LOVE AND LOVE ALONE...DO IT OR DIE UGLY

Blinding flash of the obvious: To feel disrespected and to force oneself to remain silent and think good thoughts of the other is just a high-toned self-determined objective. There is no win-win in self-determining to let the other one win, too, so we may actually win by calling us both winners. Duh.

A win-win is God entering our heart dissolving the discord, leaving peace for all behind. (It helps when we first invite God to do his thing...and mean it.) 

Interesting to me...immediately after my BFO, I turned to my study of the Sermon on the Mount. I am today at the very verses from the Sermon that set forth in black-and-white the quiet word...We have ceased fighting everything and everybody:

Matthew 5:38-42 You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,' But I say to you, Do not resist one who is evil. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also, and if any one would sue you and take your coat, let him have your cloak as well; and if any one forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to him who begs from you, and do not refuse him who would borrow from you.

There. The Word in a nutshell: We have ceased fighting everything and everybody. 

We need to recall those very words are in our How-To Manual, our Do-It-Or-Die-Ugly Primer. Meaning, we either do what we are taught, or we fall by the wayside.

This spiritual way, this how we do it, is the core of happy, joyous and free...which never would enter the reasoning mind as a good idea. We must go beyond the reasoning mind to the impersonal love of all.

We must go beyond reason to love. -- Thaddeus Golas

Thank you.

ON LOVING YOUR NEIGHBOR AND YOURSELF

Words to welcome our morning with: There is a Jewish proverb, 'Before every person there marches an angel proclaiming, ‘Behold, the image of God.’  

Words to keep uppermost in our mind throughout the day: My job is to plant seeds of love, and to keep on planting, even—or especially—when bad weather comes.

Words to live by: You shall love your neighbor as you love yourself. Yourself. Loving the self is a required balance. If we fail in that, we fail our neighbor, too. 

Finally, and according to me, all these words form the ideas that have been and are building our spiritual growth. We nurture them through remembrance and repetition until they live within us/without us.

Thank you.

Sidebar: The above quotes are lifted whole cloth  from Episcopal Bishop Michael Curry as printed in Fr Richard Rohr's "Daily Meditation," of October 29, 2021. Pass them on, they're too good to keep.

WE ARE A PEOPLE SPIRITUAL IN NATURE

In one of my daily readings this morning, I came across these words:  ...then they are part of the grand movement of love in the world, which is the movement of God in the world.

Blinding flash of the obvious: the grand movement of love in the world is what we are living in right this moment. Resist it not for it is our path to freedom from our own self, that which led us here in the first place.   

I ponder that, and my thoughts go to my beginnings, and I recognize where we are right now is where I was back then. My own need led me to crash and burn and so to a Power greater than self, God, and thus to love and laughter.

Today, we, you and me and our country, are at a place embodied by a self-fed leader, his acolytes and like thinkers. We need recognize and accept that this place, these thinkers, this leader, were given us by our own need. To become that which God created...love and love alone...we, you and I, need to crash and burn with our resistance to all of that. 

I firmly believe our country, born of spiritual (not religious) principles, sturdy in its democratic laws, can and will withstand the battering from within. But what if it is you and I that stand at the door with love and love alone as the protectors of our country? We must needs rid our own self of our like thinking and offer love and love alone...oh! and laughter.

This is a country, we are a people, spiritual in nature. We may seem lost right now, but we pray our thank you knowing we are not lost, we are in the process of finding our rightful place. Let it be.

Thank you.

BE AN ADVOCATE FOR THE EARTH

In continuing to ponder the Wendell Berry quote, No matter how sophisticated and complex and powerful our institutions, we are still exactly as dependent on the earth as the earthworms, I have substituted for the words "our institutions," the words "we think ourself to be."

It is wishful thinking the minute we deny that we think of ourself as "sophisticated and complex and powerful." We're way to clever to use those words...we use lowering words like "shoulda, woulda, coulda." Words with not a lick of spiritual meaning...useless, in fact.

Ah, but how we think of ourself is no longer the point...our dependence on the earth and our care and concern for the earth and the earthworm is our primary. We are as dependent on the earth as the earthworm. Period. 

Simply put, our want is to up our opinion of ourself, our need is to protect the earth. 

We remind ourself that our wants are all covered by God who has our back, that we are a beloved child of God, act like it. 

First off, we pray our thank you. Second, we remind ourself that to love others is essential to a healthy earth. Third, we set out to do that...we move no mountains, we throw the trash of somebody else in a trashcan. 

Now, we continue the same.

Thank you.

