NOTHING IS PERSONAL; ALL IS OF GOD

Always seek to understand others and you cannot fail to love them. See Me in the dull, the uninteresting, the sinful, the critical, the miserable. -- God Calling, June 30

On this I hang my hope of Heaven: See Me in the dull, the uninteresting, the sinful, the critical, the miserable. Particularly when I am the dull, the uninteresting, the sinful, the critical, the miserable...it is to see Me in me.

I am convinced that peace...peace of mind, peace between peoples, peace on earth...rests in each individual of the human race doing just that, seeing, i.e., realizing, Me, i.e., God, in the less-than.

When I See Me as the less-than, self-justified hurt, anger, put-upon follows without question. Grace and grit turns our eye from I See Me to see Me in me. From which, taking nothing as personal follows by grace and by God. 

Nothing is personal. Everything is of God...every rock in the road, every beat of a lamb's heart or roar from the lion's mouth. Every word we speak in love or in judgment. All, of God.

I first heard this, that nothing is personal, nearly fifty years ago. I am still trying to nail it, and I succeed sometimes, sometimes not. I am relieved I now trust that is close enough to perfect...heading in the right direction includes detours, U-bies, falls...ah, but gettin' up, movin' on always. 

When I remember that, taking nothing personally follows...with love and laughter.

Thank you.

CONTINUING EDUCATION: NEVER LIMIT GOD

In the walking around world, when we do our thing and succeed, our joy is "I Won!" Who's kidding whom? In that moment, the feel-good is all about self. 

When God does his thing, "We Won!" is our shared joy...not just for you or for me but for everybody who receives the story. The underlying lesson...to "hear" the story is not necessarily to "receive" the story. We hear the story, and a smile comes to our face; we receive the story, and joy springs from our Soul for our consciousness is raised. 

Without any mental machinations, raised consciousness transmutes into spiritual consciousness, and  becomes God's good story passed on. We become grateful that it takes time for us to fully realize this as our exchanged consciousness. 

The time it takes is the time our reasoning mind needs to let go, to trust, that our thinking may no longer be our life's leader. That the God of our understanding is.  In that realization and in fact, All...God...that for so long we had hoped could be true for us is true.

Now comes a new awakening: This is a bare beginning. It will take as long as it takes for us to trust it. 

We will have a boatload of questions, doubts and self-centered delays as we head in the new direction...away from self inward, toward God.

All this results when one defect of character, self-will, is released...not renamed, released. Lesson a-learning, or continuing education: Never limit God.

Thank you.

TO TRUST IS OUR CHANGE

Trust...learning to trust God. I suspect that three days after we're dead we'll still be learning to trust God.

What we preach to others (often just mentally) is the image of our own needed action. Coming to believe it for our own self is one of many steps necessary in building trust. 

Importantly, the action we take toward growing in trust is the value of silence...but not all action is done in the quiet. Self-willed silence can take root as resentment. Learning to share our piques and our problems is not necessarily sitting in judgment. We're not entirely stupid...we know the difference between sharing piques (gossip) and sharing to understand (spiritual growth). And when we ignore that which we know, we find our hot mess is God's discernment...whoa! another lesson in learning to trust. 

We build that trust by virtually holding our nose and taking a leap of faith...away from our want, toward our need, God's unknown will. 

We remind ourself we are just learning to trust, and the learning begins with coming to gut-bucket believe that your Father knows what you need before you ask him. 

Most likely, there will ever be something nattering us...if we're doing it right. We say that we have turned our will and our life over to the care of God. It's a guarantee if we do indeed turn our will over to the care of God (not our problem du jour, our will), our life will follow. Further, if we turn over our will, again not our idea of our right-now problem, all that natters us will be laid to rest. On God's timetable...another building block in trust.

Slow lesson a-learning: All spiritual promises are based in our trust in God. We pray for patience and through grace learn we already have all the patience we will ever need...all we need do is use it. Same goes with love...with peace of mind...with gratitude. Through grace.

Think of it...to pray for any one of those is a denial that we already have it. To thank God that we were gifted it at birth is giving trust hands and feet. We fold those hands in thank you prayer and walk out trusting we are living his gifts.

Thank you.

ON BUILDING STILL MORE TRUST

When we no longer expect anything new or anything more from God, for all practical purposes, we do not really believe in God. God now wants to speak something new to us. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," June 27, 2012

As I read Rohr this morning, that sentence changed before my eyes. According to my reading: When we no longer expect anything new or anything more from God, we are ready to receive the new that God now wants to speak to us.

I pondered that and realized that when we go to God on our knees, pious in appearance, praying for anything, our ego is on parade. The piety we show is all for God...so God can "get" how spiritually sincere we are, can hear our earnest and honest petition...not to put too fine a point on it, but to change his mind and grant us what we pray for...i.e., not what we need (God's will) but what we want (our will).

