LET GO, LET GOD, LOVE AND LAUGH

Failures come from depending too much on your own strength. -- Anonymous

According to me, that is the punchline of the Sermon On The Mount...the inner message as it were. The Sermon is all about giving over...agree with  your adversary quickly and resist not evil and if someone steals your coat, run after them and give them your cloak and if someone slaps you upside your head, turn the other cheek.

I do not believe that there is a one of those that we can do relying on our own strength alone. That is the definition of ego deflation...our strength alone, be it mentally or physically (and there is no spiritually alone), will never suffice

Our trouble comes from settling for temporary fixes...if it feels right and good and we get kudos, within or without, we believe it is God's will and move on it. When it falls apart, after a day, a week, a year or two, we are shocked, scared and peeved...at God. And usually hold tighter to the now problem because we are convinced that was God's will for us...and it might have been, but God's will moves on.

Our lesson to learn is that the time that it seemed to work was necessary to our life to move us forward toward our rightful place. A further part of that lesson is that there will be many temporary rightful places that grow mold and must be left behind. There is always something higher, some place deeper that comes from that temporary holding place.

The first time I experienced this was a life changer for me. After my first retreat, I was led to a change in jobs, and it felt as though God had my hand and walked me there. It took some time for the job to materialize but every day gave me an eye-opening gift from God toward it. The first day on the job...I'm saying the very first day...it was obvious this was a baaaad move.

That's when I learned that every gift from God is good and true and necessary for the moment of the gift. We learn to give thanks and go forward with it, expecting this, too, shall pass. We will grow from this gift and be led ever higher into the deeper Self. Our job is to let go. That is our always job.

Let go and let God...and love our self and laugh with God at how hard it is to do only that.

Thank you.

FEAR OF TRUSTING GOD

[The following is a reprint of a previous blog of mine.]

I dreamed last night:

I am living in poverty. I am gifted with the Hope Diamond. I am ecstatic…all my worries are over. I’m told its value which is more money than I ever dreamed of having. I’m also told that the value may double or even triple within a day or two. Of course I hold onto it because if a million is good, etc. Weeks pass. I do nothing but worry and check on the value…has it gone up yet? How bout now? Any movement today? I do not have a buck to buy a dollar meal with. I am starving as I clutch my Hope to my heart. I think of how much more money I will get if I just hold on to my fortune another day or two. As I lay dying, I realize my death is not from starvation but from fear. Fear of trusting God. I hear again, "God can and will intervene in your life in your behalf." And I realize that before God can and will...anything, I must needs let go. God will not force me...I have free will to choose.

Choose ye this day....

Thank you.

ON BEING READY TO RIDE

I remember when I first read "Beware of running from yourself and your own legitimate suffering, which is the price of being a human being in a limited world." (Rohr, "Daily Meditation," 8/1/13)

That comes to me this morning as I ponder more deeply death...my death, of course. Death itself is nothing to ponder. It just is. But my death, now that's a whole 'nother thing.

Other than my age there is nothing indicating I'm near or even nearing death. But I've seen too many apparently happy, joyous and free people, when it unexpectedly came their time, resist death in either fear or anger. I've known others who met their death peacefully...with an inner joy. That, I imagine, is what we'd all like.

What I'm being led to is the realization that there is no preparing for death per se. There is living our life as well and happily as we can, cleaning up our missteps as we go, with the welfare of others our first priority...if, that is, we've truly committed to living by spiritual principles.

I suspect the hang-up for many of us is that "with the welfare of others first." That hits the old ego's panic button of "but what about me?" Ego always speaks louder than God, that's why we need the daily discipline of meditation...to learn to listen for the still, small voice before ego edges God out.

There's my preparation for death with a smile in my heart...to continue to live each day as concerned for her peace of mind, for his resentment-free mind, as I am for my own. Maybe, instead of "continue" it should be "improve"...to improve my living each day, etc. I'm happy to realize I do live that today...even if it does take an hour or a day to catch myself and turn me around.

I'm heading in the right direction. I suspect my inner comfort comes from realizing that I am heading in the right direction and so is everybody that I know and love. Everybody dies alone physically, but if physically were the jackpot, God would be physically present to  us. So knock yourself out, Death, I've got my God, my peeps, old Lucy...we're ready to ride.

Thank you.