ON DOING GOD'S WORK

We must do our business faithfully, without trouble or disquiet, recalling our mind to God mildly and with tranquility, as often as we find it wandering from Him. -- Brother Lawrence

The meek shall inherit the earth....Resist not evil. - the Sermon on the Mount

We have ceased fighting everything and everybody. - Anonymous

Blinding flash of the obvious: By our talking it, we are baby-steps walking it...tottering, but heading in the right direction.

All that matters in the end, the most important, to be remembered, recalled as needed, and passed on is: 'No matter how sophisticated and complex and powerful our institutions,' said Wendell Berry, 'we are still exactly as dependent on the earth as the earthworms.'

Our job is to do God's work...protect the earth, resist not, love and laugh.

Thank you.

WE MUST GIVE IT AWAY TO OWN IT

Old adage and pearl beyond price: You've got to give it away to keep it.

We are born into the material-mind world with freewill our double-edged gift. We are given a  choice...we can chose to grow spiritually or we can chose to rely on our material or reasoning mind.

Rarely does spiritual growth come out on top there...most stick with the material mind. Until we are led to crash and burn. 

Only then, and only out of sheer necessity, do we go for spiritual growth...and we are gifted with the God of our own understanding. 

Finding the God of our own understanding is hard enough, but over the years we find that a period of quiet time daily is essential to maintaining conscious contact with our God. The maintenance of that conscious contact is dicey at best in our start-up years...until we realize that making ourself available for that conscious contact forms the essence of our Being. 

We find early on that God may, or may not, make I-feel-it contact with us. With no assurance of mutual contact, seekers who stick find a daily quiet time is the evidence of our commitment to spiritual growth...the evidence is required by our own self, not by God. It is our decision to do it anyway, feeling it or not, that begins our serious spiritual growth.

This is all about proving the truth that is revealed to us. One fine day we finally and fully realize that knowing the truth means truth must emanate from us not by our talk but by our walk. Our day-to-day living when others...some, many, a few...respond with loving kindness is the tell: We are on the right track heading in the right direction. 

That's how we pass it on. We do not own it...it is not ours...until we pass it on. 

We've got to give it away to keep it.

Thank you.

GOD IS PRESENCE

We believe we are willing to let go of our attachment to the old self. We mentally hold our nose and take a leap of faith to prove our freedom from self. Again. And yet again.

Comes the Big Uh-Oh: What exactly is it that we are letting go of? We've already made peace with our past, made our direct amends, forgiven and been forgiven...what is this block we are feeling? This feeling that our skin's on crooked...something ain't right...there's a bad moon rising. 

Guess what...that is God's job. He knows our doubts and fears, and they have already been resolved, hugged, kissed and set free. He has already fixed it. Our job is to believe that by inviting that inner knowledge out into our life. 

We sit in the silence and contemplate the Lord and the ways of the Lord, and God loves me because God is love and cannot not love me, and I hope that is truth, and what am I going to wear to the Memorial Service this morning, and does that thought mean I have to start all over, and....

All that is when we're doing it right. 

We are making ourself available. That's it. That is our journey heading us in the right direction with peace of mind our carrot and God our goal. 

We rest in the quiet word: God is not available on demand. By our belief, God is available. 

Thank you. 

REDUCING EGO, EXPANDING SOUL

My spiritual growth has been intensely personal to me. Early on I realized I was never going to be a highly respected leader, speaking the Word of God and knowing all the right answers...my ego was disappointed, my Soul was relieved. Reducing the ego, expanding my Soul has been the meat on the bone of my spiritual growth.

In my early years, I gave myself airs by calling me the Grandma Moses of spiritual growth, meaning stick figures and primary colors...no frills, no fancy, just gumboots and galoshes. Which has become my Way every step of the way.

Making peace with my own self required my acceptance of my ego...acceptance with love. There...a whole new field in play...acceptance with love has never come to me except by way of great suffering, which, who's kidding whom, is going for saving the face, showing the bum instead. 

As my mentor taught me, "Showing our bum is also spiritual." And it is.

At some point, I know not when, my ego personalized itself to me. I saw her as a broken-down kewpie doll with too much rouge and an attitude, and I named her "Lucy" as in Lucy with the football. I could never take Lucy too seriously after that although she could, would and does talk to me whenever she wants to. I listen because to not is to resist her and that is to lose to her.

I've come to know that listening to my ego...resisting not, following not...is me, sitting in the silence, as God changes my mind. It is not immediate, it is not thunder and lightening...except when it is, but those times are too rare to rely on.

