WHEN WE STUMBLE...

When you've stumbled--and the guilt, loneliness, and fear come to assault you--if you don't have at least one good friend, or if you have not developed a prayer life where you know how to find yourself in God instead of in your own feelings, you will simply retrench and reassert your correctness. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," June 13, 2016

The big reveal to me there is the need to know how to find yourself in God instead of in your own feelings.

I recall the shock I felt when I recognized a large part of my life had been premised on petty irritations, snap judgments and push-backs. Actually, it wasn't so much shock as it was a feeling of unease...I don't know at the outset that I could take in its fullness. It kinda simmered there in my thoughts, from my eyebrows up, not moving for a long time...there just enough to cause me pause then dart away.

Based on my own experience, I do believe that learning unto doing thank you has been the turning point, the saving grace, the pearl beyond price to me and my life. Mainly because the habit of saying thank you started with petty irritations, snap judgments and push-backs. I'm thinking trial balloon. That's probably how I got started...thinking to myself, say it and see what happens.

Clearly, it worked because I took it to bigger oncoming dreads and found peace there. My biggest in this past year was with my little boy Ruckus...I wore thank you out in letting him go. The gift of course was in the acceptance I felt in letting him go, not holding on to him purely for my own self.

The lesson in praying thank you and that is all is it does not keep the dreaded thing from happening, it brings us peace in the midst of the dread. It is that peace of mind, i.e., finding our self in God, that keeps us from retrenching and reasserting our correctness. Which is also known as doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results...sometimes defined as insanity, sometimes as self-will run riot, both definitions work.

Another thing I like about Rohr's quote is that he says, "When you've stumbled...." When, not if.

We will stumble, we are not only allowed, we are expected to! Where's the need for all our spiritual seeking if stumbling isn't allowed. For that matter, where's the need for God? If we be perfect, there's no God necessary.

And God grins at the folly.

Thank you.

ON BEING LED FREE OF ME

If what our life is showing at the moment seems to be less-than-wonderful, recall...again...that God knows our needs. 

What we are getting is what we are needing for our still more spiritual growth according to who and what we are inside where God lives. Where we keep digging, trying to get to that which is still unknown to us, is just another room in God's hidey-hole.

God knows, and he is sending out clues. Those are the things we keep rejecting and pushing aside and calling by another's name. No. They are our very own, and when we recognize them for our very own, we will break free...free of me. 

It is in the breaking down of our self, not breaking the defect but our resistance to the defect, that will free us from the bondage of self.

Face it...without those that we curse, we might never walk free. Those that we curse are leading us free. Get grateful...be thankful. 

In my Father's house are many mansions.... (John 14:2)

Thank you.

ON LIVING A TURNED-OVER LIFE

Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it. -- Psalm 127

So the difference between 'the boys and the men' is the difference between striving for a self-determined objective and for the perfect objective which is of God. -- Anonymous

So the difference between relying on the reasoning mind and relying on spiritual consciousness is the difference between striving to build our inner house by our own devices and not striving but trusting our Father within to perfectly lead us through the building and then our living therein.

According to me.

Thank you.

OUR NEMESIS IS OUR ANGEL

The forever lesson to learn:  To our reasoning mind, the one arousing our negative side is our nemesis...ah, but spiritually, that one is our angel.

There it is...the key to changing our mind. Then we must needs stay our focus on the power within  which is ever on hand to further the opening, as needed.

This is an ongoing spiritual process...an opened mind releases the power for good within. Our detachment frees our thoughts from building self-determined results. That which we are resisting is freely transmuted in our mind...and we are graced with another angel in our midst.

Thank you.

GREAT SUFFERING...THANK YOU

...great suffering or great love, the quickest and most universal ways that God uses to destabilize the self-referential ego. --Fr. Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation"

We know that utter surrender...crash and burn...is the ultimate gift of God and grace. We also know it sometimes feels like so much hoo-ha when we're on the path toward that surrender...probably because the path to surrender often feels like ennui, doing nothing, heading nowhere.

It is our reasoning mind that is slinging trash and calling it reality. That's why our go-to is gratitude...purely because it opposes reason.  It is only our reality if we stay there, sinking slowly into its miasma.

Our focus must ever be on still more spiritual growth. And, who's kidding whom, when the drag of feeling less than is upon us, we know spiritual need quick, fast and in a hurry. That need is met by thank you.

Thank you comes like on the wings of a dove. No long, drawn out prayers, no pleadings, no heavy lifting...just thank you.

But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. - Matthew 6:7

Thank you.

MAKE YOUR HOME IN THE DARKNESS

My way seems overcast today...and has for awhile now. I feel resistant. I am not finding gratitude easy to rest in...mainly because I'm not finding gratitude. It is with that as my center that I randomly opened my daily reader (which I all but never do), and the following was laid out before me:

By love, God can be embraced and held, but not by thinking. *** No matter how sacred, no thought can ever promise to help you in the work of contemplative prayer, because only love—not knowledge—can help us reach God. . . .You must also know that this darkness and this cloud will always be between you and your God, whatever you do. They will always keep you from seeing Him clearly by the light of understanding in your intellect and will block you from feeling Him fully in the sweetness of love in your emotions. So, be sure you make your home in this darkness. Stay there as long as you can, crying out to Him over and over again, because you love Him. It’s the closest you can get to God here on earth, by waiting in this darkness and in this cloud. Work at this diligently, as I’ve asked you to, and I know God’s mercy will lead you there. . . . (from Carmen Acevedo Butcher’s translation of The Cloud of Unknowing with the Book of Privy Counsel)

Oh, I could weep for joy. There. Right there are my God's loving directions: So, be sure you make your home in this darkness. Stay there as long as you can, crying out to Him over and over again, because you love Him. It’s the closest you can get to God here on earth, by waiting in this darkness and in this cloud. 

The wartime adage, there are no atheists in foxholes, comes to mind...which to me backs my blinding flash of the obvious that fear is God's camouflage. Which gives me the same joy as the quote from The Cloud but, face it, The Cloud has more clout.

New adage: When feeling wobbly, go for the clout, take comfort in the BFO.

Thank you.

SEEKING THE GOOD IN POWERLESSNESS

[The following is a reprint of my post of April 14, 2014. It is either regrettable or God's grace that it describes way too closely how I'm feeling this fine Christmas morning of 2018 only for no outwardly apparent reason...just the in generals, so to speak. Merry Christmas.]

The [reason for] our daily work is to bring us to a point of conscious awareness of God's presence.
In this higher consciousness, you will experience My peace, My meat, wine, water, My life, My joy. In this consciousness, you experience the kingdom of God and His strength, His power, His wisdom. This is the Fourth Dimension of Life. -- Joel Goldsmith, "The Heart of Mysticism"

It is a puzzlement that I can so thoroughly want what Goldsmith writes about and do the necessary work and experience real changes in my consciousness... and get turned bum over bucket at blocks to my reasoning mind. As in, I am in the process of learning my powerlessness over my new Tablet. It's like learning to type all over again, only I don't have the patience I had at 15...when I had none at all now that I think about it.

Here's me saying I don't have the patience, when I am very well aware that we have all the patience we'll ever need within us right this very minute just waiting to be used. (Why do spiritual principles sound so sanctimonious when we're ticked off? Feels like they're being used at us. AND here's me peeved at me for lecturing me!)

I wish this thing had a clock on it that would show how long it took me to type just that paragraph. Sheez! I'm ready to go back to bed.

Yesterday morning I couldn't get the thing to turn on...I finally yelled at God that I know he has my back but he was going to have to get up in my brain if we were ever going to get this sucker to work.
With which I hit the right button and it came on... coincidence? Or God's got a perverted since of humor? Somehow "grace" doesn't seem to fit.

Enough. God can and will if sought... or he'd better because I'm clueless.

Thank you.

WE ALONE CANNOT...OH, BUT WE WANT TO

We must open out a way for [love] to escape by fulfilling the commands of the Master. -- "The Gift of Love," by Joel Goldsmith

Here's truth as I understand it: Truth is love. The only lack there is lies in one's ignorance of the love that lives within us. Our ignorance leads to the inability to release that love that was given us before conception and is ever there ready to be released. Love is not a sentimental attachment, not an emotional feeling...love is God's hidey-hole.

According to Goldsmith, the way to release that love is by following the words of the Master. Which brings yet another paradox in that the problem and the solution are one: the words of Jesus are the one hundred percent opposite of our reasoning mind's dictates.

Resist not evil does not make reasoning mind sense. Love our enemies? Give me a break...it's hard enough to love friends...to love loved ones!

The will of God seems to be diametrically opposed to the will of humans. God is love, thus his will is love, and that is all.  We, however, are ego-driven, and ego legislates for itself. My ego Lucy has nothing but the best of intentions, namely, to win. And winning by love alone?...nah, can't work.

Interestingly, according to Goldsmith, we must open out a way for love to escape. Sounds like a closely held secret, doesn't it? It might as well be for face it, the reasoning mind dares not risk nonresistance, or giving over, giving up, giving in...or, in a word, love.

Now for the real closely held secret...all of that requires just one thing: completely, utterly and finally denial of self. Whoa! Scalded cat! Or tallest mountain...makes no never mind, we alone cannot do that.

