LEARNING A NEW LEVEL OF LOVE

Fr Richard Rohr's "Daily Meditation" today quotes Coretta Scott King speaking of her husband's commitment to peaceful resistance. In her talk were the words, nonviolent resistance [is] the means of stirring and awakening moral truths in one’s opponents. 

I see! I see! With those few words, my eyes are opened. I understand that responding with peaceful resistance, with nonviolence or love, is to invite love and peace...there is nothing for the other to resist. 

In grasping what peaceful resistance means to me, I know that to do peaceful resistance is to do and to do and to continue doing until I am living it without thought, without selection, without judgment...but with the option, to quote our beloved John Lewis, to cause good trouble. Nobody is born to be another's doormat.  

That makes clear Gandhi's statement, Nonviolence cannot be preached. It has to be practiced.  

I have known all the right words, have practiced them, for years.  Ah, but without a sacred purpose, meaning not for the purpose of stirring and awakening moral truths in one’s opponents.  

This blinding flash of the obvious tells me that I need a mentor who lives nonviolent resistance. No better time than now to begin learning to love not by my want-to but by my need-to, a very different level of love.

There. I give over to God to lead me to my guide, please and thank you.

Thank you.

WE DON'T COME BACK ALONE

[On singing the song of trust in the Lord] We trust in the Lord, stay on the battlefield, and treat everybody right until we die because, frankly, nonviolent love can get you killed.  *** This is not a song to make you famous, but a faith to sustain you when you go to jail, when the money runs out, when you are powerless and cold and alone. You sing this song, and you know you’re not alone. You’ve been invited into something big enough to hold all your sorrows. --  Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," November 23, 2019, quoting another whom I neglected to note.    

There. That I believe from my toenails up. It is also my proof positive that what I believe and what I do are two distinctly different things...some of the time. 

I know from my own experience that my "song of trust in the Lord" will sustain me because it has more than once when the money was not there, when I was powerless, when I was friendless, mocked and humiliated, when I, personally, was not the faithful friend. 

Another hard lesson to welcome: Faith is not a one-shot-deal.

Without a need to build our faith, we'd not go for  still more spiritual growth...which, face it, invites hard knocks, faithless friends and frayed rope bridges. 

How else are we going to learn to love, to be ye perfect even as our Father is perfect? Which few of us expect in this lifetime but that's sufficient reason for me to believe in...hope for?...reincarnation. We keep coming back until we get it right.

We come back knowing the song of trust in the Lord...we don't come back alone.

Thank you.

BE THE PEACE YOU SEEK

Thich Nhat Hanh teaches: The situation is so dangerous, injustice is so widespread, the danger is so close. In this kind of situation, if we panic, things will only become worse. We need to remain calm, to see clearly.  *  *  *  A person who wakes up and understands is called a Buddha Christ. It is as simple as that. The capacity to wake up, to understand, and to love is called Buddha Christ nature [my name change]. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," July 29,2020

A person who wakes up and understands is called a Christ was told to me nearly fifty years ago. I did not get it, and I did not get it purely because I equated the word "Christ" with "Jesus," and I would have no part of that. It was some fifteen years later before I waked  up and understood...and I had already been trying to comprehend the Sermon on the Mount for nearly the whole of those  fifteen years. 

The good news...none of my trying was lost, none of my eyebrows-up efforts were for naught...they each and every blind-alley effort was necessary for me to be turned away from my self-determined direction and toward the peace that passes understanding...which all religions teach.  

Ah, what a wondrous revelation...that all religions teach peace. That gave me permission to keep it simple and go with the one I had some basic knowledge of, Christianity. I still know not a lot about the religion, and I'm good with that. It is the life that Jesus lived whether every word is true or not that I want for mine since the fellowship I live in is based on these principles...short form of which is ego-deflation-in-depth or get over yourself. 

I just want to be the peace that all religions teach. Which, who's kidding whom, is a stretch. But, if it be true that with God all things are possible, just don't set the clock (or the calendar) and go for it.

Thank you.

TO LIVE SIMPLY...GET OVER YOURSELF

You wonder sometimes why you are permitted to make mistakes in your choices when you sought so truly to do My Will in the matter. To that I say it was no mistake....Not to him who walks on with no obstacles in his way, but to him that overcometh is the promise given. -- "God Calling," July 28-

There, that quote from today's "God Calling" gives the backbone to my chosen code: We have ceased fighting anything and anybody...which to me comes directly from the Sermon's Resist not evil.

A brief salute to the late Honorable John Lewis who I believe will be remembered along with King, Gandhi and other walking-around saints. In reading about Lewis, who I have learned studied and lived by the Sermon, I feel more settled with my inner discomfort that I have been nattering about for too long now. It takes inner discomfort to be willing to change...and then to loose it and let it go.

To cease fighting, to make an honest decision to attempt to cease fighting, has and does require me to "refrain from the inner violence of the heart" as Gandhi is quoted as saying about nonviolence. I tend to give myself points for not responding in kind to a snark or a snarl, but there's no "good behavior" in that when we're mentally responding in kind...we could just tape our lips shut, that won't get us still more spiritual growth.

According to me, spiritual growth has next to nothing to do with religion as such and religious opining in particular. It has everything to do with putting the other person first not just out on the freeway, which counts by the way, but in our own thoughts and prayers...and especially when our ego is demanding retribution for some slight (how aptly named is that?).

