SPIRITUAL GROWTH TAKING ROOT...HURTS

I suspect that ego deflation in depth is spiritual growth taking root. It hurts if we're doing it right.

I recently took  a leap of faith by openly sharing my all-alone feelings to a group of friends. The response has been thunderous silence, and I am feeling rejected...embarrassed, in truth. My ego Lucy is deep into plans for where we can move to...or run to and hide at any rate.

According to me, this is the process of actually doing that which it is so easy to talk about: We hold our nose and take a leap of faith...while we are still out there in the ether, we are holding...no matter how teeny-tiny the hold...to the idea that we will land on the other side with our want-to gifted to us.

We are blessed when we land not only in the exact opposite of our want-to, but in the midst of our need. Until we let go of that want utterly and completely (until every last farthing is paid), we will have our rues, regrets and remorses niggling at us.

When we are stuck in our want-to, there is no peace, be still. There is only self, praying we get our want. Until we are  lifted into gratitude for our unwanted need, ego will dictate our feelings...unloved, unwanted, unneeded and unappreciated. Speaking of egoic hurts.

Our further lesson to learn is feeling like we want to run and hide from a hurt is to be loved, too. Hug it and kiss it and let it go. Then we listen for the word from the Lord...and go forward acting on that word.

Here's a clue...if the word from the Lord doesn't begin with love and laugh, we're heading down that wrong road again. With Lucy happily making mud pies over to the side.

Thank you.

GOD'S HAND IS IN IT...ALWAYS AND ALL WAYS

You wonder sometimes why you are permitted to make mistakes in your choice when you sought so truly to do My will in the matter.  To that I say it was no mistake....

All your lessons cannot be learned without difficulty, and this was needed to teach you a lesson. Not to him who walks on, with no obstructions in his way, but to him that overcometh is the promise given. 

So to attain peace quickly in your surroundings, as well as in your hearts, learn your lesson quickly. And the overcoming is never the overcoming of the one who troubled you, but the overcoming of the weaknesses and wrong in your own natures, aroused by such a one.   God Calling, July 28

To that I say it was no mistake.... There. That is our assurance on which we kneel in faith and in trust, knowing, always and all ways, God's hand is in it.

Thank you.

HOLD YOUR NOSE & TAKE A LEAP OF FAITH

Primary paradox...our reasoning mind can agree with spiritual truths, but because it can't figure out how to do spiritual truths, it doubts spiritual truths.

We feel safer identifying spiritual truths and their cosmic nature as coincidence, or serendipitous, or even lucky! That is, we cling to our feeling of security, refusing to step out of our comfort zone, thus keeping reason in control.

Going beyond reason to love is a scary journey...albeit completely nonhazardous. Which we cannot realize until and unless we get to the other side, a.k.a., hold our nose and take a leap of faith.

Thank you.

LAUGHTER, FREEDOM FROM SELF

[The following is a reprint from my post of February 15, 2018.]

According to me, there's a little Judas that lives within all of us. We'd best learn to bless him, to call her name blessed.

Wherever, whenever there is a mutual resistance going on (and it seems there's always someone!) we can consciously think: "I'm the Judas s/he sees in me, s/he's the Judas I see in her/him...what I see is always myself. Thank you."

We need to bless that Judas who lives within since we cannot stop her and we cannot top him, We can only go to God with it. We take it to God...and we surely know God's answer by now...love and laugh. There. That which we knew as Judas is transmuted into our spiritual guide leading us to freedom from self. 

The pearl beyond price is learning that to love the Judas who lives within is to love our own self, our warts in particular. I've not found a better way to love my warts than to laugh. Despair and disparagement seem to be their Miracle-Gro...grins, their wart-killer.

Ah, we can relax now, knowing, Blessed are they who can laugh at themselves for they will never cease to be amused. 

Thank you

HE, SHE, THEY ARE NOT OUR PROBLEM

When we begin our journey seeking spiritual growth we are told that all we need change is...everything. Specifically, every thought we have. In happy ignorance, we're fine with that. We'll return there to be reminded repeatedly...if we're doing it right.

The first lesson, which is never, ever ending, is reason opposes spiritual. We must go beyond reason to love. When we accept that, we learn we are the source of all our woes. Graced with acceptance of those truths puts us on the right path...learning to love.

That which the Buddha, Mohammad, Jesus, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., all the greats, taught and that which we hear are two entirely different things. It all depends if we are listening for to reason or hearing for to love. 

