HAVE A HAPPY NEW YEAR...ALL YEAR

As yet another year winds down, we read again the following paragraph from Joel Goldsmith's "Leave Your Nets." Every rereading of this fills us with Yes!

You have come to that point in consciousness where you are seeking for what the world calls the intangible. When you came to a spiritual teaching, you knew in advance, or soon learned, that you were going to obtain nothing in the external realm. What you were seeking was the Invisible, that which cannot be seen, heard, or known. And yet you were seeking to be able to see, hear, and know just that. Through that seeking, you are coming to know that which is unknowable, see that which is invisible, hear that which is inaudible. And on this Nothing you now live.

We go to God for God...and that is All.

Thank you.

FAITH IN GOD IS RELIANCE ON LOVE

Live to bring others to Me, the only Source of Happiness and Heart-Peace. -- "God Calling," December 30

I've underlined and highlighted that sentence so many times that it is all but unreadable now...and the word "others" I have circled repeatedly with exclamation points behind it.

One year (which is now too faded to decipher) I even wrote out to the side, "I understand this more deeply now." In fact, I had barely begun to understand because I was still thinking in terms of "getting" the words as opposed to doing them.

Doing them starts with living, from our mind unto our heart, to bring others (i.e., our Gertrude of the moment) to the Source of all that is happy, joyous and free. That cannot be done with resentment, fear or just minor distaste doing our thinking for us.

Faith in God is not just faith to believe in spiritual ideas. It’s to have confidence in Love itself. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," December 30, 2017.

Thank you.

ON GIVING GOD A GIGGLE

According to me, God speaks very clearly and without frills. Our problem is we choose to believe that cannot be true.

For instance, we pray for help with a problem that we're having with the Gertrude of the moment, and we receive an answer to our prayer...only it's not the answer we want. We pray again, being more specific. We receive an even more "not right" answer.

It takes much praying, disregarding, praying, etc., before we ever choose to check out our prayer...the source of our problem to begin with.

We realize that we've been praying for a change in Gertrude, not in us, and the answered prayer has always been "accept," "acceptance," "resist not," etc. Who's kidding whom? That will never be right to our reasoning mind.

What we're really praying for is a "got'cha" to Gertrude's "unacceptable" behavior. Except that there ain't no God in got'cha.

I'm coming to believe that is the primary source of trouble in today's world...we all, individually, nationally, worldwide, want our own got'cha. With peace, love and joy coming out on our side.

Giving over, giving in, giving not getting will probably never be the first choice in human affairs. I suspect that's why Jesus's only two commandments, both about love and love alone, have never been accepted without exception. 

I'm preaching this morning because there are more than a couple people in my life this day that are wrong, and if I give over, give in, give up, I'll lose. And I'm right.

Father, forgive me for I know exactly what I do, and I do it anyway...still, yet, again. But I'm grinning today...mostly because I know I'm giving God a giggle.

Thank you.

RESIST NOT EVIL...AND BE SET FREE

Idle thought in my quiet time this morning: Is my resistance to Gertrude simply resistance to love and laughter?

I wonder if all resistance isn't resistance to love. I started to add "and laughter" but then I considered the death of a beloved. Loving the process of life unto death I can accept from my eyebrows up, and we must start somewhere so that's close enough to perfect for me for now.

But laughter? Laughing at the process of never seeing, being with, a beloved again requires some adjustment in my thinking. I don't ever want to lose the belief that Love and Laughter are of God and my always problem-solver, so I choose to recognize Laughter as Light, lightness of spirit will do.

But before going to the outside of enough, i.e., death, I'd best come to understand that my resistance to my many Gertrudes and all their antics is my here-and-now perplexity. I need to accept that my personal resistance is resistance to love and laughter.

I can feel my ego Lucy rising up in righteous indignation even as I type that for Lucy is very well aware that I am right, Gertrude is wrong, she needs be set straight before she does a harm to our fellowship.

It is those thoughts that all but drown my remembrance of the facts: God has us in the palm of his hand...he has our back...he can and will intervene in our life in our behalf. And there it is...the art of dual thinking at its finest.

