ON USING FEAR TO LIGHT OUR PATH

[This is a slightly reworked reprint of my post of December 31, 2019]

[My blinding flash of the obvious in the year just passed, 2020: Fear must be God in camouflage for nothing turns me to God faster than fear seriously changed my way of thinking, feeling, doing and being...most of the time. And when I caught myself, even then. The following was written pre-BFO, and I can stand on it.]

Fear is not 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. We are the source of all our woes, and I just think of God as the cleanup crew...of which, there is none better.

Our ego seeks to be absolved of all blame always...but blame is just fear with a new hairdo. We are slow to learn that is where God's glory lies...blame (fear) is spiritual growth aborning 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 we are being gifted. Thus we all come out of self free.

Fear is not lifted out of us, it is transmuted...used to light our path out of self into God's hidey-hole.

Thank you.

TRUST GOD'S LOVE

Back in the day I read and believed that how to win friends and influence people was The Goal. 

Fortunately for me, I came to see that as ego satisfaction, not my way toward lasting peace. At some point I began to trust that some people could and would like me and some not so much...and trying to influence anyone just wore me out.

Then I went for loving myself warts and all...which sounded promising considering my many warts. Only I found that often resulted in my warts leading and my being nastier than I needed to be following close behind. 

Imagine my shock when I finally listened...and learned that spiritual growth is all about me loving you, loving your warts and all. I know for certain sure that nothing files down my warts like loving yours...or trying to. Face it, they are one and the same, yours just look worse to me...and vice versa. 

Meister Eckhart taught that finding God is more about subtraction than addition. Rohr says authentic spirituality is about letting go. Detachment is taught in all my spiritual readings which, admittedly, are limited to those that speak to me.

The quiet word? Keep it simple. Utter simplicity lies in the two vows that sustain our still more spiritual growth: (1) Let go of the idea that we have an alternative, and (2) love and laugh.

Who loves us more than God? Nary a soul. Our goal...return that love. 

Oh! Blinding flash of the obvious: Our goal is to trust that love. In which case we cannot not return it.

Thank you.

WE CAN...IF WE WILL

Because I'm dealing with it right now, I suspect physical illness may be the greatest obstacle to spiritual growth. I also suspect whatever obstacle we are living with in the moment qualifies as the "greatest" to us in that moment. 

I had to face that my real problem was discerning whether I was experiencing serious physical illness or just physical discomfort. I don't suspect, I know this...not knowing which causes me anxiety. Anxiety, I'm grateful to be able to say without lying, is my gift to me. Just as realizing that fear is God in camouflage because nothing turns me to God faster than fear, I know anxiety attacks as my pearl for the same reason.

Turning to God puts our hands and feet in motion. Do something about something. There's my proof of purchase...words I heard nearly 50 years ago still give me the necessary push to move, to do the next thing. 

A personal aside: I believe nothing stops forward movement like determining to do the next right thing. If we knew what the next right thing was, we'd have done it and be fretting about something else already. Making a mistake is not the worst thing; doing nothing while trying to decide what the right thing to do is keeps God out and ego pumped which is far worse...according to me. The suggestion is When wrong..., not If wrong... Or, as Rohr says, We don't get to God by doing it right, we get to God by doing it wrong. Who's kidding whom...why else would we go to God? I imagine doing everything right kinda precludes any idea of a need for God.

Back to me (of course): The great revelation for me was that in the midst of life's problems, no matter the cause, we must...and we can...continue to stay open to spiritual answers. To never stop seeking still more spiritual growth. Face it, when do we need the peace that passes understanding more than when we're tossed and turned by our own life? Now. The ever Now. 

Love and Laugh. Ah, there be the peace that passes everything.

Thank you.

TRUST...THE MOST RADICAL ACTION

Blinding flash of the obvious: It is not God who makes harsh demands on me, it is I who make harsh demands on me for God to walk me through...that's how any perceived debacle then becomes the pearl beyond price on the other side.

 

This backup instruction from Rohr today: We believe . . . that the power to be truly radical comes from trusting entirely in God’s grace and that such trust is the most radical action possible.

Blinding flash or passing thought: Maybe truth is proved daily by the very talk I question. It is in looking back that I know...not the gift of realization before knowing but knowing based on my own experience...that God intervenes in my life in my behalf. That there is a sliver of gold in every mud pie slung in my face by my own self. That God can and will if sought. 

Oh wait! God can, will and does whether we seek him or not...it is ever our trust that needs improvement.

The pearl, of course: Most often His solution is radically different from our idea for the solution. That's where we begin building our trust...by changing our mind.

...we must one day pass beyond discursive thinking and enter into a higher mode of knowing. -- Eknath Easwaran, "Words to Live By," December 28 

Thank you.

I WANT TO BE READY

I want to walk in Jerusalem just like John. Here's me yesterday, from out of nowhere, saying that phrase over and over. I remember Tennessee Ernie Ford singing the old spiritual "I Want To Be Ready (to Walk in Jerusalem Just Like John)." 

Then I hear, I wanna walk across the Edmund Pettus Bridge just like John. I know that has naught to do with me...me the weak, the meek, the coward, the hidey-hole seeker. 

So I shoot a thankful prayer of peace to John Lewis. Yet I am comforted that my inner self, centered in my consciousness, apparently aspires so high, so deep. 

This morning, Fr Richard Rohr in his "Daily Meditation," has a quote of John Lewis. May it make a home in our head, our heart, our Soul: 

Study the path of others to make your way easier and more abundant. Lean toward the whispers of your own heart, discover the universal truth, and follow its dictates. Know that the truth always leads to love and the perpetuation of peace. Its products are never bitterness and strife. Clothe yourself in the work of love, in the revolutionary work of nonviolent resistance against evil. Anchor the eternity of love in your own soul and embed this planet with goodness. Release the need to hate, to harbor division, and the enticement of revenge. Release all bitterness. Hold only love, only peace in your heart, knowing that the battle of good to overcome evil is already won. Choose confrontation wisely, but when it is your time don’t be afraid to stand up, speak up, and speak out against injustice. And if you follow your truth down the road to peace and the affirmation of love, if you shine like a beacon for all to see, then the poetry of all the great dreamers and philosophers is yours to manifest in a nation, a world community, and a Beloved Community that is finally at peace with itself. -- The civil rights leader John Lewis (1940–2020)

Thank you.

WHEN WE STUMBLE...

[This is a slightly reworked reprint of my post of December 31, 2018.]

When you've stumbled--and the guilt, loneliness, and fear come to assault you--if you don't have at least one good friend, or if you have not developed a prayer life where you know how to find yourself in God instead of in your own feelings, you will simply retrench and reassert your correctness. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," June 13, 2016

The big reveal to me there is the need to know how to find yourself in God instead of in your own feelings.

I recall the shock I felt when I recognized a large part of my life had been premised on petty irritations, snap judgments and push-backs. Actually, it wasn't so much shock as it was a feeling of unease...I don't know at the outset that I could take in its fullness. It kinda simmered there in my thoughts, from my eyebrows up, not moving for a long time...there just enough to cause me pause then dart away.

Based on my own experience, I do believe that learning unto doing thank you has been the turning point, the saving grace, the pearl beyond price to me and my life. Mainly because the habit of saying thank you started with petty irritations, snap judgments and push-backs. I'm thinking trial balloon. That's probably how I got started...thinking to myself, say it and see what happens.

The lesson in praying thank you and that is all is it does not keep the dreaded thing from happening, it brings us peace in the midst of the dread. It is that peace of mind, i.e., finding our self in God, that keeps us from retrenching and reasserting our correctness. Which is also known as doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results...sometimes defined as insanity, sometimes as self-will run riot, both definitions work.

Another thing I like about Rohr's quote is that he says, "When you've stumbled...." When, not if.

We will stumble, we are not only allowed, we are expected to! Where's the need for all our spiritual seeking if stumbling isn't allowed? For that matter, where's the need for God? If we be perfect, there's no God necessary.

And God grins at the folly.

Thank you.

THIS DISCOMFORTING LOVE OF GOD

Blinding flash of the obvious: When God comes to me, He comes in toto...there is no small part for one in need and the rest held back for others. In my need, I get All of God, and All of God is available to the others at the same time. That's God.

And then I read: What I have seen is the totality recapitulated as one, received not in essence but by participation. Just as if you lit a flame from a flame, it is the whole flame you receive. —Symeon the New Theologian (from Fr Richard Rohr's "Daily Meditation," December 25, 2020)

The hard lesson a-learning...and the blessing in disguise...is that which comforts me in my hour of need, at the same time comforts that who or which discomforts me.

God loves me so much...and my discomforter equally.

Thank you

GOD MEETS US WHERE WE ARE

Scattershot images as I sit and wait on the Lord this morning: 

A whispery flash: The manger, the Family in the manger on a cold winter's night...to the reasoning mind, down and out. In looking back, that was their glory time...kinda like my glory right now as I sit here, to outward appearances all alone on Christmas Eve unto Christmas Day...inwardly knowing this is my rightful place...for my rebirth, be it inner peace or time to pass on to the other shore.

