WE ALREADY HAVE ALL...NOW USE IT

Because the soul, being linked to God, united to Him, receives in and through Him all things. And the soul, when in human form, needs too the things belonging to its habitation.  -- God Calling, May 31

To me, the part about the soul in human form, means walking-around me can expect to have the material good that others around me have, i.e., things belonging to its habitation.

We can rightfully expect reasoning-mind good in our life...not always nothing but dog doo that we must make good by upgrading our thoughts about it.

I have to wonder, if that is true, why is accepting it without reservation so difficult for me to hold to?

I suspect it's because walking-around good doesn't last, like where's the razzmatazz two days later? It gives us no peace, no sense that all is well, after the glow is gone.

Which sent me back to the first part: Because the soul, being linked to God, united to Him, receives in and through Him all things. Flash: That's just seek ye first the kingdom of Heaven...the second part it becomes clear is and all these things shall be added unto you.

All things work together for good to them that love God.... Romans 8.28

Thank you.

LOVE, LAUGH AND PRAY...SILENTLY

I am learning. Thank you, Lord, I am learning.

Nothing is personal. Personalize nothing.

Whatever comes to us, a bald-faced lie to our eyes or an overheard gift of gossip gold, it is how we receive it, or do not receive it, that determines whether we advance in our spiritual lessons learned.

An incoming bald-faced lie is clearly not ours, but it takes spiritual processing not to give it a home in our mind...to play over and over, thereby nurturing it, naming it, calling it our own. A resentment is aborning.

The word to remember is "others." We do what we do, we react as we react, for the benefit of others, meaning we depersonalize before our reasoning mind can get a crack at it. We love and laugh...and pray our thank you...silently.

An overheard gift of gossip gold is another clearly not ours. It may be a confidence shared with another that we inadvertently overheard; it may be a mere perception of another that we flash on and see for truth...whatever, we so want to share it...shout it...for this is ego's gold. A  rue, regret, remorse, is aborning.

The word to remember is "others." We do what we do, we react as we react, for the benefit of others, meaning we depersonalize before our reasoning mind can get a crack at it. We love and laugh...and pray our thank you...silently.

Thank you.

BE WILLING TO SEE DOWN AS UP

Say we make a decision to turn our will and our life over to the care of God as we understand Him...the hard lesson we learn is that leaves all to God. Every jot and tittle, every breath we take is left to the care of God.

God will ensure a happy return to all of our endeavors...ah, but it, that happy return, will not be all in our singular favor. It will be in the favor of all, which, to our reasoning mind, does not look like we've come out the "winner." It may well appear that we've finished at the end of the line.

That's how we learn if we're asking God to help us "win," meaning to fulfill a want or to come out ahead, we are ego-talking and only our self can hear.

God's will for each of us benefits each of us...the pearl beyond price is when we realize our happiness lies in the fact that God favors not one but all to our individual need.

In losing, we win...and the meek shall inherit the earth.

Thank you.

SPEAK WITH WORDS TAUGHT BY THE SPIRIT

I wonder if learning to change our mind isn't primarily learning to realize that which is (that which looks ugly to the rational mind) isn't aborning grace, raw grace?

It seems that our reasoning mind will only picture grace (or God or love) as pretty, soothing, sweet, kind, considerate, lovable and generous. When we say God can and will intervene in my life in my behalf, we imagine our self as looking good in the midst of the intervention. What if in my behalf is going to jail for the wrongs we've done, or getting rightly penalized for our self-protective actions?

Raw grace may come in the form of a fear come true...as in, unjustly accused, found guilty by gossip, never cleared...with our reasoning mind praying all the while for vindication (the "real" wrong-doers punished, big time). 

Grace comes in our recognition of the decision we made based on self that first set the whole thing in motion. We realize love of God's will, and we know forgiveness of our self and all others. We love and laugh.

And we speak about them not with words taught by human wisdom, but with words taught by the Spirit, describing spiritual realities in spiritual terms. —1 Corinthians 2:11-13

Thank you.

ON UPGRADING OUR PERCEPTION

Things are rarely as they seem...perception is everything.

Take surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life...what if the bumps, bruises and fools we must suffer all the days of our lives are our goodness and mercy? Or are leading us to our goodness and mercy?

What if all these things that are added unto us when we seek first the kingdom of heaven are wrapped in those very bumps, bruises and fools?

Face it, how else are we led to get over our own self? Why would we want to get over our self if our every wish were as pure, platonic and peaceable as we believe each to be?

I heard an acquaintance yesterday kvetching about all the fools she is forced to work with, and I flashed back to me at my last place of employment before I retired. Holy moly, what a pack of braggarts and blowhards I had to contend with...according to me.