I am in the midst of this mind-changing and have been for...I know not how long, but a while. I am sharing with friends, picking out nits, shucking shields, and gutbucket knowing: I only aspired to be the Grandma Moses of spiritual growth back in the day. I'm not even near that today! Hey...another love it and laugh.

God loves me so much.

Thank you.   

INTELLECTUAL LEAPS INTO FAITH, II

[The is a reprint, slightly reworked, of my post of February 25, 2018.]

For me, this wondrous universe cannot be an incoherent and accidental cosmos, nor can it be grounded in evil, although I admit that this intellectual leap and bias toward beauty is still an act of faith and trust. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," February 25, 2018

It is a comfort to read Rohr's intellectual leap and bias toward beauty is still an act of faith and trust as opposed to a gutbucket knowing. Sometimes, not always but sometimes, it feels an act of faith and trust is my entire spiritual foundation.

If it is, that is enough.

Not to split hairs, but what soul comfort has the fact that 2 + 2 = 4 ever given me? That's probably the equation that assures the world is going around and in the right direction, but it's hard for me to feel peace, love or joy because of it.

Whether a blinding flash of the obvious or a self-determined objective, the fact is I'm at peace with my intellectual leap upward toward the Father within being enough...right Now.

The intuitive advice I lean on is still, Hold your nose and take a leap of faith.

Thank you.

FILLED WITH THE GRACE OF GRATITUDE

For anything to be a virtue, it must be a free choice, not just a mandate....[the words of the Sermon] must be seen as descriptive (what is possible) much more than prescriptive (what must be done)….'No language of counting or commanding can get you there.'  --  Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," September 22, 2021 

Resist not evil. To our reasoning mind, that is not even half smart. But by our resistance, we give our mind an opportunity to be changed.

This is the way of pay-forward from our earlier BFO that what we resist, we attach to...what we are now resisting (thereby attaching to) is our gift. We only need pray our thank you, and let it be...the way is then opened for personally unimaginable changes, already "perking," to be made manifest. 

This we must prove; it cannot be proved by an act of will; it can only be proved by our actually doing it.

Ah, here comes God to save our day: When our only goal is for still more spiritual growth, we will be led forward in ways beyond our reasoning mind's comprehension. He will do for us what we cannot do for ourself...he will use our hands, our feet, our words...our Soul. 

We must go beyond reason to nonresistance; we will be filled with the grace of gratitude. 

Thank you.

FOLLOW THE LEADER...DEEPER

Looking back, I remember what an enlightening bummer it was when I learned sitting in judgment of another if only in my own mind gets the same demerits as running my mouth. Sitting in judgment is not only harmful when spoken aloud, usually gossiping, but, sitting in silent contempt is a twice-damned wrong.

Actually and according to me, it's better to speak it aloud and take our lumps p.d.q. since judging in silence gets us twice or even thrice the pain. In our aim for payback by taking another down, our thoughts hurt the one we judge; we plant an ugly seed in the out-there for others to pick up; and, worst, we rest in the arrogant belief that we're above the fray for we've not spoken out loud a judgmental word. 

Know this: Our judgments, spoken or silent, will return to us...like a faithful dog gone bad they will return and bite us in the bum.

Face it, ugly judgment is self-centered fear (but what other kind is there?), and I suspect that's how I came to understand that our worst fears are our best friends. Nothing makes us dig deeper for a spiritual solution than fear, and we cannot get there by self-will, only by grace and by God. 

All these things we know start with our hearing or reading something we recognize as good, and we want it. We claim it for our own...we "know" it. In fact, proving that which we think we know takes more digging, thank you, for  there's the proof of our trust. Would we dig further if we didn't trust that's the way to our answer?

Most important is the realization that when (not if) we still feel agitated, it is not God failing us, it is God leading us deeper to his hidey-hole within. 

Follow the Leader.

Thank you.

LET IT BE...STAND ON IT

In my free-floating thoughts, I've found my resting place is simplicity...mainly because I tend toward mix-and-match, and they never do. The result being, I can complicate a free lunch. 

For today, in simplifying my own unto world view, I've settled for the primary source of trouble in today's world is we all...individually, nationally, worldwide...want our own personal "got'cha." With peace, love and joy coming out on our side.

We earnestly pray that God's will be done, but what we're really praying for is our "got'cha" over the other's "unacceptable" behavior...except there ain't no God in "got'cha."

Slowly and right on time, we learn the art of detachment. We detach...not from the other, but from our own self, our own wants. We go toward the other offering the peace, love and joy that we seek, never realizing until we offer it to the other that we already have it.