Ah, we've just found our pearl beyond price, the opening for love to escape...we alone cannot do it; oh, but we want to.  All our troubles, Lord, soon be over.

Thank you.

THE GOAL IS TO ALIGN OUR SOULS WITH GOD

[We come into this world to] align our souls with God: The relationship between God and soul is analogous to that between the sun and its rays. We are the extension of God in time and space. How, then, can we be misaligned with God? Misalignment is a state of mind that arises when we forget our true relationship with God and act as if God were other. -- Rabbi Rami Shapiro

I ponder the line, Misalignment is a state of mind that arises when we forget our true relationship with God and act as if God were other. 

We act as if God were other when we pray for...period. To pray for is to name a want. A want may or may not be a need, and, face it, seldom does a resultant want conform to God's will...our need.

Even praying for peace of mind, or, for that matter, peace in the Middle East...our need is to rest in the knowledge that we are the peace we seek. And there I go...my rabbit-hole is trying to apply my little breakthroughs to the world. What do I know of the Middle East? I was bragging just yesterday of making peace with one person with whom I am personally acquainted...and today I'm setting the Middle East straight.

I'd best stick with the goal of aligning my soul with God...I don't doubt there'll be peace in the Middle East before the game is called on that. Ah, but it is to have the goal...there's my peace.

Thank you.

SHOW A LITTLE APPRECIATION AND GOD SMILES

No one can serve God except in loving service to man because there is no God separate and apart from man. - Joel Goldsmith, "The Gift of Love"

That is one of those truths that I love upon reading and can't remember ten minutes later. I suspect most truths are like that...we can't remember them until we commit to them. Commit by living them which takes time.

It seems that all good things take time. Not-so-good happens in an instant since it originates in a thought. The single thought of ut-oh invites a world of mental hurt through nothing but resistance. Who's kidding whom, no one ever thought ut-oh with anticipatory glee.

Hey! I wonder if that's not why God and all his people have such a hard time getting a toehold with us. Coming to trust takes time...miracles in our own life can remain just once-upon-a-time conversational fillers if we don't give them time...allow them to grow in the silence within us.

Talking about them is a good growth-stopper actually since that's all we do is talk. There is no spiritual growth then, we just keep our miracle there where it first showed forth. The only growth is how much we exaggerate it as we tell and retell the story, and that is per our oh-so-fallible memory.

Actually serving God may be all that is required for us to own the peace we seek, the love we need, the joy we so desire.

Why, then, is it such a downer to realize I need to serve Gertrude...and lovingly...to truly serve God? Probably because my ego Lucy just heard the word and is resisting. Ah, and there it is, the block to spiritual growth...ego, ever legislating for itself.

Oh but I bring good news...I, without prior thought or planning, publicly praised Gertrude recently. Which is good enough for God work!  Who knew?...we really do not have to become charwomen to serve others...just show a little appreciation. I know this because Gertrude thanked me with tears in her eyes. And I loved her for it.

And God said,  Atta girls!

Thank you.

ON REFLECTING PEACE TOWARD OTHERS

Ultimately, we have just one moral duty: to reclaim large areas of peace in ourselves, more and more peace, and to reflect it toward others. And the more peace there is in us, the more peace there will also be in our troubled world. -- Etty Hillesum, An Interrupted Life Diary entry (September 29, 1942) 

Don't I wish I could remember that? It makes such pure sense to my mind...to have just one moral duty, to reclaim more and more peace in ourselves and reflect it toward others. 

I first wish to remember that since doing is not even on the to-do list until remembering is secured. And isn't peace in our self simply nonresistance?

A word about nonresistance: Nonresistance starts with not giving our reasoning mind a platform...that's our ego's disguise, our reasoning mind. Ego always legislates for itself, but it co-opts the reasoning mind in order to legitimize itself. Face it, who is going to cop to ego as their guide when it's the mind that has standing? And who's kidding whom? We all but brag about using our common sense when really that's just the reasoning mind trying to sound humble. 

The punchline, of course, is nonresistance is the basis for acceptance. It is impossible to get to acceptance by resisting. The paradox of acceptance: the quest and the answer both at the same time.

But I say unto you that ye resist not evil.... -- Matthew 5:44

Thank you.

ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF THANK YOU

It is not our deepest want, held in secret but oh-so-dear, that if received will bring us the joy we imagine...hope for.

It is our deepest fear, held in secret so no one can know, that if realized will grace us, bring us Home.

The hook is that to know this from our eyebrows up alone becomes useless information. It's a necessary first step toward realized grace, but our rational mind will stop with the first knowing. That's when it transitions into useless. We must continue on the path of welcoming...also known as "hold your nose and take a leap of faith."  Our resistance is in our very trying to make sense of it. Face it, who without scrutiny sets out to and then continues to welcome their nemesis?

Ah, but how else do we diminish our nemesis? If we could destroy it by "knowing better," we'd be home free already.

We come again to the realization that fear is God's camouflage...nothing invites God out of his hidey-hole into our consciousness like fear. We welcome fear with a scared heart, trembling lips and our thoughts on hold...anything other is our ego putting on airs.

There is no guarantee when we will realize that God has done the dirty for us...we may know in an instant, it may take longer...way longer. I have never known in the instant, but on looking back years later, I can see that is how it happened...I just c/would not realize it then. Which has been the gift of grace for me since many of my ego-errors (a.k.a., angels unaware) have come in that period of unknowing.

All of which says to me that Meister Eckhart knew what he was talking about when he said, If the only prayer you say in your life is thank you, that would suffice. 

Thank you.

THE JOURNEY TO LOVE STARTS WITHIN

I have been feeling for awhile now as if I were going through the crucible. There are a few real physical problems that are just for getting through,but the personal unforeseen happenings get my attention. Things like oversleeping...more often than not. Not making my bed...more often than not. Skipping my yoga...first time this morning which is the one that caused me pause. As I reflected, I saw several other "little" slide-byes. 

I know this is for my benefit. I know coming out after going through this. I will be grateful I needed  to go through this. Ah, but my trepidation is that I may not...I may continue to oversleep...I may just skip this and that. 

In short, I may resign vs. accept. When I have long held as my truth that resignation is ego's joystick, acceptance is God's grace.

Then I read in my daily Eswaran: ....most of us still live inside our own private mental worlds. Our attention is often preoccupied...so that we have very little attention to give to love. despite our best intentions to draw closer, all kinds of distracting thoughts...come in any time they like....The journey into deeper consciousness is one we must take up if ever we are to find the love we all so earnestly desire.

And out of I know not where came a quote of Teilhard de Chardin that I had copied sometime back: 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. That is how I know God has my back...by the truths that I am led to. Which remind me that my personal comfort lies in the spiritual disciplines that it is up to me to continue to follow...up to me to do. 

Hey, new God-thought: Just because I skipped my yoga at 5:00 AM doesn't mean I can't do it at 9:00 AM...or 5:00 PM for that matter. And oversleeping is not never getting out of bed. Get a grip, bite your lip...the clock is not your higher power. 

God loves me so much.

Thank you.

WHEN IN DOUBT, ASSUME THE BEST

The German mystic Meister Eckhart said, Let us pray to God that we may be free of God that we may gain the truth.... [SIDEBAR: And ain't that the truth...long sigh.]

Know that when thou learnest to lose thyself

Thou wilt reach the Beloved.

There is no other secret to be revealed,

And more than this is not known to me.

Ansari

Every development in contemplation reveals more and more of the mystery of silence and the importance of receptivity over effort.... 

There. God just led me to those very words: The importance of receptivity over effort. And still I ponder, still I analyze, still I write.

There are times when that which comes before us is indeterminable as to whether it is for good or for not so good. Why not accept it as good? We will surely learn soon enough if it's not so good, and what to do about it will come then. To assume first off that it's probably not good is to worry too soon. Assume the best, fret less.

Lord, hear my prayer. Thank You. Lord, hear my prayer. Thank You. Lord, hear my prayer. Thank You.

Thank you.

WE MUST GO BEYOND REASON TO LOVE

Blinding flash of the obvious: Ego reduction is learning to love spiritually.

When we have, in toto, turned our will and our life over to the care of God, we have begun the process of detaching from our ego-based belief that we are the true protector of and for our self.

It is a hard lesson, but the less I "stand up for myself," the clearer the path for grace to sweep the path clean for all concerned. The block to believing that is the fearful I, that I who unrestrained dictates our every thought, word and deed...for the benefit of that very I.

Very simplistically, and according to me, the difference between psychiatry and spirituality is psychiatry is geared for self-improvement and spirituality is geared for self-detachment. Also simplistic but even more true to me, humans need a healthy self-esteem before ever an honest detaching from self can begin.

Learning to love spiritually is learning the art of giving over, giving up, giving in. Interpreting all that giving as losing, our reasoning mind balks. Ah, but when we go deeper we find the missing key, that which we are giving up: self-centered fear, plain and simple.

It is in giving that we get...free.

Thank you.

JOY IN THE DULL DARK DAYS

I did not awaken until almost 7:00 this morning...I did not arise until 7:30. I did not begin my sitting in the silence until after 9:00. Usually, I am up and about before 5:00 A.M., and I go almost immediately into my silent time...so I pondered this. I felt no fear, but I'm glad I have learned to question myself when, for no clearly discernible reason, my patterns take a turn on me.