I'm convinced that doing it right by rote is not the path toward spiritual growth...by rote is just living by memory so we won't be wrong. Face it, nothing turns us to God faster than a personal foul-up. For that's when, invariably, the God of my understanding turns me to the fact that I have made a decision based on self that later placed me in a position to be hurt, and I've taken that out on another...no matter what it seems the other has done to me.

I'm a believer in keeping it simple...I really like Rohr's forgiveness is the religious word for letting go. Because isn't it? Isn't forgiveness just letting go of our own opinion? Then there's my current favorite, of course, get over yourself...which covers the Sermon in three words. Ah, to live that simply, there's life's key.

Thank you.

ON GIVING OVER

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. taught us that before  we go out to witness for justice, we have to make sure that we can love and respect those with whom we disagree. [How do we get to a win-win solution?]  We change from inside—from the power position to the position of vulnerability and solidarity, which gradually changes everything. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," July 27, 2020

My blinding flash of the obvious that changed my life: Be the first to give over. 

This came to me sometime ago when I was in a very minor hassle with a friend...I don't even remember the problem but I'm thinking it was akin to which movie do we want to go see? Minor? That doesn't even qualify for minor, but my ego was fully, completely, utterly engaged...and so was hers.

Be the first to give over blinked in my mind, and I followed the blink...which is the even bigger "who'd-a-thunk-it?" There were no bells and whistles until much later when another opportunity came to me, and I found it not so easy to do. I did it, but that rang the bell that told me I had to do some serious digging...because I had done it with resulting resentment. The Big No, No Way, Go Back, Do Over, etc.

 

That's when I learned that the old prior proper planning is necessary...probably in life itself...but for sure when making inside changes. 

I realized that I needed to make a decision to commit to the two great commandments, loving the God of my understanding with all my heart, soul, body and brains and my neighbor, be they friend or foe, as myself. Being not entirely stupid, I knew this was going to be a tough slog, and I'd best stop my giving over to get. 

I knew I loved the God of my understanding to the best of my ability to love, but the as myself was a puzzler. For I didn't love myself, and I knew that. So I pondered my less-than-wonderfuls...i.e., I'm a tish partial to gossip, I have a tendency toward know-it-all, I may ramble a bit much, etc. So I determined to stop that. 

I don't know if it was God who slapped me upside my head, but something did, because I came to my senses, or close enough, and the decision bloomed within me: I am as good as I'm going to get just as I am...it'll be hard enough holding steady right here, any improvement is God's job, and he's more than capable so let him already. 

Wonder of wonders, great God Almighty! I felt free to love my neighbor, friend or foe, as myself...s/he is good enough just as s/he is...let it be. So any disagreements I have today, I can be the first to give over without resentment...plus, with no sense of superiority. 

Even more freeing, just because I can doesn't mean I always do...but I know what to do when I miss: Give over, give up, give in.

I cling to the heart-knowledge that we all and each of us are as good as we can be right this very minute...hug it and kiss it and let it be. Now love and laugh.

Thank you.

RAINS MUST COME...EGO MUST RESIST

My Sermon study this morning was at Matthew 7:24-27; i.e., doing His words is akin to building our house on rock, rains come, house stands...not doing them is akin to building our house on sand, rains come, house falls.

My take is the little noticed by me but really important words...that the rains are going to come whether we're doing His words or not. It rains on the just and the unjust alike.

It's not an easy fact to remember, that doing the good we are learning does not exempt us from the rains, because, face it, that is what we usually are praying for. No, it is taking the steps we are learning that we are safe, secure and unafraid (or close enough) in the midst of the rain, i.e., the political/pandemic/financial/civil rights/climate change, etc., storms of today's world.  

Doing the work of our spiritually based program frees us, if only a tish, from our ego. It is our daily discipline of freeing ourself from our egoic mind that allows us to pass on to those who follow all that is ever passed on to us.

All that being my truth, Rohr's post this morning is particularly apt:

The ego seems to find its energy precisely by having something to oppose, fix, or change....We must recognize our constant tendency toward negating reality, resisting it, opposing it, and attacking it on the level of our mind. This is the universal addiction. -- Fr Richard Rohr's "Daily Meditation," July 26, 2020.

Thank you.

FORGET, FORGIVE, LOVE, LAUGH

Forget, forgive, love and laugh. -- "God Calling," July 26

There it is...the short form of the Serenity Prayer, the Lord's Prayer and the Hallelujah Chorus all in one. 

Now to do it. To actually forget, forgive, love and laugh. 

Ah, but who's kidding whom? On my own I am incapable of all but one of those...I can laugh. I know from doing it that forcing laughter can lead to genuine laughter...it's like yawns...they just follow when given a starter.

Which poses the question: What if I tried to force feeling love on an ego-determined unlovable? Actually, I have done that, too...but it was to get on the good side of, not to give love just to give love. Big difference. But it worked. I was in high school, the unlovable and I snarked at each other a lot, I found out she lived three doors from a guy I had a mad crush on...change of mind and motives, p.d.q. I quit resisting her which gave her nothing to resist...we wound up best friends. 

Ah, high school...life was simpler then. I didn't analyze so much. Want it? Go for it! There wasn't a lot of searching for a higher purpose for sure.

I suspect life is just as simple now, it's the constant mental digs that confuse the issue. Unfortunate fact,  trying to do God's will as a self-determined objective takes God out of the picture...kinda like trying to do loving without being loving. Say what?

Which leaves forget and forgive standing alone. This isn't the forget that comes with age, of course. This forget is of the things we'd best forget...those things we hold ourself in bondage to by resentment in all its forms. 