We let It by trusting It from our toes to our nose...from our nose up is God's workshop.

Thank you.

NOTHING BUT SPIRITUAL GROWTH AHEAD

"I’m so aware of what I’m not and of how phony I am and of how I say it so much better than I live it." -- Fr. Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation,"  December 19, 2014

I connected with Rohr's statement seven years ago, and I still do. The good news is that between then and now, I have come to realize that is true for most humans...not that I can prove it, not that everybody feels it, not that it matters. 

What matters to me is that it comforts me that Fr Richard and I feel it. Face it, companying with our own spiritual giants brings happy. How could it not? Isn't happy, or gratitude, the impetus, the seed at the core of our spiritual growth? 

The first time we shared a less-than-wonderful fact about ourselves, it felt like a monumental risk. Our fear of the response we might get kept us silent too long. 

The wonder then is that the response we got was utterly irrelevant to us...the honest and willing release of our secret shame to a trusted 'nother was likely our first spiritual experience. 

Those of us who know it as such are blessed beyond measure...those of us who do not know it as such are blessed beyond measure. Both sides have nothing but spiritual growth ahead of us. The timing is between ourself and Providence.

What is as true today as it was the first time I ever admitted it is, "I say it so much better than I live it." 

I expect that will be true three days after I am dead. The sliver of gold is that's what keeps us seeking still more spiritual growth. Why seek what we think we already have?

Thank you.

GO BEYOND REASON TO LOVE...TO TRUST

The more we know the more we know we don't know...reasoning mind weeps, Spirit exults. -- A blinding flash of the obvious from several years ago.

I met with a beloved friend yesterday. He is probably the most intelligent person I know...I would not be surprised if he received a MacArthur genius grant someday soon. He is a master at not displaying inner doubts and fears, and he did not mention until the very end of our talk that he is in a bad place, concerned with...well, most everything. 

He is not a hard-core atheist, but he's not a hard-core believer either. Not a hard-core believer in God or Providence, to be specific. He is a hard-core believer in the power of the intellect, and reasonably so for his is powerful.

I am a believer in the spiritual nature of the Universe, thus the answer to all my problems will be spiritual in nature. I keep it very simple: I accept the power of nonresistance...love is nonresistant...God or Providence, divine guidance, is love. 

That's my guideline today...to be ready to resist not evil, to love. Most especially to stay out of my own head trying to "find the good" for what is that but manufacturing my own idea of my good? That which we are seeing is our good. 

That's my test every day: To know the fire in the forest, the plague in the village, the rot in the fields...today's pandemic, today's political scene, today's broken fingernail...as God's call to surrender. We surrender our will in trust to Providence to do what Providence does...go before us to make the crooked placed straight. 

I have never seen my friend so...well, stumped. I did not find it necessary to tell him, but there's my good news for him.  

I take heart in reading the after story of those who lost everything in floods and fires, disasters of all kinds, and later testify to that being the change that bettered their lives. In breaking them, they lost their self-will causing them to seek and receive help from a power greater than themselves.

We must go beyond reason to love. 

Thank you.

DOING FOR OTHERS IS THE REWARD

The solver of all our worries, frets, doubts and fears is our nonresistance to all those worries, frets, doubts and fears. Nonresistance being trust, trust being acceptance, acceptance being love, love being God. 

Love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, body and brains, and love our enemy as ourself...because that is who our enemy is.  

Those are just so many words until a change comes upon us. We can want that change till our face falls off, but until we are ready (by our actually doing the prep work laid out for us), we are living in resistance. There is no spiritual awareness, much less spiritual growth, there. 

Doing for others is our reward. That reward does not come after we've done for another...our doing is our reward. Whether we realize it or not by our very doing, our own has come to us.

Our lives are made better not by getting, be it diamonds or dollars, but by giving, be it lending our  hand to an older soul at a curb. 

We are bettered...not by getting but by giving. 

 

Thank you.

KEEPING OUR SELF CENTERED, Redux

This is a reprint of my 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, “Words to Live By.” December 31

I heard a speaker yesterday make the point that is so essential to freedom from self. He said, in effect, that it is in living for others that we are opened to God's gift to us...the gift of God Itself. His message was quite moving. For it is true. It is not enough to live to help only our family, our community, our friends...we must be ready, willing and available to help whomever comes to us in need...and especially those with whom we are less than enchanted. Those who are wrong in other words.

It is only by allowing into my life those with whom I disagree that I discover they are truly my angels...for nothing and nobody sends me to God so quickly...so sincerely. That is when I 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" which becomes my mantra.