THE PERSON WE ARE MEANT TO BE IS ABORNING

Before conception, we are embedded with free will...in the ether of God consciousness from whence we come, we are formed. Free will is one of the gifts we are born with. -- Long ago blinding flash of the obvious, revisited.

It is the reasoning mind's dilemma, when once it accepts its powerlessness, to try to return our free will to God in exchange for his will. This is an invite to the ultimate crash and burn for that exchange cannot be done...we'd just as well ask to return our ability to breathe yet continue to walk on this earth in order to avoid COPD.

A glance at our motives tells us we are not seeking an exchange of our free will for God's will for our spiritual growth. No, we are seeking to avoid the hard lessons we must learn in this life on our journey out from and back to the Father within.

We begin to awaken when we realize that it is our very own free will that keeps us heading toward and for God's will. Thus is formed our crucible where the rues, regrets and remorses, the mistakes of our free will, are turned into the gold that invites our Father within to flow forth. The person we are meant to be is aborning with our goal now to be of help to others.

According to me.

This is why I love symbols and myths, exaggerations and stories. Taken literally, my BFOs can be called a crock...and may have been, but never to me or by me. They lift my heart, free my doubting mind, transmute my soul into My soul, and prove Rohr's contention that: A heart trapped in historical literalism, or closed to the power of poetry, will remain bored, reactive, and trapped in critique....A true symbol is not only a pointer to 'a more absolute reality,' but by that very fact awakens us to the deepest level of our own life too. [Fr. Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," September 28, 2015]

A heart trapped in literalism is a heart trapped.

Thank you.

WE ARE ONE IN GOD'S LOVE

Perfectionism discourages honest self-knowledge and basic humility, which are foundational to spiritual and psychological growth. It has made basic social tranquility a largely unachievable goal. Grandiose people cannot create peace. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," July 20, 2016

Perfectionism is tricky. I've never viewed myself as a perfectionist so imagine my surprise when I learned that self-doubt is the gateway to perfectionism. And the deeper the doubt, the wider the gate swings. We can know we are going away from God toward our own idea of perfection when no matter what we do or how we do it, our ego's response is to wring hands and wail, "How stupid can you be? What is WRONG with you? Will you ever get anything right?" 

My self-doubt has been transmuted...mainly. Today when Lucy commences nattering about my stupidity, I have choices...I can agree with her and laugh, I can agree with her and shrug. Either choice is a turn to God.

What I don't do is: I don't disagree, push back, feel hopeless "after all these years." I don't resist my inner natterings in any way. Especially since I learned that is grandiosity aborning.

It was a comfort to learn that Lucy's harangues can be transmuted repeatedly, and it was particularly comforting to find that they are transmuted into self-acceptance. All we need do is change our mind. The spiritual discipline we're learning, to say "thank you" is to change our mind, is invaluable here because it's short, it's easy, and it works.

The quickest way I've found to change my mind is to thank God for his love which is mine now...and yours.

God is love...and so are we. Perfect.

Thank you.

THROUGH SILENCE WE ARE FREE

I've often wondered why people with "bad" tempers seem so proud of that. I was talking with a friend yesterday who was doing the humble-brag about his ugly temper. I asked him if he'd ever heard of a pretty temper, and if he honestly considered it ugly, why ever hold on to it?

I've believed for some time now that anger is victim-thinking, that bad-tempered people see themselves as victims. Victims live on guard, self-protected, looking to lash out, and there is no God there.

I once thought myself a gutless wonder...come ugly-anger time, I made myself invisible. I still get out of the way physically when someone breaks bad, parading their ugly for all the world to fear, but I consciously turn my thoughts inward today.

Seek the gold in the situation...resist not. Welcome God into our thoughts by being fully aware that this is an opportunity to be quiet and know I am God. Then let good thoughts flow...thoughts of puppy dogs and moonbeams, rainbows and once-foes-now-friends.

There. We smile knowing that we've shut our ego up by listening for God's voice...in that moment we are free without ever having said a word.

Thank you.

GOD PROTECTS US FROM NOTHING

[The following is a reprint of my blog of December 16, 2014.]

Sometimes I feel like I'm learning spiritual principles just so I can beat myself up for not living by spiritual principles.

