OUR DESPERATE NEED...OUR GIFT

I  like to think of God's will for me as doing good for somebody somewhere while it's working itself out for me. 

Any need I have God is already on it. It may be he's moving Gertrude out of the way in order to fulfill that need, but the time it takes will be for my ultimate best...and, just as an aside, in the end seldom bears any resemblance to what I thought I needed.

The thing to remember is that we can relish the time it takes for God's will to show itself in our life for it is always for our ultimate best. It may seem that somebody else is taking their own sweet time in relishing God's good will when we're feeling so desperately in need, but there it is...that's the gift.
It is our desperate need that brings the transformation, that causes our will to finally break, let go, crash and burn.

As Fr. Richard Rohr writes this morning. "But transformation * * *  more often happens not when something new begins but when something old falls apart."

Thank you.

BECAUSE START WE MUST

It's an almost sure thing that we will stay stuck in our own reasoning mind's world as long as we continue to act on the belief that we are the guardian of our own self...that we must "stand up for our self" for instance. Justified by, "We can't let others run over us."

When we make our decision to turn our will and our life over to the care of God, we don't seem to realize that we have given up the idea that we can continue to "guard our own back." We will live in our own head forever as long as we feel the need to be on guard against anybody or anything.

The humbling fact in my experience is that my guard is up against what others might think about me...ISIS chopping off my head I can handle, Lucy assures me. And God grins.

Saying "God has my back" and trusting that unto living it is probably a rest of our lifetime exercise...but we must start somewhere, sometime. Because what if reincarnation is a fact and we really do keep coming back until we get it right?

Remembering "just try not to be as nasty as you want to be" is a good place to start.

Thank you.

FOR OTHERS...LOVE UNLEASHED

God's home is within us for others. God lives within us for others. His home is within my heart, my soul, my body and my brain for the benefit of others.

We can read, ponder and pontificate till our face falls off, but it is our works, our selfless works, our care and concern for other than self that brings us the unattainable by our self's efforts...we are gifted by grace.

Gifted by grace means we give up the struggle to make that happen. Or even to understand it...it is love unleashed.

The space in between knowing that and doing that is life itself.

Thank you.

GOD IS ON THE JOB

I am the error the Navajo consciously weave in their rugs...the break that lets God in. -- my morning BFO

Every time I read a new way to "get there" I take note and think to try that.

I AM THERE...my blinding flashes of the obvious ARE God calling.

I do not need to try a new way or some ancient saint's old way...for there is no new way and my way is many ancient saints' old way.

This, my way, is the God of my understanding speaking through me, to me, as me...and I can trust that.

Thank you.

GOD IS SPEAKING

Our ego always speaks to us louder than our Father within hence the reverence of silence by the holy ones.

The still small voice can, but seldom will, be heard over the ego's enchanting call of "Me, My, Mine." That small voice seldom is heard because it is so plain and simple...how can it compete when the ego's subject is ME?

What if we realized that still, small voice is always...always!...speaking to us?...that it is our bloviating ego (Bloviating, my new word this political season.) that blocks it. We may already know that but probably only from our eyebrows up. What if we realized it? Like we realize we must have water to drink and air to breathe so there is never a pause to think about it.

Would we make our self available to the Voice more often? Sit in the silence longer? Willingly? Expectantly? With almost giddy anticipation? Uh-oh...there goes Lucy putting up her conditions.

God, I'm being told, does not speak louder or clearer on demand or only when conditions are met.

God is speaking now...listen up!

Thank you.

THE AWAKENING

Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens. - G. B. Jung

There it is...the big U-bie.

I am convinced that this is the basis for the turn-around in our journey that we all must make if we are ever to learn the art of detachment. For it is in detaching from our reasoning mind, i.e., our own dreams (the good, fantasies, and the bad, regrets), that our path is cleared for the God of our own understanding to flow from us, through us, to us.

That is our awakening...our beginning, in truth. Our glimpse that our fate is not ours to determine...it never was, it never will be. It is, however, ours to give over, cede, surrender...consciously, lovingly, or kicking and screaming...makes no never mind. Just do it.

Also known as, let go and let God.

Thank you.

