AGAINST MY WANT-TO, WITH GOD'S WILL

This I believe: God can, will and does intervene in my life in my behalf...literally. 

Through my reading knowledge, I have accepted that for a long time...quoted it often. But this week I have personally experienced it. Through his action, his power, his will, his way, God proved this truth for me...which moved it up from knowledge to belief. (See my post of August 28th for particulars.)

I did not consciously put the doctor-prescribed, self-resisted pill out with my other meds, and I had not for a day or two. I do not recall doing that......but there it was instead of my baby aspirine, and both being orange, I innocently and inadvertently took it. 

The instant I realized my mistake, I laughed...and God grinned. There, against my want-to, but with God's will, the answer to my self-determined turmoil was lifted, and I laughed...that is love and laughter whether we know it or not.

Whatever life brings now, good fortune or not, unselfed I can live comforted that this, too, is God's will and for my benefit. 

I have ever sought peace of mind. My own experience has proved mine comes through crash and burn...that which we try with a will to avoid then becomes our pearl beyond price. How long that takes is how long that takes...we are poor determiners of when truly we are ready.

As I say whenever I remember to: Dear God, I would rather have your will done in my life today than to have my will done...knock yourself out. Amen.

Thank you.

ATTITUDE DETERMINES ACCEPTANCE

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

What we are currently getting is what we are needing for our still more spiritual growth according to who and what we are inside where God lives.

I wonder if inside where God lives doesn't house the embryo of attitude. 

In my life, learning unto accepting that I choose my attitude in any given set of circumstances is ever a hard slog. Since that is present tense, I no longer expect to "get" it, to nail it down never to have to choose again...to just let God do it because he's going to anyhow. We have there the innocence of the spiritual wisher. 

Doing nothing, thinking to let God do it, negates the perfect work of attitude. It is by our upgrading our attitude that we downgrade our problem...and know joy. 

It is our attitude that leads us to work with, no long work  against, everything and everybody. In a word, acceptance. 

Our atttitude births acceptance births we have ceased fighting anything and anybody. There...the Open Sesame to happy, joyous and free, God's meetinghouse.

Thank you.

EVERYTHING CHANGES, EVEN A ROCK OVER TIME

I have shared often how turning 80 for me was like an inside switch had been flipped, and I had evolved into a different person...I feel cold, for one small instance, even on the hottest days. I'm here to tell, that is different.

Talking with a confidant yesterday I recalled that, and I was opened to the possibility of that change being the activator in me today. I had to get into the center of my TIA's trauma and drama, i.e., my experience-based fear, to realize my 80s me may have changed...that God may have upgraded my negative medical side effects to beneficial. 

My sense of experiential safety was being uprooted, leaving my reasoning mind to dictate...to feel all alone and abandoned. My sense of security was dependent not on God here and now but on my own previous experience. 

When I recalled my "new me through 80," I knew God may well have upgraded my meds' two-percent-of-the-population experience. The many onerous side effects of drugs may no longer be my experience, and I can only learn that by taking the one I need now. 

I must admit, even as I honestly sought God's will to solve my dilemma, I consciously feared that I was magic thinking. Actually, it was magic thinking since I was thinking he would change the minds of all my  doctors and see me as right. Instead, in all innocence thinking it was my baby aspirine, I put the pill in my mouth, chewed and swallowed it.

I'm in with the med since fear of the outcome of taking the pill was the basis. A done deed ends dilemma. If fatal is the result, fatal is the end result of life itself. If that is God's preplanned way for me, I'm good with that. Face it, his preplanned way may be this dreaded pill is an angel in disguise and, doing its prescribed job, wards off a stroke. 

Don't tell me that God's hand was not guiding that pill. 

Thank you.

FROM TURMOIL TO TRUST...LOVE AND LAUGH

What love means is to say, 'I know your faults, I see your weeds, and I care for you anyway.' Only God’s heart, only the mind of Christ in us, really and fully knows how to do that. -- Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, August 29, 2022.  [This refers, too, to our own fear du jour...to love the fear is trust in God.] 

