"PEACE, BE STILL" AND CEASE OUR FIGHT

O God, if I worship you in fear of hell, burn me in hell. If I worship you in hope of paradise, shut me out from paradise. But if I worship you for your own sake, do not withhold from me your everlasting beauty. —Rábi‘a (717–801), Islamic mystic and poet [from Fr Richard Rohr's "Daily Meditation," March 31, 2020]

Oh my. There it is. My long-ago blinding flash of the obvious affirmed: Go to God for God and that is all.

I have never doubted since that flash came that that is truth, and it is for me personally. I am reminded of the question that also came then: From whom do you get your authority? And I knew the answer must be: From within. From my Father which art in Heaven. Within. 

That's very likely why, when I slide into my reasoning mind, I go to asking God if he loves me. Apparently, if my egoic mind cannot literally see, I doubt, I ask for evidence, I want my proof of purchase. 

I have authority...I do not. Although my 3:00 AM I See Me blatherings are without authority, it is mine to remember: I am ever powerless over the blather...ah, but Peace, be still is not.

Thank you.

HEED YOUR GOD'S WORD...LISTEN

I heard a lady (whose name I've lost, let's say "Bree") interviewed on 60 Minutes last night, and I thought what she had to say was fabulous...meaning I agreed with her.

My very short-form take on her premise is that vulnerability is essential to a well-lived life, and that, if done right, will be painful to the point that we must believe we're doing it wrong.  All of which I agree with absolutely.

Bree personified everything I'm guessing we'd all like to personify...or, specifically, I would. She was articulate, pretty, upfront in her manner and speech...she had "it." And I knew I could not follow her way of getting "it." Precisely because I have followed too many others who had "it," and I've even made their "it" mine...looking/sounding good.

Ah, but it was never mine; it was not the path the God of my understanding has perfected for me. I am blessed...so far, I have always fallen forward, away from that self-determined pretty path onto My own path away from self...going to God for God and that is all. It has demanded I be vulnerable which cannot be done by wanting, wishing and/or willing. It is and has been painful...that's how I know I'm doing it right.

Both paths, Bree's and mine, aim in the same direction, i.e., they both require vulnerability, that which I define as denial of self-interest. This is my long-ago lesson learned...that there are two ways of looking at everything, the reasoning-mind way and the spiritual-mind way. The reasoning mind way is not the wrong way, per se, but it is not the right way for me. And, believe it, I speak from an abundance of personal experience.

My personal great lesson a-learning: I must heed the God of my understanding in carrying out my life and my intentions in life.

So, I was really glad I saw Bree's segment last night...I think she is right on target, and I admire what she has accomplished...is accomplishing. But the comfort for me was the affirming fact that I'm no longer looking for a better way. I've found mine, it fits, and my aim is to continue doing what I'm doing so I'll keep getting what I'm getting...freedom from self-interest the majority of the time (that's 51%).

BFO:  I am not to push forward, I am to wait to be called. Listen.

Thank you.

THE CLIMB IS GOD'S FOR US TO DO

My Sermon study this morning was Matthew 7:21-23, Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven....

I was reminded of once back in the day, back when I knew all there was to know about all there was to know, and I was explaining to a truly spiritual giant what to "make a decision to turn my life and my will over to the care of God" really meant. 

And he said, ever so gently, "Don't tell me, dear, show me." 

An all-time deep and abiding lesson that. Which, who's kidding whom?, I resented just a tish upon hearing. God loves me so much that he wiped clean my ire so that I could hold "don't tell me, show me" as my needed gold standard. Face it we've all got words, but if those words aren't our inner truth, if we haven't proved them...if we don't live them...they remain just so many words. 

That's one of the gifts that began and continues my turning away from my intellect (outward), toward my intuition (inward). When the fact flashed that there are two ways to view any and all things...by our reasoning mind or by our spiritual mind...my path became less tangled. I understood what my path less traveled meant...and why and how I must needs take it. 

It was during that period of time that I read: Quite as important was the discovery that spiritual principles would solve all my problems. I inner knew that this was my key, the key to opening my mind. Which led to changing my mind unto exchanging my mind. That is the nature of still more spiritual growth...it necessarily takes time to realize it as an ongoing forever journey. 

There are no gold medals in life if we're doing it right...there are only deeper levels for us to climb higher. With God as our sherpa.

Thank you.

SIMPLIFY, SUBTRACT, DETACH

“Simplify, simplify, simplify,” were Henry David Thoreau’s three rules for living a life in harmony with Nature.

According to Meister Eckhart, "God is not found in the soul by adding anything, but by a process of subtraction."

It seems we read daily to detach...that attachment to anything separates us from our good, God.

