ON USING FEAR TO LIGHT OUR PATH

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

WE ARE THE SOURCE OF ALL OUR HURTS

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

ON WALKING THROUGH FEAR IN FAITH

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

ON CLAIMING OUR INTUITIVE REALITY

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

CLOSER, KINDER WORKS...REDUX

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

CEASE THINKING...PRAY WITHOUT CEASING

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

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

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

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

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

Pray without ceasing - 1 Thessalonians 5:17

Thank you.

ON THE PLACE PREPARED FOR US

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

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

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

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

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

Thank  you.

LOST, FOUND, THRICE BLESSED

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

AH...WITHOUT OUR FINGERPRINTS ON IT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

ON THE PROVING OF TRUTH

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

GOD IS WALKING US BACK HOME

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

CERTAINTY vs. UNKNOWING

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

ASK NOT, PRAY THANK YOU, MOVE ON

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

ON FAITH ALONE FORGIVENESS IS BORN

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

SELF-LESS LIVING, A WAR-LESS WORLD

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

TRUST, FAITH AND HAPPY DESTINY

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

ON RESPECT AND COURTESY

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

LASTING PEACE - A TURNED-OVER MIND

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

TO FIND OUR FATHER WITHIN...AGAIN

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

FEAR NOT, GOD IS NEAR

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

GOD LOVES US...WAKE UP AND CHEER

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

TRUTH MUST BE PROVED

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

ENCOMPASSED IN GOD'S LOVE

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

CEASE FIGHTING...DANCE!

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

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

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

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

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

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

So be it.

Thank you.

A BLESSING WITH NO FINGERPRINTS ON IT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

SIT AND WAIT ON THE LORD...IN TRUST

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

Holy moly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And do not gossip and call it venting. Sheesh.

Thank you.

TRY TO REMEMBER

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

LOVE IS INNER PEACE...TO BE GIVEN

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That begins when we love what God sees in us.

Thank you.

REASON...OUR BLACK HOLE AND SAVING GRACE

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

OUR HIDDEN NEED: SIT AND WAIT ON THE LORD

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.