OUR CONTINUING GOAL...LOVE AND LAUGHTER

My mind is still; my ego has been set at rest. -- Eknath Easwaran, "Words to Live By," December 31.

Humility, a healer of pain. -- Anonymous

You're taking yourself too seriously. -- My bathroom mirror

There is just one answer, no matter the question, and that is: Love and laugh. -- Life experience

My hope for me and for you is that we let 2017 be gentle with others. Let others be free to be gentle with us or not to be gentle with us. It makes no never mind what others choose to do or to be, our hope and goal remains unchanged...i.e., for the peace of love and laughter. And only we can choose and do that for our self.

Thank you.

BE THE FIRST TO GIVE OVER

Be the first to give over. That was a long-ago blinding flash of the obvious, and I've never forgotten it. Which is not to say that I always remember it...it just means I come back to it, sometimes p.d.q. sometimes a day late when my hair's on fire. But come back I must, and there's the pearl.

I had lunch with a friend yesterday, and in our chatting we came to the conclusion that the answer to most hurts and/or peeves is laughter, which almost always needs must be at our own self. I have become convinced, and this is from my own perspective so you won't find a lot of followers, that the most important spiritual direction ever given is: We have ceased fighting everything and everybody.

The importance probably is in the fact that it does not make reasoning mind sense. Reasoning mind sense lives in the belief that there is ever a reason to fight...to stand against wrong is right, dim-dam it. But, again and again and yet again: We must go beyond reason to love.

Going beyond reason is where be the first to give over lives. Neither be the first nor we have ceased can even be considered without the deflation of our ego...ego-deflation in depth, a.k.a., still more spiritual growth.

All that is necessary for us to live free in our own head (meaning, nonresistant) is for us to realize that we will never agree one hundred percent with everybody, but we must come to agree with the person we are in disagreement with right this very minute...even if the disagreement is only in our own head, which, after all, is the origin of all discontent...in our own head.

Interestingly, our own head is also God's hidey-hole. We can get all esoteric and think of God as living in our left elbow or our right earlobe, but who's kidding whom? He's in everything, and, in general, he makes himself known through our thinking. It is our ego, God's roommate in that hidey-hole, that we must be willing to get over in order to free God to do our thinking for us. 

Only then do we know the peace, love and joy of giving over in order to cease fighting.

Thank you.

THERE IS ONLY GOD'S WILL...EVER

[The following is a reworked reprint of my blog of March 20, 2012.]

I am a believer that it is not until we accept that we each must do what we must do, with its warts and all, that we start to walk free in our own head.

For instance, I have made peace with the fact that I am not an overly thoughtful person. It was a great relief to me when I finally accepted that about myself. I was spending way too much time beating me up about it...not changing, not becoming more thoughtful, just coloring me ugly on the occasions that I thought of it.

Acceptance is not found by a simple "please and thanks ever so" and moving on, a freebie as it were. Acceptance asks fairly hard work of us...the work being in detaching from our own ideas, divorcing our self from our own opinions, a.k.a., changing our mind, letting go of self-determined objectives...asking God what He has in mind, in short.

There it is: Acceptance comes through the search for spiritual solutions...not solutions that will benefit self only, but solutions that will benefit others and us...and sometimes not us at all, but always others, in which case we get the bennie, i.e., a heart at peace, the golden core of acceptance.

The solution to self-centered fear is in accepting that our perceived problem has no solution...for there is no problem. There is only God's will...ever. Seek that until we find it, and there's our peace.

Seek and ye shall find.

Thank you.

LIFE IS A RISK...LIVE IT

It seems we're always seeking, always thinking, analyzing, searching for The Answer. We're going in the wrong direction. What we need is The Question.

I was rereading Joel Goldsmith's "The Heart of Mysticism" this morning, and I was blinded by this paragraph (that I had underlined more than once...so I'd read it before and understood its significance to some degree):

I and my Father are one and therefore, all that the Father has is mine. This means that our only existence is as an outlet for an infinite Storehouse which is invisible, and that it is possible for us to be consciously one with this infinite Storehouse, this fountain of Good.

There it is: This means that our only existence is as an outlet for an infinite Storehouse which is invisible. I exist, I am here on this earth for the single purpose of being an outlet for God's fountain of Good.

Which leads to my question: How?

