GIVING GOD A GIGGLE AND A GRIN...AGAIN

I woke up thinking that my material world appears to be less than wonderful, what with people losses and health drains. I took comfort in the thought that for this I seek still more spiritual growth...I am utterly at peace knowing the mirror image of God reflects my life exactly as it need be in this instant. I pray my thank you.

Then I turned on the weather report. It is May 31, we are back-to-face of June 1, and still we're having a preponderance of gray days, chill and rain. I love that that's what ticks me off most...that which clearly is not mine, can never be mine, and I get all up in my head about it. 

That immediately leads to my own personal slippery slope: That which is clearly not mine reminds me of old wo/men laying down the law for young women and what they should do with their bodies. While young men do what they do because "boys will be boys." As Gloria Steinem, a very smart woman, once said, "If men birthed babies, abortion would be a sacrament." Tell me that's not true.

There it is...spelled out before my own eyes. I can write I am utterly at peace knowing the mirror image of God reflects my life exactly as it need be in this instant. I pray my thank you. Then, in a heartbeat, I'm ranting about one more thing that I will never experience so I make free with my heavy-duty opinions.

Well, I just figure we are the only fun-figures God gets to love and laugh about. Dogs and deer...crocodiles and kangaroo, for Heaven's sake...surely are better behaved.

Thank you.

LOVE...A COMPLETE TRANSFORMATION

If we are to be a continuation of God’s way of seeing, we must first of all be mirrors. We must be no-thing so that we can receive some-thing. To love demands a complete transformation of consciousness. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," May 5, 2018

The key to living a complete and fulfilled life lies in the realization that there is a mystical, transcendental Presence within us that has already provided our infinite supply unto eternity, that contains within Itself our companionship unto eternity, and that has within Itself the power of fulfillment. -- Joel Goldsmith, "A Parenthesis in Eternity," p 269

Goldsmith's key to living a complete and fulfilled life requires the complete transformation of consciousness of Rohr's "Meditation."  I'm convinced that is the giving up of our hope of Heaven. An utter surrender of self-will moves us in the right direction...turns us away from our own idea of Heaven and leaves us without an answer, not even sure of the question.  Feeling hopeless, helpless and bare-butt naked in the world.

The answer we seek is seldom what we want...and there's the nature of the mirror image of God. We may experience what to our eyes looks like pain beyond enduring only to learn on the other side of that pain that to God's eyes it was what we needed to be led free...Free Of Me. We realize a complete transformation of consciousness. 

God knows our needs, we only know our wants...which wants may even match our needs only we cannot self-will them. We must go to God for God, and all these things shall be added unto us.

Thank you.

REGRET NOTHING, WELCOME EVERYTHING

I tend to believe that regrets are just resentments in fancy dress. The first sentence in today's "God Calling" is just two words: Regret nothing. The second sentence: Not even the sins and failures.

That's sure not putting too fine a point on it, is it?

That's not Fatherly advice, that's a command.

Why, then, do we find it so difficult to follow that command? Who's kidding whom? There is no room for debate there. No way is Yes, but acceptable...or even allowed!

I never wanted to deny it. I just wanted to learn how to let it be true, to be my truth.

I bring good news. We let it be true by our daily commitment to seek still more spiritual growth. Now. Here. Right where we are.

We seek still more spiritual growth daily not (just) for the Big Bang, God Is moment. But for the little constants...the misspeaks, the inadvertents, the oops of life. Those are the regrets my ego Lucy could polish until they were clear enough to read another's name on...and a resentment was birthed. The resentment needed not be at the other, it often was at me, specifically my own stupidity, ignorance, no-good-dirty- whoa, Nellie, I'm gone again.  

Ah, and there's the pearl. Through daily practice, we find a whole new wakin' up morning. We can feel that niggling regret, and we can know peace. We are now aware that it's just looking to blame and shame, but there's no willing body at home to accept it.

It is in the search, the discipline to seek still more spiritual growth daily, that we find the peace that passes understanding. Without that daily discipline, it fades, and it fades a lot faster than ever it comes.

Maybe that's why we're told to pray without ceasing...and maybe that's why, per Meister Eckhart, If the only prayer you say in your life is thank you, that would suffice.

Thank you.

ON BECOMING WHOLLY HOLY

I have read that we must defeat our tendency to try to be holy without being human first, and I know that to be my early-on (up until the next time) stumbling block.

It is hard enough to learn that we must go beyond reason to love (or love your enemy as yourself...whoa!). If, though, we are sincere about our search for still more spiritual growth, we do come to the necessary understanding of their inner meaning. Most often our understanding translates to coming to agree with it as it applies to you. That, too, we can get grateful for since it is that thorn that births our thank you that turns us away from self toward God. 

Our reliance on our reasoning mind is our tripwire. Our reasoning mind is a necessary tool in our day-to-day life but we must remember that it legislates for self...ever and always. Common sense is ego's nest, or launching pad, depending on our reaction to whomever/whatever we are perceiving at the moment.

In trying to be holy, we quote turn it over at the drop of another's problem...in being human, we beat our self up because we're flunking our own rigid, righteous and right rule. We come to agree again and again and yet again that self is our only enemy.

