ON USING FEAR TO LIGHT OUR PATH

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

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

Fear is not lifted out of us. Praying for God to take away fear is a waste of our breath and God's time. No. God does not take away our fear...he imbues us with the power to walk through it to get to Him. We are the source of all our woes, and I just think of God as the cleanup crew...of which, there is none better.

Our ego seeks to be absolved of all blame always...but blame is just fear with a new hairdo. We are slow to learn that is where God's glory lies...blame (fear) is spiritual growth aborning to lift us deeper. 

Time set aside daily to meditate, to journal, to ponder on the mysteries of the spiritual is the new GPS we are gifted with.

We slowly realize the nature of the path we have been set upon. It is a path that leads us ever forward guided by ego's denial of its determined hold. The many bumps in our road are our hard-earned giftees; equally important, they benefit others at the same time we are being gifted. Thus we all come out of self free.

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

Thank you.

TRUST GOD'S LOVE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

WE CAN...IF WE WILL

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

TRUST...THE MOST RADICAL ACTION

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

I WANT TO BE READY

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

WHEN WE STUMBLE...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And God grins at the folly.

Thank you.

THIS DISCOMFORTING LOVE OF GOD

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

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

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

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

Thank you

GOD MEETS US WHERE WE ARE

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

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

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

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

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

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

Again, God meets us where we are. 

Thank you.

NOT FOR OUR SELF BUT TO PASS IT ON

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

BLINDING FLASH OF THE OBVIOUS

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

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

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

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

There it is, transition on the hoof.

Thank you.

TRANSITION...THE ESSENCE OF LIFE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you. 

IN SURRENDER LOVE BLOSSOMS

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

THIS ONE'S ON YOU, GOD, II

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

ON SINGING THE HALLELUJAH CHORUS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

somebody (namely I) will have to pay.

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

RESIST NOT GOD'S HIDDEN WILL

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

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

  

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

ON GRATITUDE AND GRACE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

GOD'S WILL...LOVE AND LAUGH

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you. 

MY "SAFE" vs GOD'S "SAFE"

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

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

  

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

Talk about a new and different way of letting go! 

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

ON THE ACT OF LETTING GO

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

ON SIMPLY COMING TO BELIEVE

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

  

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

A few messages I flashed on or heard or read: 

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

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

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

Thank you.

GOD'S LOVE CANNOT BE IMAGINED

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Thank you.

I AM RESPONSIBLE FOR THE EVIL I SEE

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

   

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

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

NOT TO DISCOVER BUT TO RETRIEVE, II

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

FORGIVENESS AS NONRESISTANCE

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

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

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

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

The three words: Resist not evil. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you. 

THE SACRED ART OF ACCEPTANCE

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you. 

GOD'S ALREADY GOT IT FIXED

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

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

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

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

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

Does God have my back, or what?

Thank you.

SPIRITUAL GROWTH...THE SUPREME PARADOX

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you. 

PUTTING ON THE MIND OF CHRIST

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

TO LIVE A LIFE OF WONDERMENT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.

AH, FEAR...I LOVE YOU SO

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you.