LOOKING THROUGH GOD TO GOD

The energy in the universe is not in the planets or in the protons or neutrons, but in the relationship between them. Not in the particles but in the space between them. Not in the cells of organisms but in the way the cells feed and give feedback to one another. Not in any precise definition of the three persons of the Trinity as much as in the relationship between the Three! This is where all the power for infinite renewal is at work: The loving relationship between them. The infinite love flowing between them. The dance itself. - Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," April 29, 2018

God speaks when God speaks. Or, more aptly, we hear when we hear. It was a long time ago that I first heard about God living in the space between...just in the space between. There were exercises to help realize that, and I did them. Never really got it but accepted it...and forgot about it.

Then I read the above and flashed on: It is in the space between where God lives. I just got it. It's akin to WiFi...all power is in the space between -  no wires are needed, no spoken words, either!

There. That's how I make truths my own...simplify, simplify, simplify. I have no idea if WiFi ever uses wires...I still don't know what WiFi stands for, for heaven's sake. The important thing is I get the picture, the picture of all power in the space between.

The space wherein God lives is the space between the blocks, the words, we use...most times in trying to find God.

I can know love in the space between me and my little boy who is invisible to my eyes today. For that matter, I can realize love between me and a friend who lives across country from me today. I can imagine a hardened heart being softened by forgiveness with no words being spoken, just an inner  space opens and forgiveness flows.

I'm guessing it is in that knowing, that realizing, that imagining...that space between...that I am looking through God to God.

Thank you.

NOTHING LEFT FOR WHICH TO WISH

[The following is a reprint, slightly reworked, of my post of September 29, 2012.]

The crucifixion of the self is accomplished when there is nothing left for which we wish to pray. -- Joel Goldsmith, "The Heart of Mysticism," at p. 377

If that be true, then it follows that the road to ego deflation in depth is accomplished by letting go of our self-determined objectives, i.e., our wants...no matter how pretty we dress our wants.

Which is close enough for me to what in the 15th century Meister Eckhart espoused:  If the only prayer you say in your life is thank you, that would suffice. 

Thank you.

RESIST NOT...LOVE ALL

My attack mind has been unleashed. I'd justify it by my boy Ruckus going back to Heaven but that causes me to blush just to think of such a Lucy-ready excuse. I am lashing out because the discipline required to stay calm and not lash out doesn't give me the "gotcha, damn ya" feeling that I want. 

Clearly, it is not that I do not know better, it is that I do not choose to do better...not to mention for the benefit of another. 

Oooh, I just had a blinding flash of the obvious: Love your attack mind...not the Gertrudes, but your thoughts that are attacking them. 

Again, I'm given to understand that it is through love that hate is transformed...the love channeled from the Father within, not my make nice-nice thoughts. Hey, love them, too, they're trying to head me in the right direction anyway. 

I'm reminded of the Golas' story in "The Lazy Man's Guide" about his bad trip on LSD. A hideous monster came to him, terrifying him, and he was fighting to get away...to which the monster asked, What was it that you thought needed to be loved?

There's the universal question. It applies to my attack thoughts, to those my thoughts are attacking, even to my ego-victory excuses. What you resist, persists; love it, loose it and let it go.

Thank you.

A GREAT NEW READ

I just this morning started to read Cynthia Bourgeault's "The Wisdom Jesus." I'm already copying her words and thoughts, and I only just finished Chapter 1. I expect it's going to take a long time to read this book, and I hope it does.

My interpretation of just one mind-expanding sentence: [My intuitive connection with Jesus is] a transfusion from within ("one deep calling to another," in the words of Psalm 42). It is pristine and clear, and it is the basis of all true belief.

Underneath, that says all that I have come to believe; on a deeper level, higher, it is beyond my ken.

I am so excited to read more...actually, my feeling is close to exhilaration. I only love it.

Thank you.

HE CAN, NOW LET HIM

As I need, I am supplied. It is my need that supplies, that brings forth my supply...whatever that may be. 

