SEEK LESS...ON THIS NOTHING WE NOW LIVE

You have come to that point in consciousness where you are seeking for what the world calls the intangible. When you came to a spiritual teaching, you knew in advance, or soon learned, that you were going to obtain nothing in the external realm. What you were seeking was the Invisible, that which cannot be seen, heard, or known. And yet you were seeking to be able to see, hear, and know just that. Through that seeking, you are coming to know that which is unknowable, see that which is invisible, hear that which is inaudible. And on this Nothing you now live. -- Joel Goldsmith, "Leave Your Nets"

We go to God for God...and that is All.

Thank you.

ACCEPTANCE...GOD'S HIDEY HOLE

Whatever we are resisting with all our heart, soul, body and brains is kept alive by those obsessive attempts to make it not true. Resistance is non-acceptance plain and simple.

Yet, the secret about acceptance is the minute we accept the truth of that which we are resisting, that changes it.

We may not like it, but we are no longer resisting it. Which, by grit and by grace, leads us to crash and burn, also known as surrender made holy...purely because we find there in the ashes of self-will the place where God lives.    

We surrender to the fact that we do not know, we do not know what we do not know, we are helpless in the face of that fact, and we need help. We turn to that unseen power greater than our self to find a way to live without our today's heart's desire.

That is acceptance. 

Thank you.

[NOTE: This is pieced together from my blog of December 30, 2015.]

WE GIVE OVER UNCONDITIONALLY...WITH LOVE

We learn early on that we are the source of all our woes, and that resentment is the trigger for our woes. Best we learn early and not forget that justified resentment...can there be any other?!...is purely willful ignorance. A get-out-of-jail-free delusion.  

The good news is that there are tools to use to head off a resentment completely. The bad news is to own those tools, we must be willing to give over to whatever/whomever we are resenting. To give over unconditionally. With love.

All of which brings us back to the God news...our mind is being changed. Our consciousness is being raised...we are being focused on better than our egoic feelings, and only good can come from that.

It's a given that ego is ever available to us and has but one goal...to legislate for itself. But we know this: When we made our decision to throw in with God and God alone, we began to receive still more spiritual growth daily...away from ego to a higher level deeper.

We must go beyond reason to love.

Thank you.

OUR LACK OF OPENNESS IS OUR OPENING

I have felt for a time now that I am on the verge of a breakthrough. Of what, to what, I know not, so I may well be...or not...on the verge of a breakthrough. Of a major change, I'm guessing.

Recently, I've been reading about the need for communion, for connection, for unity...and agreeing by not thinking about it.

Then I read in Fr Richard's Daily Meditation this morning: Jesus’ radical unity with the Holy One defined his life, and his prayer indicates that he wants that same radical unity to define those who follow. . . .Our lack of openness to all may very well mean our demise.

I immediately flashed that I talk Oneness but the idea of having a full-time other in my life is anathema to me...which I am very well aware of, even joke about it. 

It was that closer, Our lack of openness to all may very well mean our demise, that got my attention. And not the idea of our demise in the usual sense of personal death, but in the sense of that change I have been sensing...an idea, a way of being, changing my mind without knowing my mind has been changed? Just slowing becoming aware that I'm living in a different place? 

I suspect that has already happened, and I'm just getting the word. 

Old saying, still true: More will be revealed.

Thank you.    

WE CAN WALK FREE, II

[The following is a reprint, slightly reworked, of my post of December 2, 2012.]

There's a story in the Old Testament that I've made my own...mine likely bears small resemblance to what was written, but it works for me. I use it today to help me become willing to divorce myself from my own opinions.

Long/short: It's the story of Joseph who was sold into slavery by his jealous brothers. He was imprisoned, came under the protection of the Pharaoh, and rose to be the Pharaoh's right-hand man. The brothers come into some rough sledding, go bankrupt and, near starving, go to Joseph and, knowing they need to get on his good side, admit their jealous behavior and beg forgiveness. 

In response to their admission, he says, in effect, "You meant it for ill, but God meant it for good."

That's all we need remember to let go of our attachment to our resentments of others. Now, instead of wallowing in resentment, we meditate on God's meaning this for our good...and are given permission to find our gold in it.