We want to let it go...to cling to nothing, to fly. We can't. In that gut-bucket, toenails-up realization we are free. Free to be wholly human. We love it and laugh.

There. That is the fruit of our labor to sincerely turn our will and our life over to the care of our God...ah, now that is holy.

Thank you.

OUR LIFETIME DISCIPLINE

I lined up the loftiest ideals I could find and set out to achieve them. The results were rarely admirable, often laughable, and sometimes grotesque. But always they were unreal, a distortion of my true self—as must be the case when one lives from the outside in, not the inside out. I had simply found a 'noble' way to live a life that was not my own, a life spent imitating heroes instead of listening to my heart. -- from today's "Daily Meditation" of Fr Richard Rohr's quoting Parker Palmer, a Quaker teacher and activist

There. That to me is the perfect description of a self-determined objective and its almost always consequences...rarely admirable, often laughable and sometimes grotesque.  Palmer was speaking of his life's journey, but all one need do is minimize the goal...one's life's journey into what one wants right now. That want way too often justifies itself as a need, and we're heading down that wrong road again.

Our wants usually do distort our true self for by their very nature they are for our own benefit...even our want to do good for another. Follow that to its end, and isn't the result that we feel good about our self? Who would want to do good for another if we knew we'd feel just terrible about our self in the end?

The discipline, the risk if you will,  comes in learning to listen to and to trust our very own heart, the hidey hole of our Father. Or, as Palmer described it, living not from the outside in but the inside out.

This is the discipline known as seek ye first the kingdom of Heaven. Ah, but no, the discipline comes in forgetting the rest of that sentence, the part about and all these things shall be added unto you. That is where our self-determined objectives live.

No wonder it's a lifetime discipline...and aren't we grateful that it is?

Thank you.

TO MEET AGAIN

I think it not improbable that man,

like the grub that prepares a chamber

for the winged thing it never has seen

but is to be –

that man may have cosmic destinies

that he does not understand.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

(1841-1935)

That gives me comfort...that Oliver Wendell Holmes thought it not improbable that humans may have cosmic destinies. He wasn't at all certain sure, was he? That's my comfort. 

Most of the time I think I'm certain sure...then I hold my little guy (who was human in disguise) as he leaves this plane, and I can only hope there really is a cosmos where he will know peace, love and joy...where he can bound across Heaven, meetin' and greetin' and having one fine time...again. Or still. 

Thank you. 

FORGIVENESS BEGINS WITH OUR THOUGHTS

Those dark nights of the soul...those, too, we come to love.

It is in those dark hours, when we are begging God's forgiveness, that we first awaken to the need within us to be released of our self-protective wrap, to forgive in a word. I contend that it is the need to upgrade (forgive?) our thoughts that forms the path to forgiveness...of self and others.

Ego will always dictate...sometimes just a tish, sometimes entirely...that others are the real reason we did less-than-wonderful in the first place. That's ego's job. Ah, but our job is to turn from ego to God. 

As we seek God's forgiveness, our very desire extends, embracing our remembrances, our memories  of others, those people and events that we have been regretting...and blaming.

That dark night of the soul has become the channel we pass through to become forgiving...of self and of others.

It is in forgiving that we are forgiven.

Thank you.

CLOSER THAN THE AIR WE BREATHE

For it is in self forgetting that one finds.... (from the Prayer of St. Francis)

That is it...the hidden-in-the-open clue to a still more spiritual life. Self forgetting. Which, of course, cannot be done by our trying to forget self...that just keeps self in the forefront, playing blame and shame louder and louder.

A line I read just this morning fits this situation to a T: From Fr. Richard Rohr quoting Barbara Holmes’ book Joy Unspeakable: Contemplative Practices of the Black Church: "When you know that you are 'between a rock and a hard place,' then you must respond creatively to the situation."

My questions: Is to respond creatively, to rely on our free will? Does God work thru our free will to lead us out from our own self? Is that the divine purpose of free will? Is that why he gifted us with free will?

It is in self forgetting that one finds, so we will our self to sit in the silence...to sit and wait on the Lord. Originally, it is our will that keeps us there...and it takes as long as it takes. For me, this is when I learned to use my will to think of anything but trying to forget self, and I found my go-to: Lilies of the valley. And trying to catch their scent. Trust me...it requires all my will to hold that focus.

Since what it is we are to find is not defined, we often start with peace of mind. We get there (or as close as we're going to get) when we hit whatever. It is in our preoccupation with discovering to our satisfaction what it is we are to find that we learn that is what we need to release! How convoluted is that?

According to me, that is the very nature of God Itself...convoluted, mysterious, undefinable, invisible and closer than the air we breathe.

There. That is what our will freely bows to...over and over and over again...with love and laughter.

Thank you.

OUR CONCEIT IS OUR GOLDEN GOOSE

Blinding flash of the obvious: Take away my difficulties that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Your love,  Your power, Your way of life. -- To take away my difficulties is for me to realize God within the difficulties...that they are for my benefit. Our difficulties are not withdrawn, our concept of them is transmuted.

