CHOOSE OUR ATTITUDE...CHOOSE OUR WAY

If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend who you hate. -- Nikka, 6

Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. - from The Beatitudes [Note: "on my account"]

You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy,' But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you....Resist not evil. - from The Sermon on the Mount

To have peace of mind, seek to bring peace of mind to others. -- Blinding flash of the obvious

Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way. -- "Man’s Search for Meaning," Viktor Frankl

Interestingly, of all these deep beyond reasoning words, thoughts and truths the one that sings to me is Nikka's, "If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend who you hate."

Face it, to speak that, to know that. at age 6, is to be channeling unfiltered goodness...to which I do aspire. Sliver of gold...to so aspire is choosing one's own attitude, thus way.

Thank you.

ON FINDING OUR SLIVER OF GOLD...NOW

I am reminded again this morning that the reasoning mind legislates for self, that's me...God legislates for Self, that's us, all of us. And what a perfect reminder for Memorial Day.

Memorial Day reminds us that our life, spiritual and material, depends entirely on our moving, with God's grace, from our dependence on our reasoning mind, i.e., ourself, higher into a deeper dependence on God and the will of God.

Since both spiritual and material consciousness are moved upward by peace..."happy" is a like word...it is a great awakening when we slowly, almost unconsciously, become aware that knowing peace within is all about others, and it cannot be achieved by our efforts alone. It simply is not a me job...never was, never will be. 

My peace is dependent upon your peace, and especially if the you I'm aware of is the you who is giving egoic me grief in the moment, the you my hand is itching to smack. 

I believe that's why Viktor Frankl's "Man's Search for Meaning" is ever relevant...he wrote of learning to live at peace within when he was a prisoner in Nazi concentration camps. Way too often we mentally live as if we are imprisoned in a Nazi war camp.

This is where reason and spiritual meet and meld...reason bows to spiritual, and in agreement we give over, give up, give in to God and the will of God...for others. There it is,  my sliver of gold.

My physical, mental and spiritual intent is to move upward deeper...ever working with God Now...not next week, month, year when my health is better, my calendar is cleared...or I want to. Now. 

Thank you.

GOD'S HAND IS IN IT

Yesterday morning, May 28, I had a mini-reveal. I have ever said that all I wanted was peace of mind...came a blinding flash of the obvious: Your need is to want peace of mind for others as much as you want peace of mind for yourself. I felt a tish wonderstruck.

Then Fr Richard Rohr's "Daily Meditation" this morning, May 29, had this assurance: All we have to do is discover our own gift, even if it is just one thing, and use it for the good of all.

The special aid for me is that Rohr's assurance of this morning was a rerun from Monday, May 24. So when I had my chat on Friday, May 28, already I had read but forgotten the assurance of Monday four days earlier. I choose to believe it was just sitting there in my consciousness, ready for me when he knew I would need it...and there it was, my bright light this morning.  

A wrap: All we have to do is discover our own gift, even if it is just one thing, and use it for the good of all. Your need is to want peace of mind for others as much as you want peace of mind for yourself.

Further flash, deeper understanding of "my need...for others." Specifically, I am to act for the benefit as much for others as for myself. To seek peace of mind for others more than for myself would be ego, plain and simple. Without God's guidance, that is surely where my egoic mind would lead me, trying to prove my humility. 

For years now, my unpolished desire has been: Just try not to be as nasty as you want to be. Which is not as easy as it probably ought to be. 

Apparently, now I am to consciously do peace...physically, mentally, spiritually...for the benefit of myself and whomever comes into my atmosphere by word, thought or deed, seen or unseen. 

The good news is I can let my unpolished me continue while I lean more completely on my higher Me. We know that God's hand is in it when both come out the winner!

Thank you.

GO INSIDE TO FIND THE REAL TREASURES

Every one of us is trying to break into the bank inside, to get our hands on the real treasures of life -- rich relationships and resources for contributing to the happiness of all. -- Eknath Easwaran, "Words To Live By," May 28

If standing up for ourself; i.e., making ourself heard, "taking nobody's lip," is our goal, we are heading in the wrong direction. We are moving away from still more spiritual growth for it is a rational-world guarantee that means we are pretty much just learning to respond in kind to the world we live in. When we respond in kind, we invite the other to respond in kind.

Still more spiritual growth is but one goal...to rise above deeper than the reasoning mind. 

As Easwaran noted, "Everyone is trying...to get the real treasures of life...contributing to the happiness of all." I'll add that "everyone is trying" whether they realize it or not.

It is fairly sobering to realize that the only thing standing between us and the God of our own understanding is our reasoning mind. Our thoughts. 

It is awesome when we realize that making spiritual thoughts our own by our living them is the only disciplining our mind needs. Imagine...whenever we perceive a glitch, in particular that feeling of imminent personal loss (of face usually), if we just move God's resist not in front of our NO!, God is on the field, has already protected us and the other. We are cleared and so are they. 

The length of time this takes to trust absolutely is measured by how long it takes us to willingly divorce ourself from reliance on the reasoning mind. It is essential...and hard to comprehend...that our willingness includes realizing that this is not day-in-day-out permanent. There...that is the fail-safe! 

