THE POINT OF UNEXPLAINABLE

Blinding flash of the obvious from 2014: At the point of unexplainable is where the miracle of God appears.

Here comes another God gift...I wrote that BFO in 2014, and Rohr writes in  his "Daily Meditation" this morning, Thinking creates the separate self, the ego self, the insecure self. 

"At the point of unexplainable" is where the reasoning person starts thinking, studying, pondering, analyzing...because to our reasoning mind it is unexplainable and needs an explanation. Duh. 

To the one seeking still more spiritual growth, when we come to the point of unexplainable, and recognize it, we pray our thank you prayer. Then we trust we will be shown the miracle soon, later, in this lifetime or in the next. 

This is another level in beginning our fret-free life...which we will pitch, recover, toss again, recover...until at some point we realize we have not worried about anything for...and we can't remember when. Which, if we're doing it right, will worry us...until we get the point and laugh with God.

Howsomever, thinking gets a bad rap according to me.  There's an out-of-favor slogan that I love,  think, think, think. It's been left behind because many conflate thinking and worrying...think translates to worry which they are already trying not to do. 

We need to think...face it, we live in the material world. We must hone our mental faculties precisely because we live in the material world. 

There are the few, the sacred few, who on first reading the Sermon on the Mount, the Bhagavad Gita and the like understand and live the Word. 

That is neither you nor I, and it's unlikely to be us in this world or the next. It is, however,  the road we choose to walk and all seekers of still more spiritual growth must walk to get...ah, to get still more spiritual growth. 

There. That is the road to the point of unexplainable where the miracle of God appears.    

Thank you.

AND GOD SMILES

Recent blinding flash of the obvious: My attack thoughts say more about me than my perceived attackers' actions say about them. 

Pondering that, I realize the attack thoughts I hold against my nemesis du jour tell me who I am...namely, my nemesis du jour.

Plain words, what I'm thinking Gertrude is thinking about me and, specifically, how I'd like to take old Gertrude down, is the yardstick for measuring how well I am living resist not evil, a favorite measurer of mine.

In this morning's BFO I knew my most recent Gertrude as my spiritual kin, and I felt comforted.

I suspect my journey now is not about finding friends I relate to, which is never a negative, but to be open, non-resistant, to whomever comes into my life bearing negative vibes. 

In order to honestly welcome that, there can be no self-determined glad handing the person...it's all about me opening mentally to the negative vibe I feel...to let it flow out from my resistant mind. 

This is all about changing my mind...and that rests entirely on my willingness to rely on God.  Not to change them but to change me, to upgrade my reaction from self to Self. 

An adage I hold dear comes to mind, Bless her/him, change me. I can stop the quoting it and expand the living it now.

It is exciting to me to realize again that most things we think we're starting to work on changing have already been changed. That's how we come to recognize them as in need of changing.

There's God, already got us fixed even as we walk around seeking still more spiritual growth so we can fix us. Who's cleverer than God? 

Thank you.

PROVABLE POWER...BUT WE MUST PROVE IT

Well. I learned this morning through Fr Richard Rohr's "Daily Meditation" that there is a Welcoming Prayer. I've considered Thank You to be just that, but a nice part for me is I've been doing the welcoming shtick for years...I did not know it was a prayer. 

The fact is, my hated anxiety got turned into my angel purely through my welcoming experience one morning years ago. I was on the Metro heading under the Potomac River when I felt anxiety about to storm my soul. Since there's no escaping the in-motion Metro, I know not how I knew to just silently say, "Welcome, Anxiety, sit right here with me." Which I repeated all the way under the Potomac. It did not hold my anxiety at bay which was all I dared hope for...it disappeared it for that moment. 

After that, I used welcome. make yourself at home to any perceived and dreaded event or even thought until I came across Meister Eckart's Thank You prayer...which consists of Thank You. And it does indeed suffice. Clearly, neither prayer disappears our nemesis du jour forever, but they do walk us through our fear to peace Now. 

I confess I have never stopped recommending that others use "welcome" because, face it, saying Thank You in the face of a perceived disaster is a tish daunting to start with. Even with Meister Eckhart's pedigree backing it up. 

To the reasoning mind, "Welcome" is a nice starter, "Thank You" is an understandable finisher...don't push it. 

Hey! That could be the secret code for still more spiritual growth...push it. Push away our want to study, ponder, analyze. As is explained in Rohr's "Meditation," Any kind of analysis will lead you back into attachment to your ego self.

Welcome and Thank You...the provable power of resist not evil. Ah, but provable only if we use them.

Thank you. 

TRUST IT: GOD KNOWS OUR NEEDS

As we are born into the material world, the world of either/or,  we are given by God free will to choose whether to journey through life seeking to "take care of myself," or to ever seek spiritual growth, trusting that God knows our needs. 

Free will is God's gift to us so that whenever in our life we have a choice to make (and when don't we?), we are free to use our will or to seek God's will. 

Those of us who choose to live by our will alone often suffer crash-and-burn, leaving us feeling all alone and utterly hopeless. Often it is by looking back we realize that was the moment we made the involuntary decision to seek help from a Power greater than ourself...the beginnings of our spiritual growth. 