Hearing to love, we realize all those greats taught love plain and simple. Love, not as sentimentality, but love that is self-forgetful and free of self-interest. One way to love is, if someone slaps you upside your head, you turn the other cheek...or, to show love tirelessly, no matter what happens. That’s the meaning of turning the other cheek (from a Meditation of Fr Richard Rohr).

Listening to reason, we interpret turn the other cheek as meaning we become a lapdog, or, worse, a rug for others to wipe their feet on. Reminder: We must go beyond reason....

We often make the mistake of thinking we need to discipline our ego...or kill it...neither of which are possible, according to me. I'm convinced the only way to make peace with our ego is to love it, too. Our reasoning mind it is that needs discipline...through books we read that are spiritual in nature, people we are drawn to and their teachings, our intuitive meditations and whatever else is gifted us.

Ego is always legislating for self. Our egoic intent begins the endless cycle of what goes around comes around and includes hurt people hurt people.

Another basic spiritual-growth lesson that we learn, accept and love: Our toes get stepped on seemingly without provocation. Invariably we find we have made a decision based on self that later placed us in a position to be hurt. -- Anonymous

We can justify till our face falls off, even bring in Dr. Know to agree with us, but still more spiritual growth never recognizes him, her, them as our problem. We are the source of all our woes.

Here now, God's mellow glory, love and laughter:  We have met the enemy and he is us -- Pogo.

Thank you.

OUR RELUCTANCE TO TRUST

We need not ask God to come to our aid...we have all of God's aid within us now and have had from before conception. All we need do is use it, trust it, rely on it...then in peace knowing, no matter how the results look, they are for our benefit.

It is, however, that appearance of the results that gives legs to our mental donnybrook which forms the crossroads of what our ego eyes want to see and what our uplifted eyes know to be. At the core of our indecision is our interpretation of God's aid and our reluctance to trust.

Think of God as the original GPS. We realize we are at a crossroads so we seek direction. God answers with the best direction. Regrettably to the reasoning mind, fortunately, as it turns out, for our spiritual growth, we tend to interpret his direction according to our own reasoning mind's direction. 

The pearl of great price: No matter what directions he gives us, when we to screw them up, he makes them right again. Ah, but the time it takes making things right depends entirely on our willingness to come about to his way. When we come about, we realize his is always the right way. (I suspect, by the way, that it is the side effects of our going our way that is the birth canal of our karma.) 

He goes before us to make the crooked places straight. Ours to remember and to trust: His making the way straight happens on his timetable which is for the benefit of all.

Thank you.

NO RESISTANCE, NO PROBLEM

Every morning I pray: For this day I turn myself over to  you to do with me and build of me as you will. Take away my difficulties that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of your love, your power and  your way of life. May I do thy will always. Thank you.

This morning I prayed: For this day I turn my thoughts over to  you to do with them and build on them as you will. Take away our difficulties that victory over our resistance may bear witness to those I would help of your love, your power and your way of life. May we do thy will always. Thank you.

Then I read "Words to Live By," the Eknath Easwaran daily reader, where the first sentence is: A tremendous amount of our vital energy is squandered in the vacillations of the mind.

I take particular heed when, with no direct input from me, I find me being lead in the right direction.

It is no new truth, no blinding flash, that our thoughts are the source of both our happy and our woe. It has been awhile now that I have been led to pray my thank you not for others when they are ticking me off, but for my thoughts about them...seeking an upgrade not of them but of my thoughts about them.

Good news: That works! Bad news: When I remember. (Which may well be the secret power of our ego...I forgot.)

The face-it fact is, more often than not, I forgot is ego's cover for our want-to. Our discipline is ever toward overcoming the tendency of our gut-led ego clinging to being right while our heart wants to do God's will whatever that might be.

This, too, is a call to love...our gut-led ego. Hug it and kiss it and let it go...there is no problem if there is no resistance.

Thank you.

THERE IS A POWER WITHIN THAT WORKS FOR US

[God’s] very nature makes love endless and miraculous. God will never stop loving us. Consider this truth, and, if by grace you can make love your own, do. For the experience is eternal joy; its absence is unending suffering. —The Cloud of Unknowing (author anonymous)

There is an intelligence within that is above the reasoning mind...it is all good, always available. -- my blinding flash of the obvious as noted September 23, 2013

I feel deeply moved by the phrase in The Cloud if by grace you can make love your own, do. Specifically, if by grace you can, do. 

Isn't that the quiet word for all our wants, hopes, dreams?...if by grace you can, do. The how-to falls within another simple sentence: We must try with a will or fall by the wayside (also author anonymous). 