It may be true that love of money is the root of all evil, but I find it easy to believe that it is disrespect that is evil's Miracle-Gro. Disrespect breeds evil, also known as resentment.  It is resentment that starts, channels, and speaks evil, i.e., disrespect.

A resentment cannot be wished or willed away. It cannot be dressed up to look other than it is...like the ear-worm we hear so much about today, nobody but us can hear it, and we can't unhear it.

All this leads me back to my long-ago realization that my need brings forth my supply...whatever that may be. 

It is whatever that may be that was my eyeopener...until "whatever" came to me, I was thinking of my supply as money...period. My need, however, is the ability, the willingness, to do for another, its the act of giving over, giving up, giving in against my own want-to and for the benefit of another.

Its turning my thoughts to God with a conscious desire for him to change my mind whenever an ugly enters in. It's so 1, 2, 3 simple, and a zillion x infinity hard...I just need to change my perception of the situation at hand. No peace will ever come until I upgrade my perception of the less-than-wonderful I am perceiving.

There's the conundrum...resentment will fog the memory that I alone cannot change my perception. Ah, but it's that hard-won discipline that clears the way for me to recall: God can and will if sought. 

Thank you.

SELF-ACCEPTANCE COMES WITHOUT A FIGHT

I've come to believe that we begin to realize acceptance of our own self when we "see" our same-old-same-old behavior on parade, and don't feeling guilty about it. We know something has changed, and we hope/know that the change occurred by God working through us. 

It's a eye-blinking change that often we do not realize has happened until later...sometimes even as we're again thinking about how to make the change.

Much to my ego Lucy's regret, incoming anger has ever shut me down. I have never been able to top it or stop it as it comes at me, but then I would go home and tell my bathroom mirror exactly what I shoulda, woulda, coulda said. By long ago learning the art of de-personalizing, I quit asking God to help me stand up for myself (and there's a right-sounding, guilt-producing quagmire).

But one fine day I was met by an out-of-control angry person who was determined to strip me bare for what she "heard" me say...and then put her worse interpretation on that. I stood in silence, then said, Well, God bless you, and walked away. And have had no regrets since...no coulda's, no woulda's, no shoulda's. 

Naturally, I thought about it later, and I realized without thinking, without preplanning, lo! God had given me what I never would have thought to ask for...acceptance of my self-described cowardice. My best thought had ever been that he help me hit back, harder. Ah, but God is not in any fight. 

I realized that by not responding in kind, I could have no regrets. I could actually feel good about me within and, more important, no angst (isn't that peace?) toward the other.

My self-perceived wart had become a rose. 

Thank you.

FEEL ANGST...LOVE AND LAUGH

I have a mean mind this morning. I am mentally chewing you a new one, and I feel utterly justified, you being the cause of my discontent. The trouble is that for every "you," there are half dozen names that mentally fit, but only one fits in truth...my own, of course.

The trouble with still more spiritual growth is it works. It's particularly troubling when I'm in a boxing match in my mind. I jab a mean thought toward you, and what you see is always yourself  sends an uppercut back. Gratefully, I've just run out of boxing metaphors. 

But I am reminded of the old adage, Pray for potatoes...grab a hoe.

The realization beyond the adage is: At some point we've got to put the hoe aside, and let God do his perfect work in growing those potatoes.

We can be reminded...and quote to others...all the wonderful spiritual axioms we know, but until we do them...and do them as we breathe, not after much mental caterwauling...then they are just so many pretty words. I think of mental caterwauling as hoeing those potatoes long after they've taken root. 

The great gift, that is God's Great Gift, is to realize we are caterwauling yet again and find our self smiling about it. 

It is not just right thinking, but the added love and laughter that gives us the key to let go and let God. 

Thank you.

ON TRUSTING THE INVISIBLE GOD

It seems to me that the biggest block to our trusting God in our life...that there IS a God in our life...is our want to...specifically, our wan to have physical evidence of God in our life. We want to feel God's presence in our life. 