Our new way of perceiving changes our lives immeasurably. Ah, but isn't it that change that is so challenging to hold to? I'm guessing because its benefits are the "joy unspeakable" that our reasoning mind cannot analyze. Forest/trees...we disregard the "joy unspeakable" in our constant search for something to speak about...in short, for something to take credit for. Which we then call spiritual growth.

And that, too, is heading us in the right direction. Even our conceit has a sliver of gold...without it, how would our concepts ever be transmuted? It is our conceit, our me, my, mine, that becomes our thorn from which we seek release.

Loose it and let it go.

Thank you.

TO FIND A 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. -- Fr. Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," August 10, 2014

It seems to me the older I get the harder it is to make new friends...no, the harder it is for me to want to make new friends. From my eyebrows up, I want to, but putting in the effort...it's the risk isn't it? The risk of getting a ringer...a dud. A drain on my dwindling inner resources. Which, of course, is all ego, and, hard, hard, hard lesson a-learning: Just because we know it for ego, does not mean we can drop it by the wayside and continue on spiritually clean.

God and ego are both with us 24/7 (or 24/7 five days a week as a marvelous twit on "Frasier" once said), and it is our free-will choice which way we lean.

That's an excellent reason for having at least one loving, honest friend. Ego always appears to be the better choice...because, duh, it always legislates for self. The Lord doesn't legislate...the Lord just loves. You, me, them...equally and always. And only the Lord, through love, through the non-resistance of love, can bring about the perfect solution for all concerned.

The training, our discipline, is learning to look at our own life through the eyes of love...nonresistant, accepting, welcoming. With ego, just like a two-year-old, nattering in our ear, "No, no, and no" to any and all things that do not have a guaranteed "Looking Good" tag on it for us.

That's probably one reason why "getting old" has such a rotten rep. Nothing here is new,  it's simply harder to apply that inner knowledge we have gained...to stretch, to reach for the gold...when old Lucy is so right at hand. Nobody ever had to stretch to get their ego up and running, I'm betting.

Friends come and go with barely a ripple in our lives as we're growing up...but in old age, they enter a lot slower and leave a lot faster, and the ripple feels like a riptide.

Hey! Here's the good news...this, too, we can love.  At this age, my inner resistance to inviting new friends into my life is my daily stretching discipline! It requires courage that I haven't found it necessary to use for years...if ever. The courage to extend my acceptance...love...to an unknown other, and the willingness to stick with her/him. But, wait...there's more:  To accept, too...the courage to accept love from an unknown other.

Love...isn't that yet another form of the willingness to know and be known?

Thank you.

GOD KNOWS MY NEEDS

[The following is a slightly reworked reprint of my post of October 27, 2013/]

Remembering my years of living defensively, I am overwhelmed with joy and gratitude that, to a great degree, I have been moved from that place. And it all began when I learned: We go to God for God and that is all; we seek God for God's sake...not for love, not for power, not for prestige, not for profit.

I can choose to walk free in my own head today...except, of course, when I stub my toe and my ego declares it your fault, and I go haring off down that trail.

The good news is that today I know that, too, is doing it right. Why else would I keep digging for still more spiritual growth? I know this to be true because every time I've gotten to a place within where I feel safe, secure, protected, I "stub my toe and my ego declares it your fault, and I go haring off down that trail."

Only when I become willing to and do acknowledge my initial part in the stubbing of my toe, do I realize I've grown just a tish deeper spiritually.

God knows my needs...my wants, not so much...there, again, a matter for pure gratitude.

Thank you.

IT'S THE DOING IT THAT COUNTS

[The following is a reprint of my post of November 29, 2012.]

"You need not aspire for or get any new state. Get rid of your present thoughts, that is all." -- Ramana Maharshi

Now, there's good advice, which, like most good advice, is utterly useless if we're not ready to hear it. Until we open our mind, release any resistance and ask within ourselves, "How?," those are just so many pretty words.

But I bring good news! Once I was ready to actually do it, to actually get rid of my present thoughts (because my present thoughts were nattering me, and worse, I was starting to believe them), I began using what I'd been taught. I had been taught that my reasoning mind was God's tool to use, not mine. So don't try to turn it off, turn it over...to God to do with as He knows best for me.

One of the tools I'd been given, in order to turn it over, is: Whenever an ugly looks like it's heading for me, think "thank you" first, then "It is I, be not afraid." The ugly is I, my gift. I accept it as such and turn that sucker around as many ways as I need to until I find the sliver of gold. It is there...find it, and that sliver will grow into a blessing beyond our reasoning mind's comprehension.

What we most need to remember is that the reasoning mind cannot get us there. We must go beyond reason to love...the very first "thank you" turns our dread into love, then into acceptance, then into non-resistance...with which we give over to God who does His thing. Not our problem any longer.

This really isn't that hard to remember...it's the habitual doing it that takes some time.

Thank you.

THE PROOF IS IN OUR ACTIONS

The Father knows our needs.

I repeat that often and often and often. I know it...sometimes maybe only from my eyebrows up do I know it, but then on that rare occasion I know it...ah, then it feels imbued in me.

