MY DREAM REVISITED...YET AGAIN

[The following is a reprint of my blog of October 14, 2008, slightly reworked .]

I dreamed recently of my grandparents’ home in Kentucky. I had gone to visit but they were away. It seems that I stayed for a very long time.

The house had everything except an indoor bathroom. There was, however, an outhouse way back of their home. I made it my job to put it in pristine condition…I white-washed it, I put fresh lye down every day or so, I made little lace curtains to cover the half-moon hole in the door. It wanted for nothing.

Upon my grandparents return,  my grandmother asked how I liked their beautiful bathroom…with which, she opened a door I had not noticed. There was a spectacular modern bath. She said it had “always” been there that I just hadn’t looked for it.

When I awoke, I thought about my dream, and I realized it was all about my Father within. My God who is ever with me, never needing anything to be added unto Him.

I get so caught up in looking “out there,” in search of the perfect Something...person, book, talisman...to change me, make me more, better, different…maybe simply acceptable. Landing on first this, then that…like my pretty outhouse, façade is everything…make it prettier, more admirable…uh-oh, not right, not good enough, start again.

All I need do is look right here, right where I Am…go into the silence and give over to the God of my understanding who is already here, here in my heart, my Soul.

Thank you.

WHEN YOU KNOW AND YOU KNOW YOU KNOW

The following came to me early this morning, and I prayed my thank you for it:

Today I make my conscious decision to remain "young" - I realize that I have begun preparing to be a sagging, failing, penny-pinching, lonely, forgetful-unto-dementia, hag. I do not choose that. I choose the way of the Lord...loving and laughing within and without, whatever comes. I picture naught but me showering love and laughter...because I choose it. Thank you.

Then I read the following and whoa! That is the message...entirely. It is an extract from Barbara Brown Taylor, an author and Episcopal priest, who wrote of her spiritual journey in her book Leaving Church:

 ,,,finders will be losers while those who lose their lives for his sake will wind up finding them again. [Matthew 16:25] 

In Greek the word is psyche, meaning not only “life” but also the conscious self, the personality, the soul. You do not have to die in order to discover the truth of this teaching, in other words. You only need to lose track of who you are, or who you thought you were supposed to be, so that you end up lying flat on the dirt floor basement of your heart. Do this, Jesus says, and you will live. [My emphasis.] 

* * * 
Committing myself to the task of becoming fully human is saving my life now. This is not the same as the job of being human, which came with my birth certificate. To become fully human is something extra, a conscious choice that not everyone makes. Based on my limited wisdom and experience, there is more than one way to do this. If I were a Buddhist, I might do it by taking the bodhisattva vow, and if I were a Jew, I might do it by following Torah. Because I am a Christian, I do it by imitating Christ. . . .

And that, great get-up-and-shout-morning, is exactly what I prayed my thank you for earlier...specifically: I choose the way of the Lord...loving and laughing within and without, whatever comes.

Ah, don't tell me God doesn't have my back.

Thank you.

NOTHING IS EVER WASTED...GET GRATEFUL

Blinding flash of the obvious: Welcome the stigmata...it keeps hands from becoming fists.

It occurs to me that I can call my arthritic hands and feet my stigmata simply as a reminder when I'm mentally carping about the pain that they're doing my spiritual work for me. I have physically never raised a fist at anyone, nor stomped anyone for that matter. Ah, but mentally? A whole 'nother matter.

I am seeing more and more that every judging, "gotcha" snark I think is my raised fist and/or my foot on the face of my nemesis de jour (who is actually my angel in disguise).

It is often a lot harder for me to say me nay (i.e., pray my thank you) than it is to think, worry, fret, stew, curse...and finally condemn...you. When you have not lived up to my high standards for you. Where I am concerned. Where others are concerned, hey, I'm on your side...and comforting.

I'm feeling put upon and my hands are hurting. I suspect that's what invited my memory of the BFO about my fists. God lets nothing go to waste...makes no never mind, arthritis or daffodils, he's on it. That is beyond comforting to me.

Thank you.

WE REALIZE WE ARE HIS OWN

The trouble with intellectual understanding is it seems so much more reliable than spiritual insights. I mean, intellect knows...insight hopes. It takes a boatload of spiritual unlearning to get the inner security of intellect's outer confidence.

It sometimes seems to me that spiritual unlearning basically requires us to just shut up. Especially when another's strong intellect is blathering...to let 'em blather without judging. Which sounds fairly judgmental, who's kidding whom? Already I'm over my own head.

