WHATEVER COMES...IS OF GOD

Yesterday's post was all about coming to realization of truth and the many detours, U-bies, wrong turns, etc., we must take to get there. The real lesson being that is the right way, and that right way is what we fight. Our ego does not recognize "wrong turns" unless they are made by others.

With the journey toward realization in mind, I lay out my today's God Calling notes:

1986 - my mind connected today that I, the Christ, am Nancy, who appears today to be my nemesis...the lesson is to love the nemesis, not to win over it, or to beat it at its own game, but to love it. Agree with your adversary quickly is my goal.

1998  - ditto to way more than Nancy (I forget who Nancy was!) today.

2014 - ditto again...gold in the crucible

2018 - Yes! Again....thank you.

I need not continue writing my updates...there'll ever be more for which today I can be grateful. Gratitude brings peace which is acceptance by another name.

It is true...acceptance does bring peace of mind. A troubled mind goes on the attack, and there it is. Our own attack mind is the source of our woes and rues. Face it, an attack mind is ego's solution to any mind-muddle be it a personal problem or world affairs.

We are on the road to freedom when we realize that which and/or whom we are resisting is not our problem. No. Our resistance is the worm worrying our innards. It is our resistance that we must needs surrender to.

Paradox Alert! It is in our surrender that we find the dreaded peace of powerlessness.

In surrender, our thoughts are transmuted, and divine mind enfolds us...whatever comes is of God...and we find the peace that passes understanding.

Thank you.

ALL SUCCESS LIES IN LOVE, JOY, PEACE

Love, Joy, Peace, welcome these. Let no personal feelings, no thoughts of self banish these. Singly, they are miracle-producing in a life, but together, they can command all that is needed on the physical, mental and spiritual planes.

It is in these wonder-realm attributes, all success lies. You have to see your inner lives are all they should be, and then the work is accomplished. Not in rushing and striving on the material plane, but on the battlefield of the Soul are these things won. -- God Calling, January 30

I first "got" those paragraphs in 1978...I've  "got" them again, and repeatedly, over the years. I have underlined and highlighted them almost to unreadable. Yet here's me today, again feeling as if I am, for the first time, truly understanding their meaning.

This is the process that takes me to realization (and to self-acceptance): First it must be accepted by the reasoning-mind, then it moves deeper to a higher level, then deeper yet, and still deeper, continuing unto realization. (As to self-acceptance, until I quit fighting myself for not nailing it forever the first time, I remained stuck in self, trying to make it acceptable to my ego...a useless, but necessary step.)

Once we surrender to, i.e., accept, that fact, the next time when it slaps us upside the head and we're wonder struck with the real truth of it, we can love and laugh and feel good all over...we are experiencing our promised Love, Joy, Peace.

Can't wait for the next time I get to love and laugh with me and my I Got It feeling.

Thank you.

ON LOVING THOSE WHO HATE US

Blinding flash of the obvious: The one who slanders me is the one I need to praise. (By praise, I suspect that means we need to get, be and remain grateful for.)

The minute that came to me, I consciously elevated my thoughts, and I saw slanderers, per se, in a new light.

If it is true that everything works together for our  good, then how can we dislike, fear, slander anyone? Especially on the excuse of “payback.”

This may all be incidental to me and God’s special gift to her…fulfilling a fear he must needs face, and I’m the perfect (imperfect?) vehicle.

The Father knows my needs…and hers...and his...and theirs. God is so good to us.

Thank you.

WHEN BEING WRONG IS ALRIGHT

The following are notes to myself from December 21, 2017, that particularly speak to me today more than ever:

Per George Will, We are addicted to indignation and This is the year of living splenetically. Further, he quotes Eric Hoffer: The intellectual cannot operate at room temperature, and We lie the loudest when we lie to ourselves.

SIDEBAR: Having never heard of Hoffer or the word splenetically, I had to Google them. Admittedly, that's no doubt why I don't read George Will regularly, but when I do and find ideas I agree with, I'm grateful he's available to us. Further, for those in the dark as I was, Eric Hoffer was an American writer on social and political philosophy, and splenetically, I found, means angrily, spitefully - marked by bad temper or spite. The chances of my ever using the word after this are slim to nil since obviously I'd just be putting on airs...which I'm not averse to doing just not when everybody'd know it.

Back to my thoughts. I am taken with Will's words today because this is a full year plus weeks later, and the proof of our splenetic year is in our daily life. Whether we are For or Against...makes no never mind...our lives seem to be fueled by indignation. We truly are living splenetically...and I'm saying, if Will is right, that it is our addiction that is our problem. It may be addiction to indignation, but addiction is the key, and our own personal addiction that must needs be addressed. 

Remember Hoffer's words about lying the loudest when we lie to ourselves? And there it is, our problem. We lie to our self when we call our rigid, righteous and right reason for indignation the problem. It is not. It is our rigid, righteous and right lie to our self that is the problem. We have made I'm right, you're wrong the God of our own understanding, and still more spiritual growth a thing of our past. 

