DON'T BE SORRY, BE GRATEFUL!

Eeeek! Whole new world! Whole new world!

Instead of apologizing, I thanked Gertrude for her part in our brouhaha. In my quiet time, the thought rolled through that she helped me to actually feel my ego Lucy doing my thinking for me...and that is never, not ever, a good thing. For that, I could not be sorry, only grateful.

There's my whole new world...a new tool for my use in deflating Lucy: Don't be sorry, be grateful!

It boils down to the same-old-same-old though, doesn't it? It's all about the hardest thing life is ever going to ask of us which is that we change our mind...for the benefit of the other.

Thank you.

ON UN-POLLUTING MY SHARE OF THE EARTH

Franciscan sister Ilia Delio  writes:  We’re reaching a fork in the road; two paths are diverging on planet Earth, and the one we choose will make all the difference for the life of the planet. 

WHOA...God is sooo good to me. Just this morning, when I really need it, in that quote having to do with the earth, I see me in my little quirks which pollute my share of the earth.

My story: My sleep last night began fretfully. My friend Gertrude is all set to chew my face off, and I'm all set to let her just so I can rip her right back. Around 2:00 AM, with no preplanned thought, I had a blinding flash of the obvious...I heard, "You're right, Gertrude. I apologize."

I felt such all-encompassing peace that I knew it to be my answer. With which, I drifted into sleep.

I'm forever preaching (which I prefer to call "sharing") that we must agree with our adversary quickly, that we have ceased fighting anything and anybody. But I don't recall ever knowing such complete peace after coming to agree to agree. I've known I needed to do it and have done it, not with recalcitrance but for sure never with a sense almost of joy.

I fully realized...I actually felt... how much more peaceful it would be within me to accept my part, leave her part to her, apologize, and let it be. In other words, to agree with my adversary quickly.

Thank you.

NOW TO DO IT

Most likely there will  ever be times in our lives that appear to be less than wonderful...when we seem to be at sixes and sevens as it were. Naturally, we will resist. Ah, but it is the overcoming of our own natural impulses that is the aim and the gift of still more spiritual growth.

The hardest lesson...and I am still learning...is to let that be my gift. To work to earn it is to miss the message.

Here's my problem: I still can't believe that'll do us a harm, that is, to work to earn it. It may well be wasted effort but it keeps my thoughts turned toward God. Where's the harm?

Uh-oh...my thoughts. When I know full well our thoughts will ever be legislating for our will, and our will alone. That's the harm, our block if you will. That's why it is Let go and let God, not Let go a little and think on how to help God.

It's like we're taught at age five or six: When someone offers you a gift, a compliment or a present, accept it and say "Thank you." And that is all.

Thank you.

THIS, TOO, IS GOD

Here's me, feeling uncertain, scared, fretty...again.

This is the exact time of year, that my beloved Ari first got sick...he went back to Heaven the day after Thanksgiving. 1989. And my adored Ruckus is not well. And I'm half crazed. And God's in his Heaven, all's right with the world...only it doesn't feel all that right with my world.

But you know what? All those things we learn and say and try to teach others? They do count. I can say...pray...God can and will intervene in my life in my behalf and feel the better for the reminder. I do remind me to upgrade my attitude, and I'll upgrade my problem, and that does give me a positive  to turn my attention toward.

Here's my truth this morning: If the only prayer you ever say is 'Thank You,' that would suffice. -- Meister Eckhart

Thank you.

ON MEANDERING THOUGHTS AND LOVING THEM

[The following is a reprint of my blog of June 20, 2015.]

My thoughts are meandering this morning, and I remember again that in the midst of any apparent disaster or simply unwanted situation, to realize that God's hand is in it is all that is needed to bring peace.

In pondering that, it occurred to me that that realization ought to bring peace not only to me, realizing it, but to any others in the situation. But ought schmought...I cannot direct it, I can only know it. If the other is not on my spiritual wavelength...being higher or lower...s/he will miss it.

Spiritual power, however, is like water...it goes to its own level. That realization at that time may touch someone I have no knowledge of...and come as a needed blinding flash of the obvious to him or her. Maybe that's one way I get my blinding flashes of the obvious...from someone in meditation 100 miles away!

I love that image but what do I know? Just enough to know that if I'll love and laugh I won't have to analyze these things...and call it pondering.

God loves me so much.

Thank you.

WHATEVER THE OUTCOME

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil....