Which is causing me pause today. This month of May, I am having house guests up the gump-stump, and I am not a house-guest-welcoming person. I quickly add, my past experience is that after a guest is here, we've had a wonderful time bonding, and they are on their way gone, my heart hurts that they are not staying longer, moving in with me, living here!

Note that I say "after" a guest is here.... I have never had a guest come, leave, a couple days later, a guest comes and leaves, a couple days later, a guest...really, that is what it has been. It came to me that my Father (who is now playing pitch-pull with Ruckus in Heaven) had preplanned for this because he knew I would be feeling alone and so lonely without my little boy. I have been thanking him daily for knowing my need.

How-some-ever.

My Father knowing my needs and my knowing my needs are two entirely different matters. My wants, what I am used to, what feels right to me...that and those are what I must detach from. That detachment is the foundation we stand on for the change that is required for us to begin and to continue our quest for still more spiritual growth.

This, apparently, is my need: I never have experienced the "rest of the story," as in, as guests leave, feeling like I want them to stay forever, then resisting another's immediate entrance. I realize this is the way to the change I have ever sought...the change in me from loner to lover.

And both of those terms tell their own mistaken story...loner sounds pejorative and lover sounds sensual. Neither tell the underlying story, and it is not until I am clear myself about the underlying story will I be ready for the change I seek...left to my own thinking, I'd never be ready because the change is uncomfortable. But I suspect that is exactly why my Father is sending all my beloveds in a cluster...he knows my needs.

I recognize that it has been a long time since I've thought of loner as pejorative or lover as only sensual...but I've only made the change in my mind. I am being presented this month with my God-gift of change and my ego thoughts of resistance. As is ever the case, it is in my actions that the proof will show forth. And my actions have all been Go!

Oh, and just think...it is through my little guy's moving on up that I'm...moving on up! Thank you, Ruck-a-roonie.

Thank you.

PRAY NOT FOR, BUT IN THANKS

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

Here's my morning ponderable: Isn't praying to God for help going in the wrong direction?

The key there is "praying for." If we have sincerely come to believe and trust that the Father knows our needs, to ask God for any self-determined objective is to remain fixed in our own mind's picture of what we need.

I'm a believer that our best prayers are free-flowing expressions of gratitude for whatever is appearing to us in the moment...be it an unexpected lottery win or an equally unexpected necessary expense.

In living the mirror-image-of-God life, if those events should occur, we know the lottery win for the less-than-wonderful news, and the major expense as for our benefit.

To look to God in gratitude for the same reason we wanted to pray for help is beginning to live our new changed mind...the grateful mind or the centered mind. This is the mind plucked of self-interest and wrapped in God goals...meaning, wrapped in care and concern for others.

While all that may be entirely so, we fool our self when (not if ) we forget that we are first a human being with free will, another gift from God. Free will, a.k.a., Me First...and there's my ego, Lucy With The Football. Learning to know neither shame nor pride but gratitude that she is alive and well in me is my daily cross and sliver of gold.

Without getting tripped up by our ego, we'd likely have no humility at all. And there it is...why I know gratitude for old Lucy.

Thank you.

SEEK AND YE SHALL FIND

If you are searching,

You must not stop until you find.

When you find, however,

You will become troubled.

Your confusion will give way to wonder.

In wonder you will reign over all things.

Your sovereignty will be your rest. 

[From "The Wisdom Jesus" by Cynthia Bourgeault. She notes it as from the Gospel of Thomas, recovered in 1945 amid the Nag Hammadi scrolls in the Egyptian desert and now largely accepted as an authentic teaching of Jesus...the other gospels stop with seek and you shall find.]

I read that teaching, I understood it from my eyebrows up...no, actually, from the first words, If you are searching through Your confusion will give way to wonder. I knew it because I have experienced it. 

The last two lines, however, cause me pause. I do not doubt their truth, but my understanding keeps slip sliding away.

In wonder you will reign over all things and Your sovereignty will be your rest. Interestingly, when first I read them, I knew what they meant...to me. In their travels from my brain to my gut on their way to my Soul, however, they keep taking pit stops, changing ever so slightly each time. 

I suspect my first thought of them is my truth: Receiving the gift of desperation fills us with wonder that our power is in our powerlessness...and we realize that we reign over all things for we have given up the fight. I liken it to Chief Joseph's I will fight no more forever. In those few words, we know our sovereignty is in our rest.

I doubt not more thoughts will come and go, but the answer is probably in Seek and you shall find. There is no defined what that we shall find...nothing we can put in a box and carry around with us. Just our ever deepening trust that what we find is a God-fulfilled need in the moment. And it is good.

Thank you.

IT IS NEVER HIM/HER/THEM

What we  hope ever to do with ease, we must first learn to do with diligence. -- Samuel Johnson

Old Samuel could say in a handful of words what I've been trying to get to for days, weeks and months now. Even more incisive is the  old joke asking how to get to Carnegie Hall with its punchline...practice, practice, practice.

The hook to a faith that works is still more spiritual growth is counterintuitive...the reasoning mind will not get us there, not even if we sit and think till our face falls off. It is, however, the vehicle we have been given for the hand-off to attain spiritual growth. Not by my might nor by my power nor by my will can my good come to me...but by my constant consciousness of the Father within me/without me. 