It was Jung who said addiction is nothing more nor less than a search for the spiritual. If that be true, and I believe it is, then why not put our indignation to use searching for the spiritual...the spiritual in our own self that is living in resistance. 

Can I get a Thank You for the other side? For the Wrong ones? And it need not be a heartfelt thank you. God doesn't care if we believe it or not...we say thank you, and cosmically we are changed. It is rare that we immediately realize it, but as we keep praying our thank you, gratitude fills us...and we are freed from our own indignant self. 

We are already being led out just because we came to believe....

Thank you.

ON ENTRY INTO GOD'S HIDEY-HOLE WITHIN

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.... -- from the 23rd Psalm

The valley of the shadow of death is whatever we are resisting...and, face it, resistance is fear. Say that in our daily walking-around life, we realize that whatever we are fearing boils down to, plain speak, a hassle. It is what that hassle represents that brings fear on the gallop. 

For instance, I just got a new car, and yesterday I drove it down the block to the grocer. Coming back I noticed something looked off in one of the the instrument panel thingies...which is as much as I know about it. 

This morning my thoughts are on the gallop. I can state, flatly and assuredly, that when our thoughts are on the gallop, they have made the turn into foreboding, and ego is riding herd and/or hard.

Glory Be! Here come my angels to save my day. I am reminded that first thing I do is calm my thoughts run amok...turn them with a thank you which gives them over to my angels for pondering. And right off, there's a sliver of light, reminding me that resistance is the shadow, the foreboding thoughts that block our peace which is of God. 

Resistance is the shadow...the shadow is the foreboding thoughts...foreboding thoughts block my peace...my peace is of God...which is God...which resists not but loves all.

In place of my resistant thoughts to my completely undriveable new car with its unfixable instrument thingie with all the insurmountable expenses that will entail, I can call Seven On Your Side.

Better, I can know that no matter how bass-ackward that new car may be, all the hassles that it may bring to me, my peace in meeting those hassles will hone my entry into God's hidey hole within.

Best, I can enjoy the feeling of profound gratitude for this opportunity to sit and wait on the Lord, preparing myself to love and laugh at his having already intervened on my behalf here, now and ever.

God is so good to me...to us.

Thank you.

ENEMY IS JUST ANOTHER WORD FOR I

Thank you for my everything just as it is right this very minute...the seen and the unseen.

To be clear, my everything is more about the unknown oncoming than the known here-and-now. The knowns are the goodies we can see (or others can see and envy, whispers my ego Lucy With The Football). Ah, but the unknowns, the feared what ifs, that which maybe out-in-the-ether that we know naught of, but, what if...? Thank you.

Then there are the unseens that fall into the God-only-knows...literally...category. We cannot know what gifts God has for us out there in the pipeline. We don't even consider what, or even that, they may be...how can we when they aren't...yet? Thank you.

If we give a thought to what God may have already gifted us with, that has not yet appeared, we're likely to go from hope for gold to dread of poverty, because we've learned, like Fitzgerald's rich, God is different from you and me. His gifts often appear to our rational mind to be dirtballs. Then we get to the other side, and there find that which we feared has materialized into our personal pearl of great price. That is when we realize love...that we personally have love within us, and it is God.

Comes the light, the greatest of God's gifts to us, his  love of our own self personally, is only realized as ours when, and if and when, we pass it on. Pass it on to everyone...friend, of course, but enemy more so and more so.

According to me, the Sermon on the Mount is the How-To-Manual for doing love of others...all others. Hey...here comes a blinding flash of the obvious: There are no others! The Father and I are One...which is true for every single soul in the universe. We are One...enemy is just another word for I.

I Am that I Am.

Thank you.

WE SERVE TO BEAR WITNESS

Take away my difficulties that victory over them may bear witness to those I would serve of Your love, Your power and Your way of life. -- Anonymous

When we give our thanks to God for everything just as it is right this very minute, that includes our difficulties. With our thanks, we receive peace in our heart, and we repeat our thanks until we know that peace...most likely, with our difficulties still in place, but transmuted through peace.

Knowing that peace frees us to ponder other spiritual things, such as life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Ah, and light breaks...the pursuit of happiness is where our free will lives...where we get to make our choice: God or gold?

Our spiritual growth reminds us that God it is, not gold, that takes away our difficulties, not by lifting them out of us, making them disappear without a trace. No. God takes away our difficulties through and by our staying our focus on God alone. 

We can give up the pursuit of our fantastical dreams...winning the Oscar without ever acting, being the discoverer of how to make healthy out of plastic. We can, however, use those dreams...dumbed down a tish, of course...as in, grow up, Lamb-chop. We seek God with a will, while we hold the goal to do our good in order to bear witness to others of Your way of life. 

Without that goal, we're apt to be proving the truth of Einstein's statement that doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results, defines insanity. With that goal, we're living out the perfect objective which is of God...by serving others, we improve our self.

