NOW IS THE TIME

I don't pray for a person with whom I am in disagreement...I pray for my thoughts about that person. If Gertrude is just being Gertrude, and she and her God are happy with that (and no never mind how snarky, mean, or petty she is appearing to my eyes), it is my wrong that is for me to see.

It is my reaction to her, my thoughts about what I am perceiving, that are the irritant to me, not her. I can pray till my face falls off, that will not change her...even though she may change. God's timetable may have had her change ready all along, and here's me wanting to take credit. Meanwhile, my wrong has just been glossed over. It is, however, still there waiting to burst forth uglier than ever.

My prayer this morning: Thank you, Father, for Gertrude just exactly as she is appearing to me right this minute for just as she is appearing is helping me to see myself...my petty, my judgments, my ego defying you. If it takes me humiliating myself, thank you that I know humiliation is humility aborning. (But I'll pass on that if I have a vote.) Thank you. Amen.

We are born from love with the unlimited capacity to love...now is the time to put it to use, remembering that there is never a time that is not now.

Thank you.

KNOW IT AND SHOW IT

It is such a comfort to me to experience the God of my understanding changing within me. The hardest period of my spiritually learning life was the time I felt dead inside, no feeling of God in my life, no flashes of peace in my head, heart, gut all at once...I'm talking nada. I was scared, depressed and one hundred percent self focused.

I tried everything I could think of (there's the first clue) to bring back my self-generated security...that God was alive, in my life, had my back, was riding herd on my anxieties. Not to put too fine a point on it, but God was doing as I told him to do, and I was happy.

And then he wasn't...and then I wasn't.

In utter desperation I finally defied my ego and went to a meeting of my peers (where I'd been all but lecturing them on the glory of the God of my understanding and how they'd best follow me). I confessed that I did not know if there even was a God, but certainly none was in my life right then.

It was not long thereafter that realization in a blinding flash of the obvious filled my heart: I have been trying to keep the God of my understanding stationary, in a box so to speak, never changing, in order to hold on to that first full measure of God as grace that I had ever experienced. Loose him and let him grow.

I knew peace in my head, heart, gut all at once, and I knew that God is alive and growing within me, without me.

God cannot be held back, I can only follow him...and the best way for me to do that is to love and laugh. At anything and everything, but most especially at the unlovable and unfunny happenings in my life. Now that is freedom.

Thank you.

ACCEPT SELF OR KILL SELF, SAME DIFFERENCE

God lives in my Soul. It is my duty, my obligation, my privilege to live there with him. -- My morning blinding flash of the obvious

My interpretation of my BFO: God lives in my Soul. It is my necessary duty to hang out in God's place as much, as often, as it is possible to me...in other words, to stay out of my own head. Up in my own head I'm trying to do God's job for him. Not necessary...not possible.

I control where my God lives...I move him into a dark hidey-hole, out into the un-walled Soul, back into the dark, out into the light at (self-)will. Mine to remember is that all that moving is done through my reasoning mind with my ego Lucy always there with her advice and consent.

The conundrum is that that is the point of self-acceptance and also the point at which most spiritual books say we must kill self. I'm guessing the spiritual books are right, they just don't say that killing self is never a one-shot deal. We get to keep coming back until we get it right...coming back to our defect du jour, letting go, coming back, letting go. And accepting our self, that we're doing it right, in that process.

It is self-acceptance, acceptance of our hairy warts and our loving hearts, that allows God to enter and hunker down...to go with our flow, flow with our go.

Thank you.

HE IS...AND THAT IS ALL

Those who practice their vitriol on others invite the vitriol of others, including their own....

That was my blinding flash of the obvious the other day, and it seemed so obvious that even as I noted it, I then forgot about it.

I see today that is the source of my resistance that I wrote about yesterday (Giving God a Giggle). I mentioned the fact that for the last couple years people have been walking up to me and flat out asking my age, that I just answered and let it go. Uh-oh. If I'm still remembering it even to note that I let it go, it is still there..."nesting" so to speak.

In the nesting time, I'd occasionally think about one or the other having asked my age, and I'd just mentally shake my head and move on. But it's in the "mentally shake my head" that the vitriol lives. Because, to my ego Lucy, the full sentence is "I'd just mentally shake my head in wonderment at such uncivil ignorance."

That mindset is what keeps the mental mud, the mental vitriol, silently flowing out, flowing in without my ever consciously being aware of it.

