OUR CONTINUING GOAL...LOVE AND LAUGHTER

My mind is still; my ego has been set at rest. -- Eknath Easwaran, "Words to Live By," December 31.

Humility, a healer of pain. -- Anonymous

You're taking yourself too seriously. -- My bathroom mirror

There is just one answer, no matter the question, and that is: Love and laugh. -- Life experience

My hope for me and for you is that we let 2017 be gentle with others. Let others be free to be gentle with us or not to be gentle with us. It makes no never mind what others choose to do or to be, our hope and goal remains unchanged...i.e., for the peace of love and laughter. And only we can choose and do that for our self.

Thank you.

BE THE FIRST TO GIVE OVER

Be the first to give over. That was a long-ago blinding flash of the obvious, and I've never forgotten it. Which is not to say that I always remember it...it just means I come back to it, sometimes p.d.q. sometimes a day late when my hair's on fire. But come back I must, and there's the pearl.

I had lunch with a friend yesterday, and in our chatting we came to the conclusion that the answer to most hurts and/or peeves is laughter, which almost always needs must be at our own self. I have become convinced, and this is from my own perspective so you won't find a lot of followers, that the most important spiritual direction ever given is: We have ceased fighting everything and everybody.

The importance probably is in the fact that it does not make reasoning mind sense. Reasoning mind sense lives in the belief that there is ever a reason to fight...to stand against wrong is right, dim-dam it. But, again and again and yet again: We must go beyond reason to love.

Going beyond reason is where be the first to give over lives. Neither be the first nor we have ceased can even be considered without the deflation of our ego...ego-deflation in depth, a.k.a., still more spiritual growth.

All that is necessary for us to live free in our own head (meaning, nonresistant) is for us to realize that we will never agree one hundred percent with everybody, but we must come to agree with the person we are in disagreement with right this very minute...even if the disagreement is only in our own head, which, after all, is the origin of all discontent...in our own head.

Interestingly, our own head is also God's hidey-hole. We can get all esoteric and think of God as living in our left elbow or our right earlobe, but who's kidding whom? He's in everything, and, in general, he makes himself known through our thinking. It is our ego, God's roommate in that hidey-hole, that we must be willing to get over in order to free God to do our thinking for us. 

Only then do we know the peace, love and joy of giving over in order to cease fighting.

Thank you.

THERE IS ONLY GOD'S WILL...EVER

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

I am a believer that it is not until we accept that we each must do what we must do, with its warts and all, that we start to walk free in our own head.

For instance, I have made peace with the fact that I am not an overly thoughtful person. It was a great relief to me when I finally accepted that about myself. I was spending way too much time beating me up about it...not changing, not becoming more thoughtful, just coloring me ugly on the occasions that I thought of it.

Acceptance is not found by a simple "please and thanks ever so" and moving on, a freebie as it were. Acceptance asks fairly hard work of us...the work being in detaching from our own ideas, divorcing our self from our own opinions, a.k.a., changing our mind, letting go of self-determined objectives...asking God what He has in mind, in short.

There it is: Acceptance comes through the search for spiritual solutions...not solutions that will benefit self only, but solutions that will benefit others and us...and sometimes not us at all, but always others, in which case we get the bennie, i.e., a heart at peace, the golden core of acceptance.

The solution to self-centered fear is in accepting that our perceived problem has no solution...for there is no problem. There is only God's will...ever. Seek that until we find it, and there's our peace.

Seek and ye shall find.

Thank you.

LIFE IS A RISK...LIVE IT

It seems we're always seeking, always thinking, analyzing, searching for The Answer. We're going in the wrong direction. What we need is The Question.

I was rereading Joel Goldsmith's "The Heart of Mysticism" this morning, and I was blinded by this paragraph (that I had underlined more than once...so I'd read it before and understood its significance to some degree):

I and my Father are one and therefore, all that the Father has is mine. This means that our only existence is as an outlet for an infinite Storehouse which is invisible, and that it is possible for us to be consciously one with this infinite Storehouse, this fountain of Good.

There it is: This means that our only existence is as an outlet for an infinite Storehouse which is invisible. I exist, I am here on this earth for the single purpose of being an outlet for God's fountain of Good.

Which leads to my question: How?

The glorious gift of that question, How?, is I no longer run pillar-to-post seeking...all my answers are within. I can only find out how by doing God's will NOW...and being open to being wrong. [Which reminds me, I say we'd best rid our self of the idea that we must do the next right thing...nothing will keep us stuck, stationary, motionless like the ego-victory decision to do only the next right thing.]

Take a risk...God has our back.

Thank you.

MORE ABOUT LOVE

A friend from my high school years called me yesterday...I was ecstatic! Just simply terrific to hear from her, to catch the high points of each other's lives all these years later. It was a heartwarming conversation.

This morning I awoke wrapped in my rues, regrets and remorses remembering the conversation and how I had badmouthed someone from our past. Once I was fully awake I went looking for my sliver of gold that I'll need in order to build my other, or better, way of looking at my bad-mouthing.

And there it was...the realization that I needed (never for a minute wanted) to do the badmouthing because I was totally unaware that I had any hurt/anger/ugly left in me about the person from my past...the one who had indeed hurt me badly. I thought I'd long since found my part in the mess, had forgiven and forgotten and believed I'd succeeded very well.

On my well-padded knees this morning I thanked my Father for opening my eyes, and for giving me this opportunity to love my past/present tormentor....not to forgive, not to forget, just to love which encompasses forgive and forget.

I once heard someone say we must love with an open hand...that made a place in my heart, and that's how I want to love. Just to love...friends, friends-not-so-much, politicians and other prostitutes (get thee behind me, Lucy)...we all need love.

There's an old, once-popular song, the name of which I don't recall, that has the line in it, "...live, love, laugh and be happy." There. That's all we need to do to live a life free from hate.

 I started this thinking that I needed to learn more about love...actually, I need to do less unlove.

Thank you.

COOPERATE AND GRADUATE

We do not need to believe in God for Him to take good care of us, which was a blinding flash of the obvious several years ago.

The question is, knowing that AND believing in God, why do we continue to worry, fret and stew about our future, whether we're going to have enough, or our past, how we can make a rue, regret, remorse unhappen.

Those two frets keep us forever untouched by the here and now, the place where God lives.

The President/CEO of the last place I worked had a saying, "Cooperate and graduate." Whenever a snag in plans came up, or a snarl between members arose, he'd bring it all together with those three words. It took me awhile to realize that dictate is the modern-day equivalence of the Sermon's "Agree with your adversary quickly." Which led to my big-bang realization that we can't go wrong when we rely on spiritual principles in our daily life.

It is that reliance on spiritual principles that keeps us in the here and now, unfettered by "what if?" and/or "how to CYA?"

This is a lesson we learn...and then relearn a time or two ( to quote my beloved Chet). Thank God that God is patient.

Thank you.

CHOOSE YOU THIS DAY. . .

God lives within us all. I wonder if only certified saints live that truth. I suspect not...I'm guessing it isn't only saints who can live that but that saints and grownups alike live that truth.

The question is, do they realize it? We read Mother Teresa's dairies and letters, and she seemed as unsure of her spirituality as just plain folks do. And Saint Augustine was the one who is reported to have said that lust would be with him three days after his death.

They say it's not easy being green, but it's no easier being a grownup, according to me. None of us need wonder about the saints.

But isn't that the goal? To be a grownup. to know it and show it. The catch phrase in today's world is, "But what does that look like?" Grownups don't have to ask.

God lives within, but it is a hard lesson learning that we our own self must choose to loose him...loose him and let him flow.

Thank you.

TWO WAYS TO SEE ONE THING

I just read an old note I wrote in my "God Calling," and it thrilled me to my toes. All I had written was, Yesterday, I gave over to John in a very small but ego-denying way. Thank you.

I made note of it because I had just started the big turn from thinking any giving over was proof I was gutless and would never be able to stand up for myself, take my own part, know and show that I'm just as good as anyone...the poor-pitiful-put-upon-me list drags on.

I'm glad I date my notes and that I made note of this because, in truth, it isn't all that old. In my mind, I've been doing this for a long, long time..."this" being giving over. And there it is...that is my ah-ha. I've given over for a long, long time, only I've just begun to realize it as God's better way and not ego's wimp-out.

This is proof again that there are two ways of looking at every one thing...through our ego's eyes and whine or through God's and bask in sunshine.

Thank you.

GOD...ENTIRELY HEART FELT

Love is endlessly alive, always flowing toward the lower place, and thus life-giving for all, exactly like water. -- Fr. Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," December 23, 2016.

"Love is endlessly alive, always flowing toward the lower place exactly like water." Like water, love seeks its own level...filling every nook, cranny and crack until there is nothing but love.

I am blessed with a blinding flash reminding me that God is love, and I understand that God is always flowing toward the lower place because there is no higher place. God seeks its own level, is everywhere, is in everything...filling every nook, cranny and crack until there is nothing but God.

God is invisible to the naked eye, unhearable by the natural ear, unreachable by the reasoning mind...is known only through the heart.

I am guessing that's why faith was born...to help us trust our heart.

Thank you.

BLACK MEMORIES TURNED GOLD

A "black" memory from back in the day visited itself upon me last night. Another one of my rues, regrets and remorses dressed up like as if it was my owner.