When, not if, our mind and/or mouth goes off track, we pray our thank you, admit our foul-ball behavior, and get back to the better way...not relying on our reasoning mind.

We must go beyond reason to love.

Thank you.

THE PERFECT OBJECTIVE IS OF GOD

Shucking our shields can seem like we are losing our hold on our own personhood...from our eyebrows up, we know God has our back, but, who's kidding whom? It's our exposed back, our quivering belly, that causes us pause.

Wanting to realize God in our  life is a self-determined objective...as long as we want it, pray for it, seek it through books, teachers, preachers gurus, et al., we may well be heading in the right direction, but the how-to is all of self. We need the perfect objective which is of God.

Comes the dawning realization that all the roadblocks in our life were put there by invitation only...put there by ourself, our own thoughts, which warms our heart and scares us silly both at the same time. For with that realization, we recognize God's hand ever in it intervening in our life on our behalf...without that having seemed to be the case.

The paradox, of course, is the way of the self leads to crash and burn...thus to God. The road is long, the self gets weary, of necessity we crash and burn, and there in the ashes of our self-determined objective, we find the God of our own understanding. 

We get to God by doing it wrong not by doing it right. -- Fr. Richard Rohr

In the end we understand that there is no wrong way to seek God...some ways just take longer than others. Or maybe it's just that they seem to take longer. Getting God is not on our timetable...we have God. We are born with God within us/without us. Our acceptance of that truth is the time taker. 

Our realization may be helped by our teachers and preachers, but never doubt: God is in charge. Of every iota of anything and everything, anywhere and everywhere, seen and unseen, known and unknown. Ah, and that very God lives within each of us.

Let It Be.

Thank you.

ON LEARNING TO LOVE, FEAR NOT HATE

If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend who you hate. -- Nikka, 6 [From Kids Talk About Love] 

You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy,' But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father who is in heaven....  -- Matthew 5:43

Don't tell me little six-year-old Nikka didn't have a direct line to God. She set out in one sentence what it took the Sermon on the Mount practically an entire book in the Bible to put forth. Not to mention how long it takes most of us to believe it works...or works to our advantage, not to put too fine a point on it. 

God and things of God do seem to play out in reverse in our walking-around world. Mirror image it is called.

Being the child of my Father who is in heaven...knowing it and showing it without pride or dissembly...proves to be a hard road to walk. At first blush, realizing we are a child of God can bring tears of joy...it is in the proving that truth that we stagger, stumble and fall. If we are doing it right. 

I'm guessing nobody ever got through God's front door without sporting a lot of bruises, scabs and scars. The fact is, as long as we stay stuck in our reasoning mind, we stay stuck in the hurt-wallow of rues, regrets and remorses. 

The wonder is that going to God for God and that is all rockets us to the higher plane. The backstory of the wonder...that rocket takes its own sweet time to ignite and lift off. Ours is to stay with it. 

There is no wrong way to seek God...some ways just take longer than others. Or maybe it's just that they seem to take longer. "Getting" God is not on our timetable nor ours to worry about. We are born with God within us/without us. Accepting that is the necessary time taker.  

The hard-to-believe gift: We have God, we cannot not have God, we had God before we were born, we will have God after we are dead and buried. The stranglehold is our trying to prove that which is unprovable to the reasoning mind. 

Whether we believe it or not, makes no nevermind to God. If not to him, why to us?

Thank you.

ACCEPTING OUR FIRST WANT

 Recently, I came across four questions we need to ask ourself...the first one being, What do you want?

On reading that, two of my wants came to mind immediately...the first was personal for me (of course), and it was a get, for the glory of me; the other was spiritual: What do I want? I want to realize God personally in my life. 

It took most of two days for me to settle on to realize God personally...then another day to inner know I meant it. It was like pulling hen's teeth to shuffle my glory-want out of first place...simply to downgrade it to second. (I may need to ride herd on my inner meaning it.)

Finding the spiritual good in our personal debris may be as elevated as we can expect to get in this lifetime on this plane. It's hard enough getting there which encourages us to settle there...but isn't that to limit our God? Accepting...no, resigning ourself to...our current conception of God as permanent, or as good as it is possible to get, locks us into our mental safe house, self-secured and, improbably, a tish anxious. 

To find the spiritual good in our personal debris, and in that moment...Now, in a word.... to invite it to be our inner guide to self-acceptance of others seems not very likely, impossible to conjure up, hence mayhap God's will. 

Our want must be greater than our grasp or what's God for? (With paraphrased credit to Mr. Browning.)

Thank you.

GOD'S WILL IS GOD'S LOVE

A recent note in my "God Calling": Blinding flash of the obvious:  '2019 - the gift is the garbage...it's the devil in the diamonds when we get what we want.

When we are in deep want of something, and we pray...repeatedly...for God to gift it to us, and we get it, we are ecstatic in our happiness. We want to believe this means that God saw our goodness and rewarded us. 

Ah, but when something less than wonderful personally happens to us, we don't even blink...we put the blame on God. 

Paradox alert: That good we prayed for? Too often it turns to dross, and we wish we'd never heard of it. That less-than-wonderful that dropped on our heads? We can't even count the times it has turned out to be the pearl beyond price in our life.

