WHEN WE STUMBLE...

When you've stumbled--and the guilt, loneliness, and fear come to assault you--if you don't have at least one good friend, or if you have not developed a prayer life where you know how to find yourself in God instead of in your own feelings, you will simply retrench and reassert your correctness. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," June 13, 2016

The big reveal to me there is the need to know how to find yourself in God instead of in your own feelings.

I recall the shock I felt when I recognized a large part of my life had been premised on petty irritations, snap judgments and push-backs. Actually, it wasn't so much shock as it was a feeling of unease...I don't know at the outset that I could take in its fullness. It kinda simmered there in my thoughts, from my eyebrows up, not moving for a long time...there just enough to cause me pause then dart away.

Based on my own experience, I do believe that learning unto doing thank you has been the turning point, the saving grace, the pearl beyond price to me and my life. Mainly because the habit of saying thank you started with petty irritations, snap judgments and push-backs. I'm thinking trial balloon. That's probably how I got started...thinking to myself, say it and see what happens.

Clearly, it worked because I took it to bigger oncoming dreads and found peace there. My biggest in this past year was with my little boy Ruckus...I wore thank you out in letting him go. The gift of course was in the acceptance I felt in letting him go, not holding on to him purely for my own self.

The lesson in praying thank you and that is all is it does not keep the dreaded thing from happening, it brings us peace in the midst of the dread. It is that peace of mind, i.e., finding our self in God, that keeps us from retrenching and reasserting our correctness. Which is also known as doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results...sometimes defined as insanity, sometimes as self-will run riot, both definitions work.

Another thing I like about Rohr's quote is that he says, "When you've stumbled...." When, not if.

We will stumble, we are not only allowed, we are expected to! Where's the need for all our spiritual seeking if stumbling isn't allowed. For that matter, where's the need for God? If we be perfect, there's no God necessary.

And God grins at the folly.

Thank you.

ON BEING LED FREE OF ME

If what our life is showing at the moment seems to be less-than-wonderful, recall...again...that God knows our needs. 

What we are getting is what we are needing for our still more spiritual growth according to who and what we are inside where God lives. Where we keep digging, trying to get to that which is still unknown to us, is just another room in God's hidey-hole.

God knows, and he is sending out clues. Those are the things we keep rejecting and pushing aside and calling by another's name. No. They are our very own, and when we recognize them for our very own, we will break free...free of me. 

It is in the breaking down of our self, not breaking the defect but our resistance to the defect, that will free us from the bondage of self.

Face it...without those that we curse, we might never walk free. Those that we curse are leading us free. Get grateful...be thankful. 

In my Father's house are many mansions.... (John 14:2)

Thank you.

ON LIVING A TURNED-OVER LIFE

Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it. -- Psalm 127

So the difference between 'the boys and the men' is the difference between striving for a self-determined objective and for the perfect objective which is of God. -- Anonymous

So the difference between relying on the reasoning mind and relying on spiritual consciousness is the difference between striving to build our inner house by our own devices and not striving but trusting our Father within to perfectly lead us through the building and then our living therein.

According to me.

Thank you.

OUR NEMESIS IS OUR ANGEL

The forever lesson to learn:  To our reasoning mind, the one arousing our negative side is our nemesis...ah, but spiritually, that one is our angel.

There it is...the key to changing our mind. Then we must needs stay our focus on the power within  which is ever on hand to further the opening, as needed.

This is an ongoing spiritual process...an opened mind releases the power for good within. Our detachment frees our thoughts from building self-determined results. That which we are resisting is freely transmuted in our mind...and we are graced with another angel in our midst.

Thank you.

GREAT SUFFERING...THANK YOU

...great suffering or great love, the quickest and most universal ways that God uses to destabilize the self-referential ego. --Fr. Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation"

We know that utter surrender...crash and burn...is the ultimate gift of God and grace. We also know it sometimes feels like so much hoo-ha when we're on the path toward that surrender...probably because the path to surrender often feels like ennui, doing nothing, heading nowhere.

It is our reasoning mind that is slinging trash and calling it reality. That's why our go-to is gratitude...purely because it opposes reason.  It is only our reality if we stay there, sinking slowly into its miasma.

Our focus must ever be on still more spiritual growth. And, who's kidding whom, when the drag of feeling less than is upon us, we know spiritual need quick, fast and in a hurry. That need is met by thank you.