A big reveal: We do not need to believe in God to be a good and decent person. But, who's kidding whom, few of us are overly good and decent without a Higher Power to guide us...because what do we know about good and decent when "what's in it for me?" has been our only guide.

Paradox: We discover by seeking still more spiritual growth that being a good and decent person is the lowest bar and the highest standard. 

The lowest bar, we just try not to be as nasty as we want to be...and that counts. The highest standard? Without thought, we come to give over, give up, give in. I suspect that's why we must needs keep coming back...until we get it right.

Thank you.

SIDEBAR: I'll note this morning that I have a new power greater than myself...I got me a dog! Who has already totally rearranged my morning by refusing to eat dog food...people food, please. I'm hurrying now so I can get to the store and buy some yams, brown rice and kidney beans...I've been down this road before. My first dog refused to eat dog food, and I was scrambling eggs, serving it on toast, before I accepted the vet's word: "No dog ever starved to death with food in his bowl before him."  But I'm not serving eggs on toast anymore...I have my standards.

ON TURNING GUILT INTO GOLD

I am reminded this morning of the story in Genesis of Joseph being sold into slavery by his brothers...he lucked out, they didn't. Even as he found favor with the Pharaoh, they were bouncing on the bottom, getting flattened by life. (Busted flat in Baton Rouge, waiting for a train...quoting Janis, thinking Joseph...sorry!)

The brothers, all apologetic, come running to Joseph, admitting they were no-good and rotten for doing him dirt and crying for help. And Joseph said, in effect, they meant it for ill, but God meant it for good. 

Those of us who had to crash and burn to find the God of our own understanding seldom got up taking any responsibility for our fall...we had someone to blame. Face it, having someone to blame is perfect peace...in the moment. Trouble is, it just leads to more personal pain in the form of self-hate. 

Until we make our U-bie and start our journey seeking grace through spiritual growth, we will look out there for someone to blame. That's akin to picking up mud and slinging it in our own face.

Joseph's story...his punchline...is the harbinger of peace. When we accept responsibility for our fall(s), we become accountable and lose the desire to blame and shame ourself and/or others. There it is...we know peace.

By God's grace, we are invited to let off the hook the very person or happening that we, in our guilt, have blamed. Quite simply,  we see it from another angle...from my view to My view. Turns guilt into gold every time. 

Thank you.

OUR JOY COMES...DISGUISED

Any conscious attempt to engineer or plan our own enlightenment is doomed to failure because it will be ego driven. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," August 17, 2020

....so the difference...is between a self-determined objective and the perfect objective which is of God. -- Anonymous

Our spiritual learning will in time lead us to the realization that our want, our self-determined objective, stripped of all its frou-frou, built by the words of spiritual giants, is for naught. Pretty as a picture, all the while marching us down that wrong road again...that road of ego-bred, ego-led. 

In the early days (which, if we're doing it right, will come, come back, come again) we will recognize that the other's perceived need is more important for us to seek than our perceived need. 

Our Father knows our needs will begin to hum within us...kinda like a tuning fork. 

As we stay our focus, a blinding flash of the obvious will inform us that our self-determined objective is in the process of being transmuted..from my want to My need, i.e., for the benefit of others. And others, growing in spiritual strength, will realize their need is for the benefit of us. 

It's a great gettin' up morning when we consciously awake, arise, and walk free-of-me in our head, our heart and our soul. For we realize unto acceptance that no one's needs are met by self...they are of God, and already perfected within each of us. Now our joy comes in living that. 

God comes to you disguised as your life. -- Paula D’Arcy

Thank you.

EITHER WAY, GOD HAS OUR BACK

My most vigilant spiritual practice is finding the seconds of solitude to get quiet enough to hear the Wise Woman in me. She helps me show up to the labor as my best self. The voices we spend the most time listening to, in the world and inside our own minds, shape the way we see, how we feel, and what we do. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," August 25, 2020

The thought occurs, with all the alone time this pandemic affords me, why am I not hearing "the Wise Woman," for me, my BFOs, a lot more often than I am? 

The answer undoubtedly is: First, "get quiet." We choose the voices we spend the most time listening to...it is our choice, it is not God's will, or evil, or Joe Blank the Ragman choosing for us or against us. It is me using my free will...that which I so earnestly say I desire to return to God in exchange for his will.

Ah, here's the conundrum, or the paradox if you will. All the "doing it wrong" to our reasoning mind is God's way for us to get righted. The wrong we do that feels like a thorn in our thoughts is God turning us around...unselfing us. And it takes as long as it takes. 

I know, from experience, that to self-will my turn around is to keep heading down that wrong road. For who gets quiet and seeks to hear our Father's voice when we know what he's going to say? Love your enemy, let 'em slap you upside your head, yadda yadda yadda...so just act as if and get it over with. Or, self-will meet brick wall. Did I mention, I know this from experience? Enough said.

At any rate, I find that it is by coming to my full reckoning, acceptance, of this Wrong-Way Corrigan approach that I am calmed...I've given over, given up, given in. 

Best for last...I may be getting a new dog. All my troubles, Lord, soon be over. Or, all my troubles, Lord, just got a new suit of clothes. Either way, God has my back. 

Thank you.