This is kinda like wanting to have God in a box that we can carry with us, one that we can see and touch...take it out and show it off, probably. We want to rest assured that he is there by the physical evidence. No. God is not available on demand. We can only trust that the invisible God is with us/within us by coming to our own inner knowing. 

We receive that knowingness as we walk in, over and through the crooked places being made straight in our daily life.

The Red Sea did not part the day before and stay parted awaiting the arrival of the Israelites,...it parted before them as they started forward and walked through it.

Guidance you are bound to have as you live more and more with Me. It follows without doubt. -- "God Calling," April 23

COMPLAIN NOT...LOVE AND LAUGH

My morning blinding flash of the obvious: That which we mock we need the most.

Further: We must move out of the mental me, my, mine/you, yours place up into the we, us, ours plane if we are ever to know true peace or love or joy.

Then I read my "God Calling," and I got (again!) my how-to instructions: Change all disappointments, even if only momentary, into Joy. Change each complaint into laughter.

My instructions to me: Don't just agree...DO!

Thank you.

RESIST NOT...EMBRACE

The hard, oh-so-hard, lesson we are learning: It is relatively simple to "get" that the Word is to love your enemies. But the getting, i.e., the realization of just a smidgen of the inner meaning there, is to be our daily discipline for a lifetime, I'm guessing.

My today's "God Calling" note: 2013 - B's and F's (et al.'s) interpretation of my life is to be embraced not resisted. Thank you.

Clearly "B and F, et al.," were causing me pause five years ago; not surprisingly, I have no memory of the problem(s) right now. So I "got" it then. From my eyebrows up, I got it: Resist not, embrace. And that's close enough to perfect in getting us headed in the right direction.

It's in my boy Ruckus' passing that the lesson is traveling deeper into my heart. Ruckus never met, nor was he met with, an enemy. I doubt not that he would wag his tail and grin at the Grinch Who Stole Christmas, and the old Grinch would melt before him.

Love...if Jesus is a turnoff, think of  the Lennon/McCartney song, "All You Need Is Love." And there it is! You love your enemies by not making enemies!

Imagine.

Thank you.

GET OUT OF THE WAY OF SELF

If I seek and do as He sought and did, I will be at peace.

If we seek and do as those who went before us sought and did, we will be as they were...better people.

A better person may well be as good as it gets...or as good as we're going to get.

According to me, to become a better person means we are moving away from self toward better...better than we are right this very minute.  To become a better person, we're going to need to use the better brains of another person to do our thinking with.

It is fear alone that resists that idea. Fear tells us it's better to remain locked in self than to be exposed as wrong...or worse yet, as not knowing...and worse than that: not knowing we know not what! A tish plainer: Ask For Help. Ask for help, get good directions, follow those directions, become a better person.

Sometimes: Ask for help, misunderstand the directions, follow our misunderstood directions  repeatedly and yet again, crash and burn, turn to a power greater than our self, pray, begin to understand the directions, follow those, become a better person.

All ways lead to God...eventually.

Thank you.

FOR MY BOY RUCKUS

Little Ruckus went back to Heaven yesterday. A beloved friend sent me the following Kipling poem in his memory:

A Dog for Jesus

(Where dogs go when they die)

I wish someone had given Jesus a dog.

As loyal and loving as mine.

To sleep by His manger and gaze in His eyes

And adore Him for being divine.

As our Lord grew to manhood His faithful dog,

Would have followed Him all through the day.

While He preached to the crowds and made the sick well

And knelt in the garden to pray.

It is sad to remember that Christ went away.

To face death alone and apart.

With no tender dog following close behind,

To comfort its Master’s Heart.

And when Jesus rose on that Easter morn,

How happy He would have been,

As His dog kissed His hand and barked it’s delight,

For The One who died for all men.

Well, the Lord has a dog now, I just sent Him mine,

The old pal so dear to me.

And I smile through my tears on this first day alone,

Knowing they’re in eternity.

Thank you.

