THE LIMITLESS LOVE OF GOD

Our want to feel God's love is our want to feel our love for God. And there is the ego's tripwire. 

Our feeling fulfilled is our reasoning mind's desire. Yet we cannot feel our love for God sufficient to the love of God...that is God's perfect love, our want-to. 

Having only this-world knowledge of love for others...people, special people, pets, places and things...the urgent desire to feel our love of God can never be met in full. Our attempt to use our knowledge as our base to get to a full feeling of our love for God stays us in our will. Yet in God's vision, our want-to is complete. 

The limitless, infinite, bottomless love of God enwraps God's world and returns to God. Our want-to proves God's perfect love. 

More we do not...ah, cannot...need. 

Thank you.

GO DEEPER AND MUCH HIGHER

Strait is the gate and narrow is the way is the way of humility.

Hard lesson learning...possibly the hardest: Trusting that our missteps, misspeaks, etc., in the mirror vision of God, are essential for the humility life requires if we are to be free.  

I wonder if trusting God isn't basically trusting our own self. More to the point, trusting our own self in God. 

I seem to be ruing every word of  my shares recently. My early morning blinding flash: But those are my gold...those are the words that show the innermost me...the sometimes scared, not sure, don't know, me. Let them be. Know them for good.

Don't tell me God doesn't have my back. I just read Fr Richard's "Daily Meditation," and there it is, where I hope I am: Wise fools are always formed in the testing ground of exile when the customary and familiar are taken away and they must go deeper and much higher for wisdom. 

That dispels my discomfort in being moved from "the customary and familiar."  It also assures I'm going in the right direction by that very movement which feels so un-right. Finally, it allows me to be comforted in the possibility of qualifying as a "wise fool." 

All over again...God's ways will never make it in the reasoning mind world. We must go beyond reason to love.

Thank you.

WHO AM I TO DOUBT?

Blinding flash of the obvious: Who am I to doubt? 

Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now. - Goethe      \

Who am I to doubt it?

I will go before you and make the crooked places straight. -- Isaiah 45:2

Who am I to doubt it?

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

Who am I to doubt it?

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

Who am I to doubt it?

Indeed, who am I to doubt? Ah, but proving I doubt not, there's the rub.

Thank you.

OUR LIFE...GOD'S MAZE FOR US TO WALK

Blinding flash of the obvious: The kingdom of heaven is proof that our worst fear/greatest glory signifies nothing.

Faith in our Father...is there anything harder to hold to? Even when we really, really want to hold to it!

Face it, our  reasoning mind may not be stupid, but it's not easily changed even when we are aware that we are clinging to our own perceptions, not to reality. To paraphrase Eknath Easwaran: We see not what is really there but what the ego wants us to see, i.e., the profit of momentary gratification.  

According to me: The kingdom of heaven is God consciousness; we live in the material world seeking spiritual growth; raising our consciousness is the essence of spiritual growth. 

The conundrum, of course, is that we seek for our consciousness to be lifted out of worst fear/greatest glory mindset into the kingdom of heaven, but the reason we seek is to be safe and secure in the world we cling to...which we're attempting to rise above.   

I don't doubt the basis of anxiety today is our taking too seriously our perceptions of worst fear...which is probably fear of not getting our idea of our greatest glory.

This life may simply be about deepening our trust in a Higher Power. Or, our acceptance that God truly is within, has already completed beforehand all that we personally need. Our path consists in walking it as he has perfected it for us. 

Ah, and we get to keep coming back until we get it right.

Thank you.

GO FORWARD BELIEVING, II

[This is a reprint of my post of February 24, 2017.]

Morning blinding flash of the obvious: It's so hard to believe in God because we don't rely on him enough...we call on him, beg him, plead with him, but we don't trust him enough to rely on him.

The fact is we make it so hard to believe in God because maybe the promise of God is too wondrous for us to dare believe. Plus his fixes are usually the exact opposite of mine. Not to mention he is a slooow walker. I know, I got a flash just the other day that he goes real slow so we can keep up, but still....

The way to believe prayer works is to pray than go forward believing our prayer has been answered...and in the affirmative. Which boils down to...just do it.

Heck, if I'm going to have to do it anyway, why pray?

We pray to acknowledge the source of good (that's God) within us who is going to do the heavy lifting for us. Because if we could "just do it" without a little help, we wouldn't have been praying about it to begin with.

All of which means, our sole goal needs be building our trust in God.

We build our trust by relying on him. We rely on him by acknowledging his presence daily. Not to convince him, but to convince our own self. Than we can face our next "oh, no" or "oh, please" p.d.q., and quit wasting our breath and God's time praying about it and doing nothing.

Thank you.