ON TAKING OUR LEAP OF FAITH

I have learned to use my anger for good. . . . Without it, we would not be motivated to rise to a challenge. It is an energy that compels us to define what is just and unjust. — Gandhi

Literalism is usually the lowest and least level of meaning. -- Fr Richard Rohr

I am convinced that living by the Sermon on the Mount works for the good in us and for the benefit of humankind. 

Actually doing that, however, takes a lot of prep work starting with bringing our reasoning mind to agree with it...face it, taken literally, it doesn't offer a lot of comfort. To accept it as truth we must follow is an act of God, i.e., acceptance. It is that acceptance that opens the door for us to go deeper into higher consciousness, and the literal is transmuted into the spiritual. 

We begin our spiritual growth long before we know we have begun...in our teens, "letting" our best friend win a meaningless argument qualifies as a first step. We're beginning the arduous journey of detachment...letting go of self.  We start by going along to get along which is nothing but...what else?..getting over oneself, the very foundation of spiritual growth.

For example, resist not evil on its face, or to the reasoning mind, is to be a doormat, or better our world's carpet. Our unvarnished ego is geared one hundred percent to and for the benefit of "me," and if I'm the doormat, I welcome it. That is also known as being The Victim. 

 

Yet by a change of our mind, no longer self-driven but God-guided, to resist not evil in our raised consciousness is to love. There is nothing to resist, there is only God, Love. 

The fear we feel as we analyze this before having such a radical change of mind is God in camouflage...softening us for that exchange. Remembering don't analyze, utilize, we hold our nose and take a leap of faith.

There. Our bare beginning in becoming willing to live the Sermon on the Mount. We will spend our life trying to get back to that leap of faith.

Thank you.

ON PROVING WHAT WE'VE COME TO BELIEVE

In my "new growth" period, I am finding me mentally resisting everything and everybody...my own imaginings, of course. This is where what we see is always ourself plays large. Who I am seeing and resisting in my mind's eye is what I am unsure of in myself.

I recognize this as pretty much pandemic related...having minimal human contact, feeling isolated, is not healthy. Ah, but the "related" is not what can be corrected. It is the action I take that matters., i.e., not just knowing the right words but taking the right action to prove all my problems can be solved by spiritual principles.

That fact leads to the realization that there is but one problem: I am taking myself too seriously. With but one problem, there is but one answer: Get over yourself, the always answer.

Now for the work between realizing the problem and accepting the answer...my go-to spiritual principles: If the only prayer you ever say is 'Thank You,' that will suffice; He goes before me to make the crooked places straight; I myself am the source of all my woes; Loose it and let it go; Welcome it, for it is an angel in disguise.

The paradox: The"work" we must needs do is to sit and wait on the Lord...or, in a word, meditate.

Thank you.

ON LEARNING TO LOVE BETTER

We are here to grow in wisdom and to learn to love better. Despite the countless and diverse ways we live our lives, every life is a spiritual path, and all life has a spiritual agenda. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," August 20, 2020

Blinding flash of the obvious, redux: I shall not want...I have enough. 

I am beginning to get it...our enough is only enough if we share it. If we cling to our enough, it becomes our self's security...our egoic God. 

I have comforted myself over the years with my long ago BFO that we are born with all the love, patience, kindness, etc., there is. Being born with them within us, all we need do to "have" them is use them.

I have comforted myself with the words, but when I began my walking-it journey, I experienced the reality of words per se. They are just letters strung together until we live what those strung-together letters spell out...and mean. 

Having from birth all the love there is within me is pretty as a picture. But what if I don't know what love is? What it means...how to do it...with everybody, not just people I agree with, or, more like, who agree with me. 

Plain and simple, knowing what love means and how to do it is the purpose of the Sermon on the Mount, of the Steps we live by. We learn what love is and how to do it by living spiritual principles; i.e., we agree with our adversary quickly when wrong, we promptly admit it; we cease fighting anything and anybody by judging not lest we be judged...we resist not evil. 

Practicing spiritual principles unto living and breathing them is learning to love better. Ah, there is no enough.

Thank you.

THERE IS GOOD IN EVERYTHING...SEEK IT

 Rues, regrets and remorses. What are they anyway but looking back and longing for the freedom of my chains? That line from the song "Loving Arms" is playing in my mind a lot today...and for the last few days. Probably because the talk on the news is so much about "building better," not going back to the "way it was." 

Nostalgia usually prettifies our memories of the past...regrets dirties the same. Diamonds and dirt. Either way, looking back stays us in the slippery comfort of self-will. Both, when we stay there, lead to a general paralysis. 

There is no moving forward even to go in the wrong direction when we are facing backward. That's all rues, regrets and remorses are...facing backward, praying for a prettier view. That's like praying for  God to change our remorses into something we can feel nostalgic for...just another way to live looking back. No wonder God doesn't hear that prayer.

The hard lesson to learn is there is nothing inherently wrong with nostalgia or regrets...both serve a useful purpose. Happy memories on a lonely evening in the midst of a pandemic are a comfort; regrets give birth to Rohr's wonderful statement, We don't get to God by doing it right, we get to God by doing it wrong.

We must needs accept that getting stuck in looking back, i.e., getting stuck in self-will, is an open invitation for our ego to have at it, or,  us. There is no God there is clearly redundant.