There. That's be careful what you pray for on wheels. Too often too many of us, believing it is praying Thy will, not mine, be done that counts, repeat it by rote. If we stay there, we will stay there. 

It is not until our inner eye is opened, almost always by necessary suffering, that we know that God's love has entered our heart. Finally we mean it, we want His will in our life more than we want our will in our life always and all ways. 

Thank you.

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.

WANTING vs. WILLING

If you curse him, he will bless you; if you harm her, she will serve you; and if you exploit him, he will become your benefactor. - Eknath Easwaran, Words to Live By, May 21

Well, there it is...the difference between wanting still more spiritual growth and willing to do still more spiritual growth. 

I love that quote and probably cite it every year. I once actually experienced my own inward blessing toward someone who had publicly mocked me, and its warm aftereffects continue to this day. But, who's kidding whom, I would not choose it as an everyday sport.

Continuing lessons a-learning: To grit our teeth and try to bless, serve, benefit, etc., is a self-determined objective, and that is an Uh-Oh loud and clear.  Even spiritually based words, when self-propelled and self-actuated, are primarily for self. Their payoff is a glorified self...but only to self, most often off-putting  to others. Yikes. 

We can take comfort though...if we only know from our eyebrows up that this we seek, still we are heading in the right direction. That, too, is a God-gift.  

What we must recognize unto acceptance unto realization is that our will is our want-to which only legislates for self, whereas God's will is love, that is all...cannot not be for all always and forever. Ah, especially when ego does not feel it. 

God's will is hidden on a higher plane deeper than our will and, the hook, is found within...the one place unbelieving reason refuses to consider. 

It is still more spiritual growth that leads to trust in God's love, indeed, that God loves you and me, rainbows and roses, good and decent peeps and all animals. Lest we forget, God's love includes truth-denying men, mud-slinging mean girls, and untrustworthy others. Face it, who needs love more?

Ours to claim: God is love. And that is all.

Thank you.

WHEN WE STUMBLE...REDUX

[The following is a 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.

THE SPACE BETWEEN...WHOLLY HOLY

Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom. -- Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning

Some of us, caught in the self-serving trap of self unaccepted without a power greater than ourself for guidance, often allow that we are "at least" not conceited. May I say, "at least" does not touch it. 

We are prisoners to our own self...to our own thinking. 

The path to freedom from self is caught in the space of a heartbeat, the blink of an eye, a nanosecond. There is no rhyme or reason for it intellectually...face it, there is no time for intellectual pondering. It is there, as Viktor Frankl describes, in the space between stimulus and response. 

There. The space between. The holy hole. Ours is not to fill the hole but to find our rest there. 

The decision to give over, give up, give in can easily fill that space...for it is already ours just sitting within, waiting to be called up. Our ongoing higher education is our acceptance that the reasoning mind cannot of itself recognize that to give over, give up, give in is the path to freedom from self. 

We can worry that till our face falls off...ponder, think about, analyze, draw maps, diagrams and graphs...all simply delaying tactics to keep our power source at bay. Primarily because our higher power is invisible, untouchable, virtually mute but...here's the basic unbelievable attribute of the Higher Power: It is wholly good and wholly for our benefit. Or, more specifically, It is wholly for the benefit of all. Everyone. 

Impossible. Unbelievable. Who's kidding whom? That just does  not make a lick of sense.

Remember that space between? Go there. Get quiet. Pinpoint focus on that space between. 

We are Now in God's palatial mansion. And no, our reasoning mind cannot get us there. We must go beyond reason...to love.

Thank you. 

TRANSFORMING PAIN TRANSFORMS SELF

As Fr Richard Rohr advises often, If we do not transform our pain, we will most assuredly transmit it.

Imagine my surprise when I finally read that correctly...the word is "transform," not "transfer."  

I spent a great deal of time trying to learn how to just keep my mouth shut...my ego, ever having the last word, would activate my mouth, and I'd eventually, if not sooner, wind up with a bad case of the rues, regrets and remorses...over my own flapping lips, loose jaw, bad behavior.

Slowly I learned that the key to me was not the wounding by mouth, it was the pain of self unaccepted. 

Almost any sound coming out of my mouth...from set 'em straight popoffs to pretty compliments to currying-favor prayers...was cause for my regrets. And trying to justify. Or bald-faced lie in denial. Or, or, or. 

That is called "transferring." Who knew?

The beginning of my "transformation" came in the space of a heartbeat. I tossed out a throw-away line, and two souls caught it...one was a good and decent person who just smiled, the other was me, my inner Me. 

I immediately said, without guile or giggle, "I apologize." That's all. And I was a changed person. 

I did not realize I was changed, a transformed person if you will, for some time after. I am not entirely stupid, I knew I no longer could freely smart off, and mostly I have not. Gratefully, in looking back I can see the upward path deeper upon which I was moved.  

The good news: In that instance, the pain of self unaccepted was transformed.

The better news: The pain of self unaccepted is ever with us...which is our revolving door to God. To love. 

I wonder if that isn't what fear is...the pain of self unaccepted. BFO, or our inner wish for Now to be different.      