GOD LOVES...GOD CANNOT NOT LOVE

Well, I had a blinding lash of the obvious (talk about a Freudian typo!) this morning that is still rocking my mind. I guess the reason why I'm still rocked is it is the exact same BFO I got some 40 years ago only now at a much deeper level. I just understood the real meaning of it, I'm saying.

I'm going with my new favorite prayer: Dear God, Nothing more, nothing less, nothing else. Amen.

And I don't doubt for a minute that that prayer is what lead me to my deeper understanding. Mainly because, boiled down to it, that's all my deeper understanding is: God. Nothing more. Nothing less. Nothing else.

God loves me so much.

Thank you.

GIVE GOD ALL CREDIT

My beloved friend Mac sent me some notes in which a holy man is quoted as saying of God's will: "Nothing more. Nothing less. Nothing else." There. That's it. The answer, no matter the question.

For whatever reason, that reminds me of the time a friend of mine and I were on vacation in northern California. The day before we were to leave we asked about early morning traffic to the airport and were told it was always a parking lot, leave early.

We were scheduled to fly out at 7:00 AM, and, although we were not hours away, we were not right by the airport. This was a long time before the need to get to the airport two hours before flight time, but I thought we should leave the motel at 3:00 AM. My friend was less than excited at that but went along. Well, there was less traffic, going and coming, than one sees in Chillicothe, Ohio, on a Sunday morning. My friend was...not to belabor it, but her "less than excited" went ballistic.

And me? I was enchanted, delighted, thrilled from my toes to my nose! That was proof positive to me that if we work with God, God will "miraclize" us. It's like the old saw about the guy falling off a roof, praying for God to catch him. His overalls got caught on a nail, he was stopped, and said, "Never mind, God, this nail caught me." 

My friend was having none of it. She could not wrap her mind around the fact that she could have slept another hour.

That's the entire how-to for having miracles in your life. See them. Just see them. Or maybe it's just the Simple Simon how-to version...whichever, it works.

Just give God all credit and quit kvetching is another way to put it.

Thank you.

ON THE SPIRITUALITY OF 5:00 AM

There are a number of very simple steps we can take to begin to free ourselves. One of the easiest is to get up early in the morning. This gives us the opportunity to start the day with a leisurely pace -- to take a short walk, if you like, and then to have your meditation, without worrying about [time]. --
"Words to Live By," Eknath Easwaran, June 22

Getting up early in the morning was the first concrete evidence I gave myself that I really was willing to go to any lengths to grow spiritually.

At my first-ever retreat, the spiritual director told me (in answer to my very serious complaint that I was sleeping my weekends away) that I needed to set my alarm for 5:00 AM every day, and the instant it started to ring, get up...instantly, p.d.q., quicker than quick. And I believed her, and I did that, and I have been doing that ever since...forty years later. Only I haven't had to set an alarm in thirty-nine years.

[Sidebar:  Just by-the-by, when I was still working, I got up at 4:30 every morning, and only went back to 5:00 when I retired because I wanted to know a complete break from my working world. Scrupulosity...what can I say?]

It's interesting, I think, that the reason I was told that getting up really early is important is that is before my world starts moving and shaking and rocking and rolling. Even though we may live in a very quiet neighborhood, or out on a farm!, the vibrations of the world can and do reach us, affect us, determine our mood without our ever being aware exactly what is [up]setting the tone of our day.

If we want to quit being driven by outside factors, we need to take responsibility for our inside conditioning...specifically, how we start and live our day, each day.

To have a spiritual start, which can carry us through the entire day, just get up a couple hours earlier than our usual. And thank God.

Thank you.

THE PATH OF UNKNOWING

[The following is a reprint of my blog of October 9, 2013.]

Why do we continue to fear failure...to fear even making a mistake? Probably because making a mistake proves we are not in control...it is clearly a loss of control.

Yet, all spiritual growth is about ceding control...giving over...giving up...in despair usually, but in despair or not, it doesn't matter.

I'm guessing it is near impossible for the ego-centered reasoning mind to consciously give up control to an unseeable, untouchable...in short, unknown...force, and not feel despair...or at least pea-green purple petrified.

Underneath it all, that is acceptance, and the nature of acceptance, stripped to the bone, is surrender. Surrender is the realization that the reasoning mind cannot help us here...or ever really get us there. ("There," the place we need to be...need being of God, want being of self.)