From a "Daily Meditation" of Fr Richard Rohr: "Remember, the only thing that separates you from God is the thought that you are separate from God!"

Loose it and let it go. -- somewhere in the Bible

Thank you.

LOVE, THE ULTIMATE ENIGMA

I wonder, is there's any word in the English language that causes more puzzlement than the word "love?" I'm guessing everybody has their own inner feeling about the word...and that inner feeling changes when we think on it a while.

From my eyebrows up, I'm satisfied that love is short for acceptance...and for nonresistance...and for laughter. That's when I've depersonalized the word. Ah, and there's the rub...it's like love doesn't have its special, shiver-up-the-spine hook if it's depersonalized.

Personalized, that tingly spine has different levels. Remembering my little dog Ruckus, I feel all melty inside...gooey good mixed with mournful sad...which is the same feeling but different I have for my parents since they are all love memories now. A different level is love for friends from close to best, then ratcheting up to romantic love...coming deeper still to the love of my life. Each and all, so many different...what?...textures it seems amongst them, each held dear.

But it is the spiritual level of love that has been calling me for sometime now. I wonder if spiritually love doesn't meld depersonalized and personalized to become the enigma it is. It is no longer a word to pull apart and ponder, it is.

Love is God is Love. And that is All.

I wonder.

Thank you.

WHEN EGO DRIVES, THE CLIFF NEARS

The sage awakes in light in the night of all creatures. That which the world calls day is the night of ignorance to the wise. -- Sri Krishna (Bhagavad Gita)

“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light,” Carl Jung wrote, “but by making the darkness conscious.”

Praying to God to relieve us of our reliance on our reasoning mind is a waste of our breath and God's time since that has already been done. It's possible we are too stubborn to trust our own faith...or too  lazy. Oh, wait...or too scared? We must needs return again and again to the fact that we already made our decision to trust God...back there when we were at our very best, being lifted from the ashes of our own crash-and-burn. When our reasoning mind had nowhere to go but to God.

Whether we realize it or not, every minute since we were at our best, our life has been geared upward to the deepest level of consciousness...toward God in his hidey hole within, a.k.a., toward our Father which art in Heaven.

Clinging to our reasoning mind for our security is like the aged cheerleader or the over-the-hill quarterback trying to take another turn under the Friday night lights. Neither pretty, nor smart...but almost impossible to resist when ego solicits Lady Luck for one more chance.

Loose it and let it go.

Thank you.

PARADOX, THE KISS OF COMFORT

Proving that God can and will intervene in our life in our behalf is to win over our own self. That does not happen as we sit idly by wishing, wanting and waiting.

To win over ourself is to mentally work toward giving over, giving up, giving in to the one(s) with whom we are in discord. Also known as turning our want-to around...we want to win turned around is we want the other to win...and more specifically and harder to accept: I want to lose.

There it is. The beginnings of learning to think not for the benefit of self but for the benefit of another. This is the first glimmer that to lose is to win. To give it away is to keep it. Ah, the priceless gift of paradox...the kiss of comfort to the reasoning mind which now gets that it isn't going to be the go-to anymore, but it's not shut out forever.

Bringing the reasoning mind to agreement that to lose is to win is God's perfect gift. That is the first step up to a deeper level of consciousness...heading toward God consciousness. Or, perfect peace.

According to me.

Thank you.

KNOW IT...BELIEVE IT...OR NOT, GOD IS

I was double-whammied this morning as I watched "Morning Joe" at 6:00 AM. I let it be proved to me again that my reasoning-mind reality is an open invitation to panic...to go immediately to my worst fear, i.e., of running amok in public.

Today, Joe was talking about our economic condition soon equaling 1929...and Bingo! My mind ran amok in public. I turned off Joe and quick turned to my daily readings.

When the two-week closure hit, I decided my daily readings would include my Big Book. And here comes God to save my day. I "happened" to start my readings today with that book, and I "happened" to be at the sentence: We have found much of heaven and we have been rocketed into a fourth dimension of existence of which we had not even dreamed.

And my heart sang because my Soul knew.

We may well venture into 1929 economic territory and into 1918 pandemic health, and locust may come a-swarming...but there is a fourth dimension of existence  that supersedes all else.

There is a fourth dimension of existence available which we have personally experienced and can experience again whenever we turn within in gratitude and grace. Better yet, we know if we have experienced it, any and all of the world can experience it.

There it is...there is our personal salvation. Not in holding onto health, wealth and/or personal security...visible security is the hoax. The inner peace that passes understanding is what we already have, and we have it to hold as we pass it on to those in need. If we have a couple bucks to pass on, do it, but peace is the pearl beyond price.