I heard myself asking God to please take those memories away, lift them out of me, release me from them. Fortunately God was paying close attention because he calmed my rampaging mind and then reminded me that that is what most of us over the age of 50 fear the most... our memories, our very minds, being taken from us!

God and I have walked this road before. He changes my mind, turns it peaceful and we chat. I tell him I am ready for him to amplify those memories...bring them out stronger and clearer so I can kiss them on the lips and walk free in my own head.

The almost unbelievably good news is that I very well know that this is exactly what he is doing...that he always can and will do this for me. I also know that Lucy will fight him every step of the way because she's allowed...that's her job. Here's the pearl beyond price: Her resistance is the Golden Goose that will keep turning me away from my ego-victory desires, within to God seeking for his will to be done whatever that may be.

This may be my road for the rest of my life which can only be right, just and merciful...that's my guarantee I'll always have peace of mind to turn to by my own personal choosing.

God is so good to me.

Thank you.

THE WARM GLOW OF HURT

Feeling unloved, unneeded, unwanted and unappreciated is just a feeling, it is not a fact...and that feeling comes by invitation only.

I once said to a friend that I'm in trouble when I start feeling unloved, unneeded, unwanted and unappreciated. Weeks later she wanted me to tell her again what those four "things" were because she loved them so much! There it is...the things that turn a teacher's hair gray.

Those four "things" are not something we want to hold onto! We do not want to hunker down with them...because for sure it hurts so good when we do. But that's what makes forgiveness so difficult for it is nigh impossible to lift our self out of that warm glow of self-justified hurt.

That four-pronged feeling must be the nesting place of ego. I can all but see Lucy preening in her unloved state, choosing which someone to blame, wallowing in unwantedness, swelling with the self-importance of being so unappreciated. 

I know this for fact: If we're feeling unloved, unneeded, unwanted and unappreciated, we cannot be feeling gratitude or grace or God's love. We're feeling self, plain and simple. In other words, rigid, righteous and right.

As Jesus could have said, "Give me a break."

Thank you.

WE CAN'T, GOD CAN, LET HIM

I'm caught up this morning in my thoughts about an acquaintance: Nobody likes her. She would run her mouth 24/7, if she didn't have to sleep, with nothing but I, me, my, mine sounding. I roll my eyes when she gets started but she doesn't take the hint. She's oblivious to all but her own feelings and facts.

I think I heard...or did I feel?...something. It seemed like a breath, felt like a breeze, sounded like, "What you see is always yourself." But it was probably just the wind rattling the window.

I just had a flash of an old flash...it recurs often so I'd best take it seriously: God is love. Love is nonresistance. If we will welcome every niggle, bump and barnacle as we trudge our road of happy destiny, we will live in love.

I'm guessing the human condition precludes that, but it does not preclude our having that as a "want to." It may be a pie-in-the-sky want to, but doesn't that beat living as a constant mud-on-my-shoe victim?

I've now got two "impossible" dreams...one, for my true religion to be kindness, and two, to think with nonresistance, to love in a word.

All things are possible with God.

Thank you.

KINDNESS...AND DOING IT

Some great person once asked the question, "What wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness?"

And today I read that the Dalai Lama has said that his true religion is kindness.

Kindness seems to me to be the easiest of all the giving arts...a smile and a nod of our head to a stranger qualifies as an act of kindness. Faith, hope and charity get the best p.r., no doubt rightly (I mean, who am I to contradict St. Paul!) but they require some serious inside adjustments.

Which leads me to question my own self...why don't I do kindness like the Dalai Lama, as my true religion? Given the opportunity to choose kindness or...not even meanness but obliviousness I guess is the best word...obliviousness, then, why do I more often than not choose the latter?

Actually, I do often choose the kindness of a smile and a howdy today when I'm out walking Ruckus, but that's almost a hundred percent due to him...Ruckus has never met a stranger and strangers love him.

Pondering it, I can start thinking of kindness as my daily religion...and it'll start with my thoughts. Uh-oh. There's where it ain't so easy. Maybe that's a bar too high. I know, I can start by following Ruckus's lead...he doesn't think about it, he just wags his tail and grins at everybody.

I'll not wag, I'll just smile...that's close enough to  perfect to start.

Thank you.

AND AGAIN...LOVE AND LAUGH

Think your thought-way into the very heart of My Kingdom. -- "God Calling," December 18

I have read  "God Calling" daily, with very few missed days, since somewhere around 1973. Never, I am saying not ever, have I noted: Think your thought-way into the very heart of My Kingdom.

Not to put too fine a point on it but, "Think!" our "thought-way!" in? Which isn't to say that isn't what I do (for that is exactly what I do), I just thought I was doing it wrong and the Lord was being extraordinarily patient with me.

I have had many (many!) people explain their practice of meditation, and what I heard was (not saying what they said but what I heard), they sit down, close their eyes and, just like that, drop into The Zone...easy-peasy.

I've even found the gold in my "doing it wrong." I usually have a blinding flash of the obvious immediately after my meditation, sometimes but rarely during, and I figured even though I was doing it wrong, God can and does find a way to be heard.

Who has more fun than God? All his people trying so hard to "do it right," and he's already cleaned the place, cooked the meal, cleared the table and readied the bed.

God loves us sooo much.

Thank you.

LOVE...OR ELSE

Everybody wants to be loved... nobody wants to do love. That's my take on the old gospel song, "Everybody wants to go to Heaven, nobody wants to die."  Which, when I think on it, is just another way of saying, "Everybody wants to get, nobody wants to give."

Somewhere in the Bible it says something about to be like our Father, we must needs be willing to be slandered and vilified and kicked to the curb...repeatedly. I have no problem with that (read, that sails right over my head) until I, or my ego Lucy in truth, is nicked. Then nothing will do but to nick back, harder and in a more vulnerable place.

I half believe that the trouble with actually doing love is there are no immediate or visible rewards. Well, who needs that? I can get that with hate...only at least with hate I get noticed. Pouts Lucy.

I saw President Obama on TV yesterday walking an extremely fine line of restraint of tongue, and I heard the pundits later just castigating him for not showing strength. Restraint is the Rodney Dangerfield of personal actions...it gets no respect.

Here's the payoff, though: I'm betting the President sleeps better because of his restraint. I doubt he's awakened at 3:00 AM by his own rues, regrets and remorses because of his unrestrained tongue. That's close enough to gold for me...because I'm not sleeping all that well right now due to my unrestrained tongue. Rats.

If you do not learn how to love, everywhere you go you are going to suffer. -- Eknath Easwaran

Thank you.

ALONE AGAIN...UNNATURALLY

Life is a balancing act, I'm thinking. On the one hand there is that which requires us to turn to God, on the other hand there are the dailies we must meet, greet and deal with.

The balancing rests in our acceptance of a power greater than our own self. For it is the dailies that determine how rocky our life's road will be, that require us to turn to God to keep our Self centered. For if we lose that center, we are back to being self-centered.

Our self-centeredness is where none other is allowed full entrance into our consciousness, certainly not a higher power, for sure not God. There. That is when we are alone again, unnaturally. That may be the definition of unbalanced.

Thank you.

JUDGING...THE EGO'S PLAYGROUND

Bob Dylan not personally accepting the Nobel Prize is on my mind this morning. I heard some well-known personalities on TV just chewing him a new one because of his arrogance. I felt uncomfortable at how transparent their judgments were...as in, If I ever won, I'd do so much better, etc.

I don't doubt that the majority of us want to accept ourselves just as we are. Some, again no doubt, have no problem with that, and go on to be in-our-skin comfortable no matter the occasion or the company attendant. Some don't.

And some just want to judge both the comfortable and the uncomfortable, the comfortable as arrogant and the uncomfortable as ignorant...and all the avenues and alleys in between. Judging is the ego's playground.

Personally, I never saw any Kennedy Center recipient look as miserably uncomfortable as Dylan looked when he received that award, and, who's kidding whom, receiving the Nobel is a step or two up from that in prestige, pomp and circumstance. He's been in the public eye for it seems a hundred or so years, but fear is older than that and knows no boundaries.

So there...I took my own flight of fantasy (that's an upgraded judgment), and I say good on him. His no-show told me he accepts himself just as he is...which is a far greater gift than the Nobel Prize or any other material award.

Thank you.

CHANGE IS A-GONNA COME

Change is here...here now. How it affects us and the generations to come depends entirely on our acceptance of or resistance to that change.

While we quibble over man-made climate change, the newly proposed cabinet consists primarily of non-believers in man-made climate change. Don't tell me God's hand isn't in that for, according to me, that is the good news. Nothing less drastic could be the impetus to bring all of us non-scientific "little people" together for the pure purpose of positive action.

Cursing the situation is the equivalent of burning still more coal. We must crash and burn with the resistant curses, turn to Mother Nature and bless the cause that made the turn essential...or, use the equivalent of solar/wind/rain energy to do our thinking.

To me, that is the nut of what must change...our own mind. Our vehement resistance is polluting the atmosphere by the violent energy we put out there. Our own thinking about the President-elect and his proposed cabinet must be welcoming because the more we kick, curse and cry over them, the more we stay stuck. Only there is no standing still in stuck...it's akin to standing still in quicksand.

I'm reminded of the civil rights movement of the '50s and '60s, the feminist consciousness raising groups of the '70s. We took up no guns, we initiated no physical harm, but, by the grace of God and the help of friends, we brought change.