I have been in total turmoil the past few days resisting doctors, friends and foes who have been pushing me to take a medication that I have had experience with and the result was not good...and which a former doctor and my own experience informs me not to use again. Note: By turmoil, I'm talking TURmoil, akin to the feeling of being left all alone...abandoned and incapable of being heard. 

Yesterday at dinner I'm taking my other prescribed meds, and I pop my baby aspirine in my mouth and chew. Holy moley! It is supposed to have an orange flavor...it did not. Acrid, bitter, UGH. And as I swallowed I realized it was not my baby aspirine, that I'd just taken the med I'd been adamantly  refusing.  

I had to laugh and pray my thank you. I decided, rightly or wrongly, since I innocently and inadvertently took the med, I'm in with it now...no more resistance. 

If my projected worst case happens, that, too, is of God, and I am safe in him. Since "fatal" is one of the in-print worst-case side effects, it is on the table. Fatal is not my fear, but it is a comfort to my mind that it, too,  falls under "safe in him." 

In my quiet time this morning I recalled resist not evil. How, so long ago when I first had to quit resisting my truth, i.e., when I first crashed and burned, my feared truth proved to be God's will and my saving grace.

The dreaded side effect of this med that I've resisted may do exactly what I fear...it may cause excessive bleeding, my duodenal ulcer to grow horns again, my butt to fall off...and if it does, that too God has already wrapped in love for my benefit. That may be exactly what I need to happen and have been blocking.   

So the med is in my regimen now...but best of all: My turmoil is good for a giggle which I do. Thank you.

My morning blinding flash of the obvious: Trust God and carry a mop and pail.

Thank you.

LET IT. DETACH. WELCOME. THANK YOU.

My gift today is to live that which I have learned...and, trust me, it feels unlike any gift I've ever envisioned!

Fear, of course, rides herd. Repeating "I feel fear, God is here" alleviates the gutbucket fear while leaving an acrid aftertaste. That aftertaste is why we have learned to seek God in everything. That is what keeps us focused on our need for God. 

It is unlikely we ever considered seeking God when we were riding our wave of self-satisfaction, especially spiritual self-satisfaction. The blessing is our experience is God's will comes from within wrapped in meditation.

Meditation consists of our attention stayed on God alone. We get there with our thank you. My experience this past week has been with the fear of a stroke. Fear spoke, I answered with thank you. I cannot fully express the gratitude that swept through me.

Words to live by: Let it. Detach. Welcome. Fine by me. Thank you.

God loves us so much...and we need not leave where we are to go get it. God is here. Now. Thank you. 

Thank you.

LOOK AWAY...AWAY FROM SELF FOR OTHERS

Again I say, the essence of still more spiritual growth boils down to primarily for the benefit of others but always away from self-interest.

I suspect the reason that is the nut of still  more spiritual growth is "away from self-interest" is right next door to impossible for a walking-around human being...that is a need which shoots it right up into God territory. It's next to impossible because...face it...seeking to have no self-interest is in our self-interest.  

To keep first the fact that we are a human being...learning to welcome that...requires ego reduction in depth, or ego deflation, a lifetime work. That's one of those at first unpleasant sounding chores that turn into the pearl beyond price. 

We are talking humility...we read, hear, are taught, that we have all the humility there is to have sitting within us just waiting to be freed. That's a slow fact coming into reallization...the more we try to free it, the tighter the seal. 

There!...that's what let go and let God means! Still more spiritual growth, plain and simple. And here comes God a-grinning.

Thank you.

UNWANTED TURNED PRICELESS...OF GOD

This I hold as my guide, my truth: I am a human being, I am abstinent, I am a seeker of still more spiritual growth.  

Being a seeker of still more spiritual growth brings it all full circle...right back to "I am a human being."

It is the conscious awareness of being a human being first that allows for our fallibility...our egoic mind needs we be Center Court with God which is why it is essential we have at least one true friend, or mentor/confidant, to tell us the truth we do not see...namely, that we are a human being, plain and simple, no frills, no slime.

Knowing and showing that we are first a human being is akin to that first thought which just is, we can let it be without shame or blame. 

