was the time he peed on the living room carpet...just after I had taken him out for his morning constitutional.

Almost the instant I saw that, I was furious, livid, heading toward hysteria, shouting...literally shouting at him..."You know better than that; you are bad, bad, bad." The unconscious thought immediately preceding my fury was (1) he did that on purpose with malice aforethought and (2) I'm not a fool and I'll not be played for one.

It took me a year or more to realize that unconscious first thought and that led to my half-way believing  that there in one form or another is the two-step foundation for all personal disagreements.

The immediate gift in that was Ari just went on loving me...didn't change an iota, just wanted to be in my presence, preferably my lap. The resulting gift there, of course, was that for a short time I punished him by ignoring him (the worst punishment, I believe) but I couldn't resist for long either his love for me or my love for him. I did, however, learn from it. I knew Ari could do nothing but love, but the fact that my love for him was not lessened was my wonderment.

One day...blinding flash of the obvious...I realized that I am...we all are...God's Ari. We pee on the carpet, God loves us. Doesn't beat us up or natter us about it. Doesn't shun us. Just loves us.

God's gift to us is our conscience. We can only pee on the carpet once and get nothing but love in return, without feeling fairly bad about our self when (when!) we do it again. It is our own feelings about our behavior that makes us change...not God's punishment on us for being our self-described "bad, bad, bad."

God loves us right out of the chute unconditionally and forever. It is his great gift to us to let us throw it back in his face until we get the picture. When we stop doing life our way (blaming and shaming our self and others) and start loving unconditionally, we will be the peace we seek...the love we want and already are.

We can stop seeking God's love...know it, show it...sing in the sunshine, dance in the rain! We're God's Ari and we're free to be!

Thank you.

ONE...PEACE, LOVE, GOD

According to me, all petty disagreements up to violence in the streets, right into nuclear warfare, begin with resistance. The blinding flash of the obvious is that resistance is within...self-generated based in the ego's need to self-protect.

The path that leads away from self is through Others...doing for, living for, thinking only of Others. And the lonesome thought penetrates our hearts, "But when will I get mine?"

The answer, of  course, is that that is how...by thinking, feeling, doing, being for Others.  We become full to overflowing with love. By knowing love for, feeling love for... in other words, sending love forth, we are loved. We know it and we show it.

Others is always the answer, and the answer can be found through laughter.

Laughter holds the key to good things. As long as we start by laughing at our self, we'll quicker than quick be laughing with Others...where we find the pearl beyond price: Peace. Love. God.

Thank you.

EXPECTATION vs. ANTICIPATION

[The following is a reworked reprint of my blog of October 28, 2010.]
   

I considered this morning the difference between expectation and anticipation. For whatever reason, to my ear, expectation has a negative connotation…but anticipation just sounds happy.

I checked my Webster's (I may be the last person standing who still uses a cloth-and-paper dictionary) just to see the exact meaning of each word.

Expectation: to look forward to (as a foregone conclusion)…which to me translates as “to look forward to with dread.”

Anticipation: to foresee and provide for beforehand…which to me is a hoped-for thing.

In anticipating a complete awakening in God consciousness, I can know it is taking place within me now. I have no idea how. It will display Itself through me. It already has and is.

In expecting an unfolded consciousness, I have my own idea what that means…enlightened, feeling at peace, knowing sunshine and rainbows. In other words: getting a whole new me. And right there…that is what keeps me stuck in my material state of mind. Even in thinking I’ll be getting peace of mind, loving kindness…all the pretties…I am still in it for the getting. Not getting these self-determined objectives leaves a vague feeling of “loser”…sunk by my own expectations.

Be still and know that I am God…I already am.

Thank you.

BE KIND...DON'T ACT, BE

We are told, and I believe, "There is no advantage to playing the victim, and we are forever warned against victimizing others."

In a less-than-wonderful situation, the hard lesson learning is that when we respond in kind, we are responding as a victim.  We immediately wrap ourselves in the self-protection of the victim shroud where we either shrink into quivering hurt or lash out with our machete-tongue. Either is just an excuse to victimize another...often not even the person we felt victimized by.