LEARNING TO TRUST, OR HOW NOT TO FEAR

An old but oh-so-dear blinding flash of the obvious: Nothing turns me to God faster than fear, ergo, fear is God in disguise. This morning's BFO: Anxiety is God's gift to me, ever moving me toward God.

In my Sermon study this morning, I was caused to wonder if it is all about take no thought. Is that the Sermon's quiet word? Stay out of the mental trying to figure it out? That would certainly explain why exchanging our free will for trust in God, the goodness of God within us, is all. 

Complete trust, faith, reliance on God within us may not keep the material world from operating in our life, probably will not make nothing-but-good come to us...but by not relying on ourself, our mental acuity, our life most likely will have a rose-colored hue. It can be our truth in fact. 

Spiritual growth is a lot about learning to fear not...or, how to not fear about our own self. We are learning the art of acceptance that, though the material world may be dear, it is not divine.

So when, not if, the appearance is scary, the attitude need not be adversely affected. Our ongoing lesson is to lean back into the Sermon and take no thought for the appearance. We remind ourself that the fact is, God is. And that is all.

It is called The Good News, this building trust in God and God's goodness...as opposed to sitting in hopeless fear of the unknown and probably ugly. 

No wonder it takes a lifetime to build the necessary trust...we're never going to lock God down thus our trust must grow. 

Matthew 6:25 Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life,...6:34 Take no thought for the morrow. - The Sermon on the Mount

Thank you.

FREE WILL MUST BE FREELY RETURNED

I have always been of the opinion that unpopularity earned by doing what is right is not unpopularity at all...but glory! -- Cicero (lifted from the comic strip  "Candorville" from February 23, 2019)

This I do believe: Every feeling of fear, every doubt about personal welfare (and aren't most of our doubts based on personal welfare in one form or the other?), every lurking uh-oh is my own free will trying to sway my Father into easing up, cutting me some slack...doing it my way already, not his.

I suspect the entire purpose of God's gift of free will is for us to experience the necessity of freely returning it. 

The big reveal being that "freely" is by our own blood, sweat and tears, i.e., the unpopular crash-and-burn, from which we awake to the righteous revelation, the pearl beyond price...the unpopular is transmuted into our glory. 

Interestingly, the path was cleared by way of a comic strip...don't tell me God doesn't work in mysterious ways, doesn't have our back, doesn't use for our good every bit of minutiae we hand to him. 

Hallelujah! I love him so.

Thank you.

STILL GRACED WITH GRATITUDE

I walk today the path of flinching, doubting, anxiety...the temporary path, it occurs to me to add.

The following is a paraphrase of a paragraph from Fr Richard Rohr's "Daily Meditation" today: We like to imagine that not having doubts or ever questioning our Father’s love is our "supposed to," but the much greater message is that in our humanity, we do flinch, do ask questions, do have doubts—and still remain faithful. This is the path of wisdom. 

I do believe that until we have shucked our self-educated shield of certain-sure...until we can say with neither fear nor shame, I am not sure, not necessarily nor always I don't know (for we have learned that "I don't know" can be a cop-out)...we're playing ego's game, the one of "i-win/u-lose." 

Oooh, blinding flash: This path of free-floating anxiety is God calling me to God. Yes!

Thank you.

GOD IS...ENOUGH

The world insists that we are what we do and achieve, but contemplation invites us to practice under-doing and under-achieving, reminding us of the simple grace and humility of being human. -- Barbara Holmes, from Fr Richard Rohr's "Daily Meditation," February 17, 2021

Blinding flash or passing thought: There is nothing additional to learn once we've learned life's basic principle: God is. 

We ponder that, analyzing it till it expands to our liking: God is, can and will intervene in my life in my behalf. 

Then, cleaning it up a tish further; God is, can and will intervene in my life in my behalf no matter how less-than I perceive that to be on first glimpse. 

We can rely on that for our spiritual security blanket but know this: As long as we rely on the written word for our security, i.e., know it from the eyebrows up but do not realize it from within, we will stay our own spiritual growth. In effect, we make words the God of our own understanding. 

Blinding flash of the obvious: Realizing in full that God is releases us from the egoic need to control. We  finally accept the reality of The Dark Night Of The Soul...that it is of God, essential and will break us in two like a toothpick. If we're doing it right. 

We often feel there are many, but I suspect there is only one true Dark Night. It's probably our own interpretation of life's rough periods that self-defines the others. I regret...and deeply regret...that I doubt I've had my last...or rather First...Dark Night of the Soul. 

Recognizing the truth of Meister Eckhart's, “God is not found in the soul by adding anything, but by a process of subtraction,” we come to believe that we cannot improve upon that basic principle: God is.