That second thought though we are in charge of...of bringing it to bay, primarily for the benefit of others but always away from self-interest. 

According to me, that is the essence of still more spiritual growth: primarily for the benefit of others but always away from self-interest.

Thank you.

ON LISTENING WITH OUR HEART

Learning the spiritual art of listening...ah, rarely practiced but ever ready. When we finally realize...not just know but realize...a spiritual conversation has naught to do with using spiritual words, our within world changes.

A spiritual conversation is a good part silent so we may listen with our heart. Then we can be moved to where we had never thought we would be...in an equally teaching/learning conversation comfortably without effort, will or wile.

We gently pass these little victories over ego on so as not to appear to be honoring ourself or to hoard them like gold to a miser. We trust God to guide with whom and how we give and receive these giftees. 

Our goal in learning the spiritual nature of listening to another is neither to get favor nor to give favor but to appreciate our spiritual connection.

Thank you.

SPIRITUAL GROWTH IS OUR OPEN SESAME

Blinding flash of the obvious: I am safely in the protection of  my indwelling God...my health and my decisions about my health are not mine but Thine, and I trust that.

Looking back, I know that my spiritual growth has been by my letting go of life's many woes and by my gratitude for life's many free blessings. All of which acknowledge that everything happens by invitation only. 

It took as long as it took for that not to live in my brain just to be quoted to others, but to realize for truth that everything that happens in my individual life happens to me by my invitation only. Snarks, unearned slights, ill health, financial woes...all are woes purely by our attitude about them. 

When we upgrade our attitude, we downgrade our problem. 

The easy-to-miss catch: We are constitutionally incapable of upgrading our attitude, i.e., changing our mind, by self-will alone. We must seek a Power greater than ourself to do our heavy lifting. 

I suspect that the mountain referred to in the biblical quote about faith moving mountains is referring to our own mind.

We wouldn't think less of ourself if we couldn't move a mountain...that mountain equates to our made-up/shut-down mind.

The answer is still more spiritual growth...going to God for God, and that is all.

Thank you.

DOING IT WRONG TO GET IT RIGHT

As I prayed to God for forgiveness this morning, I realized...there is nothing to forgive. Which was not satisfying, not comforting, not a good thing for right behind that thought came the reality: There is nothing for God to forgive for I  have done nothing. 

This in no way even hints that I see me as purified...stagnant is the word that is more apt.

I have made my peace, made my amends, cleaned up my act so to speak. Now what? Apparently, I have in effect sat down by the side of the road and waited. 

I had a TIA last Thursday, spent a couple days in the hospital, came home with an 11-page document of instructions for what to do, what meds to take, etc. I have spent the last 40 years avoiding meds since my experience with the side effects of the "new" meds has cost me three major operations. Short take: I am in the two percent of the population that cannot tolerate the "new" high-caliber meds. 

I have honestly sought God's will with regard to taking these prescribed meds. Getting no answer, I made the decision to take the meds...which I will pick up today. 

In my quiet time this morning, the thought occurred that if this be the wrong step, I can allow it to be so that I may be turned around. I have felt stuck for a while, have often quoted saints and sinners as saying that it is better to do the wrong thing than to do nothing...oh my yes, there is Fr Richard's we don't get to God by doing it right, we get to God by doing it wrong.

So with prayers, good thoughts and trepidation, I plan to pick up my prescriptions today and get started heading in a different direction...along with God as my guide and comfort.

Thank you.

LOVE, LAUGHTER AND LOOSENING SELF

And the overcoming is never the overcoming of the one who troubled you, but the overcoming of the weakness and wrong in your own nature, aroused by such a one. - God Calling, July 28

That ought to be our daily reminder prayer...for there seems to be a built-in resister in us that is active 24/7 only without our awareness. When it scratches that weakness, that wrong in our nature, however, it takes serious loosening of our snark magnet to get our self free. 

How hard it is to remember that it is not him/her/them we need to loose, it is me, myself, I. It's way too easy to repeat Loose it and let it go, it is hard...way hard...to do that. 

