WISDOM TAUGHT BY THE SPIRIT

Now comes the part that makes the 'belly bitter'...the living of these truths. -- Joel Goldsmith

Oh, how true that is. It seems whenever I come upon those words, I am smackdab in the middle of "bitter belly" time.

There are so many less-than-wonderful happenings in my life right now that I do know, if only from my eyebrows up, that this time is vital to my spiritual growth...this is of God time. This is focus, pay attention, pray thank you and mean it time.

To debitter, sweeten. To strip bare, resist not. To pay attention, hug the ugly.

Ah, but to do any of those, first we must upgrade our attention...away from the disgruntled "godblessit" to the spiritual "God bless It."

When our scared self-pitying bewilderment is consciously gentled, our angry thoughts and feelings are out in the open. Linger not...hug them, kiss them on the lips and let them go.

We'll know we have made the inner turn when we consign them not to the devil...but to God. What else needs God...the Power greater than ourself...more than angry, spiteful, put-upon feelings!

This is the rough and rutted road back to that higher Power: This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words.

Thank you.

START...WITHOUT A PRECONCEIVED GOAL

Blinding flash of the obvious:  I trust me. 

For so long now my focus and my energy have been aimed toward trusting God. Yet, all along, my assuring God I trust you has had a feeling of whistling in the dark.

I must admit that I was surprised...stunned? gobsmacked?...to have the words I trust me thrust into my consciousness this morning. I step out in hope without a preconceived "how to" as my goal. 

Clearly, the BFO is the gift, proving it is our work after the fact. Getting the quiet word may be the first nail in the ladder we are building...we dig deeper to climb higher.

As I went into my quiet time, my homing-pigeon thoughts returned to my most recent less-than-wonderful; namely, my teeth implants...enough said. But that thought led to how like my cataract surgery this recent implant tangle has been, and, holy-moly, same goes with my hearing aids...all taking place within the past year.

As I stilled myself, a strong feeling came to me that the destruction of our planet is being caused by the thinking of such as the January 6-ers and the betrayers of Ukraine and me with my cataract/hearing aid/teeth discord. 

Today, I choose to take this as my proof that the consciousness of the Universe is broken...and fixable...by every soul, each in our own time. 

Best we turn our thoughts, our service, toward a spiritual consciousness, a consciousness not of self but of Self. We need one honest (God-conscious) person, or, Diogenes, wherefore art thou? According to me, our leaning there, our seeking that, counts. 

Then there's my take on Fr Richard Rohr's "Daily Meditation" today: The aim is to induce personal and societal transformation in making choices that respect [our planet] as sacrament.  -- John Chryssavgis,

Thank you.

CLING TO NOTHING...FLY!

Less-than-wonderful has been roiling around within me for awhile now.  Usually with the generic Gertrude's name on it...John, Evelyn, Bill, Mary, et al. 

Clearly, our need is to change our attitude, and our behavior will follow. We so often get it backwards. We change our behavior by currying favor and expect to feel good inside. No.  Nobody I know is a fool...we know when we're being schmoozed. 

We upgrade our attitude toward the other...not outside, by compliments and the like, but inside, by the Spirit.

We need to realize the God-ness of the other. If we never see them again, their memory will leave a shadow of peace behind in our head and heart. 

It is written that by the thought, it is done. That I believe. I believe, too, it is by our actions that we prove it so. 

My actions take longer. At one time I thought that takes as long as I choose, but I'm coming to believe that takes as long as God deems it necessary for me to to give over, give up, give in...as in, loose it and let it go. 

Not until we are emptied of our own self are we filled with the Spirit. 

We begin our journey detaching from one defect at a time...the deeper we go, the higher we fly; the higher we fly, the lighter our load. 

Cling to nothing...fly! - advice in 1978 from David S., my beloved mentor.

Thank you.

LOOSE OUR WANTS AND LET THEM GO

Slowly, slowly, we come to understand that we have enough spiritual growth to accept that all our needs...love, peace, harmony, joy...are within us right this minute. But there's the glitch in the happy-pot...the difference between knowing and realizing is of God and not an easy get...almost a never get since realization comes not by our reason but by gift from a higher Power than reason.  

Our wants...money, power, favor...are always in the "out there," ever out of reach. Even when we are brushed by any or all, it is never enough. Which spurs our egoic mind to try harder, to grasp tighter, to deny all but its expectation for more.