I'm convinced the only way free of resentment is by our act of forgiveness. Forgive...get over one's self. Which cannot be done by self-will...if we bring self-will to a resentment, resentment has already won. We go to God for God...not to get God to do for us, but to give over to God. Trusting, knowing that God has already healed us and our disturbance.

Loose it and let it go.    

Thank you.

WHEN THOUGHTS GROW THEMSELVES

Thou art my glory, and the exultation of my heart. Thou art my hope and refuge in the time of my trouble. -- Thomas A Kempis (from Eknath Easwaran's "Words to Live By," July 24)

Is it the "thou" and the "thee" and the "He" and the "You" that keep us feeling separate and apart from the Father we are taught lives within? 

That passing thought came to me as I read the above quote...possibly because I am coming to accept, to understand, to realize what I Am that I am means to me. Not just "means" but literally is to the unawakened me as I awaken to it. 

Try it on: I Am my glory, and the exultation of my heart. I Am my hope and refuge in the time of my trouble. 

Well, I like it...I Am brings a rightness to me...a nearness...that Thou does not. 

For whatever reason, and for the first time because I've read this same quote without qualm every July 24th since 1993, this morning on reading it, I Am substituted itself.  At first I resisted, assuming it was an idle thought, but the thought grew itself. 

This I know, words spoken by saints, beloved religious figures and noted mystics best be left to stand. I'll try it on some other quotes before I try making it my own...it may or may not stick, not mine to decide.

God is so good to me.

Thank you.

EACH DIFFICULTY...A GIFT

God’s will for us is clearly revealed in every situation of every day, if only we could learn to view all things as God sees them. . . . The fullest freedom I had ever known, the greatest sense of security, came from abandoning my will to do only the will of God. . . . (Jesuit priest Walter Ciszek after 15 years in a Siberian prison.)

I am reminded of the late John Lewis who was beaten so badly on the Edmund Pettus Bridge all those years ago. With his recent passing, I am learning more about his life...namely that he lived by the Sermon on the Mount. He was ever my hero but...oh my, that seals the deal in my heart. 

I laugh as I think and begin to type: Living by the Sermon is not easy. Like that is news! And yet, I suspect that's what has caused my recent pause...questioning myself. Am I going in the right, i.e., spiritual as opposed to self-determined, direction? I keep bumping up against one concrete wall after another...oh, also known as myself.

My ego Lucy With The Football has been driving my thought-bus recently...and, yeah, pandemic, peaceful protesters being teargassed, voting rights, yada, yada, yada...but I am responsible for my own mindset, my own continuing thoughts, my own Body of Work, me, in a word. I am responsible for bringing my, myself and I to God at the first hint of inner/outer disturbance.

And here comes God to save my day...my "God Calling" is opened to July 24, but I glance over and see the entry for July 23 which in part reads: Look on each difficulty as training to enable you to acquire [My] peace. 

God is so good to me. For that is precisely what the priest Walter Ciszek wrote about; i.e., learn to view all things as God sees them. That is how we are meant to acquire My peace, through turning our will and our ways over to the care of God and using His eyes to look on our life just as it is right this very red-hot minute.

Right or wrong, I'm going in the right direction since all roads lead to God...just cut down the lag time, and go to God first. Kiss Lucy on the lips, pat her on the head and move on.

Thank you.

LIFE'S ONLY LESSON

[They] were the first witnesses to the resurrection because they remained present for the entire process, from death unto new life, exactly what is necessary to witness resurrections in our own lives as well. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," July 23, 2020

I know I'm going through changes...I wonder if that quote doesn't describe what is being asked of me now...to remain present for the entire process from death [of the old] unto the new [which is being birthed within even as I breathe]. 

I wonder if that isn't life's plan for all of us...from birth we learn as we go, shucking any and all shields as we grow.

Maybe it is that we remain present beyond death to the Power we found within us before birth. That is what life in this world is all about...heading in the right direction, going off track, getting back on track...trudging the road of happy destiny. 

The right direction is a spiritual direction...spiritual being away from ego, toward the God of our own understanding. Same goes for atheists as for believers...we keep coming back until we get it right, according to the Power for good within us.

Flight of fantasy: We are imbued with the Power within before conception, when there is just the birthing pool. This is a forever Power for good, for our own benefit. Ah, that this is a Power for good, for our own benefit is the lesson that we keep learning, that keeps us coming back until we get it right. It may well be life's only lesson.

Thank you.

ON GOING THROUGH THE TREPIDATIOUS

The past few I-know-not-what timespan I have felt...what? Less than? Trepidatious? I have experienced a health scare which sent me to the ER, then admission into the hospital overnight...which just doesn't make for a happy face. But I've been in my uh-oh mode for awhile...feeling kinda like my skin is on crooked. 

During this time, I've relied on my daily readings, my chats with friends and on the fail-safe, my trashy romances. Or, better yet, the new Chet and Bernie, "Of Mutts and Men." The God of my understanding accepts all the help I think I need. 

My good news is that I've been here before, and I firmly believe if we're doing it right, we'll be here many times. What else would send us to God as quickly and as surely? 