I saw God's hand in my note in "God Calling" this morning: 2017 - BFO: There are different levels of 'right' - rues, regrets, remorses are self-determined objectives, to regret with no attachment to it is of God.

There are different levels of "right," so Rohr's statement is right as is my understanding expanded.

That could work as a definition of expanding consciousness...to receive what is said or written and to get it from another angle need not be disagreement but agreement extended. 

Blinding flash of the obvious: We react, God responds. 

This is my thank you prayer to God: Thank you for this understanding, and especially thank you that I remember it when (not if) I hear some nattering jerks and my innards go all rigid, righteous and right and immediately, if not sooner, I feel I must set them straight for their own good.

Clearly, God has my work cut out for him. Ah, another building block in trust.

Thank you.

KEEPING OUR SELF CENTERED, REDUX

(The following is a reworked post of December 31, 2012.)

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

We learn, slowly but we do learn, that in living for others we are opened to God's gift to us...the gift of God Itself. 

Then we discover that the others cannot be limited to our family, our community, our friends. We must be ready, willing and available to whomever comes to us in need...sometimes physically but more often mentally by way of our attack mind...ah, those with whom we are less than enchanted. 

Those who are wrong according to our egoic mind.

It is by allowing into our life those with whom we disagree that we discover they are truly our  angels...for, along with fear, nothing sends us to God so quickly...so sincerely. We begin to understand the words, "Help me to seek to understand rather than seek to be understood." Not to mention, "Relieve me of the bondage of self."

 
The action that turns us to God is the keeping of our Self centered...by keeping our own primary purpose in life first in our consciousness. For if we lose our center, forget our primary purpose, we are back to being self-centered...where none other is allowed entrance into our consciousness.

This is the place where I See Me aligns with ego...and EGO-ISM rules. Uh-oh, alone again, naturally. 

Thank you.

ACCEPTANCE IS OUR HAPPY THANK YOU

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

According to me, spiritual seekers don't do wrong deliberately, we kinda know that what we're planning may not be "kosher" (our pseudonym for wrong...and the need for a pseudonym tells its own tale). Ah, but old unreliable ego, Lucy With the Football, says, "Action is needed right now, and my way is all I have right now." 

When all we had to go on turns out to be wrong indeed, we drop into the s-o-s-o routine of rues, regrets and remorses...missing the point entirely: Experiencing...owning...the less-than-wonderful result of going for a self-determined objective opens us to "the perfect objective which is of God."  

As we have found, and refound, regrets bring us to the fork in our spiritual road: Stay, and reasoning mind wraps us in its virtual dung-heap of self; surrender, and, phoenixlike, acceptance rises...leading us free of self. 

In short, stay with regrets, and we get regrets; own our regrets, and acceptance kisses us on the lips.

 There it is...acceptance is thank you, the Open Sesame for letting go.

Thank you.

DOING IT WRONG TO DO IT RIGHT

 Blinding flash of the obvious:  Not the Courts, not Congress, not any human-originated law can bring about civil rights for the so-called Others. Only the White people, seeing, recognizing, realizing their wrong, can change their collective mind, then  work with the Others to right it.

To heal our relationships, we have to move closer to people we do not like, learn to work with them without friction. -- Eknath Easwaran, "Words to Live By,"  May 1

What we must realize unto living it is all BFOs, all the "right" words we so relate to are given us not to talk about, i.e., preach on, but to live by in our walking around world. Which, hard, hard lesson, means  to misinterpret, misunderstand, misuse as we "see, recognize, realize our wrong," and go to God to aid us in changing our mind...thus life. 

Agreeing with words divine does not make them ours...living the words just as we breathe without conscious thought gives us ownership. However, it is that glimmer of light, our first connection, that turns us in the right direction, toward seeking spiritual growth.

We continue in the right direction by the many U-bies we make to correct our never-ending missteps, errors and wrongs, a.k.a., our self-determined objectives. The toughest part about self-determined objectives is learning not to regret them but to accept them as the way we learn to let go. 

Regret is two-pronged: Stay there, we stay in the reasoning mind; accept, or kiss it on the lips, and it is transmuted into gratitude. There...thank you, the baseline for letting go.

Rues, regrets and remorses...ego holding on.  Loose it and let it go...God's will. 

Thank you.

ON LETTING GO...LOVE AND LAUGH

There is a song I love and have written of often...Loving Arms...in particular there is a line in the song that has a home in my mind: Looking back and longing for the freedom of my chains, and lying in your loving arms again.

Looking back and longing for the freedom of my chains. There. That is the blood and bones of rues, regrets and remorses, the very essence of guilt, the foundation upon which guilt complex is built...according to me.

On first hearing, I inside knew it had my name tattooed within it; from my eyebrows up, though, it did not make a lick of sense to me. 

I had to study it for however long to realize I was stuck on the end of the sentence, the lying in your loving arms again part. Stuck there by my self-determined objective, namely, him, my one love. The harder I tried, the deeper the hurt, the harder I tried. 