Ah, but came the day, a couple years after I retired, when I got a phone call from the Chairman of the Board of that same place...calling to inform me I had been elected to their Hall of Honor. I doubt there's a need to say how quick, fast and in a hurry my braggarts and blowhards became fine, intelligent representatives of exemplary citizenship...not to mention each an honor to work with.

Things are rarely as they seem...perception is everything. Or, try looking at life through God's eyes.

Thank you.

SIMPLIFY, SIMPLY SIMPLIFY

Boy, did I get a blinding flash of the obvious this morning:  Keep it simple. Simplify. Stop with the trying to make Shinola outta s**t. When Meister Eckhart said the answer is in subtracting, not adding on, he was talking simplify...simply simplify. When we are told that the answer is in detaching, all that means is SIMPLIFY. Keep it simple, stupid, means keep it simple, stupid.

And then I read Fr Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation with the Word: Remember, the only thing that separates you from God is the thought that you are separate from God!

Thank you.

WHERE OUR ANGELS LIVE

Seeking still more spiritual growth and doing that growth, upgrading our thoughts as it were, are two mules of a different mindset. Both are hard enough, but our thoughts? My thoughts at any rate require constant vigilance.

We can and do seek spiritual growth daily...we even start to see good results in our actions...but, Lord, it is some kinda hard to discipline our thoughts to continue on the path upward to that deeper glade.

For instance, I had an "answered prayer" some time ago. It felt like I was put through a spiritual wringer...publicly...and I realized the grace of silence and offered no resistance. Well, good on me. Ah, but since then...untended, my thoughts will set the whole lot straight...chew up everything including the scenery and spit it out...with, of course, an audience applauding my nasty. For which I am doomed to go into the dance of the three R's...rues, regrets and remorses.

I just had a blinding flash of the obvious! My untended thoughts are where my angels live. They are ever on the job, bringing me back, turning me around, setting me straight...with love and laughter at my own self.

Which brings on a paradox alert...when still more spiritual growth is the goal, less-than-wonderful thoughts are acceptable...that's what our angels are there for.

Proof yet again that the reasoning mind is no match for still more spiritual growth. We must go beyond reason to love.

Thank you.

HUG A FOE, KISS AN ENEMY

When one is a stranger to oneself then one is estranged from others too. -- Anne Morrow Lindberg

I wonder if being a "stranger to oneself" isn't simply not accepting our self. Until we accept our self, warts, of course, but our goodness, too, we don't really accept others.

As to others, we are situational, so to speak. We have good, and a few "best," friends, but they can fall by the wayside in a heartbeat through our nonacceptance of a word spoken thoughtlessly, a perceived slight, a misunderstanding...minor or major, makes no nevermind. 

Then there are the irritators...those we find wanting, usually in the belief that they have somehow slighted us...for sure and for whatever reason, they pain our delicate sensibilities.

Ah, and here comes spiritual principles to save our self. We learn the irritators and the offending friends are our angels in disguise. It is they who lead us ever deeper within until we recognize that part of our self that we have not accepted...and it's the offender with our name on it every time.

As Eknath Easwaran in "Words to Live By" (May 1) puts it: To heal our relationships, we have to move closer to people we do not like, learn to work with them without friction

Then, of course, the quiet word: We have ceased fighting anything and anybody. The way we cease fighting is we learn to work with others without friction...give over, give up, give in. Why not? God's got our back. Our battles have already been won.

Thank you.

TO BE THE PEACE WE SEEK

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives

and recovering of sight to the blind,

to set at liberty those who are oppressed,

to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. —Luke 4:16-21

Ponder that. Picture our self as the one knowing that of our self. And by knowing that, doing that. 

If we would (not could) do that...as in, knowing, unto doing, unto living those words...doubt it not,  we would be the peace we seek.  

That Truth I can know...from my eyebrows up. I am graced with the peace of the idea of it. However, I can and do know that Truth has a long, long journey up to my Soul deep within. The journey is not likely to be completed in this lifetime, or the next many...ah, but I can rest knowing I'm being headed in the right direction.

Thank you.

ANGST...AH, CAUSE FOR CELEBRATION

The Dark Night of the Soul, as John conceived it, is actually an inner state that may or may not have anything to do with external circumstances. It is an experience of being stripped of all the spiritual feelings and concepts with which we are accustomed to propping up our inner lives. It is a plunge into the abyss of radical unknowingness. This spiritual crisis, John assures us, is a cause for celebration....  Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," September 8, 2017

This Dark Night of the Soul description reminds me of my long-ago God in a Box experience. I felt exactly as the Dark Night sounds...stripped of all my spiritual feelings and concepts, plunged into the abyss of radical unknowingness. I do not recall how long this period lasted, but in my memory it seems forever.