And then I read Rohr, God meets us where we are. 

A flash clearing an old regret/resentment around my retirement: I have been victimizing me through thoughts of  Gertrude...if she hadn't done this and/or that, etc., I would have stayed at the job and the President/CEO I loved. Ah, in truth, to stay was not at all what I wanted. I wanted to leave, to retire...it was time and I  was tired. Gertrude made it not just possible but essential. I cannot resent her, I can...and need to...praise her as my own choice of weapon in cutting the tie that bound me. Thank you.

The promise found In The Rooms: The assurance that love is sturdier than hate, that right is more confident than wrong, that good is more permanent than evil. (Lifted from Howard Thurman's "The Mood of Christmas" found in Fr Richard Rohr's "Daily Meditation" today.)

Old saying: Death comes in threes. Linda, Lorene...as I wonder who the third may be, I realize, the third may be me.

Again, God meets us where we are. 

Thank you.

NOT FOR OUR SELF BUT TO PASS IT ON

Peace of mind. It seems the trap in seeking peace of mind is that peace itself is pretty much momentary. The peace of mind we envision is more like the mindlessness of a lobotomy...an endless land of no worry, but an endless land of no joy either. 

It requires an adjustment that we never considered when we finally realize that peace of mind does not settle down and stay...like a well-trained dog. Peace cannot be held...it is either moving forward or it dissipates, and we are at un-peace again. 

We know peace in the moment or we are seeking peace. 

The secret we learn and are awed by is that we seek not to get peace for our own self but to pass peace on to others as much in need as we feel.

Then our Big Bang: To live the peace we seek, resist nothing. Work with the unworkable. Accept the unacceptable. Love the unlovable. 

All of that is possible not by letting our world put on its cleats and take a run across our face...no, it is possible, peacefully, by our decision to let go and let God. 

Our life then becomes learning the lesson of letting God use our hands, our feet, our tongues, our brains, and then doing that. 

We may get there three days after we're dead, but we're heading in the right direction every minute. There. That's where peace lives.

Thank you.

BLINDING FLASH OF THE OBVIOUS

I heart-ask that God's will, not mine, be done. I see that God's will for me is to need Him...which I do every time I pray that he fix my problem du jour. 

Oh wait...blinding flash...my problem du jour is God's will. 

To fall to my knees in utter despair is heading in the right direction...toward crash and burn. That's if I'm doing it right for that is the road to acceptance, acceptance of God's will...the gift of desperation.

That gift of desperation frees me to rise again transformed...with the same problem but a changed perspective. 

There it is, transition on the hoof.

Thank you.

TRANSITION...THE ESSENCE OF LIFE

We are transitioning every second...that is the essence of life, transition. It's akin to aging, we do not see changes each moment of their happening...we see changes when we look back and remember the me I was and see the me I am now. 

There may well be a Big Bang for some...like Saul of Tarsus. But I wonder, as he picked himself up off the ground, if he was praising God or cursing the fates for his fall. But what does it matter? What matters to me right now is my slow U-bie...from always seeking to feel a transition to acceptance that I'm living it. Right now. 

Maybe it's so hard to believe because it is difficult to accept that which we cannot see...ah, and there's the God I claim to adore nowhere to be seen.

There are many less-than-wonderful happenings in my life recently...none catastrophic, all irksome. This I know: They are the very tools I need for turning my inner light on, brighter. 

For that, I can lean on my own life experiences. 

I go back to the worst thing that could ever happen to me turning out to be my personal pearl of great price. That pearl becomes dearer to me by the day...speaking of transitioning.

To paraphrase Fr Richard Rohr, Life's true and unique story line has always been [transition]. That means that the spirit nature of reality (the spiritual, the immaterial, the formless) and the material nature of reality (the physical, that which we can see and touch) are one. 

In a word, matter matters. It, too, is of God.

Thank you. 

IN SURRENDER LOVE BLOSSOMS

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.... from the 23rd Psalm

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life dressed as roses and rainbows or as gloom and doom, as spite and malice, as unclean, unclean...and my only need is to welcome each into my heart...for love is the only acceptable answer.

Resist not. Whatever comes, hug it and kiss it and let it go. Ah, but nothing is true by words alone. We must prove it by our walking-around lives...and after a lot of arm-wrestling with God. Repeating delay is not denial all the while.

In the end, love blossoms in surrender, without effort, thought or prayer...kiss it on the lips, pray thank you and be at peace. 

Thank you.

THIS ONE'S ON YOU, GOD, II

[This is a very slightly reworked version of my post of August 18, 2015.]

I'm a believer that the biggest block to spiritual growth is refusal to accept that the daily slings and arrows, hurts and irks, are not to be overcome, demolished or made to disappear. No. They are to be welcomed, accepted as God's helpers in overcoming our own self.

I tend to believe that is the all of still more spiritual growth... to overcome our self. Then more can be revealed.

"It is not so much human searching, so much as human consciousness...." as "God Calling" puts it.

I don't think it matters a squat to God how we get there... there being to God. It only matters that we head in that direction, with God as our soul and sole goal.

When the unfairness of life as we see it happens, we need not fight the seeming unfairness, but joy in the choice before us...to spit, curse and cry, or to know that this one is God's. We can say, with joy in our heart, "Here you go, God. Let me know what you want me to do." Then do it.

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

Thank you.

ON SINGING THE HALLELUJAH CHORUS

In his "Daily Meditation," Fr Richard Rohr points out again this morning, If  you do not transform your pain, you will most assuredly transmit it.

To which I say, again, Man, ain't that the truth?! 

My pain today is centered on the word "beloved." According to me, "beloved" is a gift you give to another never yourself...to be called "beloved" by another is the wounded-heart healer. 

This is my truth because that is precisely how I came to own it...no, that's how it came to own me. My beloved mentor, long time ago, in my time of perplexity and pain, casually but oh-so-warmly, called me "beloved." And my heart bloomed rosebuds and rainbows and I knew I was loved and my perplexing pain was just another pish-tosh and I felt fine as frog's hair...to quote my Grandma.

Ever since, when I have a friend in need, I name them in my heart or in my head or out loud on purpose..."beloved." And it is a no-kidding fact, at no time before my roses and rainbows experience, would that word have entered my mind or left my lips. 

To cut to the punchline, I found to my dismay that there are those who think not so much of my "beloved" and don't hesitate to so say. And to snicker behind it. Lo! My heart was broken, and through my tears, I have looked it in the eye, and recognized the rest of the story. My beloved mentor was diagnosed with dementia some years ago, is  now in a memory-care unit and would not know me if I visited which of course I cannot do. 

That is true...it is an always hurt and the transmitter of my pain. It is also true and more to my life's purpose that that pain must be transformed. If it is not, I See Me and my ego will transmit my victim's cry of my beloved has been dissed, his precious gift has been devalued and laugh-at-able. And

somebody (namely I) will have to pay.

Invariably, that transformed pain begins with the word "humbly." We want to give over, give up, give in without leaving finger- or footprints, we begin our thank you prayer humbly. 

Who's kidding whom? Right now that's from my eyebrows up. I can and must become willing for it to be moved down to my heart into my Soul to bounce back up into my brainbox.

Mercy! I wrote the above, got interrupted and read the rest of Rohr today. Don't tell me God doesn't have my back:  

We’re in Hell now by wrapping ourselves around our hurts, by over-identifying with and attaching ourselves to our fears, so much so that they become our very identity. Any chosen state of victimhood is an utter dead end. Once you make that your narrative, it never stops gathering evidence about how you have been wronged by life, by others, and even by God.

As one, my head, my heart, my Soul sing the Hallelujah Chorus.

Thank you.

RESIST NOT GOD'S HIDDEN WILL

I saw years ago that learning about death for the first time...my grandfather's death when I was two years old...set the course of my life. The unconscious long/short of that news: Death meant being left all alone; ergo, never let anyone in, guaranteeing never being left all alone. 

A recent blinding flash has redirected my thinking. What if my being all alone has ever been God's will for me? What if my being all alone was my before-conception invitation to God into my life? 

  

Knowing me, if I'd not lived alone, spiritual growth may have made it to my bucket list, but it never would have headed my To-Do Today List. 

If I hadn't been alone free to choose for my better self, would I have spent years studying the Sermon? Seeking still more spiritual growth as my primary mover in life? "Doubtful" is being kind to me.

Looking back at my life through my new perspective re God's will, there is nothing about living alone that I have been unhappy with...for long. I've had all the "agony and the ecstasy" that life offers, and if I do say so myself, I've done a fairly fine job of it. And who's kidding whom...purely through the grace of God and help from friends, lovers and nonfriends. 

Still looking back, where it seems my deeper learning is blossoming today, I recognize that my nonfriends did more for my spiritual growth than most anything else. Nonfriends require us to get over our own self...which is pretty much all there is to still more spiritual growth, isn't it? 

Is it the nonfriend who stands between God and us? No. It is our resistance to the nonfriend...and all else for that matter...that is our block. 

Resist not, love and laugh, get over ourself...God's will plain and simple. According to me.

Thank you.

