ON USING FEAR TO LIGHT OUR PATH

Fear is never lifted out of us. Praying for God to take away fear is a waste of our breath and God's time. No. God does not take away our fear...he imbues us with the power to walk through it to get to Him. Face it, we are the source of all our woes, and God is the cleanup crew.

Our ego seeks to be absolved of all blame always...but blame is just fear with a new haircut. We are slow to learn that is where God's glory lies...blame (fear) is spiritual growth aborning for to lift us deeper. Time set aside daily to meditate, to journal, to ponder on the mysteries of the spiritual is the new GPS we are gifted with.

We slowly realize the nature of the path we have been set upon. It is a path that leads us ever forward guided by ego's denial of its determined hold. The many bumps in our road are our hard-earned giftees; equally important, they benefit others at the same time. Thus we all come out of self free.

Fear is never lifted out of us...it is used to light our path out of self into God's hidey-hole.

Thank you.

WE ARE THE SOURCE OF ALL OUR HURTS

When we feel hurt by another's snide or snarky or even untrue remark, that wound is on them...theirs to atone for. Ah, but in that instant of hurt, it is ours to forgive. (Forgiveness seems to come truer with a little help from our mentor and/or spiritual advisor.)

The hard lesson learning, however, is the minute we respond in kind or natter at will to others about the hurt...or, who's kidding whom, the originator of the hurt...we have us a self-inflicted wound.

A self-inflicted wound makes a mockery of forgiveness in the wash of ego's "poor, pitiful, put upon me." With ego riding herd, the hurt is justified, and repeatedly, by each resisting thought and retelling. Just so we can get the balm of sympathy...and, ahem, pay back the originator.

Comes the enlightening: Our hurt continues because our wound is being self-inflicted. We stop the hurt by praying not for the originator, who may well be happy as a pig in pig heaven, but for our thoughts about the originator.

There. Our proof that we have turned our will and our life over to the care of God...as suggested.

Thank you.

ON WALKING THROUGH FEAR IN FAITH

Blinding flash of the obvious (as I asked to be relieved of the bondage of self): I must release You from my bondage of self. 

It was a great gettin' up morning when I realized that for myself, fear is God in camouflage for nothing turns me to God faster than fear.

The hook, however, is that fear is not lifted. We must walk through our personal fear to God. Ah, but we do not feel the fear as we are walking through for He goes before us making the crooked places straight.

It is I; be not afraid. - John 6:20

Thank you.

ON CLAIMING OUR INTUITIVE REALITY

I am here. Do not need feeling too much. To ask for feeling too much is to ask for a sign....What does it matter what you feel? What matters is what I am, was, and ever shall be to you....The feeling that I am with  you may depend upon any passing mood of yours--upon a change of circumstances, upon a mere trifle. -- "God Calling," December 28

I do not doubt that my desire to feel God in my life has been the self-built barrier to my accepting that I never have not had God in my life, thus, already have God right here, right now. Literally, a self-determined objective that cannot be faulted for sounding good, right and righteous...a barrier nonetheless.

Most everyone...I don't doubt that indeed everyone...has experienced coincidences, unexplainable by the reasoning mind, that have opened doors, shined a light on a dark place, been carelessly called "miracle." On experiencing these flashes, some of us have felt humbled, some merely baffled, some relieved and that's it.

Those happenings may or may not be God at work. I choose to believe...because, after all, I'm working with the God of my understanding...that those are God thoughts cleaning the egoic mind's blackboard. We have a phrase, "Is it odd or is it God?" We must decide for ourself the answer that fits us in the here and now. 

I have decided to leave the intellectual aside and declare for my own Fr Richard Rohr's statement: "What is true in Jesus is true in us! We never could have claimed this intellectually if we did not sense it intuitively...."

Thank you.

CLOSER, KINDER WORKS...REDUX

[This is a reprint of my April 13, 2012 post, slightly reworked.]

New today: I almost cannot believe this. I just now "happened" on this previous post of mine...just as I (along with my ego Lucy, of course) was running my mind on Gertrude whose toes I realize I stepped on. We apparently thought this was a new, different and altogether enlightening happening for I was fretting on how to handle it. And along comes my own piece...from, please note, April 13, 2012!:  

I am proving to myself again (how long, oh Lord!) that my conscience is a power within me, and I am powerless over it. That about half way peeves me...yet, what did I think I was working so hard to achieve when I started on this path?

I did step on Judd's toes because I chose to be provoked by him who, I know full well, provokes me just by breathing. And how spiritual is that? He is reacting in kind...provoked, and I am now mentally justifying, wrangling, resisting Judd's resistance. With my conscience saying, "You can justify till your face falls off...then you gotta do right."

I know him to be a pebble in my shoe, I know to go closer, be kinder, seek to understand rather than to be understood. Yet I went with my ego and virtually slung mud in my own face. I am grateful that I know from my own experience that closer, kinder works...more importantly, I know that that is the only thing that works in getting me over me. Ahem...and there's the difference between knowing from the eyebrows up and showing from the heart.

The sliver of gold: Because I know, if only from my eyebrows up, that I am the source of all my woes, I seek God's blessing on my thoughts about Judd, that they be purified according to my Father's lights, and that I be willing to follow his directions.

Thank you.

CEASE THINKING...PRAY WITHOUT CEASING

To understand that my nemesis is my blessing is the beginning of a changed consciousness...albeit a bare beginning.

We must come to realize our nemesis as our blessing. To realize is an inside gift and is not reliant on our thinking. We can think it through and may even come to the so-called right answer but that just leads us down that wrong road again. Thinking.

The problem being that our thinking, pretty much directed by our ego, will change on us without a by-your-leave. It can go on the attack or it can turn servile in a heartbeat. That is the nature of the egoic mind and is precisely why we must needs exchange our mind.

We exchange reliance on the third dimensional objective mind by opening to the fourth dimensional spiritual mind. In a flash. Without a thought. We discover that it does not last without an ongoing upside down, inside out turnabout in our material mind.

Since we live in the material world, our material mind is ever with us so we'd best learn to use it to our benefit...which in our exchanged mind means for the benefit of others. With help from our Father and our friends, we search for the spiritual...for a God of our own understanding...thus ensuring our realization stays with us by ever growing deeper...truer in a word.

Pray without ceasing - 1 Thessalonians 5:17

Thank you.

ON THE PLACE PREPARED FOR US

This morning in meditating on the 23rd Psalm, it came to me in re Thou preparest a place before me in the presence of my enemies: The place prepared before me is the welcome mat for my resisting fears. Anything appearing to me that I resist is my enemy that the Lord has sent me to grow my spiritual core deeper. Ah, and the authority comes my ever aborning raised consciousness. 

Today's "Meditation" of Fr Richard Rohr expands and clarifies that for me with the following: St. Augustine said,  'What does it avail me that this birth is always happening, if it does not happen in me? That it should happen in me is what matters.' 

And further, in quoting St Augustine, Meister Eckhart said: What good is it to me if Mary gave birth to the Son of God 1400 years ago and I do not give birth to the Son of God in my own person and time and culture? . . . We are all meant to be mothers of God.

The authority aborning in our raised consciousness is the birth that is always happening. It is in our own consciousness that we are becoming "mothers of God." It therefore behooves us to keep our own self open to the call to give over, give up, give in. Else, his going before us to make the crooked places straight is for naught.

My prayer today: Thank you, Father, that ego does not lead me, fear does not restrain me.

Thank  you.

LOST, FOUND, THRICE BLESSED

Grace isn’t a gift for getting it right but for getting it wrong! -- Fr Richard Rohr

I got lost yesterday. In the underground parking at my doctor's office. I've been looking for another doctor purely because of their parking which in reality is a maze masquerading as a parking garage.

I limped along for five or so minutes, and, believe it, I was feeling right put-upon. Then an attendant materialized and asked if I needed help. Or maybe I asked if he would help. At any rate, he helped.

Long/short: We went downstairs, back upstairs, from pillar to post, and he kept me laughing...he had to be one of the most genial sweet souls I've met in a very long time. But finally there before my sorry eyes...my little Civic right where I left her.

My genial helper said, "Merry Christmas!" And I said, "There is a Santa Claus, and you're him!" And we hugged, and he walked away.

As I got in my car I flashed back to right before we hugged, and I had noticed a business name on his uniform...then it came to me that the business name was not this office building's name. I realized in that flash that my Santa was probably a worker on his way from his doctor's office, just heading home...when here comes me, lost. He did not hesitate or in anyway indicate he was not there for any reason but to be of help. 

I never saw him again as I drove out of the building, but I call his name Blessed Santa Claus, God's special helper, and my Christmas angel.

Thank you.

AH...WITHOUT OUR FINGERPRINTS ON IT

Your task is to find the good, the true, and the beautiful in everything, even and most especially the problematic. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," December 23, 2019

There it is...another piece of evidence that "finding the sliver of gold" is the "next right thing" to do in any situation.

Except that I reject the idea that we must do the next right thing.

When we put that qualifier in, we either become immobilized wondering what is the right thing, or we give over to our ego to lead its puff-parade, resulting in our calling what we want to do the right thing...which almost invariably turns out to be waaay wrong.

I first heard the advice as "do the next thing" which makes a lot better sense to me. Because the next thing is rarely related to what our mind's race-race, run-run problem is. The next thing is usually something akin to "put on your shoes, comb your hair, walk the dog."