The glorious gift of that question, How?, is I no longer run pillar-to-post seeking...all my answers are within. I can only find out how by doing God's will NOW...and being open to being wrong. [Which reminds me, I say we'd best rid our self of the idea that we must do the next right thing...nothing will keep us stuck, stationary, motionless like the ego-victory decision to do only the next right thing.]

Take a risk...God has our back.

Thank you.

MORE ABOUT LOVE

A friend from my high school years called me yesterday...I was ecstatic! Just simply terrific to hear from her, to catch the high points of each other's lives all these years later. It was a heartwarming conversation.

This morning I awoke wrapped in my rues, regrets and remorses remembering the conversation and how I had badmouthed someone from our past. Once I was fully awake I went looking for my sliver of gold that I'll need in order to build my other, or better, way of looking at my bad-mouthing.

And there it was...the realization that I needed (never for a minute wanted) to do the badmouthing because I was totally unaware that I had any hurt/anger/ugly left in me about the person from my past...the one who had indeed hurt me badly. I thought I'd long since found my part in the mess, had forgiven and forgotten and believed I'd succeeded very well.

On my well-padded knees this morning I thanked my Father for opening my eyes, and for giving me this opportunity to love my past/present tormentor....not to forgive, not to forget, just to love which encompasses forgive and forget.

I once heard someone say we must love with an open hand...that made a place in my heart, and that's how I want to love. Just to love...friends, friends-not-so-much, politicians and other prostitutes (get thee behind me, Lucy)...we all need love.

There's an old, once-popular song, the name of which I don't recall, that has the line in it, "...live, love, laugh and be happy." There. That's all we need to do to live a life free from hate.

 I started this thinking that I needed to learn more about love...actually, I need to do less unlove.

Thank you.

COOPERATE AND GRADUATE

We do not need to believe in God for Him to take good care of us, which was a blinding flash of the obvious several years ago.

The question is, knowing that AND believing in God, why do we continue to worry, fret and stew about our future, whether we're going to have enough, or our past, how we can make a rue, regret, remorse unhappen.

Those two frets keep us forever untouched by the here and now, the place where God lives.

The President/CEO of the last place I worked had a saying, "Cooperate and graduate." Whenever a snag in plans came up, or a snarl between members arose, he'd bring it all together with those three words. It took me awhile to realize that dictate is the modern-day equivalence of the Sermon's "Agree with your adversary quickly." Which led to my big-bang realization that we can't go wrong when we rely on spiritual principles in our daily life.

It is that reliance on spiritual principles that keeps us in the here and now, unfettered by "what if?" and/or "how to CYA?"

This is a lesson we learn...and then relearn a time or two ( to quote my beloved Chet). Thank God that God is patient.

Thank you.

CHOOSE YOU THIS DAY. . .

God lives within us all. I wonder if only certified saints live that truth. I suspect not...I'm guessing it isn't only saints who can live that but that saints and grownups alike live that truth.

The question is, do they realize it? We read Mother Teresa's dairies and letters, and she seemed as unsure of her spirituality as just plain folks do. And Saint Augustine was the one who is reported to have said that lust would be with him three days after his death.

They say it's not easy being green, but it's no easier being a grownup, according to me. None of us need wonder about the saints.

But isn't that the goal? To be a grownup. to know it and show it. The catch phrase in today's world is, "But what does that look like?" Grownups don't have to ask.

God lives within, but it is a hard lesson learning that we our own self must choose to loose him...loose him and let him flow.

Thank you.

TWO WAYS TO SEE ONE THING

I just read an old note I wrote in my "God Calling," and it thrilled me to my toes. All I had written was, Yesterday, I gave over to John in a very small but ego-denying way. Thank you.

I made note of it because I had just started the big turn from thinking any giving over was proof I was gutless and would never be able to stand up for myself, take my own part, know and show that I'm just as good as anyone...the poor-pitiful-put-upon-me list drags on.

I'm glad I date my notes and that I made note of this because, in truth, it isn't all that old. In my mind, I've been doing this for a long, long time..."this" being giving over. And there it is...that is my ah-ha. I've given over for a long, long time, only I've just begun to realize it as God's better way and not ego's wimp-out.

This is proof again that there are two ways of looking at every one thing...through our ego's eyes and whine or through God's and bask in sunshine.

Thank you.

GOD...ENTIRELY HEART FELT

Love is endlessly alive, always flowing toward the lower place, and thus life-giving for all, exactly like water. -- Fr. Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," December 23, 2016.

