GRATITUDE: EVERYTHING IS BENEFICIAL

Morning's blinding flash of the obvious: Every bump in the road, every doubt in my mind, every pimple on my butt is for my benefit. And if mine, yours...ours. Ah, the grace of God. Thank you.

Apparently I needed that BFO because I am receiving less-is-best messages up the gump stump. 

By "messages" I mean that for a while now most actions/activities that are presented to me or by me are egoically mortifying. And by that I mean, I'm showing my butt in public...and all my talk about that being spiritual feels like so much el crapo. 

The good news is, I am brought back to giggles and grins faster than personally I could swing it. Oh, another BFO...or simply a self-evident thought:  Spontaneous laughter is purified evidence of gratitude...forced laughter is ego, 'edging God out.'

Dont tell me God doesn't have my back, or, for that matter, doesn't have a sense of humor which he shares constantly. Ours is to go with it...specifically, to get grateful and go with it. Which leads to another BFO or passing thought: When we live in the grace of gratitude, we never need to "get" grateful again...we be it.

God loves me so much...you, too!

Thank you.

SEEK LESS VIA SURRENDER AND GRATITUDE

Over and over and yet over again, we read that the Way to peace, love and joy, or peace of mind, is in the opposite direction of the way our egoic mind points us, natters at us, demands of us. 

Clearly, that is why Thérèse of Lisieux always speaks to me...which I forget until the next time I come across her teachings. Whenever I read that she taught the spirituality of imperfection, I feel gobsmacked. It's as if I've never heard of that before, then I recognize again...the answer is in imperfection. And forget it before the day is wrapped.

I also take comfort that she trusted her own experience rather than the teachings of her church. I take comfort probably because that is where I am today in trusting my own body rather than my doctor's drug-pushing medical advice...not to be overly perjorative about it.

Interestingly, many of my daily readings right now are directed toward give up, give over, give in, my  BFO gift of so long ago. For instance, one day, there was the memoirist Heather King's, We learn to love through frustration, disappointment, and failure. We learn through the seemingly trivial incidents of our daily lives.

The next day, here's Brené Brown, a contemporary teacher, who writes: It is in the process of embracing our imperfections that we find our truest gifts: courage, compassion, and connection. . . . 

These are experiential writings from which I take heart for they validate my BFOs and unproven thoughts. 

Egoic mind seeks ever and always to be right, spiritual mind accepts and welcomes Fr Richard's, We don't get to God by doing it right, we get to God by doing it wrong.

Thérèse of Lisieux humbly trusted her own experience and taught the spirituality of imperfection instead....[God] does not demand great actions from us but simply surrender and gratitude.

Thank you.

REALIZATION OF "THY WILL"

Quoting Rohr's September 27th Daily Meditation: "Paul says he experienced God telling him, 'My grace is sufficient for you. Power is made perfect in weakness.'" 

That morning's realization that Thy will is all I need...is all we need. 

We realize that at a deep level...trying to bring it back is staying in the egoic mind. Bask in it...let it be...do not study it for it is diminished through analitical study.

Trying to walk in our BFOs is counterproductive...the "trying" stays us in the material world. Howsomever, not trying to walk in our BFOs is counterproductive...not trying stays us in self.

A blinding flash of the obvious changes us without our effort or head-knowledge...whether we know it or not. 

Actually, we are often...usually...the last to know of our change...or to realize it fully, for sure. Others may notice, sometimes adversely (ah, there it is, the unintentionally beneficial) and remark or not...it is our inner self, our deeper level, God, that completes his work. 

We experience that in God's good time...often when we quit trying to make it happen.

It seems we are not that free to be honest, or even aware, because most of our wounds are buried in the unconscious. So, it is absolutely essential that we find a spirituality that reaches to that hidden level. If not, nothing really changes. -- Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, September 27, 2022

Thank you.