The hardest part is wanting to. The improbable dream: To honestly want to take no counteraction to a public snark...and an  undeserved one into the bargain...and what snark is ever deserved to our own mind? The sliver of gold...snarks, too, serve a purpose for that is when we become fully aware that God has our work cut out for him.

Well. There it is. Totally given without thought: God has our work cut out for him. That is life, yours, mine, ours. If we would but let God work through us, all our troubles, Lord, soon be over. 

The easier the proposition, the harder the do. I'm guessing that's why love and laugh are God's perfect gifts. If we would concentrate our efforts on those two, ah...there be peace.

Thank you.

ON BECOMING ONED, II

[The following is a reprint of my post of November 13, 2016.]

To walk free in my own head. That is my one, my only, my unifying goal.

If I am not free in my own head, all the spiritual education I have or think I have...all the sacred tomes ever written, read or to be read...will, to quote the late and beloved Sen. Everett Dirksen, "have all the force and effect of a snowflake on the bosom of the Potomac."

To walk free in my own head is the Father within flowing freely from me to and through thee...ever flowing like the sea.

And we are Oned, unified.

Thank you.

GOD WILL FLOW FORTH, II

[The following is a reprint of my post of December 18, 2014.]

Trying too hard to "get it" is as detrimental to spiritual growth as dismissing it all as happy talk. Mainly because we can't get spiritual growth. Seeking to get is the ego-victory mind determining and dictating. As long as that is the case, we will be seeking our wants...dressed up pretty with a lot of spiritual-sounding words, but they will still be wants.

Wants are of the ego, needs are of God.

We have within, at our core, the Spirit...God. If we are seeking still more spiritual growth, our need is to detach from our reasoning mind, go to our center, and open our heart, our mind, our Soul. God will flow forth...in Its own good time.

According to me.

Thank you.

TRANSFORMATIONAL POWER OF UNKNOWING

Blinding flash of the obvious: Our bane is righted by our opened eyes. We do not make it happen, righted flows forth from within.

My spiritual growth today seems to be all about looking back and realizing how the truth of my BFOs has shown through in my life...not by my efforts although not not by my efforts. Not to put on airs, but quoting John of the Cross who said it best, this is the way to the transformational power of radical unknowing. 

To prove truth, we must move out in trust that this is God's will...it is the stonewall we hit that turn us in a new direction. Rightly we move out in trust...the stonewall is God's will turning us, setting us ever straighter. 

We give up trying to count or discount the many stonewalls we must needs hit...we say a heartfelt thank you for each one and keep doing what we feel called to do. 

Slowly it will dawn that the heartfelt in our thank you is a hugh part of our lesson. That is, we pray our thank you not by rote or by will but from a grateful heart before we realize the gift...that is where the building of trust leads us. Trust is now transmuted, and we have found faith.

Faith, the key to the peace of mind we seek, have ever sought. It cannot be willed...it cannot be denied. It comes with or without our knowledge...we find ourself aware that we are afraid or unafraid, it makes no nevermind. We are peaced.

Thank you. 

RESIST NOT...WELCOME WITH THANK YOU

In truth, to attain to interior peace, one must be willing to pass through the contrary to  peace. Such is the teaching of the Sages. -- Swami Brahmananda from Eknath Easwaran, November 26 

We are taught that great love and great suffering form the path to God. 

I feel a certain trepidation for friends who are so filled with their "rightness" of spirituality, lovingkindness, positive thinking, affirmations, et al., that they believe suffering is backsliding. The trepidation is my sorrow of their egoic pain in never realizing that suffer they must as they trudge the path toward unknowing, or peace of mind. 

Attempting to avoid suffering is the great leveler...meds, drugs, alcohol, and, face it,  positive thinking and affirmations when used purely to avoid suffering. They are all self-determined fixes for failure...even when they work, self fails. Ah, alone again naturally.

Comes the flash, and the door opens to the reality of  transformative spirituality. We become willing to pass through the contrary to peace. The great suffering which we seek to avoid, brings the great love we pray to get. 

We cannot know great love without knowing great suffering. Resist not...welcome. 

Thank you.

