GOD CAN AND WILL IF NEEDED

So I had a blinding flash of the obvious sometime last March which told me that the first step we take in faith is a complete journey. I have pondered that off and on ever since.

I wonder if that which we fear, that we pray passes us by, doesn't become that first step...that involuntary step...the one that comes as we lie hopeless in our smoldering ashes having just crashed and burned. For that is grace. Over which we have no control, no say-so, no input.  

That which we fear (or want) so completely that we crash and burn trying to keep it away (or get it) is our ego in control. It takes the crash-and-burn to eliminate the bondage of self-will...to leave us without a thought. And there it is. The almighty grace of God...or the grace of almighty God. Either way, our reasoning mind is not participating...it is in awe. And the first step in faith is completed.

The second step is to remain in that faith...the paradox being, trying to remain as faithful as we were in our moment of grace is just another self-determined objective. We're trying to keep God in a box on call for our security, our wants. We're still focused out there when he is here, within us, ready to fulfill our needs.

Living our belief starts with that singular realization that God is in everything or God is in nothing...God is or God is not. We hear people say that God doesn't wash windows...I say that he may not, but I believe that he can if needed. It's our need, not our want, that invites God's perfect work.

That's our second step in remaining as faithful as we were at our moment of grace. We believe that God can and will if needed; then we do our part and...blink...we're freed usually in a way we could never have considered.

Thank you.

ON MATURE SPIRITUAL GROWTH

The ego gets what it wants with words. The soul finds what it needs in silence. -- Fr. Richard Rohr

There it is: The essence of our reasoning mind's resistance to powerlessness. Our ego's path out is through our reasoning mind; our soul has no path...in its transparence, it flows freely, cannot be cornered or captured...it is. It simply is.

We often hear that mature spiritual growth is all about detaching. Letting go of our self-perceived needs...embracing our self-perceived lack. When we are no longer talking that but are, in fact and without thought, doing that...we will know mature spiritual growth. And heading in the right direction counts.

Thank you.

REGRET NAUGHT, LOVE ALL

Regrets are just resentments in fancy dress. - Blinding flash of  the obvious

Thank you.

LOOSING YOUR GOOD...LETTING IT FLOW

[The following is an updated reprint of my blog of May 27, 2012.]

Staying in my resistance to Donald Trump, et al., attaches Trump, et al., to me exactly as I am interpreting them to be  and keeps me just that far from advancing in my own spiritual growth. All the current politicos who I "despitefully use" become my God at that moment.

I thank you for all that is appearing to my reasoning mind's eyes...I loose them and let them go, knowing full well this is a discipline I get to do daily. It is as necessary to me as my daily meditation on God Itself.

Per Joel Goldsmith, "The very Soul of God is your individual Soul, and it is out of that Soul (the kingdom of God within you) that your good flows." I will never realize that until I surrender fully to its truth about Trump, et al, too...and before me.

It is available to me only to the degree that I consciously realize it and walk it daily.

Thank you.

LOGIC DESPAIRS, SPIRIT EXULTS

I fully accept Fr. Richard Rohr's contention, "If there is nothing in your life to cry about, if there is nothing in your life to yell about, you must be out of touch." That, to me, is being fully alive in the material world.

Those of us whose first goal is the seeking of still more spiritual growth must recognize, realize and accept that the material world is ever with us. It is the spiritual world that we can only visit...and then only with a whale of self discipline and desire. [Note my Jonah reference...sometimes I just get too cute to contain myself.] 

Our initial break with logic is the necessary move upward to a deeper place in consciousness. Logic tells us if we're crying or yelling about something, then we're building a resentment, and we've got to stop that. Too often, our idea of stopping that is to stuff it, deny it and yell at the dog...and then suffer the remorses of the damned.

Our growth spurt comes when, without conscious thought or effort, we welcome that which we're crying/yelling about...we kiss it on the lips and know it for our angel in disguise.

This is the very essence of surrender, of crashing and burning and rising again all in one...and we will know the feeling of God in our life. This will happen again and again and again, and it will feel like the first time every time.

Logic will despair, Spirit will exult.

Thank you.

BECOMING ACCOUNTABLE...AND LIKING IT

There was a time when I believed that perfect peace was having somebody to blame. Imagine my surprise when I found that to be true...except the one to blame was me!

The paradox is that that admission was the first crack in my secret core of self-condemnation. My ego Lucy was working overtime to keep that core belief in its special hidey-hole while always searching out there for somebody to blame.