Holding our nose and taking a leap of faith is consciously going for the path of unknowing...the way of all still more spiritual growth.

Thank you.

MATERIAL MIND vs. THE SPIRITUAL

A problem cannot be solved with the same consciousness that created it. -- Albert Einstein

I read that last night and was jolted by that word "consciousness." I had always heard that quote as "A problem cannot be solved with the same mind that created it." The word "mind" as opposed to the word "consciousness" changed the meaning entirely for me.

As I pondered it, I realized that is precisely what it means to know there are two ways of experiencing life on a daily basis...with a material mindset or through spiritual consciousness. Doesn't material mindset say it all? The mind is set by our reasoning mind's interpretation...period, end of discussion.

Spiritual consciousness allows us to live in acceptance of that which is before us now. We understand that all things are possible through God...the good can lift us up higher, the bad can be made beautiful...not by our thinking to make it so, but by our realizing it is already so.

No wonder Einstein is known to be a genius. I suspect his material mind was set in spiritual consciousness. And if that be so for him, I'll have what he was having...please and thank you.

Thank you.

GOD, FRIENDS AND APPARENT ENEMIES

If we will let our nemesis be our gold, we will ever walk in the light.

To turn our nemesis into our gold starts with our willingness...willingness which births our will to, which gives in to our want to. Ergo, all it takes to let our nemesis be our gold is to want to, and all that takes is that we change our mind. Which turns out to be the hardest part for there, of course, is the hook.

Since God does not change our mind (having gifted us with free will, it is ours to use), we are brought  back full circle...we cannot change our mind on our unaided will alone if our ultimate goal is still more spiritual growth. Changing our mind is no biggie if we've decided on soup then decide for salad...but nemesis to gold? Whoa. Just because it may be possible does not mean it is at all probable...and, according to me, there's not a chance of it happening without the help of God and friends (some of whom may appear as enemies).

Which takes me back to my blinding flash of the obvious of some years back; i.e., if I can feel as grateful for bedbugs as I do for gold...what’s the difference? And there it is. Without the heavy lifting of God and a little help from others...who's kidding whom?...getting grateful is highly unlikely.

There. The practicalities of still more spiritual growth in a wrap...an enlightened BFO is our jumpstart which then requires the help of God and others to bring it to fruition.  

Again we are reminded that going it alone in spiritual matters is dangerous.

Thank you.

GRATITUDE ACKNOWLEDGES GOD'S GRACE

A hard lesson learning: No social or antisocial action of another is personal to me…no matter how much it seems my name is attached to that action. The only way another’s behavior can affect me is by my reaction to it.

This is certainly one of the most difficult things with which my reasoning mind deals. Probably (mainly?) because my ego Lucy is ever on patrol, and Lucy always, always, always legislates for Lucy...that's her job and she does it well.

I, however, must needs focus on my job which is to accept Lucy being Lucy (resist not) and continue to seek still more spiritual growth. I know I'm on the right track when I quit judging how poorly I'm doing and feel grateful that I'm doing at all. 

Gratitude is simply acknowledging God's grace.

Thank you.

TO LIVE AN UNSELFED LIFE

This very morning I heard a newscaster quote his grandmama as always saying, "The battle is the Lord's."

I could only be amazed that I was amazed...I have heard that for like ever, yet it hit me in my head, my heart and my gut all at the same time. I knew it to be true for our teeny-tiniest worry or our most significant dread...makes no never mind. The battle, our very life, is the Lord's. From birth until three days after we're dead.

That's what makes life so interesting, I reckon. We just will not let that be just as it stands. Gotta worry it, organize it, change it, up- and/or downgrade it, fret it, manage it, ponder it...all the while looking for somebody to blame for the unintended consequences of our own manipulation and control. (I call that the Big MAC award...I own it, might as well name it.)

In life's learning process, we cannot just "let that be" without getting in the midst of it for that is life's learning process. That's why we have spiritual principles...to guide us, once our way slaps us upside the head once too often, to learn to live an unselfed way.

Ah, there's the pearl beyond price...to live the unselfed way is to align our will with God's will. According to me, this is taking the slow train to Paradise. Emphasis on "slow" if we're doing it right.