THE STAND UP AND SHOUT IT OUT TRUTH

I am reminded again...for what? the umpteenth time?  Just because s/he is wrong does not mean I am right.

I have to be reminded of that repeatedly...obviously because I do not believe it. Better self wants to, egoic self cannot...will not...allow it to even take root. I feel agreeably surprised every time I come across it...and there is proof of disbelief. I read that, like it, know it for true, and forget it.

Looking for the sliver of gold, it is probably just as well we hold to our feeling of right. Wishy-washy never gets us that good feeling when we really are right besides being a lot harder to break out of when we are finally swamped by nada...non-participation in our own life.

Interesting to me is the discovery that my participating in life did not begin until I decided to and did turn my will and my life over to the care of God. With that decision, God had the reins whether I knew it or not. It took, is taking, time to realize how completely God does the footwork, 

Most important is the snail-paced realization that it is my feet he uses for my walking...my hands he uses for my daily work...my mouth his words flow from, and only I can get in his way...not stop him, just slow me down.

The good news...my turn-over decision keeps him in charge. I get in the way, he rights me, we get where he is going...with as many U-turns as I need. 

From my eyebrows up, of course, I choose no U-turns; my actions, however, spell out the truth...slow but steady with detours up the gump-stump. 

The stand up and shout-it-out truth: With God as our guide, we are ever headed in the right direction. Can we have an Amen!

Thank you.

EGO...OUR LOVER, OUR PLAGUE

We can patiently accept not being good. What we cannot bear is not being considered good, not appearing good.—St. Francis of Assisi

It has been said that there is no finer way to treat people than to accept them as they are. 

A truly spiritual exercise is to accept people as we perceive them to be...that all but ensures we upgrade our perception! There'd be no such spiritual exercise needed if from the start we accepted people sans our less-than judgments.  

Our egoic driver is the gnawing want within to be appreciated...approved of...ah, emulated. Which brings its own thorn in the flesh. To be emulated...copied...is flattering, albeit without attribution, irritating in the extreme, invariably with resentment following. Ego, our lover, our plague.

This, then, is our mental/spiritual crossroads. 

Unbeknownst to the material mind, our spiritual growth has brought us to the depths of a mountain top, showing itself as our need to do but to do the opposite of our want-to that we've dressed up so prettily. In fact, to do that which elicits more pity than praise...oh my, the mortifying pain of it!

Comes the dawn of recurring truth: The less we are recognized and notarized, the closer we come to Be.

Thank you.

EGO DOES NOT LET GO GRACEFULLY

It takes as long as it takes to truly hear what we need to hear. 

We are taught that in that instant of realization, it is done for us, our problem is solved, all our questions are answered. We believe that because we so want to believe that, and because it is true. 

Comes now the howsomever.

Now, to live that truth as our own, we must prove it...to prove it by doing, living, being...by our  transformation.

More howsomever: Our own definition of "transformed" must go...must be transformed, not to be smart-mouth about it. 

Growing into the transformed me, we find...oh rats!, the same old me. No wings, no halo, no outer sign for others to take note of which, regrettably, we learn still has teeth and tongs in our egoic mind. Not as strong, not as long-lasting, no longer first in line...ah, but there. 

There's our Yes! It is that egoic want that kicks our butt, punches our gut, natters relentlessly...and turns us within, to head the transformed us in the right direction. 

It is right that ego forms the base of our suffering...the horns of the dilemma we hear about. Our reasoning mind is being changed by God from reliance on egoic thinking to resting on spiritual principles. Never does ego go gracefully into the light of God's new day.

There is a deeper voice of God, which we must learn to hear and obey. It will sound like the voice of risk...God never leads by guilt or shame!  -- Fr  Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, July 29, 2022  

Thank you.

WE ALREADY HAVE THE ANSWER...NOW LIVE IT

The only thing separating us from the divine immensity of the Lord is our unwillingness to trust such an utterly free grace, such a completely unmerited gift. (My paraphrase, from Fr Richard's June 7, 2022, Daily Meditation)  

We are reminded that, most important is the discovery that all of our problems can be solved by spiritual principles. -- Anonymous

Blinding flash of the obvious: Invent not, work with what you got.