We face each day not knowing if this is the day we walk through the valley of the shadow of death (a.k.a.,  meet ego deflation in depth). When the time is now, we're not doing it wrong if our heart is pounding, our hands are shaking and our eyes are filled with  tears.

In fact, there's our still more spiritual growth. We can give our self credit for going forward, for walking toward our fear. To the reasoning mind, that is a low bar to clear...driven by our ego, we can only accept looking good, i.e., winning, as the "right" goal.

We can be grateful that we know that our worst fear may well be realized but also that it may not be. Our highest hope can be realized only when the result is not ego-driven, when we have no desire for one over the other. We'd best want God's will to be done in our life more than we want our will to be done...which does not preclude pounding heart, shaky hands and teary eyes.

Whatever the outcome, it is our still more spiritual growth, and there's the pearl beyond price.

Thank you.

LIVING IN AN ACCEPTING WORLD

Love is the highest and holiest action because it always contains that which is not love within itself, it always and ever moves to include the unloving. -- Thaddeus Golas, "The Lazy Man's Guide to Enlightenment"

I've read "The Lazy Man's Guide" too many times to count, yet I nearly always find something I do not recall having read...underlined and highlighted as they may be. 

Golas's quote is especially meaningful to me today because I am stumbling and bumbling my way through the ever-deepening meaning of love. Seems that every time I get a new insight, I feel sure that This Is It...then I'm hit with yet another unlovable, another resistible which is just something that to my reasoning mind must be resisted, set straight, made right by me.

Loving the unlovable, accepting the unacceptable...ah, those are the impossibles to our mind's eye. We think they are obviously not right since they go against our basic instinct...i.e., to win (which we call "survival").

The hard lesson learning is that when we win, we lose. For winning is of the ego, and it is not that losing is of  God, it is that there is no win, there is no lose in an accepting world, a.k.a., The Peaceable Kingdom. And isn't that where our still more spiritual growth is aiming us? 

Thank you.

WALK FORWARD UNASHAMED OF OUR FEAR

I find myself today relying on the many quotes I have stored and truisms I have memorized to get me through these, my dark...or less than light...days. And I am reminded, thank you, Father, that it is not the words I memorize, it is my actions stemming from those words that can and will lighten my fretting mind.

My most recent that I am clinging to today is a Teilhard quote (and I don't even know how to pronounce his name):

Ah, you know it yourself, Lord, * * * on certain days the world seems a terrifying thing: huge, blind, and brutal. . . . At any moment the vast and horrible thing may break in through the cracks—the thing which we try hard to forget is always there, separated from us by a flimsy partition: fire, pestilence, storms, earthquakes, or the unleashing of dark moral forces—these callously sweep away in one moment what we had laboriously built up and beautified with all our intelligence and all our love.

Since my human dignity, O God, forbids me to close my eyes to this . . . teach me to adore it by seeing you concealed within it.

There it is...my today's marching order: Let myself be taught to adore every dark corner conjured up in my mind by seeing my Father concealed within it. Reminder to me: A thank you will suffice (so said Meister Eckhart).

God loves us so much that he protects us from nothing...he need protect us from nothing. He lives within/without, and as we walk forward toward the feared abyss, we walk unashamed of our fear thus with courage and love, an all-encompassing love of Self.

Thank you.

RESPOND IN LOVE vs. REACT IN KIND

Fr Richard Rohr has written, ...let go of your attachment to your self-image, your expectations, your very ideas. Every such 'set up' is a resentment waiting to happen.

I do believe that to be true. I believe, too, our resentment comes from our resistance to any perceived "attack" on our self-image, expectations and very ideas. I am not saying such attacks do not come...it is just that they touch us less, the less we react.

There are a multitude of ways to respond (not react), and our time is well spent pondering responses we might say that reflect our own values...in other words, that fit us. Responses such as, "You may be right" which is probably my favorite; putting my hand out in the "halt" position and saying "Whoa!" works for me, too. A friend of mine uses. "I regret you feel that way."

I used to think saying absolutely nothing was best, and it maybe, but it doesn't quiet my ego Lucy. I have finally accepted that my ego Lucy must have a say and to pretend not actually feeds the resentment.

There are those who will not be deflected. To me, they are Lucy in the flesh, and saying "God bless" and removing myself from their presence is best for all concerned...meaning, me, myself and Lucy.

None of that is possible, according to me, without a personal commitment to still more spiritual growth. Interestingly, without a personal need for spiritual growth, the idea of not responding in kind would have been a laugh to my reasoning mind.