We are the source of our own woes...invariably, always, without fail. The problem being, the pettier the woe, the harder to identify...as in, the harder to put our own name on it. That is when ego gives birth to resentment and nurtures it until it finds a willing participant to attach itself to...who then gets the full blowback of our unacknowledged ire.

That is also when the majority of the time our ongoing search for still more spiritual growth bears fruit. (Remember that 51% is the majority of the time, but it doesn't hurt to aim a tish higher.)

Now I can consciously choose...do I continue to serve Lucy, rolling in the resentment, or do I stay with the Lord, thanking him for this opportunity for still more spiritual growth? Personally, I'm staying with the Lord, knowing full well Lucy's coming along if only for the ride.

The choice is never a one-shot deal...this may or may not be the last time I'll feel the need to write about this exact same incident. It makes no never mind to God, and knowing that, me either.

I do know, and I do know from my toenails up, that God just loves me...Lucy, too...whether Lucy is riding herd or I am showing forth his love. In all cases, he is with me, within me, without me...and that is All.

Thank you.

GIVING GOD A GIGGLE

It is extraordinarily difficult for me to "loose it and let it go" when the thing I need to let go of is a speck on the eyeball of my ego Lucy. I inevitably wind up feeling like I'm arm-wrestling with God...which tells us whose side I'm on...clearly Lucy's, yet trying to make it over to God's.

Here's my even-less-than-petty problem: I have had nearly a half dozen people in the past year or so walk up to me, look me in the eye, and flat-out ask, "How old are you?"

I have no problem with people knowing how old I am, I often say for that matter. But it is the breakdown in social mores (Lucy's on a roll!) that disturbs me. The fact is, that is not only rude, it is disrespectful. Rude I can more easily pull myself away from because that says more about the speaker than the one being spoken to...but disrespectful? That is personal.

And there's the Bingo! nut of the problem. According to me, all relationship problems start when we take any difference personally. I preach that to myself a lot...and to anyone else who'll stand still long enough to hear me.

So far I've been able when asked to just answer the question and consider the source, but a man I barely know walked up to me last Sunday morning and with a crowd of people standing around, asked my age. I have learned to not return rude for rude, or disrespect for disrespect, so I answered (and with a smile). But it sure has kept Lucy on the fret since.

I think the problem has been solved though. Yesterday, I told a friend who said, "It's because you look so young, and you're coming up on 45 years of happy, joyous and free." That may not be the spiritually fit answer, but Lucy is ecstatic...and who's kidding whom? If Lucy's happy, I'm happy. Which gives God a giggle.

Thank you.

OUR TWO CHOICES ARE ONE

It is a hard lesson learning but spirituality is always eventually about what we do with our pain.

That is a powerful thought that, until we realize its fullness, is just something we quote. We must needs quit quoting and start doing. As in, realize it. Take it in...ponder it...let it flow freely through our thoughts.

We learn that our pain is our gateway to heaven (the Father within). Until we realize that, we fight, deny, resist...blaming friends, family, doctors, disease...anything out there, never once looking within.

It is only by looking within, by staying our focus within, that we find there is no blame...no blame attaches. If we're blaming and shaming, we're going down that wrong road again. That is the awakening of our inner power, allowing us to accept...to welcome!...all our rues, regrets and remorses.

And that does not make a lick of reasoning mind sense...proof, yet again, that our reasoning mind will never get us free of our self. It almost seems it links up with our ego and dares God to pass.

Yet, when we turn within for spiritual growth, we find our freedom. We learn that we have two choices: We can crash and burn, or we can love and laugh. That's when we're gifted with the great paradox: If we choose crash and burn, we end up with love and laughter. Our two choices are One.

"Salvation is not sin perfectly avoided, as the ego would prefer; but in fact, salvation is sin turned on its head and used in our favor." -- Fr. Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," July 26, 2016

Thank you.

LET GOD TAKE OVER

But I say unto you,  * * *  whosoever shall smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other also; - Matthew 5:39

I know of no one, most especially myself, who hasn't (using good common sense) resisted that line upon hearing it...and not just hearing it for the first time, but every single time. Until we take God's time to ponder it; i.e., go into our quiet and open our self to another understanding.

My common sense led me to the realization that no one I know, friend or unfriend, would slap me upside the head. Talk about me behind my back, maybe...or, more likely, chew me a new one to my eyeballs...but not slap my face. Therefore, if someone did slap my face, I could reckon that this person was not dealing from a full deck...best to smile and turn the other cheek as I quietly walk away. In other words, resist not and high tail it.