But that's why I know Gertrude as an angel in my life. S/he is blessed with a really big brain and the ability to speak really smart...and I have been graced with silence in that presence. And not silent scorn. Ah, there it is, a miracle with angel wings and halo. Don't tell me God doesn't know my needs.

It is the intellectual understanding, though, that seems to be the springboard to still more spiritual growth if we will let it be. To not get mired in proving even to our own self that what we know from our own experience about our self and others is what we're stuck with...is our truth.

Actually, it is what we get to gives thanks for because it is the key to the hidey-hole of our Father within. And we do not know how. And we do not have a clue what to do. And we feel afraid because we do not know. And we have no control over that fear which feels awesomely awful. And we resist it.

Until we crash and burn. And our Father hugs us and kisses us and tells us we are his own.

And we still do not know how anything, which we've come to realize is our great, stand-up-and-shout awakening. Because we are his own.

Thank you.

WHEN WILL WE EVER LEARN?

[The following is my reworked post of June 5, 2014.]

My angels guard you day and night and nothing can harm you. You would indeed thank Me if you knew the darts of frets and evil they turn from you. ("God Calling," June 5)

Here's a thought, a scenario: What if those unknown "darts of frets and evil" turned from us are our unanswered prayers?

What if our deepest desire, our oh-please-God-please prayer, is the one thing God knows would do us and all we love harm beyond measure?...and he protects us from it by denying it to us?

And what if we were able, through sheer self-will, to get our self-determined objective, overcoming all obstacles, trampling all resistance, we got it? And after we got it, we thanked God and told all that clearly it was God's will because we had overcome so much to get it.

What if it turned to dross a week after we got it? Would we ever think that all our woes were the result of our using our freewill to achieve the result we prayed for?

Of course not.

There's an ego's fine chance that we would choose to take that as proof that there is no God, else he wouldn't have done this to us.

We are the source of all our woes. It may well be that the only thing standing between us and all our gifts is our self-will. If we will turn that self-will over to a power greater than ourselves to do with us, to build of us, as he wills, we can have our chance at peace of mind no matter the whirlwind around us.

Ah, then we can choose to fight no more forever, just like Chief Joseph.

Thank you.

WORST FEAR? WELCOME IT!

In faith, there is no possibility of an uninterrupted success story. The only way you’re going to face your wild beasts and your shadows is by failure and rejection, by people not loving you, by having to learn how to love your [spouse] and your children and those who hurt you—the enemies—those who make you aware of your own incapacity to love. -- Fr. Richard Rohr

I find such comfort in that quote of Rohr's. That which my reasoning mind has ever prayed for is the exact opposite of that which I need. Whose reasoning mind would think to pray for failure and rejection when facing its "wild beasts and shadows?"

Ah, but we don't pray for them...our Father knows our needs...we accept them as they come creeping into our conscious mind. We accept them with grit and knee-knocking courage. Until, through our own experience, we come to believe that these apparent "wild beasts and shadows" are God's will. Then we can...most often...accept them when they first start nibbling at the edges of our mind...before they get an ego-hold. 

We find again the magic of acceptance, and our acceptance is so simple. I'm guessing that's why it takes so long to believe...that a simple "thank you" could be our keys to the kingdom, peace of mind. Who knew? More like, who could accept that without trying it repeatedly unto successfully...say, more than seventy times seven.

It is our own personal success in giving over, giving up, giving in, that convinces us, and it starts and ends with "thank you."

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

Thank you.

WE ARE THE WORK OF THE LORD

I see more deeply this morning that if it be true that what we see is always ourselves (from "The Lazy Man's Guide to Enlightenment"), then the three so-called-by-me banes in my life are each one me. 

Then I read my Rohr meditation, and there, first thing, is the quote: All of us, gazing with unveiled face on the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image that we reflect. This is the work of the Lord who is Spirit. —2 Corinthians 3:18

Seems to me that between the Guide and God, I'm being told the same thing: What we look on with disfavor transforms us into the same image we judge; what we look on through the glory of the Lord transforms us into the same image we adore. 

Why ever, accepting that for true, would I not hold Gertrude 1 as my spiritual initiation angel, Gertrude 2 as my friend through thick, thin and thinner angel, and Gertrude 3 as my peripheral irritant angel? 

They are all angels in disguise, and only my ego-victory Lucy can stay my peace with each... and, for that matter, with all others who scratch my veneer of peace, love and joy. 

This is the work of the Lord who is Spirit. 

Thank you.

DESPERATION...GOD'S PERFECT GIFT

I wonder if God doesn't gift us with a perfect world with every breath we take. The problem is our interpretation of what we see with every breath we take.