ON GRATITUDE AND GRACE

Stop thinking your lives are all wrong if you do not feel it. -- "God Calling," December 16 

Judging by the many times I have underlined the above, this qualifies as the most important reminder I encounter every year as I read my "God Calling." I could wish it sounded more deeply spiritual, but there it is...there I am. The good news is that today I laugh. 

Oh...with my laughter comes a mini flash: I know Him by the fruits of my life.

I can...and apparently will...think less-than all I want, but the proof is in my very life. The gift of gratitude, grace timely relieving me of the bondage of self, anxiety bowing to my thank you prayer...ah, the walking-around fruits of God in my life are endless. 

Old Reliable, my reasoning mind, thinks, yes, but.... Where's my "I'm An Honor Student" bumper sticker? 

Puzzle solved...that's precisely why every year I underline the above quote. Our reasoning mind is ever on the job, will be till three days after we're dead, so don't resist it, use it. 

The gold in thinking your lives are all wrong if you do not feel it, is that thought sends us back to God's drawing board...to ponder again the fruits of our life. To feel again gratitude for grace and the grace of gratitude.

God loves so much...me, thee, the universe.

Thank you.

GOD'S WILL...LOVE AND LAUGH

He does much who loves God much, and he does much who does his deed well, and he does his deed well who does it rather for the common good than for his own will. -- Thomas A Kempis from  "God Calling," December 15   

That reading reveals the fallacy of a self-determined objective when, to the reasoning mind, it seems so spiritual. As in, doing the deed well to feel good about ourself, even spiritually fit, does not have "the common good" in its eyeball.  

All the heretofore unremembered thus unrepented lies, thefts, dirt of our past (up to yesterday) that are surfacing in our mind today are the makings of the amends we must needs make when (not if) we see the same thing in others...and quickly judge the other. Make note: Invariably we judge not the "sin" but the other. 

We must needs extend love, understanding and forgiveness to the others and their actions...and invite each into our heart as our angel-friend. For all those yet to come, same goes...invite each in as our angel-friend. 

Blinding flash: To extend love, understanding and forgiveness to others is a self-determined objective. 

It is a good objective, but to talk it, teach it, preach it before we've realized it, keeps it stuck in self. To quote the Sermon: Beware of practicing your piety before men in order to be seen by them.... 

There is a sliver of gold in everything even in self-determined objectives. Comes the dawning...we realize the sliver as our intention...the  foundation of our objective is our intention. It is our intention to extend love that is transmuted by God and thus becomes...in God's time!...God's will. 

It takes as long as it takes to walk, not just talk, love, understanding and forgiveness, and when it is made our own, doubt not that it will come dressed as a stupid mistake. Simply put, that's I See Me through the egoic mind losing the battle. Kiss it on the lips, hug it and kiss it and let it go. There, that's how we learn to love and laugh. 

Thank you. 

MY "SAFE" vs GOD'S "SAFE"

Blinding flash of the obvious: My idea of safe and God's idea of safe are two diametrically opposite matters.

My "safe" is me in a barricaded safety room wrapped in a plush velvet comforter with plenty of comfort food and Diet Pepsi on hand and armed guards on their way to me...while I remain quivering in fear. God's "safe" is me standing alone in the barren desert, bareass naked, in the crosshairs of the enemy...secure in my heart that God has my back.

  

Just this morning I read in Rohr's "Meditation":  Jesus certainly called us to dying to self, but his idea of dying to self was not through inner renunciation or guarding the purity of his being but through radically squandering everything he had and was. 

Talk about a new and different way of letting go! 

It makes sense, though, this squandering everything...letting go of all our egoic wants that have ever paraded through our reasoning mind masquerading as needs. 

There is no letting go while holding any want dear, praying for its release. Actually, that's nurturing. Nor will naming and blaming, shaming in a word, ever free us from our own self. Face it, that is not the way of love.

Rohr continued, What seemed disconcerting to nearly everybody was the messy, freewheeling largeness of his spirit. 

Immediately, I felt resistance..."messy and freewheeling" sound like defects I've been trying to get rid of. There. That's precisely why we don't just change our mind, we must exchange our mind...give up the reasoning, let go the material, release the common sense of out egoic self.  

Be rocketed into the fourth dimension! And find all our hard work trying to let go of our reasoning mind...like breaking rocks in the hot sun, to quote my beloved Chet...was for naught. There never were any rocks to break. 

God is love. He love me sooo much. Trump, too. And you.

Thank you.

ON THE ACT OF LETTING GO

I awoke with my Soul speaking to me this morning, bringing "new" rues, regrets and remorses. 

These regrets are all about my past unsocialized behavior, causing me to cringe and question my sanity...but without them I would never have received my blinding flash of the obvious: These thoughts are brought by my Soul for my spiritual understanding. 

I am moved almost beyond bearing by my flash that my Soul, not my I See Me ego, is doing my thinking for me.

The assurance that I'm hearing in the right direction...both today's "God Calling" and Easwaran directly address this:

"God Calling," Fullness of Joy. The Joy of Perpetual Guidance. The Joy of knowing that every detail of your lives is planned by Me. 

Easwaran's "Words to Live By," Whenever a stray bit of wrath arises...don't invite that thought in, don't argue with it, simply...withdraw our attention completely from the past....

Then the capper: Fr Richard Rohr in his today's "Daily Meditation," writes, I believe all great spirituality is about letting go. 

Getting backup is a wonderful thing, but doing it? To the reasoning mind, that is like being told, "Just don't think about it." Ah, but the same principle applies...we return our thoughts to God trusting that every detail of our lives is planned by Me. 

Let go. Let go of self-thoughts, invite Self-thoughts. Repeat. Repeatedly.

Thank you.

ON SIMPLY COMING TO BELIEVE

Coming into my fiftieth year of seeking still more spiritual growth, I ponder some of the mind-changers I've been gifted with. Without doubt, the single most important thing, the life-changer, I got was the permission to build the God of my own understanding.

  

From the day I realized that permission, I began listening for Him. (And He remains male purely for my convenience...it proved too much for me to remember, attempting to change gender in the midst of simply coming to believe.) 

A few messages I flashed on or heard or read: 

• If the only prayer you ever say in your life is thank you, that would suffice.
• We don't get to God by doing it right, we get to God by doing it wrong.
• Resist not evil.
• Try not to be as nasty as you want to be.
• Fear is God in camouflage...nothing turns me to God faster than fear.
• Spiritual truth must be proved.
• We must go beyond reason to love.
• If we're feeling stuck, we are not standing still...we are moving backward.
• What we see is always ourself.
• God is not available on demand.   

There are so many more, but the one from our personal big book that relieves the 3:00 AM rues, regrets and remorses is my gold: Cling to the thought that, in God's hands, the dark past is the greatest possession we have...the key to life and happiness for others.  

There it is. The secret to a happy, joyous and free life in two words...for others.

Thank you.

GOD'S LOVE CANNOT BE IMAGINED

I experienced borderline anxiety yesterday morning preparing to go to a new doctor whose office is fairly distant from me. I shot a prayer thanking God for relieving me of the anxiety.

Immediately, I flashed that it is this very anxiety that we need to experience. This is the path we walk to prove fear is God in camouflage, that nothing turns us to God faster than fear.

Without fear, without this anxiety that I'm praying to be rid of, how can I prove that? How can I rely on that if it remains words, profound words, but just words? 

To experience anxiety knowing God is in the midst of it walking us through to the other side brings the peace of mind we've ever sought. Who knew peace of mind would come wrapped in anxiety? No wonder our reasoning mind will never win in a battle with God's will. 

God does not lift our fears, he is one with the fear, with us, so there is nothing to fear. That which we think of as an old adage...feel the fear and do it anyway...is our need. Our wants be damned.

Fr Richard Rohr wrote this morning:  To incarnate the Christ is to live out the Gospel with our lives, as faithfully and fearlessly as a woman in labor who holds nothing back in order to bring new life into the world. 

I'm not conversant with incarnate the Christ, but I definitely connect with as faithfully and fearlessly as a woman in labor who holds nothing back in order to bring new life into the world. 

That is an apt description of God's will made manifest...hold nothing back (push toward the pain!) in order to bring deeper realization to life within us.

God's love cannot be imagined...there is no end-run around the pain...or the joy.

 

Thank you.

I AM RESPONSIBLE FOR THE EVIL I SEE

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

The evil we are seeing, that we are fearing, that walks in our world today is on each of us personally. It is not Trump, it is not the politicians, it is our own perception. 

My own personal experience has proven true for me: Upgrade our attitude, we upgrade our problem. 

Since that is true to me, I have come to believe that we are each personally the source of the evil...and the good...that we experience in our own life. Ah, "we" meaning "me"...I am responsible...look not for someone to blame or to praise, to convert, correct, shoot, pillory or impale...or to adore. 

Seek within, and  divine providence will raise our consciousness deeper for the benefit of others.

Thank you.

   

Wee blinding flash: It seems the more others are drawn to us, the more our egoic self hammers us. 

Proof that God has our back: That flash was followed immediately by a reading of Rohr's "Daily," It is not mystical experience we are after but radical interior transformation, so that others may experience Christ more fully in us. 