That first crack brought the wondrous blinding flash of the obvious: If we're living in blame and shame, we're traveling down that wrong road again. The spiritual world is no-fault insurance...whether we're accepting fault or placing fault, we're playing God. Stop it. But how?

We stop it by realizing the freedom of taking responsibility for our own behavior. We learn how to be accountable to God, to our self, and to others not only for our words and actions but for our thoughts...especially for our thoughts.

Another paradox: After the first couple times, admitting our errors comes fairly easily; the real toughie...learning how to be accountable for our own goodness. We all know bragging is not the way which we learn by first doing our humble bragging, and that works for awhile. It is our first step out into this no-fault realm so we accept that. But we know. There is more, deeper that we need to go higher to get to.

It takes time to come to an understanding that being accountable for our own goodness shows itself...no words are needed, indeed they often cancel the process.

We know we are heading in the right direction when others tell us the good news we show forth, and we know that our self is not, was not, never will be involved in that...that it is our Self showing forth.

Gratitude enwraps us, and even Lucy is quieted.

Thank you.

FREED FROM RESENTMENT

We must be willing to hurt our own feelings for the benefit of another. This is a major, but just another, lesson in learning to detach from our dependence on our own reasoning mind.

Since it is our own thoughts that engineer our hurt, we must feel that hurt and know it for the nothingness that it is. Otherwise we will put someone else's name on it and feel a compulsive want (that we mistake for need) to "set him straight" or hurt her in kind, i.e., the way we perceive they have hurt us.

In fact, our hurt feelings begin with our own thinking, grow horns and gore us. I suspect that is the journey of psychic hurt...it begins with our resistance to it, really.

This explains the how and why of the Sermon's "turn the other cheek." It frees us from our guilty desire to feel resentful.

Peace, be still.

Thank you.

LOSE ALL BOUNDARIES...FREE SELF

Blinding flash of the obvious: Living in the reasoning mind world is to set and keep boundaries; living in the spiritual world is to loose all boundaries and let them go.

In the material world we learn that ultimately we are responsible for the care and feeding of our self. It takes time, but in finally accepting that, we realize that we must set and keep boundaries, that in the end that is the path to self-respect. "If you don't respect yourself, no one else will respect you," we are taught...which, no doubt, is true.

But there will come a day, if we're doing it right, when for whatever reason, in whatever manner or means, we are blessed with the need and the desire for a power greater than our self, i.e., God, to do our thinking for us.

We begin to learn that with God there are no  boundaries. We must lose the reasoning mind's belief that we must get...anything. That we must hold on to...anything.

Spiritual growth is all about becoming transparent...as in, resist not. Whatever comes, looking like death or destruction or merely a snark (which will occupy way more of our mind's time than death, etc.), we learn to detach from our own opinion of it. Detach is our new word-world.

There are no boundaries with transparency...no fear, hate or malice held. Each and all pass on through and dissipate for there are no boundaries to hold them.

It all began for me when I made a decision to turn my will and my life over to the care of God...and meant it. (Meaning it took me awhile.) (Is taking me awhile...I just remembered That Hospital.)

Thank you.

ON FORGIVENESS

Following is a prayer a friend sent me. She tells me that it's by an unknown poet who left it beside the body of a dead child at Ravensbruck death camp during its period of "unspeakable human darkness." 

O Lord, remember not only the men and women
Of good will, but also those of ill will.
But do not remember all the suffering they inflicted on us;
Remember the fruits we have bought, thanks to
This suffering--our comradeship,
Our loyalty, our humility, our courage,
Our generosity, the greatness of heart
Which has grown out of all this, and when
They come to judgment let all the fruits
Which we have borne be their forgiveness.

Oh, to live in that state of consciousness. I must remember that it is enough to God that I want to.

Thank you.

GOD, NONRESISTANCE; EGO, RESISTANCE

I continue to ponder my realization that both our ego and our God live within us, are invisible to us, yet one or the other controls our every thought, word and deed.

I am having a wonderful time perceiving my ego as Lucy, the name that God gave to me for her...at which time he also let me know that she is his friend with whom he is well pleased. (I suspect he is well pleased with her because she cracks him up.) Every fact and act of Lucy's invisible existence is for her pleasure, pride and privilege. Since each goes contrary to God's will, she must lose, and only God can come to her aid...and only through me.

God loves Lucy in spite of herself...probably because of herself. But also because God cannot not love.

The reasoning mind cannot get us into God's will or out of Lucy's way, but it is the tool we've been given to use to aid in our continuing education about that fact. Without our reasoning mind seeing and saying that we're going down that wrong road again, we'd never know the relief, when wrong, of promptly admitting it.