THY WILL, NOT MINE..IS ENOUGH

Failure and falling short are the best teachers; success has virtually nothing to teach us on the spiritual path. -- Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, February 21, 2021

It is a wondrous truth, as Fr Richard has asserted, that all spirituality is about letting go.

It came to me sometime back, and I suspect it is true, that in the end all that matters is what I have done for others. I've pondered that...a lot...and for me that is all about letting go. 

Face it, the rough and rutted road back to God boils down to the quiet word of John 11:44,  Loose him and let him go. Or, more to the point for our love-it-and-laugh need: Loose ego and let ego go.There it is...a lifetime of still more spiritual growth in six words.

Spiritual growth, the essence of ego deflation, is the entry way for the blinding flash of the obvious, which changes us without our effort or head-knowledge. Head-knowledge, or the reasoning mind, is possibly the hardest of all to temper...not to get rid of, because it does serve a good purpose, just not the better one. 

It is the reasoning mind that refuses to accept, thus keeps us trying so hard to "get," that which we've already "got." 

Reasoning mind translation: What we got here is failure to communicate. 

Spiritual translation: Loose it and let it go...or Thy will, not mine, be done.

Thank you.

GRATITUDE INVITES GRACE

Blinding flash of the obvious: A life well lived is lived for the benefit of the other.

Isn't that pretty? Our egoic mind says we need to memorize it so it can be quoted by rote. Then hard-earned experience awakens: To quote by rote is to miss the message. The message is that we do not get to pick and choose "the other," that one we want to live for the benefit of. 

That is the hook to a life well lived...for the benefit of another no matter who the other is...and the basis of a spiritually lived life. 

The truth we learn early and accept slowly is "the other" is almost always the one we'd like to smack, the one we'd like to set straight, the one we'd like to get out of our eyes...that one. The big reveal is that one is not always human, often is a situation, more often is monetary in nature, i.e., money, Honey. No matter...that one is our personal angel, God in disguise.

All the goodies we once so glibly quoted we are now experiencing: He goes before me to make the crooked places straight. Oh, we must be in the crooked place for it to be made straight. Get grateful for that crooked place. He lifts us out of the mud and the mire...we must be in that dark place to be lifted out. Be grateful...be graced.

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

Thank you.

IDLE THOUGHTS...POSSIBLE TRUTHS

All our rues, regrets and remorses are our answered prayers...it is unlikely any of them was done with the aim of getting God. No...it is probable that each was for ego satisfaction, albeit prettied up to appear selfless. Prettied-up selflessness is a rough and rutted road to ego deflation in depth, a.k.a., God. 

For not just our remorses is this true...all our dreads are here: Illness, physical and mental, broken  relationships and/or financial insecurity. We pray to be lifted out of our dreads but we must be in our dreads to be lifted out. God is only present Now...not in next April when taxes are coming due and what if we don't have the money and what to do, what to do.

Calm trust in God is the healer, the healer being God's will, and God's will rarely even resembles our want-to's will. His will may be our suffering not the mental threat but the material world actual...not just the dread of cancer, etc, but the actual itself.

There. To be calm in the face of a dread visited upon us is, plain and simple, to resist not evil. 

We quote those words, believe in those words, but those words made visible are God in his infinite mercy. They are just words until we are wrapped up within them...by their strutting their stuff while we're praying thank you...and meaning it.

All is within us. Right now. Has ever been within us. Cannot not be within us. Is being released for our benefit Now...whether we know it or not.

It is in the silence that we hear...as, if and when our Way is cleared by grace and by God.

Accepting that as an impossible human-condition exercise, brings us to crash and burn, the pearl beyond price. We learn we must detach from our want-to thoughts and welcome the realization that the mind cannot comprehend the gifts God has for us...neither his timing nor his way of delivery.

We sit and wait on the Lord and love and laugh while waiting. 

Thank you.

