OUR NEMESIS AND AN UNSELFED LIFE

I've been contemplating nemesis and my belief that we all have our own. I equate nemesis with undeserved suffering...kinda like it is our cross to bear.

I tend to believe our acceptance of it comes with the realization that it became ours by our own unknowing choice before conception...maybe as an act of solidarity with all the pain of our chosen people.

I compare my "unknowing choice," to the line from an old novelty song (a favorite of mine): When they were passing out noses, I thought they said roses, and I said, 'I'll have a big red one.'

Having learned who I am and what I'm all about, that makes sense to me...it is neither logical nor believable that I would choose suffering purely for the benefit of others. I mean, it's comforting having Jesus as a role model, I just don't want to have to do as he did; i.e., suffer for others.

I'm guessing the key to our nemesis is the acceptance of it, resistance and all, and to welcome it as it comes to us. Why do I say I'm guessing that? That's the key to an unselfed life...which, after all, is our spiritual goal.

Thank you.

WE NEVER KNOW THE DAY OR HOUR. . .

It is not after we die that we return to God consciousness...the return is available at any and all times.

It takes due diligence on our part in preparing our self to be lifted into a higher consciousness, as in the discipline of daily meditation. The important point about meditation is there is no one absolute way to meditate. I spent way too many years trying to get that right rather than getting right with God. When I quit trying for the perfect meditation posture, God smiled within me.

The fruits of my meditation rarely come during my meditation...I am seldom  lifted into a higher consciousness in plain words. Afterward, however, I often get my "blinding flash of the obvious." It took a way long time for me to accept that, and it probably came when I  realized that God does not stand on ceremony. The God of my understanding does not care how I get to him, he just expects me to aim in his direction, he'll do (has done) the rest.

I recall feeling gobsmacked when I realized Heaven is God consciousness. We learn early on that we do not go to Heaven when we die (and then only if we've been good...it is hell if we've been bad) but that Heaven is God consciousness within us/without us right now, the Eternal Now.

Since we live in the reasoning mind world, a period of quiet time daily is essential for us. It is in that quiet time that our Father can (but may not) make contact with us. It is that Source within that maintains our peace of mind, and It is not available on demand.

There...that is the core, the reason why there is only one acceptable...reasonable even...desire, and that is to know God aright. To know God aright is to live in perfect harmony with our own self, with those about us, with our world.

We must ever be prepared for we never know the day or hour the [Father] will appear.

Thank you.

OUR ENEMIES, A.K.A., OUR FUTURE FRIENDS

Having suddenly and unexpectedly grown old, I'm keeping my eye out for the gold nuggets only old age brings...and I'm finding them!

For instance, I was reminded recently of an instance back in the day when I was made mock of by a bully...and nobody or nothing came to my aid. I felt hurt, mortified and helpless.

Later I learned that same bully was in prison, and I felt goooood. It was hearing recently that he'd turned his life around and was now dedicated to helping the really downtrodden of life that called that time to mind. I felt joy for him and humbled both at the same time.

In truth, I felt joyously humbled because of my life in between. From his act, my hurt grew into resentment so deep that I was forced by my own circumstances to let it go...to mentally hug him and kiss him and let him and his actions go. Now to be given the gift of learning of a positive outcome for him was just...my old-age gold nugget.

The injustices of the reasoning-mind world are so many and so varied, that it is beyond wonderful that any thinking person ever comes to believe in a kind and merciful God who only loves us. That is precisely why finding and accepting a God of our own understanding is essential if we want to have a happy place to turn to when we get all up in our head.

That happy place is then ours, our hidey-hole with God, for however long we're given on this earth. (We may think we don't want to live to see eighty or ninety but the closer we get to it, the harder we hold on...remember the old gospel song, Everybody wants to go to Heaven, nobody wants to die.)

The grace of God is ever with us. Never forget, "us" includes our enemies, also known as "future friends."

Thank you.

ON PLEASING GOD

I was mind-tripping while walking Ruckus this morning, and my ego Lucy took control. She was hitting garbage cans, dump trucks, oh my...just running wild. Which invited the worst of my rues, regrets and remorses to slither out, and out they came, hissing. There was one regret in particular that causes me pain, and just as it was about to pierce my heart...again...I knew and this, too, pleases God.

There it is...the result of our ever going for still more spiritual growth: We no longer feel the need to fight our own uglies. Once we accept that God has our back, we can quit trying to control our ego. We now live with the assurance that God is alive and well in our heart and in our soul, that there is nothing to resist.