Whether we know it or not, whether we believe it or not: 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

God loves us so much.

Thank you.

FOR THIS, OH LORD, I SEEK WITHIN

And that is all we can manage these days and also all that really matters: that we safeguard that little piece of You, God, in ourselves. And perhaps in others as well. Alas, there doesn’t seem to be much You Yourself can do about our circumstances, about our lives. Neither do I hold You responsible. You cannot help us, but we must help You and defend Your dwelling place inside us to the last. -- Etty Hillesum (1914–1943), a young, Dutch, Jewish woman who died in Auschwitz.

This is my go-to read. The read that heads me away from self-centered fear toward Soul-centered peace.

That this young woman, facing certain and terrible death, was pondering not only how to help God but how to defend Your dwelling place inside us to the last is beyond my reach. I do believe though that we can all hold hope in our hearts when we can recognize this is to be desired.

To honestly hold God harmless for harm done to me personally was a major...seriously major... breakthrough for me. And, who's kidding whom, my harm was an arm-pinch compared to the work of the Nazis. But then...then!...to be able to write to God in her journal, not bray to the world but write secretly in her journal, You cannot help us, but we must help You...oh my.

Not in this lifetime, probably not in several more after this, but I take comfort in the hope that someday, when God wills and I am ready, I can and will have that as my unthinking desire.

Thank you.

AND HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS

You cannot have a need I cannot supply. A flower or one thousand pounds--one is no more difficult than the other. Your need is a spiritual need to carry on My work. All spiritual supply is fashioned from Love. The flower and the thousand pounds--both fashioned from Love to those who need it. -- "God Calling," March 22

My morning Sermon study was Matthew 6:25-33, telling us not to be anxious about our life, what we eat, drink, wear and comparing how God feeds, waters, clothes the birds, beasts and nature, ending with your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness....

Again, as has happened so often in my past, it seems that today everywhere I turn is the same message: Our Father knows...and supplies...our needs when our need is a spiritual one.

Most important, in both today's "God Calling" and my Sermon study, is the promise of our needs always being met...ah, but with the caution that our needs be spiritual...then all these things shall be ours as well. The words that get short shrift are spiritual need and seek first his righteousness.

There's my whole story...I am filled with gratitude for when my prayer for the world touched on the pandemic I felt comforted that this, too, is for us to walk through with God. Our problem is not how to kill the pandemic but how to help God heal our world.

The only help we can give God...or each other, in truth...is Love. Our job henceforth is to seek within to find the love we are imbued with before conception and to pass it on spiritually...silently, mentally, attitudinally.

We can hang up our trowels, hammers, saws and handbaskets...until we get the quiet word from within to pick up your nets and follow Me. Ah, Home free.

Thank you.

SPEAKING TRUTH TO MY EGO

Per Albert Nolan, Dominican priest from South Africa, Any attempt to practice the same spirituality as Jesus would entail learning to speak truth to power as he did—and facing the consequences.

There are way too many people who find it relatively easy to believe they are speaking truth to power when they just shoot off their mouth when they feel irritated at.... (At. The bane of the unthinking one's life. Face it,"at" is rarely, if ever, aimed inward...we use "with" when we're referring to ourself. At separates, with includes.)

But back to Jesus and spirituality. It is to grin for here goes me, putting one over on me, thinking I want to practice what Jesus taught and did...right up to that and facing the consequences. Whoa and wait a minute! That causes me pause...a long pause.

That long pause is the good news...it gives me time to think it through. What consequences are so dreaded that the word itself stops me cold? I ponder the consequences to Jesus, and who's kidding whom? I sail right by crucifixion...what person close enough to sane considers crucifixion as an option? Being spat upon, jeered, smeared and cursed...yeah, I could consider those. Not opt for them, but run my mind a tish just to get a  mental feeling. I guarantee, it's not a good feeling even and just mentally.

So, here's the fruit of my long pause: The consequences my egoic mind shrinks from facing are pretty much all about losing face, i.e., looking dumb, sounding dumber...running amok in public actually.

It's a testament to Almighty God and all my angels that I find that purely funny.

I'm guessing that's why I had to read and ponder Albert Nolan's quote this morning. My conclusion was surprising to me...not stunning, I always knew...what? Inept? Close enough...I always knew inept was a bad word, I just didn't know it was my One. I'd held out hope, I reckon, that I, the core of me, was Deep.

What a hoot! The hoot is the many others I have dismissed because I considered them inept! Does the phrase get over yourself ring a bell, Sweetie?

Ah, God loves me so much...and ain't that a good thing?

Thank  you.