REMEMBERING OUR TRUTH...WITH LOVE

Love is not given to us to help us solve our problems. Love, rather, leads us into our problems.-- Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, September 9, 2022 

Love led me into my two special problems: First, from childhood, anxiety, that cursed blessing which is still leading me to love; and second, most precious, an incurable, progressive disease which took me to crash and burn from which I was lifted up into God consciousness.

I seek no new and different answers, I prove my truth by living: 

I already am one with God...
I already am that which I seek...
I already am all that God is, has, wants...
I already am...just as I am.

My "rest of the time," my seeking today, is trying to remember that truth...without guilt or shame. Ah, with love just as I am.

Thank you.

INHERENT FORGIVENESS

Idle thought or blinding flash: Forgiveness is the essence that holds civilization together...whether we know it or not.

According to me, forgiveness is not a think-it-out action, it is a movement from the heart with the suffering of heartbreak leading/pushing it forward.

It seems that all of our spiritual studies have brought us to the realization that originally our best hope was for peace, goodness and charity...or our idea of same. 

What we learn is that we are born with the reality of those as the divine within us. In our journey through life we experience the need not to get peace, goodness and charity, but to freely give peace, goodness and charity...the beginning of realizing the fullness of forgiveness.

To find inherent forgiveness is to experience the living God at the onset of a less-than-wonderful event. To our reasoning mind this is an Oh No! appearing, yet underneath we find this is a benefit from God for our still more spiritual growth. 

This usually requires an initial period of breast-beating, wailing and whining...the egoic mind having its say. The way is then cleared for forgiveness, i.e., the realization that this, too, is of God...for my benefit, proving again that my life is lived according to God's will whether I know it or not.    

Life is not to get, life is to give. Every time. For every reason. Without fail. Thank you.

Forgiveness is the great thawing of all logic, reason, and worthiness. -- Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, September 16, 2022 

Thank you.

FORGIVENESS...OUT OF SELF INTO GOD

The human sense may be our base on which we start life, necessary to get us going, but essential to shed bit by bit and little by little until, in God's time, we realize we must exchange our base, the egoic mind, to let the divine flow out.

Forgiveness is the last place we look or are willing to look...it is, however, the Open, Sesame, to our divine nature...to give of that which we most desire, to give from our toenails up, to give with our thoughts, both hands and  our heart. There...that is the essence of forgiveness...of living a turned-over-to-God life.

It does not come easy. It does not come by our thinking or talking or analyzing or planning...all of which are the necessary path we must take to realize and experience that we are going down that wrong road again, still.

We pray thank you for every misstep, for every anxious moment, for every self-determined objective...face it, they have delivered us to the place we need to be: Where we turn our will and our life over to the care of God for the benefit of others. 

Accepting as fact that the benefit is for others takes a lot longer to experience, but we are headed in the right direction...toward forgiveness as our way out of self into God. 

God does not eliminate or punish mistakes. He uses them for transformative purposes. -- Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, September 16, 2022 

Thank you.

SUFFERING THE SPIRITUALITY OF AGING

We all have reservoirs of fear, some large and some small and subtle, around entering this new terrain of unknown and mystery: our last years. What will aging to do me? To my body? To my mind?....If we are to claim the last years of life as years that hold the possibility of awakening into equanimity and lightness, into the very embodiment of grace, we need to bear witness to the ripening of that possibility. -- Kathleen Dowling Singh from Fr Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation, September 21, 2022

My sharing of my life's pains today then is my bearing witness to suffering the pains of aging...specifically, of my being 80+. 

I am reminded of my blinding flash of sometime back: It is not enough to believe that we trust the Lord...by our actions we must prove our reliance on the Lord. 

Never did I imagine that proving my reliance on the Lord would be all about the angst of aging. And according to the egoic me, nobody knows the angst of aging until their 80s. This is the time when the many wonderful sayings that have had our backs either mock us or comfort us in an entirely different dimension...I'm thinking, love and laugh. 

What a surprise...to love and laugh not from our head but our Soul is a whole 'nother story. 