Most importantly, we must try with a will to remember that there really is an intelligence within above the reasoning mind...all good, always available...that doeth the works. 

We avail ourself of change with our thank you. We live the turn within to that Higher Power on awakening and as we walk through our day and as we are falling asleep at night with that free-floating thank you going before us to make the crooked places straight. 

There's where our reasoning mind is our friend...our ego will resist (our attention is not on it), but our reasoning mind, once disciplined like a well-trained dog, takes us back to thank you. 

God is not available on demand, he is simply available. It is our own self we must make available to God, to God's love. 

God’s very nature makes love endless and miraculous. It matters not that we may only know this from our eyebrows up as long as we are willing to go beyond reason to that love. (I am reminded of Saul on the road to Damascus...apparently grace is not dependent on our willingness. But I'm fairly certain it helps.)

Thank you.

MY GOAL FOR ME...MY HOPE FOR OUR WORLD

...suffering, even unjust suffering (and all suffering is unjust), is part of one Great Mystery.... -- Fr Richard Rohr's "Daily Meditation," September 22, 2019

The following, from Rohr's Meditation today, was written by Etty Hillesum (1914–1943), a young, Dutch, Jewish woman who died in Auschwitz. This is my goal for me today, my hope for our world:

And that is all we can manage these days and also all that really matters: that we safeguard that little piece of You, God, in ourselves. And perhaps in others as well. Alas, there doesn’t seem to be much You Yourself can do about our circumstances, about our lives. Neither do I hold You responsible. You cannot help us, but we must help You and defend Your dwelling place inside us to the last.

Thank you.

IN GOD WE TRUST

As a young man, Gandhi actually supported empire and colonialism. He learned and grew by making mistakes and by being in relationship. -- Eknath Easwaran as quoted in Fr Richard Rohr's "Daily Meditation," September 20, 2019

Gandhi learned and grew by making his mistakes and being willing to correct them by turning to  spiritual principles, primarily the principle of nonviolence.

This is a practical example of why we'd best stop the backward-judging of our politicians today. Of digging up what they said or did back in their day that was wrong then but not yet universally realized as such. The reverse of that, of course, is those who knew it was wrong back then and were made mock of...or worse...for it. That, ironically, is known as being right too soon.

The personal act of judging is the brain-twister. We want to be able to discern without judging. According to me that's another can't-be-done-by-willpower-alone. Discernment, according to Google, is (in Christian contexts) perception in the absence of judgment with a view to obtaining spiritual guidance and understanding.

Plain and simple, we'd best stop backward and forward judging...else what is forgiveness for? Else why even think about practicing the Sermon on the Mount? When sitting in judging of anyone, or when determined to be rigid, righteous and right about friends, enemies or even politicians, our spiritual needs are precluded.

Since the big election is upon us, we might consider Velcroing ourself to the Sermon as our personal guide. We can expend our efforts and our time seeking to understand what the candidates for any office are doing today...what and who are they supporting today.

Then we can have rational discussions with open-minded others, make our decision, and vote our conscience...and trust in God for the best outcome.

Thank you.

PRACTICE BY LIVING THE SERMON

The last sentence in the penultimate paragraph of my blog of yesterday...I have experienced this...not very often, but because I have, I can again...came to me in the night, and I awoke laughing...at myself of all things.

The particular hoot is because I have, I can again. I was reminded that I can do nothing, the Father within does the work.

All I needed was a second to recall that basically all I did to experience the freedom of which I wrote was forget about it. I forgot about it by not responding to it in the first place. And there it is...I personally am completely incapable of not responding all on my own. Not respond to my face getting slapped? Only if my reasoning mind has taken a powder...or a power greater than myself has not.

Thinking for even a red-hot minute that I can do it again is my ego Lucy planting her flag. The fact is because I have on occasion experienced the freedom, I do believe I can be lifted again to its happening through me.

It is our raised experiences that helps stay our mind on the spiritual nature of life itself, clearing the way for us to be gifted and regifted. We ready ourself to be so gifted by practice, living the Sermon.

Thank you.

OUR REWARD...PEACE OF MIND AND JOY FOREVER

Once we finally realize that which we're being taught...in short, the teachings in the Sermon on the Mount, or even shorter, give over, give up, give in...we understand the difference between learning and doing.

Some of us learn and forget about it; some learn and promptly teach; others learn and recognize that we need to put aside all else we've known. Which is pretty much as Meister Eckhart taught: God is not found in the soul by adding anything, but by a process of subtraction.