The gold...it is that very dual thinking that brings recognition that I'm going down that wrong road again. Turn back...detour! And I recall learning that all that we see as fearful is, in truth, God. Welcome it, and be set free.

It is I: be not afraid, - John 6:20

Thank you.

ALL OUR TROUBLES, LORD, SOON BE OVER

In his Letter to the Romans, Paul has a marvelous line: 'where sin increased, grace abounded all the more' (Romans 5:20). -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," December 27, 2017

Recently I read that "our inner attitudes and states are the real sources of our problems, and we need to root out the problems at that level." I am convinced that is the source of all our woes, our inner, not our outer.

Since our outer behavior is 100 percent controlled by our inner thoughts and attitudes, if we upgrade our attitude, we'll upgrade our problem. The big "Yes, but..." is, relying on our self-will or want to alone, we cannot upgrade our thoughts, much less our attitude. We can start thinking prettier or loftier thoughts, but without a decision to seek higher help, we usually never get far beyond the start part.

According to me, in trying to live a spiritually based life, our problem is "trying." Reread Paul's line, where sin increased, grace abounded all the more. It is not that sin increases so we must try to get grace to come fix it, or pray for God to work miracles...it is not on us.

Ours is to make our self fit to be of maximum service to God and to others. Even then God and grace do the heavy lifting. We aim our self in the right direction, slap our ego upside the head as needed, and pray our thank you without ceasing.

If the only prayer you say in your life is thank you, that would suffice. -- Meister Eckhart

Thank you.

TELL NO HUMAN

[The following is a reworked version of my post of May 15, 2013.]

There is an admonition somewhere in the Bible that we must "tell no man" the wonders of the Lord. I'm guessing because trying to tell another about the wonders of the Lord just mucks up any real understanding of the wonders of the Lord.

Having the goal of living the Sermon is all well and good, but we must accept that the biggest block to actually doing it, actually living the Sermon, is our own ego.

We are asked to agree with our adversary quickly. To agree with our adversary quickly can give our adversary a reason to believe s/he is right...and our ego writhes. To turn the other cheek is to be thought a wuss in the extreme...and our ego agonizes.

Until we are freed from following our ego's dictates, accepting, or course, we will never be free from our ego's squawks, our ego will always try to make an end-run around our spiritual needs. In being thought wrong or being thought a wuss by X, we go to Y and explain our deep spiritual intention, knowing Y will tell X, and, if X has a brain, s/he will be shamed, envious and sorry. There is no spiritual growth there...there is only another reason why "tell no human" is essential.

Therein lies the gold. This is the impetus we need to keep us focused on becoming fully God conscious. Our own thinking is here in the material world; God is in a higher place deeper within us.

We find that we cannot deny our ego-victory wants through self-will or want to alone, that we must go for help within. We realize, seemingly after the fact, that it is our willingness daily to deny those wants that God fulfills our every need.

We go to God for God...and that is all.

Thank you.

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL

Love is always patient and kind;

it is never jealous;

love is never boastful or conceited;

it is never rude or selfish;

it does not take offense, and is not resentful.

Love takes no pleasure in other people's sins but delights in truth;

it is always ready to excuse, to trust, to hope, and to endure whatever comes.

Love never fails, never ceases.

--1 Corinthians 13:4-8

If I live my life to perfection, doing what is right and good on behalf of others, but act with compulsion and without love, then I am nothing at all.

If I take care of the needs of everybody in the world, especially the poor, because of my own need to help, but am without love even for myself, then I am nothing at all.

If I am efficient and successful in all that I do for the sake of justice, but act out of drivenness and without love, then I am nothing at all.

If I am cultured and refined, and in touch with the pain of existence, but am absent from the pain of persons in the present moment who need my empathy; and if I act without love and compassion, then I am nothing at all.

If I have the gifts of wisdom, insight, and understanding, but am not engaged with those around me in the present moment and am without a spirit of compassion and love, then I am nothing at all.