To put a fairly fine point on it, this within-goal improves our walking-around world. Face it, a goalless person is a rudderless person...been there, done that, no thanks. Besides which, He goes before us to make the crooked places straight.

Thank you.

ATTAINING INNER STILLNESS...WAIT

On learning to live the still more spiritual growth we seek: We learn, slowly if we're learning for keeps, to ask an actual person to be our mentor. Then we seek that mentor's advice.

The two most important words we would do well to remember to speak in response to a mentor's advice: "OK. How?"

Then we run that advice by the God of our own understanding. And then we wait. Ah, there it is: Waiting, that which impatience negates. This is the cosmic part where everything, i.e., nothing, happens, and that words cannot describe. 

To sit and wait on the Lord is to use the patience we already have within...to pray for patience is to waste our breath and God's time. We find our patience by using it, waiting...which isn't to say idly. In waiting we learn the self-discipline of ever turning our thoughts inward...repeatedly and then some. To realize a quieted mind takes as long as it takes. The discipline is in letting it.

There are many starter quotes to use to get to our inner stillness. Other than the usual, such as the Father and I are One, a few others are:

I was born when all I once feared—I could love. —Rabia

Before God, our wounds are our glory -- Lady Julian of Norwich

And my favorite ponderable: Let us pray to God that we may be free of God that we may gain the truth....-- Meister Eckhart 

God is not available on demand...only on receipt.

Thank you.

LET IT BE ME, PLEASE...AND THANK YOU

Who was the guy, a Greek?, who took his lantern and went out searching for one honest human? I'm thinking he was believing, or saying anyhow, that if he could find just one honest human, that would save the world. There's not a snowball's chance I've got that entirely right, but it's close enough.

That's what I hold to when the world...my walking-around-in-it world...seems in danger of collapse through sheer self-aggrandizing politicians, liars, thieves, cheats and whores all. Not to put too fine a point on it. Lucy may have typed that, the Lord may look askance, but there it is.

I earnestly pray for one honest person to save us from ourselves because that may be the one thing we haven't tried. My prayer is simple, being: Let it be me. Let it be me. Let it be me.

That's the hope I hold for each of us, for each individual in the universe. If we would hold that one prayer, and then be it...wars would end, peace would descend upon us, and we'd all have ice cream and cookies every day and not gain weight...OR...we'd all have love in our heart and laughter on our lips. Both equally unlikely...miraculous in a word.

But wait a minute! The only thing miraculous about it is our actually doing it. We discount it as an impossible wish...enough said. No. It is not impossible...if You, if She, if He, if They, if I will but try it.

Here's my definition of what my honest human is: One who loves the God of our own understanding with all our heart, all our soul, all our body and all our brains, and loves our friends and our enemies as our self by wanting more and better for them than for self. (Which is no great shakes if we honestly believe that the Father does know our needs and does have our back.)

No, I'm not even close, but I know I'm heading in the right direction because the idea came to me, and I accepted it. The miracle is, I got started. Join me?

Thank you.

THANK YOU FOR WHAT IS

If a grey day is not one of thankfulness, the lesson has to be repeated until it is. Not to everyone is it so. But only to those who ask to serve Me well, and to do much for Me. -- God Calling, January 22

It seems I write about that quote every January 22,  but I tend to think of the first sentence there as the most important...ah, but the not to everyone is it so has just asked to be noticed.

Those of us who live in our rational mind, even with spiritual intentions our desire, can run into ugly and repeat thank you till our face falls off...if we are doing our thank you to make ugly go away, ugly will not be moved. We are self-determining the results we desire...in effect, still running our own show. That's like trying to float our own boat with no water in sight...just our prayerful thoughts of floating. All things are possible to God, but some are less probable than others.

I believe a quote in today's "Daily Meditation" by Fr Richard Rohr puts it perfectly. He uses a passage from Corinthians as written by Shane Claiborne that says:  If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing (1 Corinthians 13:1-3, author’s paraphrase). 

To me, that's Saint Paul clarifying why we get bupkis when we are living in the material world trying to do good by our own reasoning mind standards rather than living in God consciousness...which is often the opposite of what our rational mind dictates.

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

Thank you.

JUDGE NOT...LOVE AND LAUGH

Blinding flash of the obvious: The rues, regrets and remorses that appear to my eyes are brought to me by my angels for me to see through Your eyes. 

That, to me, is mirror imaging...the mirror image of God is my reasoning mind's take on what I'm seeing transformed by love...loving, or accepting, what I'm seeing rather than fearing it, resisting it and calling it bad.

The mirror image of God and God's ways sings to my heart...it is my song. I have no idea if "my song" is the "true" way of the mirror image of God, but it is my true way which takes care of a lot of my head judging...in other words, gives me peace. That's close enough to perfect for me.

As to those rues, regrets and remorses...why not let them include the ghostings (which people of the age of 80 call rejection) that come and feel so personal? I can so I do believe they are being brought to me by my angels for me to see through God's eyes. In a new light. To change my focus. To change my mind. To love. To resist not. To love...and laugh.