According to me, all slights, petty disagreements, arguments, wars unto annihilation begin with somebody feeling the victim and, justified, victimizing another. The big however, however, is, in my own experience, there is nothing harder to actually do than to not respond in kind. Because we must detach from our own self-interest.

The word generally heard is that we must love our own self before we can love another...we must forgive our own self, etc. etc., etc. I believe it is our preoccupation with self that keeps us from even considering the other much less loving him, forgiving her.

It is only when we choose to let the word we hear be Others, and then willingly choose to put Others before our own self, that we can begin to know the Light. I'm convinced we make that choice when we realize that the Father really does know our needs, and it really is his good pleasure to give us heaven...and that realization can only be delayed by our attachment, our want, to feel the victim.

Here's my good news: The Sermon on the Mount is the virtual playbook for how not to play the victim and how not to victimize others. Its only message, underneath it all, is: be kind...not act kind, be.

It's all about cleaning up our insides...our thoughts, our feelings, our self. Clean them up and out...to make room for love and laughter, and  that is all.

Thank you.

NEVER STRIVE FOR PEACE...RELEASE IT

If you're not moving forward, you're moving backward.

The first time ever I heard that, I was blinded by the light! I'd probably heard it many times, but the first time ever I inside heard it, I knew it for truth. I saw that there is no standing still. Nothing is stationary, not even the Rock of Gibraltar...every day Gibraltar is changing...minutely, but changing, and so are we.

We get to a place of peace and want to stay there...now we've got it, now we're safe, we tell our self. So we hunker down and try to hold it. Right then we've shifted into reverse by trying to hold on to that feeling of peace. There is no peace when we're trying to hold on to it...we've just lost it in the trying.

Here's a  paradox: When we realize that we're moving backward is when we've started moving forward...it is that realization (and panic) that turns us away from self toward help from elsewhere. Maybe toward God, maybe a mentor, maybe our spiritual director...whoever, wherever, it is away from self, and it feels scary. Because we don't know. Period. We do not know. Or we wouldn't be seeking help.

A further paradox comes when we find that place of peace again. If we haven't entirely surrendered to a power greater than our self, we will again try to grasp that feeling of peace...nail it down inside, hoping it will hold forever. Which...here we go again...means we've already lost it, we're moving backward.

According to me, that is a very simple description of life itself...and that's if we're doing it right. There is no perfect peace with never a blemish or a niggle in life. Indeed, striving for that, we are taught, is the "point at which we depart from the degree of perfection that God wishes for  us here on earth."

It is the striving for peace (for any inside thing, really) that takes it away from God, keeps it our self-perceived objective, and heads us down that wrong road again.

Loose it and let it go.

Thank you.

WHAT FREEDOM FEELS LIKE

I read Fr. Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation this morning and identified with: "One of Jung's foundational ideas is that mere words and concepts do not give us access to the unconscious. *  *  *  Analysis, if it remains dominant, is merely a control mechanism of the ego."

And then I read my God Calling and saw why I identified with Rohr's statement. I had written a note some years back that fear of letting go of what my reasoning mind has not yet resolved keeps me stuck in the past.

That was true then, it is true now. The great leap-to-your-feet-and-shout-hallelujah fact is that without resistance to that fact, we are freed from the compulsive need to analyze...to analyze even that fact!

Knowing, or rather accepting, our truths about ourselves is the sky-light for our Soul. Accepting that I over-analyze has freed me to over-analyze in which case today I rarely over-analyze. With a little help from my friends (and foes!, my real angels),  I keep a clearer eye on myself, my motives, my perceived persecutors, my me...I just don't analyze us endlessly.

I'm fairly certain that is what has given my intuition its voice. My blinding flashes of the obvious are free now to step right up and out...to state their case as it were.  I no longer have to analyze them unto uselessness.

There. That is what freedom feels like.

Thank you.

PRAISE IS OUR WELCOME MAT

Things I try to remember:

The first step in avoiding a resentment is to not respond in kind. To respond in kind to another's jibes, slights and snubs is to become the other's puppet...we detach from our sacred self and attach to the other's ego self. Or, bluntly, we become a mule for someone else's anger.