THAT SPIRITUAL LIFTING WITHIN

This I believe: Each of us has a part in having brought this world to our Father...the current pandemic, the floods, fires, tornadoes, hurricanes, cyclones, mudslides, rockslides, waters and forests ruined with plastics, trash and garbage, animals destroyed by human ignorance and avarice, human dishonesty to friends and enemies, parents, relatives and self...all this and so much more rack and ruin we have brought to You. Often in the name of progress.

Ah, this, too, I believe: If we fail to perfect and enlarge our spiritual life through work and self-sacrifice for others, we cannot survive life's certain trials. -- Anonymous

Thank You, oh Lord, for the gift of insight that has led us to know or to come to believe unto knowing that You have ever handled this and worse...and handled it for our benefit. All that we, in utter despair, give to you will be returned to us for us, with hope in our heart, to walk through. Every step of the way learning Your way...or doing it again until we learn which is and will be as it has ever been for our benefit.

Remember Saint Augustine's prayer: "Grant what thou commandest and then command what thou wilt." There it is, and thank You.

Sidebar: We can think, we can say, we can shout, "Yes I Can" until our face falls off...until we realize that the I that can is not the I of me but the I of Me, it's just so many words. That doesn't mean it won't get done, sometimes it does (if self is still driving our bus), but I will be left feeling left. It is the spiritual lifting within our own Self into that hidey hole of our Father when it is that we are gifted with our freedom from self...free to do all things that are possible to God, namely, all things.

Thank you.

THE TRANSCENDENTAL PRESENCE WITHIN

Whether we realize it (believe it, accept it, want it) or not, God is right now operating in our life...has already solved what we perceive as a problem. All our machinations to solve that problem...mentally or physically or even spiritually...are what keeps God seemingly slow on the uptake. God is never late, nor is he too slow. 

It is our wanting God to be true that is our jailhouse. Our very want is denial.

Our overriding defect of character is self which is the single thing that needs changing in this moment.  Therein lies our problem...we cannot change our own self...yet also our solution, a mystical, transcendental Presence within us that has already provided our infinite supply unto eternity.... (Joel Goldsmith, "A Parenthesis in Eternity," p 269)

Our Father made us perfect before conception. And to that we return. We have made the U-bie, we are on the journey Home, being resurrected even as we trudge the road of happy destiny.  

Let us each be the chicken soup for the soul for each other today...just for today. 

Thank you.

GIFTEES

Thank You for my everything just as it is this very instant for You are with me as You are with the world, You are using what we have given You to perfect for our benefit, to bring us to You, to God consciousness, for there lies our only hope of heaven. 

Anonymity in everything is the secret path to our Father who sees in secret and rewards in secret...ah, there it is, the reward. The reward is inner peace. That is our Soul at peace in the face of the fear of death or even unplanned ego-deflation in depth.

Tell no man. -- Luke 8:56

Thank you.

DARE TO BELIEVE IN IMPOSSIBLE POSSIBILITIES

Curse not chaos, praise its holy name, Crash and Burn, as it leads us out of our singular self into our united Self, One. 

This could well be President Trump's finest hour...his time of personal defeat should he surrender,  and surrender wholly. Surrender to the power greater than self secreted within that stands at the door and knocks, seeking to come forth to save our world.

Ah, and if his finest hour, why not mine? Why not yours? Why not ours? If his, why not America's?  Why not the world's? It need only begin with one soul, exactly like it all began...one soul touched by another times two, then another times fifty, then times 5,000, until another times infinity.

Now is the time to think of the impossible as possible...with God all things are possible. Let it begin now with me. With you. With us.

Paradox time: Against all our learning to not think so much, comes now the charge to think. Think the impossible is possible. Do we dare? Do we dare think positive possibilities? Not how we are going to do them...that's for our Father...but to think we can open the door. There's our positive possibility. And that it is ours to do by simply believing Yes! I! Can! The I of me is the I of you is the we who can open the door.

The resulting events in our life will prove our truth. God's clincher: We likely will not realize the proof until we look back on our life later...when we will stand amazed at God's perfect work.

Here I am, Lord, choose me!

Thank you.

I AM THE SOURCE...NOW PROVE IT

As I read my "God Calling" this morning, came a blinding flash of the obvious: I, I, truly AM the Source.

This came after I inside heard for the first time that the coronavirus may well leave me foodless, alone, unaided, and, if me, then every person in this condo and all in Alexandria, and in VA, and, also, plus, etc., et al.

I received my BFO and then realized that now, to hold my BFO, I must prove it. I prove it by letting it flow however it flows. There is no way to future know specifics, so I must rest my mind in knowing I already know. It just hasn't been revealed yet.