Ah, but here comes God to save our day. There is no God there is redundant on its face, but it's also an invitation to us to look deeper...if God is in everything, find God here. There will never be a place where we cannot find God if, as and when we look. Our desire being to exchange our will for God's will, we'd best look.

Seek and ye shall find. -- Matthew 7:7

Thank you.

FILLED WITH LOVE AND LIGHT, 2

[This is a slightly reworked post of mine from February 27, 2017.]

As Fr Richard Rohr wrote in his "Daily Meditation" this morning, You become the God you worship. Interesting to me, that is basically what my mentor many years ago taught me, i.e., I am the image of the God I adore.

As we are, as we know and show ourself to be, just that is the God we experience. Recognizing that and trying to will ourself to show forth a better person is working on the façade. No. We stay our mind on God and the things of God which allows our reasoning mind to come from a higher place, bringing forth the love, peace and joy already within us.

To stay our mind on our own self is to see lack, the birth of all wants, despair and dissatisfaction.

We go within to where the change is waiting to be released into our life as our good. It is our duty and our joy to know our life to be as God is within us right here and right now...lacking in nothing, filled with love and light.

To realize that is to know delight...and the grace of gratitude.

Thank you.

GUIDE DOGS...GOD'S OWN

We don't get to God by doing it right, we get to God by doing it wrong. -- Fr Richard Rohr

I love that quote because it is the essence of counterintuitive. According to me, life is counterintuitive. I wonder, is that God's plan? No. I'm counterintuitively certain that it is not since God is not in the future, not in the past, is only here and now...a plan as such is not possible. 

That may be why mystics and prophets, pastors and popes...and guide dogs...are necessary. The mystical discern more through spiritual consciousness than through the reasoning mind. Which is never 100 percent right, but nothing on this earth is...they just head us in a better direction. And guide dogs are of God with no need to discern.

Face it, the Sermon on the Mount is counterintuitive...which in this case, plain and simple, is ego deflation in depth. The same is true of the Steps we take when we seek to live an unselfed life. Right down in the dirt, an unselfed life means to go beyond reason to love.

That is the essence of counterintuitive...beyond reason. Maybe the only place beyond reason is love. It is fear that it is insanity that builds the egoic mind's mouse trap.

When we seek so hard to Do It Right...to never step on another's toes, to never bad-mouth another, to always let snarks and snubs fly right on by...we're heading in the wrong direction...we are relying on our reasoning mind. There is nothing counterintuitive about never, always and should. There is no God there either. 

To live an unselfed life is to live and breathe by the unfathomable Word of God. Or, to go beyond reason to love. And few there be who wholly succeed...to try is its own reward. I'm hoping.

Thank you.

TO FORGIVE IN THE INSTANT OF NEED, REDUX

[This is a reprint of my post of November 26, 2014.]

I was given the most wonderful advice recently...pearls beyond price actually. I was told that I must make a decision to be a forgiving person and to forgive in the instant of need. That's it.

I was gifted with the realization that to forgive in the instant of need is the secret to being a forgiving person: We must be ready the moment before the arrow of resistance enters our consciousness. Only in that instant can we with God's grace respond not with feelings of hurt, harmed or a desire for pay-back...all fear, simply fear...but with the certain knowledge that this, too, is ours to forgive.

This is living in the now...in the consciousness of forgiveness.

To be a forgiving person is to be released from the bondage of self, free from our reasoning mind's dictates. We cannot wait to "think it through" for therein lives the ego's trap. There is nothing to think through when we are going to forgive no matter what.

None of this is news to me...all of us seeking still more spiritual growth have been learning it for years. It is that this is the difference between learning the words (which too often means "learning how you need to do it") and realizing that I personally need to be a forgiving person...now. Right now.

I will with the grace of God and a little help from my friends be heading in this direction for the rest of my life...no matter how falteringly.

Thank you.

THE SIDE BENNIES ARE THE GIFT

Blinding flash of the obvious, redux: We must become willing to have God's will done just as God has already willed it to be. Our self-determined objective may well be the right objective, but we must walk God's way to get there. 

A treasured memory: Me,  praying for God to stop an unhealthy habit of mine, even as I indulged in that unhealthy habit. I knew from trying...repeatedly...that I could not not so indulge; I was to learn that just not indulging was never God's perfect objective for me. God's will for me was to go with a program spiritual in nature that would change my entire life, within which (as a side bennie!) I would stop my unhealthy habits. 

That is as important to me today as then. I am in a stuck place right now, and I am trying to think my way out of it, going for the self-determined objective. Self-determining back in the day was to believe I'd changed, or "got it right." 

Muscle memory and God work together it seems. Yesterday, without prior planning, I asked a mentee for help with a project I've been wanting to do. Later, I was on the verge of castigating myself for parading my ignorance before a mentee even though I knew I'd learned years ago when stuck what to do and how to do it. 

Bordering on regrets, I got a flash: My way originally was self-determined and worked fine for its time...but now it is deeper lesson time.

Our lessons to learn use whatever we bring to the table. Today I know I need to go forward with my project. That's how I'll learn whether it's good as is or it needs to be enhanced or reformed or just rejected...howsomever, our life lessons have naught to do with projects. 