Thank you.

OUR FOREVER SLIVER OF GOLD

I'm pretty well convinced that there is good (a sliver of gold) in everything, that it is our job here on earth to seek and find that good, our gold.

I'm also pretty well convinced the reason it is so difficult to get and hold that idea is our ego along with our reasoning mind kicks in, elbows out the spiritual nature of the message and tries to make it true.

It  is true already. It is true through the grace of God and God alone. Letting that be is an in-depth lesson in detachment...another paradox. We must detach from God gifts or our ego, nestled within our reasoning mind, will surely attach through its efforts to claim ownership of them.

We begin by aligning our will with God's will, the ditch digging of spiritual growth. It is so difficult, because our ego with our reasoning mind are determined to make it true through their will, turning it into a self-determined objective, ego-based and ego-driven. There is no spiritual growth there.

The kicker is that all the ego/reasoning mind efforts to which we are driven are necessary...if we're doing it right! Nothing else is strong enough to send us on a search for a power greater than our self. Who's kidding whom?...if we were born with a mind centered in nirvana, would we seek higher?

There. That's the punchline...the kicker is our forever sliver of gold.

Thank you.

ANSWERED PRAYERS...BELIEVE!

I have heard or read that the instant we recognize our utter powerlessness over a character defect, in that instant it is given to God, perfected by God, and we are freed.

That's nice.

Now prove it.

One problem in the proving is that we refuse to believe the attainment of our freedom can be that simple or that fast. Not to mention that it doesn't have our fingerprints all over it which is our real blocker.  Neither our ego nor our reasoning mind will be dismissed so easily.

I am reminded of the old adage, "If you're going to pray for potatoes, grab a hoe." If, however, we want those potatoes to actually grow,  at some point we're going to have to lay down that hoe and let nature take its course.

The same principle applies here. In our disbelief that the defect could be gone in God's heartbeat, we clutch it to us, trying to do the work he's already done. Discounting the fact that we hoed that defect to bits before we ever recognized our utter powerlessness, we miss our gift of freedom.

So to "prove it" is a fairly simple process. We thank God for removing our defect, then we walk away believing  that he actually did remove it. The hard part is detaching from our ego and our reasoning mind both of which declare this as impossible.

Answered prayers are answered by believing. It is by believing...not affirming, believing!...that we show forth God's perfect work.

Thank you.

IN WONDERMENT OF GOD WE STAND

Wonderment. That seems to be the perfect way to experience God.

Whatever we hold in our secret hidey-hole, consciously or unconsciously, is the God of our understanding. It determines how we will act, how we will react, how we will speak or not speak, think, feel, BE.

It is a false God for it is ego masquerading as truth.

It is acceptance of that fact that invites that secretly held idea out of its hidey-hole. In wonderment of God we accept and admit personal defeat and stand in awe of our freedom.

It was freedom we were hiding from, not the shame and blame our ego feared, but freedom from that very ego's tyranny. "Keep it hidden, no one need ever know" was its silent message.

Then God sets us free, we tell our world, and our world...sometimes shrugs, sometimes hugs. Both are love in action.

Thank you.

PARADOX ON A UNICORN

Negativity must be nipped in the bud—that is to say, in the mind and in the emotions, or it will invariably lead to negative actions and behaviors. -- Fr. Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation"

To many people nipping negativity in the bud is repeating affirmations endlessly. That is not necessarily nipping negativity, that is often piling on fear...the very fear of that which we are affirming against to begin with.

It is not negativity as such that must be stopped, it is fear...the fear that generates the negativity. Fear will ever be with us...thus we must needs learn how to accept fear as a fact of life not an option in life. There. That's the gut-bucket bottom line reason why we need God in our life...we cannot accept fear as a fact without going to the negative, and our own self will or want to cannot get us beyond that.

And here comes paradox ("Paradox on a Unicorn" I call it, but that's just me) to save our day.

Learning and living the power of paradox gives us the ability to bear darkness and uncertainty. According to me, the very first lesson of paradox is accepting that our only prayer need ever be "thank you." Thank you for whatever comes to us in our life...and especially when we dread what we see coming.

It is not affirmations that we need in order to keep the dreaded away...it is an open invitation to the dreaded to come on in, pass on through, get on down the road. "Thank you" is our magic potion...it wipes out resistance, leaving only gratitude behind.