When (not if) Lucy starts her dizzying whirl, we can now hug her and kiss her and release her back into the wilds without any thought of asking for aid. We have become our own aid-station as long as we never forget who is the lead doc in that aid-station...that it is not you, it is not me, it is not us. And it never will be.

This, too, pleases God.

Thank you.

CHERISH OUR TIMES OF NEED

I had occasion yesterday to get a glimpse of  the difference between "magical thinking" and trusting that God has my back. It may or may not pass a church's muster, but most church's standards have ever been a tish higher than mine...so it's close enough to perfect for me.

I hope I can put it into words...here's the best I can do: Trusting that God has our back is knowing in a time of need that God can and will intervene to meet that need. Then we thank him and move forward doing that which we doubted we could do. In plain words, our need supplies God's outcome.

Magical thinking is telling our self our want is a need, then trying to meet that want by our own efforts...as in, we spend money that we do not have on that want and tell our self God has met our need. Then the check bounces. And we doubt there is a God.

What gives me hope that I'm on the right road with this is my "God Calling" just this morning quotes Saint Paul saying, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." There it is...through Christ.

Magical thinking is the great i  am...the Christ is the great I Am.

Thank you.

OUR ANGELS IN DISGUISE

Bless our enemies for they are our angels in disguise.

Our enemies are not the Gertrudes and the Herkimers of our world. Our enemies are our fear, our pride, our arrogance, our refusal to forgive and/or to ask for forgiveness. Looking over the list, the word that tells the tale: our. Meaning me, my, mine.

I am the source of all my woes. Paradoxically, I Am my spiritual source.

All it takes to live in the spiritual source is the willingness to detach, surrender, take nothing personally, accept. In the eye of a needle, so to speak, get over our self.

We've got to believe that "want to" counts, but if we stay stuck there (giving our self credit into the bargain), we're opting for ego...still trying to make an end run around God. It may be that it is so hard to give over because it requires an act of our free will...that gift from God that is very like a diamond in the rough. It takes some deep cleaning to get that diamond ready for market, i.e., our walking around world.

Without the self-discipline necessary to study unto living the guidelines lived and taught by the Buddha, Muhammed, Christ Jesus, Pope Francis, Abraham Lincoln and so many others, our free will remains our ego's glory land where "It's all about me."

The fact is that recognizing the necessity for self-discipline only comes from catastrophic suffering or divine intervention...and catastrophic suffering happens a lot more often than divine intervention due purely to our relying on our free will.

Our journey is made easier when we accept that our free will is to be used for choosing the best guide for us to follow in order to return that free will to our Father p.d.q. We exchange our free will by detaching, surrendering, taking nothing personally, accepting...and laughing at how hard we make that.

Choose you this day whom ye will serve. -- Joshua 24:15

Thank you.

LET HIM...THE HARDEST PART

[The following is a reprint of my blog of November 15, 2016.]

Not by might, nor by Power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord. - Zechariah 4:6

There it is, the simplified version of the Bible, according to me. I say it is the one instruction we need hold near and dear in our head and heart. Fighting with words or guns...or silent scorn...will never get us free. This is especially true if we win our fight; we have a better chance for freedom from self if we lose.

The great news is "My Spirit" is always, always, always available to us. The uh-oh, wait a minute news is It is not available on demand. Although It is within us, without us, we accept that it is our privilege, our honor, our very duty to seek My Spirit. Our seeking is what brings us into the atmosphere of God.

It is in the atmosphere of God that our mind is changed, upgraded actually, from our hard-charging, gotta win, gotta get mine, runaway thought-train into the peace that passes all understanding. Into the presence of the Father within "who doeth the works."

Let him.

Thank you.

CHARITY...ON LEARNING TO LOVE IT

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal.... This is from Saint Paul's famous something somewhere in the Bible that is ever quoted, particularly at weddings, with the word "charity" now being translated to read "love."

According to me, that translation is a mistake...flat wrong actually.

First off, I'm guessing Saint Paul had both words, love and charity, in his vocabulary at the time so if he had meant love, he would have used love. He meant charity. Again, I'm guessing...or I say I'm guessing but I do believe.

My reasoning is that charity requires us to reach...to dig just to come to accept the word in its deepest reaches. Love on the other hand...who's going to badmouth love? Who's going to resist getting and giving love? It's almost become a throwaway word...we talk of loving a new pair of shoes. Try feeling charitable toward those new shoes when a blister forms on our heel after first wearing them.

Really, if we're looking to love our enemy, or to love our neighbor as our self (both of which are equally hard, enemy just sounds tougher), we are going to need to  get a whole lot closer to charity...to doing it, not just saying, doing.