NOT TO DISCOVER BUT TO RETRIEVE, II

[This is a reprint of my post of December 30, 2013.]

It is such a comfort to me, when a problem looms, to remind myself that that problem has already been solved. 

I usually want to get in the midst of it, figure it out (to my advantage), get all concerned to agree with me, but I need to quiet my mind, to listen. To listen...not for the answer to my perceived problem (for in God's world, there is no problem), but for the discipline of simply sitting quietly and listening. 

As Fr. Richard Rohr writes, "...spiritual knowledge is more like retrieving than discovering." 

Whatever answer we need (which likely has not an iota to do with what we're thinking we need) will come to us. That answer may look less than wonderful and a butt-biter into the bargain, but it is, in truth, our gold mine.

All we need remember is the promise: "Be not afraid...it is I."

Thank you.

THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY

I take heart. Today's "God Calling" has a line that comforts me (which I have underlined more than once so clearly I've needed it previously). The line is, Even My disciples only believed, half doubting, half wondering. 

No doubt I'm putting on airs to identify myself with the original disciples, but so be it. I take heart because I do doubt, I do wonder, and there are times I do awake at 3:00 AM, sometimes in tears, over...the only word that comes is "me." I awake in tears over me.  

And, trust me, I am the best...absolute best...that I have ever been or ever had hopes of becoming. 

Still I honestly take heart for I've learned to see ugly and know God's hand is in it. Oh, blinding flash...For now we see through a glass darkly but then face to face.

We know to be leery when I quote the Bible...I don't know it well enough to quote with authority so I usually only use it when it fits my thinking...and I like it. Which I do with through a glass darkly. And it fits.

Back to the comfort of being given permission...by two little old ladies in England in the early 1930s channeling God...to doubt God. There. Don't tell me God's hand isn't in that. Who else, what else, could be so expansive, magnanimous, heart-generous to be doubted and able to assure the doubter she's loved anyway...just exactly as she is, where she is. 

God loves me so much...you, too!

Thank you.

FORGIVENESS AS NONRESISTANCE

To my memory, laughably faulty today, my inner invitation to spirituality ever leading to still more spiritual growth began the first day I joined up with my people. It was shortly thereafter that I learned the Sermon on the Mount was our original how-to manual. 

Knowing nothing about the Sermon, I read it...and was less than impressed. Angry is the word since it made not a lick of sense to my mind and probably still doesn't to most material-minded folk.

I was persuaded to give it a go when I fully realized my choice: The God of my own understanding or my own personal sword of Damocles.

I began my study and, truly, it was three words therein that opened my mind, swept down to my gut, bounced up to my heart and infiltrated my Being...slowly. 

The three words: Resist not evil. 

Realizing the import of those words...accepting them as Truth...became my gateway up to a deeper level and, not to put on airs, still feels akin to wrestling with the angel. 

Who's kidding whom? To a reasonable person resist not evil is an invitation for evil to win. But if we do not accept evil for its own and do accept all incoming as just incoming, we have the beginning of the end of dual thinking. When there is no separation, there is naught to resist. Who's the winner? Who's the loser? There is only Oneness.

To ponder that with an accepting mind is to invite spirituality to make a home in our heart...is to commit to still more spiritual growth as a way of living daily...for our forever.

We begin to recognize forgiveness as just another word for nonresistance. Same goes with love. Take kindness in the face of unkindness. Resist not...think welcome say thank you, and unkindness has nowhere to land. 

Easy lesson to learn: Nonresistance does not mean we stand there with our bare face hanging out asking for another dollop of hurt...no. We mentally hug it and kiss it, shake the dust off our feet and move on.

Which helps to accept another Oh-No goodie from the Sermon: Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth. Ah, another one to ponder...and not resist.

Thank you. 

THE SACRED ART OF ACCEPTANCE

In truth, to attain to interior peace, one must be willing to pass through the contrary to  peace. Such is the teaching of the Sages. -- Swami Brahmadanda from "Words to Live By," Eknath Easwaran, November 26 

There it is. Our reasoning mind will ever tell us we are going in the wrong direction when we feel less than comfortable, preferably very comfortable. No. If our search is for still more spiritual growth and that is all, we must pass through the contrary to peace. Take it to the bank. The bank being our heart, our Soul, our body and our brain. 

We are being walked down the road to detachment...detaching from self, becoming Oned. 

The reasoning mind was built to resist that which it cannot own, but it can be brought to acceptance: We welcome, we pray thank you, we hug it and kiss it and let it go. 

The sacred art of acceptance...say welcome, pray thank you.

Thank you. 

GOD'S ALREADY GOT IT FIXED

So my thoughts are batting around in my head, and comes a blinding flash: I am unwilling to find a peer to lead me, teach me more for my spiritual growth. 

Ah, and the reason being is that I am afraid to find out that I really do not know all that much. Better yet, that others, who are clearly (to me) beginners, know a whole lot more than I know. 

Finally (I hope), that they prove it by doing which I do not right now. 

Is that it, Lord? If it is, thank you...thank you for clarifying by fixing...thank you. 

And then I read: Let’s just use our different gifts to create a unity in the work of service, and back one another up, without criticism or competition. 

Does God have my back, or what?

Thank you.

SPIRITUAL GROWTH...THE SUPREME PARADOX

I wonder if the feeling that spiritual growth is so difficult to maintain is because it seems to directly oppose our reasoning mind...or, "reasonable" thinking.

Spiritual growth is the supreme paradox: We begin with an excitation...I found it!...then dig deeper till we get to flummoxed...whaaa?

When I read that Gandhi, a man I greatly admire, studied the Sermon on the Mount every day for forty years, I decided to give it a go, so I start my day reading a bit of the Sermon then pondering that. In that continuing study, I began again this morning with The Beatitudes.

At first, I read those seemingly throwaway lines...blessed are the poor in spirit, the meek, etc., till I got to: "Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so men persecuted the prophets who were before you."

Who's kidding whom? That's a Whoa! Stop! Shut Up!

That is precisely why I am grateful I started out willing to study the Sermon. It now makes spiritual sense...my mind has been exchanged.

I doubt not that is the basis for my blinding flash that the secret to life itself is give over, give up, give in. I can't even count how many shrinks, therapists and counselors I paid over the years trying to fix me...so I could feel self-confident, stand up for myself, Be Somebody.

When I read that Meister Eckhart said, “the spiritual life is more about subtraction than it is addition,” I knew my suspicion that we need to shuck our shields, not bolster them was on target, and I quit turning to shrinks to solve my me-problem. 

I have read that spiritual growth always comes through the wounding. Only through an exchanged mind did that make sense. For the wounding is ego deflation...not just ego reduction but ego deflation. A lifetime project...for God to walk us through. Back to the Sermon.

Thank you. 

PUTTING ON THE MIND OF CHRIST

Suppose, just suppose, we allow the imagination of Jesus to take on the U.S. health system [which is largely broken], without ever mentioning the name Jesus, but totally acting in the name of Jesus by putting on the mind of Christ. The compassion, the care, the love exuded by such action could change the world. — Butch P. who runs a small free health clinic in a large metropolitan area (from Fr Richard Rohr's "Daily Meditation" of December 1, 2020) 

Ponder this: Suppose, just suppose, we allow the imagination of Jesus to take on our still more spiritual growth...or, in for a penny in for a pound...to take on our very life, without ever mentioning the name Jesus, but totally acting in the name of Jesus by putting on the mind of Christ. The compassion, the care, the love exuded by such action would change our world. 

To me, the most important words there are without ever mentioning the name Jesus. I know it was my own prejudice that made the word Jesus anathema. The very word seemed to fry my brain...because of the way I was taught. Ah-ha! Not my fault, theirs...the perfect peace of having someone to blame is hard to give up.

But who's to say us nay if we don't use the word Jesus? Use Buddha, use Allah...their teachings are basically the same. It is not the name, it is the compassion, the care, the love exuded, and that we now could live by such a change from within ourself would change our world. 

My blinding flash of the obvious some years ago was that love or God boils down to give over, give up, give in. I can attest that it's hard enough to make the decision to try to give over, give up, give in as a way of life...doing it is a decision of a deeper need. 

That's when Jesus, Buddha, Allah, et al., are called to account...many times and many times more. As many times as it takes to mean it. We know we mean it when we run out of ideas for how-to...our egoic mind hits crash and burn.  

Then, if we're doing it right, comes a disagreement. After years suddenly we don't just want to be the first to give over, we need to be. It makes no more commonsense than it ever did, but we feel righted when we agree with our adversary quickly, we turn the other cheek, we resist not evil...without an inner debate.

Spiritually, we are blessed...in the vernacular, we get over ourself. With the greater lesson always present: We are ever blessed, but we get over ourself just for today.

Thank you.

TO LIVE A LIFE OF WONDERMENT

I first heard of death when my Mom's father died. I was two years old. and we were living on our farm in Ohio. This was back when phones were not only uncommon, they were a rarity, and long-distance calls meant Big and usually Not Good news. Mom answered the call, and, crying, told me and my brother the sad news.