Thank you.

WELCOME THE UNSURE OF SURE

Reading of the trials and tribulations of the many Saints who have gone before, of their hanging in and hanging tough, of the essential dark night of the Soul is all well and good, but living through it...not so inspiring in the actual slog. That's why it's called The Dark Night Of The Soul...duh.

Studying the Sermon this morning, I read about not trusting our treasures that will rust and rot but trust our Father within. 

We know, of course, that our treasures are not merely money, stocks, bonds, and pensions, but I have found it interesting how long it has taken me to not go to money-in-the-bank as my first thought.

Today I know that my treasure is faith in God...ah, but faithful endurance in the face of anxiety, no matter what evidence to the contrary my nerves speak, is my test today. Trust in my personal sanity while my heart trembles and my hands shake must come through the grace of God...for sure, it is not willable.

Here's where my personal experience can lift me up and carry me through for this mirrors what I went through fifty years ago...when I was first learning to lean on God, and then only because I had nothing else to lean on. 

I have come to believe (a tish shakily but want-to counts) that my treasure is the unseeable, untouchable, the humanly unprovable that comes by the grace of God, period. Which is where I seem to be today...anxiety riding herd, while I hope to endure, want to endure, seek only my Father which art in Heaven. Ah, with my unceasing thank you for it is this unsureness, this panic that is keeping me mentally turned to God. 

Passing thought, new anxiety: What if it is my idea of God that I must loose and let go? And open to the mystery, unknowable in this world, of God. Not just of my understanding but of God. Which I cannot bring forth because maybe want-to doesn't count, doesn't not count. God is. And there's the breaker...letting God Be. Love and laugh. 

Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. -- Matthew 6:19-21 

Thank you.

FEAR...WALK TOWARD IT AND BE FREE

I often remind myself that the hardest thing life is ever going to ask of me is that I change my mind. My ego, Lucy With The Football, however, resists that because Lucy is always right so why change our mind? 

The test, of course, is if we're not feeling relaxed about our rightness, if we've got a "so there!" playing at our current nemesis, then no, we're not right. And it matters not if we're arguing that 2 + 2 = 4. The wrong there, of course, is whatever is going on within us that we would we be arguing about that to begin with. 

The deeper we've grown spiritually, the more we find that is the question to any and all conflict: What is wrong with me that I'm resisting this? Being factually right does not make it spiritually right. and if we're not right with our Father within, we are way wrong. 

It's all about divorcing ourself from our own opinions...from our own reasoning mind conclusions, or that which assures us we are right. 

According to me, the quickest and best way to change our mind comes from the Sermon: Agree with your adversary quickly. Our adversary being the other side of whatever we're opining about. 

Whether we're caught in an argument with another or a mental debate with ourself, we don't agree with the side we're up against just to shut the other up...that's the essence of a self-determined objective. The fairly simple action we take is we quit disagreeing with the other side. 

We push pause to give us time to go to God, to hear him out...or not as he wills...but our mind has slowed so our mouth is no longer flapping. A good deterrent is the short sentence, "You may be right." That may or may not shut the other up, but it silences our own self. We can smile, nod, walk away...to ponder what fear got activated in us to get us in that brouhaha to begin with. 

Getting clear with our fear is to realize God in the midst of it. Until we recognize our fear, name it and own it, that fear will own us. We recognize, name and own our fear, and there is the Revelator for  nothing turns us to God faster than fear. 

Fear is God in camouflage. Be not afraid.

Thank you.

IT IS...SO BE IT

When we seriously and sincerely seek to get over our own self, ego-deflation in depth, we find that the dark night of the soul is not what we think of as necessary...it just is. 

We can fight that or we can accept complete defeat...which ushers in the realization that not winning is the pearl beyond price.

Fr Richard Rohr often writes that the way through is by great love and by great suffering...it is ours to discover that neither can be self-directed. Leaving the way through drifting up from within in wisps until, as we look back, we realize it was ever our own.

I think of being lifted into God consciousness, the kingdom of heaven, as realizing there is no lack...no natural attachments, i.e., ill health, poverty, unhealthy relationships. I do not doubt that my own thinking will need changing...mainly because if I can image God and God's ways, I'm still set in my own imagining. 

I ponder that and know I believe today in the mirror-image of God...what we see as "Oh, No" is God's pearl beyond price, His "Yes!"  Reverse the idea of God consciousness as no lack, and any one or all of those...ill health, poverty, unhealthy relationships... may come to us, may be what our free will has chosen. 

Ah, there is the alter of crash-and-burn.