My life has had deep changes in the past couple years...with many friends and my beloved Ruckus  moving on. My boy going back to Heaven being the major, but having a dozen friends move out and on, all across the country, all within a few years. is food for contemplation...to me at any rate. Wonderfully, I heard from three of my beloveds yesterday alone. There...Christmas in my heart. And, who's kidding whom, I still talk to Ruckus daily.

Then I read my "God Calling," and today, December 16, has one of my favorite entries: Joy is the reward of patiently seeing Me in the dull dark days, of trusting when you cannot see....Joy is as it were your heart's response to My smile of recognition of your faithfulness....Stop thinking your lives are all wrong if you do not feel it. (Over the years, I have underlined and highlighted that last sentence to the point of nearly unreadable. Slow learner...and God loves that.)

Don't tell me God doesn't know...and answer...my every need. Yours, too!

Thank you.

ON FINDING THE SILENCE WITHIN

As frightening as it may be to 'center down,' we must find the stillness at the core of the shout, the pause in the middle of the 'amen,' as first steps toward restoration. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," December 15, 2018

As I was awakening this morning, the thought came that I need not more rote prayers, I need to still my mind...silence in a word. Be still and know that I am God came to mind. (I just checked and that is from Psalm 46:10.)

Those are my non-marching orders, I suspect. Be still, to me, means enough with the Lord's Prayer, the 23rd Psalm, the Prayer of Saint Francis, the Mary Prayer, all of which I silently pray each morning. I have no problem with that...they stay my inventorying mind. I'm guessing, however, I need to move on up to a deeper place within...to the holy place of silence. Ha! as if I can just move me there.

I need to make myself available with the conscious intention of a silent mind. Then be prepared to sit and wait on the Lord...who tends to have a drag foot, according to me. Ah, but then there's the blinding flash of the obvious. And there it is: God...slower than a turtle/faster than a cheetah, as needed.

Thank you.

GO TO GOD TO GO FROM EGO

Eknath Easwaran has written that in every emotional relationship, when we react, it is to our own self's expectation...good or bad, it is our own projection onto the other that we are reacting to.

In other words, you are never angry for the reason you think, and I forget where I found that, but I know it to be true. Which is the same as what you see is always yourself...another forgotten origin but true to me.

Dig deep, and we'll find the same thing in Meister Eckhart’s The eyes with which we look back at God are the same eyes with which God looks at us. (Ponder that for a while.)

I've learned that I need to keep these things handy. They're my go-to in order to go-from...to God, from ego. Face it, there will ever be snags and snarls in our daily life, and the tinier the snag, the harder it is to detach.

I'm convinced that my ego Lucy will determine that "this" is too insignificant to bother with...then  finds it impossible to let go of as I See Me takes hold and builds, ever downward. Spiritual growth is lost to self...again.

The never-too-old saying applies: No one ever stubbed their toe on Mount Everest. 

Thank you.

THE BANE IS THE BOON

[The following is a reprint of my post of May 26, 2017.]

There is a page in "God Calling" where it is set forth that we must take joy in the gray days...that our hard lesson of the gray day will be repeated until we do.

There are those who believe that welcoming, that the Thank You prayer, that joy in the dark is just malarkey, plain and simple. Whenever we hit a rough patch, we can count on one or more to rather gleefully ask, "So where's your good in this?!"

Hey...the bane is the boon.

The resulting gift from looking our Monster in the eye, calling it by its name, "Monster," comes with our changed mind...in effect, we see it for the "puddy tat" it is, or a raised consciousness if you will. How else can we learn to never try to dodge a fear (which is all the Monster is, of course), or to desperately call it Good, hoping that'll change it? That changes neither "it" nor our mind.

Most everybody I know feels at some point in life that they have gone through the crucible, crashed and burned, and emerged as gold. It was that bane that gave them their boon. There. That is my God's instruction book for us for life. Use it or lose it.

Thank you.

TO LIVE IN ACCEPTANCE...AH, PERFECT PEACE

I am convinced that a peaceful head and heart comes by taking nothing personally.

That, just that...take nothing personally...has been a goal of mine for a long time. One of the gifts of that goal was the realization that every feeling of irked, peeved, instant of inner push-back is the result of our taking it personally...whatever the momentary it is.

It would not surprise me to learn that the entire starter course in learning how to take nothing personally is encompassed in knowing that I am not responsible for what s/he hears me say...nor am I responsible for how they choose to interpret what they hear me say. And vice versa.

The second course in our learning may well be in the thought that what you think of me is none of my business...I love you, no matter. Then we must needs help that be true in our head and in our heart.

The obvious (but well-hidden to ego) fact is that if we want our life to reflect what we are learning, then we must do that which we say we agree with...we must live a turned-over to God life.

To enrich our own life we must learn to give recognition to the true identity of those we meet. -- Joel Goldsmith, "The Gift of Love," p. 5

TO LIVE JOYFULLY AMID MISUNDERSTANDING

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. -- December 11, 1989, note in my "God Calling"

To be unjustly accused and to answer not a word in self defense...such was my specific desire, stated during a discussion of a spiritual nature last year. This led to cross-purposes to the reasoning mind...which I believe/hope is in fact proof of initiation for all concerned in the discussion.

I am just beginning to believe...from my eyebrows up anyway...that the prize really is crucifixion...and, who's kidding whom? Crucifixion to me is not being nailed to the cross...apparently it is being unjustly accused and answering not a word in self defense.

To live joyfully amid misunderstanding and slander points beyond 'my kingdom' to the Kingdom of God. -- Unknown author

Thank you.

GRATITUDE IS OUR ONLY ENTITLEMENT

To receive miraculous healing and yet to be able to refrain from personal glory in the achievement is most difficult. All that they were entitled to was gratitude that they had been called and that the Power was working through them -- not that they had the power. The Power was working through them, but it could work through them only in proportion to their humility, and the true sense of humility is not any detraction or depreciation of one's self: it is a realization of one's greatness in having been called to be a servant of that power, which is true paradox. -- Copied from I know not where, dated 10/5/78 in my journal.

It is a personal fact that I and most of my friends have received miraculous healing...it is uplifting to see in black and white that which our heart knows: All that we are entitled to is gratitude that we have been called and that the Power is working through us...not that we had the power.

Thank you.

MAINLY REMEMBER THIS: GET OVER YOURSELF

The supreme work of spirituality is keeping a 'right mind' (which is the work of contemplation or meditation) without attachment to past woundings. [Lifted and rearranged from Fr Richard Rohr's "Daily Meditation," December 9, 2018.]

Keeping a "right mind" is one of those simple sounding but oh so hard to do sayings. Purely and simply because it requires that we think not of our self, but of the other, the other that ninety-eleven times out of a hundred we are in disagreement with.

What is especially daunting is that "the one we are in disagreement with" is way too often from years past...possibly our sister at age 13, when we were 10. Or the love of our life...the first one from 50 years ago.

Which explains why these are the words that grabbed my attention: without attachment to past woundings. It matters not whether the past woundings occurred 50 years ago, or a week, a day, or an hour ago.

When (not if) we go there, we hunker down with ego...there is no spiritual growth there. Which sounds like a gotcha, doesn't it? Ah, but God is not in the gotcha...he cuts us slack. He cuts us slack because he knows our needs...and how we will ever mistake our wants for our needs. So we slide over for a sip of the sweet water of resentment...and God it is who turns the sweet to bitter.

Our "right mind" that we've attained through spiritual growth, that and a little help from our friends, reminds us of our thank you prayer.

Then we remember God's words: Love and laugh...and get over yourself.

Thank you.

LOVE, THE ETERNAL ANSWER

[The following is a reprint of my post of December 8, 2016. It describes perfectly where I am exactly  two years later to the day and hour.]

My morning's blinding flash, a prayer:

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

Thank you.

THE GIFT WE KNOW NAUGHT OF

I'm guessing that most everyone has a longing to be known...known by at least one other, one special other.

The problem we come late to realizing is that we want to be known as we believe our self to be. We choose to refuse that we are known...by a whole lot of others. Face it, we're not so deep or mysterious or special as to be...what? An enigma? We wish.

Even those of us who do not recognize the fact of our longing...we are usually walking around with a vague feeling that our skin's on crooked...suspect that something is amiss. So we stay focused out there...naming it the world today, the politics of the South...or the North, the friends we have...or don't have, the job we have...or don't have.

The day will come, the dawn will break, when we are gifted by grace into the realization that there is a place deep within us that is known only to God. It takes considerably longer for us to accept that it is always available, always operating in our behalf...ah, but with neither our knowledge nor our consent.

This is the spiritual core of us that we know naught of. It is unknowable but to God. It is The Christ. Amen.

Thank you.

ON FEELING THE LOVE THAT I AM

Ah, it seldom fails...when I'm feeling my all alone-est, then it is that my unloved, unwanted, unneeded, unappreciated calls to my ego Lucy to sing our favorite song, Loving Arms. Especially the line looking back and longing for the freedom of my chains and lying in your loving arms again. That one.

Why, I wonder, doesn't Amazing Grace come to mind? Who hates that one? Or How Great Thou Art? With Elvis singing, to boot. But no, it is an incontrovertible fact, when I'm feeling less than, only sad, sorry and blue songs are allowed. Ah, who's kidding whom...I'm who, what and why it's all about when I'm feeling un.