Believe it or believe it, I have total recall of this and truly I was two, my brother four. The two of us went out back to discuss this death thing. His take was that he didn't want to be here if Mommy and Daddy weren't here, too; my exact words: "I just don't want to be left alone."

I was well into adulthood before I was gifted with the full understanding of those early words...the unintended consequences as it were. That the most important word in that decision was "left"...to never be left alone.

My revelation: To never be left alone one can never let anyone in. So, there was me bass-ackwards trundling through life constantly searching for someone to be my forever protector...rejecting as I went because there is no forever guarantee.

Ah, but with that revelation I flashed that God's will for me was precisely the opposite of my will for me. His will was to set me on the spiritual path and keep me on that path heading toward God and for God alone. How I managed that was why I have free-will...it was my life's journey to walk with God as my guide.

The full import of that is to recognize that without a Power greater than ourself to rely on, it must needs be our egoic reasoning mind that makes our decisions, our life-choices...and my ego, which I have named Lucy With the Football, always legislates for self.

Here's freedom: Realizing it was my want-to, to forever have a human someone to protect me, that directly countermanded God's will for me. God's will for me was and is to trust my God-center utterly and to live a full life. Full of fun and tragedy and to know them as equals...in God's hands

The wonderment...that is to Love and Laugh.

Thank you.

AH, FEAR...I LOVE YOU SO

I'm experiencing unexpected inner changes. I feel like I am regressing, going backward at full speed...ah, but neither regretting nor trying to control the changes.   

For whatever reason, I remember back in the late '70s when I first began considering getting a dog. I thought about it, pondered, nattered, cried, prayed...did everything but actually get a dog. Out of the blue, an acquaintance at work mentions she has a Maltese, twelve weeks old...long/short, her family is being transferred overseas, she can't keep the Maltese.

I am assured that all any Maltese wants to do is to love...anyone and everyone...would I want him? 

More crying, nattering, praying till finally, in the midst of all my caterwauling, I go to my mentor and admit my innermost fear...even though I am assured that all a Maltese wants to do is to love, what if this Maltese can't love me? What if I'm the only person in the world a Maltese cannot love? 

Here's me admitting my deepest fear of the moment...that even a Maltese can't love me...and my beloved mentor answers, "That may be true. Maybe you are the only person in the whole world that a Maltese cannot love. So what?"

My mentor, who never minced words, presented a new way for me to think. More importantly, an entirely different way to process my fears...call 'em out. Welcome them. Let them be real. Then deal with them.

I got the dog, my first true love. and I am realizing as I am writing that he's still walking me. If not for that lesson learned, I'd probably not be welcoming my inner changes that feel like I'm speeding backward, unlearning as I go. No. It would be fear all decked out in sable and silk so as to sneak in catching me unawares.

Nothing turns me to God faster than fear...ah, fear, I love you so.

And by the way, I named my first true love Ari of Aslan.

Thank you.

OUR SELF-IMPROVEMENT PROJECT

I wonder if my reasoning-mind nemesis isn't simply fear of others' thoughts about me?  Or is it my resistance to my fear of their thoughts for my resistance gives the weight of truth to those thoughts...and causes it to happen. 

There. Thoughts chasing thoughts with not a glimmer of Truth amongst them. That is what happens when we get bogged down trying to figure out us in our world .

Maybe our nemesis is what Thomas Merton called "our own little self-improvement project." That's getting stuck in me with no regard for Thee.

According to me, we'd best accept our self as we know our self to be and believe...trust...that as perfect in God's eyes. For the Father and I are one. There...focus on that and let the nemesis theory go.

The good news is that until we get the inner reveal (and maybe forever after since there are endless levels of inner reveals), those are still words, just words. 

To ponder...because they are just words doesn't mean that they are not essential words to focus on else we will by nature return to focusing on self..."our own little self-improvement project."

God is love...and also patience. And who knew that is purely Love and Laughter?

Thank you.

AND THIS, TOO, IS OF GOD

You need not aspire for or get any new state. Get rid of your present thoughts, that is all. - Ramana Maharshi (from the daily Easwaran, November 29)

Get rid of your present thoughts...whoa. We're talking one heavy lift...mainly because the very direction causes our mind to start churning: How? 

Fr Richard Rohr wrote in his "Daily Meditation" this morning, "Their (Francis and Clare of Assisi) life, close to the bottom, was where they hoped to learn the science of love."  

There's our how: Do the science of love...love as it was revealed to be...Nonresistance. Mentally flow  through any and all perceived blocks. Ah-ha! Love really is letting go of fear...realized. 

Now, to live there...in our mind. 

That's probably why Francis and Clare chose to live close to the bottom...fewer distractions of wants masquerading as needs. 

Where else but still more spiritual growth could being a rank beginner feel so comforting? Not a lot of high expectations...except from our ego, as ever legislating for itself.

We can start with the forever reminder: When we meet with any inner resistance, we remind ourself  that this, too, is of God. Then let it be. 

Again, God surely has our work cut out for Him...and all we need do is get grateful.

Thank you.

REACT NOT, PRAY THANK YOU, BE AT PEACE

[Thomas Merton] became far less concerned with the 'I' who prayed than he was with the 'One' to whom, with whom, and in whom he was praying. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," November 28, 2020

My note to me, dated 11/28/05, found in my "God Calling:"   I want to forget myself in re my friendship with Sam by not reacting to my interpretation of his actions.

My note to me this morning, 11/28/20, re Gertrude...I am not currying her favor of me, I am currying my favor of her.

We must go beyond reason to love is the forever secret for a life of peace. My own reason will ever legislate for self with my best intention being to love the other...any other. 

Here's the kicker: We cannot go beyond reason by the use of our reasoning mind...it negates itself in the trying. We go to God for God and that is all. What we get is God, and it makes no nevermind what that appears to be to the naked eye. The secret code ever and always: Get grateful.

If the only prayer you ever pray is 'thank you,' that would suffice. -- Meister Eckhart

Thank you.

ON GETTING RESCUED

We can if we choose find the Sermon broken down into plain English in most anything we're reading. I found the following a while back but forgot to make note of what I was reading; the message, however, is clear: 

Don’t focus on external conformity to moral codes, but on internal transformation in love.

Don’t have anxiety about money or security or pleasure at the center of your life, but trust yourself to the care of God. 

If we (meaning you, meaning me, meaning the universe) would focus "on internal transformation in love," we would walk in peace...breathing in and breathing out peace as we walk. 

I am reminded of John Lennon's "Imagine," when it was first out, and some well-known columnist wrote a screed denouncing it because "if it were taken seriously, someone would use it to take over our world." There...clearly, a lack of imagination.

Then, again imagine, trusting ourself to the care of God to the exclusion of anxiety about money or security or pleasure at the center of our life. Ah, it's easy if you try. 

I submit that fear of trying is the bane of our life...simply trying to trust our own self much less our unseen God is apparently right next to impossible. And fear of loving...giving and receiving...is probably the reason we fear to try. 

I was so afraid to love, I got a dog...God spelled backward as the old cliché goes. It worked...works. 

With a sense of God as our guide, I'm convinced as an individual and as a group and as the universe, the dimension we live in is immaterial when (not if) we live by these two principles:

Don’t focus on external conformity to moral codes, but on internal transformation in love, and don’t have anxiety about money or security or pleasure at the center of your life, but trust yourself to the care of God. 

And get rescued by a dog...or a cat. Don't get picky now...rescued is the goal.

Thank you.

PRAY WITH SELFLESS INTENTIONS

We are told that deep within us our Lord waits and bit by bit we can work our way loose from the grip of our emotional entanglements. Comes the dawning! It is always already being done within us by our Lord...the more we try to cause it to happen the further away we hold ourself. 

The paradox is that we must make ourself available for the loosening of our grip on our emotional entanglements. The "how" of it is as the Swami notes...willingness. One must become willing, then ready!, to walk through our I-don't-wanna to the pearl, peace of mind. 

More paradox: Our I-don't-wanna involves praying, "Let this cup pass from me" because, face it, the Main Man said it so it must meet the requirements. Plus it sounds willing. Big reveal...there is nothing wrong with that...it won't sway the Lord, but it helps keep our mind free of me, free from I-don't-wanna.

I'm convinced whatever we pray with selfless intentions is close enough to perfect to make no nevermind. We're never going to get entirely selfless but aiming in the right direction counts...according to me.

In truth, to attain to interior peace, one must be willing to pass through the contrary to  peace. Such is the teaching of the Sages. -- Swami Brahmananda from the daily Eknath Easwaran, November 26

Thank you.

BY THE GRACE OF GOD AND GRATITUDE

I have been mulling over what I can actually do to be a part of the solution in our today's world. 

To find the ways and means in which I...at age 82, hobbling along on a cane, and in the midst of a pandemic...can  actually contribute to the solution to our seemingly out-of-kilter world was clearly a stretch. The big Uh-Oh...clearly I would need to rely on my thoughts, and that being a flat fact, they needed to be upgraded.  

In my morning quiet time, I've been turning my thoughts over to the care of God (to do with them and build of them as You will so that we may better serve). 

