WE JUST MAKE OURSELVES AVAILABLE....

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

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

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

Thank you.

IT IS IN THE SILENCE....

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

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

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

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

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

Be still and know that I am God.

Thank you.

PONDERING THE 23RD PSALM AND BFOs

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

ON REGIFTING TO GOD

[The following is a reprint of my blog of November 12, 2015.]

To a person engrossed in materiality, enmeshed in and governed by that tyrannical master, the reasoning mind, this way of life would undoubtedly be quickly judged and condemned as totally and impossibly impractical. (Joel Goldsmith, "The Thunder of Silence," at p. 128)

We begin life as one with our singular goal being the attainment of Oneness. That is our journey, our life.

In going out at birth, as we pass through into humanhood, we are gifted with free will, also known as "that tyrannical master, the reasoning mind."

Our entire life's journey is the return trip to our before-conception place, i.e., God consciousness. That journey's primary purpose is to regift our free will to God little by little every step of the way. This journey takes many, many lifetimes...or as many lifetimes as it takes us to get over our own self.

My temptation is to write on and on and on, attempting to prove my point, but the point can only be made by seeing it, not reading about it. Here's a hint...pay attention to Medal of Honor winners. Now there is selfless.

Thank you.

FREE TO LIVE, LOVE, LAUGH AND BE HAPPY

According to me, the hardest thing we will ever do in life is simply change our mind. The veriest hint that we may need to change our mind is a challenge to our ego, and ego victory is what we step to.

Until a profound change comes to us, usually brought through sickness, the possible death of a beloved, some oncoming disaster...in short, whatever brings unrelieved suffering...we will cling like ivy to our own self-determined good.

It is that very suffering that breaks us. It is the cause of that suffering that we so desperately hold to, to never change our mind  about, that we must rethink. For the only change that is asked of us is to welcome that cause...to open our mind to another way of experiencing it.

Yet what rational person would welcome an incurable illness, or the death of a child, or a life-altering disaster? Here's where the break comes...God is not in the rational. It is impossible to reason out what God's plan is before we will accept it, i.e., change our mind. No. We must "crash and burn," which is the very thing we're desperate to avoid, in order to get shut of our ego's reasoning whose only purpose is to protect our own self as we think we need be protected.

The mystery of crash and burn is that we arise from the ashes of our self-determined mindset into the fourth dimension...into the grace of not knowing. Where we once knew, and we knew we knew, now we no longer have a clue, and we somehow intuit that is the good news.

Intuition lives in a higher consciousness that is present within us, without us, always available to all of us, the good, the bad, the boring. And in that moment of realization we begin to live a turned-over life no longer dependent on our reasoning mind but on the grace of God.

Finally, and happily, we begin to live free of the fear of doing the wrong thing. Since our ego-victory mind is no longer our life's guide, we can (and do) make mistakes, none of which are unfixable when we learn to own them. We own them by getting over our self.

We let go. We let God. We love. We laugh. We are free of ego-me.

Thank you. 

A DIALOGUE

I eavesdrop on a conversation between my ego Lucy and the Lord:

Lucy, ever defiant: I'm just as good as you are...why must I do what you suggest?

The Lord: You don't must, but I'd recommend that you look at what you're getting by not following my suggestion. Which, by the way, is to  love and laugh. So love your friend Gertrude, your newest enemy...who was your friend an hour ago until you started resisting each other's ideas.

Lucy: Yes, but...she will think she won! She will think I'm a loser, a wuss...that she's better than I am...that she knows more than I do.

The Lord: My heart, what if all that is true? What if she does think all your worst fears...what if all your worst fears are her truth about you? Fighting her and winning that fight...or never speaking to her again...neither will change what she thinks about you nor will it make you what she thinks. Your resistance is what makes it seem true...to her and to you.

Lucy: Yes, but...I have been loving toward her. I have given over to her. She's just a sore winner. Why should I be the only one to give in?