We must go beyond reason....

Thank you. 

ON LIVING UNSELFED...FREE

Blinding flash of the obvious: Hurt people hurt people...hurt people, unselfed, heal people.

Reading Rohr this morning, I found this quote of Etty Hillesum, It sounds paradoxical: by excluding death from our life we cannot live a full life, and by admitting death into our life we enlarge and enrich [life].

The truth of that left me feeling gobsmacked. (And what did we do before that word came into our consciousness?)

I pondered that, let my mind expand on it:  It sounds paradoxical:  by excluding negativity from our life we cannot live a full life, and by admitting negativity into our life we enlarge and enrich [life]. 

Came a glimmer of light...all forms of negativity, i.e., anxiety, hate, depression, et al., are fear in various guises, and all are of the reasoning mind. Ah, nothing turns us to God faster than fear...ergo, fear, and all forms of fear, are our gateway to Heaven...our path out of self to the light, up from the reasoning mind which takes us deeper into the dark.

All of those words are just words, even words that we know are good, right and true, but until we are unselfed, they remain just words. We'll quote them a lot, feel up, then feel down, until we get it, and we realize they are as clashing cymbals signifying nothing within.

We go to our go-to, we must go beyond reason to love. There. That's our wake-up call to our Soul...feel the anxiety and welcome it, feel the hate and love it, feel the depression and kiss it on the lips.

There's our U-bie, our turn from the security of head-knowing on the move up deeper to God consciousness: by admitting negativity into our life we enlarge and enrich [life]. Which does not make a lick of sense, but at the same time, hallelujah! We hug it and kiss it and let it go to God.

The warmth of truth encompasses us, and we know peace. Love and laugh.

Thank you.

TO STAY OUR THOUGHTS ON GOD...ON LOVE

It seems we all have a niggling desire to be the me we are, to be accepted as acceptable...warts and all. 

It is a "wow!" and a "whoa!" when we accept that it is not our love of gossip or our making mock at others' expense that are our unacceptables (and we've been praying be lifted when we know very well are covered by common courtesy so we'd best use it)...no, it is our inner conflicted self that we must needs overcome to get that acceptance. 

That realization allows us to believe that the reasoning mind is as useless as teats on a bull in overcoming our own self. Oh, well rats...and thank you!...for we come way too slowly to see that our reasoning mind is the essential tram carrying us forward.

I doubt not, if I read these posts of mine back over the years, that I'd find conflicting assurances of certainties throughout. I hope I would anyway...that's what keeps us digging deeper to move ever higher. It is when we get set in the safety of our own conclusions, and name those "God's will," that our little tram jumps the tracks. 

Those assurances, many of which were based on my blinding flashes of the obvious, were Truth to me as it existed in that moment...but God is not stationary. Blinding flash...hence our understanding of God cannot be stationary. 

There is a truth, unbending and forever, which is the foundation of all spiritual growth, and that is God is Love. 

It matters not when we decide to seek God, or how we come to that decision, we discover that there is a requisite stemming from that decision, and that is the need to get over our own self. Plain and simple. For it is self alone that stands in the door, blocking our entry in to God, who stands at the door and knocks to be let out, to meet us, to welcome us in.

There. This the forever lesson aborning: Our thoughts determine our still more spiritual growth. We find that we had best make a conscious decision to let God do our thinking, thus our talking, for us...which takes a lifetime of discipline to learn not only to keep our mouth shut, we can tape our lips together for that, but to keep our mind stilled. 

To say simply "Yes" or "No" is very possible to the reasoning mind; it is what we are led by our thoughts to say and do after...the judgments we pass, the havoc we wreck within, spoken or unspoken, which may not show forth to others but invariably circles back on us. 

Our prayer becomes not for me or for you or for the state of mankind even, but that our thoughts be stayed on God, on Love...and Laughter.

Thank you.

THE LETTER OF THE LAW vs. GOD'S WILL

The thought passed my mind that the most important lesson for me today in the New Testament is the one about Jesus working on the Sabbath to help the workers in the field gather their crops before the storm hit and destroyed their crops and their livelihood. 

That is looming large today for to Jesus that was going against the commandment about resting on the Sabbath, and to me, it means going against the letter of the law for to do good.

We must seek still more spiritual growth by studying, changing our mind, learning, changing our mind, accepting the unacceptable, changing our mind...until we know, and we know we know. 

Comes the lowering of the boom. If we are "lucky," or remain teachable, we slowly, quick fast and in a hurry, realize that we know nothing. 

We've got the keys to the kingdom, but the keys do not unlock the door to a higher consciousness. We have a more spiritually educated reasoning mind, but we are still in the reasoning mind, no matter how elevated our lessons. 

Now comes a whole nother lesson: We must go beyond reason to love and to understanding, spiritual understanding. We find that going against the letter of the law is also of God...sometimes a bald-faced lie is saving grace, a judgment is a necessary kindness, a resentment is a good reminder. 

Standing on the letter of the law is to make that letter our God...oh, how limited that God. 

Clearly...or according to me...that is why we only have two commandments: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, body and brains, and love your enemy as yourself. (My take.)