It did not break until finally my hurt forced me to return to a once-favorite meeting whose purpose was the study of God and other spiritual matters.Sometime before, when I first attended this meeting, I knew all there was to know about God, I preached the Word because I knew, and I knew I knew. Now, here's me returning...a beaten-down woman...and forced by my real agony to confess that I did not know if there is a God but there for sure was none in my life now.

That did not immediately turn me around but it wasn't too long later that I had a blinding flash of the obvious. In effect, I  had packed my first realization of God in a box and carried it with me everywhere so that if ever there was a question, doubt or angst, I'd have my boxed God right there to set the situation straight. I had security under my control.

Now, I was faced with questions, doubt and angst in my head, heart and gut, and I was some kind of scared. It took my feeling abandoned by God. and confessing that out loud before friends and strangers...a.k.a., ego-deflation in depth...to break out of my self-security.

There it is in a nutshell...while my God was growing, I was not.

The line, this spiritual crisis...is a cause for celebration, is what I hold to today. For whatever reasons, I've been feeling edgy for awhile...the many losses, the physical adjustments, turning 80 (and that alone will put hair on your chest which surely qualifies as scarifying to a little old grey-haired lady)...all boil down to I know naught of God.

Ah, but God knows the all of me. 

So I pray my thank you, I mentally hug my angst and laugh with my edgy...I hold to my attitude of gratitude...and I know it is well, it is well with my Soul.

Thank you.

WELCOME LESS THAN...BEWARE OF MORE

The gift is the garbage - it is the devil delivering diamonds when wants are gifted.  -- Blinding flash of the obvious.

I'm a firm believer that we must come to acceptance...or a willingness to welcome...the less-than-wonderfuls that come to us in life. The human condition will ever resist them, or will try to make them pretty, at least palatable, but the human condition is the reasoning mind's hidey hole.

We justify innumerable defects of character under the label human condition...which isn't to say it isn't an honest condition; it is to say, we can't rest there if we're seeking still more spiritual growth. Which is not inherent in the human condition.

I suspect that to seek still more spiritual growth is to be turned from the self-centered desires of the ego toward a desire to benefit others in a spiritual manner. My ego Lucy wishes no harm to others, just glory for self...at the expense of others if that's what it takes. You know, collateral damage. And never consciously. Nothing hides itself as well as ego...except, perhaps, God. Both of which are on our side, both working from exactly opposite poles of purpose.

That's why it takes a conscious decision to turn our will and our life over to the care of God. There we are gifted with blinding flashes of the obvious, i.e., the human spirit touching the hem of the Holy Spirit’s garment (quoting Rohr). The human condition is survival of face, and ego powders that nose naturally.

To be a spiritual seeker is to be willing to be one who If you curse him, he will bless you; if you harm her, she will serve you, and if you exploit him, he will become your benefactor. (Quoting Easwaran)

Thank you.

DEVELOP AN ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE

Most important was the discovery that spiritual principles could solve all my problems. -- Anonymous

The discovery that spiritual principles can solve all my problems is important, but vital is the discovery that all spiritual principles are found in an attitude of gratitude...an attitude of gratitude writ tiny. We must search for it, seek it to the exclusion of all else (meaning our reasoning mind's resistance). It is that attitude of gratitude that transmutes all our problems.

Upon hearing that spiritual principles can solve all our problems, the reasoning mind usually leaps to all we have lost...a job, a spouse, a child, an endless list each worse than the first. No,  spiritual principles cannot bring anything back...gone is gone...but gratitude is the sliver of gold we need find in our loss. 

That is life...lose a little, gain a little. But whoever had to work to upgrade their attitude when life was going their way...looking good, sounding better, smelling like roses...oh my! Those form the yellow brick road that we walk on the way to happy, joyous and free.

It's the gutters of gloom on each side of that road that teach us to stay in the middle, and when, not if, we fall off into the gloom, to turn to gratitude to climb up and out. Ah, there it is. Gratitude in the hand of God reaching out to pull us up is the grace that turns the gloom into gold. 

Upgrade our attitude upgrades our problem.

Thank you.

GROW WITH GRATITUDE, GRACE AND GOD

[This is a reprint of my post of June 12, 2018.]

For this day, I am grateful that I am open to God and grace and growth. No matter how little I feel it.

It is in the time of not feeling gratitude that we need to cling to the fact, not the feeling. The fact is, whether we accept it or not, God is. Whether we know it or not, Grace flows. And Growth grows.

Get grateful.