Charity is the base, the kindergarten of our learning the art of giving over. This is where we learn how to let go of our own wants which masquerade as needs...always and all ways. Charity is the golden goose that tells us not to be as nasty as we want to be.

Done right, charity shows us how to pushback without resistance. And there it is...our proof that with God all things are possible. Without God, pushback without resistance is just another blister on our heel...impossible to love.

Thank you.

THE POWER IS OUR OWN SELF...TRUST THAT

Self-empty...let go...take nothing personally...accept. All of those acts have the same prerequisite, to wit, that we detach...or, easier to get the picture, that we crash and burn with our imperative wants.

It is our surrender that makes our decision to let go, to detach, and opens the way for the sacred power within us to flow forth and perform that which is given us to do.

We waste our breath and God's time praying for him to go before us to make the crooked places straight. It is that very prayer for that denies that it is already ours, that proves we have not let go, not emptied our self of our own want.

Supply is the realization of God.... (Joel Goldsmith, "Letters," at p. 633) Supply is not just money, food, shelter...no. It is that sacred power within us. That is the supplier, or fulfiller, of our need when we surrender, give over, give up, give in...let go.

The core of our search for still more spiritual growth in the end is simply trust. First, we come to believe that there is a sacred power within, known to me as God, and then we come to trust that power.

The great gettin' up morning is when we realize that power is not just ours...it is us. It is you. It is me. And we can trust that.

Thank you.

EDUCATED OR INTUITED...EITHER WORKS

As I often note, I love when a reflection of mine is validated by one (or more) of my daily readings. I feel a certain validation when a spiritually educated person says what I've only  intuited.

I received that validation today. Here's a note I wrote in my "God Calling" on this date in 2013: It is as through a mirror I now live...his/her/their interpretation of my life is to be embraced, not resisted. For their interpretation is theirs and says naught of me.

Then I read Cynthia Bourgeault's "Daily Meditation" for today on the Beatitude, Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. -- Matthew 5:10.

It is in her Gospel of Thomas comparison that I found my connection: "Jesus is not talking about martyrdom here, but about freedom. The Gospel of Thomas records this Beatitude with a slight but telling variation that captures the very essence of Jesus’ meaning here and in fact, throughout all the Beatitudes: Blessed are you in the midst of persecution who, when they hate and pursue you even to the core of your being, cannot find 'you' anywhere."

Here's the good and the bad of that: I get my feeling of validation from reading a spiritually educated person's take, but I still feel a tish of impatience...like, all that says is "Don't take it personally...whatever the incoming is that feels less than wonderful, don't take it personally." And I say that to me a lot...or occasionally, depending on the day. Now I can pretend I'm thinking of a Beatitude when I say it.

God loves me so much...you, too!

Thank you.

OUR DROSS BECOMES OUR GOLD

This I believe: There is only one need...to know God aright...all else are wants.

The fact is, though, that we do live in the material world, and we will have wants that must be met...and what is that but a need? We will have needs that we have no apparent means of meeting in the moment. What then?

"Then" is when we begin to understand how and why undeserved suffering is the Way of the Cross. All of our thinking, analyzing, cursing and crying are seen as no longer useful...they were once, never doubt it, for they brought us to our hopeless state. They opened the door to that heart space where our want is seen from a new angle, and our mind is changed. Changed in the realization that our Father knows our needs, and that insurmountable unmeetable is met not by might nor by money but by God working through us.

"Then" is the dross in the crucible giving up our gold.

Thank you.

GOD'S LAUGHTER TURNED TO A LOVING SMILE

I love the idea that we give God his laughs.

I'm arm-wrestling with my ego Lucy over my friend Gertrude who has got herself on the wrong side of me. I keep figuring different ways to let old Gertrude know...not that she's ticked me off. I'm not entirely stupid, I know that's the wrong road. No...I'm trying to find a way to set her straight with kindness, consideration and gentle reproach...shame, in a word. Uh-oh.

I must admit it wasn't until I thought about giving God a laugh that my thinking started turning in the right direction...inward.

I haven't hit All Clear yet, but I have opened to the recognition of my part in it...how my resentment got born. Since it did get born in me, it is mine to handle...and to handle with utmost care by seeking higher help to let it pass on through and out the other side.

I wonder if it isn't our ego's antics that give God his laughs...if it isn't when we open to our part in it that God's laughter turns to a loving smile. Yes! I choose to believe that.

I've already gotten rid of my heartburn, my proof that the Father is on the field.