There is my secret directions for proving I AM...which I may never consciously realize, and that does not mean I will not be operating within me, without me. Just because I don't eyebrows-up know it, doesn't mean it isn't.

Comes another blinding flash: We, the world, are all Saul of Tarsus today...riding blind, cursing others, heedless of any and all consequences, particularly our own. Strike us, oh Lord, off the unseeing mount of self...open our eyes into the Christ consciousness already within us. For love...and for the benefit of each other. Thank you.

God loves us so much.

Thank you.

ON GETTING OVER OUR OWN SELF

What if the state of the world today...the pandemic, the Trump Effect, injustice, civil, moral and monetary...is Providence? And all we need do to heal this state is go with Providence, i.e., make a decision to turn within, away from our self-determined objectives based in greed, lust, power...self in a word?

What if each of us must be healed individually through our own ingrowing Spirit, meaning spiritually in our own time and at our own pace, since all healing begins within.

What if the state of our world today is so in need that a spiritual epiphany is even now coming?

Or, what if the state of the world today is that spiritual epiphany?

According to me, God's view is a mirror image of our view, meaning exactly opposite...our Oh no, Mr. Bill, is God's Good on ya!  Say the state of the world today is that spiritual epiphany, what changes must we be making right this red hot minute?

First, we must needs line our will up with God's will so we'd best be seeking a change of our own mind...our thank you for starters. Then, pull up the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-12), read them, argue about them until we get a glimmer, grab that glimmer and spend the rest of our life trying to do them...one at a time. That'll take us several lifetimes, and that's if we're going it right.

There it is. The value of studying spiritual material. It takes our mind off the state of the world today and heads us in God's direction.

As important was the discovery that spiritual principles would solve all my problems. -- Anonymous

Thank you.

PENETRATE THINGS TO FIND GOD THERE

To be sure, this requires effort and love, a careful cultivation of the spiritual life, and a watchful, honest, active oversight of all one's mental attitudes towards things and people. It is not to be learned by world-flight, running away from things, turning solitary and going apart from the world. Rather, one must learn an inner solitude, wherever or with whomsoever he may be. He must learn to penetrate things and find God there, to get a strong impression of God firmly fixed on his mind. -- Meister Eckhart

And there it is. The answer to my question to my Father regarding my silence in the face of a tormentor...one must learn an inner solitude, wherever or with whomsoever he may be.

With JoB, I realized my inner connection...I felt my "click-click." Having received my inner assurance that silence is indeed golden, my mistake was turning it into a self-determined objective. So that, with Gertrude, I could just as well have glued my lips shut and gotten the results I got...mouth shut, mind running amok. And, who's kidding whom? That is a resentment birthed, bred and looking for a fight.  

I know without a doubt that my answers are within, are spiritual in nature, and cannot be accessed intellectually...aided but not accessed. I have not tried to "figure it out," yet here comes my direction in the daily Easwaran reader (meaning I have read Eckhart's quote every March 14 since 1994) that clarifies, satisfies, rectifies and holds me accountable...and all but bundled in swaddling clothes. 

It makes a body humble. Giggling but humble. Oh! The giggling is the humble part. Thank  you, Father.

He must learn to penetrate things and find God there, to get a strong impression of God firmly fixed on his mind.

Thank you.

ENABLE ME TO WORK THROUGH YOU

Matthew 5:43 - "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father who is in heaven; .... You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect."

That last sentence, You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect, is the one that caused me pause. Face it, there is no way in this world or a hundred next worlds that I am going to be perfect as my heavenly Father is perfect.

Then a blinding flash told me to look deeper, seek beneath my intellect which, in the spiritual world, is surface garbage at best.

Voila! We are perfect, as our heavenly Father is perfect, when we live for the love and benefit of others. When we give up the intellectual desire to be better, wiser, prettier, richer, nicer, kinder...when we give up the desire to be other than, and just do it, i.e., live a turned-over life, we are there. 

The good news is that is not our job to accomplish, only to ever aim ourself toward. 

"God Calling," March 13, sets it out for us: "[My] Spirit which, if given a free entrance, and not barred out by self, will enable you to do the same works as I did [meaning], will enable Me to do the same works, and even greater than I did when on earth -- through you."

Through you and me!

There it is, the great promise: You and I doing the same...even greater!...works as I did. And the only thing barring Its free entrance is self. 

That only thing is a tall order, but here comes God to save our day:  He goes before us to make the crooked places straight.

Thank you.

OUR LIFETIME JOURNEY.