There. That's why it takes all the repeated learning, changing, surrendering unto accepting that it takes...to shuck our Self of our self. 

This does not happen in one lifetime but be not dismayed: We keep coming back until we get it right. Which is precisely why we need to clean up our act now and daily...cuts down on the lag time.

Thank you.

ACCEPTANCE...THE PLACE WHERE GOD LIVES

[The following is a partial reprint of my post of December 30, 2015.]

The secret about acceptance is the minute we accept the truth of that which we are resisting, that changes it.

We may not like it, but we are no longer resisting it. Which, if we're lucky, leads us to complete surrender, to crash and burn...also known as the place where God lives.

We surrender to the fact that we do not know, we do not know what we do not know, we are helpless in the face of that fact, and we need help. We turn to an unknown power greater than our self to find a way to live without our perceived heart's desire.

That is acceptance.

We do not know it at the time of surrender, but we will return here in our thoughts repeatedly for here is where our answers are...our answers to any and all problems, puzzles, secrets of life itself. Here in the ashes of self-will. Here...the place where God lives.

Thank you.

DAILY UNLEARN; DAILY UNKNOW...AH, PEACE

My free-flowing thoughts today remind me of me back in the day...back when I was mind-wrestling with whether I should go to therapy to fix me...teach me how to stand up for myself, fight back, Be Somebody...or to stick with God and get whatever He had for me

 

Today's free-floaters, to me, reveal the difference between going to God for God to receive the ongoing blessing of giving over, giving up, giving in, and going to therapy to learn how to get right by my own reasoning, then to hold that line.

I swap my welfare for your welfare in my heart and in my head...my welfare is not mine, it is God's...to be concerned for my own welfare is to show no trust in God...God always has the welfare of me, of you, of others, giving bones to our goal to line up with Him and aid in His care for all of us...as we are learning (or unlearning, it is never what we think) to do for others...as others need to do the same for still others.

God's will for me: daily unlearn, daily unknow...remain open. I give thanks today for my slow but steady willingness to unlearn...to unknow...to resist not, to forgive.

here is a cause for joy:

the realization that every blessing

and all you hope for

is so close to you

as to be within you.

-- from John of the Cross, “The Spiritual Canticle”

There. We go to God for God, and that is all...for that is everything.

Thank you.

ON SURRENDERING TO OUR NEMESIS

It was a great gettin' up morning when I realized that the hardest thing that would ever be asked of me was that I change my mind. 

It was pure and rarified peace when I realized that changing my mind was not of me...it was of God. I suspect I recalled that the difference between my want-to and God's is the difference between a self-determined objective and the perfect objective which is of God.

It was an even greater gettin' up morning, however, when I realized that a changed mind is the first step up to a deeper exchanged mind. 

[SIDEBAR:  My definition of an exchanged mind: Being raised from our material mind into the spiritual mind, or to leave solid reason for transparent good. For instance, Peter in raised consciousness walked on water...until he had the thought, "I'm walking on water!" And he sank. He went from transparent good to solid reasoning.] 

The exchanged mind is not a one-shot deal...we must needs consciously go to our exchanged mind when we first find ourself resisting, judging, denying...anything. 

Ah, in a perfect world.

Neither living in a perfect world nor particularly wanting to, we see scrupulosity drum majoring the way. It is a difficult parade to march, a nigh impossible line to hold, the difference between still more spiritual growth and scrupulosity...mainly because spiritual growth allows for mistakes, errors, misjudgments, being flat-out wrong, and scrupulosity does not. Scrupulosity allows for rigid, righteous and right, enough said, shut up already. 

Being wrong has a friend...our friend tells us what to do when, not if, wrong. As in, promptly admit it, own it, take personal responsibility for it, hug it and kiss it and let it go. Sent it on its way, it is no longer ours, except for laughs at ourself when revisited in memory.

Scrupulosity's so-called friend lives in "do the next right thing." There's the perfect justification for sitting up in our head trying to decide on the right action to take to keep from being wrong. 

"Just do the next thing" is the necessary green light. When our desire is for still more spiritual growth, we need not fret that "just do the next thing" gives us permission to do wrong on purpose...that's just another I See Me doing our thinking for us...to stay us from moving forward.

Comes the awakening...surrender to the nemesis that our reasoning mind has for so long carried tenderly wrapped in needles and brambles is of God and our pearl beyond price.

Our exchanged mind knows that to give over, give up, give in is surrender. Whoa! We realize that surrender is acceptance, and acceptance is perfect peace. 

Thank you.

TO BE IN GOD CONSCIOUSNESS IS TO BE

Blinding flash of the obvious: The less I am recognized and notarized, the closer I am coming to Be.

Now that's a hard lesson to learn...or to accept, really...that the less we are getting our props, i.e., recognized and rewarded, the closer we are coming to God consciousness, to Be. 

Face it, who doesn't kinda wanna be known as "the winner," as not only doing it right but better than most. We are way aware, however, that "the closer we are coming to Be" is  the closer we are coming to being unnoticed, unacknowledged...eek, unquoted! There...that is reasoning mind on parade. 