"Love is endlessly alive, always flowing toward the lower place exactly like water." Like water, love seeks its own level...filling every nook, cranny and crack until there is nothing but love.

I am blessed with a blinding flash reminding me that God is love, and I understand that God is always flowing toward the lower place because there is no higher place. God seeks its own level, is everywhere, is in everything...filling every nook, cranny and crack until there is nothing but God.

God is invisible to the naked eye, unhearable by the natural ear, unreachable by the reasoning mind...is known only through the heart.

I am guessing that's why faith was born...to help us trust our heart.

Thank you.

BLACK MEMORIES TURNED GOLD

A "black" memory from back in the day visited itself upon me last night. Another one of my rues, regrets and remorses dressed up like as if it was my owner.

I heard myself asking God to please take those memories away, lift them out of me, release me from them. Fortunately God was paying close attention because he calmed my rampaging mind and then reminded me that that is what most of us over the age of 50 fear the most... our memories, our very minds, being taken from us!

God and I have walked this road before. He changes my mind, turns it peaceful and we chat. I tell him I am ready for him to amplify those memories...bring them out stronger and clearer so I can kiss them on the lips and walk free in my own head.

The almost unbelievably good news is that I very well know that this is exactly what he is doing...that he always can and will do this for me. I also know that Lucy will fight him every step of the way because she's allowed...that's her job. Here's the pearl beyond price: Her resistance is the Golden Goose that will keep turning me away from my ego-victory desires, within to God seeking for his will to be done whatever that may be.

This may be my road for the rest of my life which can only be right, just and merciful...that's my guarantee I'll always have peace of mind to turn to by my own personal choosing.

God is so good to me.

Thank you.

THE WARM GLOW OF HURT

Feeling unloved, unneeded, unwanted and unappreciated is just a feeling, it is not a fact...and that feeling comes by invitation only.

I once said to a friend that I'm in trouble when I start feeling unloved, unneeded, unwanted and unappreciated. Weeks later she wanted me to tell her again what those four "things" were because she loved them so much! There it is...the things that turn a teacher's hair gray.

Those four "things" are not something we want to hold onto! We do not want to hunker down with them...because for sure it hurts so good when we do. But that's what makes forgiveness so difficult for it is nigh impossible to lift our self out of that warm glow of self-justified hurt.

That four-pronged feeling must be the nesting place of ego. I can all but see Lucy preening in her unloved state, choosing which someone to blame, wallowing in unwantedness, swelling with the self-importance of being so unappreciated. 

I know this for fact: If we're feeling unloved, unneeded, unwanted and unappreciated, we cannot be feeling gratitude or grace or God's love. We're feeling self, plain and simple. In other words, rigid, righteous and right.

As Jesus could have said, "Give me a break."

Thank you.

WE CAN'T, GOD CAN, LET HIM

I'm caught up this morning in my thoughts about an acquaintance: Nobody likes her. She would run her mouth 24/7, if she didn't have to sleep, with nothing but I, me, my, mine sounding. I roll my eyes when she gets started but she doesn't take the hint. She's oblivious to all but her own feelings and facts.

I think I heard...or did I feel?...something. It seemed like a breath, felt like a breeze, sounded like, "What you see is always yourself." But it was probably just the wind rattling the window.

I just had a flash of an old flash...it recurs often so I'd best take it seriously: God is love. Love is nonresistance. If we will welcome every niggle, bump and barnacle as we trudge our road of happy destiny, we will live in love.

I'm guessing the human condition precludes that, but it does not preclude our having that as a "want to." It may be a pie-in-the-sky want to, but doesn't that beat living as a constant mud-on-my-shoe victim?

I've now got two "impossible" dreams...one, for my true religion to be kindness, and two, to think with nonresistance, to love in a word.

All things are possible with God.

Thank you.

KINDNESS...AND DOING IT

Some great person once asked the question, "What wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness?"

And today I read that the Dalai Lama has said that his true religion is kindness.

Kindness seems to me to be the easiest of all the giving arts...a smile and a nod of our head to a stranger qualifies as an act of kindness. Faith, hope and charity get the best p.r., no doubt rightly (I mean, who am I to contradict St. Paul!) but they require some serious inside adjustments.