Just as important, it's our reasoning mind that assures us we are growing spiritually when we've given over to another...there's no better feeling than that inner "You done good, girl!"

Quite simply, I believe God's will for me is whatever benefits others...with God, whatever I do I do for others. Lucy's will for me is for the benefit of me...with ego, whatever I do I do for me.

God is nonresistance...open, free-flowing; ego is resistance...rigid, righteous and right. Resist not....

Thank you.

OUR OUTER TEACHER, JUST ANOTHER ANGEL

It takes conscious effort to know and show the spiritual growth that we believe we have, that for which we've studied and worked so hard to attain. According to me, the conscious effort comes solely through our willingness to detach our self from our own ego. Lucy sings my song like none other.

A way too good example of just that siren song: Yesterday I had a two-word pushback with a friend...both of us laughing all the while. I don't even need to write the punchline, do I? My mental gears have been miss-mashing ever since...on the various loving words I can say to let him know who was right. I'm not sure which is more important to Lucy and me...to show who was right (me) or who was wrong (him). Whoa! Talk about splitting hairs. And that is precisely how Lucy stays in charge...that quick turn to the reasoning mind, and uh-oh...God Who?

Here's the good news.  I have known, even as I mentally squabbled with myself, that my friend is another outer teacher for my inner growth, my angel-in-the-moment. Then I read in my Easwaran this morning, "To the extent we can be loyal to the outer teacher, we are being loyal to ourselves." Isn't that wonderful? My direct instructions delivered directly to me.

God loves me so much. And my outer teacher, too.

Thank you.

BAD BUSINESS GETS YOU BAD BUSINESS

It seems "defects of character" and "bad behavior" and "should" and "fault" and oh so many more words are verboten in today's world. Apparently because they make us feel guilty. Today, that feeling, guilty, seems also to be verboten. Well, nine times out of nine we are guilty of whatever it is for which we're trying to find either a pretty description...or somebody else to blame.

It is pure fact that bad business gets us bad business. Bad business is not an "inadvertent error in judgment," and allowing our self to believe it as that only prolongs our inside agony. We will scramble mentally for somebody, something, some place outside of our own self to blame until we own up to our own bad behavior...not that time, not that place, not him/her/them, but our self. Until we claim it, until we own our bad behavior and hang our name on it, we'll not know peace.

Not owning up is how we become carriers. Carriers of our own misery. We are the source of all our woes. Any upset, mental gyration, justified peeve that we have now, had then, ever will have started with our making "a decision based on self that later placed us in a position to be hurt."

When the cure for our misery is so simple, why do we cling to our ego's way. Ego is utterly incapable of admitting its mistake so it must find excuses and scapegoats and justifications. There. That's the exact reason we must learn to love our ego...it is utterly incapable of being anything but what it is. Hug it and kiss it and quick turn to God. Which is the only thing more powerful within us than our ego, according to me.

We have come to believe that God can and will intervene in our life in our behalf. Let him.

Thank you.

WHY NOT SEEK THE SPIRITUAL FIRST?

Back in the day, my go-to phrase was: Perfect peace is having someone to blame. That, of course, came straight from my ego Lucy directly into my heart of hearts, i.e., my reasoning mind...where it made perfect sense.

Today I lean on my golden rule (lifted from a 1980's "Washington Post" column by the late Henry Mitchell):  I just try not to be as nasty as I want to be.

This morning a mental picture popped up of Lucy, having crossed that somebody to blame, all battered and bruised, on crutches, head wrapped in bandages...searching for somebody else to blame. She finally crashes and burns whimpering, "When I find the one to blame, I'll just try not to be as nasty as I want to be."

There. All roads lead to God. Why beat our self senseless with what we believe is right...and may even be right, but right too soon! (Right too soon is wrong right now.)

The moral of this story, of course, is why not start with the spiritual since we're going to wind up there anyway. All we need do is...literally, there is only one thing we need do to live in the spiritual now...turn a deaf ear to Lucy. Hug her, kiss her, tell her we love her (because without her, we would never have sought still more spiritual growth to begin with) but listen no more to Lucy.

Hark! The herald angels sing...that's Ari and his chorus. Listen up.

Thank you.

AND GOD'S HAND IS ALWAYS IN IT

Being called a bald-faced liar is not a bad thing if we're not a bald-faced liar. (Or, if we are, we maybe need to hear it and change our ways.) But if we're not, it only becomes a bad thing when we pick it up...when we rise up in righteous indignant resistance to being called a bald-faced liar.