We come to recognize doing the next thing as buying time (which I contend is very likely the best advice ever). Any advice that boils down to "shut up, sit down, listen" has God's will written all over it. Face it, the time we buy in fret-free silence is our sliver of gold.

Then our task to find the good, the true, and the beautiful in everything, even and most especially the problematic is done and done...and, best, without our fingerprints on it.

Thank you.

ON THE PROVING OF TRUTH

Forgiveness is pretty much like spiritual growth...it seems talking about it lessens it. We can never capture its essence, and the more we try, i.e., talk, the less it means.

I have experienced my own forgiveness of another when I didn't even know that was what was happening. In sharing with friends later, the facts invited unanswerable questions. Human nature being such as it is of course I tried to answer...and left most everybody thinking, "Whaaa?"

Forgiveness, akin to life itself, is best worn like a loose garment. The closer we try to hold it, the more ephemeral it becomes...at which point ego claims squatters rights, and we're left scratching our head again.

Quick thought...it's like our belief in God. Up in our head, we can never be sure enough...sure enough that our belief is good enough, honest enough, pure enough. We doubt our own belief even knowing the right words, facts...personal experiences, for heaven's sake.

We will ever doubt even as we believe. Maybe that is the proof of Jesus as the Christ...he did not doubt...by his life and death, he proved.

Thank you.

ASK, SEEK, KNOCK...THEN ACCEPT THE ANSWER

Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. -- Matthew 7:7

We have learned that we are not responsible for what others hear us say nor are we responsible for how they interpret what they hear us say. I can believe that it is in the Sermon at this verse that that lesson originates. 

After a whole lot of deep study of detaching from reliance on our reasoning mind, we realize: What we are given, what we find, what is opened to us is God's understanding of our ask. Ah, yes...the Father provides our needs not our wants.  

We pray for our want, God hears and answers our need. That it is perfect for us may take a long time to "get." Which is as it must be...that assures our still more spiritual study.

Thank you.

GOD IS WALKING US BACK HOME

God has no good-conduct hook...that is what our own conscience is for.

When we seek God's forgiveness, we'd best understand that we are seeking our own forgiveness. God does not forgive...God loves. He cannot see a need for forgiveness. We, however, can. We  invariably and simultaneously over- and under-estimate the reason for the need, but that's just ego riding herd.

Slowly we learn: Since ego is ever with us, we stay in ego's hold when we resist it...ah, but with God as our guide, we can use it. We're reminded (daily) that ego legislates for itself, but it no longer functions as our joystick. 

Now we can rely on our inner connection, our conscience, which has been molded, scolded and loved into our pot of gold. Through our ongoing spiritual footwork, we  detach (daily) from our egoic  mind.

Detaching from our reasoning mind while allowing it (as if we have a choice!) to function within us is God's great gift of free will. Trusting our conscience now, we also trust our free will to continue journeying us back Home.

Thank you.

CERTAINTY vs. UNKNOWING

We come to believe by experiencing. When we experience the wonders of our Father, we cannot not believe.

All of our perceived problems, our worrit du jour, have already been fixed, healed, lifted by God. Which remains "coincidence" for a long, long time. And that is as it must be. We fret at our unbelief when in fact we're doing it right. Our fret is our impetus to go deeper...deeper into our own self as opposed to yet another how-to book.

We must take care, however, that our certainty of God does not become the enemy, ego. Unless we practice our faithful words, as in do that which our perceived problem has us in fear of, saying God's got this is just so many words...and a block to us. 

The unsettling part of practicing our words is that we fail so often. But of course we fail! That's the basis of our fear! How else do we get to the other side of our fear but by stepping out into it? Falling, getting up, trying a different tact, falling but less hard...with deeper assurance...each time.

I've come to believe that this is the fruit of what Jesus said about his lessons being too much for us to take in all at once. Those missteps, mistakes, ego-deflaters are spiritual growth aborning. That's us being shown bit by bit but only as we put in more God time, lessening the me-first time.   

Call it the fallacy of personal certainty, the gift of impersonal unknowing. Or, I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. -- John 16:12

Thank you.

ASK NOT, PRAY THANK YOU, MOVE ON

Stay in the Now. Resist not evil. Love our enemies. Acceptance is the answer. Bring peace.

There it is: My core answers to any problem I invite into my consciousness.

Stay in the Now for the Now is all there is. We learn to break Now down to "a day at a time" which makes it more mentally doable.

Resist not evil. Staying in our reasoning mind, we can find evil in a red light when we're running late. All the sudden, its a personal insult, we hit the horn, the person in front of us takes umbrage (resists), and we've got a brand new problem (enemy).

Love our enemies. We love our enemies for our enemy is anything we resist, and, face it, most days, we resist getting up in the morning. The sooner we love that, the less we resist it...and since our day starts way better, we're less likely to be running late. See where this is going?

Acceptance is the answer. We learn fairly quickly the difference between acceptance and resignation...resignation stays us in a self-determined objective, acceptance moves us up deeper to our spiritual center. From whence flows our peace.

Bring peace. Peace is birthed in us by living our core answers.

Once we're comfortable living those core answers, we can pretty much ask not, pray thank you, and keep on moving.

Thank you.

ON FAITH ALONE FORGIVENESS IS BORN

I doubt not that forgiveness is so difficult for us not only to do but to want to do because we have not a clue what forgiveness means to us personally. 

Letting go of a justified resentment comes easily to mind, but that very ease brings the reason for the resentment, then the justification...and forgive? No way, not in this lifetime, follows.

Our material mind tells us what forgiveness should feel like...warm, wonderful and just a tish superior. Which is the clue that the root of the problem is the material mind. 

I am convinced that forgiveness cannot be done by self-will or want-to alone...they may be "Santa's little helpers," but we must go beyond the reasoning mind. Beyond our self-will and want-to. As in, "Deliver all those giftees all over the world in one night? Can't be done."  Except by a power greater than ourself. Go to bed, go to sleep, wake up...giftees! All our own! 

When we become as a little child, on faith alone Christ is born, Santa flies, and Christmas comes to our heart, our soul, our body and our brain. With forgiveness the lead Dog.

Thank you.

SELF-LESS LIVING, A WAR-LESS WORLD

I remind me again: Self legislates for self...that's why we must go to God for God and that is all. There peace is born.

The reasoning mind is not suited to bring peace to itself. That's the nature of a reasoning mind...it reasons, rejects, reasons, rejects. Actually, that's the definition of reasoning...compare, pull apart, put together, ponder, accept, reject.

The spiritually actuated reasoning mind, however, is the key to bringing peace to bear in our life. Or, bringing peace to bear in life itself...which is purely spreading kindness without effort and little to no thought.

Bringing peace to bear is self-less living resulting in a war-less world.

When will we ever learn? When will we ever learn?

Thank you.

TRUST, FAITH AND HAPPY DESTINY

Trust in our Father is not eyebrows-up knowing how or when or where His perfect work will be performed. No. Trust is inner knowing that it has already been performed...and all is well.

All is well when to our reasoning mind's eye it looks scarifying. Or not what we want at any rate.

I quote (again) Fr Richard Rohr's line, Grace isn’t a gift for getting it right but for getting it wrong!

There's the road we trudge to trust, to faith in our Father which leads to our happy destiny.

Thank you.

ON RESPECT AND COURTESY

Blinding flash of the obvious: Respect is possibly the most important thing we can give to whatever is coming into our consciousness...be it person, thing. weather, or stumbling block.

Recently I heard a woman say that she reads Jesus's words in the original Aramaic. This was said in pretty much a "bragging rights" way, and I'm grateful I did not feel the need to respond in any way. (Probably, in truth, because I didn't think of a response until later when I was talking to my bathroom mirror.)

But the fact is it does not matter in what language we read any spiritual work...if we're reading to remember so we can preach it, we're missing the entire point no matter what spiritual work we're into.

I'm reminded of the short story, Flowers for Algernon, where the main character is just learning...period. He has just gotten...I remember not but say exclamation marks...and he's writing a letter: Dear! Sir! I! wish! to! advise! etc., etc., etc. That's true when we're reading to learn so we can parade what we're learning. The end result is we've got a bunch of words strung together, signifying nothing of spiritual significance. 

To me, the sole reason for reading Jesus's words is to make them our own in order to live them. And by-the-by a soul reason for us to learn his words is to learn to live respect...which I am being led to believe is very likely the most important courtesy we can extend in our walking-around world today.

Respect especially includes for our own thoughts. Keep 'em courteous...our life's work in three words.

Thank you.

LASTING PEACE - A TURNED-OVER MIND

. ...every detail of your lives is planned by Me...wait for Guidance in every step. Wait to be shown My way. ...All the responsibility of Life taken off your shoulders.... - God Calling, December 13,

Today's God Calling lays out what has been leading me deeper for awhile now. Deeper into the gut-bucket belief that the Father within is dealing my deck, has always, will always...the hook, of course, is daily waiting. To let that be true by trusting it...and trusting it is like breathing. No should I or shouldn't I? No but what about this other? No let me think this through to see if I agree.

We are breaking free of self when we accept that this is not doable in the walking-around world, meaning for the uninitiated. Which is why we seek still more spiritual growth, why we meditate, why we study the Sermon, why we take time daily to clear our cluttered mind...to be freer daily of self-will.

