PRAY WITHOUT CEASING

Remember the first time we heard that we need to pray without ceasing? I suspect the first time we heard that was not the first time we read it or that it was said to us...kinda went over our head like a hairnet, didn't it?

For me, the thing that was so hard about praying without ceasing was being willing to even consider it. My immediate mental picture: Me forever on my knees in a dimly lit cubicle begging God for...anything, everything, retribution, forgiveness, more forgiveness, and wondering, where's the fun in life?

Meister Eckhart is quoted as saying most spiritual growth is about subtraction, rather than addition, and I've found that to be true. I know now that my spiritual growth took a leap forward when I quit trying to add to...always looking for the quick, fast and in a hurry perfect solution for my multitude of  unknowns.

When I started experiencing what I had been learning...quit talking it, start walking it...I got the dreaded gift of humility. All my prayers for whatever were for naught. My resistance to praying without ceasing was nothing more than ego resistance in depth. I was given to believe that there is but one prayer and that is thank you.

To pray without ceasing, get grateful, be thankful for...anything, everything, shuck retribution, forgive, forgive more, love. And that is all.

Thank you.

TRANSCENDING THE REASONING MIND

I suspect I began to make my spiritual-growth U-bie when I realized that seemingly everywhere I looked (in re spirituality) pointed me in the opposite direction of my common sense.

For instance, it is true that our joy comes in helping others, but, as Easwaran writes, If we try to [aid] someone who has been unkind, the joy is even greater.

To our reasoning mind...impossible. Impossible first off because common sense warns us away from the unkind person...remember the punchline of the old adage (about the person who went to the aid of a hurt rattlesnake and  got snake-bit): You knew I was a rattlesnake when you picked me up.

To me, that's the "gotcha" of the reasoning mind. We're going for spiritual not stupid...what rational person would bare-handed pick up a hurt-or-not rattlesnake? We can go to its aid without picking it up. Just as we can go to the aid of the unkind person without cozying up.

The joy may well be greater when our aid comes to the unkind person without our name on it. We get no outer glory, just an inner glow. I'm guessing that is what Joel Goldsmith calls knowing God is on the field. That knowing transcends all the personal glory our world can offer.

We must go beyond reason to love. -- The Lazy Man's Guide to Enlightenment

Thank you.

GOD/AIR; GOD/MATTER...SAME DIFFERENCE

Finding a way to not vilify or divide into 'them' and 'us' in today’s federal politics goes against . . . current custom. . . .  —Simone Campbell

It seems to me that finding a way to not vilify or divide into “them” and “us” in our walking around world is our first hurdle since it goes against our egoic desires. Which, as we prove daily, always legislate for self.

It's one thing to inner-know that God is in the air we breathe...God is the air we breathe...it's another thing to know God is as completely in and of the material world. Rohr maintains that we  are supposed to struggle with this....Otherwise we are not sincerely engaged with it. 

These are my times when doing it right and feeling it are two entirely different things. Fortunately, we have learned that words can't get us there, only experience can. Know it or not, our experience comes through spiritual initiation. As in, give up, give over, give in...resist not evil. Doing it...ah, for sure that is spiritual initiation.

Example: God is in the material world of Gertrude making mock of me in public. That is a material world fact. My Golden Rule flashes: Try not to be as nasty as you want to be. So, making mock right back, ratting Gertrude out to others, sitting in silent scorn...none fit today purely because there is no peace there.

Thanking God for my thoughts about Gertrude aim me in the right direction of going beyond my egoic thoughts, my reasoning mind, to love. To love Gertrude and her mocking words...they're all the same when it comes to resistance.

This is a path of spiritual initiation...it's kinda like hold your nose and take a leap of faith. When we're out there in the ether, thank you are the only words we have...or need.

Thank you.

ON LIVING RESENTMENT FREE

With inward peace, we do not need to resent the person who troubles us. Instead, we can overcome the resentment in our own mind which may have been aroused by that person. -- Anonymous

Blinding flash of the obvious: It is never him/her/them...it is I. I am the source of all my woes. That being so, it follows that I am the source of all my good. All my woes live in the reasoning world for all the world to see; all my good is hidden with my Father within for me to be graced with as needed. 

Ego seems to get first crack at incoming life, and everything is personal to ego...which tends to make disgruntled our go-to feeling. Disgruntled is code for resentment, according to me.  I wonder if spiritual growth but barely begins until we learn unto realization to personalize nothing...or depersonalize everything.

Learning the words that point us toward spiritual growth is important, learning the meaning behind the words is essential, but until we're doing what we're learning, we are in essence quoting by rote and living on the shifting sands of self-determined objectives.