Thank you comes like on the wings of a dove. No long, drawn out prayers, no pleadings, no heavy lifting...just thank you.

But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. - Matthew 6:7

Thank you.

MAKE YOUR HOME IN THE DARKNESS

My way seems overcast today...and has for awhile now. I feel resistant. I am not finding gratitude easy to rest in...mainly because I'm not finding gratitude. It is with that as my center that I randomly opened my daily reader (which I all but never do), and the following was laid out before me:

By love, God can be embraced and held, but not by thinking. *** No matter how sacred, no thought can ever promise to help you in the work of contemplative prayer, because only love—not knowledge—can help us reach God. . . .You must also know that this darkness and this cloud will always be between you and your God, whatever you do. They will always keep you from seeing Him clearly by the light of understanding in your intellect and will block you from feeling Him fully in the sweetness of love in your emotions. So, be sure you make your home in this darkness. Stay there as long as you can, crying out to Him over and over again, because you love Him. It’s the closest you can get to God here on earth, by waiting in this darkness and in this cloud. Work at this diligently, as I’ve asked you to, and I know God’s mercy will lead you there. . . . (from Carmen Acevedo Butcher’s translation of The Cloud of Unknowing with the Book of Privy Counsel)

Oh, I could weep for joy. There. Right there are my God's loving directions: So, be sure you make your home in this darkness. Stay there as long as you can, crying out to Him over and over again, because you love Him. It’s the closest you can get to God here on earth, by waiting in this darkness and in this cloud. 

The wartime adage, there are no atheists in foxholes, comes to mind...which to me backs my blinding flash of the obvious that fear is God's camouflage. Which gives me the same joy as the quote from The Cloud but, face it, The Cloud has more clout.

New adage: When feeling wobbly, go for the clout, take comfort in the BFO.

Thank you.

SEEKING THE GOOD IN POWERLESSNESS

[The following is a reprint of my post of April 14, 2014. It is either regrettable or God's grace that it describes way too closely how I'm feeling this fine Christmas morning of 2018 only for no outwardly apparent reason...just the in generals, so to speak. Merry Christmas.]

The [reason for] our daily work is to bring us to a point of conscious awareness of God's presence.
In this higher consciousness, you will experience My peace, My meat, wine, water, My life, My joy. In this consciousness, you experience the kingdom of God and His strength, His power, His wisdom. This is the Fourth Dimension of Life. -- Joel Goldsmith, "The Heart of Mysticism"

It is a puzzlement that I can so thoroughly want what Goldsmith writes about and do the necessary work and experience real changes in my consciousness... and get turned bum over bucket at blocks to my reasoning mind. As in, I am in the process of learning my powerlessness over my new Tablet. It's like learning to type all over again, only I don't have the patience I had at 15...when I had none at all now that I think about it.

Here's me saying I don't have the patience, when I am very well aware that we have all the patience we'll ever need within us right this very minute just waiting to be used. (Why do spiritual principles sound so sanctimonious when we're ticked off? Feels like they're being used at us. AND here's me peeved at me for lecturing me!)

I wish this thing had a clock on it that would show how long it took me to type just that paragraph. Sheez! I'm ready to go back to bed.

Yesterday morning I couldn't get the thing to turn on...I finally yelled at God that I know he has my back but he was going to have to get up in my brain if we were ever going to get this sucker to work.
With which I hit the right button and it came on... coincidence? Or God's got a perverted since of humor? Somehow "grace" doesn't seem to fit.

Enough. God can and will if sought... or he'd better because I'm clueless.

Thank you.

WE ALONE CANNOT...OH, BUT WE WANT TO

We must open out a way for [love] to escape by fulfilling the commands of the Master. -- "The Gift of Love," by Joel Goldsmith

Here's truth as I understand it: Truth is love. The only lack there is lies in one's ignorance of the love that lives within us. Our ignorance leads to the inability to release that love that was given us before conception and is ever there ready to be released. Love is not a sentimental attachment, not an emotional feeling...love is God's hidey-hole.

According to Goldsmith, the way to release that love is by following the words of the Master. Which brings yet another paradox in that the problem and the solution are one: the words of Jesus are the one hundred percent opposite of our reasoning mind's dictates.

Resist not evil does not make reasoning mind sense. Love our enemies? Give me a break...it's hard enough to love friends...to love loved ones!