I suspect this is my sharing my real suffering in grasping that love and laugh does not relieve us in the moment of our suffering...it just guides us through. Suffer we must or suffer we will...spiritually vs. mentally. 

The good news: To suffer spiritually is to have anxiety, fear of fear, panic...and God at our back; to suffer mentally is to have all those fears with the devil of our choice at our back, i.e., old, new and imagined rues, regrets and remorses.

Choose ye this day whom ye will serve. -- from somewhere in the Bible

Thank you.

GOD IS NEVER LATE

God Calling today, September 20, 2022:  God can bring order out of chaos, good out of evil, peace out of turmoil. 

Blinding flash of the obvious: We have to be in the bad, in the chaos, to be brought out...to turn back too soon only because "we know better" is still a self-determined objective. 

We must go down that dark and lonely road until our consciousness of the Father within us turns us around.

All that I have learned, all that I quote are being proven within me now. I either stay or not stay...God knows the time...and God is never late.

Thank you.

IN THE DREADED DARK, WE ARE GRACED

My poor prayer to my Father on awakening this morning was in deep and sincere gratitude for this seemingly dark period I am walking through. Then I read Fr Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation for today quoting Jesuit theologian and scientist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin...and I was graced.

When the signs of age begin to mark my body (and still more when they touch my mind); when the ill that is to diminish me or carry me off strikes from without or is born within me; when the painful moment comes in which I suddenly awaken to the fact that I am ill or growing old; and above all at that last moment when I feel I am losing hold of myself and am absolutely passive within the hands of the great unknown forces that have formed me; in all those dark moments, O God, grant that I may understand that it is You (provided only my faith is strong enough) who are painfully parting the fibres of my being in order to penetrate to the very marrow of my substance and bear me away within Yourself. --  Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Divine Milieu: An Essay on the Interior Life

Thank you.

LOOK BACK: CROOKED PLACE MADE STRAIGHT

What most of us would call the problem—the negative, the accidental, the sinful—is the precise arena for divine revelation. -- Hebrew Scriptures interpretation 

We are taught early in our spiritual education that affirmations are all right and good, but until we live what we are affirming, we are just repeating so many words.

One of my favorites, He goes before me to make the crooked places straight, is before me now for me to prove. My way has felt crooked, the straight has yet to show itself, my head has been "busy" so to speak.

Looking to Hebrew Scriptures, I feel a tish relieved in reading "the problem...as the precise arena for divine revelation." I also pull myself back with the reminder of my experience with divine revelation is that usually I realize it after the fact...as I look back days, weeks, even years later and marvel at the outcome of "the problem." 

So, here's me today...relying on the Lord to my pitiful best, with my chest tightening, my head feeling less than wonderful, yet inner-knowing that My Father has already solved my problem. This is the crooked road I get to walk...and whenever I am where I need to be, I will look back and marvel at the straightened path I walked.

Thank you.  

ACCEPTANCE...JUST SAY 'YES'

A while back, Fr. Richard Rohr, in describing a teaching of St. Paul's, wrote that if this is true, "then everything is a disguise: weakness is really strength, wisdom is really foolishness, death is really life, matter is really spirit, religion is often slavery, and sin itself is actually the trap door into salvation.”

I was excited to read even a passing reference to St. Paul's "mirror image" thinking because of my blinding flash a dozen years before when I saw the real possibility that all I see in my reasoning-mind world is, in effect, the opposite of God’s world…thus, my smart is God's not-so-much, my weak is God's strength, etc.

I'm guessing we've all had the experience of dreading a future happening which turned out to be for our best and/or anticipating a wonderful something that, when it arrived, was disappointing...and then some.

As I posted back then: Rohr’s description of St. Paul’s teaching encourages me to consider the possibility that my current troubles are simply the result of my trying to fix what I perceived as “bad” or trying to cling to that which I perceived as “good,” both being the opposite of God's will for me. 

Once we're given the understanding, further pondering is for naught. Acceptance is the answer.

Thank you.