If I am faithful, loyal, and obedient, and never deviate from the law, but am judgmental and blaming, and am without love, then I am nothing at all.

If I live in a pain-free world of dreams and plans, enjoying optimism and pleasurable options, but am not addressing present problems and am avoiding people in actual distress and am without love, then I am nothing at all.

If I am strong and powerful, but lose my best self in a spirit of resentment, retaliation, and vindictiveness, and know nothing of the vulnerability of love, then I am nothing at all.

If I am settled and accommodating, holding onto a sense of distance and calm, but am not journeying inward to know and appreciate my weaknesses and gifts, and am neglecting my own legitimate calling to love myself, then I am nothing at all.

[From Fr. Richard Rohr's "Daily Meditation" of May 7, 2015, crediting Brother Joseph Schmidt who shared the paraphrase of 1 Corinthians 13:1-3 (original author unknown)]

Peace, Love and Joy to All....

Thank you.

AH, TO KNOW WE ARE LOVED BY GOD

Love utterly redefines the nature of power. Power without love is mere brutality (even in the church), and love without power is only the sentimentality of private lives disconnected from the Whole. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," December 24, 2017

That certainly rings my bell. Hmmm. I wonder if this isn't "the rest of the story" that I never knew was needed. The rest of the we have ceased fighting anything and anybody story.

It was truly a revelation way back when I realized that to cease fighting does not mean we become doormats, but rather that we learn how to communicate in order to come to agreement. We become willing to give over in order to get a negotiated peace...to use the reasoning mind's words if you will.

Thinking on love without power, though...I suspect that I have thought of power as ego-related only and therefore to avoid, walk away from, deny myself.

Here's my great stand up and shout news: I have experienced very recently and several times the inner power of saying the exactly right push-back words without thinking about (or praying for) them. I spoke softly (!) and with humor. Ah, proof positive that God can and will speak through us and for us, and, more importantly, we need not pre-worry for we are not in control of that.

We have the Power since we know the answer: Love and Laugh.

Thank you. 

OWN A DIFFERENT MIND...BREATHE GRATITUDE

An example of the "human condition," according to me: We are feeling at sixes and sevens with a friend, partner, parent, spouse, whomever because they do not choose to understand us. They just want to be understood. That feels selfish and self-centered to us, and we want to explain that to them so they will understand.

Then the "spiritual plane" to me: We know until knowing becomes acceptance that he is not our problem, and we are not resisting her, personally. Our resistance is our problem, our unscratchable itch, as it were. It is our self-centered perspective that makes their actions unacceptable, i.e., resistible, that is our sore point.

The solution is simple...never easy, but simple. All we must needs do is change our mind. And there it is. Upgrading our attitude will upgrade our problem but we must go to God to do that. The reasoning mind is reasoning, it is not stupid, necessarily. If we believe we are right, just saying we are going to change our mind will not get us there. We have to go for inside help.

Prayer is sitting in the silence until it silences us, choosing gratitude until we are grateful, and praising God until we ourselves are an act of praise. When we put on a different mind, heaven takes care of itself. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," December 23, 2017

Thank you.

CHOSE YE THIS DAY

I have set before you life and death, choose life. (Deuteronomy 30:19)

That sentence caused me pause. I wondered if the choice of life and death isn't a choice of either 4th dimensional consciousness or material (reasoning) mind consciousness.

Fourth dimensional consciousness is the place of love, of giving over, of loosing and letting go of self and self-determined wants (that masquerade as needs). This is the place of pure paradox where releasing self and the protection of self is our only real safe place. We know security beyond imagining in the fact that God has our back. There. That, according to me, is life...living fear-free through love.

Reasoning mind consciousness, on the other hand, is where we live the majority of the time (that's 51 percent, sometimes more so). The reasoning mind is our ego's stomping grounds, the place where me getting mine is vitally important...where giving over is a sign of weakness, love is for friends (as long as we agree) and rudeness is mistaken for strength. And that defines death to me for it is the picture of anxiety, living fear-filled of not getting...period.

To ever remember: The Father knows our needs.

Thank you.