There it is...the proof that resist not evil is the paradoxical path to Heaven...a.k.a., peace of mind.

Thank you.

THAT SLIVER OF GOLD IS OUR PEACE

My peace comes in looking for the sliver of gold in any less-than-wonderful situation. I know today that my peace comes in the shape of laughter...or a heart-smile at any rate. Since I'm going to eventually come to laugh, it'll need be at myself, so why not start there?

There are three borderline traumatizing events going on in my head and heart right now...my beloved mentor of 35 years (and friend for 46 years) has been diagnosed with dementia, my beloved Ruckus may have cognitive disorder (which to me is fancy for dementia), and something ain't right with a friend of mine.

The process I'm taking for finding laughter here is the same process I learned when I finally accepted that we have ceased fighting anything and anybody...that is, I must go deeper. I must detach from my reasoning mind which sits on high and pronounces that there is and never will be a reason to laugh at dementia. I quickly agree with that just to get shut of it, and then turn in prayer to God. I thank him for giving me another way to see, to hear, to know, to be.

I rely a lot on the fact that peace of mind rests in my taking nothing personally. It is my reaction to the news of each situation that is determining my sad, angry, hurt, depressed...self-centered in a word...response. That realization is the key that unlocks my attachment to reason and lets me go toward love...with a smile. I can smile not at dementia, but at my own self for trying to get God to do my will.

My mentor, my little guy, my friend and I are even now in God's embrace. He knows our needs, and he has already intervened in our lives in our behalf...all I must needs do now is look toward his will and away from my wants.

Thank you.

ON GETTING OVER OUR SELF

The "enemy" that is out there is the "enemy" that is within. When the enemy remains out there, we  name it "you" and resist it by trying to either win you over or defeat you.

My enemy today is JoB who sees me as her enemy. It is not so easy not to resist JoB's perception, because my ego Lucy/Lucifer loves resistance (i.e., a fight).

My prayer is for JoB to walk free in my head and for me to walk free in hers. I seek for each of us to connect with the impersonal love that ever flows in and through everything and everybody. OBTW, that impersonal love comes dressed as peace of mind.

And who's kidding whom? My first step is to not take my own self too seriously.

Thank you.

BOTH SIDES MUST COME OUT THE WINNER

[The following is a reprint of my blog of June 17, 2015]

There are two ways of seeing anything that life offers...the material, or reasoning mind, way and the spiritual way. By "what life offers," I mean, primarily, the crapola. It applies to everything, it's just that the less-than-wonderful makes a home in our ego-victory thoughts.

I've found it best to to accept my reasoning mind's view first...accept it and find my part in it, or I'll muddle everything, trying to excuse, justify and/or deny my part in it. Because the reasoning mind is linked with the ego and always legislates for itself, believing that I'm seeing God's will in my want-to is a pretty much inevitable result. I wind up believing my own press which explains the muddle.

We need not fret about the spiritual side...if we are willing, it will be revealed albeit seldom on our timetable...God is a drag foot to ego. That may be why "Sit and wait on the Lord" is so emphasized in spiritual work. It's easy to gift our self with insight as to God's way when it's really us making the circle complete...and in our favor.

Rule of thumb...p.d.q. and one-sided is not God's way; when and whenever both sides come out the winner, God's hand is in it.

Thank you.

THE GREAT RISK...TO GO BEYOND REASON

It is impossible to describe spiritual growth, or, who's kidding whom, God. Yet, if we don't try, we die. Only our ego will live on, gaining strength through fear...and a fearful ego is death to the peace, love and joy that is already ours to use or lose.

It seems counterintuitive but we only grow spiritually stronger by giving in, detaching, subtracting from not adding to, aiming for a smaller self never larger.

The problem being that our reasoning mind promptly sees that as us growing weaker, being conquered by our (imagined) enemies, never getting our own. "Our own," of course, is exactly what we need give up, detach from, etc. "Our own" is our ego's feedbag.

So still more spiritual growth does not come through just thinking on it. Paradox alert! We must think on it in order to realize that thinking is not the answer. Ah, there it is. That's how we get that two-ton mental door to our Soul opened. Opened to the fourth dimension.  Opened in order for a Higher Power to flow forth.

It is in the process of pondering that Higher Power that we are lifted to the place where God lives our life. The great, gettin' up morning is when we realize that God has ever lived our life. In our inability to see or to touch that Higher Power our reasoning mind will ever balk at believing. 

We must go beyond reason to Love.

Thank you.

P.S. - Blinding flash: What if President Trump is our Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus?