Thank you.

ACCEPT IT OR NOT...GOD IS

C. G. Jung inscribed over his doorway, Vocatus atque non vocatus, Deus aderit, “Invoked or not invoked, God is still present.” (From Fr Richard Rohr's "Daily Meditation," April 22, 2019.)

The key to living a complete and fulfilled life lies in the realization that there is a mystical, transcendental Presence within us that has already provided our infinite supply unto eternity, that contains within Itself our companionship unto eternity, and that has within Itself the power of fulfillment. -- Joel Goldsmith, "A Parenthesis in Eternity," at p. 269

Clearing our mind...daily...of I, me, my, mine is the start of getting over our self. Keeping our mind free...Now...of I, me, my, mine begins our journey of spiritual growth.

Whether we accept it or not, God has already solved all our I, me, my, mine problems....none of which in real time will seem solved to our reasoning mind. When, finally, we go beyond reason to love, our resistance melds into acceptance, and we know peace.

This is a lifelong process...gratitude soothes the ego's pain.

Thank you.

OUR HOPE OF HEAVEN...THE FATHER WITHIN

In pondering agree with your adversary quickly, I suspect we make a mistake in believing because we agreed, that we're loving. No. There's a hard-rock scramble between lips agreeing and heart loving.

That scramble is 100 percent ego-deflation in depth. And ego deflation cannot be done by the reasoning mind...but that's where it starts. There and with our want to...which is hard enough to come to.

Face it, trying to do loving toward our adversary before we've given God a chance to do his wonders within us boils down to a self-determined objective, and a self-determined objective is just that no matter how pretty we dress it. No doubt it has God's good idea within it, but surrendering our precious self-will for another's benefit is a BIG ask. The key being that word surrender.

I say little if any true spiritual growth happens within us without a boatload of surrender happening first. That's the detach, let go, release, subtract, change your mind part we hear about from the spiritual masters. They tell us that's what must happen, we set to work to cause it to happen, we fail, we try harder, we fail, we try...until the dreaded/blessed crash-and-burn saves us from our self.

The glory of spiritual growth is our failures in the trying...that's where all the lessons learned hide out. Who's kidding whom? We try everything we can personally think of...and fail...before we can come wholly to God. That's us being divested of ego, a.k.a. ego-deflation in depth. Fun it is not, but neither is not drowning...the end result is best, though.

The inner message of the Sermon on the Mount is just so. We agree quickly, we turn  the other cheek, etc., and because we do, we believe we are free of self. But spiritual growth is not a one-shot deal...unless we realize and accept that this one-shot deal is lifelong.

The egoic mind is ever with us...24/7. Ah, but so is God. There's our hope of Heaven...to stay turned to and tuned into the Father within. Hey, he does the work...now to let him.

The Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works. -- John 14:10

Thank you.

FOR THIS GOD SMILES

We remain silent in the face of scorn for only one reason...in order to gain inner peace. This path leads us to our sacred Self within. For the silence of the Lord is sacred.

We don't remain silent in an apparently losing situation in order to impress. There is nothing impressive to God or to others...others are sometimes flummoxed, more often disparaging, and God just sees us doing what we need be doing in the first place.

My experience in maintaining that sacred silence is that it is a daily ritual...done without thought. If we choose to think about it (in order to decide whether to or not), we'd just as well get a big roll of tape for to cover our lips...a really big roll of tape for we will need it.

It is the decision we make to turn our will and our life over to the care of God that sets us on this path...the specifics of which we cannot know for that's the makeup of life. But, for true, if we sincerely turn our will over to the care of God, our life will follow.

It matters not how many times we fail to follow our spiritual path, our decision will haul us back. Ah, but not before we make whatever mess we need to make in order to realize we're self-willing it again.

It is those messes, those mistakes, that prove to be our pearls. They invariably shine the necessary light on the defect that has brought us into conflict with another...where we stand now, scorned and silent. No mental head slaps. No eye-rolls. In sacred silence, knowing for this I came, for this I need to listen, for this God smiles...and me? I choose to be grateful.

Thank you.

SEE, REALIZE, ACCEPT

A thought I treasure and ponder often: Jesus standing before Pontius Pilate, being judged, and saying not a word. 

I have for a long while believed that exemplifies perfect peace, and my desire is to do just that. As in, if/when I be unjustly judged, to remain silent, mouth shut, mind at peace. This, to me, is the epitome of God's grace.

Spiritually this is proof of the Father within doing his work through me. With which I have been gifted on more than a few occasions...which gift I regret to admit I have rejected more than once.