That's when we own it...that very resistance makes that which we are resisting ours. We have just wrapped our arms around the tar baby and kissed it on the lips. We have become the tar baby's tar baby.

That's why its so important to not just agree with spiritual directives, sort of like loving them from afar, but we need to love them unto living them. "We have ceased fighting anything and anybody" is an excellent example of a spiritual directive that defies our reasoning mind but makes the crooked places straight when we live it.

A short time back, I was, in fact, called a bald-faced liar. By a friend. My ego Lucy immediately thought "I am being called a bald-faced liar by a bald-faced liar...for what is being said about me by her is a bald-faced lie." I am grateful that God slapped his hand over my mouth and that stayed a thought so I only needed to say I disagreed but that she was welcome to her opinion.

Another thought was that it's sad that she never learned "restraint of tongue." I later realized if she had, I would have missed this experience...which is pure gold to me. For the rest of the story is: Our relationship shifted, she apologized, and...the proof of the pudding...we're still friends only closer friends than we had been.  

We know God's hand is in it when everybody comes out the winner.

Thank you.

FRIEND OR FOE...LET IT BE THE HELP WE NEED

I had an awakening recently about my golden rule (which is "try not to be as nasty as you want to be"). I'd always seen that as applying to those with whom I'm dealing at that moment or in a certain time period.

I find it is even more powerful when I apply it to my thoughts, specifically my thoughts about the one I may be dealing with in the present or, just as likely, the one from whom I'd long since moved away...my sophomore Latin teacher for instance.

Whomever I opt for, make book that he was wrong, I was right, and I shoulda said....

There. That's the exact point in time to think of the golden rule...to practice applying that rule in order to tame our thoughts. It matters not how long ago the hurt, it's not old if it's still showing up for this is the ego's playground, the place where Lucy renews herself. 

Another BFO: To tame, not to fight...ah, there's the key. To tame means we get to learn how to be an ego-whisperer. The golden rule ever so gently leads us there. Resist nothing (out there)...tame all (in here).

The secret, of course, is: Self is powerless to tame self all on its own. We must seek help...God's help, and then let anything that comes to us be. Whether looking like a friend or acting like a foe...let it be. Let it be the help we need...and get grateful.

Thank you.

FIND YOURS, THEN LISTEN

My morning's blinding flash of the obvious: An ah-ha! moment comes when we get what we already got. (We couldn't connect with it if we didn't already have it.)

We connect with a new author, her every word is beyond wonderful so we order all of her previous books...and sometimes feel a tish disappointed. She seems to have gone stale. In fact, we got all there was for us to get from her with the first ah-ha! in that first reading. Her words brought up a reality within us that hadn't clarified yet.

Instead of searching for a new, different, better author, we can go deeper into whatever our first ah-ha! reading was. It is there we will find all the truth we will ever need...we just need to go deeper to a higher consciousness.

Which isn't to say that we quit searching for new books and authors to read. Finding new, good and different reads is my kind of exhilarating. We do quit looking for our enlightenment in books...or people or anything out there. We already have it...it is within.

Find the one who speaks to us...and listen. Deeper.

Thank you.

ANGELS OF THE EMERY BOARD

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

A new way of looking at/feeling toward a friend came to me this morning. On the one hand, she is a lovely gracious and giving person with a great sense of humor; on the other, she has a too-often-present competitive attack mode.

My BFO: When in that mode, she is my angel of the emery board. (I have come to believe that people who rub us the wrong way are our emery boards, helping to smooth our resistance into acceptance.)

Her too-often-present competitive attack mode is exactly what I resist. It intimidates me, so when she is in that mode, my attitude judges, with my mouth pursed, which triggers more attack.

I know “that which we resist, persists” so I need to start to walk this through (find my acceptance) with gratitude in grace…I have started just through my BFO of recognizing this.

Actually I haven’t started...”It is finished.” My reasoning mind is all set to ponder this forever and do nothing. In fact, the problem is solved through the recognition. The rest is all in the discipline of training my mind to focus on the fact of my own freedom. All that is required is a “thank you” when this angel of the emery board rises up and my judgmental mind starts to answer.

It will be interesting to me to see how long I choose to take in living this new freedom…for it is entirely up to me.

Thank you.

PROTECTED BY GOD'S LOVE

There is no road, the road is made by walking.

He goes before us to make the crooked places straight.

All paths lead to God.