ON CLOSING THE CIRCLE

To soar to union with God means to give all our love to the Lord so that all the faculties and resources which have been hidden in us can come into our lives to the great benefit of those around us. -- "Words to Live By," Eknath Easwaran, October 18

That is one sentence...one sentence, each word leading us deeper. I first underlined that sentence in 1998...I began reading the book in1993 so it took me five years to catch that there were deeper meanings.

The very first words, To soar to union with God means to give all our love to the Lord, to my reasoning mind was a throw-away line...something saints would do, but not real people, me for instance.

Then we come to so that all the faculties and resources which have been hidden in us...that may well have been my first clue that I already had within me that which I was praying for, i.e., patience, love, kindness and joy.

Ending with can come into our lives to the great benefit of those around us...all I had to do to realize my answered prayers for patience, et al.,  was to give it away. And to give it away, Be.  Be patient. Be loving. Be kind. The great lesson learning was that if we be those three, joy can and will flow forth.

And what is joy flowing forth but peace of mind? Ah, there it is. Peace of mind is the essence of giving all our love to the Lord, and we've just come full circle.

Thank you.

ON MAKING AN ACTUAL DIFFERENCE

My first thought on awakening: Can one person make an actual difference?

Did Jesus know, when he walked this earth, what a change his thoughts and actions would make in individual lives for all time? Did Meister Eckhart? Did Gandhi? Martin Luther King, Jr.? And could each or any of them have pictured the good, then bad, then good, then bad that would come...and be pinned on them? How their words of love, only love, could be so mingled and mangled and used to teach and preach hate?

Mother Teresa's good name is already being spliced and diced...and she hasn't been gone a quarter of a century yet. Will her good works be for naught?

Is Saint Francis of Assisi today just somebody to quote? I was over thirty years old before I ever heard of him...nearly forty before it entered my mind that I might try to actually do that which he taught. And what about Pope John the Twenty Third? And Pope Francis today?

Ah...God is so good to me. I'm beginning to see the light...all my questions are from my reasoning mind. All the answers are in the consciousness of the universe.

The answer is Yes! one person can make an actual difference. Once we give up our ego-victory desire to make the difference that wins us the individual Nobel Prize for Humility and settle for still more spiritual growth, we are the difference.

The spiritual universe is real. It exists within us, without us, right now. It is available to all, but especially to the ones and twos who come together into groups and fellowships all seeking to know God...and some (most?) not having a clue that's what we are seeking. For the God we seek is for the benefit of others...always and all ways.

Thank you.

ON EXHALING RAINBOWS

You say you're feeling down, Bunky? Lower than snake s**t? No hope within or without?

Here it is, yet again, the good and the bad news both together: The solution to all our woes is within us right this minute...Now.

In order to come to that deep belief, it helps to read, say "God Calling," which, after nearly fifty years, I'm just coming to know as the most profound book I will ever read. Today's selection is perfect to read, study, ponder, believe:

The beginning of all reform must be in yourselves. However restricted your circumstances, however little you may be able to remedy financial affairs, you can always turn to yourselves, and seeing something not in order there, seek to right that.

As all reform is from within out, you will always find the outward has improved too. To do this is to release the imprisoned God-Power within you.

That Power, once operative, will immediately perform miracles. then indeed shall your mourning be turned into Joy.

In our pondering, we come to our within light. We read however little you may be able to remedy financial affairs, you can always turn to yourselves, and seeing something not in order there, seek to right that, and there's our ah-ha moment. We realize that remedying our financial affairs is not ours to deal with; God has our back, leave it there. We can then see something other than finances that is not in order, say, our feelings hurt by a friend...we can begin to right that by seeing the hurt from a new and different angle, not through our own hurt eyes, but from their view.

Fascinating to me is the fact that we have all lived this at some point in our lives, most more than once or even twice. But to read it put forth as fact...whoa, says my ego Lucy...can this be true? Can something I personally cannot see before me do this miraculous thing that I personally cannot do? Even with the fact that we have experienced this miracle before, our ego-self doubts. 

There are two things that are operating with us, within us, 24/7...our self and our Self, or ego and God. The first step we must take in proving to our self that all reform is from within out is to turn to the Father with, away from ego to God. That opens the door to the imprisoned God-Power within, which once operative, will immediately perform miracles.

All we need do is accept that as true. Accept it unto believing it. Believe it unto walking it. Walk it unto breathing it. Then breathe it till we're exhaling rainbows. There it is. There's our God Power.