Ah, but our "enough spiritual growth" has brought us to another U-bie...to get what we want requires that we change our mind. We must detach from our wants and accept our needs, i.e., switch out our oh-so-pretty wants for no-frills needs. 

Our needs are floating free within...where else?.. just waiting to be tapped. We begin the process of realization when we first experience the love, peace and joy of giving. All that is needed to live in love, peace and harmony is to give it away...indiscriminately. 

The storehouse of love, peace and joy within is full to overflowing! The more we give away, the fuller that storehouse gets. Pass it on.

Thank you.

THE SACRAMENT OF HERE AND NOW

Can we...will we...come to believe, to trust, that God goes before us to make the crooked places straight? Which is to say that God goes before us to clarify the unknown for our benefit. 

"The unknown" is that which we resist...that which is not our own idea...that which is incomprehensible to the egoic mind.

Currently, my incoming tide of changing mind relies on my reminding myself to trust God...to trust  that my latest, or most recent, regret is God flowing through me...God's handiwork for my benefit which invariably benefits the other. Whether in the moment either of us knows it or not. 

It makes its first appearance as an oh-well-rats! Looking wrong is when we are doing it right...why else would we change our mind? There...a glimmer that God's will is not of our reasoning mind.

The how of it is not ours. 

The how of it is to pray thank you as we turn our thoughts into action and do something about something. Trusting God brings the right action...whether we know it or not. 

[SIDEBAR: It is important to realize that we do not waste our time or our efforts when we are trying to make "it" happen..."it," that which we know not of. We must ponder, think on, analyze, to come to complete defeat...to come to the ego-dreaded "Gift Of Despair," the pearl beyond price.]  

The purest form of spirituality is to find God in what is right in front of you—the ability to accept the sacrament of the present moment. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation,"  April 24, 2022 

Thank you.

TRUST GOD...LOSE SELF...LOVE

Trust is an essential factor, but trust requires kenosis, emptying oneself of control and power, and making space for the other to enter in. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," March 8, 2022

To quote another great read: Well-grounded [people] seem to be able with God's grace to take the calamities of life in stride and turn them into their demonstration of faith. -- Anonymous

We have two avenues for experiencing our life, via egoic mind or via spiritual mind. 

We can ponder, analyze and over-analyze, staying put in the egoic mind...or we can trust God as he reveals himself, obscurely, in the mystery of each new situation.

Thank you.

WHETHER WE KNOW IT OR NOT

Whether we know it or not. There. The key to unlocking our recalcitrant self-will is the acceptance of those six words. 

It is important to realize that we can have a recalcitrant self-will and not even know that. From our eyebrows up, we can want, desire, wish to have the feeling of God...the real God...in our life. 

Our very want blocks our very want. 

When we figuratively beat our breast and wail for our God to come to us, we stand in the way of God...the real God...for our wailing is our will and our focus...our God in that moment.  

We quibble and quarrel when we'd best get quiet...and wait. All qualifiers notwithstanding, there is but one God, and It is in the spark of Divine within all. 

Whether we know it or not, God has already worked out for our benefit any perceived problem in our life. In trust, we sit and wait on the Lord, but because we trust, we get up and do something about something. 

It is most beneficial to our own self when our doing is in the service of the Lord...who is always disguised as an "other." Which may be a sick pup, a bedraggled flower bush, a elderly person in need, a piece of loose trash on the street...the Lord comes in many ways his wonders to perform.

Whether we know it or not.

Thank you.

TO REALIZE TODAY FOR UKRAINE

By our prayers, today we realize for Ukraine:

As we share God’s love with our brothers and sisters, God’s other children, there is no tyrant who can resist us, no oppression that cannot be ended, no hunger that cannot be fed, no wound that cannot be healed, no hatred that cannot be turned to love, no dream that cannot be fulfilled. 

— Archbishop Desmond Tutu

As the Archbishop's prayer sprouts wings within, I realize this same prayer for the benefit of Russia, of  China...of the United States. Who's kidding whom?...for the benefit of the world. 

Thank you.

NO MIXED MESSAGES...ONLY LOVE

Blinding flash of the obvious: There are no mixed messages when our only message is love.

In my quiet time, the thought came that we only need to respond with love, and I decided to try it...to be open to only responding with love. Since God the Father is love, and the Father and I are one...I  have nothing but love to give. Clearly, there's a need to be super vigilant...the ever-present egoic mind will do our thinking ever chance it gets.