We learn to pray not for the person we resent, we pray for our thoughts about that person. Our thank you is our claim of ownership...clearing the way for us to understand what in us constitutes our resentment aborning. There...we have our sliver of gold.

We're heading in the right direction: Away from ego toward still more spiritual growth.

And the overcoming is never the overcoming of the one who troubled you, but the overcoming of the weaknesses and wrong in your own nature, aroused by such a one. -- God Calling, July 28

Thank you.

LIVING THE UNBOUNDARIED LIFE

I had a thought this morning that God is like the air we breathe. It is everywhere. We cannot box it, cage it...we have no need to...it is wherever we are. I wonder if that isn't what we do when we try to understand God, try to wrap our mind around what God is and does for us. That's akin to trying to put God in a box (for safekeeping? to use later?).

I'm reminded of boundaries. Since we live in the material world, we need to abide by the laws of the material world. Some of the taking-care-of-me strictures, however, need to be loosed and let go if we are seeking still more spiritual growth. In fact, we need to set boundaries is heard a lot today; however, following that too strictly is anathema to a spiritually based life.

I'd say the problem with setting our own personal boundaries is in the words own and personal. Each word is ego-based and ego-operated when setting boundaries.

It is mind-expanding to imagine impersonal and unlimited as our standard to live by. The mind expands the instant we realize we are incapable of holding to such a standard all on our own want-to. There's God's RSVP to the open invitation to Be our Father within, the air we breathe, the good that we already are.

Paradox alert! We know it and we show it by our care and concern for others...the unboundaried life cannot have self-concern, it is unboundaried. The pearl beyond price: Good is returned for less-than-good, and since not-so-good cannot attach, we need no personal boundaries.

If you curse him, he will bless you; if you harm her, she will serve you; and if you exploit him, he will become your benefactor. -- Eknath Easwaran, "Words to Live By," May 21

Thank you.

ON LOVING OUR ENEMY

Our spirituality forms our inner lives and is then lived outwardly in the world, which is to live a life of love and justice for others. - Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation"

To my ego Lucy, each of Jesus's two commandments has its own uh-oh. The first: We can love God totally with heart, soul and strength, but mind? We've got to think about that. The second: We want to love our neighbor, but what if our neighbor is a bigot, a louse, a loser? The enemy, in a word. What then?

The eyebrows-up answer is we love him, of course. But put a name on that enemy and see how far we get: What if the enemy is named Gertrude...or Trump? We are taught that we are not to love the enemy for what she can do for us, we are to love the enemy for what we can do for them. Try walking that unto breathing it...and we have our cross to bear.

If we will stay with it, we'll come to see the good news disguised as dross. The gold emerges when we realize our cross is not a person, any person...it is our resistance to the person(s). It is our own rigid, righteous and right judgment of the person.

Our holdback is our reasoning mind's unwillingness to give over, give up, give in not to wrong but to the one whom we see as wrong.

The first glimmer of light comes when we realize we are not asked to cede to the person, we are asked to see wrong and try to right it...without hate in our heart. For that matter, I doubt wrong can be righted for long when hate is the motivator.

It is our own decision to make that determines our daily comfort. When we decide to love, to go beyond reason to love, then we can rest our weary mind knowing that the Father within does the work. The work is done by our hands and feet which are on loan to the Father...we are freed from the worry about the how of it Now.

Thank you.

EMBRACE OUR FEAR OR LIVE IN FEAR

My morning blinding flash of the obvious: Until we embrace fully each and every fear of our own imagining, we will be married to that fear. [My note: We embrace with a thank you...by accepting we surrender, we resist not...we hold our nose and take a leap of faith.]

My morning readings: 

...no evil can befall you - God Calling, July 25 - [only my own perception of evil]

...we eventually come to a point where our progress is stopped cold. There before us is a yawning chasm, waiting to swallow us up....We will have to make a tremendous leap. Complete devotion to the Lord as personified in a divine incarnation will enable us to soar. -- Eknath Easwaran, Words to Live By, July 25  [We hold our nose and take a leap of faith.]

You then thank God * * * You are making a choice for gratitude, abundance, and appreciation for Another, which has the power to radically de-center you. Your life and death are pure gift and must be given away in trust. -- Fr. Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, July 25, 2018  [We embrace by our thank you.]

Ah, there it is. My proof to me that God is present in our every thought. He can, will and does let us know his thoughts and speaks to us in the silence. 

Of course, the proof comes easier when we've put in the time toward still more spiritual growth. That is our choice.

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

Thank you.