Thank you.

PREACH NOT...DO!

We only know as much as we do. -- St Francis

I love coming again to that reminder from St. Francis, that I only know as much as I do. 

I am especially moved by the memory it jogs right now...as I mentally judge a friend who is being recalcitrant in a friend-related incident while preaching that she now lives in acceptance. Whatever comes to her, she accepts without qualm or quandary, she says...as I give my mental eye roll 

There. My mirror still on the job showing me that with that thought, I am doing that which I am resisting. 

I know better...which is heading in the right direction, but it's the doing that brings the peace of mind I seek. There it is, the pearl beyond price...peace of mind.

We do better not to win applause, accolades or acknowledgement...we do better to live in peace within. Winning is not on the table...even win/win is not on the table. There is no contest for to win...there is only a mind at peace. 

Whoa! Here's me, moving into a how-and-why about that which I am not doing. 

Love and laugh, love and laugh.

Thank you.

TO ACCEPT THE UNPRETTY SIDE OF SELF

I have become convinced, and this is from my own perspective so we won't find a lot of followers, that the most important spiritual direction ever given is: We have ceased fighting everything and everybody. (To get all the way to ceasing fighting, it helps me to think, I have ceased resisting everything and everybody.)

After accepting our first resistant thought, we shoot our thank you prayer. Then, if the Spirit moves us, we can ponder it but not pamper it. In its own sweet time, sometimes soon sometimes not so soon, it transforms itself into gratitude. 

Then, blinding flash, we realize that "not so soon" is the pearl to our reasoning mind...it gives us time to come to accept why we want to resist. 

To come to acceptance is, plainly put, to wallow in our want-to, or to "arm wrestle with God." That it is that brings us to surrender, to come to accept the unpretty side of self. For sure, if we cannot own it, it will own us.

To accept we must surrender...to surrender we must admit complete defeat...to admit complete defeat is one step closer to Heaven...or peace of mind, the pearl beyond price.

Thank you.

THE PROCESS OF TRANSFORMATION

This movement of leaving and returning, forward and back, is the process of transformation. - Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, July 31, 2022

Well...isn't that interesting! Stripped down to its bare knuckles, "forward and back" is us having a new idea, trying it, being mistaken, trying again, screwing up, trying again and again and again, and finally  surrendering unto acceptance. Voila, transformation.

We don't get to transformation by book-learning or by sharing deep talk...seeking how-to without actually doing it. To mangle an old saying, Those who can...do; those who can't...teach. 

If we're still beating ourself over old remorses and/or new mistakes, we may have missed the fork in the road and wandered off into the forest. As long as we don't make our home there in the forest, we can pray thank you, make a U-bie, and try again. And again. Etc.

We've heard the word, the more we resist, the more it persists, but the human condition is such that to not resist feels wrong, and our reasoning mind can back that up unto infinity. At some point, and it takes as long as it takes, we must needs go beyond our reasoning mind for our solutions...as in, trust that our perfect solution is of God

Learning to do God's will sometimes feels like we're trying to go forward by crawling through a duststorm backward...all the while trying not to think about a reasoning mind being an educated mind, and education counts for something for Pete's sake. Sometimes it is even right. 

Another old adage for our reasoning mind's comfort, Life's a crapshoot...deal with it. 

Still more spiritual growth for our Soul's comfort, Go beyond reason to love.

Comes the time when the reasoning mind's comfort is of no nevermind, and spiritual growth is ours without thinking. There. The pearl beyond price.

Thank you.

I SHALL NOT WANT IS ENOUGH

Blinding flash of the obvious: To have a consciousness of enough is to have more than enough. 

With that flash, our spiritual growth now is in our willingness to nurture, nourish, that consciousness of enough.

Just as with a babe learning to walk, we need hold its hand as it first steps out...encourage it with praise and love. Acknowledge that every step and every stumble are for good, heading in the right direction...away from self, toward God.

The great gift...to have a consciousness of enough, living in that consciousness, closes the door to wants. 

The Lord is my shephert, I shall not want. 

Thank you.