For a long time, we did seek, but only to be able to say we seek. For us actually to do that which we were learning, i.e., to turn the other cheek, to resist not evil, was a "some day" thing. And then, blinding flash of the obvious: Now is the acceptable time. Now is the only time.

This is our building faith time. We commit to being grateful that whatever action we take is of God. Admittedly, it may seem regrettable in the moment, but we soon recognize that's because we didn't think of it.

We pray our thank you and wait. Since we're relying on our training to seek the sliver of gold, it doesn't take long to find it. Our reasoning mind does not have a clue what is going to result, and we worry not for we are relieved of the fear of being wrong or the need to be right. We are at peace, which I like to think proves Rohr's contention that grace isn’t a gift for getting it right but for getting it wrong. There...peace of mind aborning.

Lesson learned: The only lasting peace for the reasoning mind is a turned-over mind.

Thank you.

TO FIND OUR FATHER WITHIN...AGAIN

[This is a reprint of my post of June 30, 2018...slightly reworked.]

What if Donald Trump is our Saul of Tarsus? As in Saint Paul before his involuntary conversion.

What if that's you and me? What if we're all Saul...rigid, righteous and right...before involuntary or voluntary conversion? Some of us crash and burn leaving us no place to turn but to a power greater than ourselves; some of us are born seeking a higher power, and some are born into it. It makes no never mind how we get there, but get there we must...if not in this lifetime, then the next however many lifetimes it takes.

We keep coming back until we get it right according to me.

Will we open our mind to the possibility of it?..to the possibility that we are Trump in disguise...or Charles Manson...or Gertrude, our own nemesis? Are we willing to find within our own self that part of them we are repulsed by, to seek for that identity in order to release it...loose it and let it go...and find our Father within?

Until we do, we will be immersed in our own repugnant thoughts...calling our own thoughts Trump, Manson, Gertrude, et al.

Those thoughts will grow...but we won't.

Thank you.

FEAR NOT, GOD IS NEAR

Life is a series of interchangeable problems and gifts...interchangeable because we often can't tell the difference. It's only by trudging all the way through to the other side that often we find we've mislabeled the problem and/or the gift. Which, by-the-by, is why we trudge with the Higher Power as our flashlight. 

There will come a moment in time when our perceived problem is "fixed" in a flash...we know, we know we know, we feel safe, secure, at peace. The moment may pass into days...but then, whoa! Here's us, facing the same problem. Start trudging.

I bring good news...unbeknownst to us, this is our hidden gold mine.

This is the seed of the proof that the place upon which we stand is holy ground. The place where our faith takes root is in our moment of scared. Afraid that our fix was a self-driven wish, we turn within to our ever-aborning God...the One who is gifting us with understanding of Him and Her mysterious ways and the wonders It performs.  

Showing us again that fear is naught but God in camouflage since nothing turns us to God faster than fear. When (not if) fear slithers into our imagining, without thought or hesitation we turn to God repeating our homemade mantra: Feel fear, know God is here.

A fairly cynical thought occurs: The chances are all of our assurances of peace on earth, and love and laughter, the only forever answer, will be tested until three days after we're dead. Well, what if?  That will be if we're truly blessed for what else would turn us so consistently to God? 

I feel like I've just been hugged by God.

Thank you.

GOD LOVES US...WAKE UP AND CHEER

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. -- attributed to Edmund Burke

Ah, the candle was lighted this morning. I read that and, as per usual when I read it, I felt guilty that I "do nothing." Comes now my blinding flash of the obvious: I do not "do nothing." I seek.

I know and I know I know that seeking counts...it is not nothing.

Lest my ego Lucy uses that to justify pondering and analyzing and calling that "doing something," the big time howsomever is, as Fr Richard Rohr has written, If your spiritual practice doesn’t lead you to some acts of concrete caring or service, then you have every reason not to trust it.

I seek within and without. One of my hard-won gifts is the acceptance of  myself and my limitations. I do not march, lobby or proselytize, I make myself available, I welcome the exchange of ideas. I seek not to prove I am right or to be proved not right but to be one with the seekers of the self-less way.

The self-less way has been paved by many who have gone before. One can flounder by mixing and matching so I long ago settled on the Sermon on the Mount as my way, and all that comes from that is pretty much sacred to me.

Two ideas that come straight from the Sermon are my guides: (1) We have ceased fighting anything and anybody; and (2) It is a spiritual axiom that whenever anything upsets me, no matter what the cause, there is something wrong with me. 

Proving those true in my walking around world counts as "something," which, best face it, is not easy. Ah, but there's the grounds for gratitude.

God loves me, you, them, ours and theirs so much!

Thank you.

TRUTH MUST BE PROVED

My refined mantra: The hardest thing spiritual growth will ever ask of us is that we exchange our mind.

Our spiritual growth spurts open a needle's eye to a higher mind deep within, and the course of our life gets upturned. Without our reasoning mind's knowledge or consent...or we'd ever be analyzing the issue...we begin growing out of self into here and now, the place where God lives.

Living in our exchanged-mind world allows us to respond to life situations as opposed to react to them. Response is achieved through our inner listening, reaction is ego on parade...in a blinding flash of want-to.

We slowly learn a better way to live our life is to react not, but to hold to the recognition of our basic need to extend peace, love and joy to any and all.  In this new reality we remind ourself, repeatedly, that each person or situation we meet is our angel.

Times will come, more often than not it seems, when we must disagree with another. We are not only allowed to disagree, it is essential if our egoic but what about me is to crash and burn. It is how we disagree that holds hope for our future.

Learning how to disagree is the mother lode of richest spiritual growth...not to speak not a word nor to go along to get along...neither to curse nor to curry...for both are self-determined objectives. Without disagreement we would be unlikely to grasp an essential goal: We disagree not to get peace but to have peace.

We come to the happy realization...through repeated self-managed do-overs...that we are only human, common as dirt (dirt being rich beyond imagining) and happy to be. This reality knocks the secure props out from under ego's determination to know, show and glow in pride of self.

I'm guessing the reasoning mind could put all these words together, but pull it off? Truth must be proved...meaning, God's work is cut out for us.

Thank you.

ENCOMPASSED IN GOD'S LOVE

As I read again the words of Dr. Diana L. Hayes, "[Events of my life have] forged me in the fiery furnace of God’s love," it occurs to me that life has not necessarily forged me in a fiery furnace...it just seems that way to my ego Lucy.

Comes the dawn: It is fear of that "seems that way" that has made so many of my life's decisions.

Face it, "fiery furnace" whether of God's love or of ego's fear gets the old resistance up and revving. Without a commitment to spiritual growth, that resistance will ever...cannot but...do our thinking for us.

However, by relying on the Sermon wherein we are taught: Do not resist one who is evil, we can use that resistance to be released from our paralyzed clutch on reason as the way out. (By use I mean we welcome it, pray our thank you and trust God's will is already done here and now. And it is good.)

Letting go to the unseen in trust of a good outcome is the essence of reasoning mind's dark side. Which we need not fear for that, too, is encompassed in God's love.

Thank you.

CEASE FIGHTING...DANCE!

Per Dr. Diana L. Hayes, a modern mystic: God has always seemed to come to me in days of darkness and disillusionment *** I wrestled with God on my bed of pain as I do still today...I argue and shout and listen and pray and question and doubt and finally acquiesce, only to move further down the path to another fork in the road where the struggle begins yet anew. -- From Fr Richard Rohr's "Daily Meditation," December 5, 2019

I said to a friend recently that I shake my fist in God's face frequently. To say that shocked her is understating in the extreme. Since I knew better, I had to accept that I'd invited her response so I listened...or, more honestly, I made listening noises while sliding glances at my watch.

It comforts me beyond reasoning what having a "real" God means to me. We talk...or, I talk and I know I am heard.

SIDEBAR: I am just seeing that I can compare myself, albeit regrettably, to the TV commentator, Chris Matthews. I accuse him of asking questions of his guest, answering the question he has asked, interrupting himself to disagree with the answer, then setting the guest straight about the answer...the guest who never gets a chance to open his mouth. It becomes clearer with every inner awakening why the basic spiritual answer is always and ever: Love and laugh. 

All this is by way of saying until I accept, again and again, a God of my own understanding who ever and forever lets me know that he is the only one I am free to disagree with (the word I heard and believe from my toenails up is: We have ceased fighting anything and anybody...or, in the vernacular, get over yourself), I follow my own ego, feeling less-than and superior-to...occasionally both at the same time.

All this comes by way of a quote of Saint Augustine. Paraphrased, he praised the wonder and the glory of finding within himself the God of his own understanding, then falling under his ego's spell again and again, but ever returning to the beauty and the glory of his God. Which gives one permission to be down-and-dirty human even while seeking spiritual growth, doesn't it? Or maybe that's just me.

So be it.

Thank you.

A BLESSING WITH NO FINGERPRINTS ON IT

Trying to avoid suffering is probably the cause of most personal suffering. Same goes with trying to avoid making a mistake...we either wind up with a head full of worry but doing nothing, a major mistake, or we wind up causing unintended consequences which invites mistakes.

The answer, we find all over again, is to sit and wait on the Lord with the inner intention of going to God for God...and that is all.