According to me:

Our only error is a sense of separation from God. That sense of separation is our ego, or mini-me, and the surprise is mini-me only has our best interest at heart...except that our best interest is according to mini-me who always legislates for mini-me.  Ego has neither the can-do nor the want-to consider the needs of any other...human or otherwise.

Our only hope of heaven, reunion with our Father within, lies not only in our decision to turn our will and our life over to the care of God but to allow that decision to prove itself in our life.

I am about half convinced that all of our life's demands are encompassed in allowing that decision to prove itself. The demand that we be patient...we are born with all the patience there is, all we need do is use it. Same goes with love, with care and concern, with unselfishness or thoughtfulness. They are all within us from before conception...else where would we go to get them?

My take on how the Father already has solved any problem we individuals bring to him? He uses the tools he has already given to each of us. Two people, same situation, both rigid, righteous and right? Same tools, love and laughter leading the way...those two people, having sought God, find understanding for the benefit of the other.

Peace on earth and goodwill reigns...when we keep a rein on mini-me.

Thank you.

ON TAKING NOTHING PERSONALLY

In reading again Fr Richard Rohr's statement, if we are not transformed by our pain, we will almost certainly transmit it to those around us, it occurs that "our pain" is not just the searing, life-changing pain we encounter if we're doing it right. No, "our pain" is also...and usually...our resistance to the daily irritants of life.

We all know them...the incoming idle remark we take as a direct insult, the careless glance that we interpret as a contemptuous glare.

I'm convinced the daily irritants of life are those things we take personally that have no meaningful reason to even be considered by us...even if the idle remark was indeed a direct insult. If it's not true...or even if it IS...picking it up to throw it back, harder, makes it our very own, gives us ownership. We can make a career out of wallowing in that...just trying mentally to get rid of it.

In my Sermon study this morning, at Matthew 5:33-37, the instruction is: Do not swear at all...Let what you say be simply 'Yes' or 'No'; anything more than this comes from evil. I realized that this is a for sure way to resist not. A "yes" or a "no" without judgment or justification? Hmmm, might be worth trying...to see where I'd be led. Probably need to make some listening noises just to maintain a sociable conversation. Chances are I'd last one conversation, then feel the need to go back and explain. But why would that matter? 

Trying to follow the Sermon's instructions, trusting the God of my understanding to walk me through, cannot be a bad thing even if I fail...I'd fail in the right direction, going with the spiritual mind rather than the reasoning mind. 

I'll go with it if you're good with it, God...Thy will, not mine. 

Thank you.

GOD WHISPERS...OURS IS TO HEED

I am reminded this morning of a recent blinding flash of the obvious: It is by self-forgetting that we get safely ashore...self-forgetting in the form of our thank you prayer. 

Background: I had an encounter on a city bus some 35 or 40 years ago. There was a very drunk old grizzled man who came up to me and started shouting all manner of ugly, filthy, lascivious remarks at me...and nobody, not the bus driver nor any passenger, acted as if they heard anything but crickets.

I was fairly new in my spiritual studying, but I had learned the principle of resist not evil. So I mentally ran through all that might happen if I resisted him...with the end result being that nothing I could do would change the situation without making it worse.

I did nothing but think thoughts of peace, and I mentally shot a "Bless you" to him as I got off the bus...and I felt right in my heart. That since has been my go-to experience when I am faced with a less-than-wonderful situation.

Moving up to today, I am receiving an ongoing petty offense that is identical to another petty offense  I received from another party recently. I See Me is gearing up...there are no petty offenses when I See Me, there are only capital offenses.

Comes now another BFO: For this I go into my quiet time every morning. For this I learn that I am my only problem. For this I know, when I am offended, the other is the innocent party...it is my reaction no matter what the other's intentional or unintentional offense may be to my mind. For this I resist not evil.

I got my marching orders...Forward, March! Silently shouting thank you every step of the way. And if I fail? God'll whisper, "May I hear a thank you?"

God loves me so much.

Thank you.

ON TRUSTING THAT GOD DOES HAVE OUR BACK

We must take care not to take our "lessons learned" as forever truths just as they came to us originally. Truth grows, expands, seems to change even as it remains rock steady. We must stay open to our own interpretation of that truth as we meet new ways to experience it.

For instance, silence is of God is a lesson I learned and have tried really hard to live by...mostly successfully. Until...came the day I recognized my silence as a self-determined objective. There was no feeling of peace and love, no click-click in my silence as there had been. Just that rigid, righteous and right feeling that masquerades so successfully as God's will.

Today, I am rolling with what we see is always ourself which I've relied on for years now. The core of that is ever expanding. For instance, what the naked eye sees is often not where our attention need be...not where our gold is.