LOVE LEADS US INTO...& OUT OF...OUR PROBLEM

Love is not given to us to help us solve our problems. Love, rather, leads us into our problems. -- Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, September 9, 2022

Isn't that wondrous? Isn't the truth of that wondrous! 

Love leads us into our problems, else how could we learn to love your enemy as yourself? Comes the dawn...our enemy is not always or even necessarily a human. Our enemy is whatever we are resisting.

Here's the answer: Whenever we feel resistance, turn into it, hug it and kiss it  and let it go without another thought.

Here's the problem: Without another thought. There it is...the rabbit hole. Do not go there. Which advice sends us there p.d.q. So go there. Ponder. Analyze. Argue. Debate. Beat breast. Wail. Surrender.

Surrender, ego's word for loser, God's word for peaced...and peaced is gratitue...and gratitude is love. 

We are now at the door of love...closed to the egoic mind, opened by grace's kiss on ego's lips, calming it as gratitude blooms...and God smiles.

That is how love leads us into our problem...by the grace of God and gratitude.

Upgrade your attitude, downgrade your problem. 

Thank you.

THANK YOU FOR THE GIFT OF THE UNWANTED

A good gauge of spiritual health is to write down
the three things you most want.
If they in any way differ,
you are in trouble.
—Daniel Ladinsky, "inspired by Rumi"

In trying to write down the three things I most want, many thoughts popped only to be rejected as not wholly true or even partly so. 

I did get some insightful truths about my walking-around beliefs on the way to making my list. Here are some that stuck:

• The trouble with isolation is that it fits so well. 
• Friends are valuable; non-friends are invaluable.
• We do not get to God on what another believes; we get to God on what we believe.
• Indecision is a lack of trust...we have universal faith in God; personal trust in God is a choice we must make at the time.
• Our life is lived according to God's will...whether we know it or not.
• Our basic need: To go to God for God and that is all. 
• Thank you gets us there.

Thank you.

RIGHT HERE AND RIGHT NOW, II

[Today's post is a reprint of my blog of January 31, 2013.] 

It is resistance to what is that causes mental paralysis.

It is our ego's legislating for itself (which is its natural state so we can only recognize that, not change it) that causes us pain. It is our attempts to avoid pain that brings the unintended consequence...of pain.

It is our nonresistance to our idea/fear of pain that leads us out of ourselves into God.

Primarily, the pain we are trying to avoid is psychic pain. Psychic pain is entirely personal, based in fear, and, if our choice is freedom from the bondage of self, there is no way around it...we must go through it.

We walk through it, unresisting (sometimes known as "beaten"), we get to the other side...lo, it's a miracle, life is good. Sometimes, life is good only because we got to the other side, but the overwhelming majority of the time, life is good because we have received a gift beyond our ability to plan for...we never knew it existed. It is understanding beyond our reasoning mind.

This is the pearl beyond price...this is God consciousness. The open field of nonresistance, acceptance, I'm not right/you're not wrong, and it makes no never mind anyway since we're all winners...and this place is only available to us right here and right now.

Thank you.

Back story: This post almost feels like a message to me from God since it so perfectly describes my journey  today. January 2013 was the month cosmic changes came to me to walk through...all of which I am still doing. Not to put on "mysterious" airs, on January 2, 2013, I joined a yoga class, then began physical exercise on a daily basis, along with yoga. I had attempted physical exercise annually since 1967...each time I lasted maybe six or seven weeks...never before had I tried yoga because "I don't know how."  I continue my regimen every week day to this day, and I feel in awe still. Enough said. Oh, thank you.

REALIZE FROM OUR TOES TO OUR NOSE, II

[The following is a reprint of my post of December 17, 2017.]

Again this morning the thought screams to me that if I'm not showing It, I'm only knowing it. We must needs realize It...realize that it is the Father within that does the work.

We can think more, analyze further, write on and on, but that is proof of knowing...and that is all.