The balancing act, that which requires us to turn to God, is in keeping our own Self centered, in keeping our own primary purpose in life first in our consciousness. For if we lose our center, forget our primary purpose, we are less than useless. We are back to being self-centered…where none other is allowed entrance into our consciousness, and certainly not a higher power, for sure not God...where we are alone again, naturally.

Thank you.

ON CONFLATING SPIRITUAL AND RELIGION

I consider myself blessed that early on the decision was made within me to opt for spiritual growth, and that my spiritual growth would have less than nothing to do with religion. It is regrettable to me that so many conflate spirituality and religion. 

The God of my understanding is purely spiritual. My spirituality is trust in a Power greater than myself who for convenience I call "God." I trust God can and will intervene in my life in my behalf. I trust that because I have experienced that...repeatedly.

Too often when spirituality is being discussed, spiritual itself is not entertained in the trashing of religion and religious, the name of God and acts of God. It pains me to hear that. 

Trashing God and the acts of God is akin to picking up mud and slinging it in our own face. I believe the same is true of trashing any person with whom I disagree simply because we disagree. 

[Note: I believe telling the truth on a person who has done harm to another is not trashing, not judging...it's a red-flag to aid others in being aware of that person's harmful behavior.]

I remember my friend who was an atheist who said, "One does not need to believe in God to be a good and decent person." 

To which my mentor replied, "True...but until most of us do, we aren't." Which for sure is true of me.

Thank you.

ON BECOMING THE PEACE WE SEEK

I read about Iohan Gueorguiev, who was known as the 'Bike Wanderer of the Wilderness,' in "The Washington Post" recently.

Gueorguiev's goal was to bicycle around the world. He had many followers on his social media page, and he wrote of meeting many wonderful, generous and loving people...his writings were invariably happy, encouraging -- free-spirited.

 
As David Von Drehle wrote in the Post: Iohan Gueorguiev displayed his handwritten manifesto on his handlebars: 'I want to see the world. Follow a map to its edges and keep going. Forgo the plans. Trust my instincts. Let curiosity be my guide. I want to change hemispheres. Sleep with unfamiliar stars. And let the journey unfold before me.' * * * I met him through his recent New York Times obituary. It said that Gueorguiev died by apparent suicide in late summer. He was 33.

Never before having heard of this man, and, face it, knowing nothing, I let my mind flow freely: I see  Gueorguiev as a man with a self-determined objective, albeit a singularly beautiful idea, who went for it. 

My thinking...he went for it all on his own, and there it is. A beautiful idea, self-determined and self-driven. Self destroyed.

It is going for it through a Power greater than ourself...God...that we win/fail/win/fail/win. How else can we experience the truth about failure, the lasting pearl beyond price, and winning, a temporary event?

We find we get it right not by self-will trying but by becoming peaced. We become the peace we seek, and within our peace, we experience love and un-love, laughter and tears, hope and uh-oh. 

This we experience purely and simply because we have come to trust the God of our own understanding. Through it all, we can love and laugh sometimes freely...effortlessly...sometimes not so much. 

This we resist not: It is through the trust we've learned and earned that God can and does bring us Home.

Thank you.

DOING IT WRONG TO GET IT RIGHT

Blinding flash of the obvious: I see Gertrude and think "liar"...Gertrude sees me and thinks "liar."  To love the one we see is our charge. 

According to Rohr, "The first foundation of any true [spiritual] seeing is, quite simply, learning how to see and love what is." 

It seems my many spiritual truths that I quote so freely are coming home to roost...are requiring that I give them breath by living them. Enough with the thinking, quoting, reciting...apparently.

"'I see,' said the blind man."

That which I am seeing and living today, to my reasoning mind, is not good...but not wrong. There be the light. I know, if only from my eyebrows up, these convoluted feelings are in service to the Father within...who is doing the sorting out, it occurs to me. 

I trust it is the Father within doing the work because I feel no personal anxiety, no freight train    thoughts chugging, "What to do? What to do?" repeatedly in my brain. A calm curiosity is what I'm feeling, and who's kidding whom? That ain't my natural me. Ah, but I'm loving it...and grinning. 

There it is...proof I'm on the right road, heading in the right direction with not a clue as to the outcome. Except that it is already bringing me peace.

God loves me so much...you, too...and Gertrude.

Thank you.

****************************************

We come again to "What we see is always ourselves."

TO SEE & HEAR FROM A HIGHER PLACE, DEEPER

The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing -- to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts. -- John Keats

I kinda regret that Keats did not live long enough to expound on that idea. Or maybe I need to think it through for myself because it surely exemplifies nonresistance which has so made its home in me.