Comes now the hard slog. Since I no longer actively resist my reasoning mind, I let myself get to work digging into what exactly love means to me today. Long ago, I thought, rethought and analyzed love, and I  know from my own experience that love does not mean giving or getting feelings of sweet, kind, considerate and loveable 100% of the time. Love can feel like a 2 x 4 to the head or the sweet comfort of grace...depending on our spiritual condition. 

I go to God for God. When he chooses, he will clarify within me how to respond with love to my most recent resistant thought(s).

Then the thought occurred that living in this world and trying to have nothing but a spiritual take on it may be a self-determined objective that God doesn't even know about. If so, that, too, God can clarify. I'm going with my BFO of love and see how far that gets me... or I get me.

BFO immediately following: Reasoning mind will always oppose spiritual mind. (Don't tell me God doesn't have my back.)

If it weren't for the likes of us, God wouldn't have any laughs at all. But love he is, love he will always have.

Thank you.

WELCOME OUR UNWANTED NEEDS...TRUST

We’re finally indestructible when we recognize that the thing which could destroy us is the very thing that could enlighten us....We can receive the miracle of new life by embracing our own difficulties. -- Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, April 21, 2022

Believing this, the miracle of new life, does not make it a living truth within us. 

We cannot live it by learning it...by memorizing the words, quoting them to ourself and to others. It can only be internalized unto living it by experiencing the pain, the shame, the embarrassment that we so diligently pray to be relieved of. 

That is the nature of surrender, a hard word that shouts "resist!" But surrender we must to get to acceptance, a soft, inviting word...a virtual lullaby to our senses.  

We must needs walk every step of the way through the pain to ownership, knowing it came by invitation only. Finally we regret it not, we accept. 

Now we can love and laugh as we pass it on. We are unresistant to others' unbelief, even rejection...we are humbled in fact. For that, too, is of God.

Thank you.

FOR THE BENEFIT OF OTHERS

What a great gettin' up morning! At 5:00 AM, I had this blinding flash of the obvious: 

BFO today, April 20, 2022: The only battle is within myself...i with I...within...within...i, my reasoning mind, ever fighting I Am...that is the only battle/there is no battle...'resist not evil, we have ceased fighting.'

At 5:30 AM I sat down to my daily readings and found a very blinding flash; namely, I opened God Calling and found my note of April 20, 2011: BFO - '11 - realized if I seek and do what Jesus sought and did, I will be.... 

Then I opened Easwaran, Words to Live By, and read: '11- there is only one need...to be and do as [the first 100] showed us and did.  

Well, there it is...I have my blinding flash of the obvious this morning, then I find my own handwritten proof that exactly eleven years ago this day, the birth of this BFO came to me. 

That, too, divides itself in my understanding: Reasoning mind goes for condemnation of self...how slow can I go? Eleven years it took me to realize? Then raised consciousness melts me...thank you that I have not wasted those eleven years for I have used each day seeking deeper to be raised higher.

I began by studying the Sermon on the Mount, which was the first 100's guidebook. The Sermon, I learned, was the basis for the writing and publishing of our own book which is used by us to this day to guide us as we Step out in our new life. 

Slowly we have learned to trust God...in our life for our  benefit and that is all. Whether we know it or not. We pass it on to others...to hold it in is self feeding self and starving Self.

It is to love and laugh. There it is, the peace we seek waiting within.

Thank you.

DIFFERENT WORDS, SAME MEANING

Resist not evil (Matthew 5:39)

And we have ceased fighting anything or anyone....  (The Anonymous Press, p 84)

It seems everybody loves you until you start showing them who you are...and how you got to who you are. Then it's, "Whoa, Nellie!...bridge too far!...too much information!"

We realize that is how it needs be. That is the human condition...needing to learn that which we need to learn starts by our resisting the source, the subject, the meat of the matter. Because what we need to learn is not of the material mind...cannot be reasoned to a spiritual conclusion...welcomes resistance to that which it teaches, i.e., resist not.

It is that very resistance that breaks down the niggling, nattering, yes, buts of the reasoning mind and lets God's sliver of gold shine in us. It often feels like we are on that wrong road again, but we learn if it seems to make no sense, we are on the right road...in fact, heading in the right direction. 

My lighting rod came when I was first introduced to resist not evil (Matthew 5:39) which was a throw-away, fuhgettaboutit it, line to me. But it intrigued me, as in, how? How can that have stood the test of time? And still stand? 