The following are a few quotes from Fr Richard Rohr's "Daily Meditation" that I have saved. They help perk me up, find a new perspective...mainly by turning me away from my ego Lucy With The Football toward my angels:

All great spirituality is about what we do with our pain....Only suffering and certain kinds of awe lead us into genuinely new experiences. All the rest is merely the confirmation of old experience. - March 30, 2020 

Remember that you already are what you are seeking. * * * The Path of Descent is very real and usually very painful, -- March 27, 2020

 

Episcopal priest Barbara Taylor Brown:   Who would stick around to wrestle a dark angel  all night long if there were any chance of escape? The only answer I can think of is this: someone in deep need of blessing; someone willing to limp forever for the blessing that follows the wound. * * * While those who are frightened by the primal energy of dark emotions try to avoid them, becoming more and more cut off from the world at large, those who are willing to wrestle with angels break out of their isolation by dirtying their hands with the emotions that rattle them most.  -- March 26, 2020

 

CAC faculty member Brian McLaren: When we call out for help, we are bound more powerfully to God through our needs and weakness, our unfulfilled hopes and dreams, and our anxieties and problems than we ever could have been through our joys, successes, and strengths alone.  --  March 25, 2020

The Path of Descent as the Path of Transformation: It is not in perfection that we reach the divine, but through the gateway of our mistakes and our suffering. -- March 23, 2020

God loves me so much.

Thank you.

GET OVER YOURSELF...BE

I just reread a sentence of mine from a recent post: Our problem is us...whether we are  living from self-will, trying to give love to get love...or from spiritual will, to give love. I need to change that a tish...living from spiritual will is to be love, not to give love.

To presume to give love is...presumptuous. Love is not ours to give...love is God and all that God touches...All. Choosing to give love invites self to get involved. No. Love is God in action with, within, with out...in which we seek to be a conscious participant.

The hard work is in being...because it requires we not work, we be. That we not think on it, ponder it, understand it even. We Be. We be the love we already are...love that we were born into. By loving  our Father within, we cannot not be the love we seek and already are. 

BFO: Oh, get over yourself actually says it all.

Thank you.

ON SELF-CHOSEN PAIN AND GRACE

Much of your pain is self-chosen. It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self. -- Kahlil Gibran

What a comfort it is to read again that which I doubted first time round, yet today know to be true since I have proved it for myself. 

I have prayed about my anxiety oh so often and oh so diligently...meaning, I would constantly change (pretty up) the words to make them more acceptable to God so He would rid me of the anxiety. That never worked, so I would pray harder, pretty up more, etc.

Until one dark and dreadful morning in the bright light in my Soul, I realized my anxiety as the gift that turns me to God faster than the heart beats...I just needed to recognize that so I would listen. And I did...and I do...and I still have anxiety whenever it wants to come. At which time I say, silently or out loud, Thank You. As I welcome, it comes, it goes...without any necessary notice. 

I am certain sure, without my acceptance of anxiety as my Soul's helpmate all those years ago, I would have gotten off the Metro at Rosslyn for fear of riding under the Potomac and never gotten on the Metro again. Ah, and missed the inward glow of God's pleasure with me...which is still mine today. Thank you.

I go back to Gibran's much of your pain is self-chosen...one of my first spiritual lessons that stuck was everything happens by invitation only. That lesson helped hold the door open for Gibran's thought to enter in...and to invite my mentor to suggest I put a note on my bathroom mirror saying I am looking at my problem which is the truth that I am the source of all my woes. 

We stop trusting our answers to be out there, away from ourself, when we begin to trust what we are learning, that trust God, clean house and help others, is the key to our peace of mind, our source of joy and love of all.

Thank you. 

CHOOSING TO SEPARATE FROM THE KNOWN

A suggestion for spiritual discipline: ,,,,allow oneself to separate from familiar paths and ways of coping so that one can 'not know.' --  from Zen Roshi Joan Halifax in Fr Richard Rohr's "Daily Meditation," December 28, 2019 

Whoa!  How powerful is that? To allow oneself to separate from familiar paths and ways of coping so that one can 'not know.' 

To consciously separate ourself from a familiar path, from our proven ways of coping when we choose a new and different path, fully aware we cannot know the how, where and when our choice will bring us? To  call that spiritual discipline is to understate by a mile...according to me.

But isn't that what we do every day albeit in little ways? When our chosen path in life is ever toward still more spiritual growth, those little ways are our slivers of gold. We come to realize them as such as needed when we continue to grow spiritually. 

A "little way" example: We're heading down the highway, we approach a fork in the road for which we have the right-of-way. Another driver is approaching and is not slowing down. We make a quick decision to smile and yield to the other. There. That smiling decision to yield is a spiritual little way. 

Our decision in the moment to allow another in, separated us from our I'm-right-and-I'll-fight mindset. That gave us a new way of coping...with our "you're-welcome" smile...not knowing but what we might get the bird, we might get a smile in response.  

Those are the golden bricks that we are laying ever leading us to the peace of mind we seek. (Apropos of nothing, I'm convinced that peace of mind is code for ego-deflation in depth.)

Thank you.

ON LEARNING TO LOVE

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. —James Finley, from Fr Richard Rohr's "Daily Meditation, of July 11, 2020

This learning how to love is an ongoing, neverending event in our life. Recently, I shared my blinding flash that humiliation is humility aborning which has proven itself to me to be true. I got a less-than wonderful response...angry in a word. As in, "Humiliation is never a good teacher," followed by an example of feeling humiliated by another.

My first within reaction was resistance to the speaker, but my immediate next response was to recognize it wasn't the speaker, it was the speaker's angry response I needed to accept. I began internalizing that as the level of love that I have been opening to for so long. 