It was a heartbreaker and a mindbender when the writings of Mother Teresa were published after her death. I identified way more than I wanted to. And in what world is that an acceptable reality...I identified too much with Mother For Heaven's Sake Teresa! And I rued that! But she was some kind of hard on herself for not living up to her own God standards.

That's one of the giftees I get from journaling...I can look back a year or more later and read about what I was mentally arm-wrestling with back when. It is usually a jolt when I realize...and fairly often...that that problem has been cleared...either resolved in my favor or transmuted as another piece of gold for me to learn to love.

And there's the joy...recognizing a personal rue, regret, remorse as the gold I get to love.

I'm probably putting on airs, but I'm reminded of Fr. Richard Rohr's writing in his "Daily Meditation" of December 4th: However, as a person ripens in unsayable intimacies in God, they ripen in a paradoxical wisdom. They come to understand God as a presence that protects us from nothing, even as God unexplainably sustains us in all things.

Thank you.

FREE SELF...LOVE AND LAUGH

Again I am reminded that it is our desperate need that brings transformation, that causes our will to finally break, let go, crash and burn.

Our desperate need causes our ears to hear, the blindfold to fall from our eyes, the door to our heart and soul to swing open...and our self-centered mind to be raised to a new level, all through our very need which has just shown us to be utterly powerless.

This is our introduction to learning of the higher intelligence within us or God consciousness. We learn that it is not available on demand, that we cannot use our own self-determined objectives until we hit the wall then expect to be lifted into God's Fix-Me-Stick consciousness. No. We learn that every day, and fairly often during that day, we need to make conscious contact with the Father within...just a simple "thank you" is all that is needed to begin.

We grow spiritually when we make that thank you our own...it comes alive then and grows. Just repeating thank you by rote is not enough for that leaves our ego free to get into a lot of mental hogwash. Which brings us right back to our self-invited crash and burn.

In order to stay focused on God (or unfocused on self) we do three things daily: "Trust God, clean house, help another." There. That frees us up to love and laugh.

Thank you.

OUR FATHER KNOWS OUR NEEDS

Looking back, it's fairly clear to me that trusting that there is never a reason, never a need, to seek the Lord's help has been my hardest lesson not to learn but to live. Our Father knows our needs. There's the promise. Knowing our needs, then, does it make even common sense that he would withhold help? What?...until we asked?...and used the correct language, with all the semicolons in the right place?

We do not need to seek God's help in trusting. We already have all the trust we'll ever need within us right now. It was implanted there at birth along with, among other things, kindness and love, and they are ever ready for our use.

It is from that taproot that our wellbeing flows. Here's the spiritual secret: Our wellbeing comes not from taking thought for our self but from our taking thought for another. It flows not for our own feel-good but for our use in improving our relationships with others...which makes every foe a friend in waiting.

Here again, we rely on our new golden rule: Just try not to be as nasty as you want to be (a lot of spiritual growth comes from not setting the bar too high to begin with).

Thank you.

SIT AND WAIT ON THE LORD

To feel perfect peace with all is to know God within. -- Blinding flash of the obvious, September 21, 1996

Abundance is the Christ principle...or the Christ principle is abundance...not to seek for but to show forth. -- Blinding flash of the obvious, September 21, 2006

Putting the Gertrudes of our life first, learning to live the principle of giving over to another against our wants for our own, is what attracts others to us. -- Blinding flash of the obvious, September 21, 2016

Thank you.

THAT MOMENT OF PURE BLISS

Instead of praying for God to bring us happy, joyous and free, start giving happy, joyous and free. We get it by giving it, by being it. Just Be.

In the face of life's latest slap upside the head...awake! Awake from our material state. Visualize angel wings carrying us forward...over the lumps and the bumps, over the less-than-wonderful...up to the new and beautiful place within our very own self...up to our worry-free zone.

It's hard to find that zone, God's hidey hole, only because we've never taken the time to look for it. A quick glance and "not here" is our plaint. In truth, that's really our ego's excuse. It dare not look  or let us look...if/when we find God's hidey-hole, we'll know we never need ego again. Which isn't to say we'll never use ego again, but we will be free of the hypnotism of it.

And there it is...the good and the bad news both together. The delicious feeling of having someone to blame is gone. We'll not be able to freely blame again. What we get is a moment of pure bliss that comes from grace when we take responsibility for our own self.

The great secret is that taking responsibility for our own self entails giving over to another...ceding our rights, for our rights are ego, plain and simple.