It may be that we arise from the ashes of our crash-and-burn with a changed consciousness. Health, wealth, wisdom and relationships are here and Now, the change being that our care and concern for others are the beneficiaries. In our new consciousness, we are free of care and concern for self. We are free to be free.

As pretty as all that may seem, the promise is that God consciousness is infinitely superior...divine. Unimaginable, in fact. We can only let it be.

Thank you.

GOD IS...THERE IS NO ALMOST

God is either everything or God is not...if God is not everything, then what's the benefit of God being almost?

What part of the rest of almost is ours? When do we toss in the towel, because that part isn't ours, and when do we run full tilt at windmills because that part may be ours? 

If our worst fear is looming on the horizon...or only seems to be...what difference? If it is or only may be, our fear is already driving us into the mental abyss of "all alone."

If it arrives, if our worst fear comes true, our fear has already immobilized us, so we're useless for either flight or fight. Paralyzed by our own fear, we can't help ourself and aren't even open to the possibility of divine aid.

If our fear is going to take us over anyhow, why not welcome it? See it, resist it not, welcome it with our thank you...which lightens our outlook and invites the grace of God to enter. Ah, there. By grace and by God we can walk forward, not unstressed but peaced for sure.

With peace as our partner, we feel unburdened. We let go and let God. 

Thank you.

FEAR NOT GOING BEYOND REASON TO LOVE

 My notes this day in my "God Calling:" 

'1985 - How may I serve Thee?

'1986 - By seeking to be least in self.

'2021 - By not seeking to be least in self, but by not resisting being least.'

There is the difference between a self-determined objective and the living objective of God. Actively seeking a want, no matter how holy the want seems to be, is sliding an I-want in front of a possible God's will. 

The problem no doubt is God's will rarely seems wantable...doable, yes, but wantable? Not so much. Face it, it's either ho-hum, boooring (go help your neighbor rake leaves) or personally questionable (make nice with the one who told others a canard about you). 

Why ask God to go before us to make either of those crooked places straight when neither have any spiritual heft to them? How is something so mundane going to get angel wings? And making nice to a bald-faced liar who has done me wrong? That simply cannot be right. 

To our reasoning mind. 

Ah, here we are again, back at the place where our reasoning mind is required to deny itself...more to the point, we are required to do spiritual over our preferred reasonable: We must go beyond reason to love. 

We go beyond reason by not seeking to be least in self, but by not resisting being least...by opening to and for the benefit of others. 

We claim that God has our back. This is the spiritual path that leads us through our fear of showing it. 

Thank you.

[Important exception: "When someone cannot or will not hear us, do not tarry there...shake the dust off your feet and move on."  (Matthew 10:14)]

GOD'S DOORS ARE ALWAYS OPEN

Matthew 5:11 Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. 12 Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.

Does that blessing include when our own egoic mind reviles us and persecutes us and utters all manner of evil against us falsely? Probably not, being as the determiner is "on My account." When have I ever said all manner of evil against me for the Lord's sake?...or for any spiritual reason? Remorses are ego-born and bred...but just knowing that, admitting that, will not stop them or change them up. 

The reasoning mind's admission of regrets is an invitation to wallow in shame and blame which actually nurtures them...all that attention grows them stronger. Accepting regrets with a merciful heart, with love and laughter, is to hold them tenderly. Thus they are not expelled but are becoming our teacher.    

Our rues, regrets and remorses are our steep steps to the kingdom of heaven, God consciousness. They are not banished, they are transmuted. Transmuted along with those steep steps to God's hidey hole...ah, they have become the wings of our dove. Not to be too fanciful about it. 

But why not be fanciful? Face it, fanciful in spiritual growth is better than beating up on ourself and calling that spiritual growth. That's just wrong.

Just as a reminder, here's my spiritual short-cut, a one-size-fits-all Golden Rule:  Just try not to be as nasty as you want to be. 

God doesn't care how we come to him...his doors are always open with love.

Thank you.

WE ARE THE LOVE WE PASS ON

Give over, give up, give in. -- an answered prayer

I do believe the way to peace is to be the first to give over...ah, but our reason is the potential poisoner. If our want-to is for the self-congratulatory honor of coming in first, for sure we will come in last. 

True spiritual living has a lot to do with our motives...to have a purified (self-less) motive, we must go to a higher level deeper within...to God's hidey hole. It apparently goes against human conditioning to put another before our own self. In particular when we less than love the other.

All of this, of course, is just so many words if we believe we believe yet do not do. Who's kidding whom? We're going to face conflict in our life on a daily basis...that is life. Which probably is why we found it necessary to make our decision to be a forgiving person. Bringing us to the inevitable...how?  

Ah, here it comes, the blinding flash of the obvious: Give over, give up, give in. 