We learned early on that ego deflation in depth was essential to our spiritual growth, and we were good with that...from our eyebrows up. Doing it, however, proved to be almost entirely about it being done to us...an ego dog-fight right there.

We've come to another hard lesson a-learning: Ego deflation in depth requires our going against the dictates of our reasoning mind...against our egoic truths; namely, that we must stand up for ourself, not let others take from us or push us around, etc. Then...here's the Sermon on the Mount come to show us our way: If someone slaps you upside your head, turn the other cheek, if someone steals your coat, run after them and give them your cloak, resist not evil, etc.

Here's my take on the story: If we have seriously and sincerely turned our will and our life over to the care of God, we need worry not about standing up for ourself or fretting about protecting ourself...it is done. We've given all those concerns for self over to the care of God. He has them...he has us in the palm of his hand. Our task now is all within our own self...to give over within, to give up within, to give in within. This is seeking first the kingdom of Heaven, and ego deflation in depth is done for the day.

The punchline: The speaker of the snark, the slapper of our cheek may be proving our worst ego-fear come true: They may be walking around full of them self for getting over on us, may be telling others what a schlemiel we are and others may well be believing it...yet we know, believe, feel love in our heart and soul for them, and their story is as nothing to us. I have experienced this...not very often, but because I have, I can again...and I am beyond grateful.

The reward, and no, we shouldn't be looking for a reward but who's kidding whom? So the reward is we have peace of mind, we know joy. We love and laugh...a lot.

Thank you.

FREED TO BE OF BENEFIT TO OTHERS

Love. Living for others. For the peace of mind of others. My long, sometimes dreary, often delightful journey has brought me to the recognition that my need to live for others began (and continues) through thank you. Thank you to the happenings of my daily life. Plain and simple, we welcome our perceived problem du jour.

We pray not for a problem to be lifted for that perception is our gateway to understanding our own self...what we see is always ourself. We cannot sincerely seek peace for others if we have only a surface understanding of our own self. A want-to without intent, clearly.

Eknath Easwaran wrote that Gandhi believed even without reference to spirituality, joy lies in living for the welfare of all. I suspect that is just as the Rev Martin Luther King, Jr., believed.

Gandhi, a Hindu, King, a Baptist, neither of the so-called elite white community, both becoming world-renowned leaders for peace, both assassinated, both long dead, still leading through their singular consciousness of nonviolence. Ah, nonviolence, a way of putting love to work in resolving problems, healing relationships, and generally raising the quality of our lives (also Gandhi).

There. According to me, that defines resist not evil. Which cannot be done but by love.

When evil comes calling, if we don't have love in our heart, our soul, our body and our brains, we must needs resist. It is the perception of evil that comes knocking at the door of our rational mind; if we are not living in the higher consciousness of love, we reflexively resist. And we cannot live in the consciousness of love when we are living, thinking, feeling, doing for the betterment (which we call protection) of ourself first and/or only.

Whether we know it or not, there are miracles happening every day that protect us from the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, but it is only through our raised consciousness of love that we have no need to know that.

We live trusting the God of our own understanding to intervene in our live on our behalf...and thereby free us to be of benefit to another.

Thank you.

ALL IS WELL...JUST AS IT IS

Our constant desire to do the Sermon, to walk the path of the Christ, is just another ego-block to doing the Sermon, to walking the path of love.

Today's "God Calling" spells that out: You are doing so. This is the way. The way of uncertain future and faltering steps. It is My Way.  .  .  . Put all fear of the future aside. Know that you will be led. Know that you will be shown. I have promised.

The way of an uncertain future and faltering steps is difficult to welcome precisely because that is what the reasoning mind sees as needing to be corrected. Even as we say, "I am the source of all my woes," we are thinking of ways to correct those woes...to make of oneself a better person. Which isn't bad, it just isn't My Way.

The reasoning mind, our way, stays us in self, in self-determined objectives. Even choosing not to gossip, to take pride that we do not gossip, is to stay stuck in self. It sounds so right, the absolute of not gossiping, and it is, of course...but it's rigid, righteous and right. There is no God in that.

I love that we can take our cue from the fable of the three monkeys...one heard no evil, one saw no evil, one spoke no evil. There. That's how we begin our walk in the right direction...not by determining not to hear, see, speak evil, but by trusting that our Father within has freed us from our attachments to self.