To  sit and wait on the Lord is in spiritual consciousness the time for inner action. This is the time when we detach from our busy mind race-race, run-running on how to avoid or to fix our perceived problem.

Now we sit quietly and offer up a conscious invitation for our dreaded perception to walk right in, sit down with us and share a cuppa. Then we let our mind float to the many promises we have read of and invite any one up to do its thing.

Say that we are given It is I, be not afraid (John 6:20). Our mind's eye (I?) recognizes our dread, and our mind is changed...what we are dreading is the gateway up deeper, our sliver of gold. We realize that this, too is of God, and we hug it and kiss it and let it go.

This, of course, is not a one-shot deal...it takes as long as it takes to break completely free of our own imaginings. Often and oh so often we find it gone, leaving us wondering when we were freed.

There it is, the pearl of great price: We know we are blessed for clearly self 's fingerprints are nowhere on it. God can and will when self-protection takes a hike.

Thank you.

SIT AND WAIT ON THE LORD...IN TRUST

Here's a challenge. I recently read that Gandhi studied the Sermon on the Mount every morning and every evening for forty years. Gandhi. Studied the Sermon daily for forty years.

Holy moly.

Clearly Gandhi learned well for he turned the British Empire around purely on non-violent principles and practices.

I've talked the Sermon for nearly fifty years. Certainly not daily, much less twice daily. But study? Mercy...I quote resist not evil and turn the other cheek a lot. But I still struggle to remember them first when life calls them up for me to use.

Which, who's kidding whom, is where I am right now...in the midst of another mental brouhaha. All I want to do is kvetch, carp and complain, not to mention blame and shame the real source of my woe, i.e., not me.

Clearly, my problem is I'm following my reasoning mind even while knowing that's my ego Lucy doing the dictating. All good but useless information until I move out of knowing into giving over to the fact that I do not know what to do. 

I know what I want to do...win and be done with it. But what I need to do...ah, of course I even "know" that: Give over, give up, give in. Yes, but.... What about shake the dust off your feet and move on? What to do when the dust travels, too?

The paradox of the reasoning mind: It is essential to have a fit and fairly well-honed reasoning mind if we're going to live successfully in this world. However, it is going beyond that mind...that mind that we've worked so hard to get "fit and fairly well-honed"...that requires us to hold our nose and take a leap of faith.

I very well  know the answer to stilling the ego's nattering what to do?, how to do it?  Trust my original decision to throw in with God, then sit and wait on his Word. Now to do it.

And do not gossip and call it venting. Sheesh.

Thank you.

TRY TO REMEMBER

Growth, be it spiritual, mental or physical, comes in layers. According to Fr Richard Rohr, we have to “unknow” a bit every time we want to know in a new way.

My goal, to live the St Francis prayer, i.e., grant that I may seek to give comfort, understanding, love rather than seek to get them, must be tempered. There will ever be those who cannot or who purely do not wish to hear us.

Here's our new growth...learning, being willing to learn, how to let them resist us without resisting.  Without resisting by projecting false superiority or without currying false favor. Both of which are self-protection on parade.

How to let them resist without resisting could not be simpler...which probably is why it takes so long to accept: Let them and move on. Let them resist the not-present us.

Our how-to is set out in Matthew 10:14, When you come to a town where the people cannot hear your words, shake the dust off your feet and move on.

My simplified version of that: When someone disagreeably disagrees with me, lean on my golden rule to try not to be as nasty as I want to be; say, with a smile, You may be right; move on.

The trick is remembering my golden rule...the rest then follows fairly easily.

Thank you.

LOVE IS INNER PEACE...TO BE GIVEN

Consider these words inspired by John of the Cross: “Love what God sees in you.”

As I read that, the thought crossed my mind: What if what God sees in me includes that part of me which my enemy sees as me...and rejects? Love that, too...especially the enemy.

Same purpose deeper is to love what God sees in us as God loves what he sees. Our deeper purpose or our cross to bear depending on how seriously we're taking ourself in the moment.

It is a tall order to love what God sees in us, and I found that in order for me to understand love, I had to first redefine love. My concept of love had gotten stuck back in the boy-girl love days.

Love tends to be hard to realize until we know what it means spiritually, according to me. My understanding of love...of life itself...began to expand when I was lifted into a deeper knowing through spiritual growth.

We stumble again over the conflict between our wants and our needs. We want love...the feeling of love...to equate with warm, wonderful and 100 percent secure. Then we can share it.

We need it to be an inner knowing of peace that cannot be held but only given...the more we give of our peace, with no expectation of return, the more at peace we are. Loved in a word.

That begins when we love what God sees in us.

Thank you.

REASON...OUR BLACK HOLE AND SAVING GRACE

Spiritual growth offers us an entirely different way of knowing: an intimate relationship, a dark journey, a path where we must discover for ourselves that grace, love, mercy, and forgiveness are absolutely necessary for survival in an uncertain world. (From Fr Richard Rohr's "Daily Meditation" of December 1, 2019, slightly reworked.)

According to me, our "old" way of knowing grace, love, mercy, and forgiveness is useless to us now...to hold to that way is to hold to our feeling guilt, shame and blame even as we know not why. The why is our ego at a loss because ego is lost in a spiritually woke soul...reasoning mind on the run, so to speak.

Learning to live fully present to this moment, to live without certitude, seems to our reasoning mind a way to live uncertain and unsure...nervous at best. But detaching from the want to know (self-described as a need) is the door upon which our Father knocks opening to our inner security, faith.

Ah, and when those few bright and fleeting moments come, we know and we know we know and we know not what for certain sure we know...but we feel our inner elfin spirit running through the proverbial field of flowers with butterflies and rainbows abounding.

As Rohr has written, You only need enough clarity to know how! Yes, we really are saved by faith.

Or, my favorite from "The Lazy Man's Guide to Enlightenment" by Thaddeus Golas: We must go beyond reason to love.

Thank you.

OUR HIDDEN NEED: SIT AND WAIT ON THE LORD

We pray to have our difficulties "taken away."  They never are as we prove to ourself again and again...when they return again and again, albeit and always in a different guise. Trying so hard to rid ourself of our difficulties is akin to unlearning so we can relearn...which is staying in the problem for sure.

Our lesson to learn is the art of acceptance...what else? Our defects are transmuted by our attitude of gratitude...we find ourself laughing at our egoic response and loving anyway. Talk about freedom!

Mayhap our deepest lesson...our ongoing, neverending, lesson is learning to listen with ears of compassion...not to judge but to accept, i.e., to love.

We must learn to listen to hear the speaker whose hidden message is their need...their secret need. To do that we must stop running our own hidden agenda of listening to gather facts against the words being said...then hating the speaker for the words.

The message is never the words but the need hidden behind the words. The need is ever God's to fulfill, and we are God's eyes and ears to use in fulfilling them. With our decision to live a turned-over-to-the-care-of=God life, we are free to be of use to others...any others sent to us.

We do not go trolling, proselytizing or recruiting...no. Our work is much harder than that...we get to sit and wait on the Lord. With an attitude of gratitude. Which is love and laughter, plain and simple.

Thank you.

DEFINITION OF SUCCESS

While practical goals are important, the spiritual goal is to awaken the compassion that lies at the root of all change. 'Success' doesn’t mean I’ve saved an endangered species or cleaned up a toxic waste dump or fed hungry children. Success means awakening myself in the Spirit that can help make a better life for others. Success means I have acted in the world as though I were a part of it, not apart from it. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," November 30, 2019

Personally, I was never a goal-driven person until I was forced by my own decisions based on self to seek other than  human help...having run through all the human help I could find. Over many rough and ready roads to my Father within, I realized my path was...had ever been...toward the spiritual.

The above paragraph holds one sentence that describes my goal today, that sentence being: While practical goals are important, the spiritual goal is to awaken the compassion that lies at the root of all change.

I am convinced it is that awakened compassion that leads to a feeling of personal fulfillment, so beautifully described as:  Success means awakening myself in the Spirit that can help make a better life for others. 

I am happy I know this is my goal today, happier still that I am fully aware my success practicing that goal lies ahead, ever ahead. And I am grateful.

Thank you.

ON DOING IT RIGHT

According to Fr Richard Rohr, "somewhere, somehow the challenge comes that sets us on a different path."

This is not a path we take in order to become hip, slick and cool, but a way we trudge toward "a faith that will sustain us when we go to jail, when the money runs out, when we are powerless and cold and alone"...when fear is feasting on our very soul.

That's when we're doing it right. 

What else could so completely prove to us our powerlessness? Could cause us in our helplessness to seek cosmic help. There it is. Proof our reasoning mind in turmoil is a gift from on high deep within.

And its name is God. For it is God alone come to our aid disguised as another in need whom we can help, an abused animal by the side of the road, a dire diagnosis for ourself or a loved one...even the high sheriff and police that we've been trying to avoid.

We never know the time or the place our challenge will come...and, we discover, to our aid. The new path we have chosen teaches and prepares us to invite all in...to welcome all.

We welcome with a prayer of thank you; we love and laugh.

Thank you.

TRUST...OR BE NOT AFRAID

He prepares a place before me in the presence of my enemies. My enemies are my attack thoughts. They are my real enemies, and they are wholly my resistance to what is...while remembering that  resistance is a denial of God.