Thank you.

LOVE, THE ONLY WAY OUT...OR IN

I am not overly impressed by those who live by brain-power alone. Living solely by what was written...yesterday or a thousand years ago...is binding to the Soul. That is called relying on the letter of the law alone which leaves no room for inner expansion...no pathway in to our intuition.

I was delighted when I read Fr Richard Rohr's contention that the literal level is one of the least fruitful levels of meaning. I was delighted, no doubt, because literal is one thing I am not. The old saying, never let the facts get in the way of a good story, sings in my heart.

It was that self-knowledge that gave me the permission I needed so long ago to open my mind to what the Sermon on the Mount was all about. Taken literally, I was not buying. But when I allowed my mind to open...to picture someone stealing my coat and me running after them to give them my clock, or her slapping my face and me turning the other cheek...I began to understand the whole picture. For the whole picture is love, and there is no love in payback.

Lack of love, I am convinced, is the source of all our woes. It is that lack of love that is our ego's hidey-hole...no wonder Lucy is so demanding. No wonder she calms down when I remember to tell her that God loves her and so do I.

The whole picture is love, and that is all.

Thank you.

ON THE GIFT OF UNKNOWING

The more we know the more we know we don't know...it is the  reasoning mind that curses that  unknowing.

It is the human who wrestles and weeps over our ignorance; it is the Spirit within that exults...for we are beginning to learn.

Thank you.

THE GATES AJAR...AND GOD FLOWS

I wonder if we'll always hold the thought if we're feeling pain, confusion and/or disorder that we must be doing it wrong. I personally have found that just because we have proven the exact opposite to our self does not preclude it ever revisiting...that's what gives ego its pulse. The danger is in willfully holding to that belief...that is cement to our self-will and also blocks the grace of God.

The way out of that quagmire is to remember that it is said that we are never angry for the reason we think. I must admit when I first heard that, I immediately turned to God with a sincere, "Whaaa?!" (That may have been when I first reminded the God of my understanding that he had the power so use it already...oh, please and thank you. I'm not entirely stupid.)

But there it is. However we can declare our self powerless...or merely puzzled...that puts a crack in our self-determined objective. That crack to God is the Gates Ajar. That opens our inner self allowing the grace of  God to flow out to perform that which is given us to do.

God is so good to us.

Thank you.

THERE IS NO ALTERNATIVE PATH

[The following is a reworked reprint of my blog of February 9, 2016.]

...to mix with the world and to find God amidst its pain, confusion, and disorder. -- Fr. Richard Rohr

When first I read that, I realized that to give oneself permission to do exactly that...to mix with the world and to find God amidst its pain, confusion, and disorder...is to know self (and Self) acceptance.

It occurs to me that may be the reason so many of us lack self acceptance. We assume if we're in pain, confusion and disorder, we must be doing it wrong, or we're not good enough, well enough, bright enough...enough period.

What if that is the place we must needs be to find God? Who looks for God on the first day of summer vacation? We're looking for fun in the sun, not for any of that heavy stuff. Or when we're out amongst 'em, boppin' and shoppin'. Who's looking for God then? Truth be told, we're half afraid he's going to show up and ruin the day.

The saddest is the one who has searched for God for years and still cannot accept that "great pain and great love" is the right path to him. The minute s/he feels "pain, confusion or disorder," an alternative source for peace is sought. Usually including someone to blame.

To be in the world but not of it is to be free of the fear of pain, confusion and disorder. They'll still come...if we're doing it right...but we no longer live in fear of their coming.

Thank you. 

ARM WRESTLING WITH SELF

People waste so much time in seeking to work out what they see. I declare to you that in the seeing My purpose, all is done. -- "God Calling," April l1

When we read that, we are best served by realizing that the words "all is done" mean all God's work is done. Our work, however, has just begun...we get to learn what "our work" really is. It is learning the art of detachment.

The art of detachment is letting go of our reasoning mind's answers, solutions, fixes. We must needs remember at all times that the reasoning mind is always legislating for itself. Even when...especially when...we're running the con that we are thinking, doing, speaking for the benefit of the other.

"Friends," one of my all-time favorite sit-coms, did a vignette once where Phoebe was determined to do something that would not, could not, in any way benefit her. It was wonderfully funny in her inability to do just that. That's the meat of the matter...we cannot determine to do for another without in some way benefitting our self.

Detachment begins our process of learning to think little...the art of minimization. We start in the most minor of pushback situations with our simple goal being to remember to give both the other and our self our due. We fairly quickly realize that we cannot do that. There's our decision to get out of God's way and to welcome God's perfect outcome.