TO BEGIN THE DIG INTO OUR GOLDMINE

When we're feeling misunderstood, a good exercise is to think of the word Jesus. Just the word without the trappings...then we begin to get a clue about misunderstanding. Often, to say the word Jesus all but sets people's hair on fire...I walked around with my head aflame for a long time. Interesting to me, the word Buddha is passed around freely, openly and lovingly.

Since the person Jesus set forth only two, that is two, commandments, each of which is love and love, the dig into our goldmine begins with looking inward...the examination of our self to understand our antipathy.

According to me, we have built our own paradigm re Jesus since it was his story that was most commonly taught us. And for our own purposes, we each added our own take to the Jesus facade. Buddha came late to our party and enough time has not passed for us to build him up in order to take him down. Which is fairly representative of the human condition: Give us a hero to adore, and adore we will...unto adulation unto doubt unto Who does s/he think s/he is? No, thanks. 

Truth lives and passes on, and passes on best not by words but through consciousness...words often confuse the matter. To pass on the truth of Jesus's commandments, is to speak not, but to do. It is the doing that starts our inner movement upward to understanding...ah, to love. When we reach love of the misunderstanding, we know forgiveness.

Forgiveness is simply the religious word for letting go. -- Fr. Richard Rohr

Thank you.

PASS IT ON

Recently a friend said to me that we must never be afraid to claim our place in the world. And I believe that to be true, but before we claim our place, first we must discover what our place is...to us personally.

My surprising to me discovery was the realization that my place in the world is spiritual, based in love and impossible to claim all on my own.

It was more than a bit of a shock to understand that my peace comes through giving over, giving up, giving in...not for me and not for you, but for a higher good.

It's no wonder I was shocked considering my journey was all about ego-tripping, looking for love in all the wrong places, lying, cheating and stealing...and it was all penny-ante stuff. I apparently aspired to be a bad girl, but all I got was rues, regrets and remorses. And there it is...God's perfect work: Those very regrets are my slivers of gold today.

God uses for our good whatever we give him. Accepting his gift...that is the hard part. It is also  still more spiritual growth. Our reward of awareness comes mostly when we stop praying for him to take away anything and start thanking him for everything.

We awake when we can say, as truthfully as possible, If he can do that for me, I can try to do it for others. Short form: Pass it on. 

Thank you.

TO REMEMBER IS TO RELY ON

I am reminded this morning of that wonderfully clarifying sentence, Most important is the discovery that spiritual principles could solve all my problems.

That is a particularly clarifying sentence to me...or it became that...because I had trouble discerning  spiritual principles as opposed to pretty sounding platitudes. My way to discernment: Does it work in my own life? Every time? For the good? Even when it doesn't seem good to my reasoning mind? Ah, there's my divining rod, mainly because it requires patience, which is a spiritual principle all by itself, according to me.

Even when it doesn't seem good to my reasoning mind requires that we sit and wait on the Lord (oh, hey, a spiritual principle) which requires nothing more nor less than sitting in the silence, as in quieting our questioning mind. Yes, and who's kidding whom?...that's why sex, drugs and rock and roll were our preferred go-to...faster, not better just quicker, results. I used to think that God is a drag-foot...used to, until my BFO that God goes slow just so we can keep up.

Back to spiritual principles solving all problems...that is all I need remember this morning. I don't need to choose which spiritual principle...the Father within doth the work.

It is in the remembering the Father that I am lifted into reliance on the Father...and all is well in my world.

Thank you.

RELEASE THE GOOD IN OUR OWN SELF

At some point, I saw that my life had pretty much been built on my petty aversions, self-centered objectives and compulsive wants. I am convinced it was the inner guidance of personal goodness, God, that turned me around through the utter collapse of self, a.k.a., crash-and-burn.

I once wondered, when we get inner guidance and good does not follow immediately, if it might not have been wishful or magic thinking. I suspect, though, that "immediately" is the source of our discontent, the basis of our missteps, with our p.d.q. want, not God's will, being the driver.

Gratefully, we come to realize that however we follow a thought or an inspiration is for our ultimate good...all paths eventually lead to God. Our spiritually developing self makes our free choices today as to what path we walk, and there is no time limit, only Now. Now may take us several lifetimes, but it is still Now.

It is in the slow, painful birth of our spiritual conscience that grace grows.  Who knew that it could be our very own conscience that would lead us toward freedom from self?  Underneath it all, and since we want to release the good in our own self, our conscience is really all about the care and concern for others. It is also, therefore, our ego's bane.

I'm guessing the birth of conscience is slow and painful because at the door of death we are still birthing it. Who wants to die with hate in our heart? But hate is just a CYA for fear, and, again I'm guessing, more folks die with fear than with love in our heart.

We are on the right path heading in the right direction when we love the fear in our heart knowing it is the Welcome! to God's knock on our door.