Whenever we think "I can't," substitute "I choose not to." Because we can...with God, all things are possible.

Whenever I'm feeling proud of myself...or of another, for that matter...I substitute "I am pleased." (The very word "proud," through no fault of its own, has been co-opted by ego and usually is met by resistance.)

The path to happy is through praise...the road to a head full of free is through praise...the way to a faith that works is through praise.

Praise is our welcome mat...always out, always stepped on, still welcoming.

Thank you.

CLOSE ENOUGH TO PERFECT. FOR NOW....

I awoke this morning knowing I need to upgrade my attitude, to turn my thoughts away from the bullets I seem to be receiving and realize them for the daisies they are...if I choose them to be.

I have experienced pure peace...we experience peace whenever we choose to, actually. It is our thoughts that keep us from living there. It becomes reasonably easy after awhile to train the mouth to stay shut, to keep the eyeballs stationery as opposed to rolling in contempt at his remark or her idea or them in general.

The thoughts, though, are a different witch to burn. They are ever on, and if, at the moment, there is no him/her/them to focus on not rolling our eyes at, our thoughts can and will attack inside. Spiritual growth is not the only inside job...self destruction is, too.

When we allow our thoughts to go to that place of either 100% well or 100% not, we allow our poor, pitiful, put-upon-me victim to slash, lash and burn us at will...we have invited our victim to be the god of our own understanding. It will never say no to that invite.

Just acknowledging that process has quieted my inner churning. There. I have done my part in upgrading my attitude...by reminding me I'm still crazy after all these years and that's close enough to perfect for me. For now.

Thank you.

BE WARY OF THE OVERLY SCRUPULOUS

We seek still more spiritual growth not for knowledge but to experience...to experience the Father within us.

Without the experience of God within, we do not have God, we have eyebrows-up knowledge...and that is all.

To know only from the eyebrows-up encourages the assumption that knowledge is sufficient. Proving yet again that assumptions are dangerous because they are so often wrong. According to me, knowledge to God is the least of all the human attributes.

Those who rely primarily on their brain power rarely trust their intuition...God's perfect hidey-hole. They are of the dual mindset...scrupulous in their belief in black/white, right/wrong, exaggeration to any degree is a bald-faced lie. Resting in the letter of the law leaves no room for inner expansion...no pathway to God's hidey-hole.

Be wary of the overly scrupulous.... -- "The Cloud of Unknowing"

Thank you.

THE ROOT IS LOVE AND LAUGHTER

Life is a never ending discovery of self, according to me. The hard lesson learning is our need for immediate detachment from our discoveries. Immediate detachment means the instant we receive an insight, by our thank you, we return it to God to do with as he wills. That can only benefit us.

Usually, however, when we discover a new piece of our self, this enchants our ego.  Regrettably, the ego will quickly see the need for improvement, overwhelming us with the double-edged urge to either improve the improvement or to flail in self-pity because we still are not enough...to our reasoning mind. All of which leads to the want (masquerading as a need) to find somebody to blame...usually our poor, pitiful, put-upon parents. Or God.

I am convinced that the only way to ever live at peace within our self is through forgiveness. To learn the art of forgiveness is to learn the art of love and laughter...of and at our own self at first. Then with anybody and everybody we come in contact with during our day.

We can just smile and keep on walking and have a good day. I'm convinced that's the root of forgiveness.

Thank you.

ABUNDANCE

[The following is a reprint of my blog of November 23, 2008.]

I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.  John 10:10

I find it interesting that whenever I come across that quote, my thoughts usually go directly to winning the lottery…to me winning the lottery, in truth.

The fact is, the quote specifies having life, having life more abundantly. Which is so much more than winning the lottery. Because life encompasses all…health, wealth, wisdom, joy.

To me, then, to have life and to have it more abundantly, is to walk in the perfect world of God consciousness. That is the proof of the promise that all my problems can be solved by spiritual principles.

This may be a two-pronged miracle for me: 1) that I do believe this, considering how often I fail to prove it; and 2) that I prove it at all…and I do, and I do.

Thank you.