There. Common sense can lead us to the fourth dimension, and we can let God take over from there.

Thank you.

GOD-CHANGE STARTS WITH GRATITUDE

[The following is a reprint of my blog, reworked, of January 30, 2016.]

Love, Joy, Peace, welcome these. Let no personal feelings, no thoughts of self banish these. Singly, they are miracle-producing in a life, but together, they can command all that is needed on the physical, mental and spiritual planes. -- "God Calling," January 30

Ponder that. What if peace, love and joy really do command all that is needed on the physical, mental and spiritual planes? We'd surely need to change our way of living..."and if that ain't enough, change the way we strut our stuff."

According to me, all God-change starts with gratitude...specifically, gratitude for that which we're resisting! Long-ago lesson learned: We'll never let go of anything until we accept it as our own...not resign ourselves to it but accept it as our own.

A likely starting point, then, would be to detach from our own self...our sense of lack in particular. We must needs build on our inner sense of abundance, a.k.a., enough. For that is all abundance is really...enough, a consciousness of enough. More than enough is the fool's path toward greed.

Living in a consciousness of peace, love and joy is living in God consciousness. For the walking-around humans like you and me, that is to aspire to...to aim for and laugh at ourselves when we miss. And learn to aim higher.

We'll never realize the power of those "wonder-realm attributes," however, hunkered down in our reasoning mind...resistant, fearful of life itself. We can live in a welcoming state and experience those uplifted moments of peace, love and joy. For it is those moments that beget more peace, love and joy.

Really, it is our choice.

Thank you.

AND GOD LOVES US

The quality [of loving kindness] is already within you, but if you don't choose daily and deliberately to practice loving kindness, it is unlikely that a year from now you will be any more loving. -- Fr. Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," July 23, 2016 

As I prayed The Lord's Prayer this morning, I pondered that the prayer places our Father in Heaven, (to me, within), and then prays that "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven." (To me, "Thy kingdom," i.e., all God's goodies, that comes to me out there on earth, comes from within,  Heaven.)

All God's goodies, of course, are the likes of peace, patience, love, supply...and there was my blinding flash of the obvious. Supply. I have accepted, from my eyebrows up, that my supply is within me, but that has been purely intellectual.

This morning I saw a one dollar bill rather than the mile-high pile of gold I've ever tried to un-imagine. In that one dollar bill I recognized my consciousness of enough. There...my realization of supply moved from my head to my heart to my gut.

Then I sat down to read today's Rohr and there was the above quote. It radically affirmed my BFO and reminded me that I must choose "daily and deliberately to practice" the fact of all God's goodies being within me, today supply...or it is unlikely that a year from now I will have held that realization.

My own experience has taught me to use the patience I already have...by being patient with a dilly-dallying jerk (Lucy talking)...or by being kind to an ingrate (same goes). In short, by going against my own self-interest...or just by going against my own self.

As I've said before, I say again, it ain't easy. I suspect that's why there are atheists...they sincerely prayed for God to give them that which they already had, and ever looking outside rather than within, missed the gift there waiting to be used. Their miss proving to them that there is no God.

No doubt that is Lucy again, but, like a broken clock, on occasion she's right. And God loves her.

Thank you.

THE GRACE OF SELF-ACCEPTANCE

Self-acceptance, like forgiveness, cannot be self-willed. We must go to God in humble skin to thank him for his blessings...whatever they may be. We can and will in God's good time be graced with the discovery that we have had the gift of self-acceptance within us all along.

The saddest thing is to be graced with self-acceptance and then to squander it on pride of self. Pride of self holds tight to our gift so others may admire and emulate...us.

God's gifts are freely given us but they require constant vigilance in order for us to keep them. Which we can only do by giving them away.

God in his goodness is really clever...and my ego Lucy still tries to get over on him. Which cracks God up.

Thank you.

GOD'S WILL OVER OUR WILL...PLEASE

I have long believed that the most powerful prayer I know is simply, "Thank you, Father, for my everything just as it is right this very minute. Amen."

It is ever relevant...sitting in the middle of happy, it applies. Lying face down in my own mud, it applies. Taking snark from enemies...from friends!...it applies. Busted flat in Baton Rouge, waitin' for a train, it applies.