What we see might have no obvious bearing on us, yet we feel strong resistance to it. That resistance is like a barking dog...irritating, but a sign that something ain't right. We learn to trust that, shoot a quick thank you and start exploring. 

We look beneath. Go within and follow the ribbon that runs from the resisting eyeball to our can of worms that is causing us pause. Although there is often no outer resemblance, we'll know when we've found it. Ah, and that we need to accept it. Then we can take it to our God and our mentor to help free us of the bondage of self.

Life...apparently...is all about letting go. Letting go of our self-determined securities. Trusting that we're not lying when we claim that God has our back. We can never wholly trust that until we let go and let Him.

Thank you.

ON MOVING CLOSER SPIRITUALLY

The goal of the entire spiritual journey is union in love. And love is not achieved by any performance principle, but it is something we “fall into” when we are not in full control.  -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," March 8, 2020

I believe it was Eknath Easwaran who wrote, In a situation where there is a lot of friction, where people differ from you and aren't shy about letting you know it, don't run away...move closer to them.

I have found that to be the best advice. Ah, only imagine my surprise when I realized it is not necessarily to move closer to them physically. For all parties to "win," we move closer spiritually...physically then can naturally follow.

To move closer spiritually requires no outer movement, as one would reasonably think. No, we need not even be near the other. We start to move closer in our head by getting over ourself...ah, love aborning. This opens us to its movement down to our heart (often accompanied by prayers for our thoughts about the other), and then, thank you, Father, love makes its home in our Soul.

This takes time, of course, but mainly it takes dedication to the first part, getting over our own self. Which stems our egoic thoughts, those that will be with us till three days after we're dead. We find our ceaseless prayer to be for our thoughts about the other...thank you for keeping 'em clean, Father. 

We will have movements of surcease, each being the promise that keeps us on track. Those moments are the promise of paradise, i.e., pure love. Not for anything, not for anybody, just love. They are of God, and clarify our tormentor as our angel, plain and simple. And there it is, the pearl of great price.

Thank you.

ONLY THROUGH THE GRACE OF GOD

In the final analysis, it is through the grace of God that any real change in human personality takes place. -- Anonymous

It matters not what name I am known by...to God, my name is "Beloved," as is yours, as is theirs. 

We can only "win" if they win...and win through the Father within, not through our self-determined objectives. We can remain silent through self-will and Scotch tape, but we gain no spiritual strength. 

We remain silent through our Father's strength and love; we know it, and it shows.

Thank you.

BLINDING FLASH OF THE OBVIOUS, II

[The following is a repost of a blinding flash of the obvious received, written up and posted on February 9, 2017.]

When there is something that is wrong and you know it, and you can see exactly what it is that is wrong and you try to fix it, and it does not fix and you try again, harder, and it stays unfixed...you are looking in the wrong direction.

You are looking out there...at the problem. Look within. To the solution...spiritual principles.

All spiritual principles are within us, have been there since before conception, will be there three days after we are dead.

And 1,000 years after the world as we know it is no more, spiritual principles will be in the ether...waiting to be realized and released by a ready soul once again.

Thank you.

SEEKING...EVER AND ALWAYS SEEKING

We are taught to fear fear...going by my own experience, nothing grows fear faster than fear of fear. 

That which we fear becomes the God of our understanding because our entire focus is on our fear of what we are fearing.

Sometime in the early '80s I heard or read that there are only two emotions...love and fear...that all other emotions are born of those two. That's all I remember about it, probably all I need to remember; it made sense to me, so I rely on it. Any negative vibes I get, I know as fear, any positive ones...love. The old K.I.S.S. principle works for me. 

I try to think of fear as ego snares...ah, not to resist but to welcome. Our ego snares are not to react to, not to respond to, not to hate but to love...to welcome...for all whom/all that we welcome are of God and necessary for our spiritual growth. Our egoic mistake is in forgetting we are not to react or respond but to love...i.e., to accept. Just accept...ideally, without comment. 

I believe it is God's will when our ego loses in those times of personal conflicts. How else do we learn our necessary life lessons? My deepest spiritual growth has come in my learning after the fact when my ego Lucy has lost in a petty pushback of life. 

The paradox is that's also true when our ego wins...it's afterward when we experience the pain of that "win." And there it is...that's how we build our own dunghill, and find out that only returning to God restores us to sanity...spiritual and rational.

Coming to trust that God is love, and God is all continues to be my hardest doing-it-by-living-it lesson. Which is as it should be...that keeps me seeking, ever seeking.

Thank you.