And then I read in Fr Richard Rohr's "Daily Meditation," about Thomas Merton: "He deeply believed that our inner healing was for the sake of the outer world." 

I felt as if I'd had an epiphany. I knew to take that as answered prayer. We can lean into our upgraded thoughts without trying to think nothing but upgraded thoughts. 

Trying to think nothing but upgraded thoughts is a self-determined objective, or, making like God...which, never forget, we are not. 

In our new consciousness of trust we find we are living healing thoughts, we are feeling more welcoming, less judgy...we are knowing how-to within that first moment of How?! 

Our raised consciousness is God's answer to our turned-over prayer. We can trust that...by the grace of God and gratitude.

Thank you.

GOD'S WILL FOR US...LOVE AND LAUGHTER

God's commands are never wrong, our want-to interprets his commands and that sends us off the path.

God's will is never not happening; it is taking place in our life this very red-hot minute...there are no rolling of drums, clashing of cymbals, blaring of trumpets or tinkling of the keys to announce its arrival. We just put one foot in front of the other while aiming to serve God through our service to others. Trying to remember to not be as nasty as we want to be.

Most often we realize our answered prayers when we look back and are gobsmacked at how the journey of our life hangs together. We recognize how we have lived each day...or year...without losing an actual step in the process of living it. 

We remember having the care and feeding of the IRS and that turning out to be a spiritual experience (God surely does work in mysterious ways). There were lost jobs...some unfairly lost, some given up not a minute too soon...then friends, pets and other dearly beloveds gone on to heaven. We remember a lack of money followed by a flush of money, not to forget outer ailments and inner giftees. All sprinkled and/or splattered throughout. 

Usually unaware, sometimes eyes wide open and loving it, we trudged, we skipped, we walked, we ran, wrapped in the care and comfort of God's will for us, love and laughter.

Thank you.

OUR GREAT COMFORTER

Blinding flash of the obvious: All my wonderings and wanderings are my 40 years in the desert.

All of our wonderings and wanderings...including all of our rues, regrets and remorses, all of our gifts of love and laughter....are our "40 years in the desert."

The changes taking place within me now: All the glib and glitter have fallen away, there is only dull and ordinary. There is no pride in authorship, just rueful memories, regrets that there isn't more, better, prettier, deeper. There is no wowowowow...and this is my Beloved.

Is this then the evidence when we are being fully truly turned? Me over to Thee. You effect the changes within that we need...all the while we are praying for changes, expecting to feel an upgrade. 

But none shall know us by our facade...we shall be drawn together by our commonality, and we shall be comforted. Our commonality, our Great Comforter. 

This, too, is temporary. This, too, is still more spiritual growth.

Thank you.

THE COURAGE TO BE RIGHT

To pay attention without self-censoring or editing our thoughts (with an eye toward naming them that which we are wishing for) is a hard haul. Too complicated? Just taking myself too seriously again.

Rohr wrote today about his long-ago experience at Thomas Merton's hermitage: I hadn’t known that two such contrary feelings could coexist. I was truly experiencing the nondual mind of contemplation. 

I  wondered if that is the root of my now experience...I am knowing no regrets today, yet rues, regrets and remorses seem to be flooding my memory. Both at the same time.

Of course I want this to be an indication that I'm on the right road, or at least heading in the right direction, toward the nondual mind of contemplation. It may be, or it may not be. 

There's my pearl...the place to hold the tension that Rohr writes about so often. To hold the tension between right/wrong, black/white, yes/no, knowing/not knowing. To hold the tension in trust, in faith, in peace that the answer is already behind me, the puzzle is already solved.

Breathe it...live it already. 

But how? By using that which we have...the gumption to try, the nerve to be wrong, the courage to be right.

Remember back in the day our mantra was, Perfect peace is having someone to blame. 

That has finally come true...only now we know it as having someone to thank, the God of our own understanding.

Thank you.

OUR WORLD WITHIN THE KINGDOM OF GOD

We seek to be a better person...to be kinder, more thoughtful, loving. Only our imagination can only picture what we already know to be kinder, more thoughtful, loving. So we try for that, fail, try harder, fail, try harder...for way too long. 

Then comes a new choice: Give up and continue living in the want-to world of our reasoning mind, or give up and crash and burn...to be raised out of the ashes of our defeat into a new dimension where we learn the kingdom of God is almost the opposite of what our reasoning mind can envision.

In our little personal world within the kingdom of the God of our understanding, our worst fear becomes our greatest gift, our enemy...hey, she's kinda nice, our I-will-not-no-never becomes here's me, helping out, giving freely and welcoming the opportunity not to get but to give! 

God's world cannot be pre-pictured, we can only live it in the moment, one day at a time. With the grace of gratitude.

The phrase “kingdom of God”... then, means almost the opposite of what an American like me might assume, * * * * *  God’s kingdom turns all associations upside down. Order becomes opportunity, stability melts into movement and change, status-quo government gives way to a revolution of community and neighborliness, policy bows to love, domination descends to service and sacrifice, control morphs into influence and inspiration, and vengeance and threats are transformed into forgiveness and blessing.  [Brian McLaren, "Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crises, and a Revolution of Hope" from Fr Richard Rohr's "Daily Meditation," November 20, 2020] 

Thank you.

THE KEY LIES IN REALIZATION

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

I note again: The key lies in realization.

I have read and reread this paragraph enough to practically know it by rote...yet every time I read it, it fills my head and my heart with awe. The awe of knowing...that is true! I know it to be true! From my toenails up, I know...this is not an "I hope," this is a truth!

So why the dumbfounded wonder? The dumbfounded wonder is realization. We are ever gobsmacked by the colors of Fall or the sight of a rainbow. Why? We are realizing the wonder of God in our midst.

Realization wipes away doubt...wipes away hope, too. Face it, we need neither doubt nor hope when we're sitting in certainty.

Think of it: Until we realize God is, God is is just two words...two words that bring us comfort when we are reminded of them, but until they are alive, pulsing and breathing within us, they remain just two words.

The tricky part getting to realization is...we can't buy it, borrow it, steal it, force it, read up on it to learn how-to...we can only realize it. It is already within us but the reasoning mind cannot get us there.

We must go beyond reason to love. Ah, God's country. The place where realization, patience, peace of mind...all the pearls...await us, or, more to the point, await our letting go of our want-for to gratefully pray our thank you.

Thank you.

OWN YOUR EARS...PRACTICE

A group of friends and I were talking recently, and the subject turned to gossip. Well. It seems not a one of them indulge in such...they simply rise above it, and as they rise they announce that gossip is bad, immoral, disgusting, not to mention unacceptable to the ears of God. 

Have I ever mentioned I exaggerate?  According to me, that's not as bad as gossiping, but apparently little is.

I'm not an advocate for gossiping, but I am a believer that calling another out in public for most any reason is unacceptable behavior. Own your ears...if the talk is offensive to us, we have options. We  can seek a way to relate without continuing the downhill talk, we can suggest a change of topic entirely, we can remove ourself. Own your ears.

Here's the hard part of owning our ears...we must own them before the juicy parts of the gossip gets out there. We get no points in heaven for righteous indignation after we've heard the dirt. 

We're not entirely stupid, we can hear when the conversational gears get downshifted...right at that moment, we have the choice...silently turn away before we find out who struck whom or excuse ourself without judgment aquiver and move on. 

Here's the toughie: It is not gossip that's the problem, it's our own crude curiosity for the gossip that needs the fix. And the fix is not in scrupulously slapping down those whom we judge to be gossiping.

Finding the sliver of gold, gossip can be just another tool to use to seek still more spiritual growth. I needed inside help to discern, trash or treasure? As my friend Dan says, "News is news." And it comes to us in the middle of the day, sitting in a Board meeting, riding on the Metro...it's at these unexpected times that we learn the art of discernment. 

Making this a conscious spiritual exercise is the key, and we find that we can get lots of practice. We hear a "tidbit," it sounds interesting, our ego leans in, our need holds back. We pray thank you and release, let go, detach...that is, concentrate on still more spiritual growth. 

It takes practice, practice that is never ending for who's kidding whom? Practice is the quiet word for still more spiritual growth.

Thank you.

TO INTUITIVELY KNOW...TRUST

We must all overcome the illusion of separateness. It is the primary task of religion to communicate not worthiness but union, to reconnect people to their original identity....God’s job description is to draw us back into primal and intimate relationship. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," November 13, 2020

As I read Rohr's quote above, I wondered...do I believe that? Do I believe "the illusion of separateness?"  From my eyebrows up, yes...or, is it that I just don't question it?  

I remember a class in philosophy back in my college days. As I recall, and my recollection is subject to question these many years later, but it's mine now: The concept being taught that day was that nothing is material...it, we, everything is whirling, whizzing altogether whajamacallits. It made not a lick of sense to me but I never forgot it.

Years later, when I began seeking spiritual answers, Golas's "Lazy Man's Guide to Enlightenment" fell into my hands, and the first few pages backed that up. I intuitively knew that to be true and did not try to figure it out. Interestingly, it was in that first reading of the "Guide" that I learned "we must go beyond reason to love."