For whatever reason, those three quotes speak to me...and I had a brain freeze trying to decide which I should put first, second and third. I had each in first then second then third, entwined and intermingled, until I finally surrendered the hope of getting it "right."

This led me to ponder (again!) surrender. I read once that spiritual surrender is not defeat, it is being present to what is right in front of you without resistance or attempts to control.

I love that. I suspect that's why the three quotes came to me this morning...they all speak to me of the reassurance of surrender, the safety of surrender. Let's face it, surrender does not have a welcoming rep. Yet each of those quotes is welcoming in that each gives us the "goezy," the go-ahead because it is safe...and there is no alternative. (There's surrender in a nutshell...no alternative.)

"There is no road, the road is made by walking" sings to me because it takes our indecision away...no more sitting there trying to decide which road we should take. There is no road, start walking!

"He goes before us to make the crooked places straight" is our insurance policy...we're making the road as we walk, but he's going before us to straighten the way.

"All paths lead to God" is our payoff on the insurance policy...there are no wrong roads for they all start out and wind up in the protection of God's love.

Thank you.

NEVER FORGETTING TO LAUGH

My morning's blinding flash of the obvious: Seeing another's defects and naming them as such is not judging the person. It is seeing what it is that I need to detach from: the other's defects, not the other.

I love that shortly after I had my morning's flash, I read Fr. Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation where he spelled out exactly what this detachment is all about, and the why of it:

"[You are] not saying, 'Everything is beautiful,' even when it's not. However, you do come to 'Everything is still beautiful' by facing the conflicts between how reality is and how you wish it could be. In other words, you have to begin--and most people do in their adult years--with dualistic problems. You've got to name good and evil and differentiate between right and wrong. You can't be naïve about evil. But if you stay focused on this duality, you'll [be judging]. You'll become an unlovable, judgmental, dismissive person."

There. Detaching from the duality...mentally separating Gertrude's defects from Gertrude...is learning to love the person yet not take her defects personally. Maybe we're talking forgiveness here?

I'm convinced that as long as we fear finding the gold in judging, we'll live in fear of our own opinions. We'll wind up calling mud chocolate ice cream, being very...very!...disappointed and discouraged which inevitably will lead to our becoming "an unlovable, judgmental, dismissive person."

Maybe spiritual growth is also about learning the art of discernment. Learning to know his mud for his mud, to name it as such but not sling it...to accept it for his/hers and let it be; i.e., love them anyway. And laugh. At our self. For needing to go through all these gyrations just to get to love.

No wonder God's got a great sense of humor...look at his material!

Thank you.

ARI, MY ANGEL AND HEAVY LIFTER

I am beginning to believe (no, to realize) that the whole story of triumph over self is learning to love our thoughts...when they are at their least lovable. Totally based in ego and seemingly all on their own, they start judging, condemning, cursing...our self in particular, but for sure any and all others at any given time.

In beginning to realize this triumphal process, I also realize that I have written...a lot...about that being the actual starting point in transforming consciousness. That, too, is the necessary process...we know right from wrong long before we consciously choose right on a consistent basis...consistent not constant.

It is important to me to remember that I can consciously pinpoint the time and place that my turnaround began...it was just recently, April 20th to be exact. In a blinding flash of the obvious, I named my ego Lucy, and I knew that God loves Lucy and laughs about Lucy's antics. There. I was gifted with my ego as a fun factor in my life...not to be taken seriously but loved. To me, the very word "ego" had always had a shimmer of shame about it.

My job now is to accept that this turnaround is a bare beginning...it (or I) will slip and slide for who knows how long...but the turn has happened. That's what I get to return to with every backslide.

That's the grace of God with the help of Jesus, Joseph and Mary...and my heavy lifter Ari.

Thank you.

BELIEVING AND DOING...TWO DIFFERENT THINGS

For me, believing that there is a God is not the hard part...believing that that God lives within us isn't either. Nor is believing that that very God has already fixed our perceived problem. It is remembering that unto living that when we need it most that is the hard part.

Rohr recently wrote about "knowing with a true faith that nothing bad can happen ultimately because the victory is already won." My head...and my heart quite honestly...were right there with him. Then my mind kicked in...my so-called memory promptly pulled up the ongoing saga concerning That Hospital's billing system. To which, according to it, I owe a gazillion dollars at least.

Here's my problem. I know this will get straightened out. I went through this in 1988 with the same hospital's billing department when I'd had a major operation there. My problem, which admittedly has my ego Lucy's name all over it, is that it is a hassle, an undeserved, unearned, unfair hassle for I am the one who will be forced to get it straight before they (because they can and will) turn it over to a collection agency.