You get a better outcome when you don't judge. --from a beautiful story about a pit bull.

Thank you.

GOD BLESSES MY FRIENDS...AND MY UNFRIENDS

Initiation precedes all real work and success for Me. -- "God Calling," March 28

The first time ever I heard of spiritual initiation, it seemed to me to be basically mind-messing...being led to believe you are going to be buried alive, or forced to jump off a 1,000' cliff into shark-filled waters, and/or worse...and agreeing to that. The objective being to prove one's faith in God's love and protection always and all ways. For all I know that is spiritual initiation; if so, it's obviously for others far more spiritually advanced than I am or anyone I know is.

However, that line from my "God Calling" has caused me pause. Over the years, I've hi-lighted it, underlined it in blue, then green, then again in red and orange-tabbed it. When it says that initiation precedes all real work and success for Me, I'm fairly certain it means just that...and that tells me there must be various degrees of initiation.

I recently came to see that initiation for me may be simply discipline of self in living the precepts of the Sermon on the Mount and, for me personally, all that follows from that. Specifically, my initiation is learning to live the denial of self, to learn unto breathing to deny self-centered objectives.

I doubt that can be done without grace and a boatload of gratitude, but, according to me, the doing isn't as important as the willingness to try. With God's grace, my mentor, my friends...ah, but especially my unfriends...I am willing.

Thank you.

LAUGHTER, THE LANGUAGE OF LOVE

It’s not about right belief; it’s about right practice. * * * We come into existence with a binary egoic operating system already installed. We can make the choice to upgrade to a non-dual operating system. -- Cynthia Bourgeault

I believe Bourgeault nails it, and life itself is all about right practice and upgrading our egoic operating system...or, choice of reactions...at anytime as needed. Needed meaning to stay spiritually in touch...sometimes just trying not to be as nasty as we want to be.

To more deeply understand that, take the saying that most have heard, hurt people hurt people. Consider that most times hurt people hurt people seemingly out of anger when in fact anger is hurt's hidey hole. Hurt is a feeling of lack of love and the binary egoic response is the well-known fight or flight.

We must remember this, the way of the Lord is not the way of fight or flight, nor of winning friends and influencing people. That way stays our focus on self...upgrading to the way of the Lord is to turn and return our focus to the Higher Power within our self. That it is that opens the spiritual flow outward for the benefit of you, me, them, us, ours, theirs, dogs and cats and all the flora and fauna in between.

The way we practice that is not thinking on it but not thinking...we turn our thoughts over to God. In God consciousness, there is only love...and laughter which is the language of love.

Thank you.

PRAY IN FAITH BELIEVING...OUR ONLY REQUISITE

Upon Faith alone depends the answer to your prayers. It is your only requisite for the accomplishment of mighty deeds. -- God Calling, January 18

Pray in faith believing that God's will is the only thing that can come to us. Back in the day when I traveled across country fairly frequently, I dreaded the possibility of long delays sitting on the tarmac.

My great lesson, that took its own sweet time revealing itself, was that (symbolically) long delays sitting on the tarmac may be God's will for me.

I finally got it: If it truly be God's will, it will be for our  benefit...not for saving face, not for peace of mind, but for saving Soul...from whence peace of mind follows.

One of our first lessons is to realize that we learn our lessons by making our mistakes, but especially not to cause "worst case" to happen and then call it God's will. That's just a "controlled experiment," meaning ego is in control and legislating for itself...we wind up as humiliated as we feared, feeling short-sheeted by God. I speak from experience.

The result of God's will is always beneficial, and we know it by our feeling of love for self and for others and for the situation we feared. Even when it costs us our pride and/or our money. Ah, there it is, our steepest climb...our sense of self and of security on the line...and we go for it anyway.

Came to believe that God can and will intervene in our life in our behalf. --  Anonymous

Thank you.

ON GROWING OLD...SHOWING FORTH GRACE

My best friend from high school days is the same age I am, 80. I am surprised at her fearful resistance to being 80. It's not fear of death that she's resisting so much as the natural changes that age brings...and, trust us, they seem to double, triple and quadruple the minute 80 arrives.

I read, I know not where, the following out of a book on aging by Parker Palmer, and it describes my thoughts on being old:

But the junk I really need to jettison in my old age is psychological junk—such as longtime convictions about what gives my life meaning that no longer serve me well. For example, who will I be when I can no longer do the work that has been a primary source of identity for me for the past half century?

I no longer ask, 'What do I want to let go of, and what do I want to hang on to?' Instead I ask,'What do I want to let go of, and what do I want to give myself to?'

The desire to 'hang on' comes from a sense of scarcity and fear. The desire to 'give myself' comes from a sense of abundance and generosity. That’s the kind of truth I want to wither into. -- Parker Palmer, "On the Brink of Everything: Grace, Gravity and Getting Old" 

Interesting to me is that I have been so taken with my friend's resistance to 80 that I never looked at my feelings about it. I could see they were not the same as hers, and I went no further...and who's kidding whom...while feeling slightly superior.