Which leads me to question my own self...why don't I do kindness like the Dalai Lama, as my true religion? Given the opportunity to choose kindness or...not even meanness but obliviousness I guess is the best word...obliviousness, then, why do I more often than not choose the latter?

Actually, I do often choose the kindness of a smile and a howdy today when I'm out walking Ruckus, but that's almost a hundred percent due to him...Ruckus has never met a stranger and strangers love him.

Pondering it, I can start thinking of kindness as my daily religion...and it'll start with my thoughts. Uh-oh. There's where it ain't so easy. Maybe that's a bar too high. I know, I can start by following Ruckus's lead...he doesn't think about it, he just wags his tail and grins at everybody.

I'll not wag, I'll just smile...that's close enough to  perfect to start.

Thank you.

AND AGAIN...LOVE AND LAUGH

Think your thought-way into the very heart of My Kingdom. -- "God Calling," December 18

I have read  "God Calling" daily, with very few missed days, since somewhere around 1973. Never, I am saying not ever, have I noted: Think your thought-way into the very heart of My Kingdom.

Not to put too fine a point on it but, "Think!" our "thought-way!" in? Which isn't to say that isn't what I do (for that is exactly what I do), I just thought I was doing it wrong and the Lord was being extraordinarily patient with me.

I have had many (many!) people explain their practice of meditation, and what I heard was (not saying what they said but what I heard), they sit down, close their eyes and, just like that, drop into The Zone...easy-peasy.

I've even found the gold in my "doing it wrong." I usually have a blinding flash of the obvious immediately after my meditation, sometimes but rarely during, and I figured even though I was doing it wrong, God can and does find a way to be heard.

Who has more fun than God? All his people trying so hard to "do it right," and he's already cleaned the place, cooked the meal, cleared the table and readied the bed.

God loves us sooo much.

Thank you.

LOVE...OR ELSE

Everybody wants to be loved... nobody wants to do love. That's my take on the old gospel song, "Everybody wants to go to Heaven, nobody wants to die."  Which, when I think on it, is just another way of saying, "Everybody wants to get, nobody wants to give."

Somewhere in the Bible it says something about to be like our Father, we must needs be willing to be slandered and vilified and kicked to the curb...repeatedly. I have no problem with that (read, that sails right over my head) until I, or my ego Lucy in truth, is nicked. Then nothing will do but to nick back, harder and in a more vulnerable place.

I half believe that the trouble with actually doing love is there are no immediate or visible rewards. Well, who needs that? I can get that with hate...only at least with hate I get noticed. Pouts Lucy.

I saw President Obama on TV yesterday walking an extremely fine line of restraint of tongue, and I heard the pundits later just castigating him for not showing strength. Restraint is the Rodney Dangerfield of personal actions...it gets no respect.

Here's the payoff, though: I'm betting the President sleeps better because of his restraint. I doubt he's awakened at 3:00 AM by his own rues, regrets and remorses because of his unrestrained tongue. That's close enough to gold for me...because I'm not sleeping all that well right now due to my unrestrained tongue. Rats.

If you do not learn how to love, everywhere you go you are going to suffer. -- Eknath Easwaran

Thank you.

ALONE AGAIN...UNNATURALLY

Life is a balancing act, I'm thinking. On the one hand there is that which requires us to turn to God, on the other hand there are the dailies we must meet, greet and deal with.

The balancing rests in our acceptance of a power greater than our own self. For it is the dailies that determine how rocky our life's road will be, that require us to turn to God to keep our Self centered. For if we lose that center, we are back to being self-centered.

Our self-centeredness is where none other is allowed full entrance into our consciousness, certainly not a higher power, for sure not God. There. That is when we are alone again, unnaturally. That may be the definition of unbalanced.

Thank you.

JUDGING...THE EGO'S PLAYGROUND

Bob Dylan not personally accepting the Nobel Prize is on my mind this morning. I heard some well-known personalities on TV just chewing him a new one because of his arrogance. I felt uncomfortable at how transparent their judgments were...as in, If I ever won, I'd do so much better, etc.

I don't doubt that the majority of us want to accept ourselves just as we are. Some, again no doubt, have no problem with that, and go on to be in-our-skin comfortable no matter the occasion or the company attendant. Some don't.

And some just want to judge both the comfortable and the uncomfortable, the comfortable as arrogant and the uncomfortable as ignorant...and all the avenues and alleys in between. Judging is the ego's playground.