I doubt not that background gave me the key to opening so readily to the Sermon on the Mount. In my experience, spiritual truth comes to us almost in reverse of rational thought, and the Sermon in its entirety proves that point...in particular resist not evil. 

I have ever been grateful for my intuitive nature which, I believe, eased me into going beyond reason deeper to the higher meaning of life. The Sermon has been...and is...my how-to manual.

Yes, I do believe in the "illusion of separateness," and no, I cannot reason it out.

Thank you.

WILLINGNESS...THE DOOR OPENER

A man had not yet given up everything for God as long as he held on to the moneybag of his own opinions. -- St Francis 

I suspect that most of us can form an opinion before thought can interfere. Ah, but it is the unforming of those opinions that requires careful thought and effort. 

When called to account, we often get defensive, protective of an opinion that we own...pride of authorship, my friend Sandy used to call it. The more defensive we become, the deeper the hold to our idea. Leaving no room for air, light, or expansion. 

It was an in-depth inventory of my own life that helped me see most of my opinions came as passing thoughts but many came after careful thought...back then. 

I was advised to attempt to change no opinion that had become settled thought...maybe just dig a tish deeper, examine the why of it, if it was even beneficial to me all these years after I'd first glommed onto it. 

In short, I needed to become willing to grow as the Spirit moved me. A brand new concept.

We find that it is our willingness to release one or two of our settled facts that we have held dear...without a substitute already in place!...that firms, or confirms, our need for still more spiritual growth. 

Willingness. The door opener. We can't fake it, we can't make it. We can, however, deny it, which in truth works only to delay it. Since willingness is of the Spirit, it keeps coming back until we get it right. 

With gratitude in the lead, need, desire and willingness will help build the foundation for our new life of still more spiritual growth.

Thank you.

AS WE STAY THE COURSE

There are always two worlds. The world as it is usually operates on power, ego, and success. The world as it could be operates out of love. One is founded on dominative power, and the other is a continual call to right relationship and reciprocal power. The secret of this Kingdom life is discovering how we can live in both worlds simultaneously. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," November 16, 2020

To the rank beginner, i.e., me, the secret of living in two worlds is nonresistance. But then, nonresistance is the nail to my new hammer. Although I believe I am on the right track, it will be beyond interesting to see where this track takes me. The answer, of course, is still more spiritual growth as I stay the course.

The wonder of still more spiritual growth is that it is not ours to grow, it grows us...we ever get glimmers of how I touch another in forgiving love...I suspect that forgiving ourself is the fodder that feeds spiritual growth.

Our transformed consciousness (raised from our reasoning mind?) becomes our Father's toolbox. That transformed consciousness is not self-willable; it's kinda like a wound, cleanse it, bandage it, then let it heal...from within. 

Our transformed consciousness results when we seek the spiritual good of another; we at last forget our fears and ourselves. -- Author unnoted, regrettably.

Thank you.

NO FRILLS, NO FROUFROU...JUST AS I AM

I wonder if our detour doesn't start when we give ourself the message that we must needs stand up for ourself. We must fight being personally wronged. We must resist! 

Or, those like me who knew...feared actually...we could not stand up for ourself, that we needed someone to do it, to run interference in our life in our behalf. We spent much of our life looking for our two-footed Protector...who could never live up to our egoic fantasy.  

Flash, flash! We always were half right...only on the unseen end of it. We did, do and shall need Someone to run interference in our life in our behalf...and we have ever had It within us, our Father, our Soul.

All the while we were fearfully searching for someone to change us, protect us, make us fit to fight...thank you awaited within for our acknowledgement...our invitation. 

Thank you for me exactly as I am right this very instant, for life itself exactly as it is right this minute, for our world exactly as it is right Now. Thank you.

I've got that glowy feeling again this morning. My spiritual Grandma Moses me...late aborning, stick figures and primary colors. No frills, no froufrou and exactly right for me.

Thank you.

GOD CAN AND WILL...SOUGHT OR NOT

Interesting times...inner leaning and learning.

Friends and I were discussing the election recently, and I was talking commonsense of the 2016 election...of pollsters and Russians and whatnot. As I talked, a whole 'nother train of thought interrupted me, and I got bogged down explaining that which I started being entirely clear about in my reasoning mind. 

I felt flummoxed but I knew within me that I needed to follow the new train of thought...only not out loud so I put it on hold to ponder later.

 

Our conversation moved to pollsters...how pollsters are going to need a new way to poll since their old way seems no longer to be working. We then moved on to the news about Ransomware, particularly, how rural hospitals currently are being victimized with no clear way out. 

Our specific concern, in each case, was how and what they could possibly do to change...to turn their less-than-wonderful around.

In the midst of talking, I stumbled into the realization that there would come a click-click so to speak that would open a new way to poll, and the same click-click would come for Ransomware victims. 

More importantly, the click-click would come not necessarily from the victims but from the higher consciousness of anyone anywhere.

Some solutions are not for us to figure out, but for us to realize. I know this: With my incurable, progressive disease, all the figuring in the world could not heal it...the solution is daily and spiritual in nature. Why not with pollsters and Ransomware? Or, face it, with politics!

Hmmm...I suspect that's a commonsense solution masquerading as spiritual. God can and will if sought...seek Him and get out of His way.

Thank you.

SEEK SOMEHOW...SOMEONE...TO SERVE

We must all overcome the illusion of separateness. It is the primary task of religion to communicate not worthiness but union, to reconnect people to their original identity.... God’s job description is to draw us back into primal and intimate relationship. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," November 13, 2020

I noted We must all overcome the illusion of separateness, and my "yes, but..." started churning, lining up commonsense resistance: 

This year has felt to me like a tutorial in separateness...beginning with The Pandemic at the first of the year. Since March, three beloved friends I mentored have passed (one completely unexpectedly), another dear friend has been diagnosed with Covid19 with no end in sight, one has been diagnosed with "dementia because we don't want to call it Alzheimer's," and yet another with Lewy Body Dementia. I got a wonky EKG in August, and my beloved Ruckus went back to Heaven in 2018 which, being the day before yesterday, is still this year. And, of course, over all: The Pandemic.

These are the times that try our reasoning mind. For which we need give praise, or a simple thank you, for these trying times leave us answerless...the very void that invites God to fill. How else do we break from our own mental fix-it but by no answer a'tall? 

If nothing turns us to God faster than fear, then answerless is our ticket to ride, our answered prayer. We have no thought to think, no mental gadget to distract us, nothing, nada, zilch, zip, zero. We beginners cry "Help!" Which is the short form of thank you.

We could stay with "Help!" only it holds us to our self-centered panic...thank you calms, soothes, is assurance that God has our back. It is thank you that informs us our ordeal has already been handled...we're good to go.  

Here's the secret: "Help!" is all about getting; thank you is all about giving. Neither is wrong, it's that "getting" is about me with no new growth required, and "giving" is about Thee which is new growth. 

Question not our year of seeming travail, pray thank you, be comforted and seek somehow to serve. 

Thank you.

KNOW IT NOW OR LEARN IT LATER

Thomas Merton said, shortly before his own death, You have to experience duality for a long time until you see it’s not there. . . . Don’t consider dualistic prayer on a lower level. The lower is higher. There are no levels. Any moment you can break through to the underlying unity which is God’s gift in Christ. In the end, Praise praises. Thanksgiving gives thanks. Jesus prays. Openness is all.

Who's kidding whom? To the reasoning mind that doesn't make a lick of sense...or maybe it's just me. I just know my common sense gave a raspberry when I first read it. 

It was the great gettin' up morning of my Soul when I caught a glimpse of Merton's message...of the underlying message. 

I was reminded of the famous Texas lawyer, Richard "Racehorse" Haynes by name, who taught how to win a case: Say, my dog bit you and you sue me. My defense: first, my dog doesn't bite, second, my dog is toothless, third, I have no dog...end of lawsuit, And that doesn't make any sense either does it? Apparently, it does if we'll change our mind, or exchange our mind into legal consciousness. Face it, Haynes was named one of the top ten attorneys in the nation in his day so clearly, in this instance, he wasn't the one who needed a change of mind.

What is particularly interesting to me is, though the story of Haynes is not immediately understandable to our untrained mind, we do not doubt it. We mentally shrug, laugh, and think, typical lawyer...good on him. 

Ah, but we read the Merton quote, and a certain fear drifts across our mind...is this even spiritually legit? Witchcraft, maybe? 

There it is...there is our sliver of gold. It is that doubting that sends us back to dig deeper, to question more, that opens the door. Either that or we drop our spiritual search altogether...not realizing that we will be drawn to it later, maybe not even in this lifetime, but it is a for sure. 

Know it now or learn it later: All roads lead to God. 

Thank you.

KEEPING OUR SELF CENTERED

[This is a reprint of my post of December 31, 2012.]
 
I am free to use all [my] capacities to alleviate the suffering of those around me. In living for others, I come to life. – Eknath Easwaran, “Words to Live By,” December 31, 2012

I heard a speaker yesterday make the point that is so essential to freedom from self. He said, in effect, that it is in living for others that we are opened to God's gift to us...the gift of God Itself. His message was quite moving. For it is true. It is not enough to live to help only our family, our community, our friends...we must be ready, willing and available to help whomever comes to us in need...and especially those with whom we are less than enchanted. Those who are wrong in other words.