Interestingly, since I truly have long believed in that prayer, I can awaken any given morning thinking, "Please, God, don't let that happen," or "Please, God, make this happen." That is interesting to me because it proves to me that my ego Lucy also is ever relevant. Anytime I think I have the perfect prayer (when it's a panacea I'm wanting), Lucy's there, usually assuring me that she has my back.

There. The necessity for daily meditation, for the discipline of thoughts focused on spiritual principles, made plain. That's the exercise...meditation and disciplined thoughts...that give "Thank you, Father, for my everything just as it is right this very minute" its power. By our actions, we prove to our self and to God that we'd rather have his will done in our life than our will.

Thank you.

THERE IS NO FAULT

We are never angry for the reason we think. I forget where I first read that, but it has proven to be true in my experience. Ever since I realized that anger is fear looking for a fight, I've learned to strip my anger down...examine it in order to find what exactly I'm afraid of.

Peace will never by ours until we accept that that person who said and/or did us wrong (or that illness that has laid us low, or...etc.) is not at fault. There is no fault. There is only misdirection. We need to look not out there but within. If we keep looking out there, we for sure will identify the villain (them), or, more truthfully, the victim (us). No. The so-called fault is ours for accepting by our resistance that which we are choosing to believe has come to us...and unfairly to boot.

If we don't pick it up, it can't touch us. If we do pick it up, it becomes our tar baby. Only forgiveness, pure and simple, washes away the tar baby. And forgiveness is of God...it cannot be self-willed. God is not available on demand...God is.

Thank you.

TRUST BUT VERIFY

My most difficult lesson alearning has been to trust the God I love so much...or is it that I profess to love so much? As was said of the Russians, I say of the God of my understanding, "Trust but verify."

My God is pretty much a straight shooter today. Early days, however...with my ego Lucy as his translator? Hoo-boy.

But that's how we learn the necessity of  talking to others, learn to run our high-flown ideas by one or more people. Sitting alone talking only to our self, we get some real corkers...trouble is, some of them may be truth. I say "trouble is," when actually that's the good news. On our own we cannot tell the difference between ego-centered pap and God calling...that's what opens us to others, allows us to ask for another's insights. It's our asking another that lets God slide in.

I have learned to trust God today...and still I verify. I have become vigilant. I believe there are only two things with me 24/7...one is God, the other is Lucy. Lucy is smaller today than she once was, but I've lost weight before, too....

Thank you.

TO LOVE IN A LOVELESS PLACE

See yourselves as those around you see you, not as you wish to be, and walk very humbly with your God. 

That sentence from today's "God Calling" (which every year I underline in a different color) may be my life's goal. It for sure has been my mountain to climb. My first thought is never of those around me being those who love me and think I'm simply swell...no, it's always of those I resist "because they think I'm X, Y or Z." And X, Y or Z means wrong. And stupid into the bargain.

Eknath Easwaran writes of his spiritual adviser, his Granny, who taught him to get closer to those he didn't particularly care for because that is the way to learn how to love...openly, willingly, joyfully. And don't we all long for that? For that feeling in our heart, soul, body and brains?

But yuck! What a hard road to walk to get there! Says my ego Lucy. For Lucy is the only part of me that really balks at the idea of moving closer to my "resistibles." Invariably, per Lucy, they are the ones resisting me, I'm just following their signals. Turning away from Lucy toward God is the drill for learning to align our will with God's will. It ain't easy.

Looking to simplify, I choose to believe that one sentence from "God Calling" is the entire instruction book on learning to love in a loveless place which, according to me, is the real solution to life's petty problems.

Thank you.

THE INCOMPREHENSIBLE POWER OF GRATITUDE

A thought I picked up from Rohr back in 2013: "It was surrender to gratitude—and also to immense confidence that you were a part of something very good."

It is the surrender to gratitude that calls my name, that showers me, inside and out, with immense confidence that I am, myself, something very good.

And you, yourself, are something very good.

That we, ourselves, are, together and apart, One...something very good.

And it all starts with surrender...to gratitude.

Thank you.

PEACE IN THE MOMENT FOREVER

Many of us today have bought into the school of positive thinking as the answer to our problems. Positive thinking is for sure desired over negative thinking. Per Marcus Aurelius, "Our life is what our thoughts make it." I believe that the problem is we are taught in that school that by our thoughts we can will mud into money...or something into nothing, as needed.

No. According to me, true positive thinking is accepting as irresistible whatever our mind's eyes are perceiving...and giving thanks to God for it just as it is appearing.