In a blinding flash of the obvious, I was moved away from the hold of memories to understanding the import to me of the freedom of my chains. In that  heartbeat I knew the freedom of my chains as the oxymoron, the paradox, the hook of the inviting pain of my free-floating rues, regrets and remorses. 

It is the self-absorbing remorses that binds us to the guilty cover of another...another body, another thing, another event...obliterating the spiritual center we're beginning to delve into...trust in a word. To trust in the simplicity of still more spiritual growth, as in, letting go. (And, by the by, per Rohr, all spirituality is about letting go.)

I read somewhere: Energy follows attention....wherever you focus your attention is where the energy of your body, mind, and spirit goes, and I have found that to be true. Equally true and a forever lesson a-learning: Putting the name of  another person, place or thing on our problem takes the focus off both the need and the want of a solution. 

This I know for my truth: Focus on the negative, negative will blossom, focus on the spiritual, love and laughter will blossom. 

Love and laughter...God's will.

Thank you.

ON LIVING AN EXCHANGED MIND

It seems my life's results are driving my thinking, leading my insights, lately. 

The result of the action we took or didn't take based on our smallest fear, a glimmering hope or even our "impossible dream" has too often determined the direction of our life. Only in looking back...willingly...can we realize the part we personally played in determining the course of our life.  

Hard lesson learning...there is no standing still. It has been said, and I do believe, if we are not moving forward, we are moving backward. It is our worried mind that snookers us into believing that in our stuckness, we're taking action...all we're taking is time, precious time. 

Stuck keeps us in the old rocking chair syndrome: Our egoic mind darting back and forth, back and forth, invites us to believe we're really moving on up the line. 

Self-examination and sharing our deepest finds with a trusted ally are essential to our breaking free. However, it is the action we take after the digging then sharing that puts us on a new level of spiritual growth...away from self into God for others.    

I know this as giving up blame and shame...ah, our unloved comfort zone and our mental go-to. We finally accept the fact that a life based on a lovely fantasy or a righteous "wronged" is a life in need of and longing for God, "by any name we choose to call God," as Rohr so on point specifies.

Enter forgiveness as a wanted asset, as a positive to aim for. We can, as our beloved Sandy B said and did, "Make a decision to be a forgiving person." 

WOW! 

Here's me...once thinking of forgiveness as a sanctimonious joy-killer, now living in the definition of an exchanged mind. 

God loves us sooo much.

Thank you.

ON ACCEPTING GOD'S PERFECT GIFT

A blinding flash of the obvious came to me in a prayer this morning...and I knew God had gifted me yesterday with Kipling's "If" for it opened me to receive my prayer today. 

Basically, the prayer was nothing new nor different from that which we unknowingly pray and seek  daily: to believe our doubters and all their doubts about us; to love our haters and all their hate toward us; to rise above nothing; to walk through every briar and bramble, knowing we walk with God; to accept every accolade with humility as we pass it on. 

The flash of Love came in the realization that this is mine, this I have. And I felt melted. Then wondering. 

Ah, and God has prepared me for the wondering with my morning's reading from Meister Eckhart, Sermon on Matthew 2:2:

Tend only to the birth in you and you will find all goodness and all consolation, all delight, all being and all truth. Reject it and you reject all goodness and blessing. What comes to you in this birth brings with it pure being and blessing. But what you seek or love outside of this birth will come to nothing, no matter what you will or where you will it. 

I am taking "the birth in you" to be the BFOs, the spiritual insights, and "what you seek or love outside of this birth" to be the reasoning mind. 

My trouble with God's perfect gifts is accepting them. I felt melted, however, my ego, Lucy With the Football, never to be denied, quick shot the thought: How do I wear this? What do I do that I'm not doing? In short, what's the personal result of this pearl beyond price? 

The unknown result is the bane of the reasoning mind.

Ah, there's God's will shining through: The perfect tool moving us to continue seeking still more spiritual growth is unknown results...that's how we learn to: Tend only to the birth in you and you will find all goodness and all consolation.... Reject it and you reject all goodness and blessing. 

Thank you. 

YOU'LL ALSO BE FREE OF SELF, MY CHILD

IF

By Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;

If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,

And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

Thank you.

WE FIND GOD WHERE WE NEED HIM, REDUX

[The following is a slightly reworked reprint of my post of December 6, 2017.]

Here's a wonderment...it is those times when things seem at sixes and sevens in my life, and fear whispers maybe I've been wrong all along, there really is no God-power protecting me, no God at my back, that an ever-so-small something happens that shines a light on my bleak...and I am returned to peace.

Just this morning, for instance, I was gifted with a miracle, ever so small...teeny...in appearance, which I hope will be my guide from now.

I've been caught up in I See Me (that's knowing better and doing it anyway), and this morning my mind hopped on its what-to-do-what-to-do tricycle. Just as it was nearing top speed, I brushed by a shelf, and my main credit card fell out of I know not where. I had no idea I'd misplaced it. I do know I would have been half crazed if it hadn't found me first. Most important: God knew all that before I did.

