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.