OH, TO LIVE A DOG'S LIFE

Blinding flash of the obvious: Dogs don't look to get love, they look to give love, and that is all. They innately know it is in giving that we get...oh, to learn, to learn. 

Oh, to do, to do.

Thank you.

FOR THE BENEFIT OF ALL

We walk through the fire of our imagining. We place blame...either out there on you or in here on me, both being ego on parade. We try to forgive...from "It wasn't all that important, forget it," to "Just get over your own self" which is about as good as our trying to forgive can get. 

We finally break down and cry to God that we do not know what we do not know, we just want his will done in our life, starting with this "mess." Sooner or later we realize the problem, or our obsession with it, has been transmuted. From our toenails up, we know that whatever comes of it is for the benefit of all concerned. 

We realize the hidden meaning of the promise, God can and will intervene in my life on my behalf, which is that God's intervention is always and ever on OUR behalf. There is no single winner.

It's a fairly rare occasion, though, when all concerned immediately realize the benefit to all of us. It may appear that I won...or that s/he won...and it may appear so for days unto years. 

Because we are learning to live an attitude of gratitude, however, we live at peace with whatever the outcome appears to be. Imagine the surprise when we see what we thought was our own victory was not so much, that Gertrude reaped the real bennies. Ah, and we can accept that as our gift. 

And then...and then...WOW...the pearl beyond price! We come to see that our loss in that "mess" was actually our victory in another area entirely. God has again intervened in our life on our behalf even when we did not know that it was, or that it would be, needed.

God knows our needs...stand on it.

Thank you.

WILLINGNESS INVITES GRATITUDE AND GRACE

At one time I wrote a reminder to myself in my "God Calling" to examine what love means to me.

Love is an uncontrolled and uncontrollable feeling...we cannot make our self love another person, another place or another thing. (All the "I shoulds" in the world practically ensure it ain't gonna happen.) Ah, but neither can we make another whatever love us.

That's the uncontrollable part of it. That's also the part that gives us permission (lets us do what we want to do to begin with) to go ahead and dislike and judge...ending inevitably with a resentment against the one we're resisting.

I am convinced that it is our desire for still more spiritual growth alone that leads us to turn our resistance around, to turn it inward. We examine it, asking God to guide us so we can get a clear picture of what we're seeing...ever remembering that what we see is always ourselves. 

That is what we're looking for...the identifiable me that I'm dissing you about. There it is. That is an act of love. To be willing, want to or not, to be willing to work with God to change my mind, thus my heart, about another.

I cannot define love, but I can identify acts of love...they are always direct lines to and from God. I think we can name those lines Gratitude and Grace...never forgetting Willingness.

If we're willing and show our gratitude, grace will smile upon us...and we will know love.

Thank you.

THE INCOMPREHENSIBLE POWER OF GRATITUDE

[The following is a reprint of my post of July 17, 2016.]

A thought I picked up from Rohr back in 2013: "It was surrender to gratitude—and also to immense confidence that you were a part of something very good." 

It is the surrender to gratitude that calls my name, that showers me, inside and out, with immense confidence that I am, myself, something very good.

And you, yourself, are something very good.

That we, ourselves, are, together and apart, One...something very good.

And it all starts with surrender...to gratitude.

Thank you.

WE GET TO CHANGE OR DIE

It seems to me that God hears our prayers and answers them more through our less-than-wonderful behavior, our falling downs, then by our self-willing a show of purity and goodness...not that I have a boatload of first-hand experience in that area.

I do have personal knowledge of doing the right thing on purpose while holding on to mean, ornery and condemning thoughts, but, really, who doesn't?

That's where the Big U-bie comes into reality...we get to bless those ugly thoughts, and our self for having them, because they are our God-leaders. There's our u-bie, and that's the paradox. If we could rid our self of those uglies by willing them gone, we'd never go to God...he is too slow, a perfectionist if ever there was one, and he always lets the other side win, too.

However, we have finally realized and accepted that our singular want is for still more spiritual growth. There is no surer way of getting that then through humility...of which no one of us will ever have too much. Mean, ornery and spiteful thoughts are humility aborning. Get grateful.