It is that teensy-tiny space between seeing and interpreting that needs be upgraded...or surrendered, more like.

If we would practice the art of un-thinking...or not judging?...we wouldn't get stuck trying to change our mind...which we long ago accepted as not possible to us personally. 

Turns out, changing our mind is just another God job...our job is to let go of it so God can do his job which starts out as just so many words...who's kidding whom? We need a whole lotta willingness (a.k.a., desperation), help from our friends, and practice, practice, practice to get the first clue how to just let go and let God. Reminds me of the old slogan about drugs...Just Say No. Uh-huh...'nuf said.

But just say no is the first step toward becoming willing, willing to feel that desperation that we fear.which holds the key...who doesn't hide from the feeling of desperation as long as humanly  possible? But there it is, the golden key to God's hidey-hole. I personally do not believe that our reasoning mind would and will ever get there all on its own. 

Even after hitting desperation, surrendering, and finding our feet on the path toward spiritual growth, we come again and again to the edge of despair. It is our spiritual need that moves us toward, not away from, that despair...feel the fear and do it anyway, we learn. And there it is...the definition of courage, according to me. 

Courage is surrender, trust and faith all together as one.,,surrender of our own idea of the needed outcome, trust that what we have already experienced is still good to go, and faith...knowing by showing that God's will is preferable to our will. 

Thy will, not mine, be done.

Thank you.

TRUTH...OUR LIGHT FROM WITHIN

For those of us who are plodders, we come to "know" truth, but we learn soon enough that truth must be proved. It must be proved by us...individually and personally...otherwise, it's just another wish that we repeat and hope it soon may come true.

The life-problem is that we seldom realize it is being proved daily. It is only in looking back that we can see, or that our reasoning mind can accept, that truth was proved even as we breathed. We did get through that apparent disaster...the disaster did happen, but we emerged not unscathed but changed and changed for the better. There. That is the realization that takes a long time completing in us.

Actually, it just seems to take a long time completing because it is never finished. To me, the proof of that is in a few of my go-to truths: ”I will go before thee, and make the crooked places straight….” (Isa.45:2), ”For He performs the thing that is appointed for me….” (Job.23:14), and "Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more...." (Romans 5:20)

Each of those have proven true in my life, and the great stand-up-and-shout news is they are being true in my life right this very red-hot minute, and I don't even know which or what is being worked out. The good news is that I don't need to know...the best news is I know that and the majority of the time, my mind rests in it. 

Truth not a one-shot deal...it continues to grow and to glow as it lights our life from within. 

Thank you.

WE GO TO GOD FOR GOD

To not judge when being judged may just be the internal test we must pass in order to not personalize...anything.

We learn early enough not to respond in kind to unkindness for that is ego's playground. There is no outcome there. good or bad. There is just the constant obsession to get the better of the other because the other believes s/he got the better of us. And the mental obsession continues no matter if the other moves to China, drops dead or is otherwise removed from our physical presence.

The thought to focus on, and to stay focused on, is that when we say to not judge when being judged we are talking of our own perception of being judged.

Judging another for the negative vibes we think we're getting, naming those vibes (usually what we fear is true and don't want it to be), can only set the ego in motion to show the other up whether orally or mentally. There is no God in either for both invite the dance of the dunces...which releases the obsession.

Our perception dictates our attitude...upgrade our attitude we upgrade our problem. That is when our decision to trust that God has our back gets to strut its stuff. We turn to God...repeatedly, yet again, and one more once for as long as needed, or three days after we're dead whichever comes first. That is called spiritual growth.

If it is true, and I believe it is, that what we see is always ourselves, our perception is what we get to change. Just that and no more because no more is needed.

For that we go to God. And we go to God for God and that is all. For that is all that is needed.

Thank you.

TO LOVE ALL THE WAY THROUGH

Start with loving one situation or one person all the way through. That is the best—and maybe the only—first school for universal love. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," March 21, 2018

I have gotten this advice in different ways many times over the years. I have found that becoming willing to make my choice of whom or what to love and sticking with it all the way through is most soul satisfying when my selection is of someone or thing that I am resisting.

I have notes all through my "God Calling" of the progress I am making with the anonymous Gertrude or the situational JoB of the moment. It is akin to a light aglow in my heart when I come across a healed situation...that's where all concerned come out the winner. 

To see the path I trudged to get to healing (is that just another word for detachment, I wonder) fills me with gratitude and wonder. Wonder...as in, how did I ever get so blessed as to get the gift of quieted surrender? 

And then, seems like simultaneously, yet another Gertrude or JoB comes along doing it wrong...and slowly I realize that here is an even more precious gift. This one brings the gift of humility, of which. apparently, I shall never have enough.