Gratitude and grace are God gifts...all we need do is accept them.

Thank you.

GOING FOR GRACE

[The following is a reprint of my blog of April 2, 2013.]

I was once told that we have a choice in life: We can choose to become a highly polished acorn or we can choose to become a mighty oak...it's purely our choice.

That's one reason we no longer need regret our regrets. It will seem that every time we show ourselves off as a highly polished acorn, an ancient regret will float through our mind, and we will realize that we must turn ourselves again to still more spiritual growth, the one path to becoming a mighty oak. Our regrets are now our "Turn Around, Don't Drown" sign.

And there's the grace and the gratitude...it is only through spiritual growth that we can know that. It is only through spiritual growth that we can head in that right direction. Our reasoning mind did, does and will lust for the highly polished acorn every time.

Our goal now must be to keep cutting the lag time between lusting for polish and going for grace.

Thank you.

ON REALIZING OUR ONENESS

The spiritual teachers I've learned from generally all emphasize the importance of realizing our oneness...oneness with all and everything. 

I was pondering oneness this morning, and I thought of my contention that whenever a disagreement arises, God's hand is in it when all parties come out the winner. Which led to the thought that if all sides win, there is no winner, there is only one. It follows then that when one person wins and the other loses, ego is the winner and all sides lose. If all sides lose, there is no loser, there is only one.

Spiritually, this makes sense. To the reasoning mind, not so much.

Clearly, to me at any rate, the reason we want to stay with the spiritual is it is peaceful. Peace usually lives where there is no rat-race competition (which is often only in our own mind). There is very little peace in the ego-powered reasoning mind for it is run by the fear that if you don't lose, I'm a loser.

Finding our own personal definition of oneness is important...probably because the idea doesn't come naturally. But it's like Willy Sutton's answer when asked why he robbed banks..."That's where the money is." We need find Oneness because that's where peace is.

Thank you.

WAS IT AN ANGEL WHO WHISPERED...

I am the meat.... There is no I and meat.

Ponder that.

I am the meat, the water and the wine. There is no I and meat and water and wine.

Ponder that.

When you realize the meaning to its fullest, let it go. Else you will clutch it to yourself...trying through self-will to keep it the same, i.e., true. Your self-will drains the cosmic truth, and it becomes just a verbal talisman...of no spiritual force or effect whatsoever.

Ponder that.

Thank you.

GRATITUDE...OUR DIRECT LINE IN TO GOD

 And only hour-by-hour gratitude is strong enough to overcome all temptations to resentment. -- Fr. Richard Rohr

Doesn't that knock your socks off? The very truth of it...followed immediately by the very impossibility of it. ("Impossibility" being code for "I don't want to.")

I do try to keep a fairly constant "thank you" running in my mind...not for anything in particular, but for everything that my eyes see, that my ears hear. If I can see it, if I can hear it, my ego Lucy can take it personally (resist it) in a heartbeat. Without gratitude I will follow her over the edge into resentment just that quick.

All we need to remember when we're given "impossible" spiritual direction for upgrading our own thoughts and/or behavior is: Get grateful. Get grateful for that impossible direction since it is gratitude that hands it over to God.

Our problem is we waste precious God time in trying to figure out how we can do that, why we can't do that, whether we should do that, all of which is Miracle-Gro to our resentment. That's Lucy's playground, there is no spiritual growth there.

He goes before us to make the crooked places straight.

Thank you.

OUR SILENT PATH OF JOY

My spiritual growth seems to be based on the bass-ackward mode. I've often thought if there wasn't a backdoor to spiritual growth, I'd still be wondering who God's mother was...my first spiritual question in Sunday school, age six.

I'm guessing that's why I love paradox and parables...I was blessed when I heard and accepted that a spiritual paradox is not an intellectual exercise. It is faith-based thus faith-realized.

Fr. Richard Rohr recently wrote: Yet all spiritual traditions *** teach that the soul must be receptive before God and simply accept love, without heroic effort. It is a path of descent more than ascent, unlearning more than learning, letting go more than any performance principle.