I was lifted out of my own self-absorbed cycle by a fulfilled need I wasn't even aware of yet. It wasn't a reasoning-mind answered prayer, it was my unknown need that God answered.

The Father knows our needs. And there are no teeny miracles.

Thank you

SELF-ACCEPTANCE COMES IN THE MOMENT

Those of us seeking still more spiritual growth find our biggest block is our self-determined seeking, ever seeking.

But when we try to live up to the impossible image of a spiritually enlightened, knowledgeable, selfless, patient, forgiving, easy-going, supportive, generous superhuman, the dark side of our nature just gains in power.  To quote Rohr.

Comes a blinding flash of the obvious: Permanent fixes are of the reasoning mind. There is no God in tomorrow, no God in yesterday...there is only God here and now in our moment of need. Ah, but there is never a moment we are not in need. 

We see a defect du jour and set about having this less-than-wonderful spot on our character fixed, removed, improved...changed in whatever manner God chooses (with our guidance). That's a self-determined objective born again...with a full head of hair.  

At some point and after years of owning good spiritual intentions...lightbulb! Comes the realization that we can, we are invited to, accept ourself in toto...warts, snark, victim and petty plus kind, considerate, loveable and generous.  

Just as the bondage of self is not lifted in one fell swoop, neither is any other character trait...the ugly is transmuted by love and laughter into acceptance. Same goes for our not-ugly only our reasoning mind balks at acceptance for fear that we're being conceited...ah, love and laugh.

Our minds are being changed by God: We are learning that acceptance of self does not bring peace of mind and joy forever. No. Acceptance of self is in the moment...in the moment of self-satisfied: Whoa, my Mean Girl is still alive and breathing fire...in the moment of self-hate: Oh, wait...I am a kind and considerate person, loving and loved. 

Again and yet again: Permanent fixes are of the reasoning mind. There is no God in tomorrow, no God in yesterday...there is only God here and now. Get grateful.

Thank you.

ON THE INTENTION FOR SPIRITUAL GROWTH

Still more spiritual growth is all about learning from our heart by God and by grace...with help from our head moving that along its many-detoured journey back to its birthing place, the hidey-hole of our Father within, our Soul.

It takes as long as it takes to realize our willingness to grow spiritually is more want-to than ready. We know ready by actually doing it...where "hold your nose and take a leap of faith" is the key. That leap of faith more often than not feels so scary because...hey, it is a leap of faith. We do not, cannot, flatfoot know that this way will not prove itself to be just another uh-oh.

We can, however, know that the only other way, our always tried but rarely true way, is just another self-determined objective, unlikely to be the way of our Father. It is through mistakes, missteps, errors and screw-ups that we realize those are the necessary tools helping us to grow spiritually.

There will be those times of instantaneous, spontaneous, flashes, clearly of God...we can only fall to our knees then with thank you. And feel graced.

The inner miracle comes when we realize that to grow spiritually brings no pride of accomplishment. Second miracle, nor should it...if it does, we haven't. To grow spiritually is to know humble. Face it, humility does not come dressed in peacock feathers.

The bottom line: When someone disagrees with us, publicly and in our face, when they "win" even though we are right, when we can with love in our heart let that be...not ostentatiously agree or disagree...we are starting down the right road.

Keeping me honest: I know that to be true some from personal experience, some from studying the Sermon and reading of the experience of others, and by my intention to walk the spiritual path. But with love in my heart? There. that's the toughie...but that tells me I'm on the right road, heading in the right direction. For which I am grateful.

Thank you.

ON PROVING GOD...TO OURSELF

Yesterday I learned again that nothing, nothing in this world and maybe the next, feels as good as facing down our dreaded self-doubts. Not affirmations, not nice compliments, nothing but our actions...our proof of God actions.

We're forever saying...knowing...that we must prove the truth we quote, as in, "God has my back," "God can and will intervene in my life in my behalf," etc. Ah, then we come up against a fear of whatever, and it matters not how small the whatever...if one scintilla of dread is there, there's our reasoning mind's Mount  Everest. And p.d.q. we're quoting Nike, begging God to "Just Do It." 

To prove God to ourself, we must prove God to ourself. And we'd best know "to ourself" is the key. 

I'm guessing that it is not God doing our work for us, but us doing our work for God. I can't quote The  Buddha exactly but he said something like "Mine is to inspire, yours is to do the work." 

My yesterday's teeny tiny action proving God: I drove all by myself alone to a place I'd never before gone alone (and only twice with another)...I freely admit its people-packed immensity totally intimidates me. I took care of business and drove home. Silently praying Thank you, God, from the minute I set out till the minute I got home. 

I have the indelible stamp, my proof of purchase, on my heart.

Thank you. 

BLESSED IS OUR MOMENT OF NEED

BFO: I can trust that I am freed from the bondage of self whenever I need be. It is in the moment of need that "God is on the field." 