The will of God seems to be diametrically opposed to the will of humans. God is love, thus his will is love, and that is all.  We, however, are ego-driven, and ego legislates for itself. My ego Lucy has nothing but the best of intentions, namely, to win. And winning by love alone?...nah, can't work.

Interestingly, according to Goldsmith, we must open out a way for love to escape. Sounds like a closely held secret, doesn't it? It might as well be for face it, the reasoning mind dares not risk nonresistance, or giving over, giving up, giving in...or, in a word, love.

Now for the real closely held secret...all of that requires just one thing: completely, utterly and finally denial of self. Whoa! Scalded cat! Or tallest mountain...makes no never mind, we alone cannot do that.

Ah, we've just found our pearl beyond price, the opening for love to escape...we alone cannot do it; oh, but we want to.  All our troubles, Lord, soon be over.

Thank you.

THE GOAL IS TO ALIGN OUR SOULS WITH GOD

[We come into this world to] align our souls with God: The relationship between God and soul is analogous to that between the sun and its rays. We are the extension of God in time and space. How, then, can we be misaligned with God? Misalignment is a state of mind that arises when we forget our true relationship with God and act as if God were other. -- Rabbi Rami Shapiro

I ponder the line, Misalignment is a state of mind that arises when we forget our true relationship with God and act as if God were other. 

We act as if God were other when we pray for...period. To pray for is to name a want. A want may or may not be a need, and, face it, seldom does a resultant want conform to God's will...our need.

Even praying for peace of mind, or, for that matter, peace in the Middle East...our need is to rest in the knowledge that we are the peace we seek. And there I go...my rabbit-hole is trying to apply my little breakthroughs to the world. What do I know of the Middle East? I was bragging just yesterday of making peace with one person with whom I am personally acquainted...and today I'm setting the Middle East straight.

I'd best stick with the goal of aligning my soul with God...I don't doubt there'll be peace in the Middle East before the game is called on that. Ah, but it is to have the goal...there's my peace.

Thank you.

SHOW A LITTLE APPRECIATION AND GOD SMILES

No one can serve God except in loving service to man because there is no God separate and apart from man. - Joel Goldsmith, "The Gift of Love"

That is one of those truths that I love upon reading and can't remember ten minutes later. I suspect most truths are like that...we can't remember them until we commit to them. Commit by living them which takes time.

It seems that all good things take time. Not-so-good happens in an instant since it originates in a thought. The single thought of ut-oh invites a world of mental hurt through nothing but resistance. Who's kidding whom, no one ever thought ut-oh with anticipatory glee.

Hey! I wonder if that's not why God and all his people have such a hard time getting a toehold with us. Coming to trust takes time...miracles in our own life can remain just once-upon-a-time conversational fillers if we don't give them time...allow them to grow in the silence within us.

Talking about them is a good growth-stopper actually since that's all we do is talk. There is no spiritual growth then, we just keep our miracle there where it first showed forth. The only growth is how much we exaggerate it as we tell and retell the story, and that is per our oh-so-fallible memory.

Actually serving God may be all that is required for us to own the peace we seek, the love we need, the joy we so desire.

Why, then, is it such a downer to realize I need to serve Gertrude...and lovingly...to truly serve God? Probably because my ego Lucy just heard the word and is resisting. Ah, and there it is, the block to spiritual growth...ego, ever legislating for itself.

Oh but I bring good news...I, without prior thought or planning, publicly praised Gertrude recently. Which is good enough for God work!  Who knew?...we really do not have to become charwomen to serve others...just show a little appreciation. I know this because Gertrude thanked me with tears in her eyes. And I loved her for it.

And God said,  Atta girls!

Thank you.

ON REFLECTING PEACE TOWARD OTHERS

Ultimately, we have just one moral duty: to reclaim large areas of peace in ourselves, more and more peace, and to reflect it toward others. And the more peace there is in us, the more peace there will also be in our troubled world. -- Etty Hillesum, An Interrupted Life Diary entry (September 29, 1942) 

Don't I wish I could remember that? It makes such pure sense to my mind...to have just one moral duty, to reclaim more and more peace in ourselves and reflect it toward others. 

I first wish to remember that since doing is not even on the to-do list until remembering is secured. And isn't peace in our self simply nonresistance?