That's where the diligent practice of subtraction, detachment...unknowing...enters. It's akin to practicing nothingness. Until we make our breakthrough. Then we know and we know we know...only we can't put it into words without sounding sophomoric.

Learning to practice unknowing is what leads us up to another way of thinking...the art of accepting a changed mind. For instance, as our first step we learn that to love is to not get above our raisin'...we are not saints, and we're not going to be anytime soon, and we cannot not judge another just by knowing we oughtn't. Hey...BFO: It is acceptable to judge negatively that which we see and resist in another...as long as we are living what we see is always our self as our guide.

There. Bring it all back home...no better way to get a true look at that which we need to recognize within us in order to come to acceptance of self and others. Which is also known as love.

According to me, that's the how-to in learning to love your enemy as yourself. Who in their right, i.e., reasoning, mind would ever be able to pull that off without bald-face lying? Again, according to me.

Thank you.

SO LIFE IS ABSURD...LAUGH AND LET IT BE

The discipline comes in training our thoughts to neither make the remark okay...s/he didn't mean it, I misheard...nor to imagine even snarkier toppers, personalizing thus justifying our less-than-wonderful response. 

Just yesterday morning I wrote those words as my how to train our own thoughts to give over, or, how to take nothing personally.

Yesterday around noon, I took an incredibly...and totally unexpected...sharp dig from a neutral acquaintance. I responded not at all, neither verbally nor mentally. Sometime later, after I had returned home, the remark came to mind, and hot? Whoa! Faster than a blinding flash of the obvious, I was spitting fire. It was more than apparent that I needed to find the humor in this so I quick called a friend who has a like mind for the absurd. It was either laugh about it or begin/continue resentment building. And laugh we did. 

Further, in my yesterday's post, I wrote, We train our thoughts to go to God and the things of God...for instance, we can think of lilies of the valley, puppy dogs, rainbows. This is by way of adding one more choice: We can find a friend to laugh about it with.

It is the subtlety of life's happenings that take us so unaware, and that's the very core of why we must train our own mind to want to turn from ego-victory to spiritual growth. And, who's kidding whom? Ego victory by its right name, i.e., I WIN, is hard to hate.

I've taken to thinking of spiritual growth by its right name, Love and Laughter. What can I say? That just sounds a lot less plodding to me.

Thank you.

HUG IT AND KISS IT AND LET IT GO

Your motives and aspirations can only be understood by those who have attained the same spiritual level. -- "God Calling," May 14

It is a rude...and wonderful...awakening to read that sentence and realize s/he who I'm thinking cannot understand me because I am so spiritually advanced may be in the exact reverse...as in, s/he is the advanced one.

It is rude only to my ego Lucy, but it is wonderful in that it turns my thinking away from the opaque (me trying to change your mind) to the transparent (opening to God's changing my mind). I suspect that is so difficult because it asks that we be willing to give over, not win...lose in a word.

The discipline comes in training our thoughts to neither make the remark okay...s/he didn't mean it, I misheard...nor to imagine even snarkier toppers, personalizing thus justifying our less-than-wonderful response.

Bottom line, never fail: We train our thoughts to go to God and the things of God...for instance, we can think of lilies of the valley, puppy dogs, rainbows. They all work. In other words, it requires that we not think of the snark or the snarker at all. Loose it and let it go.

I'm guessing it is the human condition that makes it so difficult to be willing to deliberately give up an agitated, irritated, peeved mind in exchange for a mind filled with love and laughter...at peace.

There it is...the difference between self-determined goals and God's will goals is the difference between wanting to get and needing to give.

Again, loose it and let it go.

Thank you.

KNOWING IT vs TRUSTING IT

Say 'all is well,' Say it not as a vain repetition. Use it as you use a healing balm for cut or wound, until the poison is drawn out, then, until the sore is healed; then until the thrill of fresh life floods your being. -- "God Calling," May 12

There...according to me, that is the short, sweet and on-target recipe for letting go of our self-determined objectives (which, too often, is all an affirmation is).

All is well is an affirmation. It is our intention that must change. If we're saying "all is well" and thinking "because I need to get a new car, my bills paid, a reformed spouse...," then, no. We're just going down ego's well-worn and  wrong road again.

When we're praying "all is well," with God's will being our only goal, we are quieting our mind, detaching from our ego-thoughts. That is opening to God's will which already flows within us. We are being lifted into spiritual consciousness where, indeed, all is well.

That is the difference between affirming in order to get and affirming in order to realize. Learning the difference is how it comes to be that we can trust that our Father knows our needs.

Thank you.

ON FINDING THE WAY

[The following is a reprint of my post of September 17, 2014.]

The way of uncertain future and faltering steps. It is My Way. Know that you will be led. Know that you will be shown. - "God Calling," September 17

There it is. There is the fact of faith..."uncertain future and faltering steps" is the Way.

And, according to me, when still we weep and wail that our steps are faltering as we go forward uncertainly, that is the right way.