This internal work allows us to mentally go over how an accepting attitude toward the anger of another may calm the other, or it may do nada, or it may inflame the other. None of which are ours to fix, set straight or react to in anyway. This is where the advice "if you are not being heard, shake the dust off your feet and move on" applies so well. 

Apparently we are not meant to be heard by everybody...and they have every right and reason to believe that we're the ones not hearing. Call it a draw and move on...the hardest part of that is to honestly move on mentally. There it is...the new and next level of love. Learning how to hug it and kiss it and let it go in our egoic mind. 

The "it" that we want to change almost alway is the person bearing the unbearable message. Again, our lesson to personalize nothing comes to save our peace. 

In the end, the humiliation we feel is not dumped on us by them. No, it is born within us, in our ego's resistance, say to feeling disrespected by them, then not winning the respect we think we need.

Agree with your adversary quick, fast and in a hurry. If someone slaps you upside your head, turn the other cheek. Resist not evil...recognize it as an invitation for our spiritual growth to take seed.-- My take on parts of the Sermon.

Thank you.

LIFE REALLY IS LIKE A BOX OF CHOCOLATES

[The following is a slightly reworked reprint of my  post of October 22, 2015.]

Life is a conundrum, a paradox, an enigma:

How do we get love? We give love away.

How do we get a vibrant, alive and spirit-filled mind? Through silence.

How do we overcome our enemy? Embrace him.

How do we win an argument? Agree...quickly. 

How do we know for certain sure there is a God? We don't.

How do we accept not knowing? We laugh.

How do we laugh when reliance on God is essential in our life...and we're still scared of risking it? We love and laugh.

Where do we go to learn how to love and laugh? We go within...to God.

Thank you.

ACCEPTANCE...LOOSE IT AND LET IT GO

So instead of giving all of our attention to throwing rocks, we can do our best throughout the day to dig a new channel straight to the Lord in those around us...by being patient, by being loyal, by always keeping our eyes on their welfare rather than our own. -- "Words to Live By," Eknath Easwaran,  July 15

 

In this quarantined time we are in, it is difficult to feel we are being of real help to others...but the idea from my Easwaran reading today just inspired the realization that our thoughts for the benefit of others count. 

Thoughts not of how to fix others but of gratitude that the others are in our life...that they have made themselves known to us...either by reaching out for help or by sending less-than-wonderful thoughts toward us. Those are the thoughts we nurture by our steady resistance to them.  And, who's kidding whom, those thoughts are the pearls for they turn us to God faster than any pleasant-in-passing thoughts. 

Those perceived barbs, snarks and snubs are tools we can use by learning not to nurture our own judgmental thoughts...which will come as long as our ego has a say. Our ego justifies those nurtured thoughts by naming them "responding in kind," "pay back" and/or "standing up for myself." The key word, we must remember, is "justify," an ever self-determined objective. 

When we justify our own judgmental thoughts, we are giving truth to the others' so-called lies. If they are lies, why acknowledge them? Old saw: Least said, soonest mended. 

If, however, they are not lies, why quibble over the package they came in? Better to get grateful they have been called to our attention for acceptance. In the act of accepting, we loose them and let them go. 

Thank you.

GOD WORKS IN WONDROUS WAYS

I come again to the remembrance of my June bug story. I am so glad I noted this in my "God Calling" all those years ago so I can relive it every year on this July 14. It is my beloved story of God performing God's work with no help from the cheap seats, meaning me.

My June bug story: I was reading the paper, sipping my coffee, one beautiful morning, and I vaguely heard a buzzing sound. I ignored it until I couldn't any longer as the sound kept getting louder, sounding more insistent. 

Finally, I went looking for whatever was causing the incessant buzzing, and there was a June bug caught in the screen at my window. A ballpoint pen happened to be lying on a table right below the window, so I used it to try to free the June bug. I worked it. Nothing happened except the June bug's buzzing sounded angrier and angrier. 

I finally gave it up, and in giving up, I said...out loud to the June bug...'You got God same as I do, Babe...you're going to have to let God do it because I can't.'

With which I turned and walked away. The buzzing stopped almost immediately, and I looked over my shoulder...there was the June bug moving away, free.

Don't tell me God doesn't love and care for every creature in the Universe. 

Thank you.

AN EGO DEFEAT IS TO KNOW GOD'S LOVE

Learning to contain a certain degree of anxiety, and a willingness to not know...and not even need to know...this is how we allow and encounter Mystery. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," July 12, 2020 

My note in my "God Calling," July 13, 2013:  My morning BFO: yesterday's huge bust to my ego will turn out in my favor by my simply changing my attitude.

 

Rohr's quote together with my own note have given me the pearl beyond price, i.e., the gift of remembrance...and realization.

I remember that I went with that ego bust's BFO by not trying to get others to see my side of the story, by letting it stand without explanation, touching it not, even smiling through. Seven years later, I see that it has turned out not only in my favor, but I have a friend because of it! 

Here's more of the gift...it was in reading Rohr's above quote that I saw that I had proved a Truth for me, that being: Upgrade your attitude, upgrade your problem. 

Since first I was given that Truth, I believed it...and quoted it to anybody who'd listen.  I'm sure I proved it in many ways too little to make note of at the time...but those little ways are how we build our stairway to heaven. I suspect they are too small for our ego to take credit so they settle in and grow within us. 

I recalled Rohr's yesterday quote as I read my note this morning, and it flashed that that was what I  had even quit wishing for since it seemed so impossible for me to reach...namely, I could contain a certain degree of anxiety, and a willingness to not know. And I had experienced it by not reacting to an apparent defeat of my ego. Not only that but, without even fully realizing it, that has been my Impossible Dream. 