A word about nonresistance: Nonresistance starts with not giving our reasoning mind a platform...that's our ego's disguise, our reasoning mind. Ego always legislates for itself, but it co-opts the reasoning mind in order to legitimize itself. Face it, who is going to cop to ego as their guide when it's the mind that has standing? And who's kidding whom? We all but brag about using our common sense when really that's just the reasoning mind trying to sound humble. 

The punchline, of course, is nonresistance is the basis for acceptance. It is impossible to get to acceptance by resisting. The paradox of acceptance: the quest and the answer both at the same time.

But I say unto you that ye resist not evil.... -- Matthew 5:44

Thank you.

ON THE SUFFICIENCY OF THANK YOU

It is not our deepest want, held in secret but oh-so-dear, that if received will bring us the joy we imagine...hope for.

It is our deepest fear, held in secret so no one can know, that if realized will grace us, bring us Home.

The hook is that to know this from our eyebrows up alone becomes useless information. It's a necessary first step toward realized grace, but our rational mind will stop with the first knowing. That's when it transitions into useless. We must continue on the path of welcoming...also known as "hold your nose and take a leap of faith."  Our resistance is in our very trying to make sense of it. Face it, who without scrutiny sets out to and then continues to welcome their nemesis?

Ah, but how else do we diminish our nemesis? If we could destroy it by "knowing better," we'd be home free already.

We come again to the realization that fear is God's camouflage...nothing invites God out of his hidey-hole into our consciousness like fear. We welcome fear with a scared heart, trembling lips and our thoughts on hold...anything other is our ego putting on airs.

There is no guarantee when we will realize that God has done the dirty for us...we may know in an instant, it may take longer...way longer. I have never known in the instant, but on looking back years later, I can see that is how it happened...I just c/would not realize it then. Which has been the gift of grace for me since many of my ego-errors (a.k.a., angels unaware) have come in that period of unknowing.

All of which says to me that Meister Eckhart knew what he was talking about when he said, If the only prayer you say in your life is thank you, that would suffice. 

Thank you.

THE JOURNEY TO LOVE STARTS WITHIN

I have been feeling for awhile now as if I were going through the crucible. There are a few real physical problems that are just for getting through,but the personal unforeseen happenings get my attention. Things like oversleeping...more often than not. Not making my bed...more often than not. Skipping my yoga...first time this morning which is the one that caused me pause. As I reflected, I saw several other "little" slide-byes. 

I know this is for my benefit. I know coming out after going through this. I will be grateful I needed  to go through this. Ah, but my trepidation is that I may not...I may continue to oversleep...I may just skip this and that. 

In short, I may resign vs. accept. When I have long held as my truth that resignation is ego's joystick, acceptance is God's grace.

Then I read in my daily Eswaran: ....most of us still live inside our own private mental worlds. Our attention is often preoccupied...so that we have very little attention to give to love. despite our best intentions to draw closer, all kinds of distracting thoughts...come in any time they like....The journey into deeper consciousness is one we must take up if ever we are to find the love we all so earnestly desire.

And out of I know not where came a quote of Teilhard de Chardin that I had copied sometime back: 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.

There. That is how I know God has my back...by the truths that I am led to. Which remind me that my personal comfort lies in the spiritual disciplines that it is up to me to continue to follow...up to me to do. 

Hey, new God-thought: Just because I skipped my yoga at 5:00 AM doesn't mean I can't do it at 9:00 AM...or 5:00 PM for that matter. And oversleeping is not never getting out of bed. Get a grip, bite your lip...the clock is not your higher power. 

God loves me so much.

Thank you.

WHEN IN DOUBT, ASSUME THE BEST

The German mystic Meister Eckhart said, Let us pray to God that we may be free of God that we may gain the truth.... [SIDEBAR: And ain't that the truth...long sigh.]

Know that when thou learnest to lose thyself

Thou wilt reach the Beloved.

There is no other secret to be revealed,

And more than this is not known to me.

Ansari

Every development in contemplation reveals more and more of the mystery of silence and the importance of receptivity over effort.... 

There. God just led me to those very words: The importance of receptivity over effort. And still I ponder, still I analyze, still I write.

There are times when that which comes before us is indeterminable as to whether it is for good or for not so good. Why not accept it as good? We will surely learn soon enough if it's not so good, and what to do about it will come then. To assume first off that it's probably not good is to worry too soon. Assume the best, fret less.