The lighting that struck my rod came when I was led to my truth, same meaning different words: And we have ceased fighting anything or anyone....  (The Anonymous Press, p 84). 

I knew and I knew not how I knew, but my mind was opened to a new light, a new way. A way to not think. A way to realize...to wait, let, surrender, trust, accept...not to understand but to receive.

Not to understand resist not evil but to receive it, we cease fighting anything and anybody physically, mentally, spiritually. Which may not happen in toto until three days after we are dead. 

I'm good with that...I know I'm heading in the right direction...trusting God even, or especially, in the midst of my doubts.

Thank you.  

BE NOT AFRAID...OR BE AFRAID & TRUST GOD

Being one's self and showing it...walking it...cannot be a self-determined objective. According to me, a self-determined objective is all about saving self...face, rep, money-honey...self in any and all forms. 

Even as we pray to be, we do not have a clue how God will work that out. If we did, we'd no doubt back off p.d.q. The spiritual fact is that we have shown our being already in our life, too often listening to our ego's doubts and ignoring God's grace. Ego always speaks the loudest in our head. 

It is in looking back that we know appreciation for the results, the gift. The gift not to us alone but to others, with us being included...almost as an afterthought. There...grace in a sliver of gold.

 

I seem to be at that me-unknown-to-me place. The inside change is I am loving and laughing before reason sees it for true. I only know my Santa Fe meeting frees me to be me and suffer the egoic regrets after...with my ego chanting "They must think I am a fool" and my Spirit loving and laughing. Whole new world for me for sure.  

This morning I was led to read some recent BFOs, and they comfort me on this my journey:

3/29/22  Blinding flash of the obvious: Shuck the shield of what i know...detach from learned, let new-born flow forth...not to impress others but to depress self's image...return to the Cloud of Unknowing. 

3/24/22  Blinding flash of the obvious:  I may need to quit my reliance on the KJV's Sermon...for that is the consciousness of then, without regard to the fact that consciousness has risen. Every word written in  the Sermon was Truth then...is still Truth, but that same Truth has risen deeper...each direction has a deeper meaning in higher consciousness.

3/2?/22  Blinding flash of the obvious: My learning-error in agree with  your adversary quickly (and with resist not evil) is in saying nothing while continuing to mentally judge. We speak not for the egoic win (for self) but for open-ended agreement (for unity). Which cannot be done by the reasoning mind but by collaborating with the Spirit. 

In the face of the unknown, of physical, mental, spiritual unrest or upheaval, go with God, stay with God, trust and be not afraid...or be afraid, it's just another nevermind to ever-present God. 

So be it with us as with God. Love and laugh.

Thank you.

TRUST GOD...NOW WALK IT

I had a serious me eye-opener yesterday...from my mouth to a friend' ears: "Putin is evil and should be taken out just as Hitler should have been long before he did it himself." She disagreed with the killing part, and I defended it.

In my quiet time this morning the Word flashed bright and right, and I felt humbled: Resist not evil...no exceptions.

I did not consciously have a clue of my thinking about Putin or Hitler. Clearly, my egoic mind was doing and will do my reasoning for me whenever and without a first alert. I just reckon that's the way I invite the Lord to teach me so I pray my thank you and reach for still more spiritual growth. 

I am grateful that finally my want and my need are the same in that I seek for a neutralized view of Putin...not to "save" him but to upgrade my attitude about him. I begin by acknowledging he is not evil, but his acts and the facts about his acts certainly are. We resist them not, for it is by our resistance that we make them ours...as in, when they shoot, we go for our guns. 

Just as we cannot change our own minds by self-will, we know God can and will if sought...same goes with evil. It is our raised consciousness, out of the reasoning into the spiritual, where God consciousness perfects that which is given us to do.

I pray thank you for the spiritual enlightenment of Putin... and me...that we are freed from self-will, self-interest, self-determined objectives, self. 

Trust that Truth...Now to walk it.

Thank you.

GRATITUDE AND GRACE, II

[This is a slightly reworked reprint of my post of  December 14, 2014.]

Gratitude is the handmaiden of grace. Grace leaves us with our facts unchanged, but our feelings about our facts upgraded, uplifted, enlightened. And we are grateful.

We know peace by developing and maintaining an attitude of gratitude. Then, no matter the appearance to our reasoning mind's eye, grace riding our endless wave of gratitude lets us realize...again and again and, yes, again...that this, too, is God's will. 