Because, of course, my reasoning mind, with my ego Lucy as its agent, must and will have its say. And there's Lucy doing her happy dance in the hope that the accuser will be judged by their own conscience, by their own rues, regrets and remorses...which will wake them at 3 o'clock in the morning and slap them upside their head. Who's kidding whom? Shame them is the word.

There it is...the hook that keeps my spiritual condition at bay, i.e., the hope for the other to suffer. Ah, not just to suffer but to suffer on my behalf.

Actually, blinding flash, this is the same process I go through with seek ye first the Kingdom of Heaven and all these things shall be added unto you. The promise of all these things being added unto me keeps seeking Heaven first, a distant...at a distance, let's say.

And here comes gratitude to lift me up. Thank you. Seeing these as mine, as my personal quirks, is God's never-ending gift to me...I see, I realize, I accept. The three-step process that assures me God is on the field, I'll get there when I get there because I'm heading in the right direction.

God loves me so much.

Thank you.

GOD CAN AND WILL FILL IN THE BLANKS

Passing thoughts: What if death were simply a change of consciousness...and that is all? With reincarnation naturally following as another change of consciousness. What about illness? If a raised consciousness removes the appearance of illness, would that explain how the lame walk, the blind see, the deaf hear?

Are we in charge of raising our consciousness? Through the Power within? It seems unlikely that consciousness can be raised solely by thinking on it...thinking on it just give us more to think on. However, our journey usually begins with a thought...sometimes a blinding flash of the obvious, sometimes the Word overheard and later realized, ofttimes a passing what if?

According to me, the inborn rational mind is our fallback, and our intuitive mind we come to...per Rohr, usually through great love or great suffering.

It seems likely that living by the intellect alone would preclude spiritual insight...or make it suspect, more like. But living...or attempting to live...by spiritual intuition doesn't negate intellectual understanding.

We'd be kidding our self to believe it is possible to live solely by one or the other. We do, after all, live in a reasoning mind world...which may be why the Pope still needs confession. His reasoning mind.

It is comforting to me to put these unanswerable questions out there in the ether. God will fill in the blanks as and when and if needed.

Thank you.

LOOK AWAY FROM SELF TOWARD OTHERS

 Sooner or later, if you are on any classic 'spiritual schedule,' some event, person, death, idea, or relationship will enter your life with which you simply cannot cope using your present skill set, acquired knowledge, or willpower. Spiritually speaking, you will be led to the edge of your own private resources. At that point, you will stumble over a necessary 'stumbling stone' (see Isaiah 8:14).-- Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, March 31, 2019

I am convinced that the political climate we are in today is Isaiah's "stumbling stone," the necessary event requiring our being led to the edge of our own private resources...at which point, according to me, we hold our nose and take a leap of faith.

Resistance to our stumbling stone only nurtures it...for it is ours. It is our personal stumbling stone, our own event, and no change in the event will make a lick of difference within our consciousness. This event may change 180 degrees, but unless we have kissed that sucker on the lips (accepted it, holy, wholly accepted it), our consciousness will just find another...bigger, awfuler, uglier...stumbling stone to resist.

We already know our reasoning mind will not get us there. Because the political climate today is beyond reason says the reasoning mind. And we can repeat we must go beyond reason to love till our face falls off...without inside, i.e., higher, help, we aren't going to make an inch of headway. [She pronounces, based on her own repeated experience.]

Look elsewhere. Look away from the Hindenburg, away from the Titanic...ask at our church if  we can help with the little ones at Sunday school, or volunteer at an animal shelter. Out of self, into others...also based on my own experience.

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.

GOD'S GOT OUR BACK

We must stumble and fall, I am sorry to say. We must be out of the driver’s seat for a while, or we will never learn how to give up control to the Real Guide. It is the necessary pattern. Until we are led to the limits of our present game plan and find it to be insufficient, we will not search out or find our real Source.  -- Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, March 31, 2019

Here's the rude and wonderful awakening...we must stumble and fall more than once...or twice. Repeatedly, in a word. 

There's the Great One where we crash and burn...and learn. The learning is our new life pattern, and I believe is all about unlearning, letting go, detaching...subtracting as Meister Eckhart put it. Which explains why our go-to feeling is unsure.  

As we are raised deeper in consciousness, we feel less unsure, more on solid ground within, a certain trust in the inner Source. Until we don't. Until we stumble and fall. Until we are certain sure and are wrong...or are uncertain and unsure and are feeling apprehensive (which is fear in four syllables). That starts our what-to-do-what-to-do wheels spinning.

The core of spinning wheels is just that...not knowing. We get paralyzed by our efforts to know, and we know not what. Annihilating through analyzing is our go-to when fear is riding herd. There is no God there...who's kidding whom? There's not a lot of smarts there. 