Maybe that's how we can see our prayers get answered, by our crashing and burning with our self willed behavior. Which causes us to change or die...to change is to life in an attitude of gratitude; to die  is to live a life of blame and shame.

There it is...life without a spiritual base is a life of rues, regrets and remorses. That is death in disguise. 

Thank you.

NO MISTAKES...MISSTEPS, MAYBE

Blinding flash of the obvious:  I shall know Thy will.

I am comforted by my BFO,  I shall know Thy will, for I realize that my knowing will not come by my thinking in order to cause it to happen. It comes through consciousness. The presence is with us always whether we know it or not...ah, but more important, whether we believe it or not.

We seek still more spiritual growth in order to raise our consciousness. To keep raising our consciousness, we use our God-given reasoning mind to ponder spiritual principles for it has been written, All of our problems can be solved by spiritual principles.

The delicate balance between using our God-given reasoning mind and letting our God-given free will, the home of our ego, take charge is a part of still more spiritual growth. The fact is, though, just because I know for certain sure that my ego Lucy is edging forward, looking to get me to kick the football...again, doesn't mean I'll not go for it...again.

That, too, is still more spiritual growth...how else can we learn to love and laugh at our self?

If it is true, and I believe it is, that all paths lead to God, we make our decision to seek God's will then do what seems our best course of action toward getting our want. That's what I call "hold your nose and take a leap of faith."

We find out soon enough if our want is God's will. If it is, it will be perfected in us as time goes by. If, however, our want is not our need, we usually resist until we loose it and let it go. We are now open for our need to be perfected in us as time goes by.

I have heard it said that there are no mistakes in God's world. Remember Lucy? Maybe the occasional error in judgment.

Thank you.

I SHALL FEAR NO EVIL

I consider the valley of the shadow of death as that place of uncertainty that breeds fear of the unknown...where we do not know what to do or if we need to do anything. Where every thought of a possible solution brings the following thought of a possible and fearsome consequence. Where we are unsure of everything even the assurance that God performs that which is given us to do.

I awoke at 5:00 AM wondering if I am about to walk into the valley of the shadow of death.

At 7:00 AM, I read my daily "God Calling," the first paragraph of which is: I am your Guide. Strength and help will come to you; just trust Me wholly.

Don't tell me God doesn't hear our prayers...spoken pleas or mental fears, they're all prayers to God...apparently.

Thank you.

AWAY FROM SELF, TOWARD GOD

The secret to my happiness is to lower my standards for others and raise my standards for me. That's a blinding flash of the obvious from sometime back that reoccurs to me this morning...still as true as it was sometime back.

I like that my daily readings this morning are all centered pretty much on the same thing...the necessary disciplining of our own mind. "God Calling" certainly comes to the point: Deal with yourself severely. Learn to love discipline.

Easwaran quotes the Hindu proverb, Nonviolence is the supreme law of life. He goes on: ....when every trace of violence is removed from the mind, what is left is our natural state of consciousness: pure love. Who's kidding whom? That takes a boatload of discipline...to just get started, I'm thinking.

Ah...here comes gratitude to save the day. It is with a grateful heart and mind that I remind me that I have been at this for a while. I tend to think of myself as I was when first I got the word that love and discipline were interconnected...baffled, bewildered and bitchin' about it, actually.

I must admit, I got hope when I learned that this was to be not by my thinking or even by my control, but by my spiritual condition. Of course, back then I was still thinking of God as the great Santa Claus...I ask, he delivers. Which isn't all that far off...it's just that today I ask, then I accept whatever he delivers, i.e., what I need which is rarely what I had in mind, but is invariably better.

He delivers by guiding us to do his will...we just supply the willingness. And where do we get the willingness? Through discipline. Self-discipline. Love it now or love it later. That's our choices.

All it takes to turn us in the right direction, away from self toward God, are those two words, Thank you.

Thank you.