Thank you.

ON FINDING LOVE IN THE LOVELESS PLACE

Remember that the commands I have given you have been already worked out by Me in the Spirit World to produce in your case, and in your circumstances, the required result. So follow My rules faithfully. -- God Calling, July 20

I'm convinced the reason it is so hard to follow My rules faithfully is because My rules are so very simple. There are only two and everything we do, think, feel and be springs from these two: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. Period. End of quandary.

I doubt not it is ego thinking, upon reading that God's commands have already been worked out in my case and in my circumstances, that rejects the fact that the simplicity of love and love alone is the answer. To ego, all my circumstances are special, different...unique in fact...requiring considerable analyzation...comparing and judging of you and yours too often.

To our reasoning mind, love does not lift financial insecurity, erase the grief of loss, take away the physical pain of a broken leg or a cancerous lung. Not to the reasoning mind nor for that matter to life in our walking-around world.

Ah, we must go beyond reason to love.  To that cosmic place where the love of God lives...not in our "real" world, but in that higher dimension deep within...the fourth dimension.

Then...NOW...we learn to love with all our mind. Our reasoning mind is not stupid, but it is not geared to finding love in a loveless place. Neither is the mind found in the fourth dimension stupid...ah, but it is geared to loving the loveless place. The loveless place is not lifted, it is transmuted...it is the fear of the loveless place that is lifted.

When we give up our resistance to the two commandments...to their being the only right answer and then to practicing them...we will be peaced.

Thank you.

PEACE IN UNKNOWING

Many years ago, when I heard that the first 100 of my people used the Sermon on the Mount as their guide book, I read it, probably for the first time. The King James version. I did not understand a word it was saying. I for sure did not like what I thought it was saying...which was exactly what it was saying, as in, get over yourself.

For my own spiritual growth, the realization came to me that, want to or not, I needed to study the Sermon. I needed and my new life would need to follow what it laid out. Thus, resist not evil became my mantra, my go-to, my life-guide. Of course, I have not followed it without fail, but, when I go there, without fail it brings me peace.

Today, facing oral surgery soon, I feel scared. Scared is fear and fear is evil. I do not seek the miracle of my fear being lifted...but I do joy in the "coincidence" of the message to me in today's God Calling: ...a miracle is a natural happening operative through spiritual forces. There it is. My natural happening is my feeling of inner peace with fear trying to ride herd.

I resist not evil. I embrace my fear. I kiss it on the lips. It is my beloved fear that is sending me deeper to God. Ah, the powerful peace of unknowing.

Thank you.

NONVIOLENT RESISTANCE ELEVATES ALL

On that night [Mahatma Gandhi] conquered his anger and vowed to resist injustice, not by violence or retaliation, but through the loving power of nonviolent resistance which elevates the consciousness of both oppressed and oppressor.* * * Gandhi's example can apply in a small way in our own lives, when we decide to return goodwill for ill will, love for hatred, in the innumerable little acts of daily life. -- Eknath Easwaran, "Words to Live By," July 18

In 1997 a dear friend misinterpreted an action of mine. It took until 2010 for her to "see the error of her way," and apologize. During that time, she was rude, crude and inconsiderate toward me. It just so happens that during that time I was trying mightily to remember to do nonviolent resistance. I consciously did not respond in kind to her anger, I told her off in my mind...and learned that may be  worse than speaking out, I turned the other cheek, reluctantly and silently saying thank  you a lot. I learned.

Ah, but especially, the pearl beyond price that I learned: This lady is my angel. Her resistance is my spiritual learning tool. Without her resistance, I'd not be getting first-hand knowledge of how to actually do nonviolent resistance.

We remained friends...I'm guessing half through her attachment to her anger and half through my attachment to learning nonviolent resistance.

In 2010, for unknown-to-me reasons, she awoke. She invited me to dinner, and during dinner, she made a full explanation and apology for her misinterpretation and asked my forgiveness which of course I extended. (I admit that since I had not attached to her anger and had not responded in kind, it felt more like a "forget about it" to me.)

Update: For a year or so, I have been going through a less-than-wonderful patch...a dozen friends moving out of my life, my little guy going back to Heaven, teeth problems. Nothing seemed to be going in the right direction, but I kept on truckin'. Then, early last Thursday the truck broke down...I had a dark night of my soul. About which I shared with anyone who would listen.

My friend called the next Sunday, and I shared my harrowing 3:00 A.M. experience and lo! She gifted me with a mind balm to which I was all but struck mute. I am still....

It was in reading the Gandhi vignette this morning, that I realized her gift is the result of trying to learn and to do the nonviolent resistance which elevates the consciousness of both oppressed and oppressor.