All is well.

Thank you.

GET OVER OUR SELF...LOVE AND LAUGH

 I view Jesus the way I view Elvis—I love the guy, but a lot of his fans freak me out. -- John Fugelsang

It's come to this...I came across that quote, loved it, and had to Google John Fugelsang to learn who I was identifying with. He was born in 1969...I'm now identifying with people who were born nearly half my life later than me. Which makes no nevermind, but it pleases me that I'm not resistant.

It seems to me though that it is the name Jesus that hits peoples' panic button...I wonder why it is that the name is such a turnoff. 

[Sidebar: "turnoff" is fear aborning. If, as I believe (having read it in a pop-psychology book), there are only two emotions, love and fear, from which all others spring, then any negative feeling is fear.]

Back to the name Jesus being spoken aloud. Nobody gets that panicky look in their eyes when the word Buddha is mentioned...maybe a tish when Jehovah is, or Allah. But people get fairly vocal for and against when they hear the name Jesus being invoked...as a curse is okay.

I know I substitute a neutral word rather than use the word Jesus when I'm writing...and I don't recall a lot of deep conversing about Jesus or the promise of Jesus. I do know it is his adamantly vocal followers and detractors I choose to avoid. But then, that is true of political partisans, sports super-fans and righteous religious folks...I say let 'em as I walk on by. 

Yet, as to Jesus, I can't say I love the guy...but if a non-personal love counts, then I do. It is the promise of his life and what he taught that lives to this day that calls to me. What he knew, how he knew...and lived it...are my lodestar.

It is thank you, leading to love and laugh, that covers the essence of my spiritual life. The Sermon on the Mount, which is not a knee-slapper, started me on the rough and rugged road to glory. 

Glory, plain and simple, is getting over our own self. That's all, folks.

Thank you. 

GOD IS HERE NOW...TRUST IT

[The] seemingly negative way of the cross could not, and would not, be wrong....Many say pain is physical discomfort, but suffering comes from our resistance, denial, and sense of injustice or wrongness about that pain. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," April 4, 2022

Spiritual truth came to me feeling like a reversal of rational thought. I called it "mirror vision," and I did not know this was acceptable until I read it described by a spiritual authority, probably Goldsmith or Fr Richard, as just that, "mirror vision."  

The Sermon on the Mount certainly fills that bill. When first I read if someone slaps you upside your head, turn the other cheek, I balked...then I read resist not evil and I really balked. Face it, the Sermon does not make a lick of sense to the reasoning mind. Yet, with my own thinking put on hold, that very Sermon has birthed my go-to...the Steps upon which my experience grows me to a higher place deeper. 

Then there is Thaddeus Golas' "Lazy Man's Guide to Enlightenment" wherein he writes that we must go beyond reason to love. Does that make sense on first read? or second, third or fourth for that matter? 

Not without a spiritual bent, intuition, or an authentic crash and burn experience do we even consider  going beyond our own thinking processes...that which we were taught as good and right is good and right, enough said.

Resist not evil, going beyond reason, et al., come down to trust. When we quit fighting the words and become willing to trust the meaning, spiritual growth takes root. The root is trust.

God is not in yesterday, God is not in tomorrow, God is here Now. The way to trust God, the Father within, is to let him Now.

 

People waste so much time in seeking to work out what they see. I declare to  you that in the seeing My purpose, all is done. -- "God Calling," April 14

Thank you.

STAYED ON THE SURFACE NEEDS A LEAP OF FAITH

Without divine accompaniment, most of us will stay on the surface of our own lives, where small-spiritedness keeps us from being bothered by others. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," March 27, 2022

There it is, my egoic fear: lacking divine accompaniment, I am stayed on the surface of life. I can know it for the ego's fear by my self-flagellation when a fly-speck of my small-spiritedness enters into my consciousness. 

The message I first received resonates in me...empty self of self, embrace the Will of our Father within. 

God comes in on a wing and a prayer reminding us, Joy is the result of faithful trusting acceptance of My Will, when It seems not joyous (from God Calling, January 8). I come back to that like a treasure hunter closing in on the gold.

Another paradox: Resisting God's will when it goes against our will is how we build faith...another self-fear comes to our aid by our being proved wrong. Our will is never better than God's will. 

Ego fears come, and ego fears go. Let them. Pray thank you as we hug them, kiss them on the lips, and let them go.