We become more socialized as we age...meaning we learn to keep our mouth shut more than not. Generally today, when my ego Lucy With the Football is aggrieved, I smile, say nothing, and move on. Generally.

There be the rub for we have come to the fork in the road where we learn about changing our mind. 

We can stay with our egoic mind, birthplace of the attack mind of slanderous thoughts with no words spoken but not a kind thought amongst them...or we can decide for the spiritual path. 

As with everything, our golden rule, try not to be as nasty as you want to be, starts in our mind. We  quote it, love it, praise it...but comes the time for actually doing it, and all our spiritual learning is called to the fore. 

Now we experience the pain of want-to being denied us by our own need...we learn that to change our mind is of God, and God is not available on demand. 

We become aware that the mind may well be God's place of business..."as with everything, It starts in our mind." Believing unto trusting unto doing God's will for us is to "let go and let God." That's a change of mind. 

It is when we make up our mind about nothing that we can see, we can hear from a higher place deeper within. There, too, a change of mind.

Thank you.

LIVING FREE FROM OUR HURT PLACE

Every person has a right to be valued by their best moment. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Why isn't that embroidered on every baby-blankie, taught in grades 1-12, preached from every pulpit? 

Why hasn't it ever been? Then our parents, grandparents, greats and grands, could have benefited and passed it on?

Ah, but to rue what we did not learn yesterday is to justify living in that hurt place today. 

There was a time when appreciating our own efforts was considered conceited...and occasionally feeling good about ourself was thought self-centered. But that was long ago...before we came to believe that God could and would intervene in our lives in our behalf.

That is our truth today. Most important we know it to be true from our own experience not by reading it in another's memoirs...not from hearing it told about another.

That is God's Stop sign. It gives us the needed minute to recall our two-tiered mind...first tier, egoic mind, serving self and self alone; second tier, spiritual mind, serving others. 

In gratitude we heed his Stop sign and turn back to our second tier. We can grin at our eager reach for the victim we were back in the day knowing it will call our name whenever it wants to...but re-realizing we never have to answer its call again.

We pray thank you, and we are freed to love and laugh.

Thank you.

 

********************************************

To even consider unto believing that our best moment is allowed to be valued is a step up for many of us. Appreciating our own efforts was considered conceited...and occasionally feeling good about ourself was thought self-centered. 

 

    

TRUST "I SHALL NOT WANT," AND THAT IS ALL

Blinding flash of the obvious this morning:  All our prayers to 'bless them, change me' are working when we do all over again that which we are seeking to have changed...that's God's way to loose it from us to let it go...if done in secret to us, we'd never see the wonders of his ways nor realize the power we hold and behold.

BFO note in "God Calling" today: 2013 - We seek still more spiritual growth not for the knowledge but for the experience...to experience the Father within/without. 

All our answers are within us, waiting to be set free.

All our answers...yours and mine...are the same answers as the Pope's, the Dalai Lama's, the beggar's and the billionaire's. 

Most of us do not know what we know, many do not trust what we think we know, none of us know  God's whole truth.

We are on the right road, heading in the right direction when we know unto trusting: The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want. 

Thank you.

GRATITUDE LIVES WITHIN...WITH OUR FATHER

I have been fretted with my attack thoughts of late, and I am comforted this morning to remember that my attack mind is God's tool to use, not mine to beat down. 

Waste neither time nor effort trying to turn our attack thoughts off...they are fear, and fear is not ours to control. Since nothing turns me to God faster than fear, I choose to accept fear as God in camouflage calling me to Him. I feel fear, God is near...repeat when and as necessary.

I recall the promise, all our problems can be solved by spiritual principles, and a reliable principle is the Father knows our needs. I consciously hand those fears over to God to do with as He knows best. The Father knows our needs.

In short, we don't dodge the fear, we welcome it. Whenever fear hovers near, looking to land in me, I pray my thank You. Ah, here comes peace rolling in...I know my fear is the disguised I of the I Am, and I am reminded,  It is I, be not afraid.

Then I can mentally turn that sucker around as many ways as needed until I find the sliver of gold. It is there...find it, and that sliver invariably grows into a blessing beyond the reasoning mind's comprehension.

Worrit not how...get grateful and be peaced.

Thank you.

WE'RE ON OUR WAY!

Ever so diligently we seek to learn who we are, then to accept what we discover...warts and all...then to come to believe only the best of that self. The I'm-only-human kicker is even achieving that lofty goal is no guarantee even when we do our best that on occasion we won't screw it up in the process. 