It's the penultimate paragraph of Palmer's squib that sang to me, that presented me with my goal: I no longer ask, 'What do I want to let go of, and what do I want to hang on to?' Instead I ask,'What do I want to let go of, and what do I want to give myself to?'  

I especially love the last line, That’s the kind of truth I want to wither into. Those words, to wither into, speak of fear-free aging to me. Mainly, because we avoid the word withering in our own minds much less in taking it out on the street. But it does epitomize aging...withering. 

I just remembered. I once noticed a withered rose...still perfectly shaped, but drooping, a tish frayed around the edges, faded...but with a certain grace about her...at least that's how I remember it. And remembering, I can hope to be like that rose...drooping, frayed and faded, but with just a touch of grace.

Thank you.

NOW IS THE APPOINTED TIME

Carl Jung said, The main interest of my work is not concerned with the treatment of neurosis, but instead with an approach to the numinous. The approach to the numinous is the real therapy, and inasmuch as you attain to numinous experience, you are released from the curse of pathology. Even the very disease takes on a numinous character!

I love this quote so much that I've made it mine...mine in the sense that it is my reminder to seek still more spiritual growth instead of studying my naval again, still, repeatedly. (I admit I had to Google numinous...found out it means transcendent God experience, and I fell in love with it.)

It reminds me that I need not be concerned with the removal of my defect du jour (or du minute) but instead to direct my attention toward love and the ways of love. Which usually entails thanking God for clarifying for me what it is that has me fretting and slapping Gertrude's name on it when it needs my name on it. More to the point, my known (from my eyebrows up anyway) need is for God's laughter to enwrap me and free me from the bondage of self...not to mention freeing Gertrude.

There are times I can redirect my thoughts in the minute, most often though it's in the morning in my quiet time...in the minute, the next morning, or whenever depends on how long I choose to sit in my stuff...a.k.a., be right.

The time for being right is shortening, and clearly not so much because of my spiritual advancement, but because of my advancing years. My time itself is shortening, but then so is Gertrude's, so is yours...best get cracking, saith the Lord. According to me.

Thank you.

PATIENCE, THE HOLY GRAIL

God's forgiveness is ever with us, is ours even as we breathe. It is our free will that blocks our realization of that.

The realization of God's forgiveness is in the free gift of love we give and we get. Ah, but here comes another hard lesson a-learning: It also is in the ever more rocky roads we must needs walk. There. That's the glue that binds us to our lessons, to the realization that God's love and forgiveness are already ours, those rocky roads built entirely by our own defects. We are after all the source of all our woes.

We must never forget, however, that our defects are another of God's gifts to us...why else would we have first sought God? Why would we still seek God? Reminds me of the World War II song, Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition. Defects are a no-no; ammunition is a no-no...go beyond reason to God.

It's all about patience and learning to use our patience is learning to trust our God.

Thank you.

EGO FALLS BEFORE LOVE AND LAUGHTER

I once had a blinding flash of the obvious in the midst of a daydream of me winning the Nobel Peace Prize, to wit: Winning all the high honors in the world would mean nothing to me if none of my friends...but especially none of my enemies...knew I had won. True some fifty years ago, true today...ah, to love it and laugh.

Thank You, Lord God, that I am just exactly as I am...if I had not walked the road I walked, I would never have sought You...found You. Who's kidding whom...it is most likely I would have found yet another self-punishing substitute. Every mistake, misstep, misdirected ego-victory want of mine led me to You, and I am grateful. I am equally grateful that I See Me in every 3:00 A.M. rue, regret and remorse that visits me whenever it wants for that too leads me to You. Amen

I am blessed...I am blessed just because, but I know I am blessed because I have been given the gift of laughter. Laugh, and love tags along. Laugh at our own self, and love does the happy dance.

Thank you.

THE HUMAN MIND CAN MAKE NAUGHT HOLY

Fondly do we hope--fervently do we pray--that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said 'the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.' -- From Abraham Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address

To spiritual consciousness the mighty scourge of the American Civil War and the mighty scourge of our today's civil war are as one.

The human mind, from Abraham to Lincoln, could not on its own make holy our thoughts, our words or our deeds...so still it must be said 'the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.' Ergo, seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness...period.

It makes no never mind what will be added unto us if we're seeking first God because it can only be good...love and laughter, if we will but love and laugh. It is up to us.

According to me.

Thank you.

FRET NOT, GOD'S GOT OUR BACK

Pondering the 23rd Psalm: ...he prepares a place before me in the presence of my enemies: He (being my hands and feet so that would be me and always with my ego Lucy) prepares a table for me with my enemies. I/Lucy resist...it's the enemy!...for my own sake even though my earnest desire is to do right with spiritual principles as my guide.