Thank you.

NONRESISTANCE...ACCEPTANCE IN A HARD HAT

 Blinding flash of the obvious:  We...all of us...everyone does now and has ever had the God of our own understanding...we just did not have our own permission to believe that...what we thought was what we got...and called it luck...rotten or good depending on our state of consciousness.

An atheist and a religious fanatic, thought wise, are basically one and the same...their individual want, No God/Super God, is the God of their own understanding. 

It is dual thinking that invites competing egoic minds each wanting to be right...with the  end result being insurmountable resistance to change.

What does it matter to a super religious Jenkins that Gertrude believes there is no God, thinks of herself as an atheist? And vice versa...what does it matter to her that he identifies as super religious, his God can, will and does all?  

The matter is their thinking about it. 

The thing that needs changing is their mind.

The change necessary is the release of resistance.

Nonresistance is not to agree willy-nilly...it is to not reject willy-nilly. We resist not evil not by agreeing with evil, no...we pray thank you which releases our resistance and invites a higher Power's take on the situation...which, after all, is acceptance.

Acceptance...the mind opens higher to a deeper understanding. 

Thank you.

ON THE SECOND HALF OF LIFE

Fr Richard Rohr has written about the second half of life and of a surrendering love, reflecting on Jesus' intentional path of descent.

His writings have led me to a new realization: We are not being resocialized as a result of the pandemic, that is but a tool we chose, we are being socialized into higher consciousness deeper...where all our rues, regrets and remorses are God's slivers of gold, his rod and his staff are love and laughter, and Now is the only reality. 

Our socialization is all about our proving this, not from our self but from within our self. 

The proof comes with our acceptance that it is not through our words or thoughts, i.e., personal efforts, that we are socialized into higher consciousness...showing our butt in public is but God's tool to  use...but by the will of God, the invisible Father within. 

Well into this second half of life, we realize that every word we speak, every passing thought, is God's  grace aborning. Awed, we begin to regret not...to gratefully accept the unacceptable, the unlovable, the unfair, a.k.a., the unnecessary burden of self-will. We surrender in a word.

The Way on this second half of life is the path of intentional descent to the Father within.

Thank you.

WE TURN FROM REASON TOWARD TRUTH

We realize Truth, the same Truth, often and oftener...which does not mean we are relearning or have not learned it previously. We are simply using that Truth as it is intended to be used...repeatedly. 

Comes now the time when we hold our nose and take a leap of faith...we quit quoting by rote the Verified Qualified or our mentors and teachers and move out in faith...where we become less visible, often misquoted, misunderstood, ignored. 

The time is Now...we feel our Soul as it jumps up and shouts Hallelujah! 

The seemingly downward path is the way of the Lord...against our reasoning mind deeper to a higher consciousness. 

We're on the right road, heading in the right direction...away from self toward Self.

Thank you.

JOY IN FEELING GOD'S HUG

[This is a reworked version of a post of mine from December 2015.]

  

I suspect that the only real bondage is the inner bondage of self-centered fear...and, as has been asked, what other kind of fear is there? The gazillion what about mes?...what ifs? The garbage of the future that sends otherwise rational people to an early grave or, more like, a desire for it...or their medicine cabinets. God who?

We all have the occasional what-to-do panicky thoughts no matter how deep our spiritual growth. The discipline is in limiting the time we give to the panic that walks, talks and cries like a baby in our head.

We know, we know: Upgrade our attitude...change our mind. It takes a minimal amount of time...a heartbeat...to turn our thoughts toward God. It is our ego-fear that we must detach from. It only has as much power as we give it, but when we give it an inch we have given it our all.

The paradox is to detach by not resisting. Resist not evil, a.k.a., kiss it on the lips. That and a shaky but sincere thank you, and we joy in the feeling of God's hug. 

Thank you.

TO TRY TO BELIEVE IS TO NOT BELIEVE

We come again to a season of discontent. We have come far in our belief in a loving God...the God of our own understanding who can and will intervene in our life in our behalf. 

Yes, but.

There is this niggling want-to...to believe more, better, deeper, surer. Reasonably, we justify that as  seeking still more spiritual growth when in truth we are fighting paradox: To try to believe in God is to not believe in God. 

We try and try again until we finally reach the unanswerable-to-the-reasoning-mind. At the point of unexplainable...when the reasoning mind surrenders...is when the miracle of God appears. 