A glimmering thought: Freedom from the bondage of self is not with us every second of our walking-around life.  

That recalls us to the realization that God is not available on demand, that need is the clarion call. Well, now. That being the case, if freedom from self comes as needed, we need (as Rohr puts it) conflicts, relationship difficulties, moral failures, defeats to our grandiosity, even seeming enemies. (It has helped me to name those ego resisters as my emery board for each grinds me down, shapes me in my Father's image.)

We are unselfed by our need coming in the moment of ego resisting the moment...by our taking offense or giving offense. When it comes to our awareness, it is There. Without thought. Involuntarily. Self gives over, whispers thank you, and we know freedom. 

Want is from the eyebrows up, need is God, my Soul, on the field. I wonder if wanting freedom from the bondage of self isn't my better self resisting ego but relying on reasoning mind. That's heading in the right direction with X number of detours to go...but how else do we learn? 

Learning to welcome the detours is the beginning...in kindergarten going for our PhD. 

Thank you.

LOVE! (OR AT LEAST DON'T TAKE OFFENSE)

I awoke recently, with a heavy heart and on-guard thoughts, feeling personally attacked by friends, unfriends and passing acquaintances. As I lie there, feeling swamped with hurt, and plotting how to just drop them all out of my life, I was gifted with a blinding flash of the obvious: Theirs is not yours...touch it not.

I realized that the lesson to learn is not in personalizing the incoming negativity I felt; the lesson is in whatever personal negativity there be is not mine, has naught to do with me unless I pick it up by reacting to it...even by my flight from it. 

My forward action, then, is to mentally name my attackers as I hug him and kiss her and let them go. From my mind. With love. And remember Rohr's forgiveness is just a religious word for letting go.

Interestingly, the hardest I'm imagining is to "let them go from my mind with love"...mainly, my problem is with the word "love." Because what I want to do is "vent," meaning to talk about it (them) with venom disguised as "seeking to understand." 

I am still (forever?) learning how to love spiritually...with no kickback. Which may be the problem. Face it, predetermining "how to love spiritually should feel" is a self-determined objective, plain and simple. Let go and let God is not just a slogan.

What I know from my toenails up is that I need to show up to my mental gunfight...there is no gunfight if we don't start shooting...by gun or by mouth or by negative thoughts. One is as lethal as the other, and none is of God. 

Keep your friends close and your enemies closer doesn't have a spiritual ring to it which doesn't mean it isn't good advice. Actually, that may be just another way of saying love your enemy as yourself...only the first way seems more doable.

Learning to live...live and breathe...by spiritual principles is not easy, but it's never boring either...the unboring part is the effort it takes to not take offense. Whoa. I hope that's not just me.

Thank you.

WE ARE THE THANK YOU WE GIVE

Blinding flash of the obvious: Whenever we feel fear (anger, sorrow, inner pain), lean into it...do not move away, move forward toward it.

As I ponder that, I see fear as a feeling...just another feeling. Whenever we feel fear manifesting as anger, sorrow, pain or any negative, we can immediately shoot a thank you prayer...sit with that...let thank you be our guide to grace, the place of gratitude. 

It is grace then, never our mental efforts, that quiets us, opening us to our inner good, i.e., God with us, within us. God calling us to lean into the fear...to not move away but mentally to move forward, toward our fear. 

Our ever-present block is our desire for the immediate...the ego's quick, fast and in a hurry solution. God's will takes as long as it takes...ours is to let it.

I once had the BFO, "God is a drag-foot," which seemed so disrespectful of God that I kept mum about it. Since I never forgot it, I figure God must not be offended so I pull it up as needed, and hey, it works. It slows down my race/race, run/run mind, I am quieted...to listen. 

Ah, I recall: Fear is God in camouflage calling us to Him. 

Thank you.

RANDOM THOUGHTS, REDUX

[This is a slightly reworked reprint of my post of November 24, 2013.]

Here's an I-wish-it-weren't-but-I'm grateful-it-is quote: "The grace of God sometimes comes in the form of sorrow."

Then there's a making-it-mine thought: "We need to make wise choices every moment just to keep from being swept away." The brain-buster is the fact the speaker was referring to food. In fact, our aim must ever be toward making wise choices especially as to whether to take anything personally or not. Not is the wise answer, but the doing, the choosing, is where the spiritual work begins...just begins.

Then there's: [Like the fragrance from a flower] "love from within us radiates towards everybody and manifests as spontaneous service." Spontaneous service. Every time I go back and reread that entire quote, I'm struck by those two words. For they are the perfect description of getting out of our own way, letting go and letting God. 

Spontaneous means without forethought...or it does to me, and I'm not looking it up in the dictionary. Love as "spontaneous service" has no "me" attached...it's purely God flowing from his container, me, you, each and all of us. It begins when we connect with our core, God, infinity on the head of a pin, our center, love.

Thank you.

THE SEEKER TRANSFORMED

Blinding flash of the obvious on awakening: Our life is God walking us through the briars and the brambles, the good and the glory, to God.