Call it the sausage making of still more spiritual growth...it might not be pretty, but that's only to the eye of the reasoning mind. We are being led away from the reasoning mind's sure and certain to our own inner knowing that we are being led, our own inner knowing that we will be shown.

There is no coming to believe and instantaneously walking free of self...doubt, worries, regrets. There is only walking through our doubts, through all that our own self throws at us. We're not getting to the other side of what worries us...no. We are getting to the other side of self...to that power greater than self.

Welcome the way of uncertain future and faltering steps...for there we will find the Way.

Thank you.

GO FOR THE POSSIBILITY OF PEACE FOR ALL

The 14th century mystic Meister Eckhart preached, God is not found in the soul by adding anything, but by a process of subtraction.

We often hear that life is not easy, but it is simple.  For most humans, that's the problem. Same goes for Eckhart's statement. Simplicity. Detachment. For sure neither comes easy...that's probably because they don't require any deep thought. And analyzing shoots the whole thing in the back of the head.

 We learn the words, then the how-to, which allows us to believe we've got it...because we know it.  "It" is something akin to: Turn our will and our life over to the care of God, our personal God, and then trust it. Specifically, trust that our best can and will come through us to us. Now. 

And our reasoning mind howls...Well, it sure doesn't look like it. I've still got X, Y and Z, and I do not know how I'm going to deal with any or all of it, and I'm scared.

And God, a big fan of Groucho Marx,  says, Who are you going to trust? Me or your lying eyes?  

See, that's why it's so hard. Our ego, my Lucy, has a bigger mouth than God and, apparently, will not not use it. And there it is. If we are ever to have the peace we seek, we must continue daily practicing training our mind.  

According to Eknath Easwaran, Training the mind means establishing and maintaining...good, creative, consistently kind thinking. I'm convinced that consistently kind thinking may be the short cut to the peace of mind we seek...hey, maybe even world peace? 

Yet, who's kidding whom? Consistently kind thinking is another simple but not easy, mainly because it requires that we detach from our ego-victory thoughts. 

But what better reason to train our mind toward kindness than for the possibility of peace here and now...for all?

Thank you.

ON THIS AND THAT AND THE OTHER THING

The following are various notes I have written  in my "God Calling" over the years. I feel grateful for the reminders, but, who's kidding whom, I'm mostly surprised that they hold true still.

When I throw shade on another, I invite that same shade back on me. Without fail.

When I extend myself for another...whether or not they know it...I better me...and I feel it.

My fear of financial insecurity came on in full when I quit giving to charities.

Not only are we the manufacturer of all our own woes, but we are the Source of all our own good.

Over the years I have identified this and that and the other thing as my nemesis.  In identifying my nemesis, I realized in 2017, My nemesis is me, beginning and ending in my own self interest.

To resist not evil transmutes evil (with gratitude to "An Interrupted Life").

Way back to JoB's screed: I have had the free-floating idea that this was part of her initiation, possibly our mutual initiation. Pondering that, I was mentally projecting others asking how I felt about JoB's screed, and I was arm-wrestling with God on how I could shoot a snark but with loving kindness. (And God said No.)  Instead, he sent a blinding flash of the obvious: I can consider that to be a part of her initiation and myself privileged to be a part of it, Ah, now to practice that.

What if life itself is our initiation?

Thank you.

THINGS LOOK BLEAK? LOVE AND LAUGH, BABY!

 I once believed that when my life seemed to be at 6s & 7s, that I was doing something wrong, and to the material world that may well be. But I've come to believe, on a higher plane, that is when I am unknowingly doing God's will...and I need only to trust him in this.

Over the last year or so, twelve friends (this includes my little guy) have left my life...most all by moving to another state, one through death and one through her own misguided anger (which I hope is part of our mutual initiation process, but she's gone and I'm glad, so be it).

Then starting in October of last year, I began to have trouble with my teeth...specifically, one tooth. My dentist fixed it to the tune of $2,000. Then in November, he retired, and in December, as I brushed my teeth, the new tooth (a crown actually) fell out in the sink. It's May and $4,000 later, and we're still working on that tooth, and last week another crown fell out in the sink.

My dentist is talking implants, and my ego Lucy is gearing up for her war dance.

As I awoke this morning, I started to pray for...and (God is so good to me) I remembered: When I pray for -- anything, I am going down that wrong road again. I quick thanked God for whatever, however, whenever he willed for me. I kinda wallowed in the knowing that my only thought need be  that God has my answer no matter the appearance...stay my mind on that fact...when it ventures out, pull it back with a thank you and know all is as it should be in my life right this very minute...Now.

Then I read my "God Calling," and here's a part of today's message: Doubt always your power or wisdom to put things right, ask Me to right all as you leave it to Me and go on your way loving and laughing. Not to put too fine a point on it!

I'm telling you God loves me sooo much.

Thank you.

WE'RE NOT SETTLING, WE'RE CHOOSING

More and more it is seeming to me that you must go beyond reason to love is our direct link out of self.

When we find our self resisting...and naming it you...we need to "go beyond reason" and recall that anything we receive from anyone is our own, not the other's. The minute we are negatively conscious of a remark, an attitude, a feeling...it is ours, we own it, the other's ownership has already transferred.