RESISTANCE...THE BANE OF SELF-FORGETTING

The elimination of self is the key to holiness and happiness, and can only be accomplished with My help. -- "God Calling," March 4

We learn...slowly, slowly...that our job is not to figure out how God is going to fix our problem du jour, but that we must seek within to find how he has already fixed it. Then comes the blinding flash...there is no problem to fix! There is just ever and forever the elimination of self...which can only be accomplished with My help.

First lesson in our search for still more spiritual growth is to keep it simple. Which need we never outgrow.  As a start, we clean up our thoughts of self, as in, hug 'em and kiss 'em and let 'em go.

Our nemesis is the "other," be it person, alive or dead, or just another fantasy. Our egoic mind turns us away from our need (God) and focuses on our want (self), i.e., how to protect, pay back, get over on, win...all synonyms for resistance, the bane of a spiritually based life.

We would do well to remember the old saying that you have to lose to win. It's possible that only those who have truly won through losing believe that. The sad ones are those who have lost and, fixed on justifying, have clung to their loss like a liferaft. Rues, regrets and remorses are the liferaft of the loser, and we have for sure taken our turn at floating in that boat.

It is by self-forgetting that we get safely ashore...self-forgetting in the form of our thank you prayer.
And there it is, our acknowledgement of My help.

Thank you.

UNKNOWING, WE GO TO GOD

Humiliation is humility aborning...fear it not, neither invite it for the purpose of achieving humility for, either way, it will spit in your eye and dance on your soul.

An impossible ask, to fear not nor invite. Ah, but only impossible when we stay in our reasoning mind, trying...ever trying. No. We turn to God, not to ask him for, but to thank him for. For bringing us to the cloud of unknowing.

That is the right road to humility...unknowing, we go to God for God, and that is all.

The nearer you get to Me, the more will you see your unlikeness to Me....Your very deep sense of failure is a sure sign that you are growing nearer to Me. -- God Calling, March 3

We must go beyond reason to love. -- The Lazy Man's Guide to Enlightenment

Thank you.

THE ELUSIVE SLIVER OF GOLD

Francis directly said to the first friars, 'You only know as much as you do!'

Well, there it is...again. Knowing that our unity must come first, that we must keep principles above personalities, is just so many words until they live within us/without us.

Those interesting facts (that we learn at our mentor's knee) I'm learning at a so-much-deeper level today. Honest...I'm just walking along, minding my own business, and Whoa! Another person has taken offense.  And my ego Lucy With The Football has already given me a couple solutions to the other one's problem.

God loves me so much that I have done nothing but appear unaware...smiling through. Which is a good start but its lasting power is dicey at best.

Here's the paradox...I know I can and more than likely will remain silent. Ah, but it was one hundred percent silence that lit the fuse of my recent contretemps (which sounds better than s**t storm, but s**t storm was what it was).

My lesson, then, is learning, first, that there are various levels to silence, and, second, it is spiritual work that is needed in learning those levels and the maintenance thereof.

I believe the deeper level of silence (maybe the deepest but that is not yet mine to know) is as Fr Richard Rohr wrote in his "Daily Meditation" of January 7 2020: I believe the only way through this polarization is a re-appreciation for silence....Silence is at the very foundation of all reality—naked being, if you will.

Keeping it simple (for my own self), Rohr's silence is of God and is gained through daily meditation, ceaseless prayer and dedication to ego deflation. I'd say we get there through aiming for that and oftimes failing...when (not if) wrong.

Keeping it simpler, silence in our walking-around world is tempered by the use of our words, tone being of first importance. Face it, relationships require words...learning to modulate our voice is our test. Ah, but our soul-self grows intuitively with our necessary mistakes turning us to God, repeatedly.

The older I get, the less I know for certain sure. Talk about the sliver of gold.

Thank you.

FOLLOW THE LEADER

Oh Lord. let my light so shine that my mouth never has to mention it. Thank you.

"Doing it right" is when we all come out the other side not looking good but feeling loved because our own mistakes have humbled us, and we know God's will in the midst of it all.

I am seeing me as the ribbon running thru all my discords, i.e., Sea Shell from 30 years ago, JoB 2-3 years ago; MaPa today...with each of those, I have sought (and do seek) still more spiritual growth.  I wonder if my lesson a-learning isn't that too much of my search has been through my interpretation of the Sermon, et al. And, who's kidding whom...pretty much self-determined objectives are floating that boat.

The latest is the one where I consciously (without forethought or planning) went off...took the bait and exploded. My wakeup call was recognizing that as God's will...my reasoning mind mistake was not a spiritual mistake but a step out...God getting me off my self-determined objective and back to the truer path,  follow the Leader.

Blinding flash of the obvious: This is the rocky road to the crucifixion of self. Which, according to me, is what still more spiritual growth is all about.

Thank you.