The Lord: Because the  giving in is giving up your own battle...it is not giving in to her, it is giving over to your inner being. It is giving in to get...giving up the battle with yourself who is at the moment named Gertrude, but it is you, Beloved Lucy. And it is you in giving over who will get the peace you long for. 

Lucy: Yes, but...I'll be the only one who knows that!

The Lord:

Moral: Lucy must ever believe that she has had the last word. She cannot grasp that the Lord has better sense than to get in a prolonged dialogue with ego.

When will we ever learn, when will we ever learn?

Thank you.

GOD LOVES...AND LAUGHS

A friend has suggested that we all make a "bucket list" of those things that will help us each become a better person.

According to me, we'd best remember that we are the best person we can be right this very minute...this best-that-I-can-be person is what God has to work with every second of our breathing life. Since he already has the finished product at hand, what we are in this minute is the unfinished perfect product.

Ideally, our job would be to practice, or to live, daily, hourly, every second by the spiritual principles handed down to us. What we would show forth then would be God's sculpting up to the minute.

It is an imperfect world, however, so my bucket list would be: (1) to remember the ideal and (2) to work with my current defect. My "current defect" is almost without fail my personalizing the daily bumps of life.

Interestingly, personalizing problems boils down to I take myself too seriously. Which is a hoot, since that was the first defect of character that I ever honestly recognized, admitted to, accepted and said (right out loud), "Well, God's got his work cut out for him because I cannot change that."

Talk about the good news and the bad news both together. I mean, such  a piddling defect of character and still hanging in there.

There it is. Proof that God is patient, kind and loving...and has a great sense of humor.

Thank you. 

EGO LEGISLATES FOR SELF; GOD LOVES ALL

I am reminded of my recent flash that the fourth dimension is as close as our next thought if our next thought is not of self...especially how to love and be loved. That one can tie us up for hours...which is a good example of believing we are pondering spiritual things when in fact we're ego tripping...with Lucy driving blind.

In pondering any perceived problem in our today's world, our go-to thought must be: It is for the Lord to do with me, to build of me as he wills. It is for me to follow the spiritual principles that I have been given which frees my hands and feet, my eyes and ears to do the will of God already perfected for me.

I am here to say that that is hard to do. I almost questioned why it is so hard but it's too obvious to question...ego always always always legislates for self alone; God is love for all. If we hope to plug into love, we must unplug from self...consciously giving God control of our hopes, our fears, our very life.

Fourth dimension thinking makes that an only choice...the reasoning mind resists, knowing that means we are never again going to get "our way."

Living a spiritually based life is all about others...when will we realize we are others our self? That is the paradox that brings us all home...together. One in love.

Thank you.

HUG THE HURT AND MOVE ON

Whenever we feel hurt, no matter what the cause, our goal must needs be to not personalize the hurt.

We can and will feel hurt at any given time...our problem is that we immediately attach a name to the hurt and that named one becomes the root of a resentment. Instead, we can turn our thoughts within...to God...when we feel hurt. We can seek God's help in understanding what in us is resistant to the cause. 

Learning to do that first helps us to change our mind. Going in a new direction, we will come to understand that who caused the hurt is actually our angel in disguise...for, God guided, we will identify the quivering hurt in us that has been there possibly for years. Waiting to spring. The one who flipped the switch that sprung it is of no negative consequence. On the contrary he was God's hands in the moment. 

We can mentally thank her then hug the hurt...God will show us how.

Thank you.

PEACE OF MIND

Nearly fifteen years ago, when a part of my job was to preview speakers for our annual conferences, I heard one of the original seven astronauts speak. I wish I could remember his name because his message is still with me.

He told of how in his younger days, back when he had just started up his career-ladder, he had a group of young pilots under him, a couple of whom were just the bane of his life. They were very good in class, in training, with others...they just ticked him off with every breath they took.

He finally was forced to go to his mentor for help...he was looking for ways to get those guys gone from his program, but his superior would have none of that. He was told that if he got shut of them, their replacements would be as trying, and more so, than the two he got rid of...guaranteed.