Slowly...over time...a lot of time...we let go of the inescapable resistance we feel. By let go, we welcome, praying our thank you prayer which hands it over to our Father. Sometimes slowly, sometimes in a flash, we know we are love, and we cannot not pass it on. 

We are love. We give over. We give up. We give in.

Thank you.

FORGIVE...THE SACRED FORE GIVE

Our spiritual mind goes in the opposite direction of our material mind. In still more spiritual growth, we may even get it, get the spiritual message and the why of it...yet continue to do the material anyway.

That is known as "growth," albeit only the first step in our growth, the toe in the icy water toward change. The longer we stay inactive, wanting, the longer we are panting after the easy...praying without participating.  

Face it, spiritual want-to is the prerequisite for required action, i.e, ego-deflation. And the icy water gets deeper. We discover our apparent need is for inner strength...and more still inner strength...for we are closing in on the real need: We need to get over our own self. With love and laughter yet.

I was gifted with a growth goose this morning. The word "forgive" came to me almost as a message in and of itself...not almost, it was. And I pondered it, that word "forgive" and "forgiveness":   forgive - forgiveness - my blinding flash of the obvious sacred word. To give before get...be the first to give over...to fore give...to the reasoning mind, forgive is a weak word...forgiveness seems suckup...to forgive almost gutless...ah, mirror image of God, fore give is to give up our own self in acceptance of the Father within.

 
I was reminded of my decision to be a forgiving person, and I welcome this continuing education. 

It is through the act of forgiveness that our inner strength grows  We give up, give in, give over of our self to lighten our load, and we are lifted deeper into higher consciousness. 

Thank you.

THE DECISION WE MUST MAKE

It's an oversimplified fact that to live in God consciousness is to have no material-mind attachments, as in no ill health, poverty, discordant relationships...lack in a word. The big uh-oh is the fact of our human condition...we are born into the material world by God's design. We are given free will by God's design. We are sent out on our journey of life to freely choose our way and our ways.

The peeps I know and love, including myself, chose a wicked, rough way to roll...self-absorbed, period. Which, on looking back, we realize as the best for us for it got us right where we are and need to be. (The "need" is our assurance that God's hand was and is in it...short form, wants are of self, needs are of God.) We have the scars, the breaks and the bruises to prove: our choice, our life. And perfect to get us back to God, the God of our own understanding, which as we slowly learn is the hidey hole of the peace that passes understanding. 

Again (and ever) slowly we learn there is no inherent peace in our wants, especially when prettied up seemingly for others. Surface wants are simply with us, usually corralled by Weight Watchers and such, and inner wants are only wrong when we send them out masquerading as a need for ourself or for another. 

The Father knows our needs...and our needs will be met only in accordance with God's will. There it is, our heads up. We'd best prepare for frequent changes of mind.

If a want of ours is self-serving seeming to us to be a need, our real need is to dig deeper...with thank you on our lips and in our hearts. Shame and blame are egoic pain...loose them and let them go.

Clearly, or according to me, still more spiritual growth is not self-directed or by way of deliberation. Giving of a  helping hand, of money, clothes, food, disaster relief, etc., are all good, but if our reason for doing them is for self, even to lift us into God consciousness (face it, to be worry free), we are going down that wrong road again. 

We make a decision to turn our will and our life over to the care of God as we understand him...and willingly spend the rest of our life trying to live that decision. 

And here's the word without the hair on it: Without blame or shame, with love and laughter.

Thank you.

THE SOLUTION LIES WITHIN

According to the Sermon, we are to love our enemy and our friend in like measure...not only that but we need to bless them that curse us, do good to them that hate us and pray for those which despitefully use us and persecute us. In other words, treat us shabbily. 

Trust this if not that: All the justified resistance we hold dear...payback, revenge, resentment...is as moth to a flame and as necessary as teats on a bull. 

Through my own (admittedly limited) experience, I know this to be doable, this loving our enemy as our self. Ah, but it is doable only when (not if) we shuck our shields utterly...which, after all, is the certain-sure prerequisite for most all spiritual growth.  

Only shield-less can we love our enemy and our friend in like measure for God has entered our heart. We find ourself willing to look within...to find the fault within.

Remember...the fault line that brought down the Great Dam ran within.

When there is something that is wrong and you know it and you can see exactly what it is that is wrong and you try to fix it and it does not fix and you try again, harder, and it stays unfixed...you are looking in the wrong direction. You are looking out there...at the problem. Look within. To the solution...spiritual principles. All spiritual principles are within us, have been there since before conception, will be there three days after we are dead...and 1,000 years after the world as we know it is no more, spiritual principles will be in the ether...waiting to be realized and released by a willing soul once again. -- Blinding flash of the obvious from February 9, 2017

Thank you.