That is the pearl beyond price. Unimaginable...which is why it's so hard to find, I'm guessing.

We spend our spiritual energy trying to imagine God's grace...sticking with the reasoning mind. No. We get to hold our nose and take a leap of faith. Out there in the ether without a net. And all we need think is "thank you." Before the fact.

Thank you.

FIND THE GOLD!

This is what it means to be awake: to be constantly willing to say that God could even be coming to me in this! Even in this! -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," December 9, 2014

I love that quote sooo much. Probably because that is the foundation of my spiritual growth which began the day I was graced by a blinding flash of the obvious: "Find the gold in this."

To my eyes, the "this" was just awful, and I was just powerless to do anything about it. But I had never heard of such a concept, and I felt like I had just run out of gas in the fast lane on the freeway.

I know now that God, or a whole flock of angels, was coming to me in that...even in that!

There have been a lot more "oh no!" times that have come, but none as "oh no!" as the first one. Every time, I've turned it around in my mind until I found the gold...and all it takes is finding the slightest sliver of gold. Hold to that, and gratitude just starts flowing through body, mind and spirit.

Gratitude is the gate God uses...go there often and sit and wait on the Lord. He cannot fail to come, laughing and scratching. Or maybe that part's just me.

Thank you.

GOD LOVES US...WHETHER OR NOT WE KNOW IT

We can know that we have all the love, patience, kindness...good in a word...there is to have within us right this minute, but until we realize it, it's just head knowledge.

Head knowledge is all well and good...and necessary, in fact, for we must start somewhere. Too often, though, we sit with our first understanding believing we have the big "It." We don't...we have it from our eyebrows up and that is all.

That is why seeking still more spiritual growth is a daily practice...of making our self available each and every day, the earlier in the day the better before the outside world awakens and intrudes into our consciousness, according to my first spiritual adviser.  I have found that to be true.

It is when we start actually using that indwelling patience by being patient in a trying situation, by showing love to an unlovable, by doing good for a creep...by not judging others as creeps for that matter...that we realize the Father within.

My ego Lucy will always speak louder to me than God does, make more sense to my reasoning mind, be more clearly on my side. That's why we need a mentor, why we have friends...for us to turn to so they can speak truth to the towering power of our ego. If talking to our self worked, we'd never  need a friend...why parade our ignorance, Lucy would ask. 

All of this is hard, requires leaning into God a lot, and never giving up. It is only by committing to the daily discipline for our spiritual growth that it turns from hard to natural...kinda like breathing.

Whether we do it or not, God loves us...we just can't realize it when we're listening only to our own nattering.

Thank you. 

TO FIND THE WANT TO, GO WITHIN

Fr Richard Rohr has written many times that until we find a way to be a transformer, we will pass our pain on to others. That rang true to me the first time I read it, and it continues to ring true every time I reread it.

Only this morning did the idea spring forth...we don't need to ponder how to be a transformer, we have the answer: Love and laugh. When we're feeling the pain of day-to-day living (as in, when I'm dealing with others who are doing it wrong and it is adversely impacting Me), love and laugh. Which is code for don't be as nasty as you want to be.

So, the problem is not in finding a way, it's finding the want to within our own self. Our need is to become willing to tangle with our ego...with love. And laughter.

Here's my good news: We can take some comfort in the fact that by our very desire for still more spiritual growth, we are in the process of developing the necessary willingness to say no to ego.

I figure I'm learning how to refuse Lucy a place at the table. In looking back, I can say, without lying even, my learning started in earnest when I was gifted with my ego's name, Lucy. For whatever reason, that lessens the load. The load being me.

Most times now when I realize Lucy is doing my thinking for me, I feel lighter. I can grin and consider options for getting over myself. Before, when I'd suspect that my ego was in control, I'd mentally see this long, dark and dreary road, uphill, before me...and usually find a trashy romance to read.

Just had a BFO: The Bible, if read right, can qualify as trashy romance. God does not care how we come to him...just come.

Thank you.

BRING A LITTLE LAUGHTER

It is a constant state of irk that causes us to question why we don't live more at peace within/without our self. Especially since we have learned that God is the answer no matter the question. That's not a hard lesson to learn, it's not even a hard lesson to remember...what it is is the endless fight to detach from the ego-victory want to win...my way. Not for others, for me!