WHEN TRY GIVES OVER TO TRUST

There comes a time when we realize unto acceptance that the only way to be truly happy is to seek to do God's will. This is the time of Uh-oh!...we've run out of our own ideas for fixing us, and Oh, wait, thank you!...our dual mind is integrating, becoming One.   

The period between realizing it and doing it is that period of time when we are sincerely trying. Ah, there be our problem: trying to give over to God whether it be in meeting our supply, or our dealings with others, or our anxieties in general...and rarely feeling all that good about the results. So we try harder...the difference between the definition of  "insanity" and "self-determined objective" is slim.

This is the prayed-for albeit dreaded difference between a self-determined objective (no matter how pretty we think it) and the perfect objective which is of God (no matter how un-pretty we think it).

We will come here more than once, or even a few times. It is trust that we are building...trust that the Father within does know our needs and will always provide us with the best to meet those needs. Whether we know it or not. 

There. That is trust. 

Rely on Me alone. Ask no other help. Pay all out in the Spirit of trust that more will come to meet your supply. *** To hold back, to retain, implies a fear of the future, a want of trust in Me. -- God Calling, August 8

Thank you.

GUT-BUCKET FEAR...RELAX, GOD'S HAND IS IN IT

I have been going through what to the reasoning mind would be called "a rough patch"...I call it the rough and rutted road of still more spiritual growth. There is no super-highway to spirituality, there is just trudging the road of happy destiny.

That is one of the great gifts of spiritual growth...experiencing discomfort, dismay, anxiety. gut-bucket fear, and inwardly knowing: This is the necessary Steps that lift us to the higher plane deeper. This, too, is of God. 

It helps immensely that our mentor, friends, co-walkers share our journey with us..."share our journey" is code for telling the truth to, the apparently ugly truth, without justifying or excusing our fear-feelings...plus, or especially, naming who or what we are blaming. 

If our nemesis du jour is another person, and it usually is, we call them a glassbowl because they are to us in that moment. 

There! That is building trust. We air it out now or it makes like Velcro and sticks with us. Out in the open, we see it more fully and trust begins to lead us into spiritual awareness. 

Now we recall what we see is always ourself, and that we trust. We feel the lightness of acceptance in our head and in our heart. Acceptance transmutes into forgiveness and the nemesis has the makings of a friend...if that be God's will. 

They may have appeared to us to be a glassbowl for our spiritual growth. God uses what we give him...everything happens by invitation only. Until we surrender unto acceptance, we cannot own it. 

Until we accept ownerhip, with love in our thoughts and in our heart, we cannot let it go.  

By love may He be gotten and holden, by thought never. -- The Cloud of Unknowing

Thank you.

TO PEACE AN UNSETTLED MIND

Here are a few of the words, phrases, quotes and blinding flashes of the obvious that right me when I am walking the egoic mind line:

Joy is the result of faithful trusting acceptance of My Will, when It seems not joyous. -- God Calling, January 8
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Blinding flash of the obvious - Fear not being drawn into the lion's den for the lion in the den is Aslan.
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I view Jesus the way I view Elvis—I love the guy, but a lot of his fans freak me out. -- John Fugelsang

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BFO: Less-than living is freedom to choose less rather than more.
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Much learning does not teach understanding. -- Heraclitus
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It’s quite simple: One sees clearly only with the heart. Anything essential is invisible to the eyes. —Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince
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We do not obtain the most precious gifts by going in search of them but by waiting for them. -- French philosopher and mystic Simone Weil
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Trust the down, and God will take care of the up. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," April 10, 2022
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Now comes the part that makes the 'belly bitter'...the living of these truths. -- Joel Goldsmith

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I feel more settled just by rereading these...and I have a whole lot more I can delve into. Often I try to find a favorite, and they all qualify, but Goldsmith's "bitter belly" is my first among equals.

Thank you.

RESIST NOTHING, II

[The following is a reprint of my post of  November 3, 2013]

I had a dream once that I was at the shore, wading in the ocean. A wave knocked me down; I was immediately caught in the riptide and pulled out to sea. I knew I was drowning, and I heard me say, "Just breathe through the water, just breathe." And I did and walked away.