I have ever believed that we all come from and return to God consciousness.  As gay contemplative writer Michael Bernard Kelly is quoted in Rohr's "Daily Meditation" this morning, We came from union and all of our longing is a movement back toward union.

In my simple world that stands with my belief of a common pool of God-consciousness from which all are born and all return...there to be born and reborn until we get it right.

It seems our exchanged mind teaches us that our travels through life are enhanced by the briars, for which we become grateful; our glories are to be appreciated in the moment, then loosed and let go...for which we need to get grateful.

We make those travels difficult by our natural inclination to avoid the briars and the brambles...but whoever learned a new lesson from the glory they received from doing it right in the first place? 

From our eyebrows up, we wish, desire, want to keep doing it right, only our self-determination clings to that which we have, effectually staying new growth, God's perfect objective. 

Our self-determined objective may seem right, good and true...we want to be loved, lose weight, Be Somebody. Except that there is no God there.

That "except" is terribly difficult to recognize much less accept since all the while we are mentally on our knees praying for to get love, get thin, get glory. "To get" is the nature of a self-determined objective. 

The perfect objective which is of God is to give. How else could the paradox you've got to give it away to keep it be true?

This is the heart of our yearning: to become that which we taste and hunger for, not briefly, but fully, totally, permanently, being utterly transformed into that which we desire so deeply....the seeker transformed into that which she seeks. --  Kelly in Rohr's "Daily Meditation" today (and I say "Amen")

Thank you.

ANOTHER OF-GOD PARADOX

 We cannot become humble by mere intellect or willpower....All we can really do is become more aware of our pride or vanity by noticing how we respond to even minor slights or humiliations. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," December 15, 2020

Oh my, how we respond to even minor slights or humiliations surely sings my song. By our response we give weight...either to our egoic self or to our spiritual center. 

Our egoic self responds in kind...personally, i.e., negatively...maintaining our self-bondage; our spiritual center is our Oned Self which recognizes no slight or humiliation, ergo no response. 

As I write this, I am embarrassingly aware that I know this from my eyebrows up...my head and half my heart are nattering right this minute about the various people who are not  "doing it right" in my life. According to me. 

Oh wait, that's not all...how I am going to rise above it...show them how it's done. 

Ah, but I know I am heading in the right direction by the siren song of my beloved character defect...I am taking myself too seriously. 

I can read, study, ponder the Sermon, Rohr, et al., till my face falls off...all of which are good and necessary...but until, in my own head all by myself alone, I am breathing those words that I'm agreeing with, I am wandering aimlessly in that great wasteland of mental mire, a.k.a., secret self-admiration. 

Quick...my sliver of gold: I know I am heading in the right direction, detours and all. I am a student,  sometimes a slow-learner, sometimes a quick-study, but a student who has found her rightful teacher, her place, her home: All Alone hunkered down with my peeps...just another of-God paradox.

Thank you.

CARRIED FORWARD BY LOVE

Not to get too high-flown about it, but I am wrestling with the words "Divine Love." Meaning, I have been unable to find another name for it...to downgrade it, actually. Whenever the words slip out, I feel like I'm putting on airs so I try to quash them. I know the words "Divine Love," and that is all I gut-bucket know about it...which, to my mind, pretty much translates into putting on airs. 

Hope is dawning, though, that this may be the difference between my rational mind at work and spiritual intervention...it's not like as if I'm choosing the words for I am not, I am resisting using the words. (And still they persist...just as with the woman speaking her truth to power. She was right, and so is Divine Love.)

That's my backstory, but the point I want to make is: Until we lose the in-our-head knowledge of love, from Mother love to romantic love to just-feel-good-all-over so it must be love...all of which we try to replicate and call Divine Love...we will never experience the love we seek. The indescribable love that we chase our self trying to describe which leads us to another brick wall. 

The indescribable love of God can only be experienced and then only in the moment. The memory of that exalted feeling is what we carry forward...or, in truth, is what carries us forward. 

It is not attainable, it is just there...it is not earned, awarded or rewarded...maybe gifted but that's just the reasoning mind's bow-tied wrap.

I ascribe to the definition of Fr Richard Rohr who wrote, "We know God by loving God. And I think that it is actually more important to know that we love God than to know that God loves us...." (Rohr's "Daily Meditation," November 10, 2020)

We know, of course, that to ascribe and to do are two entirely different things. Ah, but to ascribe is the starting point, and the starting point is more important than the ending. We can end anywhere by just stopping...quitting in a word...but there's only one true starting point. We know it when we continue deeper to a higher place.

We realize it in the moment we feel righted...and wonderingly wonder, Is this then Divine Love?

Thank you.

ON BEING IN THE PROCESS

Again I wonder if all resistance isn't resistance to love...fear of divine love if we get right down to it. Divine love, as in, I will fight no more forever, and realizing Chief Joseph was right, that we need heed just that.