THE LION IN THE DEN IS ASLAN

Fear not being thrown into the lion's den for the lion in the den is Aslan. -- long ago blinding flash of the obvious 

Nothing turns me to  God faster than fear. -- another past BFO (from which came the idea to accept  fear as God in camouflage) 

Anxiety has ever been the bane of my life. Apparently, neither my human condition nor my reasoning mind is ever going to freely welcome fear into my life so my BFOs began clarifying fear as co-existible, 

Fear is not removed. Fear is just another incurable, progressive disease...respect it, never think we're going to be able to spit in its eye and dance away. But our very respect keeps us stilled...our heart may pound a tish stronger, our palms may sweat, but our unceasing thank you prayer can and will see us through.

Here's the thing with the self-willed person...give us a solution to any personal problem, and we always have a yes, but... at the ready. Meaning, yes, but...I'm different...unique, not to put too fine a point on it.

I suspect a huge percentage of my original resistance to the Sermon or for that matter any teachings from the Bible is they are all about detaching from our own self-interests, i.e., society, security. relationships. By detaching, I mean, they ask us to put the other person first, and whoa! That does not make a lick of sense. Why should you come before me when we're both trying to be good and decent people, and who's kidding whom? You're not going to put me before you.

And there it is, fear...the sum and substance of all fear is self-centered, whether it be our life or our love, man or money. Face it, we are not going to shuck that, but we can make peace with it. How? By still more spiritual growth which is where we learn, by experience not by reading or by rote, that a Power greater than ourself can and will intervene in our life in our behalf. 

The fear I feel is God in camouflage inviting me through my mental resistance to the peace that passes understanding...but I've got to walk through my fear to get to that peace, to Aslan, God consciousness.

Thank you.

OUR GOOD GROWS US

The real question is 'What does this have to say to me?' Those who are totally converted come to every experience and ask not whether or not they liked it, but what does it have to teach them. 'What’s the message or gift in this for me? How is God in this event? Where is God in this suffering?'

I read that a while back in Fr Richard's "Daily Meditation,"  and it caused me pause. I've pondered it off and on in relation to my blinding flashes of the obvious in which I have come to believe. Admittedly, early on I examined, questioned, analyzed them until I almost dreaded a new one. 

We hear and read that God is in everything, and I desperately wanted to believe that to be true. I wonder if it wasn't a BFO that whispered to me to trust, not to analyze...and I did.  I decided the next uh-oh that came to me (and back in the day a new uh-oh seemed to come hourly), I would find something good in it...if it was God, super, if it wasn't, it was still good which was better than scary uh-oh. 

I began to search for a splinter of good in whatever less-than-wonderful appeared to me. It mattered not how scary the uh-oh nor how wee the good...to turn my attention away from my fear toward something spiritual in nature was the starter. It seemed likely that by focusing on finding something good, I'd find God or a glimpse of God. 

More and more, I learned to stay my focus there...there on a good, to hold there. Lo and I'll be! It grew itself, and I had my sliver of gold. The pearl beyond price: Find that sliver of gold, hold to it...it will grow us into It.

Blinding flash of the obvious: Our good grows us.

Thank you.

THE GIFT OF UNKNOWING, Redux

 [This is a reprint of my post of December 31, 2015] 

The more we know the more we know we don't know...reasoning mind weeps, Spirit exults.

Thank you.

GOD'S CALLING! LISTEN! HEED! LOVE! Redux

[This is a reprint of my post of December 29, 2015]

"God calling!" Once, way long ago when I was young, that's what I'd say when my phone rang. I delighted in saying it...singing it out loud, really. I'd just been given my book, "God Calling," and those words made a home in my heart.

My blinding flash of the obvious this morning is when our ego starts doing our thinking for us, obsessing over the various slings and arrows niggling at our brain, instead of tending that, we can immediately say, "God calling." Gertrude's perfidy? Joe's insult? Herkimer's snub?..."God calling!"

Because It is! Each sling, each arrow, is God seeking to do our thinking for us. To lift us out of our own solution into His perfect solution...which is always and ever love. It isn't as if our solution, responding in kind to Gertrude, Joe and Herkimer, has worked for us. All that got is them responding in kind to our responding in kind...and the beat(ing) goes on.

The single only thing in this world stopping us from loving in a loveless place is wanting to. What place needs love more? That loveless place is within us, begging for the love we already have but fear using lest we show our need for love. The only way we are ever going to realize the limitless love we already have is to use it...give it away...sling it with the arrows. Be a "Cupid," open and transparent, as opposed to a "Stupid," closed and opaque. There is no God there.