Out of sheer habit, I turn to my daily readings, and from the cosmos my beloved Easwaran wraps me in reality: [In] transforming consciousness, you have to look for the right spot. In some people it is a particular compulsive craving; in some it is jealousy; in some, blind fury. Some may be fortunate enough to have all three. Each person has to look for that spot where urgent work is most needed.

There it is...God's will direct to me right Now: I have to look for that spot where urgent work is most needed. I do know this, the obvious is rarely the most needed...that's why needing to look requires going to God. In gratitude. For the need.

I can feel the un lifting...I know because free at last just came to mind...that and ain't gonna study war no more. Along with, there will be peace in the valley for me. 

God loves me so much. The Donald, too.

Thank you.

GOD LAUGHS AND WE LET GO

It is our desire, our willingness, our spiritual mindset that begins our journey toward still more spiritual growth. 

And then...and then...after years of pondering and preaching, we slowly begin to detach from our book learning, our original ideas, our striving and seeking. Our self-determined objectives start to fall away. In effect, they crash and burn...and even that minus our will. 

We learn to laugh at our self-determined objectives which were all about us basking in the sunlight of love being showered upon us...or, short form, get spiritual, get love. Then comes the blinding flash of the obvious: We cannot get love, we can only give love.

The original message that God is love changes not, it is merely repurposed.

Love itself takes on a new and deeper meaning...holy, in a word. God and love...invisible, unprovable to the doubting mind...ah, but we realize It for real when It permeates our being. And we start loving our unfriends just as we love our friends. We know we are on the right track when they become interchangeable.

Then it is that we know fear for we hear our self asking, Just how holy do I want to be? Ah, then God laughs, and we relax...we're not there yet.

Thank you.

SURRENDER...AH, THE PEACE OF IT

Of all things, I'm hearing lately that peace, love and joy are getting a bad name. Go figure. There are so many words, acts...thoughts even...that qualify for less-than-wonderful, why pick on the exact opposite to resist?

Maybe that's the why of it...the exact opposite proves individual originality to our ego. Ego will ever speak louder than God...not better, just louder.

The raw wonder of peace, love and joy is that we cannot just do them, or any one of them, on self-will alone. We cannot manufacture them. They are not of our own self. They live within us with God in his hidey hole, and they emerge by grace as needed and without human manipulation.

Now we come to our job...which is to let them, i.e., to unblock or to open the channel from which peace, love and joy flow. Which, according to me, is right next to the eighth wonder of the world. To open our self represents our willingness to allow our own self to grow smaller. In short, to let means we say thank you, and lay down our sword and shield. And that is all. Oh, then wait.

No one knows the day or hour....

Thank you.

TRUTHS AND RANDOM THOUGHTS

Truths, random thoughts and idle words:

When My disciple sees My purpose ahead, that very sight is the power that clears away every obstacle along that range of vision....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 14

I must take care that my "bad" is not more important to me than God's "good."

To receive miraculous healing and yet to be able to refrain from personal glory in the achievement is most difficult. All that they were entitled to was gratitude that they had been called and that the Power was working through them -- not that they had the power. The Power was working through them, but it could work through them only in proportion to their humility, and the true sense of humility is not any detraction or depreciation of one's self: it is a realization of one's greatness in having been called to be a servant of that power, which is true paradox. -- Copied in my journal from I know not where, dated 10/5/78.

It is our own ego that sees and accepts for our own incoming insults, snarks and put-downs... they are not ours, let them remain undelivered.

Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. -- Eckhart Tolle

There has to be a recognition of an Infinite Invisible...there has to be an inner realization of that Presence. -- probably lifted from Joel Goldsmith

Forgiveness requires inner connection in order to let the other's actions be and then we can walk free with the other or not, as God wills. Only we can give our self forgiveness and that by aborning into Christ consciousness within.

Now comes the part that makes the "belly bitter"...the living of these truths. -- Joel Goldsmith

Thank you.

SHOUT HALLELUJAH!

If we are ever going to get over our want to be right...or at least not publicly wrong...we are going to need to experience the pain of being misunderstood, of being thought wrong, of being the object of gossip, slander and contempt for in there hides our gift of gold.

In learning the ways of still more spiritual growth, that's not all that surprising, is it? We must go beyond reason to love.

It takes a looong time for this to filter without resistance through every fiber of our being. Who's kidding whom, it takes long enough for our brain to just let it in without spitting fire.

Our spiritual gift is the gratitude we experience when we can pray our thank you for whatever is appearing upside down and backwards in our life, and specifically when we feel no resistance to the person we perceive as the root of our pain. (Which may be as close to forgiveness as we get in this world.)

We begin awakening when we recognize that the contretemps is for our own benefit. Then the sun breaks, and we know through us and only through us that this is for the benefit of that other. And there it is...we know it for our own benefit purely because it benefits the other who is accusing us. 

Better yet, they may never realize that. They may go to their grave thinking the less of us, but with their gift of gold intact. Not ours to understand, ours to appreciate that God does indeed move in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform.

Our pure gold. our pearl beyond price, our great stand-up-and-shout gift is our getting over our own self...in loving and laughing and letting it be within. Somebody say Amen.

Thank you.

GOD CALLING US HOME TO GOD

It is the defensive ego that births our negative feelings, that projects negativity. 

All of our negative feelings...fear, anger, sadness, self-pity,  anxiety, pride, envy, jealousy, silent scorn, etc....are ego's self-protective shield. There. That is the shield we must shuck. 

That is the block that stands between our soul and our experiencing peace, love and joy...that is, God's presence...which invites our love and laughter out into the sun.

To our reasoning mind's eye, the path through looks daunting for it sees that we must walk through our very fear and all its companions to reach daybreak...and, who's kidding whom, there is no guarantee that daybreak is going to offer the sunshine and roses we want. 

Ah, and it is not! For we cannot want all that God has to offer. It is beyond our reasoning mind's ability to imagine all that God is, and that is therefore ours.

The pearl of great price is another paradox: It is our ego's defense that is God calling! We resist it not, but walk forward welcoming it with our thank you prayer in peaceful trust that it is God calling us home to God. 

Thank you.

CLING TO NOTHING...FLY!

[The following is a reprint of my post of February 10, 2017.]

I am convinced that it takes deep suffering (or sublime unearned joy) to find our tenderest place. I am convinced, too, that our tenderest place is God's hidey hole which is unattainable by our own self-will. Not that self-will is a bad thing...it's necessary if we want to live a reasonably orderly, fairly comfortable life. But self-will alone will not get us peace of mind...or happiness for very long.

It is through our deep suffering/sublime joy, that some few experience transformation. That transformation is particularly paradoxical in that the desire to avoid suffering is obvious, but the nature of unearned joy is our very ignorance of it. It is paradoxical in that the end result of both is our personal transformation.

It is in that tenderest place within, God's hidey hole, that our resistance and our ignorance are transmuted, and we are transformed. In that transformation we are lifted out of self-consciousness...concern, protection...into other-consciousness. Just as hurt people hurt people, transformed people transform people.

It is in other-consciousness that we are set free...free to be unselfed for the benefit of others.

Thank you.

PRACTICE A GENEROSITY OF SPIRIT

Per the Dalai Lama, In fact, taking care of others, helping others, ultimately is the way to discover your own joy and to have a happy life. That's not all, to practice a generosity of spirit is the way to peace.

I believe that...more precisely, I accept it for truth because, who's kidding whom, it was said by the Dalai Lama when he was meeting with Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Even if I doubted it, I wouldn't admit it. 

My pleasant surprise is that I want to believe it. I want it to be true. I just doubt my ability to do it. 

Ah-ha! There it is...I self-doubt often upon reading or hearing of a spiritually beautiful practice that requires me not to think but to do. Even when I am doing...imperfectly, but unconsciously trying. Maybe especially then.

Now there's a comfort. Imagine that...that is comforting to me. It suggests (or I choose to believe) that is my human condition. I usually do self-doubt first, but grace and gratitude scoots right out there, cutting ego off...usually with a laugh. Nothing damps down ego like laughter. Wrapped in love.

That is not ours to do...that is ours to accept: The Father doeth the work. Ah. we've come full circle.

Thank you.

DIE TO OUR OWN WILL AND LIVE FREE

Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. -- Eckhart Tolle

Aren't those words comforting? Um, comforting until we get specific with our experiences. Even my ego Lucy blushes in memory at a few of my own experiences.

Admittedly, I came late to learning all the experiences of my life originated with me...no matter whose name I had chosen for the blame. My personal motto for too long was: Having someone to blame is perfect peace. Laughing all the while but ever so serious deep down.

The comfort that comes with seeking spiritual answers is the release that comes from no longer seeking ego-victory answers. It is in that very release that we make our U-bie, away from self-determined objectives toward the perfect objective which is of God.

We realize we are on the right track, heading in the right direction, when we can laugh at our puny blame-and-shame games...and then tell others. There...the beginnings of a certain sense of humility is sharing our shame without shame, or at least without justifying. That is righteous.

Ah, but we cannot get there on our own well-paved road of analyzing, prettifying, scapegoating, or, interestingly the worst, by piling excess dirt on our own self. We only get to atone for the dirt we played in...dirt into mud is Lucy horning in on God.