Higher consciousness aborning is crash and burn to our ego. Crash and burn and birth are painful, but both are essential if we would give up the idea that we can or should think God into Being. 

We experience again the hardest thing life asks of us, that we change our mind...or hug it and kiss it and let it go. 

Thank you.

SOLIDARITY...ON HELPING GOD HELP US

Blinding flash of the obvious: To help us, God needs our help.

Well, now. The quandary is how?  To help us, God needs our help...how? 

Is this, then, when we learn how to sit and wait on the Lord?...with a purpose in mind? The purpose of helping by following not leading....by following the commands we receive from within in our quiet time? Not fooling ourself by following whatever "good" idea comes to mind, as in, thinking of ourself as first, i.e., by leading, or as last, by following, or as in-between, trying for One.

This may be the time that we kiss self-determined objectives on the lips and let them go...which, standing alone, cannot be done for that becomes a self-determined objective. 

Blinding flash of the obvious: To give God our help is to seek God's will.

Ah, then to seek God's will is to accept when wrong, not if wrong, as God's will...to be wrong is proof of God's will...to be right is the inner peace that allows us to continue to seek God's will and that is all.  

SIDEBAR: The world, and all the sects and sections of the world, seem to be in crisis today...the Fellowship of my Soul being my deep concern. I am calmed and comforted by the words of Pope Francis re emerging from a world crisis. His words hold true for the world, for a country, for a Fellowship: ...one does not emerge from a crisis the same as before....We emerge from a crisis either better or worse than before. It is up to us to choose. And solidarity is, indeed, a way of coming out of the crisis better....

Solidarity...our forever and not new answer.

Whenever anything upsets me, no matter what the cause, there is something wrong with me; ergo, we have ceased fighting everything and everybody. 

Thank you.

GO TO GOD FOR GOD...AND THAT IS ALL

God expects but one thing of you, and that is that you should come out of yourself insofar as you are a created being and let God be God in you. -- Meister Eckhart 

I got that quote from today's Eknath Easwaran's "Words to Live By," which book I have read daily since it was gifted me in 1996. And, who's kidding whom, that has ever gone over my head like a hairnet. 

Interestingly, in reading Merton's "Events and Pseudo Events" today, I got a glimpse of all, all, that we see, hear, think, feel in the material world is simulacra...which word I had to Google: simulacra - something that replaces reality with its representation. 

My interpretation of that is the material world, our reasoning mind's home, is an illusion...used by us to replace God, the reality of God, the only reality.

What came to me from Merton's quote is the aborning realization that we must take each sight we see, or memory, good/bad, and turn it over to God...higher consciousness. There without thought to be stripped of all its bells and whistles to find naught but God there.

This is, of course, an intellectual exercise right now...but what spiritual growth isn't at start up? 

I'll no doubt need to make my see-it-now, along with every less-than memory, acceptable to my reasoning mind in order to let it go entirely. I'll pray my thank you, and in the unlikely chance God strips me clean in a holy minute, I'll be grateful. But I know me better than I know God, and I'm glad I've given me permission to do what I do to get where I'm going...to God.

Just to mention, I relate to Eckhart better than to Merton. I mean, Eckhart never uses words like "simulacra." In fact, so far, I've never had to Google Eckhart, yet I've just started with Merton and already...enough said.

Love and laugh...and go for It.

Thank you.

NOT BY WILL BUT BY WISDOM

Blinding flash of the obvious:  Not by will but by wisdom.

I can only judge me by my own limited knowing. That hopeful thought floated by me this morning just as I was sitting down to read Merton...about "The Technological Imperative."  I knew by that title this was  going to be way over my head, but I waded in. It was way over my head. 

He wrote, "...when technology  merely takes over all being for its own purposes, merely exploits and uses up all things in the pursuit of its own own ends, and makes everything, including man himself, subservient to its processes, then it degrades man, despoils the world, ravages life, and leads to ruin."

Even as I read that, it translated itself to me as, "Trying to detach from a character defect by reading about it, analyzing it, going to therapy for it...or just obsessively thinking on it...is going down that wrong road again. Find God there. Thank you." 

My hopeful thought about self-judgment gave me permission to accept my no-frills spiritual breakthroughs as being as valid to me as technological breakthroughs are to scientists. Indeed.

I reread Merton at the point where he wrote, "Technology can elevate and improve man's life only on one condition: ...that it remembers that the origin and goal of all being is in God."  Indeed, indeed.