Most often, my perfect outcome is me not being as nasty as I want to be while trying my sincere best to not react in kind to Gertrude being as nasty as she wants to be. And succeeding by not harboring a resentment after the fact. It's a thin, thin rope we walk.

The payoff, thought, is this is the beginning of real self-acceptance which underneath it all is our acceptance of the powerlessness of self.

Here's the gold..after our mighty struggle in this first minor pushback, we get to laugh about it. Ah, God is truly on the field.

Thank you.

FINDING THE GOLD IN THE COMPOST

The therapists insist that we must find our voice, use our voice. They are in business to teach us how and when and where to do just that...effectively. And that is not bad.

God, however, asks that we learn how to listen...to listen to his voice. Then do as he commands. And that is good.

The trouble with the reasoning mind is that it is too often run by the ego, and my Lucy's voice is louder than God's voice...by far. So that even when I've heard the Word, meditated on it, found my path of self-discipline enabling me to follow the Word, there will be always...or there has been always...a time when Lucy interrupts that good and right Way of the Word.

I have learned to let Lucy howl, to acknowledge her not in anger or self-pity or any other negative way, but with laughter and love...just as I'd welcome a friend who was running a tish sideways.

My newest lesson a'learning is to let Lucy show forth. It's an old lesson being born again...to show my warts just as they are for to clamp down or self-censure is akin to stapling my lips shut, believing that'll let God speak for me. No. That is self-will run amok.

Spiritual growth really does imbue our self...our soul. We find we can trust our self "to do or say the right thing." It is when (not if) we err, when Lucy lets loose, that we learn that it wasn't the awful we have lived in dread of. It simply showed our humanness...which, if we've been going for the ego-victory Christ Crown, is ego-deflating. There. That's the road to self-acceptance.

Ah...there's the gold.

Thank you.

STUCK WITH PEACE, LOVE AND JOY

I've been pondering this for awhile: When we try to "fix" any inside thing (i.e., resistance to another), we are at the reasoning mind level. We come to realize that at one time was the accepted way of going about life. However, once we started seeking still more spiritual growth and dedicated our self to that goal, we found our self moving more deeply into a higher state of consciousness. Everything changed almost without our knowing it.

It finally occurred to us that when we keep going back to our reasoning mind, coming up with seemingly solid solutions to our problem du jour. most times we fail miserably...or at least we don't get the self-satisfied result we were looking for. We clearly had to question...what is with this? Where are we going here? What are we doing wrong?

It took a fair amount of time to realize that we are now at a different level; we now must let the "Father within do the works" through us. All of our meditating, studying, detaching is in the process of paying off.

We remind our self again that God must move very slowly in order for us to keep up. That reminder is necessary because that "self-satisfied result we were looking for" is gone...forever if we're doing it right.

There is no self-satisfied in God's world...only peace, love and joy. And isn't that hard to hate?

Thank you.

LEARN TO LOVE SELF-DISCIPLINE

Nonviolence is the supreme law of life. - Hindu proverb

We have ceased fighting anything and anybody.... - Anonymous

Learn to love discipline. - "God Calling," April 11

I am convinced that learning to love discipline is the most important of those three. Mainly because an undisciplined mind upon hearing the first two immediately resists, using the worst case as justification for resisting...as in, if I came upon a man abusing a baby, I'd tear him apart, and any decent person would, too! So much for nonviolence and ceasing to fight.

It may well be true that anybody would fight in that situation, but how often in life have we come upon that?...or may reasonably expect to? Learning to love discipline comes at the very beginning of our spiritual journey and lasts our entire life. So our first step in learning discipline of self is learning to minimalize our own thoughts.

In order to begin at the beginning, we must needs examine our self, our reaction to the little things, the little snarks and snips and snipes of daily life. Are we willing to accept those without reacting in kind? That takes discipline...self-discipline, the worst kind to our reasoning mind.

The secret for not reacting in kind to any snark or bait is remembering until it is a life principle:  If I don't pick that up [i.e., react in kind], it will remain his; if I pick it up, I take ownership. That non-reactive thought is easy beyond believing...after we've done it a few thousand times.

Another secret: We do not need do it more than a few times before we own it...that is, if we've committed our self to throwing in with God...to let him do our push-backs through us. That's a wobbly decision for awhile, so we keep coming back until we get it right. That's called "learning to love discipline."

Final secret: Letting God do our push-backs through us guarantees we've ceased fighting...being love, God can only act from love.