My life improved dramatically when I discovered (accepted really) "love and laugh" as my life's directions. Those three words, usable for every situation in life, if followed can and will change our life for the better. Simply love and laugh. Which boils down to: Resist nothing that comes to us and laugh at our struggle to let it be.

My reasoning mind has slung darts, arrows and knives at my every attempt to accept that premise, but since I know that my ego Lucy is the driver of that well-padded limousine, I keep smiling as I turn to God in thanks.

I have never had mud turned into money but I have found peace in the moment. Staying in that non-resistant place has, can and will stretch that peace in the moment into a lifetime of positive thinking, i.e., peace of mind. And there it is...the pearl beyond price.

Thank you.

FOR WHATEVER IT'S WORTH....

The movement to full wisdom has much to do with necessary shadow work and the emergence of healthy self-critical thinking, which alone allows you to see beyond your own shadow and disguise and to find who you are "chosen in Christ from the beginning of the world" (see Ephesians 1:4ff). The Zen masters are saying the same thing when they speak of "the face you had before you were born." This metaphysical self cannot die and always lives in God; it is your True Self, and is probably what we mean by the soul. -- Fr. Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," July 15, 2016

There is so much in this very first paragraph of Rohr's "Meditation" today that I had to pull it apart for myself in order to more fully ponder it.

For whatever it's worth:

The movement to full wisdom has much to do with necessary shadow work and the emergence of  healthy self-critical thinking, [healthy self-critical thinking does not originate in the reasoning mind...it comes from our turning our thoughts within, to God. Positive thinking about our self is all well and good and can be achieved through self-help books, psychiatry, various programs, etc., but we remain on the reasoning mind level which is either/or thinking. It is not healthy self-critical thinking which returns us to us...it is singularly of God.] which alone allows you to see beyond your own shadow and disguise and to find who you are "chosen in Christ from the beginning of the world" [This is my "before conception" blinding flash of the obvious and is an example of "nothing is original to me." To my knowledge, I never heard of  "chosen in Christ from the beginning of the world"  and yet when "before conception" came to me, I knew it to be true and have relied on it since. The Zen masters are saying the same thing when they speak of "the face you had before you were born." [Same goes.] This metaphysical self cannot die and always lives in God; it is your True Self, and is probably what we mean by the soul. [This then is the place we return to at the completion of this journey...it "always lives in God." From which place, according to me, we will set forth again...and again...and again. We keep coming back until we get it right. Then we will return to rest in God. This is why we so diligently seek now for ego deflation in depth (to loose our little self and let it go)...the fewer our journeys, the sooner our rest in God. To me, this is why death as we know it is nothing to fear and suicide is to be avoided at all cost...we'd just have to come back and clean up that mess.]

Thank you.

ESSENTIALS: FOOD, WATER, AIR...GOD

If we are to speak of miracles, the most miraculous thing of all is that God uses the very thing that would normally destroy you--the tragic, the sorrowful, the painful, the unjust--to transform and enlighten you. -- Fr. Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," July 5, 2016

That is truth. Underneath that truth is the reason for us to stop trying to pray our "tragic, sorrowful, painful and unjust" away. That reason being that we usually wind up declaring there is no God since he does not whisk those troubles away. As Rohr notes, in time...God's perfect time...they are transmuted for our benefit. 

When some less-than-wonderful thing is facing us and it gets fixed seemingly without human hands touching it, we take that as proof that God is taking care of us. It may be, but it is just as likely to be Gertrude's fate being worked out with us getting the side bennies. Or, since it rains on the just and the unjust alike, it may just be our time in the sunshine. But really there is no happening or un-happening on earth that proves God's existence... or nonexistence.  

God is. Know it and quibble no more.

It is in the quibbling that we bring our own ugly down upon us...it is in our own head, the questioning. It's like questioning whether we really need air, water, food in order to live. Yes. We do. And the same goes for God. According to me.

Thank you.

TRUST GOD AND GET OUT OF HIS WAY

My dream: There is a terrible drought. I am walking alone in the fields of a once-fertile farm. There are only dead cornstalks, wasted trees and dry creek beds around me.

I ask God to make it all better...in whatever way he chooses.

I immediately stumble on an old, dried-up cow patty. I know it was not there a minute ago, and now it is right in my path. I am not happy because in my stumble, I step on the patty which is fresh beneath the crust.