God...now there's the One to emulate...he loves all the way through. And who's kidding whom? That's a bar too high, and an ego-goal into the bargain. But God loves me for it...hee-hee-hee.

Thank you.

EVERYBODY WANTS TO GO TO HEAVEN....

[The following is a reprint of my post of January 29, 2011.]

Everybody wants to go to Heaven, nobody wants to die. -- From an old spiritual, author unknown.

There is an illusion to be removed - that happiness can be without suffering, that well-being can be without ill-being, that right can be without left. -- Thich Nhat Hanh, "Going Home - Jesus and Buddha As Brothers"

To be truly secure, we must begin to find a source of security within ourselves. -- Eknath Easwaran, "Words to Live By, Inspiration for Every Day" (January 29)

Your very extremity will ensure My activity for you. -- "God Calling" (January 29)

I am fascinated by my continuing desire, when I hit a rough place in my road, to either castigate myself for hitting a rough place or to quick shoot a prayer to Santa-God to get me out of it…when I know full well, from my own personal experience, that this, too, shall pass.

I know that there is no Santa-God out there, that this rough place/difficult person is my angel, here by my own invitation, to help me shuck my shields, i.e., detach from my reasoning mind solutions…to realize, yet again, that it does rain on the just and the unjust alike, and I am getting my rain at the exactly right time in the exactly right place and amount.

My own Rainmaker within is right on time…doing what It does for my own personal, spiritual growth.

Thank you.

LOOSE THEM AND LET THEM GO

[The following is a reprint of my post of January 8, 2014.]

I got up this morning saying to myself, "My attack thoughts are on the march." I picked up one of my books of daily spiritual insights, and today’s message is, "I pray I may welcome difficulties." Don't tell me God isn't aware of my every need.

I sat down and listed some of the things my attack thoughts are revisiting...nothing new nor different which is the good news. But in the sitting and pondering, a blinding flash of the obvious: All of these are God's "rod and staff." What a comfort that is to me. Which is exactly what my beloved 23rd Psalm promises.

All my uglies were hand-picked by me. Maybe it's like that old novelty song says, "When they were passing out noses, I thought they said roses, and I said, 'I'll have a big red one.'" But for sure, when I was making my selections, I was following my ego's dictates, and the ego always legislates for itself. So these are the tools I chose. I have used them for years, and they never did for me what my ego promised...and promises still.

Here’s the good news…I get to regift them! I get to give them over to God which God then uses as his rod and staff to bring me back into the fold, his world.

This is why I pray I may welcome difficulties...to give to God for him to use for my benefit. Otherwise, they remain my ego's self-determined objectives, and I'm just building more rues, regrets and remorses.

Thank you.

GOD GRINS, WE'RE HUGGED

Here's a measure of my spiritual growth:

As I note often, I read "God Calling" daily, and every March 18 I read: Claim big, really big things now. Remember nothing is too big.

For years my first thought upon reading that was of me winning the gazillion dollar lottery. My immediate second thought was how stupid, money-grubbing, immature, asinine I am, will always be, there is no hope...over the ugly cliff I'd go. 

Today and for awhile now, my first thought upon reading that is to live a turned-over-to-God life.

My second thought is of me winning the gazillion dollar lottery.

Then I picture God grinning, and I love me and laugh.

Thank you.

THE SLIVER OF GOLD THAT IS GOD

The gift of giving over, giving up, giving in is impossible to us if we're accepting it with the idea that we will just keep our mouth shut, agree when we know we're right, smile when we our very heart is hurting...smile mutely when our thoughts are screaming in resistance.

That's a fairly "normal" mental response. It's hard enough to come to want still more spiritual growth but once we do, we want to be willing to go to any lengths for it...and that kind of giving is for sure a great length. So that's what we try to do...and find we can't...then we try harder...and fail...harder still...nada. We remind our self of the definition of insanity and change our tactics. And fail...etc., etc., etc.

It should come as no great surprise when we recall that was our first response on coming into contact with the Sermon. Trying to get our head to agree to our face getting slapped and smiling, all the while calling it God's will, defies common sense. But doesn't most spiritual growth defy common sense? Whaat?

It is that stonewall we must splatter against that releases the grace of God within us...that's also known as crash-and-burn. You'd think we'd get a clue from either or both descriptions..."splatter," "crash-and-burn," duh. Neither leaves room to believe that on our unaided will alone we are going to be capable of doing anything, giving or withholding. We are finished. Our race is run. Our story is told. Our ego is deflated. For the moment.