Figure it out...kwitcherbitchin...Seek ye first the kingdom of Heaven and all these things shall be added unto you,.

Thank you.

FREE FLOATING THOUGHTS

My God Calling note on this date in 2008: "I meet Ruck, a Llasa Apso, today...yes???" Two beautiful things came from that meeting: First, it was a Yes, he did rescue me, and, second, a friend later called him "Ruckus." That's an entire love story right there as I look down at Ruckus lying asleep at my feet.

Then I read yesterday about a football player reaming God because he, the football player, did not catch a football in a big game. My BFO: God's will is not about catching a football...God's will is about learning humility when we don't catch the football.

That blinding flash led to the next obvious: God's will is not about protecting us from parading our ignorance, God's will is about learning humility when we get caught parading our ignorance.

To cop a quote...there is no cheap humility.

Thank you.

FEAR IN THE FORM OF ANGER

[The following is a reprint of my blog of March 5, 2014.]

The spiritual way of life is a reversal of the human way of life. -- Joel Goldsmith, "The Heart of Mysticism" at p. 836.

The spiritual way of life is all about giving, the human way of life is all about getting. We experience this in particular when we win...when we get over on another, no matter the size or significance of the victory, we rejoice. We got...s/he gave (up). That's ego victory...spiritually, our road just got a tish steeper. I wonder, is there such a thing as spiritual victory or is that an oxymoron?

For sure ego victory is my real sinkhole today. I have "won" over Kermit, and I am having the devil's own time not lording it over old Kermit. I fantasize letting him know that I was well aware each and every time he slighted me. All those times that I gave thanks to God for keeping my mouth shut, that I gave myself spiritual points for not responding in kind, for agreeing with my adversary quickly...all those times I was earning my wings...I am eager now to pitch just so I can let Kermit know he did not get over on me...that I, indeed, have gotten over on him and spiritually too by God (so to speak).

Here's what I can project, and this from my own life experiences: In my ego's urge to teach him a lesson, I withhold, being just a tish cooler, less available. Interestingly, when I was being slighted and snubbed, I was using spiritual principles in order to not respond in kind...being agreeable in a word. Now that I've won, my ego wants to make him pay...to be disagreeable in a word.

If I continue on that road, withholding love, fear (in the form of anger) will take charge of Kermit because withholding love seeds fear in the other. That fear will redound to me...and the same old same old will spring forth, looking new. All in the course of an ego victory.

My ego is my Satan...get thee behind me ego. Now all I need do is loose it and let it go...and that'll happen only with the grace of God.

Thank you.

HOUSE CALLS FROM GOD

I pray for God's forgiveness. I feel nothing. I beg for God's forgiveness. I feel nothing. I fall to my knees to again plea, and I hear, You don't feel forgiven because there is nothing to be forgiven.

My thoughts are race-race running on how to make Gertrude ashamed for what she did to me. I hear, When you punish another for harm they have done to you, you are short circuiting karma and karma then redounds to you.

There was nothing to be forgiven in the first place; there was no harm done to our self in the first place. It is our own picture that needs adjusting...it is always our own view that is askew.

A forever truth: If we will upgrade our attitude, we will upgrade our problem. Invariably.

Thank you.

I WONDER. . . .

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. – Attributed to Edmund Burke

I come across that quote ever so often, and I wonder every time why so many of us immediately think that doing nothing means that we didn’t pick up a gun and shoot our perceived evil...or at least smack it upside its head.

Actually, that’s what I believe we’re on this earth to learn...to learn how and why not to shoot, slap, stab or bad mouth. I’m a believer...working hard to be a doer...that we must needs resist our own resistance. We welcome it with acts of friendship...a smile and nod of the head is an act of friendship. We work up to kissing it on the lips...which truly is acceptance with a scepter.

I’m still doing my morning meditation wherein I see Mary, the mother of God, as my shepherdess. I see her as she makes a place for me in the presence of my enemies. I picture my enemies as a skunk (penniless), a snake (friendless), a three-headed goat (spiritual arrogance), a toad (plain old arrogance), a pack of hyenas (the ones I’m thinking ill of), and Mary who spreads wide her arms, and we all dance with her, hugging and laughing and kissing and having a fine time.

The bar between believing we gotta kill our enemies (or get the better of them somehow) and accepting that we can make friends with our enemies is fear. And that is all.

It is our fear we must make peace with. Fear will ever be with us but it doesn’t have to live with us...it can just visit on occasion. And when we decide enough with the fear, in loving kindness we can release it.

How do we do that? By reminding our self of the promise and the fact that spiritual principles can solve all of our problems. Then turn to God with grace and gratitude...that’s kissing fear on the lips.

Afterthought: Because I am utterly unqualified, I rarely think in terms of making nice-nice on an international scale, but to my mind this is what diplomacy is all about...one country's representative being agreeable to another country's representative who is being equally agreeable right back for the benefit of both countries. In a perfect world...or is it just in a more spiritual world?

Thank you. 

IT IS NEVER HIM/HER/THEM

I am as good as I ought to be...being me.-- blinding flash of the obvious from awhile back

I come back to that BFO because it seems to be growing in importance in my soul...I suspect that means my ego Lucy is gearing up to fight it.

Lucy is going for perfection...her idea of perfection...at all times. My soul wants me to accept me just as I am and trust that is close enough to perfect for  God.

Thinking on it, that makes sense...accepting my imperfect self gives me reason to stay closer to him, not wander along Lucy's picture path of perfection, sowing seeds for my own discontent. For, whether we know it, accept it, believe it or not, our discontent is always homegrown...it is never "him/her/them."

Loose it and let it go.

Thank you.

LOVE, THE ETERNAL ANSWER

My morning's blinding flash, a prayer:

Lord, bring to my mind all that you have taught me...I am not in need of new thoughts, new words new ideas for I already have all the revealings I will ever need, i.e., love is the answer, no matter the question. It is my thought-life, my attack mind, that calls for help. Please and thank you. Amen

Thank you.

RESIGNATION IS EGO; ACCEPTANCE IS GOD

I was reminded recently of the difference between resignation and acceptance.

Resignation is ego firmly in control. It's the almighty Me who has no choice but to keep doing what she's doing, plus it is what he really wants to do to begin with. S/he will never be free.

Acceptance is our soul who knows herself powerless to stop doing that same thing but knows he cannot stop and is heartsick about it. Hitting the bottom of heartsick opens the door for God to enter and do for us what we cannot do for our self.  And we are free.

It's the difference between giving up and giving in. Giving up is an act of self-control, as in suicide. Giving in is simply letting God flow. It is getting out of our own way because we have learned (1) that our reasoning mind will never get us there, and (2)  we can and do trust God ever has our perfect and personal solution in hand.

Thank you.

GOD MEANS IT FOR GOOD

There's a story in the Bible about Joseph and his brothers who sold him into slavery, he persevered becoming the right hand of the king, the brothers ran into a mess of trouble and came running to Joseph for help, apologizing all over the place for their ill treatment of him, and Joseph said to them it was no big deal, that ...here's the punchline (my very favorite of the few Bible stories I know)...You meant it for ill, but God meant it for good.

I am not at all sure but I think that's in the very first book in the Bible which means finding the good in a bad situation, i.e., finding God in it, has been an accepted practice for thousands of years. Why, then, do we still resist it?

When something to our mind's eye happens that is less than wonderful, we promptly go into a grey-brown-puce funk, with a strong feeling of being unloved, unwanted, unneeded and unappreciated. Maybe it's because not many overwhelmingly bad things happen where we have no choice but to turn to God...we haven't yet learned to trust God in the dailies.

I suspect that's the measure of true spiritual growth. How steady in our socks are we when we feel betrayed by a friend or the car doesn't start? 

Remembering but refusing to do the right thing, find the gold in it so to speak, because it was just not right is ego on parade...old Lucy leading the pack...and we all know there is no spiritual growth there.

I'm a lot less scrupulous than I once was...I give myself angel points whenever finally I think to find the gold, and so seek it..

All things work together for good. -- Romans 8:28

Thank you.

CLUELESS BUT TRUSTING

Quite as important was the discovery that spiritual principles would solve all my problems. -- Anonymous

From my own experience, I can attest that spiritual principles can indeed solve all our problems. The reason why is that all our problems are based in fear. Are born of fear. Arise from fear. Anyway we put it, fear is the birther and the nurturer of all of our problems. According to me.

Spiritual principles alone can release us from fear. We certainly cannot think fear away...reason it gone...forget about it...ignore it...talk it to death. Having tried each and all of these (repeatedly), I can promise the above quote is true.

Here's a bare-butt fact: Any and every solution for the dissolution of the fear in our being is born in our reasoning mind...ergo, our mind is focused on fear alone which only increases the fear. It matters not how high-flown the thoughts we use are in trying to allay our fear, fear is our center at that point in time.

The answer is quite simply to change our mind, change our focus. That answer, of course, brings the next question right behind it: How? Let go and let God. It is that simple and that complex both at the same time. But trying to do that surely does takes our mind off our fear. Ah-ha!

There are those who would rather try meds, magic mushrooms, marijuana, etc., but God's cheaper, lasting and legal in every state. Plus if those are a real fix, why are there so many treatment centers for the recovery from their use?