I/Lucy are there in outward command and control, but I AM there within to do cleanup for however long it takes for me/Lucy to let go, detach, surrender, a.k.a., give over, give up, give in. However long that takes determines, or reaps, the results of my behavior...no matter how "good" or "bad" my intentions.

All of this could be boiled down to what goes around comes around, but there is no spiritual hope in that. Biblically, those who resist will bring judgment on themselves (Romans 13:2) feels fairly harsh to me which is probably why I seldom go to the Bible.

An old blinding flash of the obvious brings me the most peace: The harder the hit the deeper my God...meaning fret not, child of God, I got your back.

Thank you.

ST FRANCIS' PRAYER: GET OVER YOURSELF

To become literate in love, we must learn how to reduce our lifelong preoccupation with our own needs and feelings. -- Eknath Easwaran, "Word to Live By," January 11

According to me, a great deal of our self-induced suffering is caused by our want to have one iron-clad rule to guide us that ensures our happiness.

The big oh-no surprise is that our happiness is not of God. God is of love and love alone. It is entirely up to us how we choose to incorporate love in our life. The rest of that surprise is that our own personal happiness is ego's only goal which very simply is Me First.

To realize the prayer of Saint Francis is to get our first glimpse that your happiness must needs be more important to me personally than my happiness. Else why would we seek to understand rather than to be understood...that alone makes the other desires secondary. To love rather than to be loved is covered if we're willing to understand rather than holding out to be understood.

There is no one iron-clad rule...there are two:  First, love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind, and, second, love your neighbor as yourself.

Face it, those two are only iron-clad if we choose to use them. I'm guessing for the majority of us that will not fully happen in this lifetime or unto infinity. That's why my go-to rule is try not to be as nasty as you want to be.

Thank you.

PONDER TRUTH, KNOW THE WORD OF GOD

You must ponder these truths I give you. They are not surface facts, but the secrets of My Kingdom, the hidden pearls of rare price. -- "God Calling," January 10, 2019

A passing thought I had recently: The truths given to me are given to me repeatedly in different guises...that is the way of learning Truth.

After reading my "God Calling" this morning, I reflected on my passing thought and interpreted that it sometimes seems that the truths given to us are given repeatedly in different guises.

We can think of them as entering through our reasoning mind, put through that crucible...analyzed and over-analyzed...sent out for us to experience, come back in a different guise, put through that crucible, analyzed, etc., until they have been stripped bare of all reason, i.e., surface facts.

Ah, then we know the hidden pearls of rare price...the word of God.

Thank you.

THE ONLY THING WE HAVE TO FEAR....

Blinding flash of the obvious: Fear is God's calling card . Trust your own inner voice...do not fight fear, welcome it...fear cannot hurt you, your fear of fear is your cross...fear is God calling...heed his call, return to him in faith, love and laughter. 

Per "God Calling" today, there is only strain in our daily life when we are serving another master, the world, fame, the good opinion of wo/men. *** Be calm, no matter what may befall you. Be patient, and  let patience have her perfect work. 

There's our almost-hidden clue for the peace of mind we seek:  let patience have her perfect work. Most of us take pride in saying that we have no patience, or we warn not to pray for patience, apparently fearing God will punish us with a boatload of ugly patience-trials.

Isn't it fear alone that is the other master? Down at the bottom of the heap of defects that we fret our self with is fear, the taproot. We have been alerted to the nothingness of fear for ages...FDR and Etty Hillsum are the bellwethers in my learning.

SIDEBAR: Can you imagine being in a Nazi prison camp and knowing that it is fear, only fear, that is the real enemy? Hillsum did. Even as she died there. I imagine she died patiently ergo fearlessly...or panic-free at any rate. Clearly, my imagine cannot grasp fearlessly, but maybe she actually did die fearlessly. It is not all that uncommon to feel no fear in a no-alternative situation. Ah, there's our rational mind's reason for seeking still more spiritual growth...in a no-alternative situation, we have the panacea of faith, atheists are on their own.

OBTW, I am grateful for my new flash that fear is God's calling card...I prefer it to my first flash that fear is God's camouflage...camouflage is too reminiscent of war for my comfort. God knows my needs.

Thank you.

ACCEPTANCE, NONRESISTANCE, LOVE

[The following is a reprint of my post of January 8, 2017.]

Joy is the result of faithful trusting acceptance of My Will when It seems not joyous. * * * Expect rebuffs until this is learned -- it is the only way. - "God Calling," January 8

There it is, the reason why that little book, "God Calling," has been so important to me for so long...and will continue to be, please and thank you. It boils down all the fancy-schmancy spiritually high-consciousness baloney that flows so freely from me to me...boils it down and puts the period to it.

I suspect that entry is where I first got the realization that acceptance when it seems not acceptable is to be headed in the right direction...away from self-determined objectives, seeking God's.

The hard lesson learning is that nothing anyone says to or about us can cause us lasting pain if we don't pick it up...for we end up wrapping our ego in it, virtually wearing it like it is finest silk for all our world to see. It is not what others say that brings us pain...it is how we respond that is the source of our misery. 