ON TRANSCENDING THE REASONING MIND

There are so many good and true people who are attached (and resistant) to the way they first were taught about God...Jesus being their usual whipping boy. They cannot seem to loose it and let it go. The single best instruction I ever received...and took...was to find a God of my own understanding.

I accepted that instruction without question, and I am still building the God of my own understanding. When I read or hear a Truth that transcends my reasoning mind, I try to let it prove itself out. I can't "pass it on" until I have experienced it for true in my life.

That's exactly how I came to trust a "blinding flash of the obvious." A blinding flash of the obvious is being able to find an inner authority that we can trust, a voice larger than our own--and yet it is our own voice too. We must learn from the inside out. God's voice comes from our deepest depths.

I used many different sources in building that definition...Rohr, Easwaran, Goldsmith, Erma Bombeck, F.X., Arty...a whole raft of 'em. I know I am blessed to have so many friends, known and unknown, to whom to listen and learn. So that what I pass on, I know to be true to me...I have experienced it.

Thank you.

TRANSFORMATION OF CONSCIOUSNESS

The main interest of my work is not concerned with the treatment of neurosis, but instead with an approach to the numinous [Transcendent God experience]. The approach to the numinous is the real therapy, and inasmuch as you attain to numinous experience, you are released from the curse of pathology. Even the very disease takes on a numinous character! -- Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) from Fr. Richard Rohr's "Daily Meditations," October 7, 2015 

That. Is. It.

That is the key to my gratitude for the bad side effects of meds. I am apparently one of the "two percent of the population" who will experience everything from halitosis to lockjaw if I take any of the new "miracle" drugs. This is my experience, not my "with my luck, I'll bet that's true." I have undergone two major surgeries due entirely to the side effects of prescribed meds. I still get nose ulcers every winter from a nose spray I was prescribed ten years ago and used for less than a week. There's more, but if I get too enchanted with my uniqueness, I'll miss my point.

My point being...if not for my bad side effects, I would have turned to any number of the new meds any number of times. Over the years, I have felt anxiety beyond imagining. I got to sit and wait on the Lord...who came in his own perfect time. I don't fear anxiety any more. I still get visited by anxiety on occasion, but only rarely and each time is less scarifying. I do not love it, I just do not fight it. I've learned to rely on my "Thank You" prayer, and I feel One'd.

I've been depressed...I've felt unwanted, unneeded, unloved and unappreciated with my own set of facts backing my feelings up! I got to sit and wait on the Lord...who came in his own perfect time. I don't fear depression any more. I still get depressed on occasion, but only rarely and each time is less scarifying. I do not love it, I just do not fight it. I've learned to rely on my "Thank You" prayer, and I feel One'd.

That is what is known as a transformation of consciousness through numinous. And numinous is the real therapy, and inasmuch as you attain to numinous experience, you are released from the curse of pathology. Even the very disease takes on a numinous character!

Let me admit here and now, never before in my lifetime have I heard of numinous, but when you hear Truth, you know it. God loves us sooo much.

Thank you.

IT IS THE PATH WE TAKE THAT MATTERS

There is no enough to our ego-based reasoning mind...we want ours, not to mention what we can get of yours.

There is no enough to our spiritually based mind...we go to God for God and that is all, which is never ending.

This is the same lesson we learned long ago: There is a reasoning mind answer and a spiritual answer to everything. It may well be the same answer; it is the path we take to get there that is different, that matters.

Understanding this lesson gives us the freedom to choose which way we will go, which way we will grow. More important, we come to realize and accept that either way we choose, sometimes we will fail and fail consistently if we are doing it right! That is what ensures intellectual and spiritual growth. Nobody every grew...lived!...who only experienced smashing success, winning, getting over on others...in other words, had their ego-dreams come 100 percent true, 100 percent of the time.

Most important, I am convinced that the only way to ever live at peace within our self is through forgiveness. Which is just another way of saying, "We have ceased fighting everything and every body." (This is just a gentle push toward choosing still more spiritual growth because, assuredly, the reasoning mind will never get us to forgiveness.)

Thank you.