IT'S THE DOING IT THAT MATTERS

I'm beginning to believe that every word we utter is a prayer, and what we get is what we prayed for...especially the unintentionals that we get.

I said in passing, a throwaway line in truth, that I'd like to be able to do like Jesus did when he stood accused before Pontius Pilate...stood silently before his judge.

I am here to state that since I blathered that (now I see) bald-faced lie, I have been slandered, judged, found wanting and marginalized. Marginalized is just a fancy word for ignored, and, who's kidding whom, that is the worst.

I've got to say, I can find it funny when I take the time to see it as an answered prayer. But my ego, dear old Lucy, is writing a script to use to get a certain person told even as I type. 

I was led to read George Will's column this morning, and he nailed it...he wrote that Americans are addicted to indignation, and I identified from my toenails up. I regret that I identify, but there it is.

The thing is, it is that addiction to indignation that can lead me to crash-and-burn...hopeless despair, the necessary end-up place because I know from my eyebrows up what I need to do: Trust God, clean house, help others. 

Or, love and laugh.

Thank you.

WE ARE OUR POWER FOR GOOD

This morning I realized a Power for Good within me, within everyone, and I knew It has never not been with us.

I thought on this, and I could believe that It brings only good...but then I thought, what if the good seems to be for the benefit of others, and we are left feeling left out? And I reckoned that feeling of being left out is us slipping back into our reasoning mind.

I wondered, when we seek a self-determined objective no matter how good we convince our self it to be, if we aren't bypassing the Power for Good within...not bypassing as much as avoiding. We avoid our good by staying stuck in our hidey hole, our reasoning mind.

Then I read the following "Daily Meditation" of Fr Richard Rohr, and, as usual, it gave me comforting encouragement: Once we touch upon the Real, there is an inner insistence that the Real, if it is the Real, has to be forever. Call it wishful thinking, if you will, but this insistence has been a recurring intuition since the beginnings of humanity.

God is so good to me...God is so good.

Thank you.

THINGS BEYOND THE MIND

The Risen Christ is leading us into a future for which we’re never fully ready. How can we even imagine divine union? It is too big a concept for most of us. 'These are the things that no eye has seen and no ear has heard, things beyond the mind of humanity—what God has prepared for those who love' -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," December 19, 2017

What if the things beyond the mind of humanity is the way that looks and feels like failure and despair? The following is for those of us who have accepted failure and despair as the road to crash-and-burn and therefore to God.

Let's consider life as "the way of the cross" with crucifixion as the divine end, and ego as the crucified.

We say that we seek ego deflation in depth, and we beat our breast and wail when we fail at our attempts to "let" it happen. Who's kidding whom? Thinking that we can let it happen is all but a guaranteed ego trip.

But what if we openly went for an unselfish want and we failed, got slapped down and felt humiliated? We could recognize that as an ego-buster and therefore the best result. That recognition of it as the best result could lift us from our self-centered beating and wailing. We could say our thank you with a pure heart and clear mind...and there's our gold.

Why not consider life as "the way of the cross" with crucifixion as the divine end, and ego as the crucified?

Thank you.

DETACH AND FIND PEACE

I stand at the door and knock. I knock to be let out...I know your needs...I seek to do the work.

I suspect we know all we need to know when we learn that God the Father lives within, knows our needs and does the work.

Knowing is essential to coming to believe. Coming to believe is essential to acceptance. Acceptance is essential to doing that which we are knowing. And there it is, the ever-expanding circle of life...more like the open-ended circle of life.

It is our doing that proves our knowing, and few of us there be who do our spiritual knowledge without fail. Which, by the by, is the good news, according to me. I'm a believer that it is in the failing that we're doing it right...what else so fervently (and frequently) sends us to God?

Seek in order to learn in order to come to believe in order to accept in order to detach...and be at peace.

Thank you.

REALIZE FROM OUR TOES TO OUR NOSE

Again this morning the thought screams to me that if I'm not showing It, I'm only knowing it. We must needs realize It...realize that it is the Father within that does the work.