GOD'S BETTER INTERPRETATION OF LIFE ITSELF

I'm pondering this morning the 23rd Psalm's Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

What if goodness and mercy to God is my Oh, please God, no?  Why not practice making this possibility true to me?

There seems to be big changes coming and right now occurring in my life. In this past year, twelve people dear to me have left, one is my boy Ruckus who has doggie-dementia...he is clearly readying to return home. There are signs (or maybe just my imaginings) that it may be time for me to pack up and move on. The political situation is bringing my idea of brimstone and fire...bottom line, what if my money runs out?

I am happy that I'm not running flat-out scared, but I am keeping my mind open to the possibles of it all. So it felt good this morning to see a better way to stay fret-free: I can invite God's interpretation of my oh-noes. Which does not mean think on them until I find an acceptable reason for them...that's just analyze-to-justify, or more walking the mind-maze.

To invite a better interpretation, to me, is to thank God for my life just exactly as it is right this very red-hot minute. Fearful thoughts are ego's weapon; gratitude is the mental balm that disarms fear...so get grateful.

Gratitude, God's better interpretation. 

Thank you.

ON LIVING WITH AN OPEN MIND

 The Father knows our needs.

Letting the outcome of our inner risks taken be exactly the outcome that we needed...is that when we begin to grasp the mirror-image factor in God's will for us?

According to me, we must needs learn to trust that which appears to be a personal defeat...from an inner risk we took or for that matter from nature taking its course...is in fact our precious gift.

To me again, that is the nature of God's mirror imaging. No matter the end result, as in, not what we wanted, we come to know it for what we needed. There is the proof that what we wanted makes no never mind for we would not have learned our spiritual life lesson any other way.

Then too we are learning the art of letting go...or of divorcing our self from our own self-serving opinions. We get what we need not necessarily what we want even though what we want seems to us to be good, necessary and healthy...it's just that our want is self-driven, usually for our own feel-good (or better at any rate) reasons.

That there is better for us by letting our mind be changed is another of life's too-tough-to-grasp-first-time-round.

In truth, it is so simple. We only need remember: The Father knows our needs. Then stand on it.

Thank you,

NOT OURS TO FIX, OURS TO PRAISE

I had several idle thoughts this morning, thoughts about my busy mind that I realized was looking to build a resentment. Recognizing that, knowing the truth of it, turned my thoughts to gratitude. I am grateful that I no longer doubt for a minute that a resentful mind is always directed outward...looking for somebody to blame.

It seems only in acceptance of that first instant of feeling that somebody else needs to be blamed and shamed for my resentment am I released from my resistance. It is that acceptance, if not with a laugh at least with a smile, that turns me inward, seeking a spiritual fix.

This morning I got (again) that:

1. It is not for me to correct another's words or thoughts or attitude about me...it is for the other to recognize his or herself in their resistance.
2. It is not for me to figure out the why of the other's resistance. 
3. It is for me to welcome being their "whipping girl." (I am grateful, also, that I was taught to go for the harshest term for it keeps me focused on my problem, me.) There...that is me helping them to break through their own resistance to their own self.   

In turning to God with our own resistance, we are giving to God that which needs perfecting in us...it is not for us to fix but for us to praise for that is what is leading us back to God.

Thank you.

ON HAVING A PLAIN OLD FRIEND

By all means, you must find at least one loving, honest friend to ground you, which might even be the utterly accepting gaze of the Friend.

It's amazing and oh-so gratifying to realize how my experience with friends and my acceptance of them has changed over the years. I suspect the change is God's way of leading me to love my enemy as well as my neighbor not to mention myself.

A couple examples:

• I let old JoB be an angel in disguise, and I feel no itch-to-bitch about her or his ways.  
• I am thanking God daily for keeping my heart and my mind open toward a friend who is not doing it right...my open mind is that I am asking to realize that s/he is right already.

Having realized that, it is still vital to me to have a loving, honest friend to talk to. 

Who's kidding whom? God, Jesus, Mary and Joseph are the best, but running my mouth about Gertrude takes an in-the-flesh friend if I'm going to feel understood. And isn't that kinda what comfortable feels like?