Here's the dividing line for receiving negative anything: (a) I know that I can accept this as my angel in disguise as opposed to your contempt or envy or hate or....  It is my choice how I choose to receive it, to hold it, to let it color my return feelings; OR (b) I'm neither stupid nor a patsy...I know what you meant by that look, that oh-so-innocent remark, that attitude, and I'd be a fool to take it.

Ah, but just because we are fully aware that it is our choice that will determine our walking around self for the day...or week...doesn't make the choice a cinch. It just proves the point that self-knowledge avails us nothing...nothing, that is, if we stay in self.

We must go beyond reason to love. Love is not a reasonable choice when we're met with our own idea of incoming ugly. That's what brings on that feeling that we're arm-wrestling with God... we know acceptance is the right answer, but contempt feels so good...so justified. And just shooting off one little snark....

Surrendering our feeling of self-centered justification (I won!) for the freedom from self (ah, we agree) cannot be transferred for use later...it's hard enough to remember it is not a matter of settling for, but a matter of being raised up...it must be lived daily. Now.

Thank you.

DIG WE MUST OR DIE WE WILL

...once I have shown the way, it is against the tide you must direct all your effort. And even when difficulties come, it is by your effort that they will be surmounted. But always strength and the Joy in the doing you can have through Me. -- "God Calling," May 7

When first I read that quote, I could never have imagined that the most important part to me would come to be, But always strength and the Joy in the doing you can have through Me.

I was not enchanted with the promised fact that it is by my efforts that the digging and the climbing will get done. I simply skated right by that Joy in the doing part...there was probably an unconscious "Yeah, right" bubble in my mind, if that. I mean, whatever happened to Ask and ye shall receive?

It was when I was blessed with an attitude of gratitude, which was a pure gift from God scavenged from the ashes of my crashing and burning, repeatedly, that I realized the digging and climbing are my pearls beyond price. There it is. The evidence to my own ego Lucy that I can and will seek and do the will of a power higher than self, than her, and it, like ego, is forever and always instantly available to me.

Its text message is Love and Laugh...and keep on digging.

God is so good to me.

Thank you.

OUR IMAGE OF GOD IS OUR PROBLEM

The thought crossed my mind as I brushed my teeth this morning...I wondered if it is that unbelievers do not not believe in God, it is that they don't believe in their own idea of God.

Which led to the obvious suspicion that it is our own idea of God that is the only block to God. And then to the question, what if there is never a block to God? Just a personal inability...or personal refusal...to accept the reality of God.

For those of us who do desire to know God aright, I suspect it is our desire, linked with our inability, to completely turn our self over to God that keeps us in self will...trying to do God's will through our will, or our idea of God's will...with the end result being we seem wishy-washy at best, deluded at worst. 

Since, however, all paths do lead to God, our end result is our sliver of gold...it is that feeling of wrong-again-naturally that is our real angel in disguise, or our golden goose pushing/leading us ever forward...or higher to a deeper place.

It's basically the same realization that it is the pain we pray to be relieved of that leads us to God...so praise the pain. It is the praise, the gratitude, that transmutes our resistance into acceptance. And we know peace.

Thank you.

MAGIC vs. MINDFUL

Where does the split come between magic thinking and mindful living? According to me, magic thinking is the trap of the reasoning mind...mindful living is our spiritual quest.

"God Calling" today gives permission to believe that all things are yours -- that what is lovely I delight to give you. Further, empty your mind of all that limits. Whatever is beautiful you can have. Leave more and more the choice to Me. You will have no regrets. In the first paragraph, however, we find a deeper instruction: With the heart, not the head, men should think of Me. Then further on, keep the eye of your spirit ever upon Me, the window of your soul open towards Me. 

When presented with the promise that all things are ours for the thinking, our material mind will ever think...materially. As in, financial security for life...money, Honey...or excellent health until we die peacefully in our sleep after most but not all of our loved ones are gone.

If we've been paying any attention at all, however, we know spiritual growth is all about ask for the moon but let heart, soul, body and brains realize that the moon we seek is a higher, ever higher, consciousness...Christ consciousness...God consciousness. Leave more and more the choice to Me. 

I'm guessing there is no lack to a beggar on the street who lives in God consciousness...poverty is the beggar's choice in order better to be free to Be in God Consciousness.

Can we really believe God's choice for us is going to be big bucks? Or for that matter, anything other than a higher consciousness of Him deeper within? If so, why?

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

Thank you.

GOD IS LOVE...TRUST IT

Learning to be a loving person is almost all about letting go of our own idea about love...how to give, but more about how to receive love. Until we let go of our idea of what love is, we'll never be open to experiencing the inborn love awaiting to be released...to and from others.

I suspect our desire and yet fear of love keeps us stuck in our reasoning mind's idea of what love should look like. It's a difficult thing when we interpret that another is in need to untwist our self from our own idea of just what the need is...then rushing to give what may not be needed.

In the early '90s I attended an Elizabeth Kubler-Ross "Life, Death and Transition" retreat/workshop. (In short, it's purpose was for those who had experienced a trauma in life that they were unable to get shut of.) Each attendee had the opportunity to share their traumatic experience with the group. The sharer would often cry, and it was revolutionary to me to learn that we must not, NOT, hand the crier a tissue as a sop for their tears.