What is so frustrating is doing it right, getting over our own self, as in, showing forth courtesy when discourtesy comes our way...then two days, week, months later find our self chewing on the memory of it...mentally kicking him to the curb, slapping her down with a few intensely hurtful words. When we know full well there is no chance that is going to happen, nor would ever have happened. It is clearly an ego-victory fantasy.

In fact, what we need to be focusing on is what spiritual principle in God's toolbox (within us now) can we use to melt our resistance to our perceived problem. First we must recognize that our problem is not how we should act or react to Gertrude, but how to stop giving our ego-victory fantasies power, which is fancy talk for stop taking our self so seriously.

The answer is always the same...whether it is Gertrude or our ego...the answer is love and laughter. We get to hug 'em and kiss 'em and let 'em go.

We've probably heard of speaking truth to power...well, there is nothing more powerful in the walking-around world, I'm convinced, than our ego-victory wants. The only power greater than that is the Higher Power, i.e., God.

Seek God with all the love we can muster for our ego, for Gertrude, for our own self, and do it laughing because for sure he'll be...we just crack him up.

Blessed are they who can laugh at themselves for they will never cease to be amused.

Thank you.

THE BATTLE IS NOT OURS

Remember your great field of labour is yourself. That is your first task, the weeding, the planting, digging, pruning, bearing fruit. When that is done I lead you out into other fields. -- "God Calling," September 9.

There's the difference between psychology and spirituality...our great field of labor is our self in each case, the difference being the result we seek.

Psychology helps us build a healthy ego which is good, right and necessary in our daily, walking-around world.

Spirituality helps us uncover a Source within not of our self...but our Self. This Source precedes our healthy ego. It sets us free to live in a state of mind more concerned for the wellbeing of others than in our ego's "me getting mine" state.

A word of warning: "A state of mind more concerned for the wellbeing of others" causes egos to revolt. Cries of "unhealthy" resound within. There. Right there is the time to pause, pause for the cause, the cause being to listen. Both our Source and our common sense will tell us the same thing if we will take the time to listen.

All it takes to be more concerned for the wellbeing of others than for our own wellbeing is to have a gut-bucket belief unto reliance on God...the God of our own understanding. My God is on my side AND on your side, both at the same time. I cannot do that, cannot in the moment think me there. I do, however, believe it is necessary if we are ever to live at peace...individually, not just worlds not at war. Therefore, my great field of labor is building that inner belief unto reliance, and meditation, studying spiritual literature, etc., etc., etc., are all necessary. The essential, can't-get-there-without-it, ingredient, however, is practice...practice the Presence. Practice the Presence of the Source within.

My Source has its roots in the Sermon which is one hundred percent about ego deflation...or getting over our own self. Which translates to: When right, promptly shut up...and make agreeable listening noises. That is why it's called our "great field of labor," because it is never easy remembering that we have no dog in this fight, no pony in this race, no words to add.

God has our back...be still and know I am God.

Thank you.

STOP DOING GOD'S THINKING FOR HIM

Mark 9:23-24  Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth. And straightway, the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help  thou mine unbelief.

As the old saying goes, we learn something new every day. Not being a deep reader of the Bible (I simply have favorite Bible passages), I learned just this morning that those two passages, my favorites by the by, run consecutively in the Bible.

I never knew that.

From the time I first connected with it, I have loved Mark 9:23, all things are possible to them that believe, and for whatever reasons, that phrase seems to show up on really important days or events in my life.

Then Mark 9:24 just seems to put the period to the sentence for me. I do believe, I do, I do, my heart cries, even as my brain, my body, my hands and my feet reach for yet another self-willed fix or treat or ego-pleaser.

Here again, for whatever reason, help me mine unbelief tells me God's okay with "mine unbelief." By "okay," I mean he doesn't hold it against us...but we do. There's our very own problem...doing God's thinking for him.

He is there for us. That's how all things are possible to those who believe...God loves us, intervenes in our life in our behalf always and all ways.

Whoa...BFO: If all things are possible to us if we believe, then all things are possible to us whether we believe or not. Get grateful. Get grateful for something we really, really do not like, do not want, or seriously fear...get grateful. That's just giving God a chance to do his thing. Let him.

Thank you.