When (not if) we come to uncertain times, our steps falter, and our mind questions...we trust that God has our back. We trust all is well all the way through. Until...whoa and lo!...we realize: All is well and exactly as it need be. We know gratitude through grace.

Thank you.

AUTHENTIC SPIRITUALITY...OR OTHERS

Authentic spirituality is always first about you—about allowing your own heart and mind to be changed. It’s about getting your own who right. Who is it that is doing the perceiving? Is it your illusory, separate, false self; or is it your True Self, who you are in God? -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," September 15, 2019

To me, the first seven words above were a real kick in the consciousness...authentic spirituality is always first about ME? Here's me working ever so diligently to get over me...to put me behind me. Oh, then I read the rest of the sentence, about allowing your own heart and mind to be changed.

There's the sliver of gold, our go-to first step. Being handed a new slant on authentic spirituality, we are gifted with the how-to: We allow our own heart and mind to be changed. To be raised out of reliance on reason into reliance on spiritual.

Not surprisingly, this is the spiritual way we have been learning that we need to rely on. That new way of thinking...spiritually, as in others first. We know that our reasoning mind will ever think of our own self first which is probably why one of the first readings that was given us was the Sermon on the Mount. Face it, the Sermon is all about giving over, giving up, giving in...or, more succinctly, is all about others. As in, the way to find the peace we seek is to put others first.

There. That puts the period to our reasoning mind's security blanket...about the need to stand up for ourself, to never let a snub go unacknowledged, to never let a snark go unanswered. Our thinking resists for reason will have us mentally in the fetal position, passive and feeling put upon. Which cannot be maintained...and shouldn't be...but to stay in reasoning resistance is continuing down that wrong road.

We want peace, peace with each other, peace within ourself. Peace comes by extending peace, and staying with our reasoning mind proves to be untenable. We choose to go beyond reason to authentic spirituality: We seek God's guidance.

Ah, we find the peace that passes understanding.

Thank you.

OH, TO FIND ONE HONEST HUMAN

You meant evil against me, but God used it for good. -- Genesis 50:20

I wrestle with my own thoughts on the happenings in today's United States of America, and I'm gifted with Genesis 50:20: You meant it for ill, but God meant it for good. 

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

May it be so.

Thank you.

A TRANSCENDENT HIGHER POWER, GOD TO ME

Per Psychologist Stanley Milgram (1933–1984), who was significantly influenced by the Holocaust:
Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority. -- from Fr Richard Rohr's "Daily Meditation," September 14, 2019

Milgram describes precisely why I believe a transcendent Higher Power, God to me, is a personal need in the life of each of us. That being true, I also believe, as James Finley has written, the absolute love of God protects us from nothing even as it sustains us in all things.

Until we stop looking to God to protect us, change us, change situations we ourselves have created through ignorance or malice or misguided love, we will be unable to accept the love of God. We will know it, the love of God, only from our eyebrows up.

It is our unfailing inner efforts to know and to show the love of that transcendent Higher Power, God, that imbues us with our fundamental standards of morality, the ability if you will to see [our] wrong and try to right it.

Equally important is the ability to accept our human condition which will ever be en garde for self. Of course, by "to accept" I mean to get over ourself. And don't think for a minute that doesn't take a boatload of cooperating with a transcendent Higher Power, God.

Thank you.

NOT JUST CHANGE BUT EXCHANGE

When we come to a stuck place, I heard a long time ago that all we need do is move to another pew...we don't need to change churches, just move to another pew. It's that kind of unsophisticated, or down-home, philosophy that keeps me open when (not if) I hit a stuck place.

It also seems that when I'm thinking I've got The Answer, I'm sooner or later moved to another pew...a deeper understanding. For instance, I've been relying for sometime now on the flash that the hardest thing life will ask of us is that we change our mind. I realized this morning that most times we think we've changed our mind when all we've changed is our opinion.

Which led to a new flash: The hardest thing life will ask of us is that we exchange our mind.

Our mindset must needs be moved  up to a deeper consciousness...from dual consciousness, me/you/me thinking, to God consciousness, the spiritual awareness of I, or One, thinking.

That process usually begins with a simple realization such as the worst thing that could ever happen to me is the best thing that could ever happen to me. There's a simple realization that our reasoning mind will resist till the last frog has croaked. Which is as it must be...truth must be proved by us if it is to be true for us. Take, for instance, He goes before us to make the crooked placed straight...we must actually walk those crooked places, not knowing what is around the next crook in the road.