Thank you.

LET GOD'S LOVE FLOW OUTWARD

I found myself getting all self-bound yesterday over a conversation I had with a friend...I said something that came out a tish convoluted. Last evening I got all up in my head trying to fix it without saying anything else because how could I be sure my friend had even heard convoluted, and what if, and she'll think, and why can't, and and and....

I was blessedly reminded that God uses my hands, my feet, my mouth and my brain, and he doesn't use those just for doing nothing but sweet, kind, considerate, loveable and generous things. If it is true that God lives within me and does indeed speak through my mouth, then he knew what I was saying before I said it, and it came out the way he intended for it to come out. I need to be grateful not regretful.

So I do need to get all up in my head but only for the purpose of upgrading my thinking.  As my friend Sandy used to say, changing his mind was like turning the Queen Mary...it takes conscious effort and time...lots of time.

I'm guessing that is the secret to living life on life's terms...the willingness to change our mind, to upgrade our thinking. It is fairly easy to give all credit to God when something good happens through us...easy because we get the kudos plus credit for humble into the bargain which is hard to hate.

Think about that, though. Isn't that akin to believing a dear friend will be there for us when we don't really need her...when we're all "Look at me, I'm shining like a star here." But when we get a little mud on our tires, and others are looking askance, our friend is nowhere to be found...or is with the looking askance crowd.

No. God is with us, within us, and every word we speak, every act we take, God is aware of...he does not stop us, that's why he gave us free will...but he is with us and when we turn to him in utter defeat, he perfects that which is given us to do. He pulls our bacon out of the fire in plain words.

It is the humbling admission of utter defeat that is the key that unlocks our self, opening the door that lets God's love flow out...over us, through us, for us. Always and all ways.

Thank you.

SIT AND WAIT ON THE LORD

Is it possible to live on this planet with a generosity, abundance, fearlessness, and beauty that mirror Divine Being itself?

That question presented itself to me this morning, and my answer is I do not know but that is precisely what I live for.

My spiritual journey began with that desire: To mirror Divine Being itself. And this is one of those "it goes without saying" but I'm guessing it'd best be said...I had no idea, I'm talking zilch, zip, zero, nada, that that was what my desire was all about at the beginning of my spiritual journey.

To mirror Divine Being itself according to my own understanding of Divine Being itself...ah, there it is. There is my honest desire in its entirety. And that qualifier had to come from a blinding flash of the obvious many years into my journey. That's when I learned that I was trying to out Jesus Jesus, put Mother Mary to shame, show the Buddha How It Is Done.

And, get this, it was years before I recognized my ego Lucy as the originator of my pitifully pompous desire. Which means, of course, that I spent a lot of time beating the bejazus out of myself. Nothing I did or could do was "good enough." How could it be?

Today, "according to my own understanding of Divine Being itself," is what allows me to accept my warts, my missteps, my uh-ohs for just what they are...God's personal gifts to me.

I've learned not to regret a misstep for regrets are nothing but resistance to what is. It is that resistance that blocks our gift. Resistance totally enmeshes us in the regret...in effect, we're trying to make what happened unhappen. And that's it...that's how my eyes were opened. Since I could not imagine Jesus, Mary, the Buddha, et al., having rues, regrets or remorses, there I was...trying to mirror my image of divinity by never, never, never erring.

That is how I came to know that God has my back...my eyes were opened. I kept doing that...err, regret, mental flagellation...I can almost feel myself now whirling down that eddy of self-hate...because I could not, all on my own, turn me around. Knowing that, I sought God daily...same time every morning.

Making our self available to God daily for whatever God's gift is at that moment is the most important thing we can do for our spiritual growth. According to me. When we do that, make our self available, he can and will walk us out into the sunlight...feeling happy, joyous and free.

Thank you.

THEY WILL, NOT MINE

I desire not to desire, for my will is without value, since I am ignorant in any case. Therefore choose Thou for me what Thou knowest to be best and do not put my perdition in what my autonomy and free choice prefer. -- Bayazid al-Bistami

That is a quote in my Easwaran reader this morning. I marked it as important to me in 2006. Today it says to me: Thy will, not mine, be done. On realizing that, I admit my first thought was borderline smart-alecky, but Bayazid al-Bistami's words asked me to think on them.

Thy will is self-explanatory, but, for me at any rate, the quote lends itself to rote...meaning, no thought, just roll 'em off my tongue, then do what I wanted to do to begin with.

The words of Bayazid al-Bistami all but demand that we stop and realize that this is a prayer...and then to ask our self, do we really mean it?