The answer is akin to the coat of many colors...same answer, different color. Our solution is spelled out in all our spiritual readings, and particularly in today's God Calling: I want you to feel the thrill of protection and safety Now. Face each day with Love and Laughter. Face the storm. 

The storm is not ours. That may be why we don't know...it's not ours to know. Face the storm and feel the thrill of protection and safety...Now.

Thank you.

ON CEDING SELF FOR THE BENEFIT OF OTHERS

Free flowing questions to Jesus: When you first realized the truths that you later preached in the Sermon, afterward, did you walk those truths without inner bumps and bruises? Without self doubts? With unquestioning love? Did you feel love within for the Judases of your world even as you agreed with them quickly?  

Ah, this may well be my Rosetta Stone moment. I am stuck in Jesus' humanhood. I suspect I need a blinding flash of the obvious into consciousness of his divinity. From my eyebrows up, I understand, but I'm slowly realizing that he walked both at the same time. Which fact I "learned" in catechetical class when I was 12 years old. Slow to learn. No, slow to realize.

Jesus preached the Sermon to aid our consciousness in being lifted...which may or may never be...but by walking it, we will live a better humanhood. Better humanhood is out of self, and out of self is nigh on a guarantee of personal peace.

Isn't the core lesson of the entire Sermon the denial of self? Or, deeper, the ceding of self for the benefit of others.

Short form of the Sermon: Get over yourself.

Ah-ha! BFO...or plain old common sense, more like: That's how civilization gets broken down...looking for the short form. The Sermon needs every word that was preached then and that stands today. Mainly because we need each and every word for us to question unto realization.

We may hear get over yourself and know it as right, but our usual reaction is to mentally flip the bird and walk on without another thought.

Quick thought...the quote that the wheels of justice turn slow but grind exceedingly fine... I'm convinced spiritual realization comes slow in order to grow exceedingly deep. Since some of us are slow on the realization uptake, we can be grateful.

Thank you.

THANK YOU...WITHOUT QUESTION OR QUALIFIER

We can know...we can know until our face falls off...and even then we will still be questioning: Am I doing it right? Questioning and looking for the person to blame if we're not doing it right. And we never are wholly...to our own satisfaction. 

We are all born into a reasoning-mind world, albeit coming from God consciousness. We all go our own ego-led way of getting back there, back into God consciousness. 

There is no timetable, there is no guide book. We learn...slowly, oh so slowly (if we're doing it right)...that falling is necessary and thereby the hidden hook. Our reasoning mind earnestly believes that it is the falling that is to be avoided...no. It is falling unto crash-and-burn that proves to be the gold.

It is in the final crash-and-burn, which takes as many lifetimes as it takes, that we learn we know nothing...not how to avoid the falls, not how to fall easier, not how to cover-up our ignorance in falling yet again, nothing. And here is grace...the proverbial saving grace...to pick us up, turn us around and get us moving in the right direction. 

We have made our U-bie; we are heading home. The way home is as different for each of us as the way out was. Keeping it simple, I choose to believe there are two ways out...with spiritual guidance or without spiritual guidance. 

Both ways are of God for there is no place that God is not, and, personally, I doubt either way is less painful than the other. As Fr Richard Rohr has written, "The Gospels teach us that life is tragic but then graciously add that we can survive and will even grow from this tragedy. This is the great turnaround! It all depends on whether we are willing to see down as up."

There is our giftee, the break from the reasoning mind...being willing to see down as up. To go beyond knowing to realizing that being grateful for the gray days is the healer of pain. That thank you without question is the only appropriate words in the moment of Now. 

God loves us so much. We can know that by the force of our falls.

Thank you.

THE ART OF LISTENING KEEPING AN OPEN MIND

As long as you show up with some degree of vulnerability, the Spirit can keep working. Self-sufficiency makes God experience impossible! -- Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, May 9, 2019

Reading Rohr this morning, the thought occurred that to be willing to be changed in the moment is to cease fighting anything and anybody.

All that must needs change is our mind...not to "let" the other win, that is playing God, but to be open to God changing our perspective when we first feel resistance to what the other is saying.

Learn to Listen...very likely life's best directive. Learn to Listen While Keeping An Open Mind being the complete course...without which little is learned.

We learn to listen, to really hear the other, in order to agree with our adversary quickly. 

Most important is the discovery that spiritual principles will solve all our problems. -- Anonymous

Thank you.

ON THE JOY OF LOSING

Something in you dies when you bear the unbearable. And it is only in that dark night of the soul that you are prepared to see as God sees and to love as God loves. —Ram Das

You must 'lose' at something, and then you begin to develop the art of losing. -- Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, March 31, 2019

Or, as Joseph Campbell put it, “where you stumble, there lies your treasure.”