Thank you.

TEACH ME TO ADORE

Ah, you know it yourself, Lord, through having borne the anguish of it as a man: on certain days the world seems a terrifying thing: huge, blind, and brutal. . . . At any moment the vast and horrible thing may break in through the cracks—the thing which we try hard to forget is always there, separated from us by a flimsy partition: fire, pestilence, storms, earthquakes, or the unleashing of dark moral forces—these callously sweep away in one moment what we had laboriously built up and beautified with all our intelligence and all our love.

Since my human dignity, O God, forbids me to close my eyes to this . . . teach me to adore it by seeing you concealed within it. -- Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Divine Milieu, (Harper Perennial Modern Classics: 2001), 112. [From the "Daily Meditation" of Fr Richard Rohr today]

There it is. The secret to a peace full life...to adore any and everything that my eyes see, my ears hear, my mind perceives by seeing God concealed within it.

Now to accept that. To discipline my own self to go to God constantly and consistently in order for him to continue to teach me to adore....

Thank you.

LUCY RUN AMOK...OR TRUTH ON THE HOOF?

H.L. Mencken,
the Baltimore Evening Sun,
July 26, 1920:
“As democracy is perfected, the office of the President represents more closely the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be occupied by a downright moron.”

That might be proof positive that this is the less than great and glorious day that my ego Lucy convinced the God of my understanding that this would be spiritually right and fit to post. Might just be self-will, too, but it is so true to me that I cannot not post it. 

Thank you.

OUR FEAR IS GOD'S INVITATION

Recently, I heard someone repeat the canard that with faith one cannot have fear. When I hear that, my mind goes immediately to the story in the New Testament of Jesus, at the prospect of crucifixion, praying so hard he sweat blood. According to me, that is fear, touchable fear in the form of blood dropping from his face. It is also faith...touchable faith as he got up and trudged up the hill with the Cross on his back.

It has always been my contention (because I can't bear any other) that in his act of faith, going forward to his crucifixion, his pain was transmuted...his humility was the healer of pain.

My take on the story has proven to be important to me when I am faced with an Oh-No, I Can't Do This situation. No matter how teensy in comparison, our oncoming dreads feel big, huge,  insurmountable...who's kidding whom?, like a crucifixion.

My biggie, the one that set the path for me up to this day, happened in 1974 when I had an interview  for a secretarial position at a big, important (thus intimidating to me) law firm. At the time I was suffering from humongous anxiety attacks, and I prayed only that I not have an anxiety attack during the interview.

I wore my best dress, shoes, good-luck charm, and rigid, righteous and right look upon my face to cover the panicky, run, little chickee, run feeling of fear in my heart, head and gut. And, lo, when I met the lady who was to interview me, I knew that chickee was right. I felt like I'd just stepped into an icebox...cold, she was, with my rigid, righteous and right look reflected back at me upon her face.

She started the interview by handing me a shorthand pad and pen, and commencing to dictate. I was taking the notes with no problem...until I had the thought, "What if...?" Anxiety attacked me, the pen flew out of my hand and I wilted.

And here came God to the rescue!

The Ice Queen melted right along with me! She looked all compassionate and said, "Oh, my dear...you're having an anxiety attack. Don't you just hate those?"

Long/short...I got the job.

It didn't take too long for me to realize all the implications of my experience...if God had answered my prayer of no anxiety, please and thank you, I would not have gotten the job. More, no, MOST  important, I wouldn't have gotten proof positive that God has my back, knows my needs, my needs rarely match my wants, and the Father knows best.

From that day, I have known that God loves us, and our Oh Nos are his invitation to prove it.

Thank you. 

MISSTEP...OWN...RELEASE..BE GRATEFUL

Blinding flash of the obvious:  Looking for a friend to be myself with binds me to the material world  because the "myself" I  want to be is my ego-self...there is no God there.

I was brought up short last night while talking with a friend. I found myself being brutally honest about another. Brutally honest almost always translates as "just plain mean," and I was. I was also fortunate enough to have a friend who did the bringing me up short without being brutally honest, and I heard her, thank you, Lord. Later, I realized that I was thinking of my friend as someone "I could be myself with," but that self was the one I've worked so hard to shed, to leave behind, to grow from.

That led to this morning's BFO, and the realization that I had always believed I needed a friend I could be myself with...only my idea of "being myself" was being my ego-self, talking trash about Gertrude in order to feel "better than." Ego-self is remarkably akin to comfort food in its worth...fattening, causes acne and tooth decay, and is totally addictive.