That is essentially why we must learn that love is the answer no matter the question...ergo, love must come in many different guises, masks and meanings. One that I like today is nonresistance.

It is possible to hear...with our own ears, hear...ugly said about us and not respond with ugly. We cannot, however, do that relying on self-will alone. Self-will, driven by ego, is incapable of nonresistance, i.e., love. The job of self-will, obviously, is to legislate for self...even when trying to show forth love, self-concern will come first and ruin the play.

Acceptance, nonresistance, love...all are of God, none are available by self will all on its own.

Joy is the result of faithful trusting acceptance of My Will when It seems not joyous.

Thank you.

OUR GOOD IS IN OUR ATTITUDE

Morning blinding flash of the obvious: When I can accept myself wholly as my treasure, including my every self-rejecting thought, I will have found God. I will have entered God's hidey hole.

If it be true that I am the source of all my woes, then it must be true that I am the source of all my joys. The source being my attitude. Whatever comes, dread or delight, meet it with gratitude, and walk in peace...try to avoid meeting it and live disgruntled.

This takes practice...but then what doesn't? It takes practice to live in perpetual gloom. I suspect that the very word practice has a bad rap because our ego resists it as work, and, face it, work takes attention off ego.

As I often say, thank you changed my entire being. I have practiced saying those two words for years, and today they flow without thought. And...who's kidding whom...for years before, I practiced thinking well, heck (or the equivalent) to most everything that came my way. It did not  have to get to me...I just knew it was not going to be enough period. I once heard someone say, There is no enough, which made a home in my heart and head, apparently.

Well, there is enough. Enough is determined by our attitude. By our acceptance of what is. And getting happy about it. Feeling a quart low? Thank you! [Cosmic turn-about] Feeling better already...the quart is nearing full.

God loves us so much...and right back at'cha, Lord!

Amen.

OR, HUG IT AND KISS IT AND LET IT GO

I take comfort in the words today in Rohr's Daily Meditation: ...it takes us individually a long time to move beyond our need to be dualistic, judgmental, accusatory, fearful, blaming, egocentric, and earning—and to see as [the Lord] sees.

Ego reduction in depth, or ego deflation, is all about changing our insides not our outsides...when our insides have changed, it will show on the outside when we no longer take pride in the matter. 

This fairly obvious observation came to me as I was wrestling with my resistance to the habit of an acquaintance of mine. According to me, she often co-opts my words and parades them as her own...which I sheepishly admit makes my ego Lucy less than happy.

Something akin to this occurred recently...as it happens, the same day of my acquaintance's most recent acquisition of  a phrase of mine...and probably because I did not know this new person, I did not personalize it. I was able to release it as it happened. (Release it to me was thinking, thank you, you made good use of that.)

And there we are. Proof that God does indeed have my back because he connected the two for me in the moment. I realized all I needed to do to shut Lucy up (which is where my problem originates every time) was to welcome Gertrude's co-opting any word, thought or action that I considered to be mine.

My long-ago blinding flash of the obvious flashed again...nothing I say is original to me. All words have been used before, I just arrange them a tish differently...doesn't make me the owner just the deliverer.

So there's the lengthy explanation of why I take comfort in Rohr's words today...in short, it takes us individually a long time to move beyond our ego needs and to see as God wants us to see. 

Thank you.

WHAT IS THAT TO ME?

One of the most profound questions that I've ever come across (Jesus is recorded as asking) is, What is that to you?

That applies to most any- and every time I get agitated over whatever. It came to me in the early '80s when I finally accepted the fact that I was going to be left holding the bag for a debt to the IRS...which amounted to some $50,000...which amount I did not have nor a hope for getting it.

My reasoning mind, my attack thoughts, my ego Lucy, and my self-centered fear all gathered in my gut, and just as they were beginning to leak fuel, I had the blinding flash of the obvious: What is this to me? If it be true that the Father knows my needs, then this is not my problem...it is the Father's. It is his place not to pay off the debt but to walk me through it...so that both I and the IRS will come out the better for it.

I did pay it off, some nearly 15 years later. Which is not the important part, that being I knew from the outset that this was a spiritual experience. I understood that it was, in fact, a spiritual experience from almighty God for me personally but only if I chose to accept it as such.

No. My memory maybe exaggerating. I might not have known this was a spiritual experience right  from the outset...but it wasn't too long before I did come to that. At first, I just knew not to fight the IRS, and all the others involved had split the scene. And almost all my friends were chewing me a new one for not fighting, not suing, not whatever.

I followed their many, much and varied advice, except for suing, since I knew that going it alone in spiritual matters is dangerous. Plus, I was already leaning on the fact that when anything too horrible to contemplate comes calling, know God's hand is in it...grab hold.

I am comforted when I look back on uninvited...or dreaded...experiences that on the other side show themselves as the gold from the crucible. Which, according to me, they all are...if we choose to accept them as such. That decision is ours alone...with a little help from our Friend.