My life lesson today is all about deepening my trust in the God of my own understanding without an end result before me. The quiet word is ever, not mine, thine. 

Another side bennie...doing God's will means we'll never feel bored. We don't know the end result before hand, but we know we'll feel blessed purely by our trust in it.

Thank you.

THE ROCK ON WHICH WE BUILD

Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life [then He names eat, drink, wear and compares to how God feeds, waters, clothes the birds, beasts and nature] ...your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well.  -- Matthew 6:25-33 

In naming all the material things, we see security as the crux. Basically, what we eat, drink, wear strips down to having the feeling of security that money brings. Even more specifically, being free of the fear that not enough brings when we feel we have not enough. 

There it is...we are called out: Our Father knows our needs which are deeper in our higher consciousness than anything named. Our Father is the Keeper of the Divine Spark...seek ye first the kingdom of Heaven where the Divine Spark is.

We can trust those inner flashes are leading us there, for they live there and are guiding us to them. They are not coming from out in the ether, they are coming from the Kingdom within. This is the rock on which we must needs build our house.

Life’s real and highest goal . . . [is] to discover this spark of the divine that is in our hearts. . . . When we realize this goal, we discover simultaneously that the divinity within ourselves is one and the same in all—all individuals, all creatures, all of life.  --  Eknath Easwaran 

Thank you.

TO ACCEPT OUR PERCEPTION OF OUR FOE

....before we go out to witness for justice, we have to make sure that we can love and respect those with whom we disagree. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," July 27, 2020

  

Rohr's quote and John Lewis's "make good trouble" tell me that to be the first to give over, we must make sure that we already are willing to love and respect those to whom we are giving over. Our work starts way before we have an individual need to be that first one else we stand in danger of our own ego causing chaos. 

How do we get to that deep place where we do not want to publicly expose, humiliate, or defeat our opponents? How do we become willing unto ready to work for the win-win outcome? Seeking win-win solutions, or rather giving up the desire for the I win-you lose outcome, takes a high level of spiritual development and demands spiritual conversion per Rohr. 

For some time now, that has been our aim...with whomever we find ourself resisting. We seek a win-win, and we must remember to stay in that consciousness...not to curry the other's favor but to see her, to know him, as our, say, compadre. 

We begin building our spiritual consciousness by making a decision to accept others...all others without exception and just as we perceive them to be. According to me, this cannot be done without the grace of God, a little help from our friends and the expectation of more than one or two failures. (Sliver of gold...regret not those failures for they fertilize our seed of humility.)

It is that decision to opt for acceptance that allows us to begin living by spiritual principles such as set out in the Sermon on the Mount. We slowly realize this is to live by the two Great Commandments: First, love the God of our own understanding with all our heart, soul, body and brains, and then love our neighbor, friend and/or foe, as ourself.

Our quirk in deciding to live by spiritual principles is how easily we can believe that we are so living when we're really just talking them. Because, from our eyebrows up, we agree with them, we believe we are qualified to teach them. We aren't. 

We must needs be prepared to learn to live by the same-old-same-old spiritual principles each day every day for the rest of our natural life. To learn, to learn. 

Came to believe that God could and would intervene in our life in our behalf. -- Anonymous

Thank you.

UNFORTUNATE FACT...HIDDEN BOON

The new is always by definition unfamiliar and untested, so God, life, destiny, suffering have to give us a push—usually a big one—or we will not go. We tend to avoid any conflict, inconsistencies, suffering, or darkness and therefore opportunities for transformation. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation, " August 14, 2020

It is an unfortunate fact...thus hidden boon...in my life that I resist doing anything the first time. 

It took a long time before I could accept that about myself, then longer before I shared it with others. When first I admitted it in a group, I expected eyerolls and snickers. There again, beware of our own expectations for they will stifle us. What I got instead was a lot of people nodding in agreement or murmuring a warm and wonderful, "Oh, that's me." 

When I first heard, Feel the fear and do it anyway, I felt fairly certain that I'd found the key to unlock this particular prison door of mine. I doubt not that is why I was so open to the thank you prayer. I can feel the fear, pray thank you (i.e., toss it over to God who has already fixed it), and do that which I am fearing. 

The sliver of gold is that it works. The nugget is that it works on many levels. First, just as it is said; then we find the more we trust it, the deeper it raises our consciousness...the pearl. 

It is our own realization of that gift that takes time, likely because it happens without our thinking, pondering, analyzing. There. That's building our trust in the Father within...without working it. 

In looking back we accept that we are freed by grace and by God. We are grateful that our finest thinking will never be a match for the grace of God...or we'd wear ourself out worrying and calling it thinking.

Thank you. 

RESIST NOTHING, LOVE ALL

The three most important words in the Bible to me today are Resist not evil. If I'm doing it right, if I continue to grow spiritually, that no doubt will change, but for today....

Resist not evil. To resist not evil is to be ye perfect even as your Father in Heaven is perfect. Plain and simple, resist not...love all...be ye perfect.