There is no God  there...there is no spiritual growth there, much less God.

There is nothing wrong with a goal of being myself with a friend...or with anyone. For that matter, that's a good goal in this world. The necessary change was my inner slob needed a dressing down because I am no longer a trash-talking gossiper who needs to feel superior in order to feel acceptable.

[As a side bar: That BFO reminds me of the song that has the line looking back and longing for the freedom of my chains and lying in your lovin' arms again. It is the incongruous link of chains and loving arms that is the hook equating wanting to be my ego-self and believing I'm seeking still more spiritual growth.]

I am filled with gratitude this morning. I'm grateful for BFOs that assure me God always has my back and lets me know it. I'm grateful for a loving friend who gets my attention without using a sledgehammer. I'm grateful a sledgehammer is no longer needed to get my attention. I am grateful that I got the word that our missteps can and will enlighten us...all we need do is own them in order to release them.

Thank you.

OUR NEED IS GOD'S ANSWER

In my ongoing search to understand the various levels of consciousness and the part love plays...or is love consciousness? or consciousness love?...I've come this morning to Fr Richard Rohr's "Daily Meditation," with a quote of John of the Cross. He is delineating levels of consciousness, with the primary factor of love in its various forms as the ribbon running through (I've bolded my take or  interpretation):

"....in discussing union with God, we are not discussing the substantial union that is always existing [being in this world] but the soul’s union with and transformation in God [4th dimension]. This union [4th] is not always existing, but we find it only where there is likeness of love. We will call it “the union of likeness [spiritual mind]”; and the former, “the essential or substantial union [material or reasoning mind].” The union of likeness is supernatural (meaning graced or given) [also known as rocketed into]; the other, natural [which we are born into]. The supernatural union exists when God's will and the soul’s are in conformity, so that nothing in the one is repugnant to the other."

For those of us in the walking-around world and seeking still more spiritual growth, it is a bloomin' miracle to be gifted with a16th century saint's writing that answers the very questions we are pondering today, that matches so clearly what we are experiencing, yet still needing clarification.

Don't tell me God doesn't know...and answer!...our needs.

Thank you.

ON BEARING GOD'S AUTHENTIC FRUIT

We seek still more spiritual growth not for the knowledge but for the experience...to experience the Father within/without. (BFO of 10/10/13)

As we have learned, Truth must be proved. Proving Truth is a long haul but, minus the experience of the Father (which is what proving Truth is all about), we're left agreeing with, memorizing and parroting the printed word and that's pretty much it.

If we do not experience Truth, but only repeat that which we hope to be Truth, we are unknowingly seeking still more magic thinking.

Magic thinking is treacherous on the rare occasion when it plays true. Then, when it gives us what we want, it is akin to lighting in a bottle or a one-trick pony. And that's the seduction of our ego that allows us to believe we can rely on it. After all, it came through for us...once. The particular treachery is that it never bears God's authentic fruit.

We know God's authentic fruit when we hold our nose and take a leap of faith...and don't get what we were leaping for. Then, somewhere, sometime down the pike, we find what we got is indescribably, infinitely...and spiritually...superior to what we originally wanted: There can be no question, no quibbling...this is God's Truth.

God's authentic fruit is the proof of Truth.

Thank you. 

GOD IS ALWAYS SPEAKING...ARE WE LISTENING?

Meister Eckhart  said, 'If humankind could have known God without the world, God would never have created the world.'

I read that and remembered my recent question to myself, What if the true meaning of original sin is our acceptance of freewill as opposed to steadfast reliance on God's will?

There 'tis in black and white...the difference between a true mystic and a spiritual day-laborer.

Ah, but there's the good news...without my question and my unfulfilled answer, I'd never have recognized a message from the likes of Meister Eckhart.

If humankind could have known God without the world, God would never have created the world.

Thank you.

THE CHOICE IS SIMPLE

[The following is a reworked reprint of my blog of December 25, 2012.]

G. K. Chesterton, when asked what the trouble with the world is, replied, "I am."

I doubt Chesterton was the first to know that, to say that, he just said it more succinctly than others. So this is no great secret, has not been a secret for a long, long time.

Why, then, are we always taken by surprise when it again proves true of us?

And why does it invariably feel so good when we can point Gertrude toward her bathroom mirror when she's complaining about Sylvia? When we can tell her to look in her own eyes and accept that she is looking at her problem?