We can think more, analyze further, write on and on, but that is proof of knowing...and that is all.

Turn from the reasoning of this. Move just a teensy-tiny step forward with It as our guide. Providence, the Higher Power, Almighty God...by whatever name, It's on our side...moves in and completes our work. This  takes time beyond imagining.

We let It by believing It from our toes to our nose...from our nose up is God's workshop.

Thank you.

GOD IS MY HIDEY HOLE

God is with me in my hidey hole, too. 

As I seek to be relieved of my defect of omission, I know that God is there, too.
I need strain for nothing...God is there within me/without me.

I have long identified my primary defect of character as one of omission rather than commission...meaning, I hang back, hide out, speak not (and judge silently). I have sought relief from that defect, and I have come a long way...not far enough to quit thanking God for it, but we've made a dent.

This morning in my quiet time, I was blessed with the above blinding flash of the obvious, and I knew that defect of character had just been transmuted. It may well be with me till three days after I'm dead, but now in the midst of hanging back I can admit it, laugh at myself and do what I can do, knowing God is with me in this, too.

Cling to nothing...fly!

Thank you.

ON GOING BEYOND REASON

It came to me this morning that life itself is the Way of the Cross. Especially when we think of that way as going beyond reason to love.

The reasoning mind is a necessary stepping stone and that is all. That is all it was ever meant to be, a stepping down place to a higher consciousness. If we stay hunkered down on that stone, we stay hunkered down in our life...self-protected, looking for the win, fearing a loss.

To go deeper to that higher place, we must come to rely on a personal power for good (keep it simple, call it "God"). We begin to realize that we must go beyond taking anything personally. We "see" that which seems wrong, unacceptable to us, is our very own.

If we're doing life right, there will be many and many more rocks, ditches, cliffs and mountains for us to meet and greet. On first look, through our reasoning mind's eye, we will wonder how we are ever going to get up, down, over and/or around this (which, to that same reasoning mind, shouldn't be ours to begin with).

That's when we learn the power of our thank you...it doesn't move the rocks, it removes our resistance. God intervenes in our life in our behalf...on his timetable. We learn firsthand that God has to go slow in order for us to keep up, and slow he does go. Until we know from our toenails up, had he gone any faster, we'd have quit the field.

God can and will if asked...and we are patient.

Thank you.

GOD IS GOOD

Blinding flash of the obvious: The one who slanders me is the one I need to praise. (By praise, I suspect that means be grateful for.)

The minute that came to me, I consciously elevated my thoughts in re Gertrude, and I saw her in a new light.

If it is true that everything works together for our good, then how can we dislike, fear and/or slander anyone? Especially with the justification of “payback.”

The Father knows my needs…and hers. This may all be incidental to me and God’s special gift to her…fulfilling a fear she must needs face, and I’m the perfect (imperfect?) vehicle.

God is good...God is love.

Thank you.

THE WONDER...THE JOY!...OF A GOD-GUIDED LIFE

I'm identifying this morning with the "Peanuts" character, Pigpen. He's the one who was always depicted with a cloud of dust over his head. I wonder if that isn't how we look to God...all of us walking around with our worries and wonders in a cloud over our head. All of us totally focused on our cloud and what to do about the worries and how to use the wonders.

Today's "God Calling," entitled Perpetual Guidance, is so full of promise...promise that we have all experienced as fact. It is an assurance, a promise actually, that we can rest in knowing that every detail of your lives is planned by Me....

It ends with Oh! the wonder of this...a God-guided life.

Yes!

Thank you.

NOW IS WHEN WE BEGIN

We must go deeper to go higher. Deeper within to find our new consciousness at a higher level of realization. To realize what is already there, has ever been there, will ever be there. Life in the spiritual lane is all about pitching out, loosing and letting go...detaching. 

Ego will fight this process every step of the way for it is ego that is the block to our realization of what is buried deep within. Ego is upfront, out there, leading the parade, tooting its own little horn...then regretting every step of the way. Which, of course, leads to starting over...analyzing, thinking, talking about where we went wrong and how we're going to do it different this time. Then doing the same thing over again expecting different results.