Personally, I never saw any Kennedy Center recipient look as miserably uncomfortable as Dylan looked when he received that award, and, who's kidding whom, receiving the Nobel is a step or two up from that in prestige, pomp and circumstance. He's been in the public eye for it seems a hundred or so years, but fear is older than that and knows no boundaries.

So there...I took my own flight of fantasy (that's an upgraded judgment), and I say good on him. His no-show told me he accepts himself just as he is...which is a far greater gift than the Nobel Prize or any other material award.

Thank you.

CHANGE IS A-GONNA COME

Change is here...here now. How it affects us and the generations to come depends entirely on our acceptance of or resistance to that change.

While we quibble over man-made climate change, the newly proposed cabinet consists primarily of non-believers in man-made climate change. Don't tell me God's hand isn't in that for, according to me, that is the good news. Nothing less drastic could be the impetus to bring all of us non-scientific "little people" together for the pure purpose of positive action.

Cursing the situation is the equivalent of burning still more coal. We must crash and burn with the resistant curses, turn to Mother Nature and bless the cause that made the turn essential...or, use the equivalent of solar/wind/rain energy to do our thinking.

To me, that is the nut of what must change...our own mind. Our vehement resistance is polluting the atmosphere by the violent energy we put out there. Our own thinking about the President-elect and his proposed cabinet must be welcoming because the more we kick, curse and cry over them, the more we stay stuck. Only there is no standing still in stuck...it's akin to standing still in quicksand.

I'm reminded of the civil rights movement of the '50s and '60s, the feminist consciousness raising groups of the '70s. We took up no guns, we initiated no physical harm, but, by the grace of God and the help of friends, we brought change.

Figure it out...kwitcherbitchin...Seek ye first the kingdom of Heaven and all these things shall be added unto you,.

Thank you.

FREE FLOATING THOUGHTS

My God Calling note on this date in 2008: "I meet Ruck, a Llasa Apso, today...yes???" Two beautiful things came from that meeting: First, it was a Yes, he did rescue me, and, second, a friend later called him "Ruckus." That's an entire love story right there as I look down at Ruckus lying asleep at my feet.

Then I read yesterday about a football player reaming God because he, the football player, did not catch a football in a big game. My BFO: God's will is not about catching a football...God's will is about learning humility when we don't catch the football.

That blinding flash led to the next obvious: God's will is not about protecting us from parading our ignorance, God's will is about learning humility when we get caught parading our ignorance.

To cop a quote...there is no cheap humility.

Thank you.

FEAR IN THE FORM OF ANGER

[The following is a reprint of my blog of March 5, 2014.]

The spiritual way of life is a reversal of the human way of life. -- Joel Goldsmith, "The Heart of Mysticism" at p. 836.

The spiritual way of life is all about giving, the human way of life is all about getting. We experience this in particular when we win...when we get over on another, no matter the size or significance of the victory, we rejoice. We got...s/he gave (up). That's ego victory...spiritually, our road just got a tish steeper. I wonder, is there such a thing as spiritual victory or is that an oxymoron?

For sure ego victory is my real sinkhole today. I have "won" over Kermit, and I am having the devil's own time not lording it over old Kermit. I fantasize letting him know that I was well aware each and every time he slighted me. All those times that I gave thanks to God for keeping my mouth shut, that I gave myself spiritual points for not responding in kind, for agreeing with my adversary quickly...all those times I was earning my wings...I am eager now to pitch just so I can let Kermit know he did not get over on me...that I, indeed, have gotten over on him and spiritually too by God (so to speak).

Here's what I can project, and this from my own life experiences: In my ego's urge to teach him a lesson, I withhold, being just a tish cooler, less available. Interestingly, when I was being slighted and snubbed, I was using spiritual principles in order to not respond in kind...being agreeable in a word. Now that I've won, my ego wants to make him pay...to be disagreeable in a word.

If I continue on that road, withholding love, fear (in the form of anger) will take charge of Kermit because withholding love seeds fear in the other. That fear will redound to me...and the same old same old will spring forth, looking new. All in the course of an ego victory.

My ego is my Satan...get thee behind me ego. Now all I need do is loose it and let it go...and that'll happen only with the grace of God.

Thank you.

HOUSE CALLS FROM GOD

I pray for God's forgiveness. I feel nothing. I beg for God's forgiveness. I feel nothing. I fall to my knees to again plea, and I hear, You don't feel forgiven because there is nothing to be forgiven.