The first spiritual principle we can go to (because it is easy to remember when in a panic) is "Thank you." The second one is "Thank you for my everything just as it is right this very instant." And isn't that counterintuitive, paradoxical and just plain crazy to the reasoning mind?

There's the key...it is reliance on the reasoning mind that we must needs let go of. Anything we're focused on trying to get shed of doubles down in its efforts to stay...it's the old don't-think-of-an-elephant story. What we resist, persists...another great old adage.

So we do our own doubling down and turn our thoughts to the God of our own understanding which is exactly what spiritual principles do: Spiritual principles turn our focus to God. And what is God but love? And there it is. A clueless but trusting "thank you" to the God of our own understanding may be the most calming and loving thing we will ever do for our self.

Thank you.

GOD IS LOVE...FLOW WITH IT

My morning blinding flash of the obvious: It is not that we hate anyone, it is just that we love our self more.

I roll that around for awhile...it is not that I hate anyone, it is just that I love myself more than anyone. How do I reconcile that "I love myself more" with my sometimes feelings of self-hate, self-unacceptance?

I suspect the two words love and hate are the problem. It is  not an easy matter to get a grip on what exactly "love" means...means to me personally. I've never pondered hate, per se. I don't doubt that it started out in my life as a blanket that I threw over anything that felt negative. But now that I've got my spiritual water wings, I don't call it hate...I either call it "less than wonderful" or I ignore it.

Love on the other hand. I've been studying...actually, honestly, studying...for over forty years. I'm almost embarrassed to admit (except that I've admitted it so many times that it's laughable now) that I was in my thirties before I realized (i.e., got the concept!) that there are different kinds of love. Before that, to me there was boy-girl love and that's it. I had good friends that I felt just swell toward...it never entered my mind that was love.

I suspect that my first dog, my Ari, a Maltese with whom I was madly in love and I knew it, was my breakthrough example of non-romantic love being as all-important as romantic love. Who's kidding whom, though? Pets are on the same level as humans in the love world.

But when I say, "God is love," what exactly does that mean to me personally? First thought: Acceptance...then, non-resistance (which is the same, though, isn't it?).

Free-floating thoughts: Love allows everything to flow in and through and sets it in the right direction as it flows. That's how God perfects that which is given me to do. As my errors, misjudgments, missteps flow, they affect others. For my own sake, I acknowledge my errors as soon as I am aware of them, but God has already gone before us to make the crooked places straight for all concerned. Our job is to know that and to show that, meaning simply to forgive (another word for acceptance). There. That is how I reconcile my conundrum...forgiveness of self and others.

All of which may or may not be so, I just let it flow.

Thank you.

ON TRANSFORMED CONSCIOUSNESS

We read about "a real transformation of consciousness," and those of us on the spiritual wave, long for that transformation. I tend to believe that it is in the longing that transformation begins for our reasoning mind knows naught of higher consciousness.

I also believe that it is in the longing that we are lifted into another dimension...but lifted by minute degrees. Doesn't "a real transformation of consciousness" sound like an immediate leap? Or a loud bang? Or at least a whoop-de-do?

I personally know I have experienced a real transformation of consciousness by the life I lead today. But it is in looking back, in remembering when, that I realize and am really aware of how different my thoughts and actions are today from back then. Kinder, I believe, if I'm only allowed one word for it. To myself and others...including cats.

And here's my whoop-de-do...back in the day can be just last year. I was thinking "yesterday" but transformation takes some time to cozy down, to become real. A blinding flash of the obvious is just that...it takes serious settling in with it that makes it real in my life. I sometimes read of a flash I had sometime back and am stunned...I didn't make it mine, I just wrote it down. Which isn't to say that it was lost...nothing is lost just because we've forgotten we had it. After all, it came from him to begin with, he can resend.

That's an important part of the transformation of consciousness: The reasoning mind cannot accept that God can and will bring us whatever we need, be it a previous blinding flash of the obvious or a new pair of shoes. If we have the need, God has the fulfillment. And he does not hold back.

The Father knows our needs.

Thank you.

GET IT RIGHT, NOW

[The following is a reprint of my blog of October 5 2015.]

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.

EARNING THE RIGHT TO SING "AMAZING GRACE"

We cannot detach from our ego any more than we can detach from our soul any more than we can detach from the Father within us. We can choose to believe or not believe in any of them but not believing does not negate their reality...it just forces us to think up different names for them...and then feel left out because others don't understand us. (Therein lies the victim, but that's a whole 'nother story.)

I'm guessing few of us, or any of us,  had a first rational thought that was about ego, soul or God...but about God, specifically.

My take is that we come from God, from God consciousness, into the material world, and our life's journey is outward...learning the ways of the world and how we are powerless over some people, places and things. Usually, we learn it is primarily people we are powerless over, and there is where we meet our match. That learning, our powerlessness, is the "necessary suffering" we hear so much about on the spiritual path.

To our reasoning mind, our powerlessness is our bane. No. An emphatic no!  It is our angel. It is that powerlessness that forms the U-bie that leads us back to where we belong...with God. Out of self. Back into God consciousness.

The apex of that U-bie is our crash-and-burn in whatever form that takes for us as long as it leads us to  utter hopelessness...our own personal despair. That's the necessary point, the point at which we turn to the great unknown and cry: "Please...someone, something,  somewhere, somehow, somebody...please." There it is. The most sincere prayer we will ever pray. And we spend our life trying to make an end-run around that. Because, my friend, that is a-hurting we have never known before. And nobody ever got there singing "Mairzy Doats."  It's only after the fall that we sing "Amazing Grace." And mean it.

Two musts to learn and remember: One, hopeless despair is our angel which we cannot force into action, and two, our rues, regrets and remorses are our invitation to that angel who is fully aware when, not if, we are ready.

Our Father knows our needs.

Thank you.

LET GO OF WHAT YOU KNOW...BE SILENT...LISTEN

I feel like I'm walking a new path. But, actually, it's not new...it's just another reminder of that which I know to be true but ignore too often.

It's all about detaching from my junk-truth. I do not need to read another new book, nor reread another old book for that matter. Which isn't to say I need to give up reading...no. It's all about coming to believe...to accept...that I already have all I need in order to be the better person I want to be. I already am all I need be. Another spiritual book and/or teacher isn't going to add anything to my understanding. Which is to say that the spiritual life is not a theory, I must live it. The Sermon is not just a bunch of pretty words, I must walk them.

So that's the new path I'm tottering down. Now the hard work begins. Being that better person. Doing it. Living it. I need remind myself that of course I'm not starting from scratch. I'm a better person than I ever dreamed of being just twenty years ago...which, apparently, brings me up to ready to get started.

I think I'll stop using Meister Eckhart as my role model though...Pope Francis sets a higher standard than I expect to reach in this lifetime but I am willing to try. And he has a sense of humor. The Pope is a leap  up from my practical wannabe role-model...Senator Elizabeth Warren. She's mouthy, but she's right.

Here comes that good advice again: Sit and wait on the Lord.

Thank you.

ON BELIEF AND DOUBT

Recently I talked at length with a friend who is a believer...but. She just can't quite get over her own self to acceptance. I suspect it's that she is willing to believe, just unwilling to put that belief into action...to walk it. Or maybe it's just that because she cannot believe the vast wonderment of God all the time, she can't believe that she believes.

The great Billy Graham gave me possibly my greatest freedom...the freedom to believe, absolutely believe, in the God of my own understanding in the midst of my own daily doubts.

In an interview with "The Washington Post" some 30, maybe 40, years ago, he was asked if he ever had doubts about the existence of God. And he answered, "Every day."

That to "The Washington Post" and from the Born Again And Still Rising Billy Graham! I became a believer in his sincerity in that moment...not a follower, but a believer.

That backed up the line from somewhere in the Bible that I loved, Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief. I first heard that when I was quite young and was leery of trusting that it meant what I thought it said but was afraid to risk ridicule by asking.

There it is...the proof of the too-scared-to-believe mind. We doubt the Bible's word, but completely believe when it comes from a human's mouth.

That just cracks God up. He laughs...and loves us a tish more. According to me.

Thank you.

ON FEAR AND HUMILITY ABORNING

Random thoughts...updated:

There was a time, back in the day, when I worried that I was not humble enough. Then I came to see that I would have to get humble before that could be a problem. After which I realized there is no "humble enough." Every waking moment is a realistic chance of our being humbled...and being humbled by our own design. The best we can hope for is enough sense to see our part in it and to take responsibility for it. There...that is humility aborning.

And, no, believing that we are nothing but worms in the dust is not humility...it is ego on parade, dressed up as Less Than Anybody Thus Worthy of Note.

Fear of financial insecurity, fear of  people, fear of anything is just another way to stay stuck in the belief that our fear has more pizzazz than God has power.

Money is not the root of all evil...it is the love of money that is the root of all evil. There is nothing wrong with money or of prestige and power...it is our obsessive desire for money, prestige and power that beggars us.

God loves us just exactly as we are right this very minute. On a good day, I love you a tish more than I love me...then humility whispers, "Liar, liar, pants on fire."

Thank you.

WE TAKE OUR COMFORT WHERE WE FIND IT

There will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who have no need of repentance. -- Luke 15:7

The first time ever I heard that, my first thought was, "There's going to be some heavy-duty partying in heaven when I get there." But that was a long time ago...in my youth, so to speak. Before ever I repented now that I think on it!