The thing is, for the overwhelming majority of us, that is when we're doing it right! That is our right road to crash-and-burn. We, of course, do not know crash-and-burn is where...if we're doing it right...we need to end up. That's what ego is trying so desperately hard to avoid.

The light comes on when we remember that this is all about life in the spiritual lane. We stay in the reasoning mind world, relying on our own intellect, for as long as we want to. If, however, we sincerely want still more spiritual growth, there will come the day, the hour, the minute when we know that we don't know, and we never will.

Now we begin.

Thank you.

ON BEING HOME FREE IN OUR HEAD

We learn and we relearn and we learn yet again. The same thing. Only deeper each time. Fuller. Hopefully, with less me, more I in it. That came to me when I read my "God Calling" this morning. There on 12/11/89, I had written, I welcome the opportunity to be thought wrong without any opportunity to set the record straight...to be thought wrong by all or any of my peers.

Beside that note, is another note dated 1998, Ditto AGAIN! 

And beneath that is one dated 2007, Me now.

On this very day, 12/11/17, I wrote, Still...thank you.

I remember each of the reasons for my welcoming such an opportunity, and each one had to do with my being misheard or misinterpreted. Any attempt to correct the misunderstanding would have most likely created an unnecessary brouhaha, so I would shoot a silent thank you, and remember back in the day when I had first learned that lesson.

That was probably in 1975 when a man misheard me at an open forum and loudly agreed with his interpretation of what he had heard..which was so far from what I had said or believed that I felt my head and heart near to exploding.

Fortunately, before I could get my mouth in gear, I glimpsed a lady at the table very gently shaking her head, letting me know I needed to say nothing, he was the only one who misheard. She came to me after the discussion to say, people hear what they want to hear...let them...just don't get their mud on your skirts. Isn't that wonderful? I've never forgotten that, and the majority of the time over the years, I have heeded those words.

The fact of importance is that I still must needs fight my own self, my ego Lucy, to do the right thing. I See Me in that, and I am grateful. Grateful for it is when I See Me that I know to step back, that the God of my understanding has my back. I'm home free in my head.

Thank you.

TO TRY IS TO TRUST

I was mentally beating myself up this morning for having done something and came out looking like a doofus. My apparently favorite line, "When will I ever learn?" was racing around in my mind.

And then...here came my blinding flash of the obvious: I tried, I trusted.

There it is, when still more spiritual growth is our sole goal, we can know I tried, I trusted as our forever self-forgiveness mantra.

God is so good to us.

Thank you.

NOTHING IS PERSONAL TO US

[The following is a reworked version of my blog of April 24, 2013.]

He prepares a place before me in the presence of my enemies....from The 23rd Psalm.

My enemy is not Gertrude who bad mouths me, who is ugly to me, who treats me with contempt...my enemy is that within me that shows forth as Gertrude's uglies that I resist by bad mouthing her, being ugly to her, treating her with contempt.

It is for me to realize Gertrude as my angel who carries these uglies of mine in order that I may see and recognize them as my own...for me to accept without resistance, by neither cursing her/them nor currying her/their favor.

I see me, and I realize We...ah, the miraculous comfort of Oneness.

Thank you.

TRY WITH A WILL OR FALL BY THE WAYSIDE

Jesus says, “If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also” (Luke 6:29). Buddha says, “If anyone should give you a blow with his hand, with a stick, or with a knife, you should abandon any desires [to hurt him] and utter no evil words” (Majjhima Nikaya 21.6). [Lifted from Fr Richard Rohr's "Daily Meditation," December 8, 2017]

"We have ceased fighting anything and anybody." (Anonymous)

The puzzlement to me is how I can be on the spiritual path, truly believe each of the above statements is necessary for me in my life, and still get in such mental fistfights with anyone who "strikes me on the cheek," or "gives me a blow with his hand." Or is simply nastier than they ought to be...to me.

I have heard that described as "part of the process" and "growing in God" and lots of other hoo-ha, but who's kidding whom...that is self-will on a roll. Knowing better is all well and good but until we're doing better, we ain't growing in God. End of sermon.