My thoughts are race-race running on how to make Gertrude ashamed for what she did to me. I hear, When you punish another for harm they have done to you, you are short circuiting karma and karma then redounds to you.

There was nothing to be forgiven in the first place; there was no harm done to our self in the first place. It is our own picture that needs adjusting...it is always our own view that is askew.

A forever truth: If we will upgrade our attitude, we will upgrade our problem. Invariably.

Thank you.

I WONDER. . . .

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. – Attributed to Edmund Burke

I come across that quote ever so often, and I wonder every time why so many of us immediately think that doing nothing means that we didn’t pick up a gun and shoot our perceived evil...or at least smack it upside its head.

Actually, that’s what I believe we’re on this earth to learn...to learn how and why not to shoot, slap, stab or bad mouth. I’m a believer...working hard to be a doer...that we must needs resist our own resistance. We welcome it with acts of friendship...a smile and nod of the head is an act of friendship. We work up to kissing it on the lips...which truly is acceptance with a scepter.

I’m still doing my morning meditation wherein I see Mary, the mother of God, as my shepherdess. I see her as she makes a place for me in the presence of my enemies. I picture my enemies as a skunk (penniless), a snake (friendless), a three-headed goat (spiritual arrogance), a toad (plain old arrogance), a pack of hyenas (the ones I’m thinking ill of), and Mary who spreads wide her arms, and we all dance with her, hugging and laughing and kissing and having a fine time.

The bar between believing we gotta kill our enemies (or get the better of them somehow) and accepting that we can make friends with our enemies is fear. And that is all.

It is our fear we must make peace with. Fear will ever be with us but it doesn’t have to live with us...it can just visit on occasion. And when we decide enough with the fear, in loving kindness we can release it.

How do we do that? By reminding our self of the promise and the fact that spiritual principles can solve all of our problems. Then turn to God with grace and gratitude...that’s kissing fear on the lips.

Afterthought: Because I am utterly unqualified, I rarely think in terms of making nice-nice on an international scale, but to my mind this is what diplomacy is all about...one country's representative being agreeable to another country's representative who is being equally agreeable right back for the benefit of both countries. In a perfect world...or is it just in a more spiritual world?

Thank you. 

IT IS NEVER HIM/HER/THEM

I am as good as I ought to be...being me.-- blinding flash of the obvious from awhile back

I come back to that BFO because it seems to be growing in importance in my soul...I suspect that means my ego Lucy is gearing up to fight it.

Lucy is going for perfection...her idea of perfection...at all times. My soul wants me to accept me just as I am and trust that is close enough to perfect for  God.

Thinking on it, that makes sense...accepting my imperfect self gives me reason to stay closer to him, not wander along Lucy's picture path of perfection, sowing seeds for my own discontent. For, whether we know it, accept it, believe it or not, our discontent is always homegrown...it is never "him/her/them."

Loose it and let it go.

Thank you.

LOVE, THE ETERNAL ANSWER

My morning's blinding flash, a prayer:

Lord, bring to my mind all that you have taught me...I am not in need of new thoughts, new words new ideas for I already have all the revealings I will ever need, i.e., love is the answer, no matter the question. It is my thought-life, my attack mind, that calls for help. Please and thank you. Amen

Thank you.

RESIGNATION IS EGO; ACCEPTANCE IS GOD

I was reminded recently of the difference between resignation and acceptance.

Resignation is ego firmly in control. It's the almighty Me who has no choice but to keep doing what she's doing, plus it is what he really wants to do to begin with. S/he will never be free.

Acceptance is our soul who knows herself powerless to stop doing that same thing but knows he cannot stop and is heartsick about it. Hitting the bottom of heartsick opens the door for God to enter and do for us what we cannot do for our self.  And we are free.

It's the difference between giving up and giving in. Giving up is an act of self-control, as in suicide. Giving in is simply letting God flow. It is getting out of our own way because we have learned (1) that our reasoning mind will never get us there, and (2)  we can and do trust God ever has our perfect and personal solution in hand.

Thank you.

GOD MEANS IT FOR GOOD

There's a story in the Bible about Joseph and his brothers who sold him into slavery, he persevered becoming the right hand of the king, the brothers ran into a mess of trouble and came running to Joseph for help, apologizing all over the place for their ill treatment of him, and Joseph said to them it was no big deal, that ...here's the punchline (my very favorite of the few Bible stories I know)...You meant it for ill, but God meant it for good.