ON THE UN-MAKING OF OUR SELF AS A SAINT

Hard lesson learning: We're looking for a spiritual teacher? There she is right in the midst of our idle thoughts...the one we are compulsively setting straight in our own mind, the one who is irritating us right this minute. He's the one. And there is somebody, isn't there?

This, I'm guessing, is why we are taught to love our enemies. They are the harbinger of the love hidden within us. Or, to get right common about it, our thoughts are the manure that fertilizes that love and brings it forth.

Praise her, call his name "Blessed." Lift them up. But not before (and this is vital) not a second before we have gone to God, gone deep within our own self, and sought forgiveness for our own mistakes, missteps, judgments against him, against her, against them.

Else all we have is a self-determined objective, and a self-determined objective's object is self.

We go trying to love our enemy without going to God first, we've got another resentment aborning, and it will be deeper than the first one. We've made our self a saint in our own mind, and if we get anything less than grateful adoration in return (and you bet we will), then we're left with just another edition of As The Stomach Turns. Authored by our own self.

We can do better than that...but only by going to God first for that is the necessary letting go of the results of our attempts to love. Going to God, seeking to know and to show love to another, is God's singular will for us. According to me.

Thank you.

GET OVER YOURSELF...A.K.A., SURRENDER

We don’t teach meditation to the young monks. They are not ready for it until they stop slamming doors. — Thich Nhat Hanh

Along those same lines, Fr Richard Rohr has written: Meaty spirituality must first of all teach us freedom from the self, from my own self as a reference point for everything or anything.

Both of those statements are the basis for coming to understand that we cannot rid our self of self. We cannot even knock it down a peg or two just by using our common sense. I am coming to believe that the only way to get over our self is to seek God's help in becoming concerned first with the wellbeing  of another. Then we're prepared to move it on up...to the care and wellbeing of others.

It is a noted fact that my ego always legislates for itself. I cannot recall a time when Lucy gave over instantly to an idea of mine that would lessen my stake in anything, or strengthen yours over mine, more specifically. Well, who's kidding whom? I can't recall having such an idea as a first thought ever.

The first step in ego deflation, apparently, is taking responsibility for our own less than wonderful behavior...which is always on display as the behavior of the other, the one we're mentally chewing out. For doing what we're doing.  

There. That's when we begin to take responsibility for our own negative (self-centered) thoughts and feelings about another...our pay-hate-back wants are being transmuted to pay-love-forward. Lucy is moving to the back as God is moved forward. By our decision to get over our own self. Also known as...surrender.

Thank you.

GOD IN OUR LIFE PERSONALLY

...unconditional surrender to My Will in the small, as in the big things of life...makes My guidance possible. -- "God Calling," August 18

Some years back, I heard someone say he felt as though he was being nibbled to death by ducks. I knew on hearing it that that was UN-surrender to the small things of life, and I identified completely.

That is true for me still...I have no great deal of trouble giving the biggies to God (because clearly I cannot deal). The so-called ankle-biters, however, become anacondas before I think of surrender as an option...and surrender of my will in particular.

Why not accept that is all that is needed? Surrender. To God's will.

Our mistake, I believe, is trying to give the ankle-biter itself to God. No. That cannot be done. There are no lessons learned, no deepening of our understanding of God and the ways of God and the spiritual life if God magically whisks every care and concern away before its time.

I'm convinced a huge percentage of spiritual growth comes from our mistakes, or really from our perceived mistakes. Perceived mistakes handled correctly...crash and burn with the suckers...can and will lead us to a new higher, and deeper, consciousness of God and the mysteries of God in our life personally for our benefit.

Again, and yet again: Loose it and let it go.

Thank you.

NO REGRETS...JOY EVERLASTING

Blinding flash of the obvious: It is not to regret when we forget, it is to joy when we remember.

It is not to regret when we forget that God has our back, it is to joy when we remember that God cannot not have our back.

In our remembering, we are brought again to the realization that God's rewards are not our reasoning mind's wants. We then list our wants: love, peace of mind, somebody to care for and to laugh with...money.

Then we list our need:  love.

The rest of our life's spiritual seeking and mental machinations can rest in that. Our forever-after job is now knowing the love of God that passes all understanding. And that is all. From that knowing of God's love comes to us a consciousness of enough...a consciousness of peace, of love, of security.