Uh-oh...it is "just that" that births the fear of love we've personalized...by naming some hapless other as the current cause of our woes...and offers no sittin' in judgment fun at all.

It is those egoic thoughts that drown out the spiritual facts; namely, that God has us in the palm of his hand...God has our back...God can and will intervene in our life in our behalf. There it is...the art and the bane of dual thinking.

The sliver of gold...it is our dual thinking that causes pain enough for us to recognize we are going down that wrong road again. Detour! Turn around...loose it and let it go. 

Apparently, I am in the process of having these truths moved down from my head to my gut to my heart, and finally to meld with my Soul...a circuitous journey with God in charge and on God's timetable...me trundling behind, nattering, "Are we there yet?" And that's when I'm doing it right.

This I believe, and maybe only from my eyebrows up but that's a start: All that we see as fearful is of God. We can welcome it with our thank you prayer and be set free...in God's good time.

It is I: be not afraid. - John 6:20

Thank you.

OTHERS...TO DO FOR OTHERS

Your Father knows your needs before you ask. -- Matthew 6:8

To me, on that sentence hangs my peace of mind. On that promise, we can build our trust...for we have already come to believe that God is Love and love is purely good. Because he already knows our needs, we can trust they will met with love...and laughter. 

To trust God utterly and completely and without holdback, we must learn, utterly and completely and without holdback, to pray not to get peace, love and joy, we pray thank you...and we have peace love and joy to give. Whether we know it or not. 

Comes the light...we must first do it to know it.

With our eyes opened, our reasoning mind is appeased...others is our need, the necessary receptacle to receive our gift of peace, love and joy. There's our stairway to Heaven.

What we have come to believe is solidly affirmed: To do for others, it is our self that must change...made easier now that our perspective has opened. We accept, with love and laughter, that since others do not perceive themselves as we do, we can and we want to love each and all as we perceive them to be. 

Or, as six-year-old Nikka said, "If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend who you hate." That'll change our perspective for sure.

Love...God...meets us where we are. So must we...with love...meet us where we are. Then pass it on.

Thank you.

WE HAVE OUR MIRACLE ON CALL

We need not be a "believer" to have a miracle come to us; yet, having a miracle visit itself upon us does not necessarily make a believer of us. It probably ought to make us jump-up-and-shout believers, but...there's that reasoning mind. 

Some of us are too stubborn to change our set-in-concrete mind...I'm right, why change my mind? Others are too scared...what if I'm wrong? I'll look/feel like a fool. 

Then there are those of us who believe...or, as sincere as we can be, want to believe...but we've boxed ourself in with, among other things, our idea of meditation. We kinda, sorta, secretly believe if we meditate right, and daily and without fail, that will bring us...what? A miracle on call? That'd be a miracle that frees us forever from worry about health, physical and mental; money, honey; and perpetual, positive spiritual growth..."Am I doing it right?" gone. 

Here's the thing: We already have that miracle on call. The holdback is...oh my...our reasoning mind.

The miracle lives in the promise given by Buddha, Jesus the Christ, Allah, Mother Mary, the Black Madonna, et al.: If you do as we did, you will get what we got. 

The non-secret is, what they did, they did for others. Ah, and still do. That is it, and that is all. 

Thank you.

PROGRESS NOT PERFECTION...AH, PEACE

Again this morning I ponder the fact of God within me...within us.

I believe God's hidey-hole is in our thinking, and ego, spiritual bane and fool's gold, is God's roommate in that hidey-hole. We must be willing to get over ego to be freed from reliance on our reasoning mind, and willing is way more than want-to...want-to can't even get off its duff here.

Comes a deeper awakening to willingness. Willingness, we come slowly to realize, means complete surrender. Crash and burn. Defeat in a word. Ah, but with a joy following that forever changes that dreaded word...a feeling of inner relief aborning. Oh my, I believe this is peace of mind.

This then is the experience of peace, love and joy that surrender, a.k.a., losing, brings. We are opened not only to the need but to the desire to cease fighting everything and everybody.

Give over, give up, give in and find joy everlasting...with occasional breaks for the human condition to have its say. Progress not perfection is the purely practical word...for which we are grateful.

Thank you.

GOD'S PREP WORK...LOVE

Blinding flash of the obvious: God-growth means the sacrifice of the personal. 

Still more spiritual growth is ego deflation in depth evolving...the more we resist it, the more painful the process. Then comes the light...the more we try for it, the more painful the process. We will remain blocked and frustrated until we accept that resisting and trying are both personal, both driven by self alone.

Inner growth, i.e., God-growth, comes with the release of our personal wants...we hug them and kiss them and let them go. 

Is there anything harder than not responding in kind to a personal attack? Being purely personal, it is hard to accept the reality that we are dealing with our interpretation of the attack...which most often originates with our perception of what was meant if not factually said. Proving that we really are the source of all our woes.