If you're feeling unloved, unwanted, unneeded and unappreciated...you're doing it right. Apparently.

Thank you.

GO BEYOND REASON TO DO

Grant what thou commandest and then command what thou wilt. -- Saint Augustine

Saint Augustine's prayer is much on my mind this morning. I'm adjusting to a new slant on ego; namely, its strength in aiding in our spiritual growth.

Almost in awe, I recently read Fr Rohr's "Daily Meditation" quoting James Hollis that the very achievement of ego strength is the source for our hope for something better. The ego’s highest task is to go beyond itself into service, service to what is really desired by the soul....

I have been a long time aware that knowing the words and doing the words are two entirely different matters. We must know them to do them, but we must all but forget them in order to live them. Mainly because we get stuck in the idea that we know, we know, we know...all the while stuck in the pain of not moving...i.e., doing.

The concept of ego strength as the source for our hope for something better has been quietly thundering through my thoughts for awhile now. Both my daily Easwaran reading and my God Calling today are all about our doing that which we need.

Easwaran quotes the Buddha's saying, the spiritual teacher only points the way, we must do our own traveling. Then, quoting God Calling, [O]nce I have shown the way...it is by your efforts that [your difficulties] will be surmounted. * * * I take man's effort and bless that.

A possible, maybe, I hope, mini-breakthrough came to me this morning as to my ego going beyond itself into service, service to what is really desired by the soul. What if that is as simple as just getting over myself? That would take an upgrade in my thinking...as in silencing my thoughts, a.k.a.  meditation.

Ah, and here comes God to give me a high-five: Faith can develop fully only when we begin to reap the benefits of meditation in our own lives. -- "Words to Live By," Eknath Easwaran, May 7

Thank you.

EXCHANGE FREE WILL FOR GOD'S WILL

Maybe the troubles with and within the world today...meaning world-wide trouble and singular, individual you and individual me trouble...is that we forget, or have never really considered, that the I that I am is every single soul in the universe. 

Idle wonderings: There is only one pool of consciousness, God consciousness, and we each share...are a part of...that God consciousness. Living in our own ego-based, reasoning-mind world, we act as though we are alone in our own consciousness. It's my contention that unless and until we reconnect with God consciousness, we're as a pail of water dipped up from the ocean...still ocean water, but for what purpose? 

We really are One. But, like the pail of ocean water, until we reconnect with our core, the Source,  we're fairly useless. Unlike the pail of ocean water, we have been given free will, and we can use that...well, freely. But until we use it to turn away from our own idea of separate, singular, individual and proud of it, we're misusing that will. 

We may well earn fortunes, split atoms, win wars and reap glory, but if we're not connected with our Source, all that garnering is just garnering, signifying nothing to our Soul, our inner connector.

Poor world -- teach it that there is only one cure for all its ills -- Union with Me. Dare to suffer, dare to conquer, be filled with My sublime audacity. Remember that. Claim the unclaimable. -- "God Calling," May 6

Thank you.

ANXIETY...GOD'S CALLING CARD

Knowing Truth from the eyebrows up is essential...it is even more essential that we then let it go. "It" being our own understanding of Truth. If it isn't released from our "knowing," it becomes rote, and we start to preach the words, never realizing their ever-deeper meaning.

The conundrum is that though we made Truth ours, it is not ours to let go, it is God's to lift in order for it to grow. All the while we're trying to hold it because it was given us by God and it is ours. We must go beyond reason....

Only in looking back can we see and appreciate God's hand in it. Going through the process just feels to our reasoning mind like we must be doing it wrong. We even hear that bantered about..."If it hurts, you're doing it wrong." Not always. The hurt is usually the anxiety that change brings...change being the unknown.

When we're making our slow way upward to a deeper level, we know not what we're coming to or even if we're doing it right...this might be us going down that wrong road again, whispers our rational mind.

But we can't go back...trying that just causes more anxiety. Ah, and trying to move forward all on our own just causes more anxiety. Finally we hit the yellow brick wall...and we know, and we know we know, nothing and less than nothing. And that is good.

There it is...anxiety made clear. Anxiety is "Thy rod and Thy staff" and that "they comfort us." We can welcome anxiety with our thank  you now, knowing it as proof that God is on the field...or as God's calling card.

Anxiety...God's gift of grace through gratitude.

Thank you.

THE BEST USE OF FREE WILL...GOD'S WILL

Passing thoughts: My theory, based on nothing but my own thinking, is that we are sent out into the material world for to find our way Home or back to the God-consciousness pool, i.e., B.C. (before conception).