Thank you.

EMBRACE THE NOW TO FEEL EMBRACED

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

This instruction...or advice...is my sliver of gold for it was the seed-thought of this quote that set me free in the midst of my darkest panicked thoughts so long ago.

[I need to clarify to keep from giving myself airs, I never heard of Jean Pierre de Caussade at the time or indeed until I read the quote in one of Fr Richard Rohr's Meditations fairly recently. It is that I realized back then the whole of the present moment he referred to.]

The seed-thought that is golden to me, i.e., the present moment that we must embrace, is the one here and now...the one that comes slithering through our mind, smelling like vomit, screaming vile curses that we fear are truths...the unleashing of dark moral forces as Teilhard put it.

Those are the moments we must needs embrace as an ever-flowing source of holiness...along with the happy, joyous and free moments that grow with gratitude.

To paraphrase my beloved "God Calling," we must praise the grey days or they'll keep coming back until we do. That's more my speed, actually...there's no way my ego Lucy can spin that to mean anything but what it says.

Remember, too, Eckhart Tolle's Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. That helps take away the dread of the dark.

According to me, we get to welcome the present moment no matter how we are perceiving it...with jitters or with joy. A thank you will suffice.

Thank you. 

LOVE OUR JUDGE...WALK FREE IN OUR MIND

 In order not to judge, I need to believe in the I of all of us, not just me. - my note to me from some twenty years ago

As I read that this morning, I thought of the intervening years from first flash to now, and I felt relief?or safe? or secure? content at any rate. Content that I have been consciously and unconsciously building on that realization all along.

God has gifted me with two mini-me's. Judge? Lord, how they judge. And it's me they judge! Out of love, don'cha know, as my grandma used to say. Yet I know they love me, and I know I love them. That's how I know they are gifts from God...because I feel judged, and I love them anyway.

Ah, finally. Finally! I'm not only knowing, I'm showing: We must go beyond reason to love...I knew that was true first time I read it some thirty years ago (in The Lazy Man's Guide to Enlightenment). That I can feel judged and loved and love the judgers all at the same time does not make good common sense. Whoa and hallelujah! From my toenails up, I know that not making good common sense part to be the good news.

I can realize it as my doubting mind's proof that reason does not prove love...going beyond reason is going to God and the spirit of God, spiritual reality. When we know love going out and coming in, we know love all around, and we are Oned.

Thank you.

YEAH, IT'S HARD, BUT IT'S GOLD

I asked my God to help me let go of my inner pretenses...those pretenses that, unknowingly, I show-and-tell as me.

And I felt: My life is being stripped bare of all pretenses within and without even as I breathe...I can quit looking for a halo, it is the feeling of a splinter in my Soul that is my reward. 

I meditate on that, and I accept that all the apparent losses in my life this past year are for my benefit. From some, I have already realized the good; some, I am open to. None do I resist...and there's my blessing for sure.

It is when I try to make my good happen that I fall in with my ego Lucy's seductive thinking...where  my ego goal is to come out with the halo for being willing to show my stuff-and-such. Thus earning no spiritual growth, leaving me wondering why God is such a nun. 

Sit and wait on the Lord may be the hardest of all spiritual commands for me. I suspect that is because, in truth, I'd rather sit and wait than take the risk of moving on out...but that is the reasoning mind at its least useful. There is usually an underneath meaning in spiritual commands, and my take on this one is: Sit and wait with my thoughts entirely focused on the Lord and the things of the Lord, not on the problem that I'm wrestling with.

Turning our eyes away from our perceived problem to most anything is the first step and obviously hard...if we weren't obsessing with a problem we wouldn't be needing to turn from it.

The second step is focusing our thoughts. Speaking of hard, trying...even when we want...to focus and stay focused on lilies of the valley when Gertrude needs the back of the hand qualifies.What's that old spiritual? Hard ain't it hard, trying to love the Lord? Or something like that. It is for me for sure.