That is how I came to believe that the most important word in my set of directions is "when." The direction is "when wrong, promptly admit it," not "if wrong." That not only allows us, it directs us to be the human we were born to be...wrong at times, but not deliberately and never with selfish intent. 

That direction is also the gateway out of self. Who knew? That admission of wrong the egoic self will fight every inch of the way, but it is that gateway that is the door at which I stand and knock. 

I stand at the door and knock to be let out! To lead us deeper to the better part of our self, the spiritual core, our Soul. With the realization of our personal responsibility for our wrongs, our reasoning mind slowly loosens its grip...first by realizing we may not be right, then, uh-oh, that s/he may not be wrong. We love and laugh.   

We're on our way!...heading in the right direction. Now, we can continue to be the human we were born to be, earning accolades and raspberries and knowing not a lick of difference.   

We're on our way!...to earning our wings to fly above our personal wants, to soar with God's impersonal needs, love and laughter.

Thank you.

LESS VISIBLE & MISUNDERSTOOD...THANK YOU!

Trust. Is trust another word for faith? To me, faith has a religious tone...trust is spiritual in nature but not religious. As to God, both need be cultivated, but trusting that God has my back fits me better. 

The problem being "fits me better" are just so many words. Saying, quoting, repeating...pish-tosh...living what we're saying is the jugular of life. 

Trusting God builds a reliable faith in our inner Self.  Building that trust requires beginning with trusting our reasoning mind...the last place, etc., since it seems so often wrong. 

Ah, there's our crucible, the wrong in the crucible is turned into the gold of trust not by our thoughts but by our raised consciousness...or our raising consciousness. It is the elusive and unmanipulable God consciousness we so diligently seek that brings the peace that passes understanding. 

We read our Goldsmith, Rohr, et al., to learn what happens within us when we trust, have faith, live by spiritual principles. However, until what we're reading is what we're living...and not by self-will but by God's will...we're pretty much a human Xerox machine with doubts. 

Comes the time when we hold our nose and take a leap of faith...we quit quoting neighbors, mentors, friends and teachers...we become less visible, often misquoted, misunderstood, ignored. Jump up and shout Hallelujah! We're on the right road, heading in the right direction. 

 Thank you.

LOVE, NATURALLY...OUR GOLDEN YEARS

Our gold is ever in the last place we would think to look, and there it is: Thinking may be the way to the destination, but the destination is never gotten by thinking. 

Today, old age is my who'd-a-thunk-it example. Looking back, it is clear how many of our earlier years' uglies, our rues, regrets and remorses, have become our today's treasures. That's why I know my old age as my Golden Years. There, the peace I've ever sought...I am comforted naturally, happy in and loving my old age.

Face it, old age is dreaded...why else would we have so many different names for it. Senior citizen. Elder statesman, oops, statesperson. Long lived. Old age is that which we dread till we get here and discover the joy in it. As for me, I find people are nicer, more gentle, patient...mayhap because I am all that right back, but without thought, preplanning or looking out for No. 1 (which saying I am grateful I never did cotton to). 

Who's kidding whom? Old age alone does not bring peace, love and joy...it's that prior proper planning that is paying off large. The planning being entirely found in our study unto doing our spiritual footwork. Mine being based in the Sermon...which is simply give over, give up, give in to God and  others. That's how we get ours. But only if "getting ours" is not our motive. 

That hook is spelled out in seek ye first the kingdom of heaven and all these things shall be added unto you..."all these things being added" is what we must detach from for it will ever keep us in thrall to self. Our detaching comes as we find ourself...without thought...forgiving a perceived slight, or letting a wrong be wrong without carrying it with us either by resentment or by pride. 

All this is of God through our opened self. We are living the promise: God can and will intervene in our life in our behalf. 

Thank you.

THE GIFT OF PERSONAL DESPAIR IS LOVE

[NOTE: This is the blog of Tuesday, October 5, 2021, which inadvertently was not posted until this morning.]

According to me, spiritual growth begins with learning to love. Not romantic love...not platonic love...not puppy love, albeit each is an inadvertent step toward nonresistance.

What I believe today, which is always subject to change when I'm doing it right, is we need to learn to know love as spiritual in nature, then to love from that place, already within us, waiting to be tapped. It feels ephemeral, gossamer...but at times so does God to me. 

When we begin to grasp love as spiritual in nature our unknowing becomes the gift. We experience fully the art of changing our mind, of our ever-necessary forgiveness, of our own personal despair as the key that unlocks the door to the love we seek. 

All require our acceptance that we must consciously lose our wants for our needs to be met...not until we lose does God win.