There will ever be mixups, misunderstandings and conflict in our daily life. In the face of any of those, the hardest action to take is none. To do nothing but mentally shoot prayers of gratitude for the opportunity to trust the Lord is a whole catechism on spiritual growth.

[I tend to think of spiritual growth as ego deflation in depth in designer jeans...I reckon because it takes the "holy" out of it, which is a tish off-putting but maybe that's just me.]

I do know that our trying to "fix" a misunderstanding, and with nothing but good intentions (a self-determined objective every time), is to touch our personal third rail.  Makes no nevermind...by word or deed...or thought?...we take it away from God and delay his perfect work.

Ah, there's where the power of ego first proves itself...it is well nigh impossible to know better and not do it anyway. Apparently, it takes burning oneself enough times that we begin to feel embarrassed...even with no visible witness.

Paradox alert! We learn to get grateful for that embarrassment. There's our sliver of gold...that's God making himself known. Find our gold, and our world changes.

I will go before you and make the crooked places straight. -- Isaiah 45:2

Thank you.

DETACHMENT FROM SELF

[The is a reprint of my post of September 20, 2012.]

When a job still looked like a mere means of getting money rather than an opportunity for service, when the acquisition of money for financial independence looks more important than a right dependence upon God, we were still the victims of unreasonable fears. - Anonymous

When first I read that, I realized that my only concern had ever been for relief from my unreasonable fears, never how to serve in my job or in life itself. I was always seeking to get...rather than to realize God as my fulfillment, my sustenance, my abundance.

Any chance of freedom from fear of anything is dependent on reliance on a power greater than ourselves...a power we have no way to control, influence, curry the favor of, or even despise...a power for our own personal good, hence for the good of friend and foe alike...the reliance shows forth in and as service, being of service, becoming a service-giver according to the other's needs (as determined by that same higher power upon whom we are learning to rely).

It is all about detachment from self into Oneness, here and now.

Thank you.

FEEL FEAR, PRAY THANK YOU, MOVE ON

The feeling of running on empty is with me and has been for awhile. My notes in "God Calling" tell an interesting tale...all the way back to the 1980s, November is packed with less-than-wonderful  notes, asides, prayers and plaints.

Life goes in circles and cycles and going with it works best so those notes bring me comfort...hard comfort, but comfort. They remind me that November is the time of the year I've preselected to be my just for getting through time.

Finding grace in loss is grace. It cannot be self-willed...wished for, of course, but acceptance is as close as we'll come to it, and that can't be self-willed either. I've walked over a lot of personal hot coals getting to acceptance and unlearned from each one...and, who's kidding whom, that's gratitude in a cold bath.

Maybe loss is the cherry-on-top...like fear, it exposes our utter powerlessness, and in our emptiness, we can only turn to God. There in the miasma of neglected, rejected and abandoned, we sense our lantern's faint glow...before ever we have eyeball evidence, we know: I feel fear...God is here.

Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at the moment. — Eckhart Tolle

Thank you.

THE INCOMPREHENSIBLE POWER OF GRATITUDE

[The following is a reprint of my post of July 17, 2016, and again April 15, 2018...clearly, it calls to me.]

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

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

And you, yourself, are something very good.

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

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

Thank you.

WITHOUT MY NAME ON IT

To be graced with the gift of silence in the face of public dissing, I have learned, is the pearl beyond price. Ah, but then to know that as but the first step is to begin living the peace that passes understanding.

The Soul at peace within extends outward, gracing all who were party to the diss with their same inner peace...and, best, without my name on it.

That first step has led to my recognition that my left-alone, almost shunned, feelings are my gold, for I have been led on a new and deeper path. With no effort on my part but willingness, I have found my hope diamond anew.

There's naught wrong with asking God if he loves me for that is my proof to me that I trust he is there.

Thank you.

GOD'S WORK CUT OUT FOR ME

When I am faced with an apparent problem (quite often rues, regrets and remorses), I find great freedom in straight talking to God about it...by straight talking I mean I speak truth to Power. I let him know he's got some serious work to do, what's the hold-up, getting cracking already.

I came to this freedom when I realized what the Father within does the work actually means. It means I am talking to me, and I am the hold-up.

Howsomever: I, with my reasoning mind alone, cannot will it, but cosmically accepting that it is my hands and feet, my brains and bones that the Father within uses releases me from the self-condemnation of guilt, shame and blame. Ah, then I am lifted deeper into love and laughter. My straight talk usually ends with, You've got the power, God...use it.

The who'd-a-thunk-it part is how God uses his power for my good...almost always by making me available to or for another. Since I am basically a self-centered person, making myself available for another rarely comes first to my mind. I just find myself doing it. No...it's most often after the fact. Whenever whatever is done, I'm being thanked, and I'm all but kicking the dirt, all aw shucks, it was nothing...knowing for pure fact, it was nothing for me personally.

Only going there feels like I'm putting on airs, like, Oh pish-tosh, God works through me, I'm just his dust mop...and humble, too.

Hmmm...for whatever reason, I am reminded that my basic character defect is that I take myself too seriously. There you go, God...your work cut out for me.

Thank you.

I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR WHAT YOU HEAR

My morning blinding flash of the obvious: I'm woke, I just haven't had my coffee yet.

Long-ago lesson learned: I am not responsible for what you hear me say, nor am I responsible for how you choose to interpret what you hear me say.

That has grown up to be:  S/He is not responsible for what I heard him say, nor is she responsible for how I choose to interpret what I heard said. Then I turn my thoughts to God for a better translation...that shuts down the old ego-judging before it can get a toehold.

A new lesson aborning: Fairly recently, I was advised that it has become unfashionable to call God God...it's too Christian, I am told. No, we must say Higher Power or any number of things except God. Guess who resisted that on hearing it...while God grinned. 

I submit we all are invited from within our own self to name our source of good and stand on it. My source of good came to me as God, and until my God lets me know he has changed his name, I stand on it. 

But I did seek God's help in opening my mind, and here's the short-form of what I got to help me in not resisting (overmuch) others generic name for their source of good: Say we hear someone speak of praying to their Whatever...instead of getting all up in our head resisting the name we're hearing, we can shoot a quick thank you prayer to our source of good. As in, "Thank you for this opportunity to turn for your help with my hearing and translating since it is all for good anyhow. You've got the power, I need it now. Please and thank you." 

Thank you.

REASON HINDERS; UNKNOWING BLESSES

Again I am reminded that the hardest act life asks of us is that we change our mind. Ah, but it is the underneath message that takes so long to catch, realizing we change our mind not from "I am right and you are wrong to I am wrong and you are right."  No. That's reasoning mind  still in charge.

A changed mind is our material or rational mind being upgraded to the deeper fourth dimension. Our mind is changed from reliance on our own reasoning to resting in our unknowing. Where reason is a hindrance and unknowing is a gift.

For my own walking around purposes, I consider that I received the barest beginning of a changed mind by a blinding flash of the obvious concerning mirror image...that which I consider to be God's view. Our "Oh, No!" or life's cataclysmic crash-and-burn that we prayed so hard to avoid...it grows up to be our pearl beyond price. Then our "Yes!" or our $2 bet that returns more money than we can count turns out to be our cross to bear. There...kiddie-korn examples of mirror image.

It is said that an authentic spiritual experience comes through great suffering or great love. I choose to believe that an authentic spiritual experience is daily life on God's terms. I've found that my greatest suffering brought me the pearl beyond price which brings me great love...and I cause me pain whenever my ego Lucy breaks out her football, and I go for it.

Hey...that's when I'm doing it right! How else am I going to get to God consciousness except through my reasoning mind failing me yet again?

I recall that it is in that great unknown-to-me that miracles materialize...we pray thank you and God's you're welcome transforms us and our problem.

Thank you.

IF THIS BE FEAR, LOVE IT

The line what was it that you thought needed to be loved comes to me when I find that I've invited a fear into my consciousness...not a fear of such as cancer or dementia, but a common-as-dirt fear, like looking dumb in public, getting caught putting on airs...that kind of fear, the "soft" fears.

Unsurprisingly, those fears are harder to love than the "hard" fears of cancer or dementia, obviously because coming to love cancer, et al., when we don't have them, is purely in the abstract.

Ah, but common or soft fears live in our ego and visit at their pleasure, any hour of the day or night. It helps to think of them as the human condition.Our job is not to be rid of them forever and ever, an ego-wish if ever there was one, but to give them breathing room.

For instance, when, not if, I again find myself mentally knowing I am better than Gertrude, I count myself blessed when I quick remember that this is fear, i am resisting that which i fear, I can love this...thank you. Then turn my thoughts to lilies of the valley, Ruckus romping around Heaven, or what I'm going to have for dinner...which, who's kidding whom, works best.

What I particularly like about giving my ego fears breathing room is it reminds me that I need beware of trying to be so spiritual that I fault myself for being human. Love, laugh and move on is the goal.

Face it, if it weren't for humans, God wouldn't have any laughs at all.

Thank you.

LOOSE IT, AND LET IT BE

When we're all wrapped around ourself, taking ourself too seriously, remembering that it is our ego doing our thinking for us is a momentary pitstop...that does not lift it, our ego problem du jour. Face it, that would give us control. No. we must turn to God every time. We must name our perceived problem  and give up by giving our will over to him...again, each time.

