COURAGE IS NONRESISTANCE

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear--not absence of fear. -- Mark Twain

Learning the fine art of acceptance requires spiritually ingrown patience, tolerance, understanding...love in a word. The fine art of spiritually ingrown love requires that we have an exchange of mind. That exchange moves us from reasoning mind, i.e., black-and-white thinking, beyond reason to Providence, to One, i.e., God's hidey hole.  

I read the Mark Twain quote and had a blinding flash of the obvious: In the material world, the world of the reasoning mind, courage is just as Twain wrote. However, Providence, which is beyond reasoning, knows courage is nonresistance to fear, mastery of fear by welcoming--by 'thank you'--not absence of fear. 

Being neither entirely stupid nor wholly ingrown spiritually, we gutbucket know we are incapable of that degree of courage. 

Ah, here comes our aborning faith to save our hopeful mind. We recognize it is for this we are building trust, for this we daily practice opening to faith, for this God holds us up. To live not in the absence of fear but in the God-glow welcoming brings from all who enter our space...friend, foe, attack-mind tiger or friendly puppy. 

Welcome...trust, faith, thank you...does not keep friend from leaving, foe from backstabbing, mental tiger from attacking or friendly puppy from peeing on our leg...no. Welcome brings bone-deep gratitude that God has it all in hand...for the benefit of all.

It is that gratitude that informs us that we are protected, provided for, and we feel the need to pass it on...to share our grateful heart's peace that passes understanding.

Thank you.