This morning I read from The Illuminated Rumi:

Late, by myself, in the

boat of myself,

no light and no land

anywhere.

Cloud cover thick.

I try to stay

just above the surface,

Yet I'm already under

and living

within

the ocean.

Thank you.

CONSTANT CONTACT = CONSTANT FRUIT

Blinding flash of the obvious: God can make 'what happened, unhappen.'

For what happened to unhappen we "only" need purify our memories, remember without condemnation of self or others. Remember with love and laughter.

The grit and the grist of our part...for the "only" to happen...requires our upgraded attitude, which is hairy enough...we're talking surrender. That dreaded surrender is then transmuted into acceptance...acceptance that it is God and God alone who can and will purify our memories, change our mind. 

Our heartfelt acceptance clears the way for recognition that we do not go to God for to get anything. No...we go to God for God and that is all; God then makes our (yours, theirs and my) crooked places straight. 

There...constant contact with the God of our own understanding grows the fruit of our still more spiritual growth.

Thank you.

WE GO BEYOND REASON TO GOD

 The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. -- The 23rd Psalm

There. The promise of a mind at peace...I shall not want. 

The essential part of that sentence, the Lord is my shepherd, promises that it is with the Lord as our shepherd that we shall not want. Too often "we shall not want" is the attention-getter. When we fully recognize that the Lord is our shepherd, we are moved to the "not wanting" part. We realize just what "I shall not want" means, i.e., we have enough, and we shall never not have enough with the Lord as our shepherd. 

We are not promised more than enough...we will never need more than enough, we have enough. Point of fact, we have had more than enough and found it to be not enough.  

Enough, then, is our pearl beyond price. And our spiritual lesson comes to life...we must prove the words we speak or they are just so many words making noise. 

We have enough, so we not just can but we must freely give: From our hands and our feet, from our heart and our soul...and from the natural mind's first, money, made last, our money.

We give because we want to...never to get, but to give.

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

Thank you.

NOT BY WILL, BY WILLINGNESS

In my quiet time I ponder how we must go below what we know...to the place of unknowing. We must pass by our egoic mind, which lives in fear of showing our ignorance. Face it, we must needs be ready and willing to walk out undefended. Or, as it was put to me, you gotta show your butt in public. 

Next, I go to my readings. There is the quiet word spelled out: Unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. – Matthew 18:3

"To go below to the place of unknowing" is the child's mind, secure in unquestioning dependence on another...unknowing. 

I like the description of the teaching in Matthew as like unto a Zen koan, which invites listeners to hold two contradictory statements together until a new awareness arises.

Interestingly, just after I read the Zen koan quote, I came across a Marcel Proust quote: We are healed of suffering only by experiencing it to the full. 

We note suffering to the full to be healed of suffering is the essense of our learning to resist not; then we catch  "until a new awareness arises." There it is, the key...which is not "until we think of a new answer" but "until a new awareness arises."

We must go beneath that which we know, under all that our reasoning mind has garnered for our intellectual security. The new awareness exposes intellectual safety as just another false security blanket. 

Not to put on airs, but I like to think of us as being floated across our own Rubicon...not by will, but by willingness. 

Thank you.

OUR NEED IS THE FATHER'S CALL

Fear not being thrown into the lion's den for the lion in the den is Aslan. -- long ago blinding flash of the obvious

Old realization born again: I...I...to hear the invitation of I in I as All is all. 

I am becomes sacred with the realization that I am encompasses you and me, Putin and Pope Francis, a rock in the field and the lily of the valley in its bed, the jungle rat and any neighborhood saint...each an I, the I am of God.

To acknowledge that out loud and proud sullies it as untrue. To hold it in that hidey-hole within, the whereabouts hidden even to our own self, is to let it Be.

On the occasion that it shows itself to us, we bow our head and shout a silent Hallelujah. We go on about the business of the day...peaced, and quite unprepared to forget it.  Which, being human, we will...until we need it again. 

Here comes peace to quell our niggling fear by reminding us: The Father knows our needs. 

Thank you.