It occurs that just saying whatever might work, but that keeps it tied to the reasoning mind. Best to remember to pray thank you when in the midst of a dreaded something...no better reminder of who is in charge, who is doing it right...not me, in a word.

When God's will showing up in our life seems to take so long, we might consider that every delay, lie, exaggeration, fear-balk is the cause of the delay in God's will being done...slows his perfect will as he deals with that ego-delay for us and for all the others affected by our reliance on our reasoning mind to fix it.

We might also consider that his will has already been done...the delay is in our willingness to accept that. Or our unwillingness to accept that what we see is God's perfect will...done. The sooner we detach from our want-to, the clearer our path forward shows forth.

Thank you.

WE ARE GOD'S GUEST HOUSE

I like to think of God as the original GPS. We ask, he directs, we mishear, he corrects, we misunderstand, he corrects...until we get it right. We ask God to come to our aid...every self-described mistake is God's opportunity to come to our aid.

For whatever reason, I have just been led to another site where I found this Rumi writing which takes that puny thought to a wondrous height:

Guest House

This being human is a guest house

Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes

as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,

who violently sweep your house

empty of its furniture,

still treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,

meet them at the door laughing,

and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,

because each has been sent

as a guide from beyond.

~Rumi

Thank you.

OR, LET GO AND LET GOD

Most people ask for happiness on condition. Happiness can only be felt if you don't set any condition. -- Artur Rubinstein

We learn, slowly, slowly, that it is better to make a mistake than to continue on a self-determined path to nowhere...nowhere being away from God.

At one time. when we found ourself in a quandary, the best advice we got was do something about something. Then the advice was "improved" and became do the next right thing. Ah, with that one word, right, our ego took over.

It is a hard lesson learning that ego is the condition, the condition that sets our happiness. Too late we remember that ego always legislates for self and that determines...or in fact limits...our happiness.

Our mentor's words echo in our mind, the very words we originally rejected:  It is better to make a mistake than to continue on a self-determined path to nowhere. We rejected those words because...that doesn't make sense! Once again, slowly, slowly...we remember that spiritual truth rarely makes reasoning-mind sense.

Whoever, on first read, thought resist not evil was a good idea? Or, with no spiritual want-to, who this very day thinks it is a good idea. It probably isn't off the top...it is go beyond reason to love that clarifies its truth.

If we stay in our reasoning mind, all we'll get is reasoning mind answers...and it was our reasoning mind that got us in a quandary to begin with. 

The best part of the Rubinstein quote: Happiness can only be felt if you don't set any condition. 

Thank you.

THIS, TOO, IS GOD

Grasping the inner meaning in our still more spiritual growth is a slow process. I'm convinced that's why we are given the often snickered-at spiritual how-to books.

That's where I first realized what we see is always ourself,  not to mention we are never angry for the reason we think. I unashamedly admit I "got" both of those a lot quicker and easier than I "got" resist not evil and if someone slaps you, steals from you, curses you...love anyway.

These how-tos may be, as some say, "spiritual pablum" but when spiritual pablum feeds you, eat spiritual pablum is my answer. That they do not take a lot of effort to grasp is the good news...that's what makes them such great starters. Rest assured, spinach will come.

I often say, the Sermon on the Mount is my inner guidebook, and I am blessed that it took as long as it took to grasp unto realization even the first level of its meaning. Doing it is a work in progress even as understanding the levels continue to grow me deeper. I expect that to continue until three days after I'm dead, please and thank you.

From wherever our spiritual insights come, the Bible, the Koran, spiritual pablum, wherever, there is but one meaning: This, too, is love, now laugh.

Thank you.

GOD AND HIS BAG OF LOVE AND LAUGHTER

We must deliberately choose to be instruments of peace—first of all in our minds and hearts. I know that when I regress into any kind of intentional negativity toward anything or anybody, even in my mind, I am actually hurting and harming them and myself.  -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," November 7, 2019

I seem to have regressed into intentional negativity toward two women in my life, both of whom seem to have regressed into intentional negativity toward me. How smart does one need be to see a red flag waving there?

I'm convinced that these are the type situations we invite into our life in order to use the tools within that are not of the reasoning mind.

My life is proof that I can go toe-to-toe with most anyone's mean, nasty and self-centered...it is emerging from that ego-space when spiritual growth takes hold. It is written, and I do believe, that unity must come first. Unity is our connection with the universe...with each person, puppy and posy, rock and rill, in and of the seen and unseen world.

My test, my goal, is to recognize my intentional negativity, own it so that I can release it before it takes root in my thoughts, and I begin to analyze how to fix it. This is where our rational mind earns its stripes...it can and must keep returning to the fact that God has already "fixed" any problem we can conceive. As in, there is no problem, there is just an ego-glitch in the way we are looking out at our world.

This I know to be true for I have experienced it: My world it is not mine to fix...I am not mine to fix. Who and what I am and what I invite into my life need no fixing. Same goes for any and all others. 

The hard part for me this morning is letting that be true for the two women and their intentional negativity. Face it, the ego dies slow, and it leaves hardcore evidence behind.

Ah, and that, too, is of God. He has a whole bag of tricks. What'll you bet they all start with Love and Laugh?

Thank you.

LOVE STRAIGHT UP OR REDEFINED

An anecdote that I read many years ago keeps coming back to me. It is from The Lazy Man's Guide to Enlightenment, and the author tells of his search for love...how to, in fact, love.

So he drops acid and goes on a harrowing, scarifying, ugly, awful, very bad trip in which a monster appears...comes after him...and he cannot run away fast enough and bad, worse, worst seems to be closing in on him. Finally, the bad trip is broken when he hears the monster say, What was it that you thought needed to be loved?

And isn't that...love...the answer to everything we resist? Or, not to put too fine a point on it, the answer to everything.

Which, I'm guessing, cannot be done until we redefine love and the act of love. Face it, love is a loaded word... it has high expectations built into it. The clarifying factor for me came with the realization that acceptance is love stripped of its promise of razzmatazz...fireworks in our heart, so to speak.

Acceptance neutralizes fear. We might not like it, and if we're being forced by life's circumstances to accept something, very often we're not liking it. But, as the overworked phrase goes, it is what it is. Quit the fight...move on. Who knew that could be a definition of love?

Love is just another emotion, and like the others it comes in a variety of guises and disguises. I contend that because it equates to "feels good," it leads in the elite category, and our subconscious allows only rainbows and roses as its standard-bearer. Which makes trying to think of ourself loving our personal monster a real stretch for our reasoning mind...love looking dumb in public? Seriously?

That's where love redefined comes to our aid. We can accept that we just said or did something less than brilliant by saying, with a smile, Oops and moving on. Or we can apologize if we've stepped on another's feelings. We can even love it and laugh...all are love, plain and simple.

Being the lead in the elite category, love encompasses love within itself. Proving love, straight up or redefined, is the answer to everything.

God is love. - John 4:8

Thank you.

UNKNOWING...THE SOURCE OF PERFECT PEACE

When we live in the reasoning mind world, the source of all our woes are hidden in the subconscious, in that feeling that we must win. Or never lose. The way to be an always winner, of course, is to always be right. How to always be right? Know...never get caught not knowing. There. The reasoning mind on parade.

When we begin to seek spiritual growth, our consciousness is raised to unknowing...i.e., the source of perfect peace. That can only be, unknowing as perfect peace, as our trust in God the Father within deepens. We do not know how, we simply trust that all that comes to us is of God and for our benefit.

Getting there, trusting God has our back always and all ways, requires a changed perspective...from reason to righteous in a word.

Our life experience will prove that which we dreaded so much, upon arrival has been transmuted into our pearl beyond price...and that big-bucks lottery win we prayed for...uh-oh, it nearly drove us to debtor's prison.

Imagine...all that our changed perspective requires is an upgraded attitude...an attitude of gratitude. Find the sliver of gold in whatever comes, hang on to that with our prayer of thank you, and underneath we can know peace, love and joy.

There. That is truth as it has come to me. And we can never know exactly how that is...how it is that God is.

Thank you.

TO BE LOVED BY GOD AND TO KNOW IT

Blinding flash of the obvious: My need is my ask.

Pondering that, I understand my ask to be my prayer, but I wonder if my need isn't actually my answer.

There's a person in my life from my past that I know to walk on by...mentally, physically and spiritually. Wish him  the best and keep on moving. Interestingly, out of the clear, I have received an e-mail from her asking to meet. After discussion with my mentor and my spiritual director, I decided to not respond.

Least said, soonest mended, said Charles Dickens a hundred years or so ago...and still good.

Somewhere around 3:00 AM this morning, I awaken to a brilliant thought...surely God-inspired. I could send him a Lucy cartoon I have which shows Lucy holding the football and Charlie Brown with a puzzled look thinking "Not again." How perfect is that?

At 5:00 AM I began to suspect that thought might not have been God-inspired...it may well have been my ego speaking to me. Then I heard, clear as a bell, Never get in a fang-fight with a rattlesnake.

Which led to the above blinding flash of the obvious, and I know this time for sure that my need is my answered prayer. And God's answer remains: Walk on by...mentally, physically and spiritually...think the best for her and keep on moving.

To be loved by God and to know it is all we need.

Thank you.

GIVING GOD A GIGGLE

[This is a reprint of my post of November 6, 2012.]