Lord, hear my prayer. Thank You. Lord, hear my prayer. Thank You. Lord, hear my prayer. Thank You.

Thank you.

WE MUST GO BEYOND REASON TO LOVE

Blinding flash of the obvious: Ego reduction is learning to love spiritually.

When we have, in toto, turned our will and our life over to the care of God, we have begun the process of detaching from our ego-based belief that we are the true protector of and for our self.

It is a hard lesson, but the less I "stand up for myself," the clearer the path for grace to sweep the path clean for all concerned. The block to believing that is the fearful I, that I who unrestrained dictates our every thought, word and deed...for the benefit of that very I.

Very simplistically, and according to me, the difference between psychiatry and spirituality is psychiatry is geared for self-improvement and spirituality is geared for self-detachment. Also simplistic but even more true to me, humans need a healthy self-esteem before ever an honest detaching from self can begin.

Learning to love spiritually is learning the art of giving over, giving up, giving in. Interpreting all that giving as losing, our reasoning mind balks. Ah, but when we go deeper we find the missing key, that which we are giving up: self-centered fear, plain and simple.

It is in giving that we get...free.

Thank you.

JOY IN THE DULL DARK DAYS

I did not awaken until almost 7:00 this morning...I did not arise until 7:30. I did not begin my sitting in the silence until after 9:00. Usually, I am up and about before 5:00 A.M., and I go almost immediately into my silent time...so I pondered this. I felt no fear, but I'm glad I have learned to question myself when, for no clearly discernible reason, my patterns take a turn on me.

My life has had deep changes in the past couple years...with many friends and my beloved Ruckus  moving on. My boy going back to Heaven being the major, but having a dozen friends move out and on, all across the country, all within a few years. is food for contemplation...to me at any rate. Wonderfully, I heard from three of my beloveds yesterday alone. There...Christmas in my heart. And, who's kidding whom, I still talk to Ruckus daily.

Then I read my "God Calling," and today, December 16, has one of my favorite entries: Joy is the reward of patiently seeing Me in the dull dark days, of trusting when you cannot see....Joy is as it were your heart's response to My smile of recognition of your faithfulness....Stop thinking your lives are all wrong if you do not feel it. (Over the years, I have underlined and highlighted that last sentence to the point of nearly unreadable. Slow learner...and God loves that.)

Don't tell me God doesn't know...and answer...my every need. Yours, too!

Thank you.

ON FINDING THE SILENCE WITHIN

As frightening as it may be to 'center down,' we must find the stillness at the core of the shout, the pause in the middle of the 'amen,' as first steps toward restoration. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," December 15, 2018

As I was awakening this morning, the thought came that I need not more rote prayers, I need to still my mind...silence in a word. Be still and know that I am God came to mind. (I just checked and that is from Psalm 46:10.)

Those are my non-marching orders, I suspect. Be still, to me, means enough with the Lord's Prayer, the 23rd Psalm, the Prayer of Saint Francis, the Mary Prayer, all of which I silently pray each morning. I have no problem with that...they stay my inventorying mind. I'm guessing, however, I need to move on up to a deeper place within...to the holy place of silence. Ha! as if I can just move me there.

I need to make myself available with the conscious intention of a silent mind. Then be prepared to sit and wait on the Lord...who tends to have a drag foot, according to me. Ah, but then there's the blinding flash of the obvious. And there it is: God...slower than a turtle/faster than a cheetah, as needed.

Thank you.

GO TO GOD TO GO FROM EGO

Eknath Easwaran has written that in every emotional relationship, when we react, it is to our own self's expectation...good or bad, it is our own projection onto the other that we are reacting to.

In other words, you are never angry for the reason you think, and I forget where I found that, but I know it to be true. Which is the same as what you see is always yourself...another forgotten origin but true to me.

Dig deep, and we'll find the same thing in Meister Eckhart’s The eyes with which we look back at God are the same eyes with which God looks at us. (Ponder that for a while.)

I've learned that I need to keep these things handy. They're my go-to in order to go-from...to God, from ego. Face it, there will ever be snags and snarls in our daily life, and the tinier the snag, the harder it is to detach.

I'm convinced that my ego Lucy will determine that "this" is too insignificant to bother with...then  finds it impossible to let go of as I See Me takes hold and builds, ever downward. Spiritual growth is lost to self...again.

The never-too-old saying applies: No one ever stubbed their toe on Mount Everest. 