And don't you just hate the very word "repent?" Or is that just me? My feeling is that it's almost enough to make me hope I never get to that point. So sanctimonious...holier than thou. Too high in the instep by half, as my unsainted grandmother would say.

I don't know why but the idea occurs to me that we must needs come to love our self before we can give our self permission to admit, without fear of condemnation, to disliking that which we shouldn't dislike. (Is that convoluted enough?)  Well, think on it...be it words, people, places, babies...and there it is. Babies. Disliking babies and saying so may explain my entire point.  You can get some really evil-eyed stares, not to mention a particularly spiteful "well, bless your heart" or two if you openly admit that babies just do not do it for you, and I speak from experience here. But then I've probably given the spiteful evil eye to people who openly dislike dogs.

Hmmm...I started this thinking to write about the way we beat ourselves up over our mistakes, over past rues, regrets and remorses. The futility of it, specifically. It's entirely ego driven which, even as we admit that, we get a certain approving charge out of being so insightful.

Well, enough said. All we need do is read old Luke at 15:7. If we can't take comfort in being the one sinner, at least we can feel good that we're not of the 99 self-righteous.

Thank you.

ON SEEING THROUGH GOD'S EYES

There is nothing that is not spiritual for those who have learned how to see. - Fr. Richard Rohr

God's gentle reminder to me this morning came in the above quote. Many of us are learning how to truly see...to see through God's eyes. The hard part, of course, is when I look through God's eyes, I must needs take my focus off me...memememe.

From my eyebrows up, that is my goal, my earnest desire, to see through God's eyes. However, if that "earnest desire" is in fact true, I should have no trouble remembering it...meaning I do have trouble remembering it. I can use my ego Lucy as my fun-foil till my face falls off, but who's kidding whom? Do I want to view my world through my own I-am-my-world eyes or through God's I Am eyes? And there is the hook...an honest desire is all that is needed.

It is that honest desire that declares me powerless to do it, that opens the door for My power to flow out and do for me in ways I could never have imagined. And perfectly yet.

It is God's I Am world that brings us all together as one. That brings the truth to There is nothing that is not spiritual for those who have learned how to see. Please and thank you. Amen.

Thank you.

GOD'S UNWANTED GIFTS MADE PRECIOUS

NOTE: This is my November 25 post, yesterday's post. I have no idea why it did not publish but it surely bears out my point of my daily sixes and sevens. Pish-tosh.

I made my two-minute contact with God this morning, and I am so glad I did!

As it happens, to my reasoning mind's eye, the dailies of my life have been at sixes and sevens. Bear with me here because I'm going to list some: Awhile back, I scraped the side of my new car (my fault, but I'm blaming my grocery for their too-narrow parking spaces); then my hairdresser gave me a G.I. Joe haircut...two months ago, and it hasn't grown enough to get it shaped properly yet! Yesterday morning as I brushed my teeth, the tooth my partial hooks onto fell out...just fell out of my mouth. Yesterday morning. My favorite holiday morning. Thanksgiving dinner morning. The dinner for which I had reservations so I pay whether I show up and eat or not.

I used to believe if everything is going to hell in a handbasket that either God is peeved at me or I'm just a screw-up...or both.

God loves me so much that he gave me a new way to understand life itself; i.e., the wonderful mirror-image. As in, if it is true (and I choose to believe it is) that God only sees good, then when to my eye ugly happens, God's eye is seeing good...because it can only see good. Ergo, I must needs lift up my eyes to see through his.

There...that's the entire story of how when something awful happens to you (to your mind's eye), once you're on the other side of it, you can see through God's eye that it was good and for your benefit. That's the mirror-imagery of God's will. According to me.

That's why my two-minute contact this morning was so good...I've been feeling less than wonderful about all the sixes and sevens, and the tooth put the cap on it. Which got my ego Lucy up and running...all set to beat me up for screwing up.

As I sat down to make myself available to God, here came a blinding flash of the obvious...these less-than haps are simply the appearance of ugly. In truth, they are God's gifts solely for the purpose of bringing me consciously closer to him. Nothing opens the door of my God-consciousness faster than my going down that wrong road again...for which I am profoundly grateful.

It is a pure fact that all the uglies are mine to fix, but no blame attaches. As I go forward in righting what and where I can, neither bitching nor blaming, the crooked road is made straight, and I will know the grace of gratitude.

He goes before us to make the crooked places straight. Blinding flash of the obvious: A crooked place is always my attitude.

Thank you.

AWARENESS IS IN THE CONTACT

I just came across a quote of Fr. Richard Rohr's that I saved: We cannot attain the presence of God because we’re already totally in the presence of God. What’s absent is awareness.

I'd say the absence of awareness is entirely due to our neglecting the daily discipline that is required to attain a belief in...to experience, actually...the presence of God in our life.

The necessary discipline that I have found necessary is to every day, several times a day, make myself available to God. Just make myself available. I kinda keep "thank you" or "welcome" running in my mind whenever I'm not talking or reading...to fill in the spaces of my life so to speak.

On occasion I will sit down. Get quiet. Think, "Here I am, God. Speak or not...my ears are yours to use." If no click comes within that time, I stop and come back later and try again.

Personally, I am not a believer in a 20- or 30-minute period of trying...for me that turns the clock into the God of my understanding, and no clock and I have ever made conscious contact. But that's just me.

I learned early on that it is not necessary to take more than two, three, four minutes...minutes!...daily to sit and wait on the Lord. We know when we've made contact, and time does not exist then. It is in the contact that we become aware. We then walk away, uplifted, knowing a Soul at peace.

Thank you.

DETACH FROM ANALYZING...BE

I heard a very educated lady give a lecture recently on the essence of spirituality, on God, on what God is and what God is not. That sounds like I went to hear a lady lecture. No. I was lectured by a lady. In her defense, she did not consider it a lecture, she was not setting me straight, she was just sharing her educated understanding of God.

Although her understanding is not mine, it's not that far off, but in her world there is no laughing and scratching with God. There is in mine. Especially when my ego Lucy is running wild.

It comforts me to think of God as being on my side, as having my back. Which is not to say that I think of God as a form standing guard over me, but rather of my being conscious of goodness with me/within me...I reckon.

I like to feel God laughing at Lucy who is always trying to make an end run around him...I don't mentally picture that, I feel it. And that fits me. Same goes for Lucy...both are words in my consciousness that help me detach from my reasoning mind's analyses and be at peace. In prettier words, to find love in a loveless place as Thaddeus Golas wrote in "The Lazy Man's Guide to Enlightenment."

My spirituality is what I've often called "Grandma Moses spirituality." I have friends whose spiritual understanding I compare to Michelangelo...soaring, breathtaking, beautiful, not to mention educated. Mine's not that. Mine is intuitive, Grandma Moses-like...primitive in a word. Breathtaking to me just the same, but soaring?, educated? No. It is indescribable, actually. Which is my proof that God's hand is in it...or my hand is in his, more like.

Thank you.

NOTHING IS PERSONAL...GIVE UP THE FIGHT

Some friends and I were talking, and the question was posed: What in your recent life has changed you the most? Then, have you kept that change current? How?

With that in mind, I do believe that my deepest change came when I took the leap of faith of trusting that God's hand is in it, in it for my own benefit, whenever I'm going through something less than wonderful, the old sixes and sevens.

My sixes and sevens situations are almost always personal and on parade in minor disagreements. That word "personal" is the clue..."Detour! There's a muddy road ahead...detour!"

My great inner change came when I became willing to give up the ego-need to “stand up for myself,” also known as "take my own part." My new goal became to go for a win/win not an I win/you lose.  I now want to be willing to give over to the other first, to make the first move. I succeed more often than not, but I'm a far cry from...where I want to be.

Keeping it current, I still must make a conscious choice almost every time I run into an ego-block. I must remind me "and here, too, God's hand is in it." Sometimes it feels like I'm arm-wrestling with God before I get a hold on my ego Lucy. Lucy stands guard so efficiently that neither my reasoning mind nor God get first thought. However, thanks to the grace of God and a little help from my friends, I have learned to restrain my tongue today. 

I'm guessing that peace, and keeping it, boils down to there is nothing personal in a God-conscious world.  Give up the fight and follow Me.

Thank you.

PRACTICE LIVING IMPERSONAL LOVE

Love the Lord thy God with all your heart, mind and soul, and love your neighbor as yourself. - My inexact memory of Christ Jesus's two commandments.

I'm reminded of those two commandments by my "God Calling" notes that I wrote on this day, the first in 2005 - Love is  not personal, and the second in 2007 - Practice living love by loving adversity the same as no adversity.

Jesus went on to teach the same love goes to our enemies. That teaching is still today being disputed by many. But, of course we must love our enemy as our self. What else could it be? It is reasoning mind simple to love a neighbor, or a friend, or our folks, or our dog. But to love our enemy? That is not reasoning mind, we must go beyond reason to love. Whole new plane of consciousness

Love is not personal came to full perk for me in 2005, but my inner eye had been glimpsing that for awhile...maybe from the time of my first realization that "resist not evil" is the answer, and "thank you" covers all the thinking on that.