God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform.

Thank you.

I SURELY HAVE GOD'S WORK CUT OUT FOR HIM

Here's me and my beloved ego Lucy together again and setting the President straight. I can see that Trump, or my perception of Trump, is the monster in the book "Lazy Man's Guide" that Golas on LSD wrote about. The very monster that he feared and resisted, that said to him, "What was it that you thought needed to be loved?" It is my unloving perception of my Trump monster that causes me  pain.

By unloving perception, I am not going for a loving perception that the warm and huggy feeling the word loving once connoted. My unloving perception is agitated with attack thoughts outbound and angry. What I seek in a loving perception is the recognition of wrong with neither agitation nor resignation, but rather with a knowing that God's hand is in this. God's hand is there for me to take hold of, hang onto, as he walks me through...upward to a deeper place of understanding within.

As an aside, understanding being that fighting will never win a fight...duh. Which brings to mind again that great old '60s slogan: Fighting for peace is like f***ing for virginity. 

The monster for sure knew the right question to ask to open the hidey hole to higher consciousness. I can see it...intellectually approve of my insight, even crow a tish about my elevated insight...but doing the loving? I've got miles to go before I sleep on that one.

Thank you.

THERE NEED BE NO SELF INVOLVED

For Jesus, prayer seems to be a matter of waiting in love, returning to love, trusting that love is the unceasing stream of reality. -- Fr Richard Rohr,  "Daily Meditation,"  July 12, 2018

As I sit in the silence this morning, I know: Take away my difficulties [my worries, my wants, my projections] that victory over them [peace in trust] may bear witness of your love.

Jesus taught that we love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. But, wait!...we must understand that those who persecute us are our own fears, doubts, projections. Each fear comes to us dressed as Gertrude or Ralph or a parent, a sibling, a child, a partner...a power outside our self. Each is and ever will be our own within response and resistance to the Gertrudes of our life.

None of this is to deny that there are and will be occasions that require objective resistant response...No, in a word. Ours is to learn how to do that within our own self and maintain our peace in trust.  Or, to simplify: Our goal now is to learn how to spit in the face of evil without being nasty about it.

From our toenails up, we must learn unto breathing unto welcoming: I can't, God can, I let Him. The cosmic trick is to let Him through our nonresistant actions...there can be no self there. Ah, but there need be no self there. I can't, God can, let Him.

Thank you.

FORWARD TOWARD THE RED SEA

As I picked up my pen to journal this morning, my guardian angel Aslan wrote, If the path you are walking is fear filled and you're meeting a lot of your own "No, Nevers" and they're now "Well, OKs" and your stomach seems constantly atremble and your hands, too, and it seems you're ever doubting your own self...welcome, Beloved, you are on the right path. 

To which I say, Who knew? This is the way to hold-your-nose-and-take-a-leap-of-faith that is required for still more spiritual growth? Well, OK.

Thank you.

CLING TO NOTHING...FLY FREE

My July 14, 1985, "God Calling" note: Just tried to help a June bug caught in a screen at my window get free...finally told it that it had God same as me and it would have to let God do it because I couldn't...as I turned away, it flew free. 

My note this morning: I am the June bug, He is my wings. 

We are the June bug...America is the June bug...the Universe is the June bug...He is our wings.

I am reminded of the vignette in "Lazy Man's Guide" that the author Golas wrote about when he was seeking to love, to learn how to just love. He dropped acid which took him on a scary trip with a hideous monster coming after him. As he fought to get away, the monster said, What was it that you thought needed to be loved?

There it is. Love...resist not...accept...we are the June bug, He is our wings.

Thank you.

THIS MORNING'S MEDITATION

God's will is individual to each of us. God does not have a preferred way other than it is always good, always for the benefit of all.

His way for me is whatever way I choose...every second of my life. That choice of mine His will meets and perfects. Our faith is built on trusting the outcome of that even and especially when, to our egoic mind, it feels and appears to be all wrong...it is being perfected for our benefit even then. That's why we say thank you asap and trust His perfected results.

Every life decision is a hold-your-nose-and-jump situation...that is spiritual initiation...some more reasoning mind than others but all self bound...trust by doing, do by trusting.

To rely on affirmations is to rely on the reasoning mind. We affirm ill health as non-existent, i.e., whole and healthy mind, heart, lungs, etc., but no...the human condition brings what it brings. The Christ is with us within us in the midst of any condition, imbuing us with peace and calm and joy (just as my friend spoke of as she lie dying in hospice).

The Father within meets each condition that self bring and perfects it for our benefit...it is our reasoning mind that is the slacker and needs calming...through spiritual discipline.