GET IT RIGHT, NOW

Here's my theory of life everlasting: Life is simply a test. We all come from the same gene pool of God consciousness, which is also known as "heaven," and that is where we return. The time we each have with our test varies, and none of us knows our time limit.

All are born with free will; the test being how quickly and completely we exchange that free will for God's will. The sooner we begin to make our exchange, the freer we are...to help others make their exchange. That is our only job.

The exchange can only be made through forgiveness...which is love at its toughest, i.e.,  best.

We keep coming back until we get it right.

Thank you.

THE GOLD RULE...DOING IT

[The following is a reprint of my blog of September 25, 2009.]

If “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you” doesn’t speak to you, what about noblesse oblige, the almost forgotten act of those who have, seeing to the welfare of those who have not. It’s associated with the nobility, but at one time so was money. Today, those who have the most money seem to be the least noble.

“I heard the news today…oh boy.” It only gets grimmer, it seems.

The incredible, the obscene amounts of money a teeny percentage of the people of the world have and control.  Many of  those same people living in fear they won’t get more or will lose what they have...some are lying, cheating, stealing to hold onto what they have AND get still more.

Clearly, the hard part for me is to sit not in judgment of those rich folk, to waste not my hard-earned peace on righteous indignation...which only leads to a feeling of moral superiority, the camouflage of the dishonest wannabe. And it doesn’t matter what it is I wannabe...rich, so I can show “them” how they should act; Mother Teresa-like, so people will see how poor, done right, is enviable...makes no never mind, it is dishonest. Which is, of course, what I’m looking down my nose at in the first place...dishonest other people.

Peace, be still.

Thank you.

TO ERR IS HUMAN, TO FORGIVE, CANINE

DOG PHILOSOPHY

Author Unknown

This is for all dogs.

It is for the Redbone Hound riding

shotgun in a pick-up truck -- ears blowing in

the breeze like Fruehauf mudflaps.

It is for the Chihuahua with the soul of a

Mexican Retriever.

It is for the mature dog, well-behaved out

of respectfulness, not out of submission.

It is for the younger dog, still on a path to

finding The Way.

It is for the dogs who know the answer to

the age-old riddle of why we chase our tails.

This is for all dogs who embrace the

moment and greet each day with the

confident awareness,

"We. Are. Dogs."

Carpe Canem

With love, from Ruckus and me for Linda, Mac and all their own....

Thank you.

PRAISE THE HERE AND NOW...BE FREE

It is only the ego that requires "certitude and security." Centered persons, secure in their nothingness, live with no future, no past. A centered person has no worries...for worries only apply to the future or the past.

Pull back, pull in, let go, detach, praise the here and now...be free.

Thank you.

SIT AND WAIT ON THE LORD

Failure comes from depending too much on your own strength.

Why is that so hard to...what? Flow with? Make mine? I read it, I believe it to be true, I relax into it, I feel safe. Suddenly I hear that train comin' round the bend in my mind...chugging "what to do what to do what to do what to do what to do what to do?"  I see that I'm trying to avoid using the peace of mind that God has offered about a penny-ante problem.

God's solution: I've got it, leave it to me.

My solution: just call Petunia and explain, just walk right up to Herkimer and ask, just insert self...and risk yet more rues, regrets and remorses rather than sit and wait on the Lord.

If only God weren't such a drag-foot! His way could take years...or minutes. It's that unknown factor. Always, God's got the unknown factor. There it is. God is a sure thing...only we do not get to know ahead of time exactly what is his sure thing? When will it happen? To whom? For whose benefit...right now...ultimately?

It is always easier to just do it (never mind the utter uncertainty of exactly what to do) than it is to bide our time or to simply think pleasant thoughts about roses and rainbows.

I'll just bet that that is God's perfect plan...give us no clear answer on how to get over on someone (which is inevitably our ego's bottom line) so that we are forced to use our inner supply of faith, trust, patience, love...that which we don't use because they take too much time but continue to pray for.

Why, I wonder, do we continue to pray for that which we already have but do not use? Do we think praying will keep us on the good side of God? We need to keep on the good side of our own self...then we won't want to follow our ego's siren call to get over on Petunia or Herkimer.

I know it...but show it? It just takes time. Sigh.

Thank you.