All we need do is remember that. Which we will forget. Then joy in re-remembering. Which God just loves about us.

Thank you.

MY NEMESIS, MY PEACE

I have been blessed with the ability to draw friends to me...the flip side, I have been cursed with the defect of making myself a target for non-friends.

In my seeking self-acceptance, I came to that coin-like facet of me...two sides of the same coin...and I was gifted with peace about it. That is me. When people come to me, I joy, and when I'm the unloved, unwanted, unneeded, unappreciated target, I grumble...and then remember who I am and grin. Usually doesn't happen in a heartbeat, but it happens because that's self-acceptance. And self-acceptance can feel yo-yo-ish...here/not here/here/etc.

Just this morning another huge hunk of self-acceptance came to me. I realized that my nemesis, that part of me that I resist by resignation and call it acceptance, lives in my well of humility. It is that which God protects by letting it be. It serves to lead me free of me...to remove it, as I have oh so often wished, would leave my ego in control.

By its very being, my nemesis serves as a humble beacon lighting my path forward, upward to the depths of my Soul. Like all good things, like all less-than-wonderful things, I welcome it. I call its name Blessed for that way leads to peace.

Thank you.

LION TO LAMB

[The following is a reprint of my blog of April 1, 2013.]

My morning blinding flash of the obvious: I am [we are] the lion to the Lord's lamb.

It is the lion that must learn to give over, to restrain himself, to train herself through the lamb to accept, not resist, the lamb…to become like the lamb.

To become the Lamb.

Thank you.

ONLY THEN DOES OUR CUP RUN OVER

It is the concrete that we resist that will lead us free. This is from a note in my "God Calling," and whether it was a blinding flash of the obvious or me quoting someone else, I know not. But for sure it rings true...because that has been my experience.

Too many times have I dressed my demands up as prayer and gone to God, seeking release from a perceived problem (of my own making...invariably).

Until I learned the changing power of gratitude, I usually received (or perceived) no return on my poor, pitiful, puny investment of "Please do for me."  Of course I figured God wasn't listening, wasn't on my side, wasn't even there. No. Those were the times when God, seeing no problem to fix, simply waited for me to divorce myself from my own wants...and awake.

In other words, we must needs detach from our ego-driven will of want and attach to God's promise, All that I have is thine.

Let go and let God...then our cup runneth over.

Thank you.

TO SERVE OTHERS BE KIND

"Thank You" is the ultimate prayer of letting go for it is our acknowledgment before the fact that our need was, is, ever shall be met. Not by right, not by might but by the Father who dwells within. Within you. Within me. The Father who is also known as Love lives within as you and me.

Our only intellectual activity toward still more spiritual growth need only be to come to believe that from our toenails up to the ends of each strand of our hair...every day in every way we must needs practice coming to believe that.

We come to believe that by living it...in service to others. The only requirement to successfully serve others is to be kind...in the face of ego deflation in depth, be kind.

The process of being kind starts with a simple "thank you."

Thank you.

GOD DETERMINES OUR NEEDS

It is not having everything in life go smoothly that shows forth good spiritual condition, it is when things go awry and I go smoothly that shows forth good spiritual condition.

The above is a note I wrote in my "God Calling" on this day in 1988. I note it today because...well, apparently I need to note it today. I've had the "in generals" for a while now...low-grade gray. Like there's a high-grade gray?  There. Perfect example. No matter what I say to me, my ego Lucy answers with a snark.

It's times like this that it is not enough for my reasoning mind that I know that God has my back, goes before me to make the crooked places straight, can and will if asked, blah, blah and blah.

And with that admission, I realize that I have extra help available...a friend gave me a beautiful rosary recently. I know less than nothing about the actual use of rosaries which is the good news. To me, that means it's the rosary of my own understanding; I'm free to believe that it brings me whatever I need (not an ego-determined want, mind, but a need, our needs being entirely up to God).

I have found my favorite Our Lady of Fatima there amongst the beads, and that brings me peace, my needed peace. Since the movie (in the '50s?) I've loved Our Lady of Fatima, and here she is today, this minute. God loves me so much.

Thank you.

TO PRAY "FOR" IS A DENIAL OF GOD

[The following is a reprint of my blog of July 4, 2013.]

My morning blinding flash of the obvious: To pray for God to have my back is a denial of my belief in God.