His mentor's suggestion: Find something you can sincerely respect in those two and concentrate on that alone. It will come to be that is the way you think of them...with respect.

I remember the neat feeling I got of identification, of validation if you will, for that is akin to the gift I was given, i.e.,  "find the gold in it," when I was up against my first Wall of Unacceptable. 

I'm a believer that that is the secret to finding peace of mind...praise takes away our resistance which is the ego's pony to ride. When there is nothing to resist, our ego can find no purchase. Without purchase, our thoughts quiet. There it is...a quieted mind is a mind at peace.

Thank you.

PROVIDENCE MOVES US

Several months ago during a meeting, Gertrude showed me shade. I was ticked but I did not respond to her negatively. I continued to treat her as I always had...pleasantly, friendly. I told no one about the shade...and did not discuss it with any of those present at the meeting.

I haven't been able to get to that meeting for awhile now, and Gertrude called me the other day. First time ever. She called just to say she missed seeing me, that she hoped I'd be able to come back to the meeting soon.

There it is. The very proof I need right now that God needs no helpful hints dropped in his ear as to my wants and/or needs. I need do nothing, set no one straight, "vent," or even pray about it. I just did not pick it up, i.e., make it my own...which would require me "fixing" it.

Providence moved Gertrude to do the decent. And I'm looking forward to being able to get back to that meeting...actually, I'm looking forward to seeing Gertrude again.

Thank you.

OR, LIE LOW AND LET IT BE

Yet we do the opposite: we find God among the impure instead of among the pure! We entertain the lost sheep instead of comforting those who think they are not lost.  -- Fr. Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation,"  October 20, 2016 (paraphrased)

From this I realize that whenever we perceive a contretemps in our life, it is necessary to walk toward it, never away, and through it, never around. The contretemps is the gift! Meet it with a brass band and shouts of hallelujah. How else did the walls of Jericho fall down? 

We must seek God among the ungifts of life instead of the gifts. If we don't, we'll inevitably follow ego's dictates. Put plainly, we're taking our self too seriously again.

To laugh when the gimmick comes to us...to laugh and say "I'll pass" is all that is necessary.

Laugh first. Pass on it second.

Thank you. 

SHARE GRATITUDE IN LOVE AND LAUGHTER

My mind got changed this morning.   I've been pondering a personal problem, more like agitating, and a calm no-control-over-the-problem thought slipped in. And I felt that calm, and a peace enveloped me.

In that moment, I knew ego was not present. I knew the truth in all the words I've ever read about calmness and confidence being our strength. I knew the fourth dimension is as close as our next thought...if our next thought is not of self (which is probably why it seems so far away).

It was in that calm that I knew the answer to my problem: First, acknowledge it as the angel it is for it has sent me to God. Second, face it with a smile and speak to it without thought of the result I want. Third, have a welcoming mindset for what may come back to me...for no matter how good or bad it may look, it is from God. Fourth, get grateful.

Finally, share that gratitude in love and laughter.

Thank you.

IT IS ALSO KARMA

I am remembering this morning my beloved friend Gertrude. She used to talk of her deepest defect...she was an instigator.

Gertrude was a quiet, lovely, Southern lady; her husband was a big, booming mover and shaker. She would tell how, whenever she felt crossed by anybody, she would quietly "share" with her husband how hurt she was...never asking him to do anything about it, just how hurt she was. At some point, she would casually drop whose name was on her hurt, assured that her husband would demolish her nemesis. The nemesis, of course, never knew what that was all about, and Gertrude would feel vindicated without any blowback on her. An instigator with no trail.

I believe Gertrude went back to Heaven with a heavy heart because, as she said, she used her husband as her personal firepower. She pulled the trigger, and he took out the offender. She simply ran out of time before she found a way to atone to him or to those whose hearts she hurt.

There have been times when someone has come the ugly on me for no apparent reason, and I could just stand there wondering, what the huh?

