CLING TO NOTHING...FLY!

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

PRACTICE A GENEROSITY OF SPIRIT

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

DIE TO OUR OWN WILL AND LIVE FREE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

PLEASE, HOW MAY I HELP?

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

SLOW DOWN, JUST SLOW DOWN

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I do believe, Lord, help me my unbelief.

Thank you.

JUST ANOTHER SIMPLE, NOT EASY

When My disciple sees My purpose ahead, that very sight is the power that clears away every obstacle along that range of vision....People waste so much time in seeking to work out what they see. I declare to you that in the seeing My purpose, all is done. -- God Calling, April 14

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

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

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

Thank you.

NOBODY CAN BE LEFT OUT

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

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

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

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

We get Ours in a more perfect world.

Thank you.

GOD'S WILL TRANSLATED

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

HAVE A ME-FREE THANKSGIVING!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

TEACH ME TO ADORE EVERYTHING

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ah, you know it yourself, Lord, through having borne the anguish of it as a man: on certain days the world seems a terrifying thing: huge, blind, and brutal. . . .  Since my human dignity, O God, forbids me to close my eyes to this . . . teach me to adore it by seeing you concealed within it. -- Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Divine Milieu, p 112.

Thank you.

LOVE AND LAUGH...THEN MOVE ON

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Love, laugh, repeat.

Thank you.

ON THE ALIENATION FROM COMMUNITY

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

A PURPOSE IN EVERYTHING

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

EONS IN AN INSTANT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

TO PARDON THE UNPARDONABLE

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

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

Keeping it simple, stick with Chesterton:

Loving means to love that which is unlovable,

Or it is no virtue at all.

Forgiving means to pardon the unpardonable,

Faith means believing the unbelievable,

And hoping means to hope when things are hopeless.

-- G. K. Chesterton

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

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

Thank you.

ACCORDING TO ME

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

THE FATHER AND I ARE ONE

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

OUR DIFFICULTIES ARE OUR BLESSINGS

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

WE GET NOT AROUND OUR FEAR BUT THROUGH

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

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

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

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

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

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

God loves us sooo much.

Thank you.

THE NEED FOR HUMANS...LOVE AND LAUGHTER

Ramblings in my quiet time:

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

MOVE ON...GOD'S ALREADY PERFECTED US

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

THERE WILL BE PEACE IN THE VALLEY

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

ON ACCEPTING OUR SELF...OUR FEELINGS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank  you.

FINDING THE GOLD IN NONRESISTANCE

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

TO DO FOR THE GLORY OF GOD

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

COMPREHENDING THE NATURE OF LOVE

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

OPEN MY EYES THAT I MAY SEE...THEE

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

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

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

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

THE SHORTCUT: DECIDE FOR GOD

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

THE HARD...WHOLLY SPIRITUAL...JOURNEY

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

AN INDOMITABLE BELIEF

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.