Now that is the essence of paradoxical truth. Apart from the descent, unlearning,  and letting go, the particularly meaningful words to me are "without heroic effort." Heroic effort is going all up in our head...examining, analyzing, dissecting. Repeatedly. We become addicted to our own thinking that way...which way does not lead to God. It leads to more thinking.

Which isn't to say we must stay away from our reasoning mind altogether...we were given it for a purpose. The purpose is just not the final word; it's maybe the cane we lean on in trudging the path we need take to get to God.

That is a path of silence. Peace, be still...and know that I am God.

Thank you.

KEEP AN OPEN HEART

All who live by the sword will die by the sword. -- Matthew 26:52

I try to remember that quote when I'm all up in my head setting yet another friend/foe, stranger/acquaintance, any politician straight. Only I drop the "s" in "sword" and think "all who live by the word will die by the word." Because that's where X percent (all?) wars start...with words. Disrespecting words.

It has taken me a long time to realize (by that I mean to do) but a way to freedom from self is not to walk away from a disagreement...it is to get closer to the person we're disagreeing with. Here's the key...we're not in it to change his mind, but to change our heart. If she is spouting trash, we do not want to change our mind in order to agree with that trash, we just don't want to mistake her for the trash. That's what happens when we take the words personally.

Trash talk is only as hurtful to us as we want it to be...as we allow it to be. It becomes our truth if we resist it. Resistance becomes Velcro-like and brings the snark closer in to us, making it our own...we are nurturing it in effect. 

Remember the old adage, "Hate the action not the actor." The same principle applies here. Detach from the words, attach to the speaker...with an open heart. If we keep an open heart, we will never again have to worry about how we're going to love our enemy, or be kind to those who despitefully use us. God flows out from our open heart and there is love.

Our open heart is God's escape hatch.

Thank you.

WE ARE SOOO BLESSED

From my eyebrows up, I get that it is necessary that we each see God as supplying all that we personally need. But getting it and doing it...living there...ah, two different things all together.

Here's my best guess: Those who get it through realization, knowing from the inside out, know they never need seek anywhere else for help of any kind. The reason that's so hard to come to is it requires a whole new level of meditation. First, we must get quiet...still that busy mind...and listen inward for as long as it takes. Set no time limits...if we hear within three minutes, we've got our connection. We shoot our "Thank you," and walk away at peace. I've experienced that many times.

However, it doesn't always take two, three or four minutes. The spiritually mature are prepared to sit quietly and listen for as long as it takes to receive that God connection. Quite literally for as long as it takes...hours and longer. I am told the fruits of this discipline are other worldly. I have never experienced that.

I consider myself more spiritually mature than not, so I am very aware that the only thing that holds me back from experiencing the long-wait connection is the old want to. If I wanted to sit quietly waiting, I would. Those who want to, do; those who don't want to, pray...for a short-cut, a special dispensation, I reckon. And that's perfectly alright.

We each come into God the way we need to. I can't think God sits in judgment of our chosen way of coming to him. Or withholds his love because we chose the wrong door to enter.

God loves. You and me. Just as we are. Are we blessed or what?

Thank you.

THE SHORTER, STRAIGHTER, EASIER ROAD

Looking back, it is beyond humbling to realize how much of my life has been ruled by slight provocations...that those have been the determiner of many of my life choices.

It is humbling but also enlightening because many of those self-provoked life choices have served a good purpose...mostly in a way I would never have picked on purpose.

Fr. Richard Rohr in his Daily Meditation today puts it perfectly: "God is humble and never comes if not first invited, but God will find some clever way to get invited."

God's clever way to get invited usually grows out of a slight provocation...like, say, my pushback at you when you're being me. That is provoking. I forget my golden rule, i.e., try not to be as nasty as I want to be, and I be as nasty as I want to be. Ah, the ego-victory cycle begins.

It is often only in looking back that we can recognize the perfect outworking of many of these self-ginned cycles. The eye opener is realizing that it was when we lost (gave in, gave over, agreed...lost) that in truth we had won. Often the other became a dearer friend, not always but even when not, we learned a priceless lesson. (I love that a priceless lesson is all about me...a good lesson is about you...interesting, blah, blah, blah.)

Never curse the quirks of God...at the end of the long and winding road, we find those quirks were for our benefit. Start out believing that, and the road is shorter, straighter, easier in the trudging of it.