Oh, maybe that's what it means to encounter Mystery...clearly a bridge too far for me today. But I know I am heading in the right direction.

To realize God loves us in the midst of an ego defeat is to experience God's love.

Thank you.

FROM THE ASHES OF OUR ANGER...PEACE

Blinding flash of the obvious: Anger is fear on fire within. Self-knowledge (the fire hose) holds self-acceptance (the water) which is the Source (God) that puts out the flame. From the ashes of our anger, the peace that passes understanding rises.

No matter how scarifying the problem from our insides out looks, the solution to that problem lies in our inner core with the Father, and It is good...is for our personal benefit...and can change our outlook and our self.

On the news last night was the story of a young man who entered into some investment scheme that he knew nothing about. Knowing nothing, he came to believe he'd lost all his (and others?) money and promptly killed himself. It turns out he had not lost the money but looking out there rather than in here, he went with his first self-centered-fear solution.  

It is said that suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem...the temporary problem is ever our refusal to change our view from out there to in here...to God's hidey hole

The contemplative side of the soul will reveal itself when we begin to ask, “How can I listen for God and learn God’s voice? How can I use my words and actions to expand and not to contract? How can I keep my heart, mind, and soul open, even ‘in hell’?” -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," July 12, 2020

Thank you.

I SHALL NOT WANT

As we experience discomfort in this time, let’s begin to dream of a new normal, a new normal that addresses the weaknesses and problems that were going unaddressed in the old normal. If we’re wise, we won’t go back; we’ll go forward. —Brian McLaren in Fr Richard Rohr's "Daily Meditation," July 11, 2020

What a clear and wonderful goal: As we experience discomfort, we need to begin to aim toward a new normal that addresses weaknesses and problems that we had not yet realized, so they were going unaddressed.

We need not go back, digging up more to fix or fiddle with, but forward to the God of our deeper understanding turning freedom from want into realization of no need unfulfilled.

I shall not want. -- The 23rd Psalm

Thank you. 

DOUBTS...JUST ANOTHER GOD-HUG, 2

[This is a reprint of my post of September 8, 2017.]

I had an "out of head" experience yesterday. A long-time friend had passed, and several of us gathered to share remembrances. We were talking about the way we were back in the day. Nearing time to break up, I was moved, for I know not what reason, to share how I was feeling right that very minute...which was very like I used to feel at any gathering back in the day; i.e., anxious, intimidated, near tears, shaky...uncool in a word. A couple of others shared and we parted with hugs, end of that story.

Later, my head went into overdrive: What a fool you were! Will you never ever learn? What is the matter with you? I'll bet they're all thinking, 'Whoa, what a dolt she is!' Lord, why do you take coffee breaks just as I need you most?

And in a flash I heard, What were you wishing for? Did you share exactly how you were feeling just to get admiration for your honesty? Your humility? And if you pulled that off and they are thinking how admirable, etc., you are still being ego-led. If, however, you had no ulterior thought, and they are thinking, 'What a dolt!', you have been blessed beyond imagining.

And I knew that to be true.

This morning, I'm having my doubts...and God grins.

God loves me so much.

Thank you. 

ALL ROADS LEAD TO GOD

My waking dream: I stand at the frayed-rope bridge strung over a 1,000 foot-deep chasm. God stands on the other side. I know I must go forward toward God or die all alone, wrapped in the hopelessness of self. 

But I'm not entirely stupid...the rope is frayed, the bridge can't hold much longer without anyone on it even! I am stuck there in fear, doubts and willful wishing.

I turn back so I can consider the problem. I ponder; I gather opinions, studies and papers to read, study and ponder more. I'm in that old rocking chair syndrome, going back and forth, back and forth, calling it moving but going nowhere.

After days, weeks, months, years looking for another way, I start forward, praying that God will hold the bridge for me. I get nearly half way across, and the frayed rope breaks. 

As I am  falling, I realize that THIS IS HOW I AM MEANT TO MEET GOD. It makes no nevermind whether I make it across to God or fall, I go to God. 

All roads lead to God...it needs our leap of faith forward to meet Him.

Thank you. 

GOD'S GOT THIS...STAND ON IT

It is an ever deeper truth and mystery that seeking our good is not going in the right direction...ah, but settling for bad is for sure the wrong way to go. The hook is our own determination of what is good or bad. It becomes obvious, after we've learned the secret, why our direction must needs be to seek still more spiritual growth, and that is all. 

We seek spiritual growth through studying the words and lives of the saints from centuries back, the mystics from yesterday and today, by pondering a suggestion from our mentor or confidante when it doesn't make sense...until it does. 

In short, spiritual growth is learning to live in the Now, with our eye focused, our ear attuned, and our mind open to all we see and hear, trusting all we see and hear is for our benefit..."our benefit" being for the benefit of all.

To trust "all we see and hear to be of benefit to all" is where spiritual growth is birthed for we soon discover if we seek a sliver of gold in whatever comes, we will be gifted...with a sliver of gold, God's calling card. As we stay our focus on that sliver of gold, it will grow us. 

Ah, we begin to trust our own self...to trust that our perception of good in the midst of less-than good appearing is heading us in the right direction away from self toward God's will. 

Whenever we perceive a train-plane-car crash all at one time, a Perfect Storm, we can know God's hand is in it, that he has already solved it, and we are part of the solution.  We know that love is the always answer, now we get to love at a whole new...necessary to us personally...level. A level our mental faculties cannot worry us into...loose it and let it go, or, God's got this. Stand on it.