Ah, there it is. That's the sliver of gold that God rides in on, and we give over, give up, give in.

Another hard lesson a-learning is that this is the right way, but it is not a one and done proposition. It takes as long as it takes for us to realize the peace we receive from that giving process. The ego is deflated just until it gets its breath, and it's ready to roll again. That's where the spiritual instruction that we must  try with a will or fall by the wayside comes to our aid, and we realize that we would rather have God's will done in our life than our will done in our life.

Our wants have been transmuted...not lifted out of us, just transmuted. When next the opportunity arises to turn the other cheek or to agree with our adversary quickly, we get to love it and laugh. For sure, the old ego, Lucy-with-the-football, will be ready to fight only not fast enough anymore.

Just another miracle in God's world.

Thank you.

USING WHAT WE ALREADY OWN

Over time we learn that all of our needs are within us, were with us at birth, have been there, right there within us, all along. Our life's journey is to detach from our wants and give thanks for our needs which have already been fulfilled. 

I suspect it is the giving thanks for our needs that is the source of our resistance. Because, who's kidding whom, our needs are rarely (if ever) as pretty as our wants. I need to be more loving to...someone I'm not loving, clearly, and who wants to do that? What I want is for that someone to be if not more loving at least nice to me so I can be more loving toward them...and look like the better person. 

Over time we may learn these goodies, but I'm guessing our trusting unto living them as we breathe is why we have reincarnation. We must needs keep coming back until we get it right, and one lifetime just is not long enough. For me, at any rate.

It is the promise of reincarnation that helps me focus on living by the Sermon...I do not want to need to redo any of my self-centered mistakes in the next lifetime. 

Accept the gift of giving over, giving up, giving in now and weaken the steel of self-will yet to come. According to me.

Thank you.

WE ARE ONE

As soon as I had the thought that it is not just my heart that needs softening, it's my ego-victory thoughts, I read, This is what I mean by the greening of the self. It involves a combining of the mystical with the pragmatic, transcending separateness, alienation, and fragmentation. It is . . . 'a spiritual change,' generating a sense of profound interconnectedness with all life. . . .  Joanna Macy in Rohr's "Daily Meditation," March, 15, 2018.

I'm knowing that never in this lifetime would that have come to or through my thoughts, but I knew it for my answer the minute I read it. There...that's a good example of God's timetable. He gave me the thought that my heart plus my thoughts need softening and almost before I could resist that because I don't know how, here's the word from Joanna Macy. Not to put too fine a point on it, but I have never heard of her, and here she is with my answer..

What I think I like best about her quote is it expands on my hard-earned but God-given beliefs that all my problems can be solved by spiritual principles, that all spiritual paths lead to the same place, i.e., the God of our own understanding, that we are the source of all our woes. In short, our own inner spiritual change generates a sense of profound interconnectedness with all life. Oneness.

Thank you.

FOSTERING A CHANGE IN CONSCIOUSNESS

I consciously and gratefully ponder how blessed I am that my goal almost from the first has been to do the Sermon. I have not done it way too many times to know, but I have done it way too many times to know, too...and each of those time has been the grace of God breathing.

My notes in my daily readings are my proof of the times I have followed the instructions to turn the other cheek...or to agree with your adversary quickly.  In most instances I have seen that proof as love being returned for love. Best part...seemingly without the other even being aware of the inner workings.

God is so good to us.

It will be interesting to see in years to come (and I may not be on this earth long enough to see it) the end result with the JoB brouhaha.

To my mind, the end result of love being returned for love would have to be me accepting JoB with not a word...or thought!...of condemnation. There, that's the hard, hard part. Because, of course, that would require me to get over my own self, not JoB nor JoB's actions. Ah, God's work...through his gifting me with a change in consciousness.

This I believe...there is never a problem that does not have a spiritual solution. If there is no spiritual solution, there is no problem. There is only my ego Lucy doing my thinking for me.

Thank you.

TIME IS NOT OF THE ESSENCE

It has become a comfort to me to read my notes in my "God Calling" and to see in black and white my journey of realization.

For instance, yesterday's note reads: "2005 - Today I realize the indwelling Christ...thank you." I added underneath that: "2018 - This morning, again a glimpse...thank you."

My comfort is that in that 13-year span, my realization of the indwelling Christ was growing, expanding, filling me from my toes to my nose without a conscious thought from my eyebrows up how or even if that was taking place.

Yet, in that time there were times innumerable that I relied on the indwelling Christ, that I surely walked, talked, showed forth...and, no doubt, cursed!...that indwelling Christ.