We die to our own will and enter the present moment by consenting to whatever it is, either by accepting it or doing something that the Spirit suggests to improve the situation. -- Fr. Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," November 28, 1918

Thank you.

PLEASE, HOW MAY I HELP?

Ah, the peaceful power of truth. From the ether this morning came the reminder that personal miracles are taking place within us right Now. Right this very minute. Just because we do not know that, or more especially, do not feel it, does not negate it.

Miracles do not, cannot, take place tomorrow...like God, they can only be here and now. It is our reasoning mind that holds the recognition back. I suspect that's for the same reason Jesus said he couldn't let us in on everything all at once, we'd miss the message if he did. (Ahem...paraphrasing.)

It is a comfort to be reminded that just because we do not have conscious awareness of the fix to our problem du jour does not mean the problem isn't already lifted. The clarification just hasn't come to surface yet.

The ever-ready solution to our mind in turmoil is to turn our focus from the turmoil, i.e., our belief in the problem, pray our thank you, then step out in the grace of gratitude.

I am reminded of President Kennedy's message: Ask not what your country can do for you...ask what you can do for your country. We need ask not what God can do for us, but ask what we can do for any one of God's children.

Thank you.

SLOW DOWN, JUST SLOW DOWN

The notes I've made in my "God Calling" tell my story...keep me honest with myself, actually.

This morning I see my today, November 26, page filled by year with one less-than-wonderful after another. In 1980 it was an apparently disastrous wreck movers made of my apartment that I would need to pay for; in 1985 it was job, car, friends; my first beloved pet Ari and my wonderful boss both went back to Heaven on the same day in 1989; 1990 brought the threat by the IRS of default.

The good news is that in 1992, I could look back and write: God was in each of those...all those outers were wiped clean.

Hoo boy, do I need that reminder right now! I'm dealing with a serious ear infection today (with the real possibility of lancing) and the completion of my implant surgery next week...after four months of healing.

By all that's reasonable, wouldn't one think if an ear infection was needed, it would have come two months ago? Or two months from now? Because, who's kidding whom, no one is going to slice and dice in my mouth with an ear infection rampaging in my head. And I've waited FOUR months, Lord, not to get pushy about it.

Slow down, bring it around. The most spiritual thing you're ever going to do is slow down. That truth  just traveled back to me from some 45 or 46 years ago. Just as I needed it then.

A gift of spiritual growth is learning to look through God's eyes. We know beforehand that good will come from this...good for our own self personally. Ear infections and implants and hangnails and cancer...they are all outers, each with the possibility of death or dingus. Our certainty is in the fact that each can and will be wiped clean...by no way possible to just thinking about it.

I do believe, Lord, help me my unbelief.

Thank you.

JUST ANOTHER SIMPLE, NOT EASY

When My disciple sees My purpose ahead, that very sight is the power that clears away every obstacle along that range of vision....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 14

We learn this truth daily. If we have gut-bucket want-to in our search to know and to do God's will, we relearn it as often as needed...probably until three days after we're dead.

Of course, the hidden key is there has to be a recognition of an Infinite Invisible...there has to be an inner realization of that Presence.

As Joel Goldsmith so aptly put it, Now comes the part that makes the "belly bitter"...the living of these truths. To begin, we cease our relentless efforts to help God do our will and start...ceaselessly...praying our Thank You.

Thank you.

NOBODY CAN BE LEFT OUT

 Unless we can find a meaning for human suffering, that God is somehow in it and can also use it for good, humanity is in major trouble. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," October 17, 2018.

I was gifted very early in my spiritually awakened life with the realization that there is a measure of good in everything. My job, if I ever hoped to be free of me to any degree at all, was to search for that sliver of gold whenever ugly came my way.

Even better, when good came my way, I learned to go beneath the Wow, I Just Got Mine in order to find not mine, but God's. Which, without fail, was inclusive of others.

It's comforting to me to think that any good coming to me, flows through me, and includes all...same goes for you. And them...especially the lessers we are subconsciously looking down on right this very minute. Nobody can be left out.

We get Ours in a more perfect world.

Thank you.

GOD'S WILL TRANSLATED

Ask what you will and it shall be done unto you. --  John 15:7

My understanding of that quote is ever expanding...to me today what that promise implies and how it results are polar opposites. Face it, in our walking-around world, our wants are ego-generated no matter how pretty we dress them up. However, at the next few levels up, i.e., where we're aiming, our wants are transmuted into our needs and needs are universal...each impacts all.

Plain speaking: We may get exactly what we asked for...ah, but not to our naked eye. There it is, Whaa? This isn't even close to what I asked for. 

To ask what we will is going to be all about me, me, me, but, coming from God, the being done unto us has to encompass All. Specifically, God's fulfillment of our will impacts God's world. To me, an apt analogy is the air moved by a butterfly winging it in Africa will eventually impact air movement in Ohio. God's perfect will for me impacts God's perfect will for you, for Sylvia Schloppenhaufer in Germany, for Yoe Fong in China, et al.

Still, when I again come to ask what you will and it shall be done unto you, immediately I think Money! Romance! Safety! And in that order. Haven't risen above myself yet no matter what Lucy's whispering.

Thank you.

HAVE A ME-FREE THANKSGIVING!

Mark 9:23-24 New King James Version (NKJV):
23 Jesus said to him, “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.”
24 Immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!”

That may well be the teeny-tiny part of the Bible that I heard in passing one day that turned me around. It electrified me...made me whole as Tennessee Ernie sings in the song, "When God Dips His Love in My Heart."

The electrifying part to me is the father of the child is talking face-to-face with Jesus and is owning up to his unbelief! That alone gave me permission to start speaking my truth to God. By start I mean a bare puny pitiful beginning, assuring God all the while that being a lowlife, I knew nothing, less than nothing, etc., etc., etc., trying to curry his favor by my fancied humility, I reckon. 

Mock it I may, but it worked. That poor, pitiful beginning started me on the right path, going in the right direction...speaking my truth to God. Think about it: How else do we open our heart, our soul, our body, our brain to God but by telling our deepest truth? And, who's kidding whom, that's usually our deepest fear.

I don't use it often, but my end-of-my-rope line to God is: You got the power...use it for Heavens' sake! That doesn't cause God to do anything he hadn't planned to do, but it breaks my hold on my own idea of what I want, mistaking it for what I need. Plus, that's when often I feel God's hug...or God laughing. Both or either...the pearl beyond price. Ah, then I can walk free of me.

Now, let's all have a Me-Free Thanksgiving!

Thank you.

TEACH ME TO ADORE EVERYTHING

Fr. Richard Rohr has written that we shouldn’t try to get rid of our own pain until we’ve learned what it has to teach. My ego Lucy will have none of that...to be rid of pain is Lucy's primary goal. Face it, her motto is perfect peace is having someone to blame which sets her go-to fix, namely, finding someone to blame.

That is the very nut of our daily boondoggle...seeking still more spiritual growth and trying to find someone to blame both at the same time. See the problem? See where we live? Pretty much describes life on our little piece of earth, doesn't it?

Rohr has also written that it is our ego that insists on understanding. Why is that a surprise? Probably because understanding has been our stated goal for coming to agreement with 'Rude when s/he is wrong. Ah, but both sides...ego-victory and God-induced...are on point here.

Like life itself, we get to choose which path we're going to walk. Seeking to understand in order to get control, or seeking to understand to come to agreement and thus to love? On paper, that's pretty much like my budget...I can save big bucks on paper just as I can love, laugh, dance and be happy in my journal.

Good news...there is nothing wrong with that. That is the process. That is heading in the right direction. Aiming our self in the right direction and miss-stepping, then getting back on track, and doing it all over again...more than a couple times...is life on life's terms.

That's the nature of life's boondoggle and ego's insistence on understanding (resistance to giving over, giving up, giving in, i.e., God). We see this, we accept this, we make peace with this...we pray our Thank You.

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. . . .  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, p 112.

Thank you.

LOVE AND LAUGH...THEN MOVE ON

As I pondered this morning just how one does grieve alienation from community, I was led again to my "God Calling." There was...is...my answer: Learn to know Me more and more and in that Knowledge you will have all the answers you need.

That is the forever answer. To our ever-questing mind.

Our here-on-earth quest is for certain sure, period. Our answer is ever nebulous...answers like, love and laugh and love more or love is in the problem, find it and be at peace. Drives the reasoning mind bat-blank crazy.

It takes a boatload, and then some, of hitting the crazy wall before we get a glimmer. And there it is, there's our sliver of gold...bat-blank crazy is the end of the line. That's our drop kick me, Jesus, through the goalposts of life moment. When we've given up all hope of figuring it out, fixing it, getting it right...that which we strive for so dearly...we are at surrender. Beaten by our own self unto acceptance.

Without surrender we could not come to the best part of our story. Which starts with our getting a clue: We cannot do this. Not on our own, not by our own efforts, and for sure not by our best thinking. It's that best thinking of ours that leads us right back to crazy. There's the proverbial circular firing squad.

Without surrender we would continue to try...and we often do try, but the trip is way shorter now. And, face it, that's how we learn to laugh at our own self...and to love us anyway.

