OUR SELF-IMPROVEMENT PROJECT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

AND THIS, TOO, IS OF GOD

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

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

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

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

Now, to live there...in our mind. 

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

REACT NOT, PRAY THANK YOU, BE AT PEACE

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

ON GETTING RESCUED

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

PRAY WITH SELFLESS INTENTIONS

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

BY THE GRACE OF GOD AND GRATITUDE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

OUR GREAT COMFORTER

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

THE COURAGE TO BE RIGHT

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

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

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

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

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

Breathe it...live it already. 

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

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

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

Thank you.

OUR WORLD WITHIN THE KINGDOM OF GOD

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

THE KEY LIES IN REALIZATION

The key to living a complete and fulfilled life lies in the realization that there is a mystical, transcendental Presence within us that has already provided our infinite supply unto eternity, that contains within Itself our companionship unto eternity, and that has within Itself the power of fulfillment. -- Joel Goldsmith, "A Parenthesis in Eternity" at p. 269

I note again: The key lies in realization.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

OWN YOUR EARS...PRACTICE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

TO INTUITIVELY KNOW...TRUST

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

WILLINGNESS...THE DOOR OPENER

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

AS WE STAY THE COURSE

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

GOD CAN AND WILL...SOUGHT OR NOT

Interesting times...inner leaning and learning.

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

SEEK SOMEHOW...SOMEONE...TO SERVE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

KNOW IT NOW OR LEARN IT LATER

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

KEEPING OUR SELF CENTERED

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

ON A TRANSFORMED CONSCIOUSNESS

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

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

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

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

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

We resist not evil, we love.

Thank you.

LIVE NOT TO GET BUT TO GIVE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

PRESUME THE BEST

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

GOD CAN AND WILL...LET HIM

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

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

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

There. My marching orders.

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

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

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

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

God can and will if sought.

Thank you.

LET IT AND LOVE IT AND LAUGH

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

THE KEY TO LIFE AND HAPPINESS...FOR OTHERS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

NONRESISTANCE IS LOVE...RESIST IT NOT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

NOT BY ME BUT BY GOD

Blinding flash of the obvious: My need is to realize my trust in God is already built...and not by me but by God.

Our mind ceases its endless desire to be better, do more, know gentler. We rest knowing more deeply that all rues, regrets and remorses are of the ego. When accepted in faith, regrets become opportunities to trust our Father within has done the work. 

We are freed from the fret of whether we "did it right" or "did it wrong" for our Father has already righted us as we walk in the perfect outcome...trust.

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

Thank you.

FOR LESS-THAN-WONDERFUL..THANK YOU

My beloved friend has covid; the other may win; the pandemic is growing; financial collapse may happen...thank you. 

My Sermon study this morning was about "Everyone then who hears these words of mine, and does them will be like a wise man who built his house upon the rock...." In short, they win, those who build on sand lose.

To lean on: Learning to seek deeper into the Sermon's meaning leads to still more spiritual growth...our only goal. 

As I studied Matthew 24-27 this morning, it came to me that this is about meeting our life as it comes to us. We are the house we are building, and what we're seeking, God's word, we'd best be doing, so that when (not if) we are given less-than-wonderful, we can meet it the same as we meet apparent wonderful.  

Spiritually, the wise one is the "winner," receiving inner peace, love and joy everlasting. Ah, but the reasoning mind sees that as the "loser," for naturally getting peacock feathers, temporary glory, that others can see and envy counts more.

When I heard yesterday that my beloved friend had been diagnosed with covid, I wept. As I pondered my world, I realized Jude has covid; Trump may win; the pandemic is growing; financial collapse may happen. Thank You. 

If the only prayer you say in your life is thank you, that would suffice. -- Meister Eckhart 

Thank you.

GOD IS. TRUST THAT.

Many unexplainable things have been taking place within me these last...I know not how long...weeks? Months? As with most turning points on my journey, I begin by doing it wrong...according to my egoic mind. For which, I castigate me, I pray my thank you, I castigate me, etc., etc., etc.

Recently a new angle to my recalcitrant mind opened, and I see a glimmer of light. I ask for nothing, I just pray my thank you and hold the light. And more unexplainable things open to me.

To be clear, these "unexplainables" are not the pretties one would expect from a loving God. No. They are mostly my own defects of character (which I believe are aptly named...why else would we seek so diligently to get rid of them?). The sublime difference being...I am recognizing them today as a reward for the benefit of others. Long ago I saw my experience with the IRS as essential to my spiritual growth, but today I glimpse how that experience benefited others as much or more than it did me...that faux pas of mine which was the genesis for one or two of my deeper friendships, I now see gifted them with others even more. 

To see the changing of our mind...to observe the exchange of our will taking place effortlessly...requires nothing but trust. Trust even in the feelings of no trust! I have been down this road before...many times. These insights are another sacred U-bie...God turning me upward deeper still, yet, again. 

We are observing our want to believe become a need to believe become our proof of purchase: God is. Trust that.

Thank you.