I feel certain God is mocking me...I ask for help and even leave how he brings the help entirely up to him. I'm saying "Thy will, not mine, be done," and I'm getting fresh cow manure?

I walk on, looking for water or some living thing...nada. I give up. I know I am going to die of either starvation or thirst whichever comes first, and I don't care. I can't even weep. I sit down and apparently doze off because I'm awakened by a light rain. I look back the way I'd come.

There are little sprouts of wheat and corn and living things I can't even identify, including flowers, growing in my footsteps. And as I look they spring fully mature, ready for harvest.

I realize the seeds of all these growing things had stuck to my foot.  The one that had stepped in the dried-up cow patty. The patty that hadn't been there until I asked God for help in whatever way he chose to bring it.

We may not like what it looks like on arrival, but once we learn to trust God and get out of his way,
voila! God's perfect will realized.

Thank you.

THY WILL BE DONE...ALWAYS THY WILL

When it is obvious that a goal cannot be achieved, don't change the goal, adjust the action steps.

-- Confucius

Just this morning I was reminded of Paul's statement, "When I am weak, I am strong." I  recognized that as the basis of my belief that welcoming our worst fear (as opposed to resisting it) is living a turned-over-to-God life...whatever God wills is fine by me.

When it is obvious that a goal cannot be achieved, don't change the goal, adjust the action steps means the same thing to me. For example, I realize my goal cannot be achieved...say, I cannot change my mind on my unaided own ("I am weak"). My action step is to turn in gratitude to my father within who can and will change my mind...maybe to something better, maybe to acceptance of what is just as it is  ("I am strong").

It is our resistance that holds our fear to us; welcoming it (kissing our fear on the lips) is our invitation to God to do with it as he chooses.

By-the-by, my angel Ari once told me that "kiss your fear on the lips" is just jive for "Thy will, not mine, be done." I'm good with that.

Thank you. 

CHOOSE YE THIS DAY....

I have come to believe that there is good in everything, invisible, hidden from the human eye and the reasoning mind's ability to grasp, but present.

It is God.

Our job here on earth is to seek and find that good. Of  course, the difficulty in grasping and holding that idea is our reasoning mind kicks in, elbows out the spiritual nature of the message...and tries to make it true.

It is true already. We come to believe it by being lifted into God consciousness...or in simple terms, by changing our mind. Either way it is through God and God alone.

Believing that is a gift of grace. Living as though we believe that is our choice.

Thank you.

AND STILL I WONDER....

[The following is reworked from a reprint of a blog of mine from July 12, 2012.]

Who was I before I chose to feel hurt?

How do I become that whole me again? Or was I whole then?

How do I shuck my shields?

Why can't I shuck my shields at will? Or can I?

Is it a matter of will...or of grace? Is it my choice...or am I chosen?

If one is chosen, aren’t we all chosen?...for God cannot play favorites.

If Truth, to be true, must be proved, and cannot be proved by sheer will, how does one prove Truth without an act of will?

Is it as simple as making the decision?

Thank you.

BE! BE AS GOD GIFTED US TO BE!

The events of the past few days weigh heavy this morning on my heart, my head, my soul. And God weeps...the God of my understanding weeps.

I can and do believe that we each of us, every single born person on this earth in this universe, was born with the peace that passes understanding within us. With our very conception, we received that peace, right along with love, patience, joy...all the goodies. All are awaiting our use. Which is the only way they will ever be loosed...ever be set free to be.

A block to our knowing they are there is our continuous prayers for God to give them to us. They are there! They live within us! Use them already! Be at peace. Be loving. Be patient. Be joyous.

Thomas Merton wrote: "[This] is not a policy for the seizure of power. It is a way of transforming relationships so as to bring about a peaceful transfer of power, effected freely and without compulsion by all concerned, because all have come to recognize it as right." [NOTE:  Merton was speaking of ahimsa which is above my pay grade...but anyone who teaches the way of peace as a way of life is right on in my book.]

Until we recognize the potential for evil in all of us, there can be neither atonement nor forgiveness. -- Michael W. Fox, M.D., Letter to the Editor, "The Washington Post," July 6, 1997

Thank you.

CHOOSE HAPPY, JOYOUS AND FREE

If we want sustainable communities, we must always welcome the 'other' and learn to see our neighbor as ourselves. -- Fr. Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," April 22, 2016

Please read Rohr's quote again, and substitute "to be happy, joyous and free" for "sustainable communities." There. We're now heading in the right direction, up the right road toward peace.