It is by allowing into my life those with whom I disagree that I discover they are truly my angels...for nothing and nobody sends me to God so quickly...so sincerely. That is when I understand the words, "Help me to seek to understand rather than seek to be understood," not to mention, "Relieve me of the bondage of self" which becomes my mantra.

The balancing act, that which requires us to turn to God, is in keeping our own Self centered, in keeping our own primary purpose in life first in our consciousness. For if we lose our center, forget our primary purpose, we are less than useless. We are back to being self-centered…where none other is allowed entrance into our consciousness, and certainly not a Higher Power, for sure not God...where we are alone again, naturally.

Thank you.

ON A TRANSFORMED CONSCIOUSNESS

The Beatitudes: Seeing the crowds, he...opened his mouth and taught them, saying: 'Blessed are the poor in spirit, meek...those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, merciful...pure in heart, peacemakers....Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so men persecuted the prophets who were before you. --  Matthew  5:1-12 

Again I begin my study of the Sermon and again realize that to me the Beatitudes are the most important part of the entire Sermon. 

It is ever these words that remind us that mirror vision is God's vision. The reasoning mind is essential for the dailies of life, but it is God-vision that depersonalizes those dailies...that give us a reverse view of life, from self to Self.

Blessed are all my reasoning mind resistibles for they are the point of return, the U-bie, that begins my return to God. What we see, we resist not but look beneath our perception for a deeper understanding higher. This without effort...by grace.  

Blessed are all the "uns" for they are the way we shall be lifted up. This is where we first get a hint that life with all its hurts is when we're doing it right...it is the hurts, the wrongs, the mistakes that turn us to God...after our ego has tried and failed, tried and failed, tried and failed. Only then do we crash and burn and rise from the ashes into a transformed consciousness.

We resist not evil, we love.

Thank you.

LIVE NOT TO GET BUT TO GIVE

Do not seek to realize this fulness of Joy as the result of effort. -- God Calling, November 4

We accept "ego" as "evil" in the material world when we finally realize that ego legislates for self, knows naught of Self. To enhance self, ego condones lying, cheating and stealing, none of which is of God, all are for the benefit of self.

Wandering down that road this morning: Resist not evil is to hate not my ego but to love it. Ego is kinda like a mother's love...wants nothing but the best for her child but her idea of the best? Whoa, Mama! 

We need to find a whole 'nother way to love. We see that to love ego is to not resist it by hate or anger but to watch as it flows, as My love flows...unresisting, accepting, unhindered, peacefully.

This cannot be done by self-will alone...but really what that is of God can be? We loose it and let it go...on My account. 

When we let it go on My account, we can freely loose it, let it go, and accept whatever comes back to us in whatever manner or means...no matter how it appears to our natural eye. With God's will as our want-to transmuted into our need, we live not to get for self but to give of Self.

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

Thank you.

PRESUME THE BEST

My free-floating thoughts this morning turned to the time I showed friendly to the nasty guy from my early morning meeting. He was surprised which changed his outward behavior from nasty to neutral, maybe his nasty thoughts to questioning, maybe to kind. I do not need to know, I can presume the best. His behavior upgraded when mine did is what I know.

Then I read Fr Richard Rohr's "Daily Meditation" in which Allen Dwight Callahan is quoted: Jesus has loved his followers so that they may love each other. Love calls for love in turn. Love makes love imperative....Perhaps we don’t want to hear these two commandments because we can never live up to them through our own efforts.

I maintain that we can never live up to them through our own efforts is the key. Our intention...to presume the best?...opens the door for God to flow, to go before us to make the crooked places straight. 

As I think about it, presume the best might be the go-to words for any and all incoming and outgoing

incidents, events, happenings and/or attitudes that comprise our life. For sure they beat assume the worst. 

Thank you.

GOD CAN AND WILL...LET HIM

I love when I get my "marching orders." That's when I realize what I need do, and then read in one of my daily readers exactly that. 

For instance,  at 6:00 AM this morning during my quiet time, I knew to overcome my current resistance to another I needed to take the focus off the other and/or the words of the other: I wrote: learn to look beneath the words of another that I feel resistant to...the words and the person...to look beneath is to seek to understand...ah, rather than to seek to be understood. [Note: This is neither new nor different information...it came to me, and I noted it because it came to me.]

Then at 6:59 AM, I read the "Daily Meditation" of Fr Richard Rohr, and there:  Open yourself to seeing things through “the eyes of the other.” Seek a friendship with someone with whom you disagree politically. Look for things to praise in others, even when they vote differently. Learn about building equitable community in which everyone has a fair stake. Don’t contribute to polarization. 

There. My marching orders.

Often we realize a defect of character that needs to be removed, we pray that God remove it already, then we get busy trying to remove it. And miss the mark by a mile. 

Here's the thing we fail to do, even though our instructions are specific: We fail to humbly ask God to remove it. Face it, "humbly" is the key...that takes the self out of it, turns our self-determined objective into an acknowledgement that our Father has already done the deed...and we are grateful. 

Then we act on that...we act, screw up, act, screw up, act...until we get it right, and usually do not realize we got it right until way passed the real time of it. Mostly, it's in looking back that our spiritual growth becomes our reality...others may see it in us before we realize it. 

We say, "That wasn't me, I couldn't have done that," when, in fact, it was me...operating from our new consciousness.   

God can and will if sought.

Thank you.

LET IT AND LOVE IT AND LAUGH

A man had not yet given up everything for God as long as he held on to the moneybag of his own opinions. -- St Francis

Scrupulosity is on my mind this morning...that's marrying oneself to one's own opinion and closing one's mind to any incoming differences. According to me.

In my morning chat, the idea bloomed: What if Donald Trump is Saul of Tarsus? What if he's not, but I just let him be until he is? What if he never is, but I just let him be in my own head? 

This trusting that God is everywhere, in everything, and cannot not be everywhere and in everything is to relearn...everything. To the reasoning mind, that cannot be true...reason says that God cannot be everywhere in everything. What about the pandemic? What about.... 

Again, we must go beyond reason to love. We can never wholly trust God...or anyone else for that matter...as long as we hold to reason as our guide. Reason lives in our egoic mind, and our egoic mind legislates for self. 

Our need then is to loose reason and let it go. In short, trust God, clean house, help others. 

Thank you.

THE KEY TO LIFE AND HAPPINESS...FOR OTHERS

Cling to the thought that, in God's hands, the dark past is the greatest possession you have...the key to life and happiness for others.  -- Anonymous

Face it, our dark past is our rues, regrets and remorses...each and everyone in this world has their own dark past. Chances are each of us believes either my dark past is darker than yours or ew, your dark past is way darker than mine. Recognizing that as ego doing our thinking for us is the first step up and out.

Interestingly, the second part of that sentence, the dark past is the greatest possession you have, is made for resistance...as in, that cannot be true. At which point, we stop thinking and begin justifying why that is wrong and our opinion is right. 

Through serious spiritual want-to, we come to understand the why our dark past is our greatest possession. The why is that our dark past is the key to life and happiness for others.

We are not to hide our dark past, not deny it, justify it or pretty it up...no, we are to accept it. We reread the sentence and realize that the first part holds the gold...it is in God's hands this transmutation takes place. Our acceptance begins when we realize that as most important...that part, in God's hands. This takes active participation with God and that dark past.

We are comforted again that the work is not ours, it is God's...our work is in letting it be. Let it be His. Let it be.

In letting it be, we are opened to being of service to others...for the life and happiness for others...and we know we are the beneficiary. All we had to do was change our mind...really exchange our mind, me for thee.

Cling to the thought that, in God's hands, the dark past is the greatest possession you have...the key to life and happiness for others, -- Anonymous, @ p 124

Thank you.

NONRESISTANCE IS LOVE...RESIST IT NOT

Resist not evil...how I love that reminder. I awake this morning, the morning after the presidential election, with the news sounding less-than-wonderful, and my reasoning mind tells my heart it needs to break. 

But I resist not evil...after my coffee (first things first). It comes to me that this is a call to arms...not to the arms of an AK47 but to the arms of God who can and will intervene in our life on our behalf. 

To not resist evil and the way of its followers is not to curry their favor by becoming like them, using their tactics...that is resistance at its lowest...to not resist is to live by spiritual principles, walk toward our fear, toward God, to get to the other side of that which we are resisting. 

Yes, we will know pain, but we know from personal experience that it is more painful to not live by spiritual principles...we've been there, we've lived that. 

I remember on awakening in 2018 the morning after the midterms, and the word was defeat...the early returns were less-than wonderful, the news a total downer. Then maybe a couple days later, after all votes were counted, the news turned...we found that control of the House had flipped, among other changes for the better.  

I love James Finley's words: We’re here for one thing, ultimately: to learn how to love, because God is love. Love is our origin, love is our ground, and love is our destiny.

This morning, however, the word from me to me: Patience...this too shall pass. Or, pray for peace and keep on truckin'. 

Thank you.