See my dilemma? I do know that nothing bad can happen ultimately, but may I say in all humility that that is not enough! They are not going to be put out one iota. I, however, am, and maybe it'll only be by one iota, but I shouldn't have to be at all.

It is not fair, and enough with the "life's not fair." That Hospital is being rewarded for its bad behavior, for its careless disregard for the very people it is in business to serve, and if I believed in the efficacy of guns for any reason, I'd justifiably take that place down...now.

Did I mention Lucy? Well, when she's right, she's right, and she is double-down right on this. Which, as always, always, always happens...when Lucy's right, I'm in trouble. My head and heart wind up hurting.

Back to my golden rule: Just try not to be as nasty as you want to be. The golden goose: Else you're going to have an amends to make that is incomprehensible in its darkness.

Thank you.

FACED, ACCEPTED...FREED

Secrets. I'm convinced that secrets have the power of TNT to our fearful reasoning mind. And until our secrets are faced...i.e., accepted...and then shared, openly and honestly, they form the Do Not Pass block in our mind. That block, that Do Not Pass, is self-determined and ego-controlled, and is the point where so many of us falter and fail.

The moment of decision, that time where we meet the great risk of shucking our shields and standing bare before our world or silently holding tight to our secrets...there, in that moment begins the great divide. We risk detonating the dynamite to move forward into still more spiritual growth and healing, or we risk nothing and hunker down with our ego as our protector with no hope of spiritual growth.

Unfortunately, there is no standing still...if we're not moving forward, we're moving backward. And consciously sticking with Lucy is life in reverse.

I have read that calmness is trust in action, but to me going forward in the midst of anxiety is really trust in action. Making the decision to share a long-held secret can be met with the calmness of nothing-left-to-lose or with the anxiety that comes from the fear of losing face (and is there a greater fear?). Either way, the decision is the free-er. The decision is the key that unlocks the non-existent door behind which God stands.

We learn the secret had "all the force and effect of a snowflake on the bosom of the Potomac" (to quote the late, great Senator Everett Dirksen (R-IL))   But until we made the decision to turn from our own self and throw in with God, it held all power, mutely, over our very universe.

We have a voice now. Linked by grace with gratitude, it is a powerful voice for good.

Thank you.

THE ART OF LOVING...LAUGHTER

"Mature, authentic spirituality calls us into experiences and teachings that open us to an actual transformation of consciousness (Romans 12:2)." - Fr. Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, May 9, 2016

The first thought I had about being called spiritually into experiences that open us to actual transformation of consciousness was that is the basis for "thank you" to everything that comes to us...but especially those things that appear bad, oh please no, let this cup pass, etc.

Those in particular are the teachings that lift us into a transformed consciousness. We learn that being lifted up is just the barest beginning...even as we feel in that moment as if we just got a forever gift. We learn, however, that it is the footwork, the get-your-hands-dirty digging that comes after that cements our transformation...which takes time because (my theory) ego does not transform. Old Lucy is ever with us, toting that football. Looking for her opportunity to score.

The transformation, the authentic spiritual experience, is cemented when we not only quit resisting Lucy but we cease entertaining her. too. To resist her ("I've got to stop doing that")  is to nurture her...to entertain her ("I know what I've got to do") is to breathe new life into her. If that doesn't cause us pause, we're not paying attention.

The pause is the gut-bucket realization that we personally cannot do this...that God can and only God can. That was the quiet word given us at the beginning...we've been arm-wrestling with God and Lucy about it ever since.

I suspect I'm going to be arm-wrestling until three days after I'm dead, but I know to laugh at that today. To love me and laugh with God at me...and love you for allowing me that.

Thank you.

WAIT FOR THE LORD...SOAR

What is the relation of [contemplation] to action? Simply this. He who attempts to act and do things for others or for the world without deepening his own self-understanding, freedom, integrity, and capacity to love, will not have anything to give others. He will communicate to them nothing but the contagion of his own obsessions, his aggressiveness, his ego-centered ambitions, his delusions about ends and means, his doctrinaire prejudices and ideas. There is nothing more tragic in the modern world than the misuse of power and action. ----Thomas Merton

I lifted the above Merton quote from Fr. Richard Rohr's "Daily Meditation" of this morning. The entire quote perfectly describes what I believe (but never realized enough to verbalize) about "self-determined objectives."