He goes before us to make the crooked places straight.  Our blinding flash of the obvious is that His going before us is our face meeting our crooked place. It is magic thinking to believe the crooked place is removed so that we never need meet it...it is in the meeting that our faith is built.

Thank you.

WHEN ITS TIME HAS COME

When the Christ has been realized, Its activity can never be impaired, impeded, delayed, or hindered. God has a way of wiping away every obstruction. Nothing can prevent the fruitage from appearing in our life when its time has come. -- "The Art of Meditation," Joel Goldsmith, at p. 89

Fear may natter, heart may stutter-step, hands may shake, and to sweat blood may seem next up...still we go forward, inexorably toward our Red Sea. With thank you on our lips...along with, who's kidding whom, a silent plea that Meister Eckhart knew what he was talking about.

Thank you.

PEACE IS FOUND IN THE UNCOMFORTABLE SPACE

Most of us need to have the status quo shaken now and then, leaving us off balance and askew, feeling alienated for a while from our usual unquestioned loyalties. In this uncomfortable space, we can finally recognize the much larger kingdom of God. -- Fr. Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," July 11, 2018

I am finding that it is in the midst of that feeling of alienation that our thank you brings peace...peace kicking and screaming maybe, so let's go with the promise of peace.

Don't you think that it is fear and fear alone that shakes our inner peace, our sense of security? My fear of being left alone, your fear of financial insecurity, their fear of us, our fear of them...makes no never mind what we name our fear, it is all from the same pot, i.e., ego, or not God at any rate.

The problem is, we cling to our fear...we see ours as justified but yours as lack of faith. This is our reasoning mind fortifying its position. We must go beyond reason to love. Ah, here's our spiritual discipline reminding us that love is acceptance... is gratitude...is detachment...is divorcing our self from our own opinion, actually.

God is not found amongst the roses, wrapped in adulation and dollar bills. In this uncomfortable space, we can finally recognize the much larger kingdom of God.

Thank you.

THY KINGDOM COME, THY WILL BE DONE

The new way of thinking that spiritual growth leads us to and through is raised consciousness, and we cannot live there on self-will alone...even wanting to, we can't. In the wanting to, we tend to think of God doing the holding us up, when it is holding to our decision to turn over to God that does it. According to me.

God is with us, within us, 24/7...ah, but so is ego. And, who's kidding whom, ego has a bigger mouth, a louder shout than God. It takes no effort to hear ego, but we must consciously go into the silence to hear God.

We will stumble, we will bumble, we will shout Oh No, repeatedly, in life, and that's if we're doing it right. That's how we learn to turn within again and again and again...we're walking our decision to live a turned over life.

Ego, legislating for itself, will prevail, then defend itself, then beat up on us for unknowingly letting it stumble. Spiritual growth, the only antidote to ego, teaches us to say our thank you (resist not evil), laugh, love, move on.

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven...it is through raised consciousness that Thy kingdom does come, that Thy will is done...Now.

Thank you.

LIFE, LOVE AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS

He [or she] who attempts to act and do things for others or for the world without deepening his own self-understanding, freedom, integrity and capacity to love will not have anything to give others. He will communicate to them nothing but the contagion of his own *** ego-centered ambitions.... --Thomas Merton, "Contemplation in a World of Action"

Merton's statement reminds me of my beloved book, "The Lazy Man's Guide to Enlightenment," in which it is laid down that We must go beyond reason to love. 

We are instructed to love by most any spiritual person from way before Christ to Haight Ashbury hippies up to right now, yet still we quibble, ponder, analyze and argue...within our self and without. Often not about the merits of love, but about our intellectual understanding of love... or, more to the point, why your understanding needs upgraded to be more like mine. 

I guess that's why We must go beyond reason to love is my go-to...along with I just try not to be as nasty as I want to be and, of course, Thank you. I kinda think of those as my Trinity mainly because the real Trinity is a tish over my head.

What I especially connect with in Merton's statement is, attempting to do for others without deepening our own self-understanding. There it is. Our own self-understanding is God's hidey hole. How else do we quit judging, gossiping, resisting but by, before we start down that wrong road again, going within and asking what our problem is here. Face it: I can't find the solution to you within me...I can within my own egoic mind but how far does that get me? 

All the right answers to life, love and the pursuit of happiness seem to be really simple. It's the doing  that we complicate...actually, it's the detours we take in the doing that complicate. Oh, hey! What if the detours are the side trips laid out by God for us to learn our still more spiritual lessons from? 

Love the detours, don't be as nasty as we want to be on those detours, and keep thank you rolling at all times. 

Thank you.