Ah, but to Be, our inner Self knows from experience, is to be in the Silence...outwardly unnoticed...and the overwhelming surge of peace, love and joy that courses through us in that silence. 

It is in that silence that we Be...loved. We be the fount from which love flows. The love that flows without our knowledge or control. If we are lucky, the love that flows to the very ones who are in the midst of badmouthing us in the moment.

Our deep fear of not counting is our great gift of not needing to count...there is never a need in God consciousness...just Be.

Thank you.

SILENCE IS OF GOD

Try not to be as nasty as you want to be. -- my personal golden rule lifted from a Henry Mitchell column, "Washington Post," early '80s.

Slowly I am accepting an already known fact...it is my thoughts that are the source of my nasty...our thoughts that we must discipline daily not to be as nasty we want to be. We begin in our morning quiet time...before we remember that slight resentful nudge from yesterday (or ten years ago). That One, that s/he who sent the supersonic arrow that justifies our ego being as nasty as we want to be.

It is that arrow that is our bane and our gold. Our bane because it is so small as to appear easy-peasy to overcome when, in truth, it is I See Me, and we have never won that one; our gold because it is I See Me, and God's got that one.

Awareness unto acceptance is the bedrock of one day at a time...meaning every day...every day we go into our quiet time, into the silence, remembering "Silence is God’s first language," according to Thomas Merton.

In the silence, our inner eyes and ears are ever open to receive the guidance of our Father within. Face it, our Father would never guide us or our thoughts to be as nasty as we want to be.

Thank you.

AN IDEA, SPIRITUAL IN NATURE

All great work for Me is done first in the individual soul of the worker. -- "God Calling," May 10

An idea not of our own breaks in our head, that idea begins the changing of our mind for it is spiritual in nature. It comes from a different place than our reasoning mind, and no matter how teensy-tiny the thought, it feels radical...but right.

It takes time for that idea to start to move out, since it is all about changing our mind, and we have not a clue how to or even if we want to. Ah, but it is on the move...God is in charge. 

This journey takes as long as it takes since it is moving from our head down to our gut, making a U-bie back up to our heart from which it flows through our soul...changing us, changing our mind...with as many pit stops, detours and delays as our reasoning mind insists on. 

The delays, of course, are due to that new, radical, teensy-tiny idea, "for the benefit of others," being introduced...specifically, our doing for the benefit of others by our own giving up, giving in, giving over. 

Tell me that's not a crash-and-burn awaiting...tell me how crash-and-burn will come to be for my benefit. See how long it takes me to be convinced. There. That's how long it takes to change our mind...even while willing to believe God is in charge! 

Face it, it is because we get to choose...that free choice we got at birth with which ego is still trying to win while lip-synching God is in charge.

We once heard, agreed with and now talk, In the end all that matters is what we have done for others.

Well, Rubber, meet the road...let's roll.

Thank you.

DO AS HE DID, GET WHAT HE GOT

My last night's blinding flash of the obvious: Jesus was not "visited" by God from on high. He awakened to the realization of the Divine Presence as his  own, living within him.

Well, that is not news...ah, but it must come to us new.  

I suspect that same is true of the Buddha, Abraham, Francis and Clare, each mystic, saint and/or walking-around human being, then and now. All can and must realize as our own the living God within...fully and totally, the presence and power of God in all the holy names of God...or God as we understand Him.

We may believe that God is within, we may talk it...a lot...but in fact we only know the words and agree with them. Until our knowing is empowered from within...and, I'm guessing, until we test drive it repeatedly...we continue to live in the world of reason. 

It is these BFOs that assure us that we are heading in the right direction...that we are seeking to do as He did and, often, getting what He got. There. That's our proof of purchase, so to speak. 

That's what stays us on our course. By doing as He did, we get what He got, which assures us that "greater works than these" we can do.

Then I read Fr Richard Rohr's "Daily Meditation" today:  This inner knowing is the Indwelling Presence.

Can I get an "Amen"!

Thank you.

[SIDEBAR: It was purely for convenience that when first I got the word that I could have a "God as I understood him," I chose to follow the teachings of Jesus. At that time, the Buddha wasn't yet "in" so if  he crossed my mind, I would stop and think if the "h" came after the "B" or before the "a." Plus I knew how to spell Jesus. How my spiritual decisions were made...plain and simple.]

REALIZING ALREADY ANSWERED PRAYERS

On humility...on humility being the healer of pain: Humility heals from within else where would we go to get it? Asking God for humility is as spitting on God's gift of humility which is waiting within us all along. 

Our life flows with the humility, the spiritual, that grows within us...it is ours to choose whether we go with that flow.

In the words of St. Francis, It is no use walking anywhere to preach unless our walking is our preaching.

There was a time, back in the day, when I worried that I was not humble enough. Then I came to see that I would have to get humble before that could be a problem. 

After which I realized there is no "humble enough." Every waking moment is a realistic chance of our being humbled...and being humbled by our own invitation. The best we can hope for is enough self-awareness to see our part in it, to take responsibility for it...that is humility aborning. 

Pray for peace, then be the peace we pray for. 

Thank you.