Turn from the reasoning of this. Move just a teensy-tiny step forward with It as our guide. Providence, the Higher Power, Almighty God...by whatever name, It's on our side...moves in and completes our work. This takes time beyond imagining.

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

Thank you.

TO REALIZE DEEPER, ANALYZE LESS...NOW DO IT

Until [God] is passed on personally through faithfulness and forgiveness toward another, through concrete bonds of union, I doubt whether he is passed on by words, sermons, institutions, or ideas. - Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, July 3, 2022

According to me, we live in our own idea of the 4th dimension...believing our idea of God is right, as in, we've had proof, and we're clinging to it. 

That is the egoic-mind world we walk around in, and there in our walking around world is where we need to make peace, i.e., cease fighting everything and everybody. Which boils down to detaching from only our perception of God is right which. out of fear, we cling to it.

When we make peace within ourself, we are rocketed into the 4th dimension. To make peace within, we resist not evil...not by appeasing, cowering, pandering, placating...no. We seek to lessen our want-to by embracing our need-to...which is love, the love our head knows not of. 

That love lives within us we know not where, but it is there. It is almost always reached through crash and burn, self's way to do God's will, often called "the Gift Of Despair."

This is the hold-nose-jump place...where our egoic mind stands guard in its rigid, righteous and right coat of armor...and none but God gets by. Here's where we make the decision to trust being wrong to get right. Else what is God for?...if we always be 100 percent right, why God? 

Again and still we reap the gold of still more spiritual growth through the remembered words of Fr Richard, We don't get to  God by doing it right...we get to God by doing it wrong and of Thaddeus Golas, We must go beyond reason to love.

Thank you.

CHOOSE YE THIS DAY...THEN STAND ON IT

Two universal paths of transformation have been available to every human being God has created: great love and great suffering. . . . . .We must love 'with our whole heart, our whole soul, our whole mind, and our whole strength.' -- Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, August 14, 2022 

Blinding flash of me: Or is great love great suffering? But the question tells the tale...chances are I know naught about great suffering...and less about great love. 

Ah, but the chances are equal that I do know and just can't believe what I have known qualifies as "great." Not to put the fancy on it, but according to me there is no small-time suffering, hurt maybe, boo-boo of course...but suffering is suffering. Let us hope I restrain my want to quantify love. 

As I've been posting, I'm going through a hurting period. I'm clinging to my BFO upgrade attitude, downgrade problem. As opposed to a medical emergency aborning, I am chosing to believe this is my initiation period...God taking me deeper. 

To me, life itself is our initiation period...every minute is two-fold, leading us deeper into our Father within or leading us to our ego's home of self-determined objectives. The choice is ours, and there it is...suffering is in the indecision.

Choose ye this day whom ye will serve. 

Thank you. 

GREATER, AND REVERSE, GIFTS OF GOD

Blinding flash of the obvious: God trusts me! Thank you.

I remember the first time I heard someone share that they end all their prayers with, and I trust You. 

That resisted itself in my ear before it could journey any further. I never knew exactly why until I got my BFO this morning: God trusts me! Oh, the feeling of joy, peace and goodness I felt...and feel.

If you are trying sincerely to serve God, you will have other and greater [and reverse] rewards than the world [of the material mind] has to offer. (My edited version from another spiritual reader of mine.)

I remember when first I read the prayer, Be it done to me, oh Lord, according to Thy will. My Soul knew that was my prayer. Then immediately following came, ...my life is lived according to your will whether I know it or not. There. The pearl beyond price for real.

Thank you.

THE POWER OF RADICAL UNKNOWING

Going down that wrong road again is trying with a will to live an error-free life...a sin-free life. No matter how pretty we dress up a self-determined objective, it is still a self-determined objective. 

Our heart is in the right place...it cannot not be in the right place for it is a hidey-hole of God. It is our mind...our egoic mind...that ever speaks louder, deals from the bottom of the deck, leads for self alone. 

The harder lesson comes with the need to change our mind. For now we find that doing it wrong is doing it right..."right" is our road to Golgotha, the way toward the crucifixion of self-will. 