My friend is trying to save his marriage...he and his wife are going to couples counseling, he is going to a relationship counselor, has joined a boatload of prayer groups and meditation circles, does Zen mental exercises hourly, brings little giftees home to his wife daily...and those are just the things his friends know of. Self-determined objectives, every one. Each one has a hook, an effect that he wants.

Quite simply, he is going to God for the self-determined objective of having his marriage the way he wants his marriage to be, i.e., comfortable for him, without hassle to him. But it's too selfish sounding to let that be alive in his own mind, so he thinks of it as for his wife, for the sanctity of their marriage.

To outside eyes those look like the logs that are being laid as the foundation for the break-up, the divorce. They are the conscience-clearer, the "I tried my best," "I did all I could do," the "NOT MY FAULT."

None of the things he is doing is bad...each one is a good thing, in fact. IF he were doing them to be a better husband, to be a more loving person, to show forth God simply to show forth God. Not to get, but to give...to release self for the benefit of another.

All of this came to me this morning in meditation when I found myself trying to think of the best way to let a friend know she is wrong and I am right. A spiritual way, don't you know. Unselfish. Loving. For her own good.

Apparently I'm still believing that it is my job to give God a giggle ever so often.

Thank you.

GO BEYOND REASON TO FORGIVE

The reasoning mind cannot accept that extending love to evil will not make evil stronger...it may be the only thing that weakens evil purely through strengthening good.

How many times do we forgive a wrong-doer? Seven times? No. Seventy times seven, according to the Word. I'm guessing by that time, forgiveness will be our way of life, and we'll have quit counting and just forgive.

What if forgiveness is best served by silence? Maybe forgiveness does not require words, and if that be so, that would put the onus entirely upon our purified thoughts. The hardest part of that would be remembering that we are incapable of maintaining 100 percent purified thoughts. But isn't that the good news since that is what turns us and returns us to God?

The result though would show forth not only to the forgiven one, but to all with whom we come in daily contact. I have to say that is  a win-win-win-win....

 We must go beyond reason to love...and to forgive.

Thank you.

K.I.S.S. (KEEP IT SIMPLE, STUPID)

We can only learn to know ourselves and do what we can -- namely, surrender our will and fulfill God's will in us. - Saint Teresa of Avila

Such a simple sentence. If we could...or is it "would?"...live that single two-fold sentence, we for sure could and would live free.

Toward that end, a new insight for me: Being 80 is not nearing end of life, it is beginning the freedom of living shucked of my shackles...no longer constantly seeking to correct myself, but finally knowing God as showing forth through me. Whenever I do something that rings my own regret bell, I hit reset and rest knowing God is shucking another shackle of my selfwill.

Oh, blinding flash of the obvious: To think anything needs be changed is an ego trip...love it just as it is.

I tend to take my BFOs for serious since they so seldom match up with my reasoning mind. Fortunately for my own comfort, I no longer get in mental arguments, I just loose my resistance and let God do his thing.

Most of the time...I mean, who's kidding whom? Like with this one, to think anything needs be changed is an ego trip...love it just as it is. Well. In a perfect world, maybe. But.... 

And there goes me, all set to arm-wrestle with God.

To think anything needs be changed is an ego trip...love it just as it is. Underneath isn't that the heart, the how-to, of Saint Teresa of Avila's words? We can only learn to know ourselves and do what we can -- namely, surrender our will and fulfill God's will in us.

K.I.S.S.

Thank you.

ON BEING FOUND, LED AND FED BY GOD

One thing will never change, however. Our faith is founded on the life and death of Jesus the Christ. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," October 30, 2019

Why do so many reject that?  The rejection seems based solely on the words Jesus Christ...or, maybe more to the point, based solely on fear of the words Jesus Christ.

Yet, I know for myself, my entire resistance to religion was based on what I was taught at age 12 at my church...which was not Catholic and the teacher was not a nun. My church was just plain old down-home, no-frills, no-chills religion...boring in a word.

As I've aged and matured, I've realized my need to find a God of my understanding, and I know I've been led to learn about spirituality. Since I knew more about the Christian faith than any other (about most of which I knew nothing), I gravitated to the teachings in the Bible, King James version. And found that I couldn't make a lick of sense of anything written there. So I branched out.

Interestingly, the Sermon on the Mount was, and ever has been, waiting for me at the base of...I hesitate to say all, but it seems so..all the teachings and teachers that have found me. Since that came straight from Jesus the Christ, I clambered up the steps and knew me to be home.

Since I got over myself, I have no resistance today to Jesus Christ, but, no doubt the pearl beyond price, I have no problem with others who have a problem today with Jesus Christ. I keep being pushed, pulled, led and fed by friends, books and blinding flashes of the obvious, and I encourage any and all who choose to...clamber on up those steps with me.

Thank you.

ON CHOOSING A TURNED-OVER LIFE

We must deliberately choose to be instruments of peace—first of all in our minds and hearts. - Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, November 7, 2019

The blinding flash of the obvious that takes so very long to grasp is making that choice is a longtime birthing...then it's the rest of our life a-growing. We can never stop deliberately choosing to be instruments of peace...mentally, physically and spiritually. Although life being life, we must and do take breaks...then get uncomfortable enough to realize we've yet again "broke" too long...and get back to learning to live a turned-over life.

To the reasoning mind, it seems almost too daunting to even try for. Kinda like a dirge with no rhyme nor rhythm, the reasoning mind will ever resist that. Isn't there a theory called survival of the fittest? Who's kidding whom? Common sense tells us we're not going to get there giving over, giving up, giving in!

Which is precisely how and why we've come to the realization that building trust in the Lord is our only hope of moving up to a deeper place within. We are seeking to find our Father which art in Heaven, and like new-born calves learning to stand, we wobble. we fall, we strain to get up in order to wobble, to fall....

The wonder is that's doing it right...that's building trust. We are learning to trust the Father in our need to deliberately choose to be instruments of peace...wobble, fall, strain to get up to wobble, fall...all the while praying our thank you.

The pearl beyond  price is that we know the deep need for the spiritual, and we are led to desire living a life of giving over, giving up, giving in. And for others. (Which may be advanced spirituality, but we never know the day or the hour when the bridegroom may come.)

Thank you.

REALITY RESISTS NOT

They that have revelation must live it. Practice doing no harm...set an intention...it’s not just words that we speak, it’s a life practice that supports us in regularly aligning our heart and mind with our actions...set an intention and reflect on it often. This intention is about doing no harm in our speech, our actions, or in our thoughts. -- Fr Richard Rohr, August 3, 2019, "Daily Meditation"

It is a wondrous thing to be given a second chance...and a third chance...and a fourth, fifth, sixth...ah, a new chance as and when needed.

The more wondrous thing, though, is our ever-dawning realization that with each new chance given us comes a personal responsibility. That is, we must become living evidence of our earned inheritance.

We earn our second, third, fourth, etc., chances by our changed mind, the mind that now seeks to know and to do God's will rather than our own will. Say we feel slighted, cheated, publicly humiliated...are we willing to be still and know that I am God? Or, in self-speak, shut up and listen. Listen with an inviting mind, the mind that lets go of the fear that we will lose and they will win if we do not respond in kind...if we do not resist. Ah, the base of our changed-mind practice: Resist not evil.

Our actual willingness to follow God's will rests in our proving it. We prove it, as Rohr wrote, when we practice doing no harm in our speech, our actions, or in our thoughts...it’s a life practice that supports us in regularly aligning our heart and mind with our actions.

Resist not evil. --  Matthew 5:39

Thank you.

GOD AS LOVE AND LAUGHTER

November 4, 2017, note to me in my God Calling: Trump...there is a crack in everything. [The rest of the line being, that's how the light gets in from Leonard Cohen's "Anthem."]

This morning's blinding flash of the obvious: What if President Trump is a modern-day Saul of Tarsus? Saul was not a wonderful example of human goodness, but when Christ-struck became Saint Paul.

Quiet-time thoughts: What if I am Saul of Tarsus waiting to be struck? If that be true, I had better do a lot more shucking of my shields. And, whoa! What if, at the center, in the Soul, of each and all of us, we are Saul waiting to be struck?

For better or worse, imagine that is the state and the nature of the material world...Saul in our reasoning mind, Paul in our raised consciousness. Doesn't that give impetus to our personal need to lay down our sword and shield? As opposed to study war more.

It is my hope that the majority of the people of the world (that's 51%) want to be better than we are...kinder, more loving and generous. If that could be, what's our most likely holdback? I can be but will you? If I give and you don't, will I get mine?

There's no guarantee I'll get mine according to my own yardstick, but love and laughter preclude me from being as nasty as I want to be about it. That is precisely why my decision to throw in with the God of my understanding, who may just be love and laughter, is a reasonable answer.

Win-win. God first, we follow.

Thank you.

TRUST...RELEASE AND LET GO

In Thy Presence is fulness of Joy; at Thy right Hand there are pleasures for evermore. -- Psalm 16:11

Do not seek to realize this fulness of Joy as the result of effort. This cannot be, any more than Joy in a human friend's presence would come as the result of trying to force yourself to like to have that friend with you. -- "God Calling," November 4

There is a fundamental shift in worldview and values -- essentially, a new way of seeing -- which requires a shift in our perception of reality, and that shift is happening now, both as cognitive revolution and spiritual awakening. Nothing is static, and if you try to construct an unchangeable or independent universe for yourself, you will be moving against the now obvious divine plan and direction. -- Fr Richard Rohr's "Daily Meditation," November 4, 2019, slightly reworked

Were entirely ready to have God remove all of our defects of character, then humbly asked Him to remove them. -- Anonymous, from suggested steps of the twelve-step program

For those of us born to be free of me, yearning to walk free of self in our own head, all of the above form the very how-to of doing just that.