Thank you.

THE GIFT OF PEACE

I see me, once again, doing the same old, same old (i.e., trying to fix my current me by thinking), and I have to laugh. I've started giving a nod and a bow to my ego Lucy for her football is always in a different guise. I can laugh when I recognize that for that very reason...I recognize it.

It's so simple really...that choose you this day whom ye shall serve sounds so ponderous but really it's just choosing to laugh at our self as opposed to weep over our self.

Again I realize that when we learn unto acceptance that our choice only need be to trust God and do something about something we receive the gift of peace.

Thank you.

GOD FORGIVES FROM WITHIN

I awoke at 3:40 this morning with the thought God forgives from within. I guess that's why I call that "a blinding flash of the obvious." I mean, how obvious is that? Yet, it felt brand new...earthshaking in its importance to me in the moment.

This morning as I reread what I wrote at 3:40, I'm like well that's just the same as all love flows from within.

I remember when that was a new thought, that we have all the love we're ever going to need within us right this minute. If we find that hard to accept, test it. Give some away...there'll be more where that came from. We all know that really.Yet, doesn't it seems fanciful in the thinking? The thinking being our reasoning mind at its finest.

The spiritually obvious is the reasoning mind's whaaa? (I wonder if it doesn't follow that the reasoning mind's obvious isn't God's whaaa?)

God forgives from within. Picture it: All our rues, regrets and remorses, being within, are right smack up against forgiveness...melding, fading into each other, becoming one...with forgiveness, being of God, the One that lives within us now. 

God loves us so much.

Thank you.

ON USING GOD'S TOOLS, NOT LUCY'S

Our Father which art in Heaven.

It seems many people today are getting all hung up on the word "Father" apparently because of the gender. According to me that's the least important word of the sentence...no matter the gender.  I believe that the most important word is "Heaven." That tells us specifically where God is to be found...in Heaven which is in a higher dimension within us/without us. 

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven translates to me to be "Thy will be done in the material world (or the reasoning mind) as it is in the Fourth Dimension (or the raised consciousness)." Which keeps individual you and individual me in the picture at all times, but as God's hands and feet, eyes and ears...his tools to use to accomplish his perfect plan for individual you and individual me.

All of that was brought about as I silently prayed the 23rd Psalm this morning. At the words, "Thou prepares a place for me in the presence of mine enemies," I realized that is what my "oh-no's" are...the place God has prepared for me in the presence of my enemies. Love your enemies as yourself spoke, and I knew them for God's tools for my individual growth today.

So, I continue dealing just as before only now I'm doing God's footwork, not my ego Lucy's disgruntled hassles...and I feel freer already. I now know that I have a happy ending...just because I don't know when makes no never mind to me. (My job is to keep Lucy reined in because it will make a big never mind to her.)

God is so good to me.

Thank you.

ON DIGGING A BETTER DITCH

I dig the ditch that allows God free passage. -- Blinding flash of the obvious, 6/1/13

That sure brings the source of all my woes home to me...which I'm only fully realizing for the first time this morning. Clearly, if God isn't flowing freely in my life, it's because I've done a less than wonderful job of digging the ditch for him.

There have been a boatload of continuing oh-no's going on in my life lately. There's That Hospital and then Sheehy Honda and then the aches and pains...and I've been dealing, or close enough anyhow. I've been doing my "thank you's" and "welcomes," and not doing an inordinate amount of mind-altering curses.

This morning, however, would absolutely have sent me over the edge if I hadn't read my BFO of three years ago. This morning my boy Ruckus does not seem to be 100%...if my boy is not 100%, I'm missing in action.

I've checked him out thoroughly, and the thought occurs...he might just be showing his age. Because he ate everything and, as usual, tried to lick the chrome off the bottom of the bowl, our walk was productive, he sniffed and got sniffed, his tail was wagging...I think he's healthy. But showing his age...if that's not the good and the bad news both together, what is? He's not ill, thank you, Jesus, but he is 12 years old...enough said, roll it back, rope it in.

He is healthy, he will be with me as long as he is meant to be with me, to outstay God's plan for him on my prayers is a certain sin...I'm digging a better ditch here, God. Thank you for showing me the need.

Thank you.