I have learned from actual personal experience that most any self-determined objective of mine that started out in my mind as good, for the benefit of another, spiritual in nature, with no conscious thought for myself invariably ended up either ticking the other off or leaving me feeling used and abused, the victim of my own self-perceived goodness.

And the why of that is: I attempted to act and do things for others without deepening my own self-understanding and capacity to love, and did not have anything to give others. I communicated to them nothing but the contagion of my own obsessions, my ego-centered me. 

Which translates to: I attempted to do God's work without a by-your-leave to God about it. My intent was above my reach so to speak. Without first seeking God's will, the best, the highest spiritual intent in this world or the next is still and ever "the road to hell, paved with good intentions."

They who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary. --  Isa. 40:31

Thank you.

TO PROVE IT, DO IT

Truth must be proved. That is the foundation we get to build on...truth must be proved by each of us personally for our own personal good.

Whatever WOW words we hear coming from another's lips, to memorize them and repeat them by rote is to never have them for our own. To commit the guiding words of an angel to memory and not put them to use (to let them lie fallow) is to live a fear- (and self-) filled life.

He goes before me to make the crooked places straight. Those are just so many words if we don't set out on the path we're dreading that made us remember and repeat those words to begin with. He can't make a crooked place straight for us if we refuse to use our own efforts to walk that path.  Mainly...and here's the point...the crooked place is already straight.

We can't discover that without moving our own self forward through it. In our moving forward we realize it is God's feet doing the walking, God's eyes doing the seeing, God using our best efforts to bring us to the place we need to be. We prove it by doing it.

Truth must be proved.  It's akin to holding your nose and taking a leap of faith.

Thank you.

STAR-SKIPPERS ARE OF GOD, TOO

When I was four or five years into my journey of seeking still more spiritual growth, I belonged to a group that gathered every Sunday evening at 7:00 to share spiritually.

Every Sunday I would say the exact same thing, that being, "I just want the feeling of God in my life." Every Sunday. Same thing.

Came the Sunday when one of the guys, who had a mental history of playing out there amongst the stars, apparently had heard enough of my want. At his turn he shared: "I have had the feeling of God in my life. I have talked with God. I have met God face-to-face...and every time it's happened, I've been in a straightjacket on my way to a mental hospital." Which, of course, cracked everybody up including me.

I still call his name blessed for without that flat-out reality check, I could very well still be going around thinking, if not saying, "I just want the feeling of God in my life."

And guess what? On occasion I can still have that feeling, that I'm-missing-a-God-something feeling.

I have learned to consider that just another crack in my life...the cracks being the defects in me that neither time nor trial have dealt with. These defects have been called the cracks that let in God's light which description I love, so I welcome them by knowing them as my blessings.

That also brings my star-skipping friend to mind, and I ease myself back from the ether.

Thank you.

ON LEAVING FEAR HOMELESS

It has been said that fear is simply a lack of love. Saying the same thing, but...well, differently...I choose to think of fear as a need for love.

Realizing fear as a need brings it home.  Makes it fixable. It doesn't take a world of worry and wonder to figure out that the only thing that can fix fear is no fear. Where can we go to find no fear? To God. Where is God?  Within. We go to God.

Sidebar: Here's how I go to God: I sit in my silence, relax, mentally wrap myself in a big old lush velvet blanket and think, "Here's me, Lord...you got the power, I don't...knock yourself out. Thank you."

With our focus on God, fear is not present...until we realize fear is not present. Then we repeat and repeat until we just have to smile at our self. And BINGO...here comes laughter to save the day. We're home free.

Letting fear be a lack is to let it be. To let it be present. Nothing-to-be-done-about-it present. So that when fear slithers into our consciousness, our race-race, run-run reasoning mind is caught unaware and runs screaming that fear is here and we're helpless before it. Which invites fear to grow larger, blacker...Real. Fear is home free.

Here's the cosmic gift when we're home free: At some point later, maybe not for a day or two or even a week or two, but fairly soon, that which had us fearful will be vanquished. Either fixed in some "it's a miracle!" way or turned to our advantage or simply forgotten about. But fixed and not by human hands.

It really is imperative that we make conscious note each time that happens...which, hard to believe, we seldom do. God is with us 24/7 but so is ego, and ego is fighting God...always. God is not fighting...ever. So take notes.

Thank you.

LOVE, IN SPITE OF OUR SELF, LOVE

Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. -- Matthew 22:37-40

I read that, actually I had it read to me the first time it came to me...in Sunday school class. Went over my head like a hairnet, but at six or seven most things of depth do.  But over the years, I heard it, I read it, I thought it right pretty.