As is written by so many spiritual seekers, we will fail, we will act contrary to our own spiritual being, we will "show our bum in public"... again and yet again. It seems we need to be egoically wrong to get spiritually right.

Going down that wrong road again? Aha! Heading in the right direction. Away from self-will toward God's will...whether we know it or not.

John of the Cross illumines the transformational power of radical unknowing. He reminds us that when everything in us wants to rush out and fix the problem of our brokenness, both individual and collective, the wisest and most loving thing to do is to be still, letting go of our attachment to the way we thought the spiritual life was supposed to feel and the sense we assumed it should make. -- Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, August 18, 2022

Thank you.

MEDITATIVE THOUGHTS ON THE 23RD PSALM

Thoughts received while in meditation on the 23rd Psalm:
  
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want for I am enough, I have enough, I shall never not have enough.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures * * * restoreth my soul * * * leadeth me in the paths of righteousness....

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death...alone, abandoned, scorned, mocked, rejected...I shall fear no evil for Thou art with me.

Thy rod and thy staff...love and laughter...they comfort me.

Thou preparest a place before me in the presence of mine enemies...my rues, regrets and remorses, each one God's sliver of gold, all paving my rough, rutted and rocky road back to you, God, the Father Divine, within.

Surely goodness and mercy shall lead me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the consciousness of the Christ forever.  

Amen...May It Be So.

Thank you.

LOVE IS NONRESISTANCE, PLAIN AND SIMPLE

There are no dead ends, though there seem to be many. There is no wasted time, no useless characters, no random happenings. All has meaning. It is a wholly enchanted universe; God is in all things waiting to speak and even to bless. -- Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, September 4, 2022

During the quest for still more spiritual growth, we make our deepest progress when we feel least connected, loved, understood...that which is truth to our egoic mind at any rate. That feeling of separation is our letting go of our own idea of safety, security, love. 

We are proving by our own experience the truth of that which we quote so often...we must go beyond reason to love.

The break from our egoic mind is our egoic mind using our fear to hold us closer...our fear of debilitating illness, of dementia...our fear of being abandoned, left all alone...our fear of becoming a bag lady living on the streets, of poverty. Who's kidding whom?...our fear without the chutzpah.

The essential break, of course, is when we realize...and can welcome from within through our realized trust in God...that if all of those fears come true, they come with God as our nonresistant sword and shield. 

We are proving by our own experience the truth of that which we quote so often...resist not evil.

If all this be true, and it is, why do we automatically...or is it inherently?...hesitate to trust God? To trust that God's will can only bring grace to us, to any and all...and, no, that is not an answerable question. It is God. 

Thank you.

IDLE THOUGHTS AND BFOs

According to me:

Humility is expensive. To our egoic mind, humility is too expensive...until that mind's sayso loses control. When we are left with no choice, we crash and burn. Then...it is in looking back that we realize how well worth the price was.

Higher vision knows to seek lower not higher...no, not to seek, to welcome.

Definition of acceptance: If we're looking out there, we're looking in the wrong direction.

Our rues, regrets and remorses are the slivers of gold of God...for our benefit, every single one. Ah, but only as seen through our higher vision...and only when looking back.

Substitute ego for evil and nonresistance for love.

Fear not being drawn into the lion's den for the lion in the den is Aslan.

Thank you.

MATERIAL-MIND FEAR AND TRUST IN GOD

'The journey to happiness involves finding the courage to go down into ourselves and to take responsibility for what’s there. * * * During the quest, God speaks and leads through family, failure, violence, visitors, betrayal, sexuality, nature, shadow, and vision. Every person and every event [we] encounter is a necessary and grace-filled occasion. * * * The aim is to experience the fact that everything belongs—the good, the bad, and the ugly.' -- Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, September 4 and 5, 2022

When first I read those Meditations, I felt touched and, eyebrows up, welcoming...a sense of expectant waiting. 