Big reveal...the answer really is love is in the problem, find it and be at peace. Our need is to find agreement with whatever or whomever we are resisting. No matter how slender the point of agreement (ah, that sliver of gold), that agreement must needs become our focus. We turn away from our own set-in-concrete opinion and open our mind to the other's opinion as having possibility.

Which answers my morning's question of just how one does grieve alienation from community. We find our  part in the alienation...i.e., we cease justifying ours...and seek through praise to understand at least some part of the other side of the story.

We say often that more will be revealed. There it is...we cease finding a reason to fight and seek to understand. Then we can love and laugh freely, knowing more will be revealed.

Love, laugh, repeat.

Thank you.

ON THE ALIENATION FROM COMMUNITY

Grief strips us. According to the mystics, this is good news. Because it is only when we are naked that we can have union with the Beloved. * * * Few among us would ever opt for the narrow gate of grief, even if it were guaranteed to lead us to God. But if our most profound losses—the death of a loved one, the ending of a marriage or a career, catastrophic disease or alienation from community—bring us to our knees before that threshold, we might as well enter. The Beloved might be waiting in the next room. -- Mirabai Starr (from this morning's Rohr Meditation)

All the words we read that bring us understanding to the brink of enlightenment (we think) are just words. We really truly must experience the death of a loved one or alienation from community...experience unto rending of garments and gnashing of teach. Before God and everybody...our worst fear come to be.

I have experienced both of those this past year, death of a beloved and alienation from community, and I have spent great effort in acknowledging the pain...thus, to my reasoning mind, making it understandable. In short, I'm seeing, null and void. 

In reading Mirabai Starr this morning, I recognized that my acknowledging the pain was my ego Lucy's way to avoid feeling it. Miranda Lambert's words,  Get a grip, bite your lip...this ain't your Mama's broken heart, flashed through my mind. 

It felt like light slipping through the crack in my shell of self-protection as I read Starr this morning. Grief. Maybe grief is individualized, personalized, new and different and excruciatingly painful each time we are gifted with the experience of it. 

 I have no idea how to grieve from my awakened well of sorrow within. I have cried, I have talked. And talked. And cried. Interestingly, and I suspect, all for my little guy, but not for my alienation from community. 

Whoa! I didn't even know that was up for inspection. Much less grief. The fact I didn't miss it was close enough to perfect for me. But maybe it's not...maybe it's not even on the right path, much less heading in the right direction. Maybe this is the step up of which I know naught. 

This is the hardest part...detaching from my want-to, inviting my needs up and out into the open. It's the hardest part because there's not a snowball's chance I personally can do that. 

The instructions, however, are the same: Pray our thank you, sit and wait on the Lord, love and laugh.

Thank you.

A PURPOSE IN EVERYTHING

There is a purpose in everything. That which we see as resistible, resist not, for its purpose is to lead us to a new understanding...up from ego-vision toward higher ground. That which we see as our personal gift, love it loosely...with an open hand (or mind).

It is natural that we will go through periods when we feel full, complete and loved. Ah, but if that is a period we go through, it is natural to expect there are periods we will go through when we feel left out, alone and fearful.

In the naturally satisfying feeling of being complete and loved, we can relax...pray our thank you and be at peace.

In the naturally unsatisfying feeling of being alone and fearful, we can remember that this, too, is in our behalf...pray our thank you and be still.

There is in everything the makings of the other. Everything good to our naked eye has the makings of not-good in it...and vice versa. 

Hard lesson simplified...what we need do in life is stay our mind on the reality that what we see...whatever we see... is of God. Ours is to find the gold in the dross and feel grateful, or experience the gold that we're seeing and pass it on.

That's us becoming oned. There. That is the purpose in everything. According to me.

Thank you.

EONS IN AN INSTANT

So live with Me in that Kingdom of Joy, My Kingdom, the Gateway into which may be service, it may be suffering. -- "God Calling," November 17

Reading that early on, I remember dreading what "service" I might be called to do...I missed the word "suffering" entirely.  I have come to understand both as gifts...grace intervening in my behalf.

It's a major breakthrough when we grasp the importance of the word "Gateway." It reminds me of I stand at the door and knock. To our reasoning mind, that Gateway holds all our fear: What service? To whom and how? Then, of course, the biggie...suffering, how and how long?

There's the paradox: It is fear that halts us and fear that invites us.

We must hold our nose and take a  leap of faith, that being the only way through the Gateway to live in the Kingdom of Joy. Our resistance is in our thoughts, projecting unknown service and suffering as too much for us to bear...let this cup pass from me.

It is our decision that God makes that pierces our will and our want-to. Being purged of hope...or our own ideas...our ego must crash and burn for us to be freed. This process takes us times without number (remember eons), but each time moves us a little further up the spiritual food chain...up where we belong.

When we realize that all things are possible to God, we've made our U-bie...we're heading Home. (Ah-hem...never forget, eons.)

Thank you.

TO PARDON THE UNPARDONABLE

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

There. That's the shortcut answer to our problem du jour. Spiritual answers seem to cut and run when needed most...meaning when our ego is in charge. But don't most spiritual answers to daily problems boil down to just that: Have a problem? Don't even start, the solution is: I am.

Keeping it simple, stick with Chesterton:

Loving means to love that which is unlovable,

Or it is no virtue at all.

Forgiving means to pardon the unpardonable,

Faith means believing the unbelievable,

And hoping means to hope when things are hopeless.

-- G. K. Chesterton

We're on the right track, going in the right direction when we're seeking to give over, give up, give in. Ah, that to which our ego-victory mind will ever resist. What's the problem? I am. Which puts the lie to the current explanation for today's problems being "our darker angels." According to me, it is not  dark angels...it's our ego, plain and simple.  

Again, what's the problem? Again, I am.

Thank you.

ACCORDING TO ME

It has long been my belief that we keep coming back until we get it right...we're talking eons.

We never get it right, as such...it is right. Who we are is who we are meant to be, only shucked of all our shields. It is the shucking that requires higher help than human thinking, analyzing, pondering. All of which are, apparently, necessary for us to come to that realization.

Maybe The Word in the Sermon (in all spiritual literature for that matter but I stick with my familiar) is all about how to detach from our own self, to realize that our inner Self is all, a molecule comprising Love, i.e., God. Every molecule unique and the same.

Our free will leads us on our path, and it is a life-changing event...usually horrific, sometimes wondrous...that forms the U-turn that heads us back Home. 

Every pebble on our path is many-sided. We must experience each of those sides until we know each as our gift from God...not by our making it so, but by realizing it. That is the eons part...self, driven by ego, does not let go easily no matter how pretty we make God in our mind.

Our life's Easter egg hunt is our search for God within us, without us...which we slowly come to learn on the hunt requires that we give up the hunt. 

He is here. He is here Now...closer than breathing. To realize that unto acceptance is to detach from any idea about it. That's why we must needs start Now in giving over, giving up, giving in. Again, eons.

Sit and wait on the Lord...patiently. (My version of Psalm 37.7.)

Thank you.

THE FATHER AND I ARE ONE

Blinding flash of the obvious: Oneness cannot be Oneness if it only exists spiritually. There is ever the quality of Oneness within us, without us...mentally and spiritually.

I have tended to think of Oneness, being One with the universe, as a purely spiritual goal to reach...something to attain someday by grace and by God.

The picture popped this morning of me as Lucy With The Football, lording it over the schnook who always falls for my ploy. At one and the same time, I saw me as poor, pitiful Charlie Brown, the schnook who falls for it every time. I felt equally Lucy's glory mingled with Charlie's shame. And I knew this for Oneness on the material plane.

I wonder if Oneness exists on the material plane without striving, seeking, praying, then isn't my seeking for it only on the spiritual plane me going in the wrong direction? Must they not meld?

Ah, experiencing my Lucy/Charlie moments requires my turning to my Father in that moment. Right then and there is the marriage of material and spiritual when I realize my need of  his spiritual view, when I know again that my reasoning mind cannot get me there.

Still more spiritual growth, then, is the same-old-same-old: Not all on our own to experience anything but for our perspective to ever be lifted up...turned around...turned over to our Father to be righted.

Thank you.

OUR DIFFICULTIES ARE OUR BLESSINGS

Take away my difficulties that victory over them may bear witness to others of Your love, Your power and Your way of life. -- Anonymous, lifted and interpreted by me for me.

It is in looking back that we realize our own experience with that very line. We can see that our difficulties are not taken away, as such, they are transmuted. 

More often than not (when we've had a what's-best-for-me result in mind), to our egoic eye, it may look and feel as if our Father has ignored our prayer, abandoned us even. Ah, but...blinding flash of the obvious...our walking through those difficulties by grace and by God is the witness that is the benefit to others and to our self. 

The benefit can come clearly...a gift from God...but, who's kidding whom, it usually comes disguised and often more obvious to others first than to our self. 

The natural fact is that others are seeing our ego deflation and how we walk with and through it. That is their bennie. We, however, are feeling our ego deflation. That we turn quickly from that feeling to our sliver of gold in it is our bennie. Our feelings, linked with our ego, will dictate for as long as we let them.

The lesson in seeking still more spiritual growth is that there is always still more spiritual growth to seek. 

Thank you.

WE GET NOT AROUND OUR FEAR BUT THROUGH

In a recent conversation with a friend concerning a friend's passing, we were regretting that our friend was so resistant at the end. We were a tish critical of him and were consciously seeking to understand rather than judge.