When I started to live my life, religion had no part in it...nor did God nor Jesus nor fancy sounding love.

Then I found proof of God's love...he let me hit myself over the head with a two by four until I came to my senses and sought his help. To stop hitting myself over the head. With a two by four. There. That's the story of my great suffering and how I found God and Jesus and fancy sounding love.

Which to Lucy, my ego, was rarely enough. So I sought the Buddha, I discovered Joel Goldsmith, I thrilled to Thích Nhất Hạnh and oh my goodness Pema Chodran! Not to mention Eknath Easwaran, and...and...and.

I awoke one less-than-fine day, with that old something's-missing feeling in my head and heart, and I heard, "Love your God, the God of your own understanding, with all your heart, soul, body and brains, and love your neighbor...yes, the neighbor that kicked your dog and you suspect is a pedophile...love that neighbor as yourself." 

I knew my search was over. The answer, no matter the question, is love. Find a way within our own self to go deeper. To love. Continue to read all those great works, follow any and all of those great people, but never forget...they all command but one and the same thing: Love.

All this comes to me this morning because Honda is apparently determined to totally wipe my bank account clean through abuse of my automatic payments. They're working on taking a third payment from my account in one month's time, two for a car I left on their lot in March.

Does this sound like I'm reacting with love? No it does not, I'm not a total fool...but here's as good as I can get right this minute. I want to. I want to find within me the way that I can stay steady, calm and non-vindictive...to not be as nasty as I want to be. That's the juggernaut I'm resisting this morning. And, no, Lucy, I don't get a bye just because Jesus never had to deal with Honda.

Forgive me, Father, for I do know what I do.

Thank you.

RANDOM THOUGHTS

[The following is a reworked reprint of my blog of  December 10, 2012.]

Random thoughts:

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, to take responsibility for it...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 You Are Thus Worthy of Note.

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

In the material world, fear is essential for there are only two emotions: Fear and Love. If we're not feeling so good about something/anything, that is fear; is we are feeling good about something/anything, that is love. It is essential that we recognize each so we can upgrade our attitude about whatever we're feeling not so good about else it will grab us by the hair of the head and run away to wherever it chooses to run. Likewise, it is essential to recognize for love the good feeling so we can wallow in it.

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 search 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 can feel that I love you a tish more than I love me...then humility whispers, "Liar, liar, pants on fire."

Thank you.

THE ALWAYS ANSWER: DETACH WITH LOVE

Whether summoned or not, God is here. -- long ago blinding flash of the obvious.

I read again that BFO in my "God Calling" this morning and saw that it is not our fault that we do not realize God at all times...it is our blessing. We can praise that fact for to realize God at every moment would be to have completed our return journey...and we are not ready.

Our journey now is about becoming ready which means we're learning the gift of denying our self in order to give over to the other. Our journey consciously starts when we realize that all that we know, see, feel, invite in, bar at the door...including our own self, our own ego self...all are friends. All are to be loved. All are to be served at their state of consciousness...in other words, to serve each without judgment.

The hardest part for me continues to be learning to love my ego...to my reasoning mind, one step too far, and I'm a braggart, not far enough by an inch and I'm a failure and a fool. Which isn't to say that trying to love Gertrude in all her/his states of consciousness has been apple-pie easy, but resistance to Gertrude always starts with our own ego. Thus the always answer: Detach with love from our own ego.

Clearly we're talking God work. And there it is. All life, every moment of our life, is God work. With God using our hands and feet, our mind and mouth. That's his prep area. We must ever be prepping for God alone knows our individual time and place of ready.

Thank you.

GOD CAN AND WILL, AND WE LET HIM

When (in this lifetime or the next) we make a decision to choose still more spiritual growth, we become willing to crash and burn in order to get free of our own self. Then, lo! and whoa!, we learn that "crash and burn" is simply the need for Lucy, our ego, to bow before a higher power. From that moment until three days after we're dead, that "simply" will be our bane and our gold.

It's our hard lesson a' learning that there is but one choice, one need, and that is to trust God and do something about something...simultaneously and joyfully. (And whistling in the dark is but musical prayer so it counts.)

The glory hallelujah, great God almighty, news is in that instant of choice we receive the gift of grace whether we know it or not. Not knowing is Lucy linking up with our reasoning mind and refusing to give over to God. There is the trap, and it is built solely of fear. Then we recall, based on our own experience, that God can and will intervene in our life on our behalf.

Gratefully, we let him.

Thank you.