The right road toward that peace is accepting that a sustainable community is necessary to our own life, and for that we are responsible. We cannot get there without welcoming the "other," and especially the one to whom we are most resistant...the one we identify as the primary cause of  our psychic pain. Psychic pain is nearly always somebody else's fault according to my ego Lucy.

The hard lesson learning is that feeling happy, joyous and free is personal. It does not come easy. It is always, always, always entirely 100% up to us personally to achieve. And it is achievable in the midst of unrest, of turmoil, of chaos.

It is achievable by taking happy, joyous and free personally. It is achievable by not taking unrest, turmoil and chaos personally.

A flower falls even though we love it; and a weed grows even though we do not love it. -- Dogen Zenji  

Thank you.

ON FINDING OUR HIGH GROUND

Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth. -- The Beatitudes, Matthew 5:5
[Meek - first definition: enduring injury with patience and without resentment; second definition: deficient in spirit and courage. --"Webster's Dictionary"]

That one Beatitude is the crux of the matter...according to me. It is the Rosetta Stone for all peoples for living in peace. Simply living, breathing, being at peace within and without our self always and all ways forever. Survival in a word.

Three of my favorite quotes are Ain't gonna study war no more from an old American spiritual; I will fight no more forever, Chief Joseph; and We have ceased fighting anything and anybody, Anonymous.

Interestingly, all three of my favorites mention war or fighting. But the beatitude is about our Being. I wonder...can one make oneself meek? I doubt there is a single soul today who would want to make her/himself meek. Yet, take meek to the outside of enough, and for a fact that is the only way there will be survival of anyone on the planet.

The meek are like animals that sense a tsunami coming...they head for high ground. And, please note, it begins with the animals sensing a threat coming. They don't hang around till they're knee-deep in muddy water.

That's how I regard my thoughts...as muddy water. My attack thoughts really. My thoughts, in general, are pleasant today...as long as I stay focused on my next step rather than my last misstep. It is going to the last misstep that muddies/muddles our thinking.

Training our thoughts, the home of our re-actions, is the drill. That begins with upgrading our opinion of meek. In today's world, the second definition rules (i.e., deficient in courage) when it is the first definition (enduring slights without resentment) that we must needs open to.

Enduring slights without resentment. There's our high ground.

Thank you.

ON OUR WAY TO FREE

When I say that to go to God for aught but God, even for health, wealth and happiness for my enemy, is staying in the material mind, I must make clear that the offense is in the word "for." To go to God for anything keeps us in the reasoning mind. The Father knows our needs. 

We go to God in gratitude. We go to God asking for nothing, thanking him for everything, as, for instance, our daily bread. 

Then we move it up a step deeper: We go to God in gratitude for the less than wonderful appearing in our life. Those things in particular we embrace for those are our chosen tools. According to me, these are the tools we personally selected before conception in order to facilitate our return journey to Heaven.

Sidebar: This belief of mine always reminds me of a novelty song that was popular when I was in high school. I can only remember the one line, but it tells the story: "When they were passing out noses, I thought they said roses, and I said, 'I'll have a big red one.'" For whatever convoluted reason, that helped me accept my defects as my personally selected God tools...as I wailed, "That's not what I meant!"

Learning unto acceptance that the oh-no events in our life are our chosen tools to get to God is our breakthrough. Until we learn that, we waste our breath and God's time praying for him to remove them. An oh-no can take an entire day...week? month? longer?...until we learn to welcome it. Welcome it with praise and thanks for what else will or has held our concentrated attention for so long? And there it is. It is our stairway to Heaven.

Name it "Blessed" and get happy for it's on its way to being transmuted. Which means we're on our way to free...humbled but free. Humbled and free. 

Happy, joyous and free.

Thank you.

FOREVER OR FOR THE MOMENT...FOR NOW

Bad business gets you bad business. When we put ugly out there, no matter how un-ugly or even justified we call it, we get ugly back.

The spiritual lesson is to promptly admit our bad, and this is where we really learn the old adage that you can't unring a bell. The one we pushed may very well hear our admission of wrong, not give a rap, and push again, harder and uglier.

This is where so many of us falter and fail for now there are choices. For instance, do we continue the push-back-harder game? Or do we mentally write this person off as a loser and walk away (with a resentment that will wake us at 3:00 AM whenever it chooses)? Or do we choose forgiveness where we trust God utterly (with the risk of offering forgiveness and getting laughed at in return)?