Our way Home is our life. The journey starts by our making a mistake...which is only right since we've never done this before. That's how and why the first lesson we learn is to turn to God. Like, what's our choice? He's the only one Home.

Which path, spiritual or intellectual, that we choose to walk in life is determined then and there. Spiritual seekers will accept God's will; spiritually intellectual seekers will change it up a bit; the beyond intellectual and the dumb as a box of rocks will choose to go it alone. That's okay...in the end we all wind up in the same place.

There are many ways and reasons for our life-journey...each of us has our own. Our tools to  use are whatever our free will chooses. Our joys, unselfish acts, and the grace of gratitude confirm we are going in the right direction but our mistakes, errors in judgment and self-centered-fear choices form the macadam for our path.

Just like our very first act, a mistake, those are the guides that turn us to God. That's the mirror-image of God...what appears as a mistake to us is God's will, ever for our benefit and equally for the benefit of others.

It takes some of us a lifetime to fully accept that our free will is best used to conform to God's will, to turn from our wants so our needs may be met.

Underneath that lifetime a-learning is another pearl beyond price...conforming to God's will is using our free will for the benefit of others. Of learning that spiritual principles beat our best thinking and giving over, giving up, giving in form the pathway Home.

Thank you.

OUR ROUGH ROW TO HOE IS GOD'S GIFT

My gift this morning is the clear thought that my petty fears are my chosen walk. To feel misunderstood, left out, shunned, ignored is my rough row to hoe. Not for God to take away so I have no rough row, but for God to use me to hoe...through my hands, feet, body and brains.

Then I read God Calling:  Cease trying to forgive those who fretted or wronged you...all true forgiveness is of God and is God. The self cannot forgive. Aim at killing the self now--in your daily life, and then, and not until then, you will find there is nothing that even remembers injury because the only one injured, the self, is dead. 

Blinding flash of the obvious: To kill self now is to have a change in consciousness and that is all.

The end result of love being returned for hate must needs be me accepting my foe with not a word...or thought!...of condemnation. There, that's the hard, hard part. Because, of course, that would require me getting over my own self, not my foe nor my foe's actions. There. That is God's work...through my change in consciousness. My work is to prepare me for it.

Thank you.

PARADOX, THE CONUNDRUM OF LIFE

Loving means to love that which is unlovable,

Or it is no virtue at all.

Forgiving means to pardon the unpardonable,

Faith means believing the unbelievable,

And hoping means to hope when things are hopeless.

-- G. K. Chesterton

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

When we're feeling the most wounded, when our bucket of gratitude has sprung a leak, there's only one answer for us...we must change our mind.

We know from experience that the start to any change of mind for the better is an  upgrade of our attitude. For this we are responsible. We welcome our downer thoughts, knowing if not for them, we wouldn't be turning to God...they are our path to grace within.

With keep it simple our watchword, we pray our thank you...specifically, thank you for our everything just as it is right this very minute. 

And lo! We're led to  Eckhart Tolle's 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.

There. Our Father is on the field...the hole in our bucket of gratitude is plugged by the grace of acceptance...our mind is changed for the better, and we hold that thought.

God loves us sooo much.

Thank you.

AND THE WORLD CAN BE AS ONE

I wonder if the state of the world today isn't directly linked to Nature. Per "God Calling" this day, Read the lessons of Divine control in Nature's laws. Nature is but the expression of Eternal Thoughts in Time.

It stands to reason that our walking-around self will be as adversely affected by our careless disregard of Nature as are life's necessaries...air, earth, forests, and oceans.

Ah, but never forget...the Law, i.e., Justice.

Lies are accepted...lies from once good and honest people are accepted by once good and honest people. Crippling the judicial system is accepted as the new...and acceptable...way to govern. Money and more money is the determiner of right or wrong...they who have enough money (albeit there is no enough) are right, those who don't are wrong.

Nature's laws are unforgiving...obey them or die in out-of-control forest fires, thousand-year hurricanes, sink-holes swallowing whole roads...self-invited destruction.

Then, too the laws of justice are unforgiving. The wheels of justice turn slowly, but grind exceedingly fine.

Spiritual laws on the other hand are forgiving; they just feel unforgiving when we disobey them.Take for instance, love your enemy. If we don't, it's fight time! Which never has a good ending for one side in particular but almost invariably it turns out that the other side...the apparent winner...seldom stays the winner. Up becomes down, vice versa, so why not agree with your adversary quickly and save the hassle.

You may say I'm a dreamer...But I'm not the only one...Join me, and the world can be as one.  --  "Imagine" by John Lennon

Thank you.