As Kubler-Ross explained, the one sharing has held the hurt for way too long, it is just beginning to seep out, tears are appropriate, let them come.

What happens to those of us observing is that we become uncomfortable if there are free-flowing tears because, who's kidding whom, that means free-flowing snot, too. We quit listening to the cry for help...our compassion and willingness to listen...and became absorbed with our idea of what we think must be the other's embarrassment at all the...umm...nasal mucus.  We are repulsed, which is not nice, so we interpret our discomfort as needing to come to the other's aid in the form of a tissue.

Here, according to Kubler-Ross, is the crux: The crier may well be right at the point of breakthrough. He has been stuck in his pain maybe for years, has only begun to loose it and let it go, and here comes a hand waving a tissue in his face. Of course, that interrupts his line of thought, and his stuck pain goes back into hiding.

The lesson about love on the material plane is until we are asked specifically for help...here, for a tissue...we give our full loving attention without judgment and that is all. On a spiritual plane, we  remember unto breathing that God is love. Trust that and His guidance is assured.

Thank you.

FEAR FEELINGS AND HOW TO LOVE THEM

[The following is a reworked reprint of my post of May 6, 2017.]

My followers must be prepared not to sit on My right hand and on My left, but to drink of the cup that I drink of. Poor world -- teach it that there is only one cure for all its ills -- Union with Me. Dare to suffer, dare to conquer, be filled with My sublime audacity. Remember that. Claim the unclaimable -- "God Calling," May 6

When, not if, we're feeling put upon, betrayed (fascinating that "betrayed" comes up, I'd venture to bet, more often than any other fear feeling), for sure our first response is to analyze ways to prove our accuser wrong...either by pay back or by justifying our resistance.

Claim the unclaimable.

That means, in short, to claim the ability to say not a word, nay, think not a thought in resistance, i.e., in order to talk them over to our way of thinking. To just do that from our place of nonresistance, a.k.a., love, is our goal...and it doesn't count if we self-will our way. That's the whole purpose of being "prepared not to sit on My right...but to drink of the cup that I drink of." 

Our lesson only just begins when we can do that without feeling self-righteous about it.

Thank you.

ON DOUBT AND REALIZATION

The desire to go against selfish desires is the surest sign of grace. -- Eknath Easwaran, "Words to Live By," May 2

It fills me with awe (a.k.a., love and laughter) how I can doubt good news before conscious thought ever takes hold. For instance, I consider Easwaran's statement to be really good news, but I read that and the first words out of my mouth?  "Oh, I doubt that."

We must still first our mouth, then our thoughts...or I do. There are mornings I get out of bed with my mouth flapping, long before my brain has attached enough to even sort out my thoughts. Knowing that usually silences me, and that's the fruit from the tree of discipline.

Here's my definition of discipline: Try, fail, try again, fail, try, try again, fall back a step, make self available, feel a slight upward movement, realize we're heading in the right direction, continue making self available, and lo! One fine day our center has moved a centimeter. Then repeat daily till three days after we're dead.

To put our discipline to best use, we must first make a decision, as in we must name our single goal for all that discipline. For starters, that could be Easwaran's desire to go against selfish desires.

My goal to divorce myself from my own opinions came with the blinding flash of the obvious: It is not by my thoughts or my words that my uglies are set straight, but by Your thought/words...but it is mine to speak Your words...in Your time as You flow through me into fruition.

Thank you.

GOD INTERVENES ON OUR BEHALF

To heal our relationships, we have to move closer to people we do not like, learn to work with them without friction. - Eknath Easwaran, "Words to Live By," May 1

I love that sentence because its meanings have deepened for me. Today, its most important words to me are, learn to work with them without friction. At first, the only words I read were, we have to move closer to people we do not like.

To move closer to people we do not like, or are just in mental disagreement with, I find we best start with our own thoughts...to move closer before we have made peace in our own head and heart is still a self-determined objective with little or no spiritual guidance.

Same goes with trying to make someone who is angry with me not angry with me. That is akin to trying to make a person love me...it's all about me, and it doesn't work. A self-determined objective is for self, not for the other.

More and more I'm understanding that spiritual movement upward to a place deeper begins in silence. I am being led to believe that more unspoken and unrealized prayers are answered for our benefit than we can imagine. It is in the Silence, when we are asking for nothing, feeling the grace of gratitude, that all things begin their work together for our good.

I have a wonderful example: Since Ruckus went back to Heaven on April 18th, I have felt like I'm living in a deflated balloon. There is no energy in my condo...a dead zone plain and simple. Out of nowhere, I now have a May-full of people coming to visit...one for a weekend, another for three days, another for a day and a half, another for a day, two for lunch and shopping. I would never have thought to fill my home with people because I would never have thought I wanted that!

And there it is...it is God alone that knows my needs. Apparently I don't even know my wants because I am happy beyond imagining to have so many friends come visit...or to have so many friends period.

Came to believe that God could and would intervene in our lives on our half.

Thank you.