TO GO BEYOND REASON IS TO GO TO GOD

Well, here it is, my latest life's paradox: We are to trust God utterly and completely which means we must go against our reasoning mind...whose self-determined objective is to trust God utterly and completely. 

That leads me to conclude that still more spiritual growth is our lifelong lesson. We slowly learn we cannot get it by thinking, reading, analyzing, discussing, debating...although, we even more slowly learn, it rarely comes without all that thinking, etc.

Our reasoning mind wants only the best for us...to live and let live, to love and be loved. Ummm and uh-oh...that is our want, according to our lights. 

God knows our needs: Love...or resist not, forgive and that is all. 

Learning unto doing still more spiritual growth is to love our enemies, let the one who badmouths us badmouth us, offer understanding to any who may work against us, be a forgiving person. ABTW, selective forgiveness is a control issue which is pretty much all the reasoning mind is, of course, a control issue.

There it is...the why of it, why still more spiritual growth is our lifelong lesson, why we rarely get there without thinking, reading, analyzing, discussing, debating. We cannot do it without prior proper planning, or just because we know better.  Pray thank you.

According to me, it boils down to trusting our spiritual path...God. Sometimes that feels like being stuck between a rock and a hard place...take heart, that's usually when we're doing it right.

We must go beyond reason to love...which is going to God for God and that is all.

Thank you.

THE PEARL OF POSSIBILITY

As I’ve come to understand that life 'composts' and 'seeds' us as autumn does the earth, I’ve seen how possibility gets planted in us even in the hardest of times. -- Parker Palmer

I am much taken with this quote of Parker Palmer's. On first reading, I flashed to yesterday's "God Calling" quote which advised us to empty our mind of all limits, and rest knowing possibility within us. The possibility that whatever is beautiful we can have through our still more spiritual growth.

It is possibility that is ever with us/within us, planted within us, even in the autumn of our  years, even with the ratcheting up of our fears. 

It is possibility that proves that as we age, "Live long and prosper" translates to, "Having lived long, prosper spiritually...more, ever more."

It is possibility that lives in our hearts and we know all things are possible with God. That has been our truth from early on, we are living that truth now. With an exchanged mind, why not without end? 

All things are ever possible, but with God, the possible flows from within you and me. There. That's the pearl beyond price.

Thank you. 

GO TO GOD FOR GOD AND THAT IS ALL

Empty your mind of all that limits. Whatever is beautiful you can have. Leave more and more the choice to Me. You will have no regrets. -- "God Calling," May 5

From my own experience, I know this: It matters not where we are, as in what angst we are living with, or when...at what age...that promise is flat-out true. 

As I often note, I have been reading "God Calling" daily for nearly fifty years...every year when I come to May 5, I read this and rejoice. I have underlined, highlighted, noted enough times to doubt it not...as I look back.

I started reading GC when I was in my 30s, I am now in my 80s...it holds out more promise to me today than ever before. Chances are that is exactly what I have thought and felt every year on reading it anew. 

Today I was gifted with a blinding flash of the obvious, i.e., to empty our mind of all that limits is to realize all our current "old-age" fears as that which is beautiful. All we need do is leave to Me more and more the choice of how we experience our fears. There...that is to have no regrets. 

I picture my  friends and each of our projected limits, i.e., fears. We are all in our 80s now, each of us living happily with an incurable, progressive disease. 

I pondered leave more and more the choice to Me, with "the choice" for each of us being: for Gertrude, dementia; for Jasper, depression, for Elmer, various physical ailments portending death at his door; for me, my childhood nemesis redux, left alone, unloved, unwanted, unneeded and unappreciated. 

I know, for a fact, that God has made our incurable, progressive disease beautiful for each of us, so I delight in thinking: Then why not dementia, depression, death, and left alone? 

The key, of course, is to empty our mind of all that limits...for all that limits is fear. 

Be not afraid, it is I. -- John 6:20

A new life really does begin at 80.

Thank you.

THE GIFT OF VULNERABILITY

At our most vulnerable, there is God's presence, protection and peace. It is in our vulnerability that true invincibility is manifested in the world.--  Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," May 4, 2021, paraphrased.

Vulnerability, according to Google, is "the quality or state of being exposed to the possibility of being attacked or harmed, either physically or emotionally." 

Well, there it is without the hair on it...and we need, not want, need!...to believe that being vulnerable is where we'll find God's presence, protection and peace. 

Vulnerability, i.e., being exposed to the possibility of being attacked or harmed, either physically or emotionally, is not something we joyfully anticipate happening...like, it's not on anyone's Bucket List. My mind goes to the likes of Joan of Arc or the Boys of La Pointe du Hoc...they did not have "being vulnerable" as a choice to make but a fact to face...and face it they did.

I'm guessing vulnerability is a side bennie in spite of our best efforts to protect against it. It's not like as if we face our worst fear just to feel vulnerable. No. In spite of our vulnerability, we do what we gotta do...and looking back, joy in our own Atta Girl! 

A friend once shared that she had been placed in a position where she knew not what to do or to expect but she went forward doing what she could do...and won big. She said she knew afterward that her vulnerability was what won for her. Vulnerability is attractive in its purity.  