A helpful how-to is spelled out by Eknath Easwaran's "Words to Live By" about difficult people being like an eyelash in our eye: ....this 'lash in the eye' is an opportunity for learning the skills that matter most in life: patience, forgiveness, and freedom from likes and dislikes.  [Nonresistance?] They go and put their arm around someone who has given them a really difficult time, and say sincerely, 'Without you, how could I ever have learned to be patient? How could I have learned to forgive?' [Nonresistance!]

Clearly, or it seems to me, that to resist not evil is to resist nothing...for who resists good? It is our ego that resists...that's its reason for being, to self-protect, i.e., to resist our perception of evil. To seek still more spiritual growth is to seek ego deflation in depth which is a lot easier to talk than it is to actually walk...or even to become willing to.

Paradox alert! We must resist our own want (to slap the offender upside her head) if we are to realize the inner peace of nonresistance (allowing him to walk free in our head). 

Slowly we recognize our reasoning mind must be retrained which makes our decision for us. We must turn our will over to the care of God...a.k.a., exchange our will for God's will. Which, who's kidding whom, is a rest of our life, day-at-a-time, proposition.

So the search for still more spiritual growth is the search for contact with the Divine Spark within, the Source, our Father who knows our needs. The road we must walk leads ever deeper toward that Higher Power...resisting nothing by loving all.

Thank you. 

SWEAT EQUITY...AND OUR GOOD

Teilhard de Chardin viewed love as the attraction of all things toward all things. We could say that love is the universal ordering principle. *** We are connected to a future good, and moving toward something better...the trajectory of human life is toward mutuality and care of self and neighbor. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," August 12, 2020.

If we are connected to a future good, and moving toward something better, then all that we are in the midst of today...chaos, calumny, disorder preferred to order...is ours by choice, by our fear-induced invitation. 

It is for each individual one of us whose desire is for still more spiritual growth to move out from that self-protected hidey hole to be "Spartacus,"  to be One.

So often we mouth I am a beloved child of God...fully expecting those words to solve our perceived problem du jour. No...we already are that beloved child of God, our affirmation needs be showing it by our actions based on spiritual principles. There's the solution to our perceived problems.

We need to listen to turn within and listen. We might hear: Sweat equity, it's sweat equity. Ah, we are woke! We need to work with that Higher Power we speak of so often...expecting so much of It. 

By using the spiritual principles we have learned, we can now put forth effort toward the sole purpose of showing forth love. We might begin with love your enemies, bless those who curse you which in our world is just try not to be as nasty as you want to be. 

Keep it simple to start. Failure is ever ready when I See Me...and Lucy has her football in hand.

It is quietly exciting to see our long-sought purpose in life has ever been ours. We are connected to a future good, and the trajectory of human life is toward mutuality and care of self and neighbor. 

Ours is to know it and show it. Sweat equity knows our name.

Thank you.

LOVE'S NEW DEFINITION...GOOD TROUBLE

Human beings seem to need to fight and engage with something before they can take it seriously—and before they can discover what they really need or want. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," August 10, 2020

Does Donald Trump represent that which is within each of us that we must overcome...the angel we must wrestle...to find God? 

Or is he our Golden Calf, our supreme act of apostasy? All the ugly that we were taught as youngsters we must not do? If so, and we have elected him President of our Country, is Trump not truly our own mirror image? 

Whether that be so or  not, it is our own self we must change. We turn back to the toughie: Resist not evil. We realize that our change is to love...to love not Trump, per se, but all that Trump represents to us, all that we are resisting that we have invited into our world, into our very consciousness.

We must overcome our own self, and the overcoming is by love...ah, but by our new-found definition of love. We begin to love the fact of Donald Trump...for it is his nature, his acts that have shown us our own self. We judged him by the mote in his eye, and ignored our own, the beam that blinded us.

With that new and ancient reasoning, we are brought to a U-bie in midair for the rest of Rohr's quote is:

The people who never fight religion, guilt, parents, injustice, friends, marriage partners, and laws usually don’t respect their own power, importance, and freedom. They remain content with the external values of the first “lawful” container, instead of working to discover their own. 

We read that and realize that we must get in good trouble.We feel boomeranged for our forever law flashes in our mind like a neon sign: Most important is the discovery that all our problems can be solved by spiritual principles.   

Ah, we are surrendered...we accept...all our self-determined objectives are for naught. We can and must love, and the love we live is to fear not getting in good trouble for that is The Way when we live by spiritual principles. 

God blessed John Lewis...and us.

Thank you.

MAKE CONTACT WITH THE DIVINE SPARK WITHIN

We change from inside—from the power position to the position of vulnerability and solidarity, which gradually changes everything. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," date unknown

I am convinced this is the key...the key that opens us to the divine spark within. 

From the eyebrows up, we want this change from the power position to the position of vulnerability, but our self-perceived need, owned by ego, refuses to let go, knows not how to let go. Our want births the perceived need...but our want is in our egoic mind. Our actual or spiritual need is of God which only God can fulfill. 

It is the change from the inside, without reliance on our thought processes that must needs change  us. We cannot seek to do it for there is the block, believing that through thinking we are in control. It is the belief that we're in control that the divine spark burns away. 

Comes the awakening: The battle is not with our control issues, it is with our belief issues. We recall the decision we made long ago to turn our will and our life over to the care of God, and our belief that we are or need be in control is lifted.