Thank you.

THE BANE IS THE BOON

[The following is a reprint of my post of May 26, 2017.]

There is a page in "God Calling" where it is set forth that we must take joy in the gray days...that our hard lesson of the gray day will be repeated until we do.

There are those who believe that welcoming, that the Thank You prayer, that joy in the dark is just malarkey, plain and simple. Whenever we hit a rough patch, we can count on one or more to rather gleefully ask, "So where's your good in this?!"

Hey...the bane is the boon.

The resulting gift from looking our Monster in the eye, calling it by its name, "Monster," comes with our changed mind...in effect, we see it for the "puddy tat" it is, or a raised consciousness if you will. How else can we learn to never try to dodge a fear (which is all the Monster is, of course), or to desperately call it Good, hoping that'll change it? That changes neither "it" nor our mind.

Most everybody I know feels at some point in life that they have gone through the crucible, crashed and burned, and emerged as gold. It was that bane that gave them their boon. There. That is my God's instruction book for us for life. Use it or lose it.

Thank you.

TO LIVE IN ACCEPTANCE...AH, PERFECT PEACE

I am convinced that a peaceful head and heart comes by taking nothing personally.

That, just that...take nothing personally...has been a goal of mine for a long time. One of the gifts of that goal was the realization that every feeling of irked, peeved, instant of inner push-back is the result of our taking it personally...whatever the momentary it is.

It would not surprise me to learn that the entire starter course in learning how to take nothing personally is encompassed in knowing that I am not responsible for what s/he hears me say...nor am I responsible for how they choose to interpret what they hear me say. And vice versa.

The second course in our learning may well be in the thought that what you think of me is none of my business...I love you, no matter. Then we must needs help that be true in our head and in our heart.

The obvious (but well-hidden to ego) fact is that if we want our life to reflect what we are learning, then we must do that which we say we agree with...we must live a turned-over to God life.

To enrich our own life we must learn to give recognition to the true identity of those we meet. -- Joel Goldsmith, "The Gift of Love," p. 5

TO LIVE JOYFULLY AMID MISUNDERSTANDING

I welcome the opportunity to be thought wrong without any opportunity to set the record straight...to be thought wrong by all or any of my peers. -- December 11, 1989, note in my "God Calling"

To be unjustly accused and to answer not a word in self defense...such was my specific desire, stated during a discussion of a spiritual nature last year. This led to cross-purposes to the reasoning mind...which I believe/hope is in fact proof of initiation for all concerned in the discussion.

I am just beginning to believe...from my eyebrows up anyway...that the prize really is crucifixion...and, who's kidding whom? Crucifixion to me is not being nailed to the cross...apparently it is being unjustly accused and answering not a word in self defense.

To live joyfully amid misunderstanding and slander points beyond 'my kingdom' to the Kingdom of God. -- Unknown author

Thank you.

GRATITUDE IS OUR ONLY ENTITLEMENT

To receive miraculous healing and yet to be able to refrain from personal glory in the achievement is most difficult. All that they were entitled to was gratitude that they had been called and that the Power was working through them -- not that they had the power. The Power was working through them, but it could work through them only in proportion to their humility, and the true sense of humility is not any detraction or depreciation of one's self: it is a realization of one's greatness in having been called to be a servant of that power, which is true paradox. -- Copied from I know not where, dated 10/5/78 in my journal.

It is a personal fact that I and most of my friends have received miraculous healing...it is uplifting to see in black and white that which our heart knows: All that we are entitled to is gratitude that we have been called and that the Power is working through us...not that we had the power.

Thank you.

MAINLY REMEMBER THIS: GET OVER YOURSELF

The supreme work of spirituality is keeping a 'right mind' (which is the work of contemplation or meditation) without attachment to past woundings. [Lifted and rearranged from Fr Richard Rohr's "Daily Meditation," December 9, 2018.]

Keeping a "right mind" is one of those simple sounding but oh so hard to do sayings. Purely and simply because it requires that we think not of our self, but of the other, the other that ninety-eleven times out of a hundred we are in disagreement with.

What is especially daunting is that "the one we are in disagreement with" is way too often from years past...possibly our sister at age 13, when we were 10. Or the love of our life...the first one from 50 years ago.

Which explains why these are the words that grabbed my attention: without attachment to past woundings. It matters not whether the past woundings occurred 50 years ago, or a week, a day, or an hour ago.