Find our gold, and we've found our gratitude...we've upgraded our problem. We can say a sincere "thank you" to God and to whomever we've been resenting. We can walk free.

Thank you.

THE WAY DIVINE...FORGIVE, RESIST NOT

The True Self still must be awakened and chosen....The Presence needs to be recognized, honored, and drawn upon to become a living Presence within us. -- Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, December 25, 2022

To me, the True Self is realized through our exchanged mind. The egoic mind, or the reasoning mind, is necessary in our day-to-day living...but more and more we come to the realization that we must deny our egoic mind its say. 

Just yesterday I experienced Gertrude in a less-than-wonderful light...meaning she got over on me. Well. I have not been obsessing about it, but I have not forgotten it. Who's kidding whom? Obsession is about three steps behind and coming on fast.

In my quiet time this morning I saw my way clear of Gertrude...agree with  her. Resist her not. Forgive her. I recalled my BFO that forgiveness is simply nonresistance. 

For the True Self to be awakened and chosen we must awaken and choose to do the opposite of what our ego is nattering about...namely, stop her and top her, don't let her win!   

Until we actually live give over, give up, give in, those are just pretty words to some, anathema to others. To us, from our own experience, they are the rough and rutted road, the Way divine, to the Father within.

It is comforting that our consciousness is raised so slowly due to the many self-selected detours all along the way...if we're doing it right. How else do we loose them and let them go?

The pearl beyond price: We are realizing the Father with us every misstep along the way...becoming a living Presence within us.

Thank you.

THE THIEF WAITING BY THE SIDE OF THE ROAD, 2

[The following is a reprint of my post of December 25, 2014.]

The thief waiting by the side of the road in order to steal all our worldly goods? That thief is ego. The worldly goods? Those are self-determined add-ons. They begin with fear...namely, fear of losing all our worldly goods.

I am reminded: My gifts are not of this world...be of good cheer I have overcome this world.

I want to remember that it seems every time I hear of or read about a better or deeper or easier or harder Way, I immediately KNOW I am (and have been all along) doing it wrong, and I need to try this other Way.

What I really need to remember is that that is the thief waiting by the side of the road.

Thank you.

SEEK HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS--EGO-B-GONE

Where is this God being revealed? Not in the safe world, but at the edge, at the bottom, among those where we don’t want to find God, where we don’t look for God, where we don’t expect God. — Richard Rohr

There it is, plain and simple, our idea of good and God's will are two different things entirely. The good news: God's will is aborning; our idea of good is receding.

Basically, our idea of good has been whatever we believe will benefit us personally. We dress it up as "for the good of humankind" or, even better, for the way holy, "for the good of my enemy."  Unquestioning, we bask in the warm ego glow, knowing that is of God.

God's will is where we don’t want to find God. Face it...where we don't think to look...where egoic mind cannot accept God could be found.

True story: In the early '90s, a dear friend was diagnosed with breast cancer. A lotta, lotta begging went into "take it away, God, please, please, please." 

He did not. 

However, in the medical prep, her entire body needed to be X-rayed and lo! A just-forming cancer was found in her lung. If not for the first finding of cancer, the second would not have been found early. According to her doctors, the 99 out of 100 percent chance would be of her dying from lung cancer  later. Lung cancer was at that time, and maybe still is, the primary cancer killer. 

God's will, God's way...both cancers were successfully removed, she is cancer-free today thirty some years later. Who, being prepped for breast cancer surgery, would think finding lung cancer, too, might be a fine reason for gratitude?   

My hardest lesson a-learning? Accepting the truth that praying for God's will to be done regarding a self-perceived need is still a self-determined objective...not necessarily of God. Then trusting thank you unto living it is sufficient.

Thank you.

WANT A PEACED MIND? GET OVER YOURSELF

It has long been a realized truth for me that I have but one defect of character: I take myself too seriously. 

The rest of the story: When (not if) I find myself in the middle of that defect, taking myself too seriously, already innumerable defects had birthed themselves, each one resisting me, my life, you, them, God...what is, in short.

Depending on the state of my spiritual condition, I quickly or not quickly enough recall the lifeline:  As important was the discovery that all our problems could be solved by spiritual principles.

Keeping it simple, I've found that the spiritual