I had a blinding flash of the obvious this morning in that regard, and it fills me with joy: I can trust that I shall be made whole though I never know when, where or how. Any hurt, slight, snub or snark I receive from whomever is returned to sender...unless I take it up as mine to fix. Then I own it until I atone to the sender. This is holy writ.

Thank you.

I AM THAT I AM

I am reminded one more once: All we need realize is that we are the source of all our woes and of all our wonders.

Too often we only think of our self as the source of all our woes. That we are the source of all our wonders goes unappreciated, and that's the one to glory in.

Our lesson, of course, is that we cannot glory in our self without realizing God the Father is our Being. There. There's our glory.

Thank you.

LOVE...NO ONE IS LEFT OUT

God's will is very seldom what we think it is at the outset. Learning to detach from our own first thought, or first fix, is a lifetime drill. Since my ego Lucy always legislates for herself...that is, for me...it is impossible to detach by our unaided will. Eventually, and of necessity, we are turned to a higher power.

Most of my life's problems today are with others...I hear often someone say he is powerless over people, places and things. It's 98 percent of the time people with me. So my drill is developing the willingness not to stay with my own idea of what I believe I need...or, in truth, what I believe you need do to make me happy. No. My drill is learning to love without borders.

Since go beyond reason to love has been working for me, imperfectly, but close enough, for awhile now, that is my guide. I am now learning the many different faces and facets of love.

We've all heard of "tough love" which, to my mind, is learning how to correctly rear your children and train your pets. This is the opposite of tough love...it is learning to love with an open hand, an open mind, an open heart. No one is left out... it is a whole 'nother plane of existence which Lucy will fight until three days after we're dead, I'm sure..

I'm just open to learning how to give over to my "adversary" while holding my own...at the same time. I have succeeded a few times, failed repeatedly, but, guess what? There are no forever failures...it keeps coming back until we get it right. And the successes bear witness that this is the path to trudge. Because in each success all concerned have come out feeling more loving toward the other. Don't tell me God's hand isn't in that. 

This is an unfinished story...it's life, of course it's unfinished. The twist is that when Lucy and I go to arm-wrestling, yet again, it is exhilarating now. I find me giggling like a teenager wondering how God has planned the result. It's bedtime Christmas Eve, and I'm five years old...I can't wait to wake up tomorrow!

Thank you.

PRAYING IS EASY, MEANING IT IS A STRETCH

This is what the things can teach us:  to fall, patiently to trust our heaviness. Even a bird has to do that before he can fly. -- from a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke

I love that so much. To fall, to make mistakes, to show our butt...all are necessary steps on the road to still more spiritual growth. None are desired or prayed for, you'd best believe, but that's probably how we know they are God's gifts to us.

It was particularly important for me to ponder the "to fall" part of the quote until I fully realized its value. However, it was when I moved on to "patiently to trust our heaviness" that I was slapped (gob smacked fits perfectly here) with the real import. (For "heaviness," I think "humanness.")

To trust my humanness, is to give up any hope of being able to think my way out of any error I am bound to make. Control in a word...to give up the want to control others' thoughts of me and my fall. This is a fairly simple process...all we must needs do is hurt so badly that we truly want God's will to be done in our life more than we want our own will to be done in this and in every instance now and forevermore please thank you Amen.

Thy will, not mine, be done. Pray it and mean it...from your toenails up.

Thank you.

DIE TO SELF AND AWAKEN TO EVERLASTING LIFE

Sometime back I read that spiritual power is always hidden inside of powerlessness. That made a home in my head and my heart probably because till then my feeling powerless would just spin my head. My panicky mind would go running scared wailing whattodowhattodo. I felt like a runaway train on an unfinished track with certain disaster a'coming.

Pondering that thought, that spiritual power is always hidden inside powerlessness, I realized it for truth in my own life experience. It was only through complete and utter powerlessness that my reasoning mind gave up the fight and turned outside of itself. Of course, to my spiritual self that was the turn inside that led me to safety.