SMILE...LIFE IS CANDID CAMERA

Ask, and it shall be given to you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. -- The Gospel According to Saint Matthew

It's amazing how long it takes not to realize but to accept that Saint Matthew is not referring to material world goodies. To realize and be grateful that it's all about living and thinking from our raised consciousness, from God consciousness.

I sometimes think that our enlightenment is like the incredible dream with the answer to all life's problems that we half-awake from at 3:00 A,M., thinking there's no need to write that down, no way we'll ever forget it. Then as we awake fully at 7:00 A.M., no way we can remember it. It is gone.

As we live ever so slowly deeper within our raised consciousness, we realize the why of Seek ye first the kingdom of Heaven. Short answer: Because that is all there is.

Then we find out...oh, there is more. The more is and all these things shall be added unto you. And there goes my ego Lucy, grabbing for the keys to her promised Mercedes...again. Rope her in, bring her back. And come again to the realization, with acceptance dragging its feet behind, that all these things are not material world goodies either.

All these things are peace, love, joy, patience...all the things we pray for but only when we're feeling the need. These are the very things that before birth are sealed up within us...along with free will, they are gifted us, and we have a mostly unused supply still there within. Paradox alert! We realize they are already ours by using them. We can choose to be at peace, to give love...a lot, to shout silent hallelujahs...a lot, to let the other driver in and with a smile.

Better, we can simplify. We can choose to keep a continuous mental Thank You rolling. And with a smile.

Thank you.

THERE IS ENOUGH

Free-floating thoughts this morning:

To see the error of our ways is to see the ego of our ways.

To turn our will and our life over to the care of God, we cannot turn over tomorrow's will, tomorrow's life (our want)...or, for that matter, yesterday's (our regrets)...for there is no God in tomorrow just as there is no God in yesterday. God is only in the Now. God is Now. We turn our will for this moment, our life for this very instant. over to the care of God...and the next moment, we turn them over not again but by our open-ended decision to live a turned-over-to-God life. (It is forgetting that, or relying on ego!, that trips us up.)

It is a fundamental law of nature, that there is enough and it is finite. Its finiteness is no threat...(from Fr Richard Rohr's "Daily Meditation," July 7, 2018).  It is a comfort to me that the finiteness of enough is no threat for its very finiteness is what opens the flow from the hidey hole of God within to fulfill the now of our need.

I will go before thee, and make the crooked places straight…. -  Isa.45:2

Thank you.

OUR CALLING: GIVE

I am a believer that it is our inner desire...no, need...for spiritual growth and still more spiritual growth that is the counterbalance to our ego-catering free will...the panacea if you will.

Our hope of heaven comes in realizing unto breathing that who we are, what we are, how we are, right this very minute is enough, is good enough. That there is no more, better, higher, deeper to pray for...we are enough, and we have enough. And that we must give from that consciousness of enough...that is our calling: Give.

We will not fully realize our consciousness of enough unless and until we become willing, then ready, then active by giving from there...with open hands, mind and heart. Not focused on what we can get from giving, but with an unquestioning certainty that we were born to be channels for the flow of the goodness...God-ness...within us. That goodness which is love, peace, empathy, joy, kindness, patience, generosity, sympathy, courage, care and concern for others...the others being all humankind, animals, minerals...animate, inanimate...breadboxes and/or bordellos. 

Makes no never mind which part of the God within we are giving, for to give is to love. And there it is: The God of our understanding, Love.

Thank you.

THE CONVERSION OF CONSCIOUSNESS

...for each blow to the life of self you must at the same time embrace and hold fast the new Life, Life with Me. - "God Calling," May 3

I wonder if our free will doesn't always supersede God's will, at least in the egoic mind?  But isn't that where free will lives, in the reasoning mind? I wonder, too, if our conscience isn't...hasn't always been albeit ignored...our divining rod for God's will?

In my material world, the world of my ego, my want-to seems to always supersede God's will. (That's why spiritual discipline is so necessary.) In my inner world, the world of my Soul, God's will speaks. To me, the inner world is the mirror-world of the Lord where the naked eye sees in reverse...self sees ugly, calls it bad and resists, Self sees the same thing, knows it for good and welcomes.

I suspect that it is our decision to renounce the free will we were gifted with at birth that turns us upward toward the God of our own understanding deep within. That decision does not come from thinking, analyzing or reasoning it through...it almost always comes only after a deeply personal experience sometimes known as "crash-and-burn" for it is excruciatingly, crash-and-burn, painful.

This is known as a consciousness raising. Our consciousness has been transmuted...or converted, if you will...for the the care and concern of others and, most importantly, without our egoic self having anything to do with it.

To quote my beloved Fr. Richard Rohr, We change consciousness and operate from mercy and graciousness.

Thank you.