It is written that we are released from self through great suffering or through great love. Many let go through surrender, through crash and burn...great suffering. 

Great love: We have to make contact with this divine spark by emptying ourselves or letting go. And then we will know the unity that already exists. -- Meister Eckhart

Thank you.

I AM THE BEING OF ALL SAINTS, ALL SINNERS

Blinding flash of the obvious:  I am the wolf stalking the night...I am the skunk stinking up the place. 

Thoughts flow:  I am the wolf stalking the night...I am the skunk stinking up the place. I am the lion whose roar reverberates across the Serengeti...I am the jackal doing the dirt, carrying the water. 

I am the soul of my most revered saint, I am the conscience of my most resented enemy...I am the Being of all the saints and sinners in between. 

Parents, siblings, friends, enemies, The Church, the employer, lost loves...none get the credit, none get the blame...for each is the wolf stalking the night, the skunk stinking up the place...just as I am.

I Am that I am.

Thank you.

FEAR...GOD IN CAMOUFLAGE

I heard someone on PBS this morning say, Life's greatest motivator is neither love nor God... it is fear. 

Believe it...I knew deep gratitude for the time when I realized that nothing turns me to God faster than fear which led to my blinding flash of the obvious: Fear is God in camouflage. Without that BFO, I'm reasonably certain I would have felt if not afraid then sorely discombobulated this morning. 

Hey, there's another proof of purchase: God knows my needs before I have the need...thus my BFO back then came to save my day this morning...or for that matter whenever fear slips in.

My "good on ya" from God: I then read, The act of love is the surrender of self into life as it is. To me that confirmed the act of love is the surrender of self into the fear-camouflaged God. And I felt hugged.

Thank you.

ON FINDING THE DIVINE SPARK WITHIN

I'm thinking about one of my favorite "words to live by:" ...our toes get stepped on, seemingly without provocation, invariably we find we have made a decision based on self that later placed us in a position to be hurt.

I know of nobody on first hearing that who accepts it just as it stands...we usually reject it out of hand, in fact. Staying with my own first, gut-bucket reaction, I heard that no matter the cause for my hurt, I was to blame. Fortunately, spiritual growth stops gut-bucket reacting...at least long enough for second thoughts.

I have come to the belief that the Sermon on the Mount, that living by the precepts of the Sermon, is our no-fault insurance. Face it, the Sermon is all about giving over, giving up, giving in...to others. What else is Agree with your adversary quickly and If someone slaps you upside your head, turn the other cheek, or Resist not evil?

There is the key to our decision based on self. Our decision to do or not do, go or not go, be present or not be present...all self-based. The reasoning mind responds with a loud, Well, duh! 

Our  spiritual need takes us deeper, and we realize it's all about surrendering. Life itself is all about surrendering our egoic self. We recognize the principle of One, and glimpse that spark of the divine where we each give over, give up, give in...not to others, as such, but to the Father within who does the works. 

Mystics, saints and walking-around students of the spiritual...you and me, we...believe that  our sincerest desire is to find the spark of divine within us. According to Meister Eckhart, We have to make contact with this divine spark by emptying ourselves or letting go. And then we will know the unity that already exists. 

There. We begin thinking of our unprovoked, stepped-on toes as leading us up that stairway to heaven.

Thank you.

ALL NEEDS ARE SPIRITUAL

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the House of the Lord forever.  -- The 23rd Psalm

In my ongoing thirst for the spiritual, I currently hold the belief that until our consciousness is raised unto God consciousness, we live in the reasoning mind world...and that is good for that is why we learn it is best to love and laugh. Ah, but in a raised consciousness world, we come to realize I Am as lived by the Buddha, Christ Jesus, Allah and others, including those who even today seek the same.

Those are the seekers to whom we are drawn. Interestingly, we heed them sometimes mentally kicking and screaming in resistance, sometimes through a warm welcoming...our heart melting so to speak...for our spiritual aim is to someday be so enlightened...not likely in this lifetime, but we aim, we aim. 

It takes as long as it takes to distinguish spiritual truth from personal wishes...the clue being personal wishes usually have a dollar value, spiritual truth is peace.

Those who have found spiritual truth live it and never doubt their supply. That supply is not of the material world...neither dollars nor donuts. That supply is the peace that passes understanding. 

Whether or not we know safety, security, society, we have the peace that lets us be content knowing our Father knows our needs. There...our inner proof that neither supply nor God is available on demand. Just as the air we breathe, each is our own from before birth.  

When our need is spiritual, it will be supplied...and all needs are spiritual

Thank you.

LEARNING THE ROCKY ROAD TO LOVE

[The following is a  slightly reworked reprint of my post of February 23, 2020.]

I wonder if the road to love isn't rocky because it so often originates with surrender, a hot-button word that translates to our ego as loser. In fact, surrender of our wants is the path to love. We begin to feel we are on the right track when our resistance evolves within our very being to acceptance. From there it's an easy...make that easier...transition to love.

Resisting others only cements their resistance to us. 

The key here is remembering that what we see is always ourself only works for us when we apply it to our own self...as opposed to applying it to the other as a gotcha, so s/he will see their error and change.