We can't get there by praying for the crooked places to be lifted. That's simply wishing for our fear to be gone by God or by grace, by hook or by crook. It makes no difference to the reasoning mind fueled by fear.

We learn to rely from our experience on the truth that fear is God in camouflage. Fear immediately turns us to God which walks within us along those crooked places...in the end lifting us up to a deeper consciousness.

Here we find peace...we know it and we show it. We love and laugh.

Thank you.

WE DO IT FOR NEITHER PRAISE NOR PRIZE

Morning blinding flash of the obvious:  Seek to win nothing, seek to earn.

That flash took me back to another, the one about praying for anything is ego-based, being purely self-interest no matter how pretty we dress it up. Seeking to win, even the kingdom of Heaven, is looking to get. We seek within to find the kingdom of Heaven which is and ever has been there, awaiting our opened eyes.

To win is to lose when we stay in that egoic either/or mindset. Through our inner work we earn our rightful place in God consciousness...the consciousness of One.

It is God consciousness that awakens us to the great reward of gratitude. Just this morning I realized that nothing elicits a more personally satisfied feeling than doing that which I need to do when I'd just as soon not do it. No matter how small the effort, e.g., my yoga-exercise. I usually do it because I do it. This morning, I had every justification not to, but I did...later than usual, against my want-to, half peeved but I did it.

The warm and wonderful feeling about me that I got upon finishing my yoga this morning is still with me...has already made my day. I did what I needed to do, and I did it for neither praise nor for prize. That alone is the pearl beyond price. This warm feeling...my earned treasure...is and will be available for me as proof of purchase the next time I need it.

Just as I am the source of all my woes (ego-led), I am the source of my own treasure (God-realized).

People often asked Dr. Jung, 'Will we make it?' referring to the cataclysm of our time. He always replied, 'If enough people will do their inner work.' This soul work is the one thing that will pull us through any emergency. — Robert Johnson (from Fr Richard Rohr's "Daily Meditation," September 12, 2019)

Thank you.

ON BEING NO BETTER THAN I OUGHT TO BE

I am reminded of my heart's homemade acceptance prayer: Thank You that I am no better than I ought to be, being me. Amen.

Seeking still more spiritual growth skates fairly close to the spiritual arrogance line. A quick clarification...it's not seeking that's a problem, it's nattering about it. The humble brag if you will. 

Maybe the answer to the problem is found in Meister Eckhart's "subtraction" theory; i.e., God is not found in the soul by adding anything, but by a process of subtraction.

It's difficult for me to imagine talking a lot about letting go of a defect today (subtraction) because my today's defects are so petty, small, niggling...embarrassing.

God is a good housekeeper...he cleaned up my biggies a long time ago. By cleaned up, of course, I mean he transmuted them so now when I catch myself re-using one, I get to laugh at me...together with the friend who is with me.

Still more spiritual growth for me today is when I'm caught relying on a petty, small, niggling defect...usually trying to impress. That's when my acceptance prayer earns its wings for there's me, standing naked in my own muddle. For whatever reason, nothing soothes like a mental Thank You that I am no better than I ought to be, being me.

That, and knowing that God loves me sooo much.

Thank you.

RESIST AND LOSE, WELCOME AND WIN

Of all my spiritual-growth training, discipline, seeking, I find my thoughts are my bane for they prove the hardest to tame, to train. This has to be the basis of my belief that changing our mind can only be well and truly accomplished by grace and by God. 

I am often awed when my actions in a dicey situation are spot on...invariably proving peace-giving begets peace-receiving. Then sometime later...wham!  My thoughts have returned to the place where my actions were so gratifying, only these are not peaceful thoughts...they are attack thoughts that have sprung up unnoticed, and they have taken charge. 

It is counterintuitive, but essential, to welcome those attack thoughts else we are in that losing battle of self-will versus self-interest, breeding denial in the form of justification. In short, resist and lose, welcome and win. The battle, after all, is in our own mind. 

Interestingly, I have just read today's "Words to Live By" by Eknath Easwaran. There is his validation for welcoming our scattered (attack) thoughts by mentally repeating our mantram (our thank you) at all times:  In all cases, you are putting your time to better use than if you were just letting your mind run on about what might be troubling it. You are sending the mantram deeper into your consciousness. It is many of these little moments that finally add up to tremendous spiritual growth. Patience and concentration blossom in the space that you have cleared for them.

According to me, all our training, our discipline, our seeking has...and is!...for just one goal: To remember that to welcome is to pray thank you, and that is all.

Thank you.