Just consider, each says virtually the same thing. Each tracks back through the years, from biblical times to modern day to this very day. They are each about divorcing ourself from self-determined objectives, or our own opinions, wants and perceived needs, and marrying up with a Higher Power, or the Father that dwells within who does the work.

In short, they are each about the need for those self-determined objectives to be transmuted by God for God...not through our own reasoning-mind efforts of thinking, analyzing, managing, but through spiritual-growth detachment from those reasoning-mind efforts.

And there it is...that is our life's journey: Learning to hug them and kiss them and let them go...them being our family, our friends, our enemies, our defects of character, our.... Face it, if we can name them, we need to release them...and love and laugh.

Thank you.

GOD'S COUNTERINTUITIVE VIEWPOINT

Old news strutting its stuff just as if it were new: To change our mind is not to change our mind from I'm right, you're wrong to you're right, I'm wrong...no, it is to have our mind opened to God's point of view. Which is akin to what F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote about the rich being different from you and me.

It is not that God's point of view is different from ours so much as it is counterintuitive to ours. As in, our perceived nightmare becomes God's pearl beyond price when our mind is changed...upgraded if you will.

For example, we pray for God to relieve us of the bondage of self when to pray aright is to thank him for relieving us of the bondage of self. It must be thank you first if we want to trust...if we want to build our trust...that he has already done for us whatever need be done.

Same goes with our prayer that God take away our difficulties that victory over them may bear witness to those we would help of his love, power and way of life. We have come to experience the truth that all our problems have already been solved, and we pray our thank you for that...that it has been done. 

Our job henceforth...prove it. ("Henceforth" means for the rest of our life, I'm betting.) 

In truth, I  hope so...in proving, we trudge the road to surrender for it is only through surrender that we come to acceptance. Even as we often stumble-bumble, we walk forward unbroken, blessedly unfettered by our own self-will. 

We will wonder, we will question...if we're doing it right...but underneath is the certainty: We have made our decision, God's will is preferable to our will, we're going with God's will. 

And we rightly thank God, that he has already gone before us to make the crooked places straight.

Thank you.

THE PRAYER

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:

where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

where there is sadness, joy.

O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek

to be consoled as to console,

to be understood as to understand,

to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive,

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Amen.

Thank you.

OUR BENEFIT IS FOR THE BENEFIT OF OTHERS

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

There. That is what I am building today...real faith. I know I am in the building process by my many missteps, flapping gums, and perplexities...the perplexities being what was I thinking? in regard to my missteps and flapping gums.

I am comforted by my faith that God knows everything I am thinking, feeling, doing, being...and that's before I think, feel, do or be. God knows, has a plan for that, and already has worked it for my benefit. I call that the safety valve inherent to free will. It is our faith that opens the safety valve, allowing us to step out of our reasoning mind where we get stuck in rues, regrets and remorses...and that can be before, as and after we actually take action.

We read, memorize, repeat for others to hear, and quote often to ourself that He goes before us to make the crooked places straight...also, God can and will intervene in my life in my behalf...but until we actually move our feet forward, our head will keep us stuck in the words.

It is our moving feet that takes our free will out for a walkabout. Our reasoning mind will decide whether we do the next right thing or not...our faith trusts God will have already perfected the outcome. So we do...and dimdam if it isn't the exactly wrong thing!

Ah, here comes spiritual insight to save our day...we realize the exactly wrong thing as God's opportunity to make the crooked place straight...and for our benefit. Our changed mind knows our apparent mistakes are our building blocks in growing our faith.

Our faith begins to root with the glimmer of the reality that God's will done in our life is preferable to our will done in our life. When we make a decision for God's will over our own will, in effect, we decide to return our free will to God in exchange for his will.

The rest of our life is in growing that root knowing it for our benefit by being of benefit to others.

Thank you.

AN UPGRADED MIND IS PEACE OF MIND

Many years ago a nutritionist gave me a short formula for healthier eating: What goes in hard comes out soft; what goes in soft comes out hard.

It occurs to me a like formula could apply to our inner life...what goes in bitter comes out sweet, what goes in sweet comes out bitter.

For example, we perceive an incoming remark, action, tax bill, etc., as nasty, hurtful, unfair...bitter in a word. As long as we stay in our reasoning mind with our perception, it is a bitter pill, and we take it personally...resentment aborning. However, when we resist not but trust our inner connection, God, to lead us peacefully through this, we open ourself to a new way of responding...not reacting, but responding. How sweet it is!

Same goes when we receive a lovely compliment, delightful gift, unexpected lottery win...and that feels sweet. Then the compliment sours, the gift ain't what it looked to be, the lottery win turns costly...now we're growing resentments.

Peace of mind begins with our change of mind...from seeking a self-determined objective to seeking God's will whatever that may be. We find peace of mind in an accepting mind when we resist not but trust our inner connection, God.

Believe. Trust. Love and laugh.

Thank you.

TRUTH IS NEVER NOT TRUE

We are here to awaken from the illusion of our separateness. -- Thich Nhat Hanh

Like most spiritual things, that cannot be understood with the dualistic or rational mind, but only at the level of soul. -- Fr Richard Rohr

Inertia is my bane today. I blame it on being 80. But if the answer to getting out of ourself, do something about something, was pure truth when I was 40, it is true still. Truth doesn't change, our want-to does. 

It's times like these that I find my joy in outside happenings: Tiger just won his 82nd tournament and tied Sam Snead's record; the Nats are still in it...one more, one more; Roger also won, his 10th Swiss Open; I know Ruckus is bounding around heaven bring joy to the angels; God loves me and so do more than one or two actual walking-around people. And best of all, I love them all right back.

Hey, if love is the answer to all our woes, than I can love inertia. I've just remembered two things I need to do today because I want to...both of which move me out of me.

The trouble with spiritual growth is that it works.

Thank you.

UNCONDITIONAL LOVE...IN RIGHT-SIZE PIECES

Never count success by money gained. That is not the mind of My Kingdom. Your success is the measure of My Will and Mind that you have revealed to those around you. -- God Calling, October 29

Unconditional love sounds so desirable yet unattainable both at the same time. I'm about halfway convinced that it sounds unattainable because our mind is stuck resisting the idea of our own ability to pull it off. Well, of course we cannot. That's our springboard to trust in the Lord.

We are taught, but seldom do, trust God can and will if sought.

We must break the concept of unconditional love into teensy-tiny pieces...starting with the idea of love itself. Love is the act of acceptance, and acceptance is surrender, prettied up. So we start with our surrender, surrendering our want-to of any and all things, to the universal force for good, God.

All that is a bare beginning and getting it takes years for some and a nanosecond for others, and we do not get to choose the time or place when the bridegroom will come. Hope for nano, prepare for years, the deeper blessing.

It is in the time of preparation that our mind is changed...the very process of our thinking is upgraded to the measure of My Will and Mind. This then is the font from which unconditional love flows from us to be revealed to those around us...without our control, without our knowledge or consent.

Ah, but be aware: If we think about it, we stop the flow. Our egoic self will have re-entered and declared it impossible...which, of course, it is to self.

The work of the Father is revealed by the Father...love and laugh.

Thank you.

NEITHER FREEDOM NOR FREE WILL ARE FREE

Is it you, God, knocking at the door seeking to be let out? Or is it my ego Lucy looking so adorable in her Shirley Temple ribbons and bows tap dancing at the door begging to be let in?

Again I know that fear is God in camouflage; his message is ever telling me to walk through my imagined killing fields to the safety of his arms and be freed of me.

Maybe we cannot take the Sermon literally, but we need to adhere to its underlying message. For me, I had to and still must take it literally to discover again that I personally cannot, that I must needs go to God if I am ever going to practice its underlying message...which is love and laugh, love and laugh, and that is all.

God loves us so much. Maybe that's why he gave us free will...so we can use it to find we must needs go to him to get free of that free will. 

Just as freedom isn't free neither is free will...ah, but both are more than equal to the price.

Thank you.

Go Nats. (Six weeks ago I couldn't spell baseball, and now my heart is a white sphere with red lacing and a curly W.)

CALL OUR NEMESIS BLESSED AND BE FREED

Morning blinding flash of the obvious:  As long as I give my attack mind fantasies free rein to call my tormentors by name, I stay my self in self. Keeping me no better than the worst of my mental tormentors.

This, too, I need to love.

For my very attack calls to my Father. and as One we call her blessed on my lips, in my head, in my heart, and in my gut so my Soul is freed of me...we call him blessed on my lips, in my head, in my heart, and in my gut so my Soul is freed of me... we call them blessed on my lips, in my head, in my heart, and in my gut so my Soul is freed of me.

Ah, and then I read today's "God Calling," and I knew joy:  I see the loving, striving, not the defects. I see the conquest of your particular battle. I count it victory, a glad victory, and the angels rejoice *** My children, count the days of conquest as very blessed days.

Thank you.