We were blessed with the realization that none of us get to choose exactly how we go out...even a suicide cannot foretell the last thought s/he may experience. The karmic possibility is their last mental flash may be the perfect solution to the perceived problem that led them to opt for suicide.

We may seriously and sincerely believe that, our goal having long been for still more spiritual growth, we are immune from dying angry. Then at the moment of death, we flash on the old, we thought forgiven, unfair punishment we got when we were ten and there it is: We mentally go out kicking, carping and crying.

We do know that obsessively trying to guard against (or pull for) anything opposes the will of God. The singular desire to ensure that we won't die angry may well be in opposition to a known-only-to-God beneficial reason that we need to die less than happy. It is, after all, just our own idea of happy that we're holding to.

We oppose the will of God at our own peril, and not from God's punishment but from our own ego's vengeance. The answer still, yet, again: Love and laugh. Which is the only possible way around, i.e., through, our woes.

Since this will take a lot of time and concentrated effort, best start packing now. In honor of Veteran's Day, pack up your troubles in your old kit bag and smile, smile, smile.

God loves us sooo much.

Thank you.

THE NEED FOR HUMANS...LOVE AND LAUGHTER

Ramblings in my quiet time:

The only purpose for my ego, Lucy With the Football, is to get God to kick the football. It is Lucy who ever goes for it and winds up on her back with mud on her face. Ah, there it is: The mirror image of God again. What we go for, our self-determined objective, and what we get, God's will,  are the same only with an opposite end view.

God made all things...all there is, was, ever will be...made by  God. God made all living things, plants, animals, fishes, insects, oceans, earth, et al., to be in perfect harmony in order to maintain the universe. 

Then God made humans. I'm guessing he made us to keep himself on his toes proving love is always the answer no matter the perception. That required him to bring in laughter for to be love's emery board to smooth and straighten the way. It is God's love and laughter that go before us to make the crooked places straight. 

God knew if it weren't for humans, he'd have no laughs at all...and there goes the universe.

Thank you.

MOVE ON...GOD'S ALREADY PERFECTED US

It is not wholly a mistake to go to God in prayer seeking to get a self-determined objective...how else do we come to complete defeat? Going to God in prayer for any reason at least heads us in the right direction.

Our problem, of course, is refusing to accept that we're going in the wrong direction. That God's answer was I've already got that covered, move on, or Ain't no way, Babe, move on. However we hear God, the most important words there are move on.

Continuing to pray for our objective...refusing to budge because we don't agree with any reason given us...is ego-driven self-will at its hairiest, which, and we can count on it, opposes the will of God.

We depend on our own rational mind, and, in general, rightly so in daily living, but it is holding to that reasoning mind for our security that is the source of our insecurity, i.e., our fear.

At some point in our life, we must hold our nose and take a leap of faith. And then become willing to do it again...repeatedly. There. That is one leg of the path leading us on to a life well-lived by seeking still more spiritual growth...till three days after we're dead.

Thank you.

THERE WILL BE PEACE IN THE VALLEY

Yea. though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I shall fear no evil...for the Father within...unseeable, unhearable, invisible in a word... is with us (I AM that I AM). The more we try to ward off evil, or fear in any guise, the more fear takes hold of us. 

It is our failure to defeat our own fear that brings us to bitter hopelessness...ah, but it is that personal inability that opens the door for our glory, the Father within, to flow forth to do its perfect work. It is that complete defeat that shucks our shields and allows the grace of our Father to bring us peace, the ever-present universal peace. 

According to me, universal peace is for me and for thee both at the same time for he is within me/without me, within thee/without thee ever and always..

Yea. though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I shall fear no evil...and I am grateful.

Thank you.

ON ACCEPTING OUR SELF...OUR FEELINGS

People who do not feel deeply finally do not know or love deeply either. It is the price we pay for loving. Like Job we must be willing to feel our emotions and come to grips with the mystery in our head, our heart, and, yes, our body too. To be honest, that takes our entire life. My emotions are still a mystery to me, and without contemplation they would control me.   Fr. Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," July 9, 2013

It took awhile for me to realize, then to accept, that I do feel deeply, that I have, in fact, an empathetic soul. 

My inner work came in seeking help in divorcing my spiritually empathetic self from my strong egoic opinions. I tended toward the dogmatic, not to put too fine a point on it. Which too often led to coulda, woulda, shoulda at 3:00 AM.

I sought God's help...and here she came. I was blessed with a friend at work who would not state a simple fact without qualifying it forty ways from Sunday, then apologizing for it after the fact. She refused to state a preference for a place to eat lunch. "Anywhere" is not a diner. Mercy. They kid not when they say be careful what you pray for.

To state the obvious, I mentally judged her endlessly and, who's kidding whom, mental judgment is silent scorn...not acceptable. Clearly, I needed to change my ways.

I was forced by my own conscience to start blessing my thoughts about her. I was opened to the real goodness in her. The added-on pearl is I found permission to be me in that I'd much rather be opinionated than wishy-washy...and for sure I am.

With a little help from my mentor, my friends and God, I toned me down as needed...and the friend moved to New York. Don't tell me God doesn't have a sense of humor.

Thank  you.

FINDING THE GOLD IN NONRESISTANCE

It comes to me as I sit in my quiet this morning that thy rod and thy staff are my self-determined objectives...they comfort me is the gold I must needs seek when my objectives turn to dross.

Generally, our self-determined objectives are rooted in egoic wants...also generally they go awry with us left holding the poop bag. Ah, that's our ego's rues, regrets and remorses aborning. We quick turn our thoughts from self to spiritual and seek until we find the sliver of gold there that comforts us.

Sidebar: We go with the word gold which is, of course God, but we never know when talking with a newbie to us if the very word God is verboten to them. Since, who's kidding whom, gold is rarely verboten to any of us, spiritual or not, we cut down resistance.

And absolutely apropos of nothing: With the last couple elections as my yardstick, I suspect that yesterday's election results will be rued by the winners and praised by the losers in the long run. So, winners, don't get too up, and losers, don't get too down...all is well. 

Thank you.

TO DO FOR THE GLORY OF GOD

Idle thought: Nothing of God is ever wasted. All the prayers that we pray, all the spiritual axioms that we quote, we think if we are not consciously doing them even as we breathe, then they are just pretty words signifying nothing. No. They may well be falling on just one pair of ears that needs to hear, ready and waiting to get the word that will take root there and grow. And flow out to another in need of hearing them. In order to grow and flow.

Another idle thought: Our rational mind looks at Jesus being vilified and replying naught...which led to his crucifixion. My ego Lucy thinks he did it wrong...in ego's view he should have been avenged, gotten the better of his accusers and rode off to glad Hosannas. Looking good. But he didn't...he did it for the glory of God, not for self. And the glory of God has come down from that moment to this through the consciousness of the Christ...which we get to choose. Until we choose, we lose.

And another: The egoic mind's idea of love is to accept others without question...kinda like a child hugging a teddy bear...any teddy bear, they're all the same to a child. What the ego fails to realize or accept is that the love of God is imbued with respect, and there is our hard lesson a-learning...how to love all with respect.

Extreme example: Take, say, a rattlesnake or just anyone who will not hear us...we've learned that we must love all, but how? Ah, love starts with our respect for the other and for who and what they are. Neither a rattlesnake nor the non-hearer is for hugging, but they, like you and me, are loved by God.

We go to God for God which opens the love in our heart that needs naught but to flow out...and we walk on in peace.

The work of spirituality is constant detachment from ourselves...our conditioning, preferences, and knee-jerk reactions. -- Fr. Richard Rohr

Thank you.

COMPREHENDING THE NATURE OF LOVE

Our supposed logic has to break down before we can comprehend the nature of the universe and the bare beginnings of the nature of God. -- Fr.  Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," September 11, 2018

My yesterday's post of my newly found focus to realize President Trump's intense need and desire as the same as Saul of Tarsus' intense need and desire has been flittering through my thoughts. I suspect that is why I was led to the above quote of Fr. Rohr.

Without my thinking, or my permission for that matter, my logic is apparently being broken down. My rational mind does not see any possibility of giving over, giving up, giving in to President Trump's behavior. Ah, and there's my ego Lucy doing my thinking for me...pulling up the wrong that logically should be resisted when just this morning my BFO told me peaceful nonresistance is love.

I note and give thanks that Fr. Rohr's quote says our supposed logic has to break down before we can comprehend the bare beginnings of the nature of God...for it is certain sure that my desire for a realization of love toward President Trump or his behavior is going to be a hard slog.

And God grins...just another ego begging to be broken.

Thank you.

OPEN MY EYES THAT I MAY SEE...THEE

 My own notes in my "God Calling" on November 4 tell my story:
 2008 - President Obama! Thank you, Jesus! Amen
2014 - Republican tsunami
2017 - Trump -- 'there is a crack in everything'

Then, not in my notes but from this morning's "Daily Meditation" of Fr. Richard Rohr: The great and, for some, disappointing surprise is that many people who are not at all correct are the most connected by reason of their intense need and desire.  With my added note: TRUMP??

My newly found focus is to realize President Trump's intense need and desire as the same as Saul of Tarsus' intense need and desire. Importantly, neither of whom were aware their need and desire was for God...but God did.