When practice living that impersonal love by welcoming adversity as if it were not adversity came to me, it made sense because I had been given to believe that the Father knows our needs. Knowing, then, means all our prayers have already been answered, all our apparent problems have already been fixed. Adversity/not adversity...the walking-around ingredients of our life to be met with love, nonresistant love. And that is all.

Do note that it is important to accept that we do not live that 24/7, first, because we are plain old brown bag humans. and, second, because our ego speaks louder than God. We truly must get quiet and listen for the Lord...my dear Lucy shouts like a banshee just passing the time of day.

That's why the second note is vitally important...the word practice heads us in the right direction, living puts the cap on it. That's it...for the rest of our lives:  Practice living love by loving adversity the same as no adversity.

If we are doing life right, adversity will visit itself upon us whenever it wants to...for the rest of our life. So will "versity" but we can just bask in that...and with the exact same "thank you."

Thank you.

SEEK...SIMPLY SEEK

{The following is a reprint, reworked, of my blog of July 10, 2012.]

The Christ is a spiritual entity, a spiritual impulse...a spirit that is in man, and S/He it is that is blessed, anointed, upheld by the Father.-- Joel Goldsmith, "The Heart of Mysticism," at p. 220.

It was a real ah-ha moment when I grasped that Christ is not a person. That Christ is a spiritual impulse within us, upheld, sustained and maintained by God.

That was my initial mind-broadening venture into the meaning of love...or what love as an action really means to me, within me...no matter what another's definition is. It clarified for me the essence of love.

I realized that this spiritual impulse called Christ is love. Therefore, I knew that God, through the Christ, loves me, and that it is more important that I know that God loves me than it is that I know that I love God. It cannot be otherwise.

I know from my eyebrows up that Christ lives before conception in consciousness which is the universal pool of love, i.e., non-resistance, transparency, acceptance, surrender, invitation, welcome, thank you.

 I know this in my heart most of the time. In my need to know it unto breathing it, every morning after I've walked and fed Ruckus, I make myself available to God...just seeking a deeper knowing.

I go to God for God, and that is all.

Thank you.

RESIGNATION VS. ACCEPTANCE

I desire not to desire, for my will is without value, since I am ignorant in any case. Therefore choose Thou for me what Thou knowest to be best and do not put my perdition in what my autonomy and free choice prefer. -- Bayazid Al-Bistami

I've come across this quote before, and every time I do, it sings to me. I either love it or maybe I just love the idea of it because desiring not to desire is akin to trying to unthink a thought...impossible! And, by the way, is precisely what we do every time we beat ourselves up for beating ourselves up.

For why I don't know, but I'm reminded of the difference between resignation and acceptance. When we resign our self to, say, a really bad habit, we commit our self to that bad habit. We give in to that bad habit on the grounds that "I can't help myself."  Indeed, relying on our self alone, we cannot.

On the other hand, with acceptance, like surrender, we give up to a power other than our own self because "I can't help myself."  It is that power that we surrender to, providence if you will, that lifts our burden of self and walks us free.

I tend to think of resignation as negative energy or self will and acceptance as positive energy or God's will.

Chose you this day whom ye will serve. -- Joshua 24:15

Thank you.

NEVER SHORT-SHEET SELF-DISCIPLINE

Here is my servant whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom my soul delights. I have sent my spirit upon him, he will bring fair judgment to the nations.--Isaiah 42:1

I sent the above quote to a friend on the day of President Obama's first inaugural, January 20, 2009, with a note that I felt it perfectly described our new president.

My sincere prayer for myself is to upgrade my own opinion of President-elect Trump so that I can know within myself that quote perfectly describes this new president.

Achieving that upgrade is my responsibility through the grace of gratitude and God...and self-discipline.

Thank you. 

ON DROWNING IN OUR OWN PATHOS

Loving means to love that which is unlovable,

Or it is no virtue at all.

Forgiving means to pardon the unpardonable,

Faith means believing the unbelievable,

And hoping means to hope when things are hopeless.

-- G. K. Chesterton

Ponder that!, for there it is...that which explains, plainly, how we get right within our self. It's beautifully worded poetry for ego deflation in depth, that which we claim to be our goal.

Ponder it still more for who's kidding whom? We have a ways to go before we're free. Our emotions feel like November the 8th, 2016, was October 29, 1929 (Black Tuesday on Wall Street), December 7, 1941 (Pearl Harbor, "a day which will live in infamy"), and September 11, 2001 (9/11), all bound together like a ball of hibernating snakes.

Interestingly, I personally have not felt at sixes and sevens within myself. I've been kinda proud of myself for taking things so well...haven't beaten my breast and cried like some people I know have. Haven't gone into a black funk like some other people I know have.

I did, however, scream "That is stupid" at a friend yesterday...which is stupid. I've mentally decided a couple friends (who have not asked me) need my advice...badly. Ruckus pooped in the foyer last night.

Uh-oh.

I know denial when I see it...in others. But apparently it takes hard evidence for me to see my own. And all of the above amounts to that hard evidence, and that my ego Lucy is in charge and charging hard.

God bless our ego. It can serve a good purpose. It can awaken us to the fact that we're on the wrong road heading in the wrong direction...that we'd best turn around, don't drown in our own self-induced pathos.

All we are saying is give love a chance. A gentle reminder to self.

Thank you.

SOMEDAY SOON, LORD

Francis and Clare showed us it is possible to change the system not by negative attacks (which tend to inflate the ego), but simply by quietly moving to the side and doing it better! -- Fr. Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," October 6, 2016

Simplified, and according to me, that explains resist not evil, which, when applied, is the how-to in learning to tame the ego-victory mind with its negative attacks.

That brings to mind the I-wish-it-wasn't-true line, what we see is always ourselves (from I forget what book but it was a goodie). Speaking of a goodie, there's always the Sermon on the Mount with its warning about seeing the mote in his eye and seeing not the beam in your own...and how different is that from today's favorite, if you can spot it, you got it?

All these very well-known quotes are guides for taming our attack mind and "quietly moving to the side and doing it better." I have to laugh as I recognize how easily and eagerly we advise others of their need to use these guides, yet we break no records in applying them to our own self.

The lesson for me boils down to: Cling not to self-determined objectives, seek always still more spiritual growth...move to the side away from the ego, turn within to the Father who doeth the works.

What we're learning is how to change the system...i.e., our own thinking. Then, and only then, can we say without lying: All our troubles, Lord, soon be over.

To which Lucy wonders, "How soon is soon?"

Thank you.

LET HIM...THE HARDEST PART

Not by might, nor by Power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord. - Zechariah 4:6

There it is, the simplified version of the Bible, according to me. I say it is the one instruction we need hold near and dear in our head and heart. Fighting with words or guns...or silent scorn...will never get us free. This is especially true if we win our fight; we have a better chance for freedom from self if we lose.

The great gettin' up news is "My Spirit" is always, always, always available to us. The uh-oh, wait a  minute news is It is not available on demand. Although It is within us, without us, we accept that it is our privilege, our honor, our very duty to seek My Spirit. Our seeking is what brings us into the atmosphere of God.

It is in the atmosphere of God that our mind is changed, upgraded actually, from our hard-charging, gotta win, gotta get mine, runaway thought-train into the peace that passes all understanding. Into the presence of the Father within "who doeth the works."

Let him.

Thank you. 

ON A MISTAKE MADE BY GRACE

God is so good to me.

I awoke this morning feeling less than wonderful about myself for I knew I had betrayed my own beliefs. Long/short: Yesterday I received from a friend an on-line petition to and for the Electoral College to vote for Clinton period. Sign and send on was the request. Without a by-your-leave, I did just that.

So there it is, my bad.

Here's God's good...I awoke feeling really uneasy, a something ain't right, skin's on crooked feeling. With which I was gifted with a blinding flash of the obvious: By my actions with that petition I have made myself beholden to President-elect Trump. Holy moly. I can no longer sit in judgment, blathering loving-kindness words and thinking butt-ugly thoughts.

I realized in that flash that God knew I was going to need the golden goose to get over my own resistance to the results of this election...ergo, there went my signed petition. Nothing else would have so clearly opened the window in my mind for God's grace to show me that I had started down that wrong road again and needed to make a u-bie NOW.

With acceptance I find the correction isn't all that difficult...I upgrade my attitude is all. My proof to me of that happening is I think and speak against the petition's passage, for the President-elect's success, for acceptance of the election results in all respects. Which, of course, means for my own salvation...ah, the win/win.

God is so good to me.

Thank you.

ON BECOMING ONED

To walk free in my own head. That is my one, my only, my unifying goal.

If I am not free in my own head, all the spiritual education I have or think I have...all the sacred tomes ever written, read or to be read...will, to quote the late and beloved Sen. Everett Dirksen, "have all the force and effect of a snowflake on the bosom of the Potomac."

To walk free in my own head is the Father within flowing freely from me to and through thee...ever flowing like the sea.

And we are Oned, unified.

Thank you.

SMILE...LIFE IS CANDID CAMERA

The election of Donald Trump is not the cause of our misery...our opinion about that election is the cause of our misery. The election of Barack Obama was not the cause of their misery, but look where their not knowing that, not being willing to accept that, has led this country...has led us!

Which calls to mind the definition of insanity...doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. Let's not do that.

I do believe Hillary Clinton is taking the loss better than a large part of the country. We voted for her as our leader, lets follow her lead. Enough with the rues, regrets and remorses...let's change our mind, upgrade our attitude, smile.