When (not if) we go there, we hunker down with ego...there is no spiritual growth there. Which sounds like a gotcha, doesn't it? Ah, but God is not in the gotcha...he cuts us slack. He cuts us slack because he knows our needs...and how we will ever mistake our wants for our needs. So we slide over for a sip of the sweet water of resentment...and God it is who turns the sweet to bitter.

Our "right mind" that we've attained through spiritual growth, that and a little help from our friends, reminds us of our thank you prayer.

Then we remember God's words: Love and laugh...and get over yourself.

Thank you.

LOVE, THE ETERNAL ANSWER

[The following is a reprint of my post of December 8, 2016. It describes perfectly where I am exactly  two years later to the day and hour.]

My morning's blinding flash, a prayer:

Lord, bring to my mind all that you have taught me...I am not in need of new thoughts, new words,  new ideas for I already have all the revealings I will ever need, i.e., love is the answer, no matter the question. It is my thought-life, my attack mind, that calls for help. Please and thank you. Amen

Thank you.

THE GIFT WE KNOW NAUGHT OF

I'm guessing that most everyone has a longing to be known...known by at least one other, one special other.

The problem we come late to realizing is that we want to be known as we believe our self to be. We choose to refuse that we are known...by a whole lot of others. Face it, we're not so deep or mysterious or special as to be...what? An enigma? We wish.

Even those of us who do not recognize the fact of our longing...we are usually walking around with a vague feeling that our skin's on crooked...suspect that something is amiss. So we stay focused out there...naming it the world today, the politics of the South...or the North, the friends we have...or don't have, the job we have...or don't have.

The day will come, the dawn will break, when we are gifted by grace into the realization that there is a place deep within us that is known only to God. It takes considerably longer for us to accept that it is always available, always operating in our behalf...ah, but with neither our knowledge nor our consent.

This is the spiritual core of us that we know naught of. It is unknowable but to God. It is The Christ. Amen.

Thank you.

ON FEELING THE LOVE THAT I AM

Ah, it seldom fails...when I'm feeling my all alone-est, then it is that my unloved, unwanted, unneeded, unappreciated calls to my ego Lucy to sing our favorite song, Loving Arms. Especially the line looking back and longing for the freedom of my chains and lying in your loving arms again. That one.

Why, I wonder, doesn't Amazing Grace come to mind? Who hates that one? Or How Great Thou Art? With Elvis singing, to boot. But no, it is an incontrovertible fact, when I'm feeling less than, only sad, sorry and blue songs are allowed. Ah, who's kidding whom...I'm who, what and why it's all about when I'm feeling un.

Out of sheer habit, I turn to my daily readings, and from the cosmos my beloved Easwaran wraps me in reality: [In] transforming consciousness, you have to look for the right spot. In some people it is a particular compulsive craving; in some it is jealousy; in some, blind fury. Some may be fortunate enough to have all three. Each person has to look for that spot where urgent work is most needed.

There it is...God's will direct to me right Now: I have to look for that spot where urgent work is most needed. I do know this, the obvious is rarely the most needed...that's why needing to look requires going to God. In gratitude. For the need.

I can feel the un lifting...I know because free at last just came to mind...that and ain't gonna study war no more. Along with, there will be peace in the valley for me. 

God loves me so much. The Donald, too.

Thank you.

GOD LAUGHS AND WE LET GO

It is our desire, our willingness, our spiritual mindset that begins our journey toward still more spiritual growth. 

And then...and then...after years of pondering and preaching, we slowly begin to detach from our book learning, our original ideas, our striving and seeking. Our self-determined objectives start to fall away. In effect, they crash and burn...and even that minus our will. 

We learn to laugh at our self-determined objectives which were all about us basking in the sunlight of love being showered upon us...or, short form, get spiritual, get love. Then comes the blinding flash of the obvious: We cannot get love, we can only give love.

The original message that God is love changes not, it is merely repurposed.

Love itself takes on a new and deeper meaning...holy, in a word. God and love...invisible, unprovable to the doubting mind...ah, but we realize It for real when It permeates our being. And we start loving our unfriends just as we love our friends. We know we are on the right track when they become interchangeable.

Then it is that we know fear for we hear our self asking, Just how holy do I want to be? Ah, then God laughs, and we relax...we're not there yet.