I am not at all sure but I think that's in the very first book in the Bible which means finding the good in a bad situation, i.e., finding God in it, has been an accepted practice for thousands of years. Why, then, do we still resist it?

When something to our mind's eye happens that is less than wonderful, we promptly go into a grey-brown-puce funk, with a strong feeling of being unloved, unwanted, unneeded and unappreciated. Maybe it's because not many overwhelmingly bad things happen where we have no choice but to turn to God...we haven't yet learned to trust God in the dailies.

I suspect that's the measure of true spiritual growth. How steady in our socks are we when we feel betrayed by a friend or the car doesn't start? 

Remembering but refusing to do the right thing, find the gold in it so to speak, because it was just not right is ego on parade...old Lucy leading the pack...and we all know there is no spiritual growth there.

I'm a lot less scrupulous than I once was...I give myself angel points whenever finally I think to find the gold, and so seek it..

All things work together for good. -- Romans 8:28

Thank you.

CLUELESS BUT TRUSTING

Quite as important was the discovery that spiritual principles would solve all my problems. -- Anonymous

From my own experience, I can attest that spiritual principles can indeed solve all our problems. The reason why is that all our problems are based in fear. Are born of fear. Arise from fear. Anyway we put it, fear is the birther and the nurturer of all of our problems. According to me.

Spiritual principles alone can release us from fear. We certainly cannot think fear away...reason it gone...forget about it...ignore it...talk it to death. Having tried each and all of these (repeatedly), I can promise the above quote is true.

Here's a bare-butt fact: Any and every solution for the dissolution of the fear in our being is born in our reasoning mind...ergo, our mind is focused on fear alone which only increases the fear. It matters not how high-flown the thoughts we use are in trying to allay our fear, fear is our center at that point in time.

The answer is quite simply to change our mind, change our focus. That answer, of course, brings the next question right behind it: How? Let go and let God. It is that simple and that complex both at the same time. But trying to do that surely does takes our mind off our fear. Ah-ha!

There are those who would rather try meds, magic mushrooms, marijuana, etc., but God's cheaper, lasting and legal in every state. Plus if those are a real fix, why are there so many treatment centers for the recovery from their use?

The first spiritual principle we can go to (because it is easy to remember when in a panic) is "Thank you." The second one is "Thank you for my everything just as it is right this very instant." And isn't that counterintuitive, paradoxical and just plain crazy to the reasoning mind?

There's the key...it is reliance on the reasoning mind that we must needs let go of. Anything we're focused on trying to get shed of doubles down in its efforts to stay...it's the old don't-think-of-an-elephant story. What we resist, persists...another great old adage.

So we do our own doubling down and turn our thoughts to the God of our own understanding which is exactly what spiritual principles do: Spiritual principles turn our focus to God. And what is God but love? And there it is. A clueless but trusting "thank you" to the God of our own understanding may be the most calming and loving thing we will ever do for our self.

Thank you.

GOD IS LOVE...FLOW WITH IT

My morning blinding flash of the obvious: It is not that we hate anyone, it is just that we love our self more.

I roll that around for awhile...it is not that I hate anyone, it is just that I love myself more than anyone. How do I reconcile that "I love myself more" with my sometimes feelings of self-hate, self-unacceptance?

I suspect the two words love and hate are the problem. It is  not an easy matter to get a grip on what exactly "love" means...means to me personally. I've never pondered hate, per se. I don't doubt that it started out in my life as a blanket that I threw over anything that felt negative. But now that I've got my spiritual water wings, I don't call it hate...I either call it "less than wonderful" or I ignore it.

Love on the other hand. I've been studying...actually, honestly, studying...for over forty years. I'm almost embarrassed to admit (except that I've admitted it so many times that it's laughable now) that I was in my thirties before I realized (i.e., got the concept!) that there are different kinds of love. Before that, to me there was boy-girl love and that's it. I had good friends that I felt just swell toward...it never entered my mind that was love.

I suspect that my first dog, my Ari, a Maltese with whom I was madly in love and I knew it, was my breakthrough example of non-romantic love being as all-important as romantic love. Who's kidding whom, though? Pets are on the same level as humans in the love world.