Reminds me of a vignette in "The Lazy Man's Guide to Enlightenment."  The narrator is seeking to love, to discern love in all things, and he tells of having a nightmare in which a hideously ugly and terrifying monster arises. The narrator is frantic to get away from it...kill it, hide from it, just make it disappear...and the monster says, What was it that you thought needed to be loved?

There it is. The basis of the spiritual teaching to love your enemy as yourself, and of Nikka, age 6, saying that to love better we need to start with a friend we hate. 

Face it...Nikka, age 6, was not an aged scholar of the Bible...she wasn't a white man with a long white beard preaching hard stuff that nobody wants to hear. No...she was a six-year-old child saying something that nobody wants to hear...but needs to.

Again we find the hardest thing life is ever going to ask of us is that we change our mind. It helps if we get started by making a decision to be a forgiving person...and then find that cannot be done without plain and simple trusting God. 

There's a boatload of prep work in learning to love which, face it, is sacrificing the personal. Or, the God-news according to Rohr's "Daily Meditation" today: There is a power at the heart of life that is divine and lovable. There it is...God's boatload of prep work all ready for us...already.

Thank you. 

THE ONLY NECESSARY WEAPON...LOVE

The following  paragraph, from Fr Richard Rohr's "Daily Meditation" today,  evolved itself in my mind from applying to the church, then to our Country, and then to ourself. To me, it describes how the worst case of crash and burn becomes our pearl beyond price:

A church that has been humbled by disruption and decline may be a less arrogant and presumptuous church. It may have fewer illusions about its own power and centrality. It may become curious. It may be less willing to ally with the empires and powers that have long defined it. It may finally admit how much it needs the true power and wisdom of the Holy Spirit. That’s a church God can work with.  

Substituting "country" for church: A church [country] that has been humbled by disruption and decline may be a less arrogant and presumptuous church [country]. It may have fewer illusions about its own power and centrality. It may become curious. It may be less willing to ally with the empires and powers that have long defined it. It may finally admit how much it needs the true power and wisdom of a Higher Power. That’s a church [country] that the Higher Power can work with. 

Then,  personalize it...as in, substitute "person" with all the appropriate pronouns: 

A person who has been humbled by disruption and decline may be a less arrogant and presumptuous person. We may have fewer illusions about our own power and centrality. We may become curious. We may be less willing to ally with the empires and powers that have long defined us. We may finally admit how much we need the true power and wisdom of the God of our own understanding. That’s a person God can work with. 

Evolving unto evolved in each case begins with ego...religious, national or personal...specifically, the need for  ego deflation in depth via the power of love through praise.

Today's "God Calling" has the quiet word: Remember that Love is the power which transforms the world...Drive fear and depression and despair and a sense of failure out with Praise....Learn as a child learns to say "Thank you." 

As Meister Eckhart taught many centuries ago, If the only prayer you pray in your life is thank you, that would suffice. 

 

Thank you.

AWARE OR UNAWARE...WE ARE GRACED

My thank you prayer revisited: 

Thank you, God, that I want your will done in my life more than I want my own will done in my life no matter what. Open-ended. Knock yourself out, Lord. Do your thing. You've got the power, use it. 

You are nothing but good so nothing but good can come from you no matter what it looks like to my eyes. You'll make it clear to me when it needs to be clear to me. 

Whether I consciously know it or not, I am graced with gratitude and blessed with love. Best part: This is true for each and every soul in the universe; we each do our part to ensure it...again, whether we are aware of that or not.

Amen

Thank you.

NEVER LIMIT OUR LIMITLESS GOD

With our realization of a defect, it is God-lifted...ours then is to make living the new our life. -- blinding flash of the obvious at 2:00 AM, June 1

God's work is done with our realization of our defect...God's help is ever with us as we commit to and aim toward living this new way, i.e., sans defect. 

We remember that a defect of character began as a habit that we came to rely on. The human condition is such that breaking those habits is tedious at best and a hard slog in general..."want-to" is the culprit, meaning we don't want to, and that's the necessary change.

Ah, comes the dawning...the reason why our rues, regrets and remorses are our gold: Our "want-to" is ego's chauffer, and it rarely if ever drives God's high road to heaven. Every time we allow the chauffer to decide the way, we end up with the old r,r,r. It is those regrets that turn us back...in fact, return us to God and our new way of living. Ah, there's our cheap shot at gratitude!  

In our reasoning mind's perfect world, the realization of our defect lifted ensures that we walk free of that defect ever after. That is another mistake to which reason clings and in the clinging makes moving up deeper mandatory. 

In the mirror-image of our Father, doing it wrong is doing it right. What else so completely turns us to God? Or, more aptly, breaks our dependence on our own thinking...which is pretty much the source of all our woes.

We have come to believe because we have found it so that our Father really does know our needs. He truly does go before us to make the crooked places straight...plus, and a big plus it is, he lives within! Within you, within me, within us.

Instead of trying so hard to do our thing, in living the new, why not try to let God do his thing? 

Thank you.