Thinking that through, I come again to the realization that the most important part of spiritual growth may be in detaching from my own ideas, my own opinions, in trust that God does have my back because God cannot not have my back.

Meister Eckhart is quoted as saying, "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."

Those last three words are the telling ones for me. We learn fairly early not to pray for outward wealth, but inward comfort? I had always thought that was what we were supposed to pray for!

It was when I learned the cosmic comfort of thanking God for everything...inward comfort or inward discomfort...makes no never mind. Our "thank You" frees our blocked channel, opens us, to let God out...to go before us and "make the crooked places straight."

Thank you.

LOVE STANDS ALONE...AS ONE

More and more I am believing that love and acceptance and surrender are all the same. We're talking nonresistance.

To my very immature spiritual self, Resist not evil is the most profound directive found in the Bible...or maybe just the Sermon, I tend to exaggerate, and I for sure have not read the entire Bible. I have, however, read the Sermon...and repeatedly. For that matter, originally I read those three words repeatedly cursing and crying all the while because I would not allow them to mean what they said.

It took some time before I would grasp that they meant exactly what they said...only not to the reasoning mind, but more deeply at a higher level...in God's world.

It is only through nonresistance that we can be in the now...NOW. That we can love what is...that we can accept our own self, warts and all...that we can surrender to that which we cannot see, cannot touch, cannot audibly hear. That we can and must surrender to that which we cannot defend...only our reasoning mind imagines that It needs defense.

Love stands alone...encompassing the world. Resist it not and be as One.

Thank you.

GOD CAN AND WILL...IF SOUGHT

We learn fairly early on that we must needs walk toward our fears.

It takes some time before we can begin to realize the why of that...to walk away is resistance. Resistance attaches to our fear and nurtures it, going ever deeper. To walk toward our fear is trust in the Father within  us, is love. Love, like angel wings, sweeps us forward as we pass through.

The mistake we make is believing that we must make this happen...we will even set up anxiety-producing situations to prove we trust God. Then we are devastated when we have an anxiety attack because God didn't do his part...i.e., keep the anxiety away. No. God will not be tested...that's just old Lucy trying to use God for her benefit.

I'm guessing every old adage has its roots in truth. Time takes time is heard often and ignored mostly...because we return yet again to our ego-based reasoning mind to find a new p.d.q. solution.

I'm reminded of this from a note I wrote in my "God Calling" on this day in 1984: There is a perfect outcome for me in this mess. I then thought of a perfect solution, tried it, and very shortly thereafter I was "gifted" with the IRS. Which surely sounds just like what it was...bad news.

The good news is, when my perfect solution arrived some years later, I had awakened to this "mess" as the foundation for my spiritual journey which is woven throughout with the IRS experience.

Today, whatever comes to me, I remember that the IRS, on arrival, looked like spinach, but it became my pearl beyond price and remains that to this very day.

The bottom line of my spiritual awakening is the realization that the IRS experience happened exactly as it needed to happen for my spiritual growth. Our seeming mistakes are our tangled skein. Hold them close and reap rues, regrets and remorses. Give them to God to make right and he does.

Thank you.

ON SHOWING COURTESY TO GOD

My friend Gertrude used to say that she practiced letting five people be right every day. So I tried it. I must say that it felt like a gigantic ego trip.  I quickly add that does not mean it was an ego trip to Gertrude...she was a very spiritual person, so I'm sure it worked for her.

I knew the principle was right, I just had to find my way there. It came to me finally one day when I was resisting my boss...and there's a no-win situation. But my realization wasn't that I should let him win; there was no way he was going to lose...his name was "Boss" after all.

My realization was that I should let me lose...and not by agreeing, still thinking, "What a dolt!" No. I needed to let me lose by focusing on how losing would be the best road out of this for both of us. My reasoning mind would not get me there, and Lucy certainly wasn't about to help. Who's left? The God of my own understanding, of course. So, I shot a prayer of thanks for this situation just exactly as it was, because it was apparently time for me to learn this lesson. And any clarification he chose to send would be welcomed.

I cannot remember how it turned out, only that it worked, and my boss treated me better after that...more respectfully. I know God's hand was in it because I don't remember...if it had been a solution from my own thinking, I guarantee I would not forget...ever.

He goes before us to make the crooked places straight.  We just need to hold the door open.

Thank you.