Thank you.

PATIENCE=ACCEPTANCE=LOVE

To stay on the ride, to trust the trajectory, to know it is moving, and moving somewhere always better, is just about the best way to describe religious faith. -- Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, January 4, 2019

I'm guessing patience has such a less-than-inviting...shuddering, actually...meaning to us is because it means what we're wanting is not here, and it may be a long wait...or never...getting here.

I read just this morning about the wonders of love and how love brings nothing but good...love all things, feel good. Whoa and wait a minute...all things include pain and suffering, lack and loneliness, slander and calumny. Comes the bell-ringer: This is the road to acceptance of love in toto.

We get a glimmer of life itself...pain, lack and calumny are just another part of life. It is patience we need to not resist life's sufferings, but to walk forward toward acceptance with the God of our own understanding as our Shepherd. (And doesn't that encourage us to go for an upgrade of the God of our own understanding? Face it, it is our own understanding.)

That it is that stays us on the ride toward trusting the trajectory, to knowing it is moving, and moving somewhere always better. We are gifted with knowing that we are treasured, protected...graced in a word.

All our trials, Lord, soon be over.

Thank you.

OUR PRIME DIRECTIVE...LOVE, JUST LOVE

I have taken to speaking a lot about love...I feel that I know naught about love. But the words flow...almost against my will. I accept that they are from the Father within for I say them without thought or planning or a currying of favor. I just listen as they flow and follow them, maybe with the hope that they will come to live within me/without me? Thank you.

I wrote the above in my journal earlier this morning. Then, after my quiet time, I read Rohr. He quoted Brian McLaren, from his book The Great Spiritual Migration, about love: Of the many radical things said and done by Jesus, his unflinching emphasis on love was the most radical of all. Love was the greatest commandment . . . his prime directive—love for God, for self, for neighbor, for stranger, for alien, for outsider, for outcast, and even for enemy, as he himself modeled. 

I must admit that my first thought about love this morning was to wonder if I was being a phony...dropping the word love as if I knew its wonder-working power when I know nothing. I live its wonder-working power, but I don't have a clue how or why or if even...if I live it. Or, if I'm maybe like the new born who smiles in delight when breaking wind and everybody thinks s/he's showing love.

It is a great comfort to receive my little insights and then read someone who really does have a clue and what s/he has written validates what I had just flashed on. I take that as God does have my back, that's not just a hopeful saying...also, that I'm on the right track, moving in the right direction.

Thank you.

WE KNOW HE HAS SPOKEN BY THE LIFE WE LIVE

More and more our spiritual lessons seem to be simply recalling that which we've already learned. It is when we are living the spiritual lessons that we stop feeling gobsmacked when we come again to the written word...that has already gobsmacked us a half dozen times.

We don't so much "hear" God as we know he has spoken to us when our actions show forth what we have learned. When we are living forgiveness, love and laughter, we are living the acts of giving over, giving up, giving in. Then we may come to the words agree with your adversary quickly and not even flinch. Until we're living such a turned-over life, however, we flinch.

I am reminded [from Joel Goldsmith's "The Gift of Love"] that our actions do not result from our seeking to demonstrate good...the very seeking keeps us in the material world, i.e., outside the spiritual way of life because we are failing to recognize the already infinite nature of our being. There it is. What we must realize is the already infinite nature of our being. I'm guessing we fully become that three days after we're dead.

Back to our first spiritual lesson, namely, keep it simple, We accept that our focus needs be on still more spiritual growth which is...drum roll...to give over, give up and give in. Not as a self-determined objective but as we breathe.

We will know he has spoken to us when our actions show forth what he has said.

Thank you.

HAPPY NEW YEAR...ALL YEAR

Here we are with a blank year spread out before us. How will it be filled? How will we fill it? Will we practice what we know? Or will we practice what we think? Or will we practice what we fear?

Obviously, it is easier to look back at the filled pages of the past year...it's interesting, or daunting, that first thing up is a regret. Ponder that. How have we dealt with that regret? Is there any personal liability attached to it? As in, have we washed, rinsed, fluffed and folded our part? If so, that regret is the equivalent of an unmatched sock...useless. Pitch it.

Back to our blank year before us. What do we anticipate the year to look like? What do we want the year to be for us?

I started out this morning thinking that I'd like to live a more fourth dimensional life. I know what that means to me but for clarity I Googled it. I shoulda known better. When the simplified version started out with calculus, I bailed. On second thought, that was no doubt God's will...it returned me to reality, i.e., practically speaking, how do I plan to live this year trying not to be as nasty as I want to be.

I expect I'll live the same as I lived last year and the year before, etc. To live a life trying not to be as nasty as I want to be is to live trying to think of others first...of her sensibilities, of his feelings...in short, trying to live aware of and resistant to my ego Lucy's demands.

Which is the same plan I received from God originally...meaning God's got my work cut out for me. And I am grateful.

Thank you.