But the reward! Actually, it's the reward that isn't a reward. It's the splinter in our Soul that turns into our sliver of gold that brings peace to our heart and Soul. Ah, and we know it.

God is so good to us.

Thank you.

IN THE FACE OF FEAR, LAUGH ANYWAY.

Minds, like bodies, will often fall into a pimpled, ill-conditioned state from mere excess of comfort.  – Charles Dickens

And ain't that the truth! But it requires thinking on...or it does for me. Mainly because my initial thought about "an excess of comfort" equals having money. Specifically, more than enough money...like a billion or two. (And, really, wasn't it just yesterday, or the day before at most, that the thought would have been "a million or two?" A whole 'nother story.)

As I note often and often and often, I'm going through a period with my thoughts at 6s & 7s. I assure me it is this long, cold, dreary winter...the political scene...the country's financial brinkmanship. But I know. I know all of those are facts but they are not the reason for my "pimpled, ill-conditioned state" of mind.

The ego-reason I'm feeling fearful is the diagnosis of cognitive decline that both my little guy Ruckus and my mentor have been gifted with. Which opens the door to the unvarnished reason: I'm fighting that short and sharp jab of fear of being left all alone.

It's also known as loneliness.

Now, I love God, and Jesus is a sweetheart of a guy, but I can't snuggle and play kissy-face with either like I can with Ruckus, and I can't pick their brain in that instant when I'm pea-green-purple petrified of making a Big Mistake, like I can with my mentor. Then laugh at myself over it. Laughing at myself all alone lacks that glorious shared feeling of fun, fun in the face of any evidence to the contrary, that I am OK...and loved.

I know, I know...this, too, shall pass.

Please and thank you.

THERE'S "WINNING" AND THERE'S PEACE

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. . . . You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you.  - Marianne Williamson (lifted from Rohr's "Daily Meditation" today)

There are many seekers of still more spiritual growth, upon reading that Williamson's quote, who get stuck in our reasoning mind right there. Spiritual growth flies out the window and ego shouts, "Hallelujah!" It gives false hope that we can...indeed, must...speak up, speak out...and the louder, the better. Ah, but it is our ego-victory truth that we want to shout.

Ego-victory truth: Getting someone told off, setting him straight, one-upping her by any means, i.e. truth or bald-faced lies, makes no never mind. It's a hard lesson a-learning when it turns out we only feel good when we're rehearsing that in our mind.

If we are honestly seeking still more spiritual growth, we will find after we have lashed out, that we invariably feel the rues, regrets and remorses...and we know from our toenails up that we must apologize and make amends.

That is the nature of still more spiritual growth...it does not allow for ego-victory one-up-manship. And that, if nothing else, proves the lasting power of the Sermon which is all about give over, give up, give in. And "win."

Whoa!...here comes an even more valuable truth: Both sides must come out the winner for God to be in it...and we cannot bring that about all on our own. We go to God for God no matter our I-want goal.  Then we know peace...that is to win.

Thank you.

BEFORE GOD THERE IS ONLY LOVE

I have come to believe, or suspect at any rate, that letting go of our reliance on our reasoning mind, or  common sense, is the major (only?) barrier to our relying on our own spiritual intuition. Necessarily so to begin with. It takes time, dedication, time, discipline and time to hone our intuition enough to trust it...and then we learn to check our self out with our mentor before we fly with it.

That occurred to me this morning when I read Rohr and he referred to Lady Julian of Norwich's
Before God, our wounds are our glory.

I thought upon reading that how it explains God's view as the mirror-opposite of our own. According to me, ego always legislates for self; God does not legislate. It is All...One...Love.

To our ego, our wounds are not fair, not our fault, and must be defended, i.e., somebody else must pay. Spiritually, our wounds are evidence of our search for God and acceptance washes them clean.

I have heard Jung quoted as saying that alcoholism is nothing more nor less than a search for the spiritual. The reasoning mind finds that a tish difficult to grasp, but the Lady's quote tells it, Before God, our wounds are our glory.

Thank you.