Stop the runaway train. Get off. God's calling. Listen...heed...love.

Thank you.

THE ROCKY ROAD TO ACCEPTANCE

I've been all up in my head about my insurance and whether to go with a new medicine that I've been prescribed or to stick with the vitamins I've ever depended on. 

I heard me this morning asking God if He could help me, and I immediately realized that this is God helping me. 

To me this is the rocky road to acceptance. Having learned that acceptance is the answer no matter the question, we want to believe that it is ours when we feel that first frisson of uncertainty. Ah, it is our uncertainty that leads the reasoning mind to resist, but it is God that  uses our uncertainty to lead us through that resistance. 

Face it, how else do we get to acceptance when we meet up with an unanswerable question, ergo fear? 

God is not available on demand and neither is acceptance. Demand is just another self-determined objective. The perfect objective which is of God is our opportunity to ponder not our uncertainty, but God...or rainbows and roses...or puppies, laughter and love. 

Turn our thoughts away from our perceived problem, pray our thank you, and in God's good time, we will not necessarily know exactly what to do, but we will be satisfied that God does, and that He has our back. Then we're freed up to do something about something. 

We learn whether we've done it right, and if not, to promptly admit it, and do the next thing. That way we head off personally perceived disasters...take each next step Now so we can quickly realize whether we need to turn back or to relax. When done Now, before our reasoning mind gains purchase, acceptance carries us through. 

There, that's the way of acceptance, and it works...also it is an almost impossible lesson to remember. It works, but then so does our reasoning mind. Until we learn to discipline it (three days after we're dead, according to me), it natters...and a lot louder than God.

Lessons learned: Meditate daily, contemplate even more, and pray thank you without ceasing. Then, in time, we come closer to living in acceptance.

Thank you.

WE KNOW...THEN WE REALIZE

It is said that the dark night of our Soul is God’s best gift to us...intended for our liberation. I not only believe that, but looking back, my experience proves it to me. My first dark night was my crash-and-burn. I have experienced more than a couple dark nights since, and after the fact I realized them as my blessing.

When we are going through our dark night, the very name tells us this is not even supposed to be comfortable, fun or Life-Lite. No. It is to turn us from our mental perception of self...i.e., me and how to protect me...inward to a Power greater than self and how to live it.

Again we find the main block is our reasoning mind...when we break through to agreement with what we are learning, we expect that agreement has sealed the deal. It is as if we never heard of the word "begin." In this case, the mental resistance we just hurdled convinces us we're on the good side of that dark night. No. We've only just begun.

Our beginning is the healing, and we heal from within. Think of a papercut...we put soothing balm on it, we do what we can to take away the hurt, but the healing comes slowly, and it comes from within. Of course, a papercut is no dark night, but in spiritual growth it helps to find a correlative, a mental-manageable to aid in breaking down our own resistance...to ease us into our changing mind. 

In our dark night all that we knew or thought we knew about the God of our own understanding gets tossed, turned inside-out and upside-down, slaps us upside the head, spits in our eye, calls us less-than, and laughs in our face...seemingly. 

In today's world there are way too many books about cutting short the pain, getting around it, putting it on someone else (remember our old go-to: perfect peace is having someone to blame). Our "beloved"  common sense has us try some or many or most of those how-to, which isn't all wrong since very little gets us to surrender faster than self-inflicted mental pain (and is there any other kind?).

Comes a dawning...we realize that for which we are searching, the healing our hurt demands, is within us. It is in the dark night of our Soul where we give up our imagined God, the healer, giver, peace-forever person out there that we have longed-for...and we find God. 

Without any possibility of fully comprehending that we have only just begun.

Thank you.

BEWARE THE EGO'S NEED

We often hear what I believe is quite simply a canard; i.e., You cannot have fear if you have faith; you cannot have faith if you have fear. 

I make bold to say What. A. Crock. 

Jesus is reported to have asked God (from the Cross!) "Why hast Thou forsaken me?" Now, either the Man had faith or he didn't, and don't tell me that question wasn't boatloaded with fear. I mean, He was hanging from the Cross for Pete's sake...that is a freaking fearsome place to be. I rest my harangue.

I'm betting the I, me, my desire is really for no fear, so the religious folk slimed us with "perfect faith" as our yardstick. Who's kidding whom?  Perfect faith, ergo no fear...ever...is the ego's need for certitude and perfect clarity.  

There's every chance in the world my belief is self-serving but isn't all faith? Without that's being its purpose? 

I have written much lately about my "newcomer" feelings...feeling unmoored, insecure, stand-offish, uneasy. This my 50th year of seeking still more spiritual growth...on purpose...has led me to a place I've never been before. (As if every single day of our life doesn't do just that if we're going to be scrupulous about it.)