But when I say, "God is love," what exactly does that mean to me personally? First thought: Acceptance...then, non-resistance (which is the same, though, isn't it?).

Free-floating thoughts: Love allows everything to flow in and through and sets it in the right direction as it flows. That's how God perfects that which is given me to do. As my errors, misjudgments, missteps flow, they affect others. For my own sake, I acknowledge my errors as soon as I am aware of them, but God has already gone before us to make the crooked places straight for all concerned. Our job is to know that and to show that, meaning simply to forgive (another word for acceptance). There. That is how I reconcile my conundrum...forgiveness of self and others.

All of which may or may not be so, I just let it flow.

Thank you.

ON TRANSFORMED CONSCIOUSNESS

We read about "a real transformation of consciousness," and those of us on the spiritual wave, long for that transformation. I tend to believe that it is in the longing that transformation begins for our reasoning mind knows naught of higher consciousness.

I also believe that it is in the longing that we are lifted into another dimension...but lifted by minute degrees. Doesn't "a real transformation of consciousness" sound like an immediate leap? Or a loud bang? Or at least a whoop-de-do?

I personally know I have experienced a real transformation of consciousness by the life I lead today. But it is in looking back, in remembering when, that I realize and am really aware of how different my thoughts and actions are today from back then. Kinder, I believe, if I'm only allowed one word for it. To myself and others...including cats.

And here's my whoop-de-do...back in the day can be just last year. I was thinking "yesterday" but transformation takes some time to cozy down, to become real. A blinding flash of the obvious is just that...it takes serious settling in with it that makes it real in my life. I sometimes read of a flash I had sometime back and am stunned...I didn't make it mine, I just wrote it down. Which isn't to say that it was lost...nothing is lost just because we've forgotten we had it. After all, it came from him to begin with, he can resend.

That's an important part of the transformation of consciousness: The reasoning mind cannot accept that God can and will bring us whatever we need, be it a previous blinding flash of the obvious or a new pair of shoes. If we have the need, God has the fulfillment. And he does not hold back.

The Father knows our needs.

Thank you.

GET IT RIGHT, NOW

[The following is a reprint of my blog of October 5 2015.]

Here's my theory of life everlasting: Life is simply a test. We all come from the same gene pool of God consciousness, which is also known as "heaven," and that is where we return. The time we each have with our test varies, and none of us knows our time limit.

All are born with free will; the test being how quickly and completely we exchange that free will for God's will. The sooner we begin to make our exchange, the freer we are...to help others make their exchange. That is our only job.

The exchange can only be made through forgiveness...which is love at its toughest, i.e., best.

We keep coming back until we get it right.

Thank you.

EARNING THE RIGHT TO SING "AMAZING GRACE"

We cannot detach from our ego any more than we can detach from our soul any more than we can detach from the Father within us. We can choose to believe or not believe in any of them but not believing does not negate their reality...it just forces us to think up different names for them...and then feel left out because others don't understand us. (Therein lies the victim, but that's a whole 'nother story.)

I'm guessing few of us, or any of us,  had a first rational thought that was about ego, soul or God...but about God, specifically.

My take is that we come from God, from God consciousness, into the material world, and our life's journey is outward...learning the ways of the world and how we are powerless over some people, places and things. Usually, we learn it is primarily people we are powerless over, and there is where we meet our match. That learning, our powerlessness, is the "necessary suffering" we hear so much about on the spiritual path.

To our reasoning mind, our powerlessness is our bane. No. An emphatic no!  It is our angel. It is that powerlessness that forms the U-bie that leads us back to where we belong...with God. Out of self. Back into God consciousness.

The apex of that U-bie is our crash-and-burn in whatever form that takes for us as long as it leads us to  utter hopelessness...our own personal despair. That's the necessary point, the point at which we turn to the great unknown and cry: "Please...someone, something,  somewhere, somehow, somebody...please." There it is. The most sincere prayer we will ever pray. And we spend our life trying to make an end-run around that. Because, my friend, that is a-hurting we have never known before. And nobody ever got there singing "Mairzy Doats."  It's only after the fall that we sing "Amazing Grace." And mean it.

Two musts to learn and remember: One, hopeless despair is our angel which we cannot force into action, and two, our rues, regrets and remorses are our invitation to that angel who is fully aware when, not if, we are ready.

Our Father knows our needs.

Thank you.