There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in. -- Leonard Cohen's "Anthem"
 
Thank you.

THE SHORTCUT: DECIDE FOR GOD

Releasing the love that is sealed up within us is the journey.

In the moment of need, of unknowing, releasing love feels tricky because our reasoning mind is ever selecting the right way to show love. Is this love or is it ego-victory? Is this love or enabling? Love or self-aggrandizement?

Here's a metaphysical speculation that came to me (at 3:00 AM, so....):

Say, we're trying to help a beloved friend in need. Our beloved lost a leg...and the loss was apparently through our own carelessness. He refuses to use a wheelchair...or crutches...or a cane even, all the while she remains beloved but with a boatload of guilt added on.

Do we carry him, going to extraordinary lengths to get him wherever he needs to go? The lost leg was after all on us.

Or do we find a place to put her to be taken care of properly...against her vehement wishes, not to mention her inability to pay? The lost leg was after all on us.

It is the end result of all our questioning that proves our awakening. It is the end result that begins with our decision...the fork in the road of still more spiritual growth...that leads to the discovery that all roads lead to God.

The Decision: Do we go with God (He goes before us to make the crooked places straight), i.e., do we trust God and carry our friend? Or do we go with self (which is ego hidden in denial), i.e., do we accept the apparent reality and rely on our best efforts to get her help?

In other words, do we rely on our untested core of love which will give God the opportunity and the glory, or do we rely on our own self which will give us the credit, knowing we will have carry-over  guilt for a time?

And there it is...the unseen trick our ego will ever play in order to feel the winner: Upfront, we know neither how long guilt for a time may last, nor how deep that guilt may claw...be assured, though we know not the day or the hour, in the end denial will go down in defeat.

I'm convinced either way spiritual growth comes out the winner. Both ways take a looong time, but going with God first is a smoother ride...we learn the art of nonresistance...and we find peace.

Going with self is denial...a long and often misery-packed trudge down to crash-and-burn...where we are woke by a Higher Power, the God of our own understanding...and we find peace.

Gratefully, we realize that all roads do lead to God.

Thank you.

THE HARD...WHOLLY SPIRITUAL...JOURNEY

My morning BFO: In my heart, I seek nothing but the love that I have for God for that is the love given me by God before conception...indeed is implanted within me, you, them before conception until after death when it is returned for reuse at rebirth.

I suspect the big block to knowing love, actually realizing love within us without us, is we think of love as such an intimate act. Personal. Not to be openly expressed.

It is often mistaken by lust. Probably too often in our younger days; i.e., up to and including 60...well, 70...or, who's kidding whom, older if we're lucky.

I suspect it is the personal sense of self that love connotes that causes us pause in stating love openly...except about inanimate items, maybe. As in, love that dress. hairdo, car! Or when speaking of guaranteed lovables...babies, puppies, kittens. Can't go wrong there. Even while they are peeing in our lap.

It is a hard journey, because it is wholly spiritual, detaching from our personal sense of love even as we consciously seek our God-gift of love.

Too often we force the outward response, while the inward intent remains like a cancer. *** We cannot afford even inner disconnection from love. *** In Matthew 5:44, Jesus insists that we love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. -- Fr. Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," October 30, 2018

And there it is: Love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us...that is the essence of our hard journey, for what that asks is that we get over our own self.

Hard, ain't it hard, Lord, loving you...so cries my ego, Lucy With the Football.

Thank you.

AN INDOMITABLE BELIEF

...real faith is the prayer that is so sure of a glad response.... "God Calling," November 1

After my rant of yesterday, I found in my "God Calling" this BFO, dated one year ago: Love is acceptance of everything...resistance to nothing. There. To me, that is proof that God is our teacher, and he pays close attention to our every thought...our every inclination. And corrects us as needed.

Love being acceptance of everything, resistance to nothing, seems to be the place where Etty Hillesum lived her last years in Nazi Germany.  It is what her writings show forth as she lived in hiding, then in concentration camps, and certainly as she was crammed into the train going to Auschwitz.

Hillesum is my idea of a walking around saint. She lived that new way of thinking, on a higher plane deeper within, and she wrote it down for us to learn from. To learn that it is not only possible but preferable, no matter the outer conditions, to live not resigned, but accepting...and grateful. I doubt not that she felt fear, great fear in such horrifically fearsome conditions, but her journals prove her indomitable belief in the higher good. 

I am glad Lucy ran loose yesterday...that led to my appreciation for Etty this morning, and how I need to continue going for the higher good.

It occurs to me that whenever in our life that we have done a good and decent thing, we need to ponder that. There have  been innumerable acts of good and decent things done for us that we have not even noticed or did notice, even appreciated, and may have forgotten. We can let those things remain with the givers of the goodness to remember.

We must needs hold our acts of kindness dear for they are not of us. They are our proof that the Father within is on the job.

Thank you.

DOG...GOD SPELLED BACKWARDS

...for it is in self-forgetting that we find.  Ah, therein hides the secret of the ages. For what are we looking to find? If not self-forgetting, i.e., God, then we search in vain. According to me.

Further, according to me, in my perfect world, doctor-scientists would stop with the seeking, researching...spending!...to find ways for us old people to live longer. Why not start searching  ways for dogs (cats, too) to live longer? Face it, 15 years is a long time for a dog to live, but it's the equivalent of 15 minutes to us older folk.

Not only that, since I'm on a rant, I may not wholly believe but I do not doubt that seeking for ways to extend the life of seniors is fear on two levels: for the scientists, it's fear of failure...not being good enough in their profession ("good enough" equals garnering profit  and glory for all the world to see); for the elderly, it's fear of dying...that scary unknowable.

Or, it may be that I'm catching too much News-of-the-Day. The possibility is proof that I need a dog to hug.

Thank you.

LOVE IS THE ANSWER...THE ONLY ANSWER

According to the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) our inner attitudes and states are the real sources of our problems. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," October 30, 2018

I am grateful my spiritual life started with the instruction to have...to build if you will...the God of my own understanding. I was fairly broken at the time so I was blessed to be advised to find and stay with one source for my primary guide in seeking my own...then I could remain open to other spiritual material...if it enhanced my primary guide, incorporate it.

I chose the Sermon on the Mount...I tend to believe the Sermon chose me. Gratefully, I have learned from the Buddha, Kris Kristofferson, Brother Lawrence, Chief Joseph. The list is all but endless, but at the top, ah, I continue to learn from F.X., my mentor, my love, who speaks the Sermon, but in my language, a tish profane but always with love.  

I have become convinced that the primary source of all my woes is my inability...no, I am able, it's my ego-victory refusal...to tame my attack mind. That's what clicked when I read Rohr this morning, for I have come to believe that our inner attitudes and states are the real sources of our problems.

The proof of that is the fact that if we will but change our mind, our problem will go away. I was gifted with a blinding flash of the obvious once awhile back which I am still learning to lean on...upgrade your attitude, upgrade your problem. 

We cannot change our mind, we cannot upgrade our attitude, relying solely on our reasoning mind. Common sense tells us if we believe we are right, we're not going to change our mind...for why? 

We must go beyond reason to love. 

Since love is the answer no matter the question, the problem, the other, we need to find a way to look at our "right" from another angle. To look with the inner desire to find a way not to be wrong but to be in agreement with that which or whom we are opposing. 

Our intellect is our friend here. It takes some serious thinking to come to complete defeat. Just coming to the right answer will not give us peace...that's begrudging, and begrudging is Lucy bitching about it. No. Complete defeat is the changing room in God's hidey hole...the place where we can exchange surrender for acceptance and walk free in love.

Learning to give love in order to accept love is going to God for God...and that is all.

Thank you.

EGO DEMANDS vs. GOD'S WILL

I was told at the very first retreat I ever attended that truth must be proved. I had just begun to understand that Truth, with a capital T, was not precisely the same as the truth we need tell when we'd rather CYA...as in, blame, shame and split.

My understanding is that Truth must be proved else we are into magic thinking. The measure of the Truth we have proved is demonstrated by our life and how we live it, not by our thinking it so or by telling others it is so...if any telling need be done, others tell us it is so by what they see in us.

It seems to me that proving Truth pretty much boils down to going against our ego's dictates...those wants of ours that are self-based and usually all dressed up, looking spiffy (which to ego is spiritual growth or close enough).

Recently my frenemy Gertrude made an unwanted demand of me...already we know where I'm going here. I had the devil's own time divorcing myself from my instant decision to set her straight, to do the exact opposite, to flip her the bird,  to split, saying nothing but never ever going near her again.  All that in a heartbeat.

End result, after some arm-wrestling with God, I did what Gertrude demanded without hassling her, which means without giving Lucy airtime.

Here's the surprising punchline: I've found myself belittling my efforts. Thinking because I didn't immediately soar above Lucy's demands...or not have had them to begin with...that there was no positive here or the result was negligible.

As I went into my quiet time this morning, I was gifted with the thought of Saint Paul saying (something like) don't hassle yourself with self-described uglies, think on the good; there's nothing not wonderful in your life that doesn't have some good in it...find the good and think on those things.

I'm taking that as permission to realize my decision to turn from Lucy's wants (the dross) to God's will (the gold) as proof of Truth in my life.

I pray that my life may be a demonstration of what the grace of God can do. -- Anonymous

Thank you.