Thank you.

SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL FOR GOD

I so often hear (as when I'm talking to myself) that I can't be expected to be forgiving all the time. That especially falls from my lips when we have ceased fighting anything and anybody comes to mind. The rest of the thought is something like I'm not the sainted Mother Teresa after all.

This morning's blinding flash of the obvious: Mother Teresa wasn't a saint when she started.

I'm reading "Something Beautiful for God: Mother Teresa of Calcutta" by Malcolm Muggeridge, and the rare and precious gift to me is I'm reading it without negative comparisons, with me on the low end. I thank God daily that he works through me as he worked through Jesus Christ. (And he does. Jesus was quicker on the uptake, but I know he does.) So I can read about Mother Teresa with tears in my eyes at her selflessness but also without feeling heavy, heavy over my head, I'll never get there.

Even better, I know that "there" is where I'm heading, and it is not Calcutta...my "there" is a state of acceptance of myself in the midst of self-propelled dumb with my whole world watching. Or, harder actually, my "there" is a state of self-acceptance in the midst of a selfless act that brings glory with no one watching...or, harder still, brings glory but not to me.

I am not there yet, I may not get there in this lifetime, but I know from my toenails up that that's where I'm heading. That's my destination. I will arrive at my destination when I am giving that state of self-acceptance away without being aware of it.

Thank you.

OUR HEART'S DESIRE AND GOD'S WILL

Our heart's desire is God's invitation to us to leave our nets and follow him. It begins within, it goes forth giving, and returns to us fulfilled...to set forth again, giving, returning fulfilled....

I have no idea if that was a blinding flash of the obvious or something I read...makes no never mind, it sings to me...especially when I ponder our heart's desire as God's invitation.

The fact is, though, our heart's desire changes by the minute...that is one reason morning quiet time is so essential. It sets us up for the day. Sets our focus on God within us now...even though we are aware that our now changes constantly.  It is that discipline of making our self available to a higher power every morning that saves us when we are gobsmacked by an unexpected change in the middle of the day.

That's when it is incumbent upon us to remember our morning focus and then revise whatever we were thinking, feeling, doing or saying. We make a mental U-bie by shooting a thank you and realizing something about the situation that makes us grin...something about us in the situation is what we're going for.

That's when we remember that our heart's desire is to love and laugh and that is all. That is all because the Father within does the rest...using our lips and ears to be sure, so we'd best have them tuned in for the love and laughter. That is if we really want his will to be done rather than our will.

Thank you.

SLOW DOWN...PLEASE

I'm race-race run-run this morning, and I'm knowing better, and I'm running my mind on the words I know so well: Slowing down is the most spiritual thing you will ever do.

Those are the words I heard some 45 years ago which, at the time, I thought were beyond stupid. I've come to find out that they are pure truth. The truth is in this fact: That which we're racing after has become the God of our understanding. The instant some anything becomes our blind focus, that thing takes God's place.

I'm having my carpet cleaned today...I know people who have prepared for serious surgery with a calmer mind. When I die, and it may even be at age 100, whoever cleans out my unit will be saying, "Why in the name of all the sainted popes did she store this here?" I am certain sure I'll never find anything ever again.

It's a humbling thought that a clean carpet has taken the place of the God of my understanding. Tomorrow I'll lecture on how not to do it this way.

And I just remembered something else I need to put away....

Thank you.

ON BUILDING OUR FAITH

To be patient, kind and secure is our real nature; anything else is being false to ourselves. - Eknath Easwaran, "Words to Live By," October 12

I believe there is a difference between being false to oneself and being untrue to oneself...but I'm hard put to define that difference.

Maybe being false to oneself is akin to going along with our friends' new "in" thing when it leaves us cold, and being untrue to our self is defending that to our self.

Is that a distinction without a difference?

For whatever reason being untrue to myself seems to me to be a much deeper offense to my inner self. Being false to myself seems like the sometimes expedient "go along to get along" of daily life...which inevitably winds up biting me in the butt.

I'm taken by the word "secure"  in the first part of the sentence, "To be patient, kind and secure is our real nature...." It surprised me that I can believe so completely in our endless supply of patience and kindness but rarely think of having that same endless supply of security. Of course we do. If we have even a smidgen of God in our heart, we've got security.

Now back to my reasoning mind, also known as my common sense: I just learned that my compressor has died and gone to heaven. It's going to cost $6,000 to get a new one, and I don't even know what a compressor is. I confess...I don't care what a compressor is. What concerns me is where I am going to find $6,000. To pass on. To replace something I didn't know I owned.