Then I realized: When I turned 80, my entire insides turned upside-down and backward to a new forward. The shadows and shakes I walk through, the fear which hovers whenever it wants to, all are material-mind fears...ah, but God's pathway. 

During the quest, God speaks and leads through failure, nature and vision...i.e., everything. 

I have named my today's experiences "my life at 80." I accept no fault, I claim no credit, this is...apparently...what to expect by just not dying. 

I take heart in this since my now-80 BFF from high school is having like experiences...same as my today's friends are who are 80 (not 79, not "same as," but actually 80 and over). That confidence, of course, comes from the God of our own understanding. Trust in that God...feeling pea-green-purple petrified or calm as a clam...is all it takes to walk through the EEK and holy-moley! feelings to peace. 

I admit I'm comforted by the above quotes from Fr Richard, but for me daily and still, a quote lifted from an early '80s Henry Mitchell column in The Washington Post is my paraphrased golden rule: 

I just try not to be as nasty as I want to be...for which I gotta go to God. 

Thank you.

TO GROW IN CONSCIOUSNESS THROUGH MYTH

Per Fr Richard this morning, September 4th: The power of myth and legend can help us grow in consciousness and maturity.

My blinding flashes of the obvious have this power for me. To some, they are just whoo-whoo so I'm good with limiting my sharing of them. Actually, I'm following the direction found somewhere in the Bible where it instructs us: Tell no man. (My take expanded: "Tell no hu/man our God-secrets.") 

My morning blinding flash of the obvious: My worst fear is God's perfect blessing.

As I ponder that, my understanding expands: 

My worst fear is God's perfect blessing in disguise.

My worst fear is God's perfect blessing in waiting. 
My worst fear is God's perfect blessing waiting for me to go for it.

My worst fear is God's perfect blessing waiting for me to go for it by my crash and burn, i.e., surrender. 

My worst fear is God's perfect blessing waiting for me to go for it by my surrender unto acceptance. 

Thank you.

Thank you.

THE GIFT OF UNKNOWING

[The following is a reprint of my post of  December 31, 2015.]

The more we know, the more we know we don't know...reasoning mind weeps, Spirit exults.

Thank you.

HALLELUJAH! GOD LOVES US SO

Passing thought this morning: Egoic fear falls under my Plavix rule...it is God's will in disguise.

Which is to say, penniless, dementia, alone, ailing...all are "fear of" as was my Plavix pill which God's will made mute. That which we resist is a God blessing when we let it be. Thank you.  

Then I read Fr Richard quoting Matthew 20:16, 'So the last will be first, and the first will be last.'  

There, the Spiritual Law of thank you: When fear is moved up front, out of hiding, into the light, thank you begets God's blessing, a peaced mind. 

Simplified, fear is God in egoic disguise, pray thank you, worrit not, and keep on truckin'.

Thank you.

GOD'S WILL PRESENT WITHOUT OUR SAY-SO

My BFO of August 25th:  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.

This morning as I read that, my August 25th journal entry, I note in particular:  my health and my decisions about my health are not mine but Thine, and I trust that.

It was on August 27th that I had my not my want-to, but God's will event:  "There, against my want-to, but with God's will, the answer to my self-determined turmoil was lifted, and I laughed...."

I rarely remember my BFOs unless they play out before me, sometimes weeks to years later. Stumbling on my journal entry this morning clarifies it all as the same sliver of gold; i.e., the 25th I am led to openly commit to God's decisions about my health, then on the 27th in innocence or ignorance I am inadvertently swallowing God's will in pill form. Then laughing about it as I am promptly relieved of more than a week of what-to-do, what-to-do turmoil. To me, that is pure proof of God's willingness to intervene in our life on our behalf. 

God loves me so much! And you! And them! Especially the them that I don't love so much...oh my yes, my little pill, the stand-in for all my opinionated aversions.

Don't tell me God isn't present in our everyday every day. 

Thank you.