As the old saying goes, get happy if it kills you.

Thank you.

THE WILLINGNESS TO TRY

Initiation precedes all real work and success for Me. -- "God Calling," March 28

For whatever reason, I was led to believe that spiritual initiation was basically mind-messing...being led to believe you are going to be buried alive, or forced to jump off a 1,000' cliff into shark-filled waters, and/or worse. The objective being to prove one's faith in God's love and protection always and all ways. For all I know that is spiritual initiation; if so, it's obviously for others far more spiritually advanced than I am or anyone I know is.

But that line from my "God Calling" has caused me pause. Over the years, I've hi-lighted, underlined it in blue and then again in green and orange-tabbed it. When it says that initiation precedes all real work and success for Me, I'm fairly certain it means just that which must mean there are lesser degrees of initiation.

I recently came to see that initiation for me may be simply discipline of self in living the precepts of the Sermon on the Mount and all that follows from that. Specifically my initiation is learning to live the denial of self, to learn unto breathing to deny self-centered objectives.

Which I doubt can be done without grace and a boatload of gratitude, but...here's a flash...the doing isn't as important as the willingness to try. And with God's grace, I am willing.

Thank you.

POGO WAS RIGHT

I am so blessed. I had a blinding flash of the obvious two or three weeks ago that the election results might turn out to be not my first...or even last...choice. I started then making peace in my own head with my perceived worst-case scenario for which today I am grateful from my toenails up.  Most of the day yesterday, I talked with some really sad, sad friends...I could all but reach out and touch the resistance I heard.

It's times like these that I bless the really hard-rock times I've gone through in my life...cursing and kicking and crying, resisting every step of the way. I'm grateful today because that is the way...The Way...we learn unto realization that acceptance is the answer. That is what taught me to be grateful for the gray days almost more than for the sunny days because the gray days required me to dig deep for God...the sunny days I could just sit and bask in his love.

If we're on the right road, aiming in the right direction, here's how we learn to love the gray days: We begin by reading our spiritual literature every morning, finding great comfort, even inspiration, there. We feel at One with the Father within...with all our fellow beings. Our head is on straight, God is good, we're ready to go out and shower love and laughter!

Then a less-than-wonderful happens...a really, really less-than-wonderful happens...if we hadn't banished the word "bad" from our life, this would qualify for that word.

We cry. We sob. We can't seem to stop. We're all but beating our breasts and wailing. We know we're sinking into depression, and we feel fairly righteous about it. This, after all, deserves depression...has even earned depression!

We talk to a friend who quotes some spiritual junk...what a Pollyanna she is...we walk away from her p.d.q. We may be ready for that spiritual crapola in a couple weeks, but this hurts too good to let go so soon.

Now is when our very own past experience comes to our aid. We remember to go take a good look in the mirror. That piece of paper we taped there so long ago is long gone, but its message is still there: You Are Looking At The Problem.

It is not the election results, it is not our newly diagnosed Stage 4 cancer, it is not our best friend's sudden and wholly unexpected death, it is not the broken fingernail...it is us. Pogo was right.

Why are we giving an hour or more a day to the God of our understanding if we're not going to practice what he is imparting to us daily...hourly...even as we breathe?

Lest I come across too righteous by half, it is a flat-out fact that my stomach turns whenever I am caught unaware with the thought that Donald Trump is the President-elect of the United State of America. And that's with all my prior, proper planning.

Then I hear God lovingly whisper, "Get over yourself!" And I do have to laugh...with love.

Thank you.

GOD'S HEALING PRESENCE

Lessons I have learned unto living them:

I know whenever I think that the worst thing that could ever happen...happens, God's hand is in it.

I know our perceived "worst case scenario" is the mirror-image of God's perfect gift to us.

I know to welcome that gift...before my ego Lucy gets to thinking on it.

I know if I upgrade my attitude, I upgrade my problem.

I know it is not what happens in our life, it is our reaction to what happens that determines our happiness...or lack thereof.

I know whatever the perceived problem, the answer is: Get grateful.

I know gratitude does not take away a problem, but it does take away our anxiety about the problem.

I know gratitude is God's healing presence always and ever available to us...we need only pray "thank you" to receive it.

Thank you.

LOOSE IT AND LET IT GO...DETACH

Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth. --The Beatitudes, Matthew 5:5

I wonder if that isn't the most questioned of all the blessings set out in The Beatitudes...like, how can meek be a blessing? Truth to tell, my first thought seems always to be from the reasoning mind so ego gets first crack, and my ego Lucy's first thought when "meek" is mentioned is, "Door mat, and no thank you."

Actually, if we only stay in the reasoning mind, it makes sense that the meek shall inherit the earth. All the un-meek will kill each other off so there's nothing left but the meek. And if we remain attached to the reasoning mind, if we never seek higher ground, there won't even be any un-meek left. There will always be someone who is stronger, more clever than the other one which he'll prove by besting the other...and the beat goes on. There it is, the reasoning mind leading us to that which we're trying our level best to avoid...death, or worse, humiliation.

It is only by making our self available to a higher power, that power which we already have within us right this very minute!, that we will ever become willing to take that very first, teensy-tiny step up to a higher plane...a.k.a., divorced from our own ideas. The word quite simply is "detach."

It is on this plane that we find all our thinking has been done for us...its unlikely answers are our perfected world. We find giving over, giving up, giving in brings a solace that we've never experienced before...could not even imagine because our reasoning mind knows naught of it.

No doubt that is why "detach" is suggested so often in spiritual books, sermons, and the like. The instructions are pretty direct: Loose it and let it go.

Thank you.

LOVE AND LAUGHTER...EVER AVAILABLE

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

I first read that I do not know how many years ago but I knew it to be true. I even typed it out on my handy-dandy portable typewriter, a hint at just how long ago it was, and I still have that original typed note taped inside my "God Calling."

The good news is that I knew that to be true on reading it, the better news is that I have proven it to be true in my very own life. The less-than-wonderful news is...I still forget. I still link arms with Lucy and go haring off, setting people who need to be set straight...straight. Pretty much only in my own mind today. And I consider that spiritual growth!

It elevates my spirits every time I reread it. What a comfort. For it is true...the Father and I are one, the Father knows our needs, ask and ye shall receive...all or any one of those say the same thing.

That's how and why we can cease fighting everything and everybody. Comfortably. Without fear. That's also how and why, when we're feeling resentful for any reason, we can know we have made a decision based on self that later placed us in a position to be hurt.

If we stay focused on the Father within and our connection to him to the best of our abilities, we will for sure find our self slinging mud in our own face at some point...which is the good news! For that gives us another reason to remember from whence that mud came and why: It wasn't his, she didn't do it, they aren't to blame...thank you, Father, I clearly needed another lesson.

Then we love them, him, her, our own self...and laugh. Or, then we laugh and love them, him, her, our own self.  Love and laughter...interchangeable.

Thank you.

STAND ON IT!

That all things are possible to him who believes; that they are less difficult to him who hopes; that they are more easy to him who loves, and still more easy to him who perseveres in the practice of these three virtues. -- Brother Lawrence

If you overcome your enemies, you’ve failed. If you make your enemies your partners, God has succeeded. -- Fr. Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," October 9, 2016

To win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill. -- Sun Tzu

For awhile now, the goal of my life, daily, has been to soften my mind toward the possibility of the worst presidential candidate in the history of the United States of America winning this election. I read and think on the above quotes often because I'm a believer that the "enemy" is my own thinking, my judgment in a word.

At any rate, if that possibility comes true, I'd best be ready. I'm reminded of the old gospel song that has the line, "I want to be ready, I want to  be ready, I want to  be ready to walk in Jerusalem just like John."

That's my guideline today...to be ready to love. To love the fire in the forest, the plague in the village, the rot in the fields...for they are nothing but a call to surrender. I take heart in reading of those who lost everything in floods and fires, disasters of all kinds, and years later testify to that being the change that bettered their lives. In breaking them, it caused them to seek and receive help from a power greater than themselves.

I know for me that the more I resist the picture before my eyes, when I let go, the more surely it will be that God's hand was in it all the time. We can rely on our belief that God can and will intervene in our life on our behalf, and that his intervention is seldom by fulfilling our wants. It's by showing us our needs (his will) is better for us that our wants. We slowly move our belief from the head, into the heart, on to our gut, down to the soles of our feet. Then we stand on it!

There. That's why, like I said, I started awhile back softening my own rigid, righteous and right mindset. Accepting its rigid righteousness is moving in the right direction. Which tells me God is on the field, and that's all that is necessary.

Thank you.

GOD LOVES US SOOO MUCH

Jesus is the victim in an entirely new way because he receives our hatred and does not return it, nor does he play the victim for his own empowerment.  (Fr. Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," July 9, 2016)

There. That is what I aspire to...well, not quite that high. Not that high because I cannot imagine receiving hatred without feeling ticked or hurt right back. Hurt, and unjustly hurt (is there a justly hurt?), most especially. Doing it without being able to imagine it?...unlikely to happen.

To know another's hatred, or contempt, and not experience any change in my feelings about the other ("you're one, too!") or about myself ("poor, pitiful, put-upon me") is unfathomable to me. Yet, that's what to "not return it" means to me.