We must loose our resistance and let it go. Releasing our resistance, or changing our mind, is the act of turning our very thoughts upside down. For that we must go to God for God who can and will intervene in our life in our benefit...our mind set to I am right is then reset to we are right. 

We are learning a whole new level of love.

Thank you.

P.S. To quote Cicero: I have always been of the opinion that unpopularity earned by doing what is right is not unpopularity at all...but glory. (Which quote I got from the comic strip Candorville, 2/23/19.)

I AM...THAT IS ENOUGH

Today's Easwaran's "Words to Live By" tells of St Francis teaching how to find perfect joy. Every August 4 when I read it, I feel gobsmacked. I've come to realize it as one of those examples we can admire, think we wish to emulate, but seldom attempt to do.  

 In short, the story for finding perfect joy according to Saint Francis: Having the love and respect of our world won't do it, winning the billion dollar lottery won't do it, but if we can get shown up, put down, mocked and beat like a drum and then say with love in our heart for the beater, 'Bless you, in the name of God,' then we will have found perfect joy. 

I used to think, who's kidding whom? There's less than a snowball's chance in the fiery furnace of hell that we will ever be not only able but willing to go that far for perfect joy. Ah, but my own experience has taught me that's one of the many reasons we continue to take personal inventory...to learn who we are and what we are able and willing to do for God...and for the one who is beating on us right now. For what if the day comes...?

So, my story: I have been shown up, put down and mocked during a sacred meeting in a sanctified meeting hall. I answered not at all, have gossiped not at all, have prayed my thank you prayer for the mocker and the circumstance...ah, but I do not have love in my heart for that one.  

I cannot manufacture it, although I do know the mocker for my Angel since for sure there's been little in my life to cause me to dig so deep to find love for another. I do go to God for help...not to find love in my heart so I can know perfect joy, but to release the other from my unlove. 

This I know, and it counts...she is my Sister, he is my Brother, we are One. That is enough for love to grow, and that is enough.

Thank you.

GROWTH...A LEAP INTO THE UNKNOWN

The founder of the Greenbelt Movement in Africa, Wangari Maathai, in her 2004 Nobel acceptance speech, said, In the course of history, there comes a time when humanity is called to shift to a new level of consciousness, to reach a higher moral ground. A time when we have to shed our fear and give hope to each other. That time is now.

I recall reading somewhere that all growth is a leap of faith into the unknown. The realization comes  that being afraid to take that leap, to grow, stunts our inner growth.  

Our mind opens, if only a tish, to inside help, and we hear, I stand at the door and knock...to be let out. 

Our spiritual greening grows, and we recognize anew that life itself is a spiritual matter, that Fr Richard Rohr speaks true when he says,  We don't get to God by doing it right, we get to God by doing it wrong. 

There, our fear of failure is...lessened. We wonder if the time is now...if our life is being called to shift to a new level of consciousness, to reach a higher moral ground. A time when we have to shed our fear and give hope to each other. 

We know: That time is now...we must try with a will or fall by the wayside.

Thank you.

ON BUILDING FAITH OR GETTING OVER OURSELF

Faith. Having faith is hard work. The hard work is in not trying to have faith..."trying" is usually the ego's mind trip. The reasoning mind differs from the egoic mind in that the reasoning mind is a useful tool in a material world...our egoic mind serves the purpose of our own self. 

Back to faith...to have an inner, walking around faith, requires trust. Trust in the God of our own understanding. For me, that is trust that God can and will intervene in my life in my behalf...whether I know it or  not. 

Here's a beginner's manual for building trust in the Lord...say that we inadvertently make an ego-dump in our own lap, then go scurrying in our head for a fix. But we don't go for any of our fixes, instead we assure ourself that God has already fixed it for our benefit. That's a good self-determined objective (and thank you, John Lewis).

Now comes the greening growth: We need be okay with the fact that we may never know the how, what, when, where of God's perfect fix. It is only our ego that will natter for The Outcome.

We get to act as if...no...we get to be.  Not to act...we have become consciously aware that the other is to be loved by us, by self, just as we are being loved by Self. 

Talk about a rough row to hoe...a.k.a., getting over ourself. Or, spiritual growth in depth. That's when we realize the truth in the promise: He goes before us to make the crooked places straight. 

That is faith.

Thank you.

THE PERFECTED I AM THAT I AM...ONE

I will never leave you nor forsake you. -- "God Calling," August 1

First thought as I read that quote this morning: I Am that I am. I will never leave you nor forsake you...for I Am that I am. 

With that thought, came the idea that may well be the basis of Oneness...we each and all are the I AM that I am...One. 

Within where I live is the invisible connection known as love. We all have it, cannot not have it, are born with it just as we are all born with breath. Life-sustaining breath...maybe that's what love is, life-sustaining breath. When we aren't living our life-sustaining love, we are into life-stunting self. 

All of this leads me to believe these are first steps in learning how to not just do nonviolent resistance, but to live it...to be peaceful resistance. Ah, my Impossible Dream.

I'm thinking the God of my understanding has decided, OK, you've skimmed the scum off the top, now it's time to start going deeper. All I need remember is: God has already perfected me...this is the road I am to walk to realize that perfected work, and that whenever God so wills it.   

Thank you.