Thank you.

THE BEST IS ALWAYS NOW

My morning blinding flash of the obvious: Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be. -- Robert Browning's words, God's today message.

The instant those words of Robert Browning came to me, I realized that this is God speaking to me. He is changing my mind, reminding me that by growing old with him, the best is yet to be. 

I have been putting my turning 80 down, the creaking, the panting, the pains. Then, this morning a video came to me from a beloved friend. It was of an old dog who had been neglected to the point of sick, sad, sorry and just looking to die. I was seeing a comparison in the two of us, then I read the rest of her story...she was rescued and is getting better with age.

That's when I had my BFO. Robert Browning's poem came to me, and I realized that I...me, my life and I...will get better with age as I grow with God. We have never not gotten better, and 80 is as good a growing up time as 33 was. (Which, by the by, to my mind at that time, was old, ancient, used up, over. Which is clearly another go beyond reason....)  

I'm reminded of the Gram Parsons/Emmylou Harris song, In My Hour of Darkness, In My Time of Need. It's then that God comes to me...lifts me up, kisses me on the lips, slaps me on the butt and sends me ever upward...deeper.

Thank you.

DEFEAT EGO...BE THE FIRST TO GIVE OVER

Love is the always answer, no matter the question, the problem, the "yes, but." Howsomever. To live love as the answer we must live in and from spiritual consciousness.

The material world is akin to a coin...two sides, one side good, the other not so much. People in the material world, without spiritual guidance, see only from their own life's experiences...quite often anger is their base for interpreting what they are seeing. 

Point: When we try really hard to do love...to be loving...to have love as our ever-present guide, we are inviting an either/or response...either, a friendly smile, a feeling of acceptance, or, the middle-finger salute, a snarky remark...in other words, a less-than friendly response. 

Our problem is us...whether we are  living from self-will, trying to give love to get love...or from spiritual will, to give love. 

That one word, try is the clue. That's the self-determined objective's anthem...try. 

When we try, our concentration is entirely on getting what we want, which causes us to forget that God knows our needs. We forget, or have never accepted, that we have all the love there is which was gifted us with birth. Instead of trying to give love to get love, we love...from our inner supply which is already there ready to be freed.

My to-date experience tells me that to go beyond reason to love is the first goal for spiritual growth. The spiritual lesson be the first to give over in any conflict or potential conflict means we go beyond reason...else we will be in an escalating conflict with our own reasoning mind refusing to give over, give up, give in. Which, face it, is the solution to our own ego's dictates.

We must go beyond reason...beyond the reasoning mind...to love...to God consciousness, One. 

Go beyond reason to love. 

Thank you.

FREE OF ME...RESIST NOT, WELCOME

But the mystery of transformation more often happens not when something new begins, but when something old falls apart. We will normally do anything to keep the old thing from falling apart, yet this is when we need patience and guidance, and the freedom to let go instead of tightening our controls and certitudes....It’s the deep yeses that carry us through to the other side.    -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," July 5, 2020

In my passing thoughts, I am certain that I just want to be free of me. Specifically, free of my petties, of my wants which invariably translate as needs to my ego. It is hard to remember those thoughts are my ego's forever want dressed up as a need. Kinda like the song I'll Go To My Grave Loving You, doubtless I'll go to my grave loving my ego wants...by resisting them. 

As Rohr writes, this is when we need the freedom to let go...we know from experience that tightening our controls and certitudes only nurtures that ego need.

An early blinding flash of the obvious re letting go came from my experience when I welcomed an incoming anxiety attack...and it did not attack. I, of course, thought I'd found a forever cure for anxiety, that I'd never have another just by praying thank you. 

That self-described fix, however, has proved to be temporary, meaning we have to welcome each anxiety attack each time, taking special care not to assume we're in control. To welcome with the idea that this gives us control, is to bring panic quick, hard, and mean...there is no self-control. 

I have found that, in general, when I welcome with God first in my mind and as my guide, often panic (or any other defect) slip-slides away. Ah, a major side-effect: The discovery that our defects of character are not  taken away forever...they are transmuted by grace and by God. 

In short, when we take anything too seriously, it becomes our mental savior, and we are totally under its control. That's when we go for love and laughter...p.d.q.  Face it, when we're being controlled by our own mental conniving, what else is there but love and laughter?

Loose it and let it go. 

Thank you.

HAPPY JULY 4, 2020

What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: A day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless. -- Frederick Douglas

Where's my beer? -- John Q. Public

-- Candorville, a cartoon, July 4, 2018

A Change Is Gonna Come 

Well, it's dark in the city

I've lost my pride

The lights in the streets hide the stars from my eyes

It's been a long, long time coming

But I know that change is gonna come

And it's too hard living

But I'm afraid to die

Cause I don't know what's up there

Just beyond the sky

It's been a long, long time coming

But I know that change is gonna come

And I miss my family

My little girl

She is my princess

I'd give her the world

It's been a long, long time coming

But I know that change is gonna come

I just need some comfort

Some kind of belief

That this war we're fighting

Can really bring some peace

There's no rhyme nor reason

Or sweet melody

More and more weapons

Mean less security

It's been a long, long time coming

But I know that change is gonna come

And I've tried to find it

Some better place

Where having the biggest gun

Ain't some kind of race

It's been a long, long time coming

But I know that change is gonna come

There's been times I thought

I couldn't last for long

But now I think I'm able

To carry on

It's been a long, long time coming

But I know that change is gonna come

It's been a long, long time coming

But I know that change is gonna come

Yes, a change is gonna come

--by Sam Cooke

Thank you.