Again the mirror image: In my mind, I saw the turn as outward...in God's world, the turn outward leads within...to the answer unknown to the reasoning mind. The God answer within us all is only available on a higher plane deeper within us.

This is the grand paradox which to me is complete in the Prayer of Saint Francis, ending with: ....for it is in self-forgetting that we find, in forgiving that we are forgiven, in dying to self that we awaken into everlasting life.

Thank you.

REMAIN OPEN AND VULNERABLE

In the end one has to discard shields and remain open and vulnerable. Otherwise, scar tissue will seal off the wound and no growth will follow. To grow, to be reborn, one must remain vulnerable -- open to love but also hideously open to the possibility of more suffering. -- Anne Morrow Lindbergh, "Hour of God, Hour of Lead"

The spiritual experience is about trusting that when we stop protecting our self, Inherent Goodness will still be there, protecting us. Many of us call that God, but no one must. It is the trusting that is important.

My take on it goes back to my belief that we have two ways of experiencing life...materially or spiritually. I have chosen to live from the spiritual plane knowing full well that my reasoning mind will always be there whispering "Yes, but...."

Once we get a deeper understanding of the nature of love and suffering, we can more readily accept that personal pain is a necessity for our still more spiritual growth. Being neither stupid nor naïve, we can expect pain, like sin, will ever be with us, but expecting and accepting are two entirely different matters...expecting is on the material plane, accepting is spiritually based.

Which poses the challenge: Do we have whatever it takes to get out of self and into God when pain, an unknown quantity of pain, threatens?  That very challenge is what intuitively led me to Lindbergh's "Hour of Gold, Hour of Lead" some forty years ago. At that time I was trying my hardest to avoid the pain of my life (read, praying God would take it away, lift me over it, exempt me).

It was while I was reading the Lindbergh book, specifically the introduction to the "Hour of Lead," that I had the blinding flash of the obvious that pain is universal, necessary, and my very rough road to my new life with a God of my own understanding.

Again: In the end one has to discard shields and remain open and vulnerable. Otherwise, scar tissue will seal off the wound and no growth will follow. To grow, to be reborn, one must remain vulnerable -- open to love but also hideously open to the possibility of more suffering.

Thank you.

SURRENDER TO WIN

The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together . . . –Isaiah 11:6 (King James Version)

I have inherited my grandmother's crèche which I set out every Christmas, and I always put my beautiful carved wooden lion in the stable with the Family. It wasn't until yesterday when I was reading my friend Mac's wonderful meditation with the above quote that I realized that was no doubt from whence the idea came to me.

I've always loved that Bible quote, which I'm fairly certain I first heard in Bible School as a little girl. It occurs to me that is probably what made we have ceased fighting everything and everybody relatively easy for me to accept. At least I found out it was relatively easy for me when I started quoting it to others...talk about freak-out. I was stunned...still am...at the all-but-rabid rejection of the very thought of not fighting.

I've come to accept that to the resisters "not fighting" represents having no control...of being subjected to others' dictates without a by-your-leave. That is a wholly one-sided view, of course, with the viewer never going a step further to realize not fighting applies to him, too...to her, to them.

That's why the image of the wolf dwelling with the lamb, the leopard with the kid is so positive and so calming. Who imagines the wolf with fangs drawn, the lamb shaking in its wool, or the leopard with the kid hanging out of its mouth? No. We picture them each surrendered to the other, all others...in peace. One.

We, the World, can never know peace, never be at One, unless and until we cease fighting everything and everybody...starting with our very own self.

Give over, give up, give in...with love and laughter.

Thank you.

OPENED MIND, RAISED CONSCIOUSNESS

We pray to God for help. Help does not come. We pray more, harder, longer for the exact same self-determined objective. It does not come. We pray more, harder, etc., with the same result...nada.

The problem is we are continuing to view the problem through the eye of our reasoning mind. We resist God by deciding in our own minds how, what, when and to what extent we want our answer.