At some point in our evolving life, and we get to determine how long this takes, but at some point we must needs hold our nose and take a leap of faith...and choosing forgiveness is often the jump point...out there into the unknown, no net, no parachute, nothing but the faith we've been graced with.

Our holdback, of course, is our fear that we don't have enough faith to make the leap. The fact of faith is, it only takes an amount the size of a mustard seed. And the only way to know if we have enough is to use what little we have...hold our nose and go for it.

In making the choice of forgiveness, we shuck our shields and stand bare before our world, and thank God for the grace of forgiveness. For all of us. Forever. Or just for the moment.

Thank you.

GOD KNOWS OUR NEEDS...BELIEVE IT

It seems every July 4 when I read my Easwaran daily reader, I feel gobsmacked by the Meister Eckhart quote: Some people want to see God with their eyes as they see a cow, and to love Him as they love their cow -- for the milk and cheese and profit it brings them. This is how it is with people who love God for the sake of outward wealth or inward comfort.

And the gobsmacked comes with the last three words, or inward comfort.  Loving God for the sake of outward wealth is obviously of the reasoning mind (because it does make sense, who's kidding whom?). But loving God for the sake of inward comfort? That's on the same plane as loving him for outward wealth? Holy moly. That is some strict standard...but then it is Meister Eckhart. He'd best have higher standards than we do...he is, after all, the one we're trying to emulate.

And still I am re-reminded that I know and I do preach, unfortunately, that we go to God for God and that is all. To go to God for aught but God, even for health, wealth and happiness for my enemy, is staying in the material mind. There is no spiritual growth there.

Yet, again this year, I read the Eckhart quote and my mind balks at "or inward comfort."

Ah, now a feeling of peace comes over me. I need to be reminded once a year, apparently, that to go to God for anything but God is not going to God...it's my ego Lucy dressed in the Pope's robes heading me down that wrong road again.

God knows our needs.

Thank you.

DON'T NATTER...DO

Fr. Richard Rohr often says that if we do not transform our pain, we will always transmit it. That seems so obvious that I believed it on reading and moved on. But this morning, as I sat in my quiet time, I wondered what exactly that means...how do I personally "transform" my pain?

The answer is fairly obvious...acceptance in a word.

The problem with acceptance is we cannot self will it. Acceptance is the answer no matter the question, but when we're in pain...psychological pain in particular (what my ego Lucy knows as that feeling of unloved, unwanted, unneeded and unappreciated)...acceptance is just another word.

I've found a good starting place for my being willing to accept that which feels unacceptable is to go to a quote of  William James: Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune.

There is no judgment there...just a statement of fact, a how-to really, as he says. "to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune." I'm convinced it is ego alone that resists acceptance...Lucy will always resist it because, to the ego, it lets Gertrude, the real offender, off the hook.

Again, the problem with acceptance is we cannot self will it. Which is only a problem if we refuse to let go, and keep trying to do it our self.

We turn to God, to the God of our own understanding, immediately if not sooner, and assure him and our self that he has the problem now...we have released it into his capable hands.

All it takes to make that assurance is a simple, "Thank you." Anything more is nattering.

Thank you.

A FRIENDSHIP ABORNING

So I read this morning that we must be willing "to risk the attachments of love." My first thought: What does that even mean?

Then I heard my own voice from the past justifying my resistance to forming friendships...it's a hassle, takes too much time, requires a boatload of effort, etc. All of those negatives being nothing more nor less than food for my ego Lucy who can feed on those for days on end. "It's too much of a hassle" kept me self-bound for way too long. And, of course, these thoughts would come when I already had a friend or two...what did I need with three or more?

Wondrous thought...what if the "attachments of love" are exactly that?...the hassle, the time, the effort. The risk is in our acceptance of them as our own. For it is only by accepting our warts that they can be "repurposed" (I love that word!).

It is grace that transmutes the resistance so they  can be freely given up...no, not given but offered. Offered in the name of love, silently. And there it is...a friendship aborning.

Thank you.

MY NEMESIS, MY FRIEND

We must needs come to believe unto knowing unto living the truth that hides within us...that our worst fear is our best friend. We hate yet hold to this truth as we realize that nothing else could or would, can or will, goose us to God more consistently...or imperatively.

That is the pain and the peace of God's perfect will.

Thank you.