OUR DARKEST CORNER...GOD'S HIDEY-HOLE

Our great gift is our realization that God is not waiting to gift us with patience or forgiveness or peace of mind. No. We were gifted with those at birth. We are wholly responsible for finding them within us as needed...in the darkest corner of our heart, soul, body and brains.

We joy in the fact that God holds our responsibility in trust for us. We go there and find love.

Yes, love is the final goal but ever deeper trust inside of darkness is the path for getting there. -- Fr. Richard Rohr

Thank you.

GOD LOVES YOU AND SO DO I

Even when insulted, Francis did not take offence. Now that is freedom, or what he called 'perfect joy!' -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," September 8, 2019

Short form of Saint Francis' yardstick for finding peace: It is not winning the love and admiration of others or even winning the Nobel Peace Prize. If, however, you are called scum of the earth and get spit in the eye...and you can reply, without lying, "God loves you, and so do I," you will know perfect peace.

Reading Rohr's one sentence this morning, my eyes were opened. In effect, this is exactly what I had told JoB that I sought...and what she soon delivered to me and with an audience!

My BFO: I was given the opportunity to follow Francis, to do as Jesus did before Pilate, answering not a word.

My block to making that opportunity mine, or finding that promised "perfect peace," has been my search to understand JoB, to excuse her, to find, by my thinking, no fault in her. That is a purely egoic search...seeking the gift God has already given, but not to my thinking. 

I say often that the hardest thing life will ever ask of us is that we change our mind. Here's me with God's golden opportunity to do just that, and it's the last thing I recognized.

Change your mind. No greater gift.

Thank you.

GOD MADE VISIBLE IN OUR SOUL

Trust in the unseen Lord comes from our not knowing how, when, where He has made the crooked places straight. That is ours to know, to rely on, without thought or prayer.

It is also ours to know without thought or prayer, i.e., to trust, that all our rues, regrets and remorses only exist in our own minds. They have vanished...or been vanquished...even as they occurred. All by the unseen and unseeable forces of the Almighty.

This we do not come to trust...we do not trust the bad being made good, just as we do not wait for a bad to happen to us in order to practice trusting. We trust as we breathe or it is not trust at all, it's wishful thinking.

This, I'm thinking, is the entire body of forgiveness. We cannot wait for bad to happen in order to say, "I forgive." We trust the Lord and forgiveness cannot not be ours...because we are not in it, only God is.

I'm convinced it all starts with our opening to the wonders of Now. We welcome Now...whatever our eyes are perceiving, our mind is interpreting...whatever our reasoning mind is resisting!...right this very red hot minute...we welcome with our thank you. And love and laugh.

Laughter...love and laughter...God made visible in our Soul to our heart.

Thank you.

GOD'S SOLUTION: LOVE AND LAUGH

I wonder if  the second coming of Christ isn't just like patience, love, tolerance, et al.? That is, within us from before conception, with us always, so all we need do is use them.

If that be so, doesn't Thou prepares a place before me in the presence of my enemies mean
this is our God-given opportunity to use our patience, love, tolerance?

We need daily discipline to get in the habit with each and every ego-flinch we receive to think of it as the second coming. But who's kidding whom? More like, we look back on it as such; in the  moment, however, with our thank you, we know it for grace, a chance to begin to move it from our head to our heart, then to our Soul to be realized unto full gratitude.

Long/short: When, not if, my name and/or my character are abused by anyone, I get to pray my automatic thank you which turns me away from my problem to God's solution of responding with the love and tolerance within me waiting to be used.

Not to sound more heavenly than human, I rely heavily on my Golden Rule: Try not to be as nasty as you want to be.

Thank you.

DREADED TRUTH BIRTHS GOD'S WILL

The hardest thing about the cosmic gifts we receive is remembering them...in the moment of need in particular. The moment of need is not when we want to lay it on someone who clearly needs to hear it...and from us...but when we need to use it, to DO it.

It's particularly difficult to remember God's hand is in it when we're facing a really rough life situation, say, the ill health of ourself or a loved one.

Interestingly, our fear seems to grow exponentially the less facts we have. Getting the word which is exactly that which we've dreaded can be the very release we need.

While that is often true for ourself, perversely, if it's true for our loved one, we compound our fear with another fear... as in, what can I do, how can I fix it, make it okay? And, oh yeah, what about me?

That is precisely when we most need to remember God's hand is in it...is in the dreaded truth for ourself or for our beloved, that this is our time to die, or in our fear regarding our loved one...that we are going to be left all alone.