When we perceive a need in our life (which is usually a want masquerading as a need), a most helpful lesson to learn takes courage to do the first few times, but it is invaluable: Imagine the worst possible result in re our perceived need, then thank God for that worst possible case without qualifying in any way.

This for sure does not guarantee we'll then get our wish granted. What it does is it relieves the burning feeling of need...which is really just anxiety that we won't get what we want when we want it. Our mind is being opened, our consciousness raised, to receive God's will, whatever it may be. We are learning to seek first the kingdom of Heaven.

We enter the kingdom of Heaven by changing our consciousness from a material sense of life to the spiritual awareness of life, from a material sense of religion to a spiritual sense of religion, and from a material sense of supply to a spiritual sense of supply. (Italicized portion from Joel Goldsmith, "The Heart of Mysticism" at p. 1207.)

The kingdom of Heaven, the pearl beyond price.

Thank you.

IN LOVE AND SERVICE

We seek still more spiritual growth not for the knowledge but for the experience...to experience the Father within/without.

Our great failing is that we seek still more spiritual growth by reading more, better, more highly developed spiritual material...then believe that we are growing spiritually by the reading. Actually, we are just becoming better educated in the ways and the words of spirituality.

We read Meister Eckhart and when he starts to make sense to us (finally), we believe we're right up there with the Meister. No. We're just heading in the right direction with U-bies and detours beyond number ahead of us...if we're doing it right.

It is the U-bies and the detours that are our own personal teachers. We must needs bless them, praise them, learn from them in order to do better the next time...without a hope of perfection. There. That realistic and humble state of mind is still more spiritual growth.

We know we're growing in God's light when, without thought, we give over to an annoying other and don't take mental credit for it. (Full disclosure...I've had experience here, but limited, oh so very limited.)

Our goal is not just to get still more spiritual growth, our goal is to live still more spiritual growth. Without thought. Without script. Without rehearsal. In gratitude.

Thank you.

ON HELPING GOD TO SUCCEED

Bullying begins when one follows his lowest desire, i.e., to get over on another...or, probably more to the point because a bully is actually afraid, to not let another get other on her.

I think of people I know who hone their attack mind and tongue on snark. They seem to always have a few poisoned words to sneak into a casual conversation. That is bullying. Yet, knowing that, it still takes serious work on my part not to use their behavior to justify running my attack mind on them. That is mental bullying which can only be fixed by an attitude adjustment...upgrade it, p.d.q.

Taken to its extreme, to resist verbal bullying leads to physicality with one walking away feeling "The Winner" and "The Loser" walking away plotting revenge. The winner will continue to bully, the loser will continue to plot, and that's how wars begin.

It is my great happiness that I have learned, through sheer necessity, to cease fighting everything and everybody (which I quickly admit I do very, very imperfectly). But, because I was forced to learn that, I was graced with the understanding that my spiritual growth is entirely...that is 100%...contingent upon me finding agreement with jerks, heels and fools, a.k.a., friends, bosses and my sister.

Today I know and, though it may take me awhile, I do search until I find a way to get over my own self, which is simply my own resistance to what my ego Lucy hears as snark. I have to remind me often that if I come out the winner, Gertrude is going to be unhappy; if Gertrude comes out the winner, I'm going to be peeved. We know God's hand is in it when we both walk away happy...with each other.

I was reminded of all this by Fr. Richard Rohr's "Daily Meditation" today:  If you overcome your enemies, you’ve failed. If you make your enemies your partners, God has succeeded.

Don't you love that?

Thank you.

THE PLACE WHEREON YOU STAND

....the will of God is not a 'fate' to which we submit but a creative act in our life producing something absolutely new . . . something hitherto unforeseen by the laws and established patterns. Our cooperation (seeking first the Kingdom of God) consists not solely in conforming to laws but in opening our wills out to this creative act which must be retrieved in and by us. -- Thomas Merton

I don't know why but Thomas Merton's writings usually sail right over my head. I say that to give some understanding to the only thing that grabbed me in this quote, the bit about our cooperation, seeking first the Kingdom of God.