Although I do believe my sermons give God a giggle.

Thank you.

AGAIN...GET OVER OUR OWN SELF

Blinding flash of the obvious: Everything that is happening to me and in my life right this very instant is answered prayer...including this flipping computer.

Everything that is happening to me, that is happening in my life right this very instant is answered prayer...is the answer to my very own prayer as generated by my thoughts, my judgments, my fears, my praise, my pleasures.

It is what I do with this answered prayer that determines my ability to accept my life right this very instant. The more accepting I am (transparent), the more content or more giving I will feel. The less accepting I am (opaque), the nastier and needier I will feel.

My happiness is mine right Now...no matter this pitiful computer.

Thank you.

WE FIND GOD WHERE WE NEED HIM

Here's a wonderment...it is those times when things seem at sixes and sevens in my life, and fear whispers maybe I've been wrong all along, there really is no Jesus-power protecting me, no God at my back, that an ever-so-small something happens that shines a light on my bleak...and I am returned to peace.

Just this morning, for instance, I was gifted with a miracle, ever so small...teeny...in appearance, which I know will be my guide from now.

I've been caught up in I See Me (that's knowing better, doing it anyhow), and this morning my mind hopped on its what-to-do-what-to-do tricycle, and just as it was nearing top speed, I brushed by a shelf, and my main credit card fell out of I know not where. I had no idea I'd misplaced it. I do know I would have been half crazed if it hadn't found me first. Most important: God knew all that before I did.

I was lifted out of my own self-absorbed cycle by a fulfilled need I wasn't even aware of yet. It wasn't a reasoning-mind answered prayer, it was my unknown need that God answered.

The Father knows our needs. And there are no teeny miracles.

Thank you.

DENY YOURSELF...70 x INFINITY

I have a friend who says that we generally speak about five years ahead of where we are. I don't know if the five-year mark is set in concrete, but the idea is stone solid.

I just reread my blog of yesterday and thought how right on the money it was for what I needed to do and did not later that very afternoon.

I could feel myself blush as I read the paragraph: ...the answer, 'Deny yourself,' must needs start in our reasoning mind. When our ego is running a rant on another, on the various things we need to say or do to stop and/or top the perceived enemy, that's when we turn our thoughts inward.

Instead, I gave over to Lucy, my always-right-never-wrong ego, and watched almost proudly as she ran away with my mind and my mouth. It was one of those "I sure got them told!" moments...that is so regretted later.

I am beyond grateful that I've got the instruction book for what to do when wrong, and I can and will follow the instructions.

Here's the thing about spiritual growth...it's not that I choose to follow directions, it is that I have no choice if I hope to live at peace with my own self, if I ever expect to get the peace of mind I've always sought.

When wrong, promptly admit it...and then quit doing it, for Heaven's sake.

Thank you.

THE LORD SPEAKS...WE LISTEN

I dreamed I was walking with Jesus, talking with him...as opposed to listening, please note. I asked him, "What did You do and how did You do it?" Referring to when he was walking around in human clothes, doing the dailies of human life.

I wanted to know what did he do and how, especially when he was being mocked and scorned for being different from you and me. Different purely because he was preaching love...love your friends, love your enemies, love...and that is all.

And the answer that came?  "Deny yourself, deny yourself."

That is the singular, single, lone and only Way to love, to love alone. Our ego will ever legislate for itself, it cannot not. We must go beyond reason to love, and ego is of the reasoning mind...it roosts there. Cannot be budged by want to or knowing better...mainly because want to and knowing better are born and bred in the reasoning mind.

Paradoxically, the answer, "Deny yourself," must needs start in our reasoning mind. When our ego is running a rant on another, on the various things we need to say or do to stop and/or top the perceived enemy, that's when we turn our thoughts inward.

We turn to the Father within and pray, "Speak, Lord, your servant heareth." Then listen.

Thank you.