All this is by way of understanding that our self-protective instincts are not always our best shot; trusting our Father within is always our best shot. We come to that trust by divorcing ourself from our egoic need to self-protect. 

Our Father knows our needs. Knowing that, believing that, walking that does not protect us from feeling vulnerable when we are caught unaware. 

Ah, vulnerability. There it is, our sliver of gold...pray thank you.

Thank you.

ON REACHING COMPLETE ACCEPTANCE

One block to acceptance is the self-satisfaction that comes to us when, on being falsely accused, we know we have back-up that will prove the accuser wrong. 

Ego's glorious danger is getting stuck in the feeling of actual joy that we can shame her, make him sorry, or (our self's deepest dread) publicly humiliate them. 

The ultimate and hard-to-learn-but-do-it lesson comes by way of practicing daily becoming unto being so attuned to our spiritual center, to God, that no thought of payback enters our mind. (This I am learning to accept by believing or to believe by accepting.) 

But first, our spiritual lesson is all about accepting the need to let go of our desire either for glory or to punish. This is what the Sermon is all about which explains why it is as a foreign language when we begin our study of it; e.g., if someone slaps you upside your head, turn the other cheek.  (Initial reasoning mind reaction: I do not think so. Long-sought spiritual response: Thank you.)

We come again to our spiritual path: We must go beyond reason to love. We must needs recognize many times over that love is God...we must go beyond reason to God. 

Comes the dawning: Our reasoning mind is changed when we stop trying for reason and let go, accepting that our mind has been exchanged.

We have come to believe that God can and will intervene in our life in our behalf.

Thank you.

THE STEEP CLIMB DEEPER

 I am gobsmacked...again!...by the first line in today's "God Calling," To conquer adverse circumstances, conquer yourselves. 

Here's me, sitting in the middle of "adverse circumstances"...again!...with my egoic mind spinning churning, spitting out one-liners that'll set her straight...her, being the choice of my adversity.

Long/short: Open House yesterday, her unit was not one opened, I was not even on the tour, she apparently thought I was so mistakenly left me an insultingly rude voice message accusing me of entering her unit "uninvited, call me!" 

How unforgiveable is that! Like, I should trust that God thinks that's OK? I should not resist being personally insulted?...my very character assassinated? Well, and harrumph, I do not think so!

I've gotten far enough into the source of all my woes to recognize my resistance to her begins (and no doubt ends) with the plain fact that from the jump I have found her less-than-wonderful. 

In my quiet time this morning, I recognized her as another angel, gifting me with an opportunity to do that which I preach: Trust God, resist not, forgive. 

I promise, sitting in my head, that is golden...I only love it. It is the answer to any and all of life's problems. 

I promise, doing it...whoa now. She actually...practically...accused me of breaking and entering into her condo! 

Only here comes God all wrapped up in my "God Calling," selling his side of the story. And there's my dilemma: Trust God or trust my reasoning mind? Oh, rats.

This is the place where what I know and what I do are two entirely different matters...and only I can choose which way to go. Knowing that either way will lead me to God, it's just a matter of how long I want to sit and stew in the luxurious, self-glorifying feeling of being rigid, righteousness and right. Or of letting me (not her, me) off my hook...by changing my mind and accepting that she took herself a tish too seriously, which I do every chance I get, and let it go. 

And there it is, the nut: If I could just let it go by knowing better, I wouldn't even be writing about it. Just saying that I've let it go is me trying to make an end-run around God. The hard work of going to God for God is going to God for God...for as long and as often as it takes for my want to be washed clean by my need...to go to God for God and that is all.

At least I know when next I see her, I'll be trying not to be as nasty as I want to be. God's grace comes just as it comes to those in need.

Thank you.

OUR FATHER KNOWS OUR NEEDS

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

I'm thinking of this ending with do not be anxious Period, end of sentence. Which then opens me to the Just Do It part, i.e., Trust, Forgive, Resist Not. 

My God-aim is to seek first his kingdom...to trust God, forgive you and me, and resist not/resist naught.

[Note: I do not mention here and his righteousness. That is the juggernaut. I say often I wish he'd left it at "seek first his kingdom" which, comparatively, is easy-peasy, but his righteousness??? Mercy. That's a hard one for me to want without egoic reservations...even eyebrows up takes some serious work.]

At any rate, thus begins my Get Over Yourself work...my acceptance of anxiety at a deeper level higher since, to date, anxiety has been my sliver of gold linking me to God. It was anxiety that told me nothing turns me to God faster than fear; ergo, love, laugh, fear and get on with it.

So far in my life, spiritual freedom has come by doing that which I believed to be right, and, when (not if) wrong, admitting it and making my U-bie. The time it takes each time is the time it takes each time. 

This is my trust by doing, forgive by my U-bie, resist not by admitting and moving on.

Obviously, this is a plain and simple roadmap to free-from-me. I long ago realized I would need to strive to be a Grandma Moses wannabe in doing spiritual since I have a hard enough time staying between the lines of my own understanding.    

I'm guessing that is why the last three stanzas of the St Francis prayer lighten my heart: For it is in self forgetting that we find; it is in forgiving that we are forgiven; it is in dying to self that we are reborn into everlasting life.

Thank you.