 

The gift, the pearl beyond price, that I'm wallowing in is the fun (!) I'm having with these untethered feelings. Imagine. These feelings that I had when I started up/down this path 50 years ago and prayed God to take from me...ah, today are more proof that my self-determined worst case can become God's perfect gift to me for my benefit.

According to Rohr:  It seems a movement from certitude to doubt and through doubt to acceptance of life’s mystery is necessary in all encounters, intellectual breakthroughs, and relationships, not just with the Divine. (Fr Richard Rohr's "Daily Meditation," February 3, 2021)

There. Don't tell me we have no faith if we have fear. Now I rest my harangue.

 
Creativity flourishes not in certainty but in questions. Growth germinates not in tent dwelling but in upheaval. Yet the seduction is always security rather than venturing, instant knowing rather than deliberate waiting. -- Author Sue Monk Kidd 

OK, now.

Thank you.

DON'T CLINCH, OPEN...WELCOME ALL

Little known fact (lifted from Fr Richard Rohr's "Daily Meditation" today): Candles were historically blessed on this day to mark the halfway point between the winter solstice and the spring equinox and the slow return of light. Secular America created Groundhog Day with the same unconscious hope. 

That was a completely unknown fact to me, but it brightened my today's outlook...that we are half through the (my opinion) grey days of winter! Wheeee - daffodils, Grand Slam Tennis and sunshine till 8:00 PM coming up!

There. Proof that upgrade your attitude, upgrade your problem works. It still amazes me how wee the solution to all our problems can be when any perceived problem appears so large. 

My favorite solution: All of our problems can be solved by spiritual principles. 

I suspect most initial resistance to that solution is with the word "spiritual." Until we are brought to a change of thinking, from believing that spiritual means religion (and we say "No") to not necessarily religion so maybe, we are married to our reasoning mind. 

Comes the day when we must face the possibility that our reasoning mind is the source of all our woes. 

It matters not how well educated we are or are not, how on-target our intuition usually is, how hip, slick and cool we believe ourself to be...to fully realize it is our rational mind that births our perceptions, and our perceptions are the source of our truth leaves only ourself alone to praise or to blame. To rely on. Uh-oh.

Ah, here comes a Higher Power to save our day! When our go-to has become spiritual in nature, our perceptions become spiritually based...and any solution then lies in spiritual growth. 

Refuse that go-to though, and inner resistance looms large, gaining purchase through our refusal to change our mind...or, more like, our fear of opening our mind.  

To again quote Rohr today: ...don’t clench your fists. Open your hands. Your open hands, open eyes, and open heart will prepare the way for new gains, not just new thoughts, but new ways of thinking.

New ways of thinking: Resist not, welcome. Pray thank you for everything.  

Thank you.

PERCEIVED ENEMIES - FRIENDS IN DISGUISE

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 Easwaran's "Words to Live By," November 26)

My blinding flash of the obvious: Fear not that "newbie" feeling. Fear them not, those familiar feelings of so long ago, for they now, as then, are leading you free.

Loosing the reasoning mind and letting it go is not doable by the reasoning mind. Even when the reasoning mind declares itself in agreement...our feelings count! That they count means they cannot be denied, even as we deny them. 

It "feels" not right. It "feels" scary. It "feels" uh-oh, wrong way, turn around...stop! 

And the early lesson that "feelings are not facts" comes to our aid...doesn't stop the doubts, but does give us a glimpse of humor...going down that wrong road again when we don't even want to! Will this still more spiritual growth ever stop with the ineffable? (There's a word I never in my walking-around life have ever used.)

Just as there is no cheap sobriety, there is no cheap spiritual growth...all we learn from our eyebrows up, we must participate with in its journey through our own self. From the brain down to the heart to the gut to our toes...and back up, spreading itself throughout our Soul to rest in God's hidey hole within. 

This may be akin to the necessary "path of descent" about which Rohr teaches...that the spiritual life will eventually require us to descend into a dark tunnel, to descend into unknowing and doubt, to descend into a loss of certainty, to descend through a process that feels like dying. 

Don't tell me that doesn't sound scary...and there it is...the reasonable reason that loosing the reasoning mind and letting it go is not doable by the reasoning mind. Having come to agreement with myself, I can turn to what I have learned from books that has proved true by my own experiencing. 

There's Saint Augustine's Grant what thou commandest and then command what thou wilt. 

Another: 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 of Assisi

Love your enemies...they are friends in disguise. Which justifies my possible favorite: We have ceased fighting everything and everybody. - Anonymous

Again, there is no cheap spiritual growth, that's why it is the pearl beyond price.

Thank you.