I was patient and kind to the man who broke the news to me, but my sense of security was dicey at best.

I remind me, this is how we build our faith, our trust in the Father within. But I do sometimes wish he didn't have such high standards for me.

Thank you.

MINDLESS HAPPINESS

[The following is a reprint of my blog of  September 24, 2013.]

I believe there is an intelligence that exists within us on a higher plane and deeper than the reasoning mind can grasp. I believe it is all good and it exists for the simultaneous benefit of everyone. The reasoning mind, driven by ego, cannot or will not, comprehend the gift in that. Everyone comes out a winner is a "whatever" to the ego.

Those who live by their reasoning mind miss the gift of unexpected, unearned love...and the realization that the best part is giving that unexpected, unearned love away. They live in a world of planning how to get that which they already have...and looking for someone or something to blame for not getting it.

They also miss the gift of learning that their reasoning mind, too, is a gift. The joy is in learning that it is a channel for that higher intelligence, accepting that we must discipline it according to spiritual principles if we are going to get full use of and joy through it.

It's like getting a smart phone and only using it to call people...a mind run by self-will, an undisciplined reasoning mind, says, "It's a phone, you use phones to call people, so call people. The End."

Mindless happiness is always ours if we don't think about it.

Thank you.

NOW. NOW. IT IS ALWAYS NOW.

I went on a magical mystery tour as I walked Ruckus this morning. (I call him my seeing (third) eye dog.)

I flashed on God being the air we breathe, the atmosphere...only on a higher plane deeper down than our material mind can go alone. It permeates everything...within us/without us, the trees, the stones, the ocean, the heart, brain, body and soul of Putin and Pope Francis, of you and me.

I imagined being born into the material world still in God's atmosphere but on a lower plane. As we are born, we each receive our own gift of free will. We have within us thus are free to choose love, patience, kindness, generosity, an endless supply of supply! Likewise, we have within us and are free to choose fear, hate, envy, impatience, poverty of heart and pocketbook.

We are free to choose either, and it is that freedom that gives us the crazy-quilt pattern of our life. From our eyebrows up, we sincerely want that higher place deep within, that divine hidey hole of God. In the material world, though, where there's an up, there's a down...and there's always Lucy to prove the point. 

Thankfully, it is our search that keeps us focused on the plus side of our free will...the happy side. It is our pleasure, our duty, our only obligation to seek our higher place deep within...not just daily at a set time every morning and/or evening, but Now. Now. Always now.

The goal of our life's journey is to use our free will one last time...to return that gift of free will to God in exchange for his will.

I finished my magical mystery tour with Lucy reminding me that the reason we're in no hurry to make that exchange is we suspect there's not a snowball's chance of that happening until we lie dying.

Thank you.

BUILD OUR STAIRWAY TO THE STARS

How not to get a resentment: The message is so simple...just don't pick it up. It is not ours, it belongs to the one who said it, sent it, thought it...or it could just be the weather. Makes no never mind, if we pick it up (that is, personalize it), we own it.

A resentment is our tar baby. Remember the Pottery Barn quote: "You break it, you bought it." We even touch our tar baby, and its stain is ours. It takes serious spiritual work to remove that, and it will ever be a puzzlement why we are rarely ready for spiritual work, serious or not. Probably  because we must be willing first to get out of our own head.

Unfortunately, our go-to place, even for spiritual growth, begins with thinking. That's why we have a brain...to use for thinking. We're forever saying we think too much. No, we don't. We worry too much. The fine line between the two is the very essence of life itself...it is where we go to build our stairway to the stars or to not build but to kvetch and cry.

The hard lesson we're learning is that it is not wrong when we have less-than-wonderful happen and our first thought is not of God and gratitude, but of resistance. It is only wrong if we remain there. It is resistance that brings the false feeling of self-protection when actually we have become opaque. That becomes the harbinger of the good for our spiritual growth is based on being transparent, and all our spiritual growth comes to our aid...we recognize that false feeling as our "wrong-way, go back" sign.The quicker we recognize that we're going down that wrong road again, the sooner we make our U-bie, and head up...toward God's hills.

Tarry not, to coin a phrase, for it is in the tarrying that our tar baby is so very tempting...it sounds so understanding with its "Oh, poor, pitiful, put-upon you. This is not fair." That is a tish hard to give a nod to while passing on by. But pass we must, or kvetch and cry we will...all the while sinking deeper into our own pile of self...a.k.a., resentment.

Again we realize: All things work together for our good.

Thank you.