Of course, the answer is ego. More importantly, the answer is personal because it is our very own ego. Our ageless, indefatigable ego which will ever and always legislate for itself. The secret to taming the ego is to get grateful for it. We get grateful that it eases our way into accepting that we're going down that wrong road again when we're doing its dictates.

We're powerless over our ego's voice, but in that very powerlessness, we find our choice...God or ego? The choice is simple...get grateful now or get grateful later. Later when we'll have so many more amends to make for not getting grateful sooner.

Thank you.

FAITH WITHOUT WORKS IS FANTASY

Thank you, Father, for my everything just as it is right this minute. 

Thank you for my everything just as it is in Your lights... thank You that You open my eyes to the fact that everything just the way it is in my eyes is the mirror image of Your lights. What I perceive as not wonderful is truly a wonderful for which I can be justly grateful...but only when I lift up my eyes for  enlightenment through my new God-view. 

Word of warning...do not imagine that just knowing what we see through our reasoning mind's eyes is the mirror image of God's view; and, therefore, bad is good, we're home free. That's the rough road toward magic thinking. 

As an example: We see that we don't have enough money to pay the rent. We tell our self that the mirror image of that is we have plenty. Forgive me, please, but that is not going to pay the rent. That is magic thinking. We can be telling our self that even as we are evicted, when we'll declare there is no God. 

Truly, God is our unlimited supply, which supply is stored within each and every one of us. We, however, have hands, feet and a brain to put to good use in order to bring that supply into form for our benefit.

We do not fret, worry and stew about how to bring that about...we turn our eyes toward others. We look for another person or maybe charitable situation that is in need, that can use our help...and we turn our focus there.

Turning our focus (our worried mind) away from our lack toward something utterly unconnected with our worry is trust...also known as holding our nose and taking a leap of faith. We must build our trust in the Father we believe in, and nothing is built by words alone no matter how powerful the words. Which we call prayer.

Faith without works is dead. 

Thank you. 

COMING TOGETHER IS ONENESS

In my meditation on the Prayer of Saint Francis this morning, when I sought "to love rather than to be loved," I knew that my ongoing desire to feel God's love was the very proof of God's love, that my conscious desire must needs be not to eyebrows-up know but to soul-feel my love for God. 

I can believe that is the meaning of Seek ye first the kingdom of Heaven, and all these things shall be added unto you. Our love for God is the kingdom of Heaven. In that love, "all these things" are nonexistent...in our love for and from God, there is naught else. Then we fully realize we have all there is to have. 

The Sermon's agree with your adversary quickly is the basic instruction for seeking to love rather than to be loved. We agree with our  adversary in order to come to common ground, not agree so we can avoid an argument. We can never gain common ground through avoiding, but only by coming together.

In coming together, we become One. There. That is where God is.

Thank you.

GOD IS IN OUR UNKNOWING, TOO

The contemplative work of inner conversion, inner disarmament, and inner peacemaking is the key to peace for the world...ah, there's the secret, the hidey-hole, for peace in our time...look inward, never out there. 

Maybe acceptance really is the answer...period.

I'm about half convinced that to accept, really accept, is simply to get over our own self...in fact, to get over our own wants. Aren't wants just our personal opinion of what we believe we need? 

We must seek to know, to understand, each other aright...and to understand the other is to accept them not just as they are, but as we perceive them to be. That is where impersonal love enters, fully clothed and ready to roll.

The impersonal love of our enemy as our self is to let go of the idea that "I must stand up for myself...protect me, my own." As we loose our resistance to our enemy, we are opened to God's perfect love. 

Life itself is a contradiction...or is it that each soul walking through this life is a contradiction? If each soul had but one desire, i.e., to know God aright, life would still be a contradiction. A contradiction in that no one would even then be able to "explain" God, the God we seek to know aright...for the inner conversion that we seek is the realization of the Father within.

We're back to going to God for God and that is all, aren't we? And doesn't it fill you with peace, love and joy to know that the Father is within right this very red hot minute...and that we are and still will  be seeking, searching and unknowingly showing forth that truth three days after we're dead?

And God loves us just exactly as we are...seeking and searching and unknowing.

Thank you.

WE'RE LUCKY ENOUGH

[The following is a reworked reprint of my blog of November 9, 2015.]

"If you're lucky enough to have a spiritual awakening, you're lucky enough," to paraphrase a friend.

We can quit looking for the meaning of our life. This is the meaning of our life: To have a spiritual awakening and to pass it on. We cannot keep it alive without letting it go.