ON BRINGING GOD FREE LAUGHS

I belong to a fellowship, spiritual in nature, that has a membership consisting entirely of self-willed, self-driven, self-absorbed people seeking to be less self-focused. (Which, of course, keeps us focused on self.)

According to me, we tend to put the horse before the cart every chance we get. An example: We pray the Lord's Prayer at the end of our meetings. Some time ago, after the "Amen," we added. "Keep coming back!"

That was all well and good until, after awhile, someone further added, "It works!"

Which was all well and good until someone further added, "If you work it!"

Which, etc., until we further added, "If you don't, it don't!"

Then, possibly because all those added bumper stickers were taking too much time, someone decided we should stop praying the Lord's Prayer. That is now under discussion in many rooms. 

Don't tell me God doesn't hold a special place in his heart for us...we're his love-and-laugh track.

Thank you.  

OBEY, ACCEPT, WALK FREE

Except ye become as little children ye cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven. -- Matthew 18:3

To become as a little child is good for both material and spiritual mind. My material mind's first thought on becoming as a little child is of a child who is sweet, lovable, cute...and silent. Well, a little child is not always sweet, lovable, cute, and SILENT..they squawk a lot, that's how they get the attention they seek.

That's also how they get the discipline they need. Ah, that's the important part that is left out of the  reasoning mind's picture and opens us to the spiritual's daunting invitation toward acceptance through discipline.

We learn early enough that discipline is a necessary component in learning. It is in learning to obey that which we've learned that twists our knickers. And not for either a short period or a long period of time...for EVER.

All the spiritual axioms that have ever been written are rooted in obeyance...I'm betting. The ones I know are at any rate...they are all about (a) thinking of the other person first and (b) with love. I am here to testify that letting go of self-centered anything takes discipline. Letting go of self covers it...but, then, what doesn't that cover?

Becoming as a little child is to become and to stay teachable. There it is...the marriage of the material and the spiritual mind. Both need us to be teachable....for EVER.

Teachable through every step we take, or for every step we have taken, in the wrong (self-centered) direction. Makes no never mind if good was our goal when we took that step, what matters is that we let go of our justification and accept the lesson learned. We made a decision based on self that later placed us in a position to be hurt. 

Obeyance unto acceptance of that spiritual axiom is the gateway to Heaven. Discipline walks us to and through.

Thank you.

THIS, TOO, SHALL PASS

Nothing gets between me and my God like physical pain...meaning, this morning it feels to me like God is asleep at the wheel or my faith in God is running on empty or any other clever little phrase that says, out loud and whiny: Where's God when I need him? Where's your vaunted power now, Old Man? 

I've strained my back, I know not how, and I really do not care how. I want the pain to go away...stop...not exist in me. Now already. Now, if now were yesterday, last night all night, and/or immediately.

I ask for so little and I get so much less than I ask for...or why me, Lord?  Also, how long, oh Lord?

Again, I'm getting the quiet word: What we want and what we need are two entirely different things. Which words are only comforting when we're passing them on to someone else.

Interesting that I'm remembering what I once smart-mouthed (in 1968!) to a hurting friend: No use crying over spilt milk, look for the silver lining, there'll be a brighter day tomorrow. Karma is a hard-driver...has no time limit...can and will exact her due.

I hope you're satisfied now, Big K, but I must say I thought I'd paid that off at least a gazillion times before. Oh, wait...no time limit. I'd best start reeling in all my snarks before I do serious harm into my next life.

I'm saying my thank you, a tish jaundiced, but I'm saying it.

Thank you.

NO WORDS, NO SILENCE...GOLDEN

A pearl beyond price is the realization that giving over, giving up, giving in is the path to peace.

Ah, but there's always another pearl following...or there'd better be.  

Our deeper peace comes not in simply giving up, giving over, giving in. No, deeper peace comes when we release our personal giving-up objectives...then we are opened to receiving God's perfect objectives. 

I suspect we must needs stay awhile at the giving-up level until we realize that in the giving we actually do have our own objective. Often that is our want to do God's will without waiting on God to elucidate. 

We are learning that we can neither remain silent out of fear (self-centered fear and what fear isn't?) nor can we speak out from our own self-glorifying wants.

We sit and wait on the Lord, and in a just cause, it is God's objectives...God's will...flowing from within that we speak. We can plan no words for we trust the words we speak are his stating his just cause. 

As an aside, derision may follow. We shoot a silent thank you and know it is not ours to fix for that is what is known as an unjust cause. Remembering silence really is golden, we know our lesson is learned when we do it...hush, in a word.

With God's voice, there are no words, yet no silence either. We speak what is spoken through us. With love and laughter in our heart.

Thank you.