Don't tell me God doesn't know...and fulfill...our needs. Our realization takes a tish longer to come by...proving that we get there not by will but by wisdom.

Thank you.

ON WELCOMING SUFFERING...YES!

For me for today, subject to change by God and by grace:

Me: I have one bone-deep fear...for self, as I am perceived; I have one bone-deep spiritual desire...to live the Sermon as I understand it. 

My suffering: It seems the more I live the Sermon by denying my wants, the more others perceive me through my deepest fear.

Fr Richard Rohr: It seems there is an inherent negative energy or resistance from all of us when we are suffering, and it is in those moments that we are invited to a more generous response. It is actually the necessary dying that the soul must walk through to go higher, farther, deeper, or longer.

My interpretation: There is an inherent resistance from us to suffering (our fear realized), and it is in those moments when our fear is realized that we are invited to welcome it with our thank you. 

Fr Richard: That is the seemingly negative way of the cross...not from resistance, denial, or a sense of injustice or wrongness about our pain, but by walking through it in welcome.

Old, still gold, reliable: Hug it...kiss it on the lips...let it go. 

Thank you.

TO LIVE BY GUTS, GOD AND GRACE

Our life is all about what we thought...because that's what we got. With the majority of us spending our lives trying to place the blame for what we got. Always looking out there...parents, teachers, friends, lovers, God. God being the final culprit.

Some of us are called to organized religion, some to spirituality, some are atheists, comfortable with no God at all. Then a lot of us just rely on a mix-and-match of the various named religions. (Google names the major religions of the world as Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Confucianism, Christianity, Taoism, and Judaism.)

Underneath it all, I wonder if we all don't rely on the God of our own understanding...disguised however we need It to be. We just never had the nerve...or our own permission...to own it. 

That is no wonder for it is a heavy responsibility. To own it is to live it.

Living it is the beginnings of our understanding the invisible, unseen and unseeable, God of our own understanding...and grace. The grace of ego-deflation in depth. Ah, need face-to-face.

 

Now, we look no further than our Self for help in times of need, for relief in times of stress. That's how we learn that nothing turns us to our God faster than fear, a.k.a., personal need, personal stress, personal ego-trials. 

Without need we would never turn to prayer, to meditation, to a Source deeper that our ego, higher than our self-determined objectives. 

To own it is to live it...to live it births need. Need is of God...get grateful, get grace. 

Thank you.

LET IT BE WITH LOVE AND LAUGHTER

The term 'perennial philosophy' . . . refers to a fourfold realization: (1) there is only one Reality (call it, among other names, God, Mother, Tao, Allah, Brahman, or Great Spirit) that is the source and substance of all creation; (2) that while each of us is a manifestation of this Reality, most of us identify with something much smaller, that is, our culturally conditioned individual ego; (3) that this identification with the smaller self gives rise to needless anxiety, unnecessary suffering, and cross-cultural competition and violence; and (4) that peace, compassion, and justice naturally replace anxiety, needless suffering, competition, and violence when we realize our true nature as a manifestation of this singular Reality. The great sages and mystics of every civilization throughout human history have taught these truths in the language of their time and culture. -- Rami Shapiro, commonly called "Rabbi Rami", is an author, teacher, and speaker on religion and spirituality.

Well, there it is. Everything that I believe in one paragraph. And proof that what I believe and how I live what I believe are two different...ah, but converging...matters.

Amazing as it is to me, to my realization right this very second, "converging" is an apt description of  how I live what I believe and is close enough for the honest love and laughter of my spiritual self and my egoic self.  

I wonder if the point of convergence isn't what Merton writes about...when the spiritual enwraps the ego and the ego disappears. Waaay over my head and several lifetimes away for me now but close enough to ponder.

Let it be.

Thank you.

DESIRE NOT TO DESIRE, II

[The following is a slightly reworked reprint from my post of April 1, 2012, and I am grateful it still fits me.]

I desire not to desire, for my will is without value, since I am ignorant in any case. Therefore choose Thou for me what Thou knowest to be best and do not put my perdition in what my autonomy and free choice prefer. -- Bayazid Al-Bistami

This sounds so good...so right.

I've never heard of the person I quote so I don't know if s/he got there. I do know, though I never expect to perfectly get there, that I have a good feeling within that I can desire not to desire. 

Feeling good within is what I call getting a hug from God...that I know is good and right.

Thank you.