Which lesson I just learned yet again with Ruckus. We were playing his favorite game...I pitch his toy, he runs to get it, brings it back to me...then will not let go of it. I always tell him he has to let go or there is no game.

As I said that today, I realized that is life itself. We have to let go of all our toys or we have no life at all.

Our toys, of course, are our fears and foes, woeful whys and pitiful might-have-beens. The tighter we hold to them through blame and shame, the more they define our life...all the while we're begging God to take them. They are not his to take...they are ours to release.

Loose them and let them go.

Thank you.

ALL ELSE IS BLIND MAN'S BLUFF

I've been pondering why we go to God for God and that is all meets so much resistance. It may be that our wants make us incapable of detaching from our own idea that we know what we need. (...and, says my ego Lucy, "It is a tish more than God and that is all, but thanks anyway.").

Even when we're finally brought to the divine rightness of we go to God for God and that is all, we  tend to forget that we must take a gazillion steps...or more!...in the trip to get there. Here is where our reasoning mind earns its keep. That's how we learn that it is not God who is slow, it is our reasoning mind that is the hold-up.

We learn and relearn that we cannot beat, curse, shame or seduce our reasoning mind into submission. Powered by the patience that we were born with, yet so rarely use, we learn the imperfect art of self-discipline as we begin daily cajoling our reasoning mind into willingness to cede to God.

Then, one fine day and out of the blue, we know. We know in short, that our race is run, our fight is finished...we have become willing to get over our own self. There's our blinding flash of the obvious: We go to God for God and that is all because God's will is the only will. 

Thank you.

JOY IN THE STREETS

Well, I've come upon a note I wrote to myself in 1989. It is in quotation marks; unfortunately I did not note who originally said it, but I only love it: We teach best that which we need to learn.

For all I know, that's a famous quote that the whole world would recognize, but it's new to me...again. And ain't it the truth? According to me, that's the basis for what we see is always ourselves.

Think about it, using you and your bad behavior as my textbook to teach by, I could set my universe aright. The rest of the story, of course, is that you could use me and my bad as your textbook and be right on target, too.

But isn't that part of the human condition, judging? And doesn't that prove the truth of the human condition as God's laugh track!

It seems to me the mistake we make in trying not to judge is in the trying not. Even if we succeed through sheer force of self-will, we have gained nothing...nada...zilch. For our ego-victory mind will continue to natter, and we'll wind up cursing the TV and feeling put upon. It's nigh impossible to feel the presence of God while feeling put upon (she said, based on her own experience).

The reason we're learning and relearning that what we see is always ourselves is not to learn not to judge...we learned that (or heard it at any rate) in Bible School, at age 4, 5 or 6.

We're learning what we see is always ourselves in order to get It, the Big Picture, which is to realize that you, me and the Father are One. And to be happy about that! To love and laugh and dance in the streets of our mind. There it is...the peace that passes understanding.

Thank you. 

TRUST, BE GUIDED, LOVE AND LAUGH

Remember that I fed the Children of Israel with Heaven-sent Manna. I made a way through the Red Sea for them. I led them through the wilderness of privation, difficulty, discipline. I led them into a land flowing with milk and honey. So trust. So be led. -- "God Calling," October 1

It is my comfort to realize again that there is a Higher Intelligence within that is not connected to  brain power or heart power or foot power for that matter. That Higher Power is not connected...It exists within and without. Its name is I.

I got less than wonderful news yesterday...another beloved friend has been diagnosed with dementia.

My heart hurts and sings at the same time. I cling to the truth that my beloved was "diagnosed" with another incurable, progressive disease almost fifty years ago, and it daily proves itself to be a  goldmine. If that one can be a God-gift, so can dementia.

Here's the thing about believing in God power...we must release our idea of what we want (and are calling "need") God to gift us with. Dementia is dementia, and it cannot be cured; ergo, if we live long enough, we will forget how to brush our teeth and tie our shoes, among all the other things.

If we're still relying on our ego-led reasoning mind, suicide will be sounding more inevitable all the time.

We, however, have been blessed. Of necessity, we have turned our will and our life over to God's care. Now we give thanks and rest in the Power within that is not connected to our brain or anything else, but most especially now, our reasoning-mind-brain.

With that, we give up any idea...any hope...that God will let us live unaffected by dementia, or any other mental boogieman. We are guided into acceptance at another whole new level, and we thank Almighty God we have learned to love and laugh...for they will be our companions as we live within God's loving arms. And that is hard to fear.

Thank you.