ON GOING TO GOD FOR GOD

We go to God for God and that is all...the big ah-ha is that going to God for God is learning how to not take anything personally, how to give over, how to cease fighting, how to...period.

Going to God for God and that is all is ego deflation in depth. Ego deflation in depth is not something we can self-will, but it can only begin within us, with our gut-bucket feeling of being hopelessly and helplessly at sea to our own life at the moment.

That is surrender. We feel like a quitter, a loser, only this is not a "feels like" situation. We are accepting that we are a loser in this no-win battle of our own choosing, our own life. And there it is...the ray of light in the form of hope that opens to us.

Gloriously, we are not given the answer to the problem that brought us to surrender...which is what we thought was necessary and what we had been praying for. No...we no longer need a situational answer. Our heart and mind and soul are freed, and we know peace.

This does not last.

If we are doing it right.

This is the first step in learning how to...period.

We go to God for God and that is all repeatedly and for the rest of our life. That is the nature of ego and of God...both are with us 24/7, 365...it is ours to choose which we obey. Ego is our free-will siren, God is our saving Grace.

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

Thank you.

UNTIL LOVE FLOWS FORTH FROM WITHIN

My quiet time began this morning with my thinking:

Relationships changing and/or breaking up - Gertrude and Ruckus and my mentor and those moving on - initiation? 

To take nothing personally, especially the mean one, Gertrude...in my eyes, she is acting hurtfully, spitefully, I doubt her eyes see it thus. I'm betting she sees me in that light. God, thank you for opening my eyes to see aright, and to know seeing aright is with the eyes and mind of love - to know it and to show it. 

“It is the very love of Christ that now urges us.” Is that what Gertrude is showing me, the very love of Christ? Is that what I need to show Gertrude? How?

It was the thought that this might be initiation that opened me to the first time I ever heard of initiation in re spiritual growth. It was in my beloved "God Calling" of March 29: Initiation precedes all real work and success for Me.

I sailed past that sentence for many years until I read in a Joel Goldsmith book of the many initiations that we must experience in order to grow spiritually. 

My thoughts this morning led me to ponder taking nothing personally. That is an art, an act of purity not of our own self, meaning it is hard to do and impossible if we're just self-willing. It's just so many words until it is flowing forth from within.

Then the act of initiation itself bubbled up for pondering. It seems I've been thinking of the initiation we must go through as some mystic mind game that we just think our way through...up to the next level, as it were.

I realized that it matters not if it's initiation or real...if I'm experiencing it, it is real to me. Those who go through the rites of any initiation must do that which is presented to them in order to either be accepted or to move on up to another level.

Initiation or not, we must walk through the  pain, feel it, detach from our own resistance to the act of loving it...for this, too, is God.

Hoo, boy.

I am grateful that you've got my work cut out for you, Lord.

Thank you.

LIFE'S LESSONS AND GOD'S WILL

Learning life's lessons...then doing life's lessons...ah, there it is, the sum and substance of life itself.

Learning is the easy part, but we don't find that out until we've learned, which leaves doing as the hard part, but that's only if we go at it solo-powered.

My life's lessons are few, and looking back I feel like I knew them the minute I first heard them. Basically, they are: take nothing personally; try not to be as nasty as I want to be; pray "Thank You" to everything...and mean it.

It is the offshoots of life that keep us tethered, according to me, and by that I mean tethered to our desire for still more spiritual growth. Every hesitation, stumble and/or fall is our opportunity to seek still more spiritual growth.  

A basic offshoot of mine in learning bloomed when I became willing to show my ignorance...which is just asking for help, for another's viewpoint. The fear that then they'll know I don't know, and I'll look the fool I got to kiss on the lips and know it for just another sliver of gold in my learning process.  

And that leads to another offshoot, i.e., learning to view down as up...which is the short form of the lesson that God's view is the mirror image of our view. I accepted that as fact when I realized the worst thing that could ever happen to me had turned out to be my precious pearl beyond price, a gift of grace and God...and I use that as my yardstick for the less-than-wonderful events of life today.

Know and show that God's will is always love...there, that's the root of life's lessons.

Thank you.