My understanding may be well off the mark from what he meant, but my heart sang on reading it because I have come to believe that seeking first the Kingdom of God is quite literally our only quest. My place in the world, the future of our country, how to help the sick, the poor and the downtrodden are important but seeking first the Kingdom of God is essential. 

The mindbender to me is the realization that our rightful place, our country, the sick, the poor, etc., et al....why, they are the search for the Kingdom of God. When we finally learn unto acceptance that our self-determined objectives lead us down blind alleys, we are given to look higher. Our error has been not in the object of our desire but in the beneficiary...we seek for self, we seek alone; we seek for God, we find others...and God.

We seek first for the Kingdom of God and find it right where we stand...the place whereon you stand is holy ground. Where else could we expect to find it?

Thank you.

THE EYE OF A NEEDLE

The Saints Francis and Clare of Assisi lived a life committed to poverty and, yes, lived happily in poverty for the glory of God and for the sake of others.

It simplifies matters to give to others when we have nothing to guard...there is no ego involved. What I am learning is that is true whether it be money or pride we're protecting. Either one, left to our ego-centric reasoning mind, requires constant bolstering...more, in a word.

A memory comes to mind of my L.A. days in the '60s when I lived from payday to payday as did my friends. One day my friend Pam had no money for lunch, and I had a dollar. So I gave her half, and we had lunch...a hot dog and a coke a piece. She was knocked out that I'd split my last dollar with her, and I remember saying it was no great shakes...what else could I possibly buy with a dollar except two hotdogs and cokes and I only needed one.

I suspect had I had ten dollars, I would never have given her half of it.  And there it is: The perfect example of an act utterly open and unselfish and an act utterly closed by self-protection, both dictated entirely by the amount of money involved.

I wonder if Francis and Clare had won the proverbial million dollar lottery back in their day if they'd have quick given it away and continued their life happy, pious and poor? Or if they would have felt it prudent to hold a half million bucks (at least) back...rainy day money, don'cha know? They would have given it away...their destiny was to be saints. The eye of the needle and a rich man comes to mind.

I'm almost embarrassed to mention that from my eyebrows up, I truly think I'd give away the major portion of a million dollar win. Lucy is positive I would. God...not so much. But he loves that we give him a laugh.

Thank you.

ASK FOR NOTHING, WELCOME EVERYTHING

It is not to pray to know God better, deeper, higher...that is still a self-determined objective. It is to go within and wait...in love and expectation, listening, listening.

The Father is (t)here, now. He is within us, without us. Be still and know I am God.

Thank you.

GET THEE BEHIND ME, SELF

We can know rues, regrets, remorses are one but resentments usually stand alone in our mental world. In truth, they are all one. Rues, regrets, remorses, resentments...feel any one of the first three, and without a doubt resentment is the ghost rider.

We get so buckled down ruing and regretting that we don't recognize the teensy-tiny pin prick that has someone else's name on it...Gertrude/Rudy, the real cause of our unease. If she hadn't...if he'd just...the trouble with them is...and the list goes on.

All our rues, regrets, remorses and resentments are selected by us, invited into our head and heart by us and held close there by us...on purpose. We can know that all of our emotions, in fact, come to us by invitation only, but do we own that? Knowing it resides in our brain, owning it resides in our soul.

As long as we try to figure out how to love Gertrude in her mistaken ways, we're up in our head. We may even find the right answer, i.e., cease fighting her, but if we don't go for higher help in doing that, we risk really getting her ire up when we set about doing our self-determined objective all on our own. Attitude speaks louder than words, and an attitude of righteousness masquerading as love is insufferable.

The answer we need is to turn in silence to the Father within...just remembering to do that as our only need is enough. That opens the door. Love flows. How that love is received is of no consequence and concerns us not...for still our only response is love. Always and all ways.