Remembering that truth is not truth to us personally until we prove it to ourself personally, we accept this truth-proving time: Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil for Thou art with me. And we are graced with the peace that comes from realizing in that moment that God's hand is in this. We know not how, but we do know all is well

Thank you.

THE YIELD OF UNSOUGHT FRUIT

Again I realize that going down that wrong road again is going down the right road. I feel freed from an old opinion...fear, of course...that is already yielding unsought fruit.

When we realize this wrong road has precious fruit for us, we are liberated...set free from our own needy opinion that we are right. Our precious fruit ripens to the realization that we cannot let them win...we need to work with them to help them win...especially when they are winning over us...for it is only our ego that is looking for the win.

Ah, here comes the deeper realization that the will of our Father within is for us to work together to help each other not to win but to find peace in a whole new way of living life together. For there is no lose and there is no win...there is only the will of God, Love and Laughter.

To have the good opinion of those I admire is greater than being awarded any How Great I Art prize...to have the good opinion of those I don't admire is probably even better. That sincere desire can only come when I am living that which, from my eyebrows up, I am knowing...that there is no win, there is no lose, there is only the will of God...to love and laugh.

Thank you.

REACT IN KIND OR RESPOND WITH KINDNESS?

We come again to Saint Augustine's perfect prayer: Grant what thou commandest and then command what thou wilt. That authored my morning prayer: Thank you, Father, for my everything just as it is right this very instant for it is what I have invited and you have perfected. 

Ours is to not resist his perfected work, but, in fact to welcome it. The welcoming begins with thank you, the unceasing silent prayer of thank you. To live in an unceasing thank you is to not resist anything...which opens us to peaceful acceptance of what is...Now.

The well-nigh impossible part of this is our willingness to wait on the command from on high deep within us.

Learning to wait is probably how I learned that I have but one character defect, and it is not lack of patience. It is that I take myself too seriously, and I take myself too seriously when I resist anything...snubs, snarks, unfair, et al.

When that one character defect is activated, all the other character defects climb aboard, like barnacles attaching to a ship, and I am weighed down in my own self with impatience, judging, reacting in kind rather than responding with kindness...and the list goes on.

The life lesson we must learn is the art of nonresistance...we turn immediately to the Father within, seek ye first the kingdom of heaven, and follow whatever guidance we receive. Sit and wait on the Lord to start.

Thank you.

ON WELCOMING GOD'S UNKNOWN WILL

In the cosmic ether, I have averred...and believed...I would rather have God's will before my will done in my life always and all ways.

As my life's travels and travails wind down, however, and I accept that I'm a lot closer to the end of my journey than ever, the light is shining brighter on my inner, unspoken, hopes and dreams. None, Father forgive me, have doing God's will in them. Who's kidding whom? The cosmic ether is not about personal hopes and dreams.

It is clear to my inner me that the hardest thing I need to accept is God's unknown will for me.

This recent dream of mine causes my reflection: The kingdom of heaven and its glories beyond imaging are mine within me right now, bigger, better, richer than any hope or dream possible. But no one, not a soul, in my world knows of my gifts. 

[Here's where my ego Lucy launches her final bid for victory]  A kindly soul comes into my life and convincingly offers me my wildest dream come true with all the attendant bells and whistles...meaning, everyone in my world is a witness to my glory. 

All in exchange for my desire to do God's unknown will for me.

End of dream without my decision spoken. From my eyebrows up, I'm completely confident I'd turn any such offer down. But the dream floats by on occasion...and I dither with it...for the fun, of course.

It is clear to my inner me that the hardest thing I need to fear not is God's unknown will for me.

Thank you.

NO RESISTANCE, NO PROBLEM

Giving of our physical, mental, and emotional resources isn’t usually ego-affirming, but it is a path toward holiness. It’s not what you do that makes you holy. It’s what you allow to be done to you that makes you holy.   - Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," June 23, 2019

It is what we allow to be done to us for the benefit of  others that is the hidden message. The hidden message is the forever message.

The unwritten message of the entire Sermon on the Mount is: We do these things for the benefit of others, for we are God's representative on this earth, and we are dealing with God's representative on this earth. Be ye therefore perfect even as our Father in Heaven is perfect.

This earth is God's proving ground; we are each God's image, each given free will, each being made perfect with the free will of each dictating our terms. Everything happens by invitation only. The sooner we loose it and let it go, the sooner we are freed from the tether of our own will.

All, of course, according to me.

Thank you.