Thank you.

SURRENDER...AH, THE PEACE OF IT

Of all things, I'm hearing lately that peace, love and joy are getting a bad name. Go figure. There are so many words, acts...thoughts even...that qualify for less-than-wonderful, why pick on the exact opposite to resist?

Maybe that's the why of it...the exact opposite proves individual originality to our ego. Ego will ever speak louder than God...not better, just louder.

The raw wonder of peace, love and joy is that we cannot just do them, or any one of them, on self-will alone. We cannot manufacture them. They are not of our own self. They live within us with God in his hidey hole, and they emerge by grace as needed and without human manipulation.

Now we come to our job...which is to let them, i.e., to unblock or to open the channel from which peace, love and joy flow. Which, according to me, is right next to the eighth wonder of the world. To open our self represents our willingness to allow our own self to grow smaller. In short, to let means we say thank you, and lay down our sword and shield. And that is all. Oh, then wait.

No one knows the day or hour....

Thank you.

TRUTHS AND RANDOM THOUGHTS

Truths, random thoughts and idle words:

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

I must take care that my "bad" is not more important to me than God's "good."

To receive miraculous healing and yet to be able to refrain from personal glory in the achievement is most difficult. All that they were entitled to was gratitude that they had been called and that the Power was working through them -- not that they had the power. The Power was working through them, but it could work through them only in proportion to their humility, and the true sense of humility is not any detraction or depreciation of one's self: it is a realization of one's greatness in having been called to be a servant of that power, which is true paradox. -- Copied in my journal from I know not where, dated 10/5/78.

It is our own ego that sees and accepts for our own incoming insults, snarks and put-downs... they are not ours, let them remain undelivered.

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

There has to be a recognition of an Infinite Invisible...there has to be an inner realization of that Presence. -- probably lifted from Joel Goldsmith

Forgiveness requires inner connection in order to let the other's actions be and then we can walk free with the other or not, as God wills. Only we can give our self forgiveness and that by aborning into Christ consciousness within.

Now comes the part that makes the "belly bitter"...the living of these truths. -- Joel Goldsmith

Thank you.

SHOUT HALLELUJAH!

If we are ever going to get over our want to be right...or at least not publicly wrong...we are going to need to experience the pain of being misunderstood, of being thought wrong, of being the object of gossip, slander and contempt for in there hides our gift of gold.

In learning the ways of still more spiritual growth, that's not all that surprising, is it? We must go beyond reason to love.

It takes a looong time for this to filter without resistance through every fiber of our being. Who's kidding whom, it takes long enough for our brain to just let it in without spitting fire.

Our spiritual gift is the gratitude we experience when we can pray our thank you for whatever is appearing upside down and backwards in our life, and specifically when we feel no resistance to the person we perceive as the root of our pain. (Which may be as close to forgiveness as we get in this world.)

We begin awakening when we recognize that the contretemps is for our own benefit. Then the sun breaks, and we know through us and only through us that this is for the benefit of that other. And there it is...we know it for our own benefit purely because it benefits the other who is accusing us. 

Better yet, they may never realize that. They may go to their grave thinking the less of us, but with their gift of gold intact. Not ours to understand, ours to appreciate that God does indeed move in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform.

Our pure gold. our pearl beyond price, our great stand-up-and-shout gift is our getting over our own self...in loving and laughing and letting it be within. Somebody say Amen.

Thank you.

GOD CALLING US HOME TO GOD

It is the defensive ego that births our negative feelings, that projects negativity. 

All of our negative feelings...fear, anger, sadness, self-pity,  anxiety, pride, envy, jealousy, silent scorn, etc....are ego's self-protective shield. There. That is the shield we must shuck. 

That is the block that stands between our soul and our experiencing peace, love and joy...that is, God's presence...which invites our love and laughter out into the sun.

To our reasoning mind's eye, the path through looks daunting for it sees that we must walk through our very fear and all its companions to reach daybreak...and, who's kidding whom, there is no guarantee that daybreak is going to offer the sunshine and roses we want. 

Ah, and it is not! For we cannot want all that God has to offer. It is beyond our reasoning mind's ability to imagine all that God is, and that is therefore ours.

The pearl of great price is another paradox: It is our ego's defense that is God calling! We resist it not, but walk forward welcoming it with our thank you prayer in peaceful trust that it is God calling us home to God. 

Thank you.