Thank you.

JUST GET OUT OF THE WAY

Denial of self is the answer...or so I wrote in my "God Calling" on this date in 1988. I read that today and cannot disagree...proving that has me a tish puzzled.

I have two recent missteps in my life that have furnished a home in my brain and Lucy is their decorator. I have welcomed, laughed, pretended to love...taken all my known steps to loose them and let them go. They are still with me.

As I read my 1988 BFO this morning, I wondered...how? In this regard, how do I deny self?

And it occurs to me even as I type that God knows about these missteps, knew about them before they happened, thus has already fixed them. Denial of self is to keep turning my thoughts away from my missteps, but not to the fix...that way just leads to obsessing about what that fix is going to look like.

No. I turn my thoughts to the assurance that there are no missteps in God's world to fix. I have been taught and I have experienced everything works together for good. I get out of the way of God's mind sweeper, and I feel the grace of gratitude.

Thank you.

GRACE...AMAZING

It is not self confidence, it is Christ confidence that brings peace of mind.

In regard to that statement, the heart-hurting fact is too often we will immediately resist the "Christ" word, mentally insert "Jesus," and miss the entire meaning.

We weep for our own misbegotten childhood church learning yet, by our very resistance, cling to it as if it were diamonds. The nuns, the Sunday school teachers, the pastor, rector, priest...they shoved Jesus down our throat, and we will nevernevernever forgive Him.

I choose to be open to those I meet who are talking down Jesus while talking up the goodness of Buddha, Allah, Jehovah, Aimee Semple McPherson, whomever.

The underlying spiritual message is love...how it is preached is as nothing, it is how we hear the message that must improve. And that is entirely our own personal responsibility...our ears, our responsibility. Which starts by turning within to the Father.

Love in whatever manner or means we chose to let it flow from us (for it is already within us), let it flow. What does it matter whose name is on it when "first we do believe?"

Thank you.

WAIT WITH A LISTENING EAR

Yet the fact remains that we are invited to forget ourselves on purpose, cast our awful solemnity to the winds and join in the general dance.-- Thomas Merton, "New Seeds of Contemplation"

Everywhere...everywhere!...the message, the same message, comes to me: Love and Laugh.

And here's our blinding flash of the obvious: If we take that literally, we will be going down that wrong road again.

Nothing sacred is on the literal level. We must go beyond reason...to love.

As Rohr writes so often, literalism is the lowest and least fruitful level. To love and laugh is to find the gold in the tar and feathers. There will be times (note, timeS) when we will feel, say, as if we're about to be tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail.

We have learned to welcome (i.e., not resist) those times by seeing them for what they are, our "get thee within to the Father." That is how we begin to divorce our self from our own opinion/fear...by sitting in the silence and inviting a higher view of being tarred and feathered.

We are looking for the gold...listening for the Word.

This is when we use our reasoning mind aright...to remind us that our opinion of being tarred and feathered needs an update. In that regard, our own thinking will never get us there for even when it is right, it is wrong...our reasoning mind will only ever get us a self-determined objective.

There. We are now facing the proverbial East: Each time we go back to pondering how to avoid being tarred and feathered, we halt, say our welcome, settle our self again, and listen for the still small voice. Be not dismayed when the still small voice takes its own sweet time speaking or speaks of sunshine and moonbeams...feel instead the grace of gratitude that we have learned to sit and wait on the Lord. Then wait. With a listening ear.

Thank you.

NO LONGER ENEMIES, MY FRIENDS

I have been given the most comforting change in my meditation on The 23rd Psalm.

With my fairly recent blinding flash of the obvious of Mary as my shepherdess, at "she prepares a place before me in the presence of my enemies," I see her serving us...me and my enemies...as if we were all friends.

"She anoints our heads with oil, our cups run over, surely goodness and mercy shall follow us all the days of our lives, and we shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever" changes my one-time enemies and me to a circle of friends, breaking bread with love and laughter.

Thank you.