Two musts to learn and remember: One, hopeless despair is our angel in disguise which we cannot force into action, and two, our rues, regrets and remorses are our invitation to that angel who is fully aware when, not if, we are ready to accept the gift. 

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

Thank you.

OUR BANE BECOMES OUR PEARL

"Please...help me, please." There it is, the most sincere prayer we will ever pray. 

The trouble with that most sincere prayer is how often we run it before we mean it...honest and true, mean it. 

Our own personal despair is the well-hidden pearl beyond price considering that it is the first, basically only, lesson essential to the beginnings of spiritual growth, 

It's a hard lesson, learning to love our own personal despair,  Primarily because we cannot love that kind of despair until after the fact, until we have accepted that we've invited this, then have lived in it to completion. Before that, calling it anything but awful is denial. 

Unaware that our crash and burn is essential, we spend our life trying to make an end-run around it...burning brighter each day. Face it, my friend, that is a-hurting we have never known before. And nobody ever got free singing "Mairzy Doats." Plus, it's only after the fall that we can sing "Amazing Grace." And mean it.

We awaken to the realization that all of our necessary hurt is enwrapped in the spiritual nature of life itself. 

Our gift of free will becomes our bane...but that bane holds the seed that despair plants that grows us into the spiritual self we are meant to be. Here we find our trust, gutbucket trust, in God, in the God of our own understanding. 

 It is then that we realize God's hand was ever in it...finally, we are free of me.

..underneath are the everlasting arms of God. -- Deuteronomy 33:27

Thank you.

RESISTANCE, i.e., THE BONDAGE OF SELF

Blinding flash of the obvious: Relieve me of resistance. Followed by, to resist not is to trust God...and that is All.

As I sit in the silence, a resistant thought teeters on the edge of my consciousness. Even as I search to welcome it, for I am not yet aware to what I feel resistant, I wonder if that, too, isn't resisting.

Hovering just out of sight, out of conscious mind, is thank you, and I see the question "to what" is the reasoning mind trying to stay in control by "figuring it out."  

Relief from resistance, nonresistance, is our goal and trusting God is our donkey to ride. 

I only go there on occasion...visit so to speak...until a blinding flash clarifies, and again I am confirmed in my honest desire and spiritual duty to live there. And I know the grace of gratitude.

Thank you.

P.S. We remember our friend Carlton who went back to Heaven on this day in 2014...we love and laugh in your memory, Beloved.

GUIDED, NOT GUARDED...THANK YOU

The senses have been conditioned by attraction to the pleasant and aversion to the unpleasant; [we] should not be ruled by them; they are obstacles in the path. - Sri Krishna (Bhagavad Gita) - from Eknath Easwaran, "Words to Live By," October 2

My following note, written in 2018 - "I am becoming unruled and it does not yet feel pleasant...thank you."  

Morning blinding flash of the obvious: I need open to love for Trump for who needs it more? He is akin to the monster that Golas wrote about in "Lazy Man's Guide" who, when others ran from it, asked, "What was it that you thought needed to be loved?" Love and love alone is the change needed in my attitude to and for Trump...and also for his followers (afterthought).

The conditioning of my senses continue being unruled...only now I am mostly comforted, usually at peace, often happy, and...who's kidding whom?...completely surprised. More than a few "this ain't me!" changes have happened within me/without me, and I pay my respects to the Father within who does the work. 

I know for certain sure that I will stray, that I will be returned, that I am being guided, no longer guarded, and there it is, the great get up and shout alleluia! news.  And thank you.  

Thank you.

NONRESISTANCE IS OUR SPIRITUAL NATURE

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

I define Goethe's "one elementary truth" as "spiritual nature," and that term, spiritual nature, is wholly secular, has naught to do with religion, sects, denominations. It has everything to do with the unexplainable, undefinable better nature of the universe. 

Being unnail-downable, I think of spiritual nature as what we have after neuroscience has explained all that is explainable...I tend to depend on neuroscience's explanations.

Spiritual nature is the unexplainable that causes all things to work together for our good. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred.

It is human nature that sends the concept of spiritual nature down the rabbit hole. Face it, human nature, driven by ego, will ever claim unexplainable good as its own and for its own benefit, diminishing it in the process, probably being the root of all wars.

I believe in a Higher Power who I call "God," who is identifiable as he, she, it, you or I. I believe God is the unbound container of spiritual nature, and spiritual nature is a consciousness higher than is label-able or explainable to the satisfaction of any one. 

One size fits none...nonresistance fits all.

Thank you.