Although, given some thought, I can't say it is entirely unfathomable...I know that I have made minor strides forward. A minor stride toward that goal is spiritual growth walking, according to me.

I have a for-instance: A friend ticked me off/hurt my feelings recently, and I was blessed with understanding from whence his action came...that's all it took for me to know that I wanted to be the first to reach out. So I forwarded him an e-mail of an impressive fact...impersonal but interesting. That broke the discomfort, and, in no time, we're laughing and chatting as if nothing happened. Because nothing happened.

That oh-so-teeny incident tells it all...how many (uncountable!) lifetimes I'll need to ever reach Jesus's "entirely new way," yet how far I have come from my yesteryears of dropping dear friends without a by-your-leave for what amounted most times to imaginary hurts.

It is true...when used, spiritual principles will solve all of our problems.

Thank you.

SIT AND WAIT ON THE LORD

In pondering the word “love” this morning, I'm trying to find an apt description for my understanding of it. Nonresistance may best fit it, the hook being that nonresistance cannot mean to do nothing in the face of evil. Some famous someone once said that all it takes for evil to prevail is for good people to do nothing.

Yes, but! What about the Sermon's "Resist not evil?"

Ah, here comes the sun: Resist not evil must take us into a higher consciousness...where we rest in the understanding that the Father knows our needs. That is the place we need live. We resist not in Love, which is not only the home of our inner Source, it IS our inner Source. Nonresistance, love, is what releases our higher power. That power we need to change an ugly appearing situation for the better is not in the reasoning mind but in our higher consciousness.

Resistance is reasoning mind, ever thinking, ever analyzing, ever keeping higher help at bay; nonresistance opens the door for our Source to flow forth (I stand at the door and knock).

In general, we don't live 24/7 in a state of higher consciousness, but that is exactly why we need to make our self available for God every morning. We set aside, say, fifteen minutes every morning to sit and wait on the Lord. That's my entire meditation...I've never felt lifted into a new dimension, but that's when I usually get any blinding flash of the obvious.

Sit and wait on the Lord -- found somewhere in the Bible.

Thank you.

THE WORD TO REMEMBER...SIMPLIFY

Like so many of us, I am suffering the torment of my own thinking right now. This political season reminds me of old age...it ain't for sissies.

Every time I get up in my own head...slinging mud, calling it prayer...I eventually remember to simplify.  My precious "God Calling" is my great simplifier. The advice there always boils down to the great KISS, Keep It Simple Stupid.

Today's entry is particularly comforting: 'Ask what you will and it shall be done unto you.' How I can fulfil the promise is My Work, not yours, to consider....Have a big Faith, and expect big things, and you will get big things.

Remember always the quiet word: What we ask for, on receipt, may not look like what we asked for. With that, I realize that my self-described Evil One may win this election. If that happens, the comfort to my mind is that is God's will (and if it happens, it is God's will with or without my consent). Going for gratitude, I must needs question nothing and expect better to come of that than if my choice had won.

Simplify. Get grateful now, and it won't be so hard down the pike. Better yet, live an attitude of gratitude, also known as qui'chyurbitchin'.

Thank you.

GOD IS A STITCH...IN TIME

I believe we are born into the material world, and our journey, our life's walkabout, is to return to that time and place before conception, i.e., to God. We live in the third dimension until something either horrific or beatific shoots us into the fourth dimension, the egoless place within. We would never get to the fourth dimension without that shooting star whatever ours may be.

It takes great faith and no small amount of courage to risk opening our self to the fourth dimension. Interestingly, it matters not what causes us to take that risk...great suffering seldom begins as great suffering. Too often it begins as a pointless pimple...or a resentment. Someone demands (!), and uh-oh! There it is. Ego rarely reflects, it reacts, and my ego Lucy doubles down every time. The demand could be the equivalent of a pile of butterfly poop, Lucy pushes back with a snowplow.

The snowplow, of course, is our reasoning mind. We think about it, and it is our ego doing our thinking. Legislating for our self. Pondering the injustice of the demand.

The lesson is to not beat our self for our reaction but to remember gratitude...to say "thank you" and that is all. With our thank you, we've just passed that dimdam football off to God. He's got it, leave it with him. Then, if we cannot agree to the demand, simply say, "No, thank you," and keep on moving.

The hook is: We don't get to the fourth dimension that way. We get to the fourth dimension by agreeing to the demand without a thought...without judgment in our head or heart, without a pat on the back for our self. We are lifted into the fourth dimension when our reasoning mind gives up, gives in, and gives over to a higher power to do with us as It will.

Apparently, and according to me, the fourth dimension only comes when we are utterly detached from our reasoning mind. Another paradox: My great fear has ever been of losing my mind and winding up in an insane asylum, and here's me advocating detaching from our reasoning mind.

Don't tell me God doesn't have a great sense of humor...love and laugh, love and laugh.

Thank you.

SURRENDER TO WIN

It is always comforting to me, when I find myself at sixes and sevens, to listen to those around me. Almost without fail, the majority of them will be at sixes and sevens, too. Which reminds me that nothing is personal...our sixes and sevens may be caused by a full moon, it may be the weather, it may be the vibrations of our time...but it is not personal.

At times like these, I try to remember to not try to fix it, that it is not personal. It's simply the human condition presenting me with another chance to learn acceptance.

I'm a big believer in acceptance as the always answer. Unfortunately, actually doing it is fairly elusive. I find naming it "surrender" helps. Acceptance sounds so warm and welcoming...and that lends itself to trying to make that which we're resisting more swallowable...less true in other words.

Surrender on the other hand...who's kidding whom?  Nobody ever came to surrender feeling that this was a winning proposition. Acceptance and winner are more compatible in our own mind...or to our ego, more like.

Surrender shucks all our shields...which, for a fact, is the one sure way we're ever going to get to God. Feeling broken...not bent, broken...bloodied AND bowed. How are we to know that those broken, bloodied pieces are God's will...his to lovingly and tenderly pick up and put together again? How are we to know if we never surrender?

Give up the fight...it was not ours to begin with. Give to get...give up the thinking, the analyzing and get peace. In truth, that's the one thing we've ever gut-bucket wanted. It's the want that keeps us from realizing we already have it...that holds it off even as we pray for it.

Surrender to know...I am the peace you seek,,,ever and always with you, within you, without you.

Thank you.

WE JUST MAKE OURSELVES AVAILABLE....

Making ourselves available to God in the early morning before our world awakes, peeved and petulant, is the single most important thing we will do each, every and any day.

Get quiet. Be still. Smile. For no reason (and don't go trying for a reason).

It is the stillness that enables us to hear God...the thoughts of God. And if we imagine for a second that any thought of ours can better that...please.

Thank you.

IT IS IN THE SILENCE....

I remember when first I realized that we seek still more spiritual growth not for knowledge but for  experience...not for knowledge of the spiritual but to experience the Spirit within us.  

Without the experience of God within, we do not have God in our heart, we have eyebrows-up knowledge...and that is all. And there...that's the ultimate ego trip including bragging rights. Ego may quote scripture better than a God-fearing preacher, but there is no back-up to it.

Until we can prove what we're quoting, as in, until we have life experience with what we're saying, we have head knowledge only. I'm a believer that head-knowledge to God is the least of all the human attributes.

Here's a couple sobering thoughts: over-analyzing is a control mechanism of the ego, and reading anything repeatedly does not educate us more with each reading. One of Jung's foundational ideas, I understand, is that mere words and concepts do not give us access to the unconscious.

Reading, studying, sharing...that's the logical starting place, but it is in the silence of meditation, the stilling of the over-active mind, that we make our self available to God. The stilling enables us to hear God, should he chose to speak.

Be still and know that I am God.

Thank you.

PONDERING THE 23RD PSALM AND BFOs

As I meditated on the 23rd Psalm this morning, a mental picture of David tending sheep in the fields came to me. I wondered if that Psalm come fully finished to his mind, like a blinding flash of the obvious.  And with that I wondered: Did he live that Psalm?...every day and every way, did he live and breathe and walk it?...those weren't just spiritually pretty words to him, he lived them?

Because that's the 100 miles yardstick I measure myself by.

I try to keep things as simple as possible in my own head so I accepted this Psalm as a full-blown blinding flash of the obvious and thought of my BFOs. Are they so owned by me? I feel them. I know them to be true. But, for sure, I don't always without fail walk them.

Like my blinding flash that no disagreement is ever over until both sides come out the winner...simultaneously. That is when God's hand is in it. I aim for that today, and I have felt God's hand more than once in a disagreement. But, so far I've had to work for it...to remind myself (repeatedly) that I am not in it to win it, I'm in it to learn how to give over with grace while maintaining my own integrity.

My beloved ego Lucy fights this tooth and toenail (and tongue...finely honed tongue), and she will till three days after I'm dead I doubt it not.

It gave me comfort, a relief if you will, to think of David as knowing his 23rd Psalm...he wrote it, so he knew it from his eyebrows up anyhow...but maybe he had his own lapses, his own Lucy faking him out with the football ever so often. Hey, he was human...of course he did.

As I've noted before, I am not a Bible person...almost all of what I know about the Bible I learned from Cecil B. deMille. So I know David went on to far greater things...and some way not greater...than tending sheep in the fields, but his 23rd Psalm is my measure of the man. And it is good.

In the end all that matters is what you have done for the Lord. -- Anonymous

Thank you.