GET CRACKIN', TIME'S A-WASTIN'

All this talk and turmoil and noise and movement and desire is outside of the veil; within the veil is silence and calm and rest. -- Bayazid at-Bastami (from Eknath Easwaran's "Words to Live By," July 3)

As I read that this morning, I thought of the Trump effect, the pandemic, the Black Lives Matter movement, the financial condition of so many, the condition of America itself...then, of course, how it is affecting me, then you, then the country, then the world. Apparently, we are stuck outside the veil, in the material world, the home of our reasoning mind.

I recalled what Dr. Barbara Holmes had written about the civil rights movement: You cannot face German shepherds and fire hoses with your own resources; there must be God and stillness at the very center of your being.... 

I knew that is the solution to a mind at fret, no matter the fret...a bad hair day, no food in the fridge, a pandemic..there must be God and stillness at the very center of our being. 

Then I read Fr Richard Rohr's "Daily Meditation," which told of Jesuit priest Walter Ciszek who spent five years in a Moscow prison, then was sentenced to fifteen years of hard labor in Siberian prison camps. Per Rohr, He is an example of someone whose life has been pared down to the 'one thing necessary' for he was able to live in deep peace knowing that God had stripped away from me many of the external consolations, physical and religious, that people rely on and had left me with a core of seemingly simple truths to guide me.

In short, he went on to say, The fullest freedom I had ever known, the greatest sense of security, came from abandoning my will to do only the will of God. 

My thoughts evidence my reasoning mind's path: First, that's for saints, clearly; second, even to try, I'd be setting the bar too high so why invite failure? 

Ah, and here comes God to save my day. Since he doesn't have my back only when adversity is coming from out there, he's also my golden goose when my own thoughts need help: Third thought, the Trump effect, the pandemic, the Black Lives Matter movement, etc., are my Siberian prison today...only we can begin to break free from our own self which, from experience, we know to be: Upgrade our attitude, upgrade our problem(s). 

Then Rohr (again) came to me with the question, What is your work to do today to bend the universe a little more towards justice?

My first step forward is to acknowledge that God has changed my mind: It's not just for saints. 

Thank you.

TAKE NOTHING PERSONALLY...WALK FREE

For human beings, affection is the ultimate motive, because the force that powers us...is not 'steam, magnetism, or gravitation,' but 'a Soul.' -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," July 2, 2020

We are taught whenever something upsets us, no matter what the cause, there is something wrong with us. This is deep down in our Soul truth...our upset is our reasoning-mind want in conflict with the God consciousness we seek. We are humbled by the discovery of what our real upset is...without fail, ego is the source. 

It is difficult to remember in the moment but nothing happens in this world that God is unaware of, hence cannot heal, fix, change for good, upgrade, make better. Ah, but only when we turn away from ego to that Power within awaiting our need. Awaiting in its hidey hole, the Soul.

Eventually we see that God has upgraded our problem which was always recognizable by our resistance to the fix. It is seldom, if ever, what we had in mind. We must never forget that ego legislates for itself, always and ever, for itself alone, and we are itself. There it is, the problem. 

It takes spiritual attunement, not spiritual knowledge alone, to turn away from our egoic solution (mine) to a solution for the benefit of the other(s)...how long that takes is entirely contingent on our willingness to loose it and let it go. 

It...and we...are freed when we no longer take it personally...neither the problem nor the solution. They exist no more. We know love and we laugh.

Thank you.

LOVE AND LAUGH...AGAIN

Don't tell me God doesn't love me buckets and boatloads. A note that I wrote six years ago is so on target for me today, I came on it in a daily reader today, July 1, from 2014: All the disputing of my word now is my invitation sent out and being returned...to see me as I appear to others so that I may forgive them for their reactions to me. 

There's an answered prayer...a prayer I didn't even consciously realize I was praying. Looking back, I see how the disputing calmed into nothingness.

Today, my word isn't being disputed, but my attack thoughts are on the march. OH...quick thought: so it is God's word that is being disputed, there's my upset, my inner discord. 

And so simple a fix...love and laugh.

That just happens to be the context of "God Calling" today: Learn daily the sublime lesson of trust and calm in the midst of storm. Whatever of sorrow or difficulty the day may bring My tender command to you is still the same -- Love and Laugh....[F]or all you may encounter in others, this should be your attitude, Love and Laugh. 

For all I may encounter...pandemic, civil unrest, political turmoil, America disrespected globally, and so forth and so on...it may take years for any or all of that to change, but calming my upset must begin now. Ah, the starting place never changes...with my thoughts which must be upgraded.

It is ever our thoughts that cause our pain, and it is our spiritual growth that informs the way: Our resistance to the turmoil must be surrendered. We know from experience that cannot be done by our reasoning mind...by our thoughts or by our prayers. 

Our prayer for our desired outcome, no matter how righteous and right our outcome seems to be or is, is not God's will as we're praying it...that's just us, our will. We're praying for an end to our pain, our confusion, our disarray.

God's will is not about our discord, God knows no discord...God is love. Love aborning in each and every living thing in the universe, humans, animals, plants...rocks included. 

Ours is to get quiet and let peace envelop us. Love of life will follow and we can laugh...for taking ourself too seriously.

Thank you.