Yesterday, I posted about again realizing that which is within us is the hidey hole of God. It is our core, the indwelling Christ, in fact.

I note the material-world time-lapse. Thirteen years is no small amount of time but in our spiritual-growth time, it is the equivalent of a second. Hey...maybe that's how Methuselah could live a gazillion years and...was it Sarah?...could have a child at 100 plus years. Probably not even close, but I like it. It soothes my "How long, oh Lord?" impatience.

Thank you.

USE WHAT IS WITHIN

I read this morning that St. Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179), wrote in her book, Scivias: You understand so little of what is around you because you do not use what is within.

Admittedly, I've barely ever heard of Hildegard and never of her book, but when I read that line, I flashed that that which is within is the hidey hole of God...my core, each and everyone and thing's core. We are complete within us for it is the unseeable God consciousness that is our energy, our protection, our being. 

It is our core that knows our need is to give over, give up, give in...no, it is our core that is our need to give over, give up, give in. To love, to laugh, to forgive by accepting, to accept by forgiving...who's kidding whom, to get over our self. 

Since we're talking about living in this world by spiritual principles, we must keep it simple and ever simpler. To me that means to get over my self every time I feel justified...period. I have learned that "justified" is the clarion call of my ego Lucy, the victim, to gear up and get back at 'em. 

Ah, and here comes my own Golden Rule to save my day: I just try not to be as nasty as I want to be. I doubt not there are higher, holier spiritual rules, but I've found none any simpler, and it fits most anything I'll reasonably expect to face. Besides which, it causes me to smile. 

Thank you.

IMPERFECT AND FREE

Here's why I make notes to me in my daily reading books: On this date in my daily journal on health, I have written I am happy with me...imperfect and free. Every year since first I wrote that I have entered the year and Yes!

It is a wonderful feeling to read that, write my Yes! again and know I'm not lying. 

Through the grace of God, love and laughter, and the generosity of friends, the imperfect is made whole. Not perfect...whole.

Thank you.

ACCEPTANCE REALIZED AS LOVE

Blinding flash of the obvious: God is not forgiving; God is accepting.

I ponder that and I realize that I see forgiving as denoting an ugly that God was holding against me but he got over it.

I choose to believe the God of my understanding knows naught of ugly so there is nothing to forgive. He knows and does acceptance which is the essence of love...and God is love.

Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven [i.e., acceptance] and all else shall be added unto you [i.e., acceptance realized as love].

Thank you.

.

THE ART OF NONVIOLENCE

All we have to do is open our eyes to the reality of creation before us, to be present to it, to take it in and honor it, and welcome its gift of peace—and do so within the boundaries of nonviolence. -- "They Will Inherit the Earth" by John Dear as quoted in Fr. Richard Rohr's "Daily Meditation," March 9, 2018

For many years now I have been drawn to learning unto doing nonviolence. Nonviolence does not come easy to the reasoning mind...or to mine at any rate. I often hold out We have ceased fighting anything and anybody as one of my favorite quotes, up there with Chief Joseph's I will fight no more forever.

Doing those, though....

At one time I determined that nonviolence must start with our thoughts. When I got the word that mood follows action, I understood that thoughts follow action, then I could accept that I needed to put down my fists, shut my mouth and not resist my jangled thoughts. It is those jangled thoughts, seeking peace, that were leading me aright...to meditation.

We meditate to get out of our own thought-mind. We learn to direct those thoughts to a higher plane deeper. Toward nonviolence.

The trouble with nonviolence...no, the trouble with our thinking of nonviolence is we assume that means we either go into the fetal position or become the doormat. Unfortunately, both usually invite violence if not physically, then mentally, and there is no God in either. The reasoning mind is such that it will ever resist that is the wrong way to view nonviolence...we must go beyond reason to love.

It is a fine art to actually do nonviolence. It is the same fine art as coming to believe, then living in trust, that God has our back. Ah, but when we know it, we show it, and we are at peace.

Thank you.

TO SHOW THAT GOD LOVES US

Blinding flash of the obvious: My spiritual goal is not to know that I love God, but to show that God loves me. 

In pondering that, the meaning underneath it, I had to admit that my love of God is transient...it seems there's ever a new something a-comin' that my "I want" attaches to, calls itself a need, and I start down that wrong road again. 

My wants have gotten considerably more sophisticated...they dress up as compassionate prayers for others a lot...but, hey, they're not obsessing about my weight today. As much. 

I remind me that learning unto doing is another beware of the overly scrupulous we are warned of. If I'm not doing one hundred percent that which I've just learned about, I'm doing it wrong according to my ego Lucy, and that's just Lucy's way to stay in charge. There is nothing wrong with compassionate prayers for others, but I've come to accept that I'm better off keeping it simple. I pray that we all know God's will for us and that we have the power to carry it out, and that is all. Otherwise, my praying thoughts go haring off after the poor people of India, and don't let me start on Appalachia. 

According to me, we pollute our world more with our thoughts of profit, possessions and payback, than with our plastic conveniences. We need not only pray for God's will, we need to do that which is in front of us to do...let our enemy off the hook while we try to figure out how to quit using plastic straws, for starters. When I get a glimmer of how to do either of those, I know and I show that God loves me. 

It's not easy being green....

Thank you.

TO EMBRACE OUR RESISTANCE IS TO RESIST NOT

Embrace the present moment as an ever-flowing source of holiness. —Jean Pierre de Caussade

Ah, here's the life lesson...we must embrace the present moment when (not if) we are gifted with feelings of pain, shame, anger, and/or hurt. 

To embrace our resistance is to know transcendence...I'm afraid that sounds like I'm putting on airs. My proof of "knowing transcendence" comes from my recent experience of being chewed a new one, in public!, and, although I was numbed by shock as it was happening, since then, I've known sincere compassion for the chewer. Even better (and so far) I've had no poor, pitiful, put-upon-me feelings. There...that is true transcendence for me.

Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at the moment. —Eckhart Tolle

Sidebar: The following is from my journal of a few years back. I note it today because our moments of "knowing transcendence" are not something that stay with us. Unless we consciously embrace and remember them, they are lost to us:

Blinding flash of the obvious: Black (evil) overcomes White (good) with one swipe. That is the glory of Good...we must needs live in the Good if we are to overcome just one swipe of Evil.

I wrote the above yesterday and today Rohr wrote the following:

Dan O'Grady, a psychologist and Living School student, told me recently that our negative and critical thoughts are like Velcro, they stick and hold; whereas our positive and joyful thoughts are like Teflon, they slide away. We have to deliberately choose to hold onto positive thoughts before they 'imprint.'

Thank you.

UPSIDE-DOWN WORLD...LOVE IT AND LAUGH!

...we are actually announcing our commitment to Jesus’ upside-down world where 'the last are first and the first are last' (Matthew 20:16) over any other power system or frame of reference.-- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," January 26, 2018

I love that quote because I had thought of my path of spiritual growth as "mirror imaging" God's world, which I still like, but "upside-down world" fits, too. Face it: What is more upside-down to our reasoning mind than the Sermon on the Mount's agree with your adversary quickly, resist not evil or turn the other cheek?

I feel blessed that when I finally realized the exactitude of the Sermon, I knew it for mine, and I've tried to walk it ever since...key word, "tried."

As I look back, I can see that it was in my trying that I got the great gift of love and laughter. Trying to go against our reasoning mind...about all that we can do with that is love and laugh. Love the fact that we'd even try and laugh that we keep trying! Ah, I'm guessing that may be how we tumble into God's hidey-hole within, and we find peace.

Just this morning I read darkness, failure, and loss can be our truest teachers. The path of descent is the path of transformation. There. Upon reading that, I was filled with a sense of glee. I again felt affirmed knowing that I'm on the right path, heading in the right direction...or that's how it translated to me. I loved it and laughed.

Thank you.

SURRENDER IS NOT EASY

There is no advantage, no profit, no growth, in deceiving myself merely to escape the consequences of my own mistakes. - Anonymous

There it is. The entire All You Need To Know for why we should not lie...or cheat...or steal. I loved that quote the minute I first read it. 

I did not begin to fully comprehend its depth until I realized it as applying to me and me alone. I do not lie (exaggerate a little here and there, but not lie); I for sure do not cheat (knowingly at any rate), and I haven't stolen anything in years (uh-oh...does another's peace of mind count?).

It was a shock to my innards when I quit seeing only how the many and varied Gertrudes in my life would benefit from knowing and showing that in her/his life. That's when I realized that escaping the consequences of my own mistakes encompassed my continuing to live in fear of being wholly loved by my own self...to accept my own frog-self as princess.  

Equally important, when I realized that deceiving myself to escape the consequence of my own mistakes meant owning my withheld love...love for the person(s) who hurt me, attacked me, called me less-than,  my enemy if you will. For, truth to tell, my own mother could fit in that place at more than a few times in our lives...and I know that my mother loved me and would never knowingly do anything to hurt me, and I toward her.

I wonder today if my own mistakes aren't simply my fear...fear of letting myself be wholly known, wholly loved actually. By My Father within. From my eyebrows up, I know that is and as all...and certainly the most daunting thing I've ever tried for...wanted...and held myself back from consciously receiving. Ah, but it's in my trying that I fail. 

Trying to surrender is to continue the struggle. Sigh.

Thank you.

TO KEEP IN SILENCE AND GOOD PEACE

It is no little wisdom for a man to keep himself in silence and in good peace when evil words are spoken to him, and to turn his heart to God and not to be troubled with man's judgment. -- Thomas A Kempis [from Eknath Easwaran's "Words to Live By," March 4]

The secret to true happiness is to lower my standards for others and to lift higher my standards for myself. -- recent blinding flash of the obvious

Your best chance, as I see it, is to try not to be as mean as you feel like being, and not to give yourself airs, and to hope for the best. -- Henry Mitchell [from his column in "The Washington Post," March 8, 1988] 

I just try not to be as nasty as I want to be. -- My personal Golden Rule which I copped from Mitchell's column for which I can never be grateful enough.

Thank you.

GOD IS NEVER NOT WITH US, WITHIN US

God’s great love story with us calls us into discomfort—the gateway to evolution. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," March 3, 2018

Is it just me or does everything point toward our need to suffer? Or feel discomfort anyway. And there it is...I read "discomfort" and translated it into "need to suffer." 

Suffering/discomfort is what my evolving mind seems to be inviting today. Some ugly-on-their-face haps have come to me, and together with the appearance of our chaotic world today, I've felt less anchored, more iffy within. 

In order to deal with this, my daily world, I think my "thank you" repeatedly. I am grateful to find...again and deeper every time...that staying with thank you does work...insofar as turning my thoughts away from "OMG, this is awful," toward "I can't wait to see what God has for us here!"

I'm leaning into what I've come to believe: What is is what is supposed to be. The Father knows our needs. Resist not. Go with what is and learn why the Father knows this for our need. Then share that instead of staying stuck in the mud of my own mind where there is no hope because I can't think of a quick solution.

The harder the hit, the deeper my God.

Thank you.

ACCEPTANCE, THE MOTHER OF GRATITUDE

Hatred does not cease through hatred at any time. Hatred ceases through love. This is an unalterable law. -- The Buddha

Gracious behavior is more important than right belief. -- Fr Richard Rohr

I am convinced gracious behavior is the righteous healer of discord. It is the seed from which love grows, the love that is the cessation of hate.

I have, I must say, experienced gracious behavior not making a pup's piddle to a person determined to act from a self-determined resentment. That one is akin to a runaway train...after we get out of the way and praise God it is not us, we search for the good in that.

I'm convinced the sliver of gold in being that one's target is in our realization that this is the raw material we receive in order to experience how well we walk what we talk. Most especially, how well do we not react in kind in our own mind later as we think about it.

We can behave graciously, walk away with clean hands, and awake at 3:00 AM cursing, plotting and planning how we coulda, woulda, shoulda...and will next time chew her a new one. That, even when we are satisfied with our actions and, from our eyebrows up, know we would not behave differently if the occasion arose.

It is the Father within which transmutes our resistance to those ego-victory thoughts to the acceptance of them as ever with us. Our acceptance lifts us to love and laughter...very possibly our first breath of honest humility of which we will never have enough.

There is our proof that still more spiritual growth is leading us to where we need to be...to acceptance, our guarantee of gratitude following.

Thank you.

THE ACCEPTANCE OF WHAT IS...NOW

The fourth dimension of consciousness continues to fascinate me.

We are lifted by grace into the fourth dimension if, as and when we are utterly broken...or utterly healed...or utterly unselfed...or fill in the blank. Either utterly ready or utterly unready probably fits. That's why it's so fascinating. 

The hard truth is many people on this earth may never know the fourth dimension of consciousness. Some have been rocketed into the fourth dimension of consciousness but that certainly was never the aim. And few there be who are gifted (or lifted) there more than that once. 

The hard lesson a-learning is that trying to get the fourth dimension of consciousness is to stay in the reasoning mind. 

Ah, but we must needs learn the art of spiritual self-discipline in order to prepare our self for if, as and when. That is one more reason I choose to believe in reincarnation...prepping now for six (or sixty) lifetimes from now keeps this life (and all the lifetimes to come) interesting...mainly because ego cannot be involved. Now there is a lifetime goal...learning to detach from our own ego-victory wants for sure qualifies.

Doesn't it all boil down to seek ye first the kingdom of Heaven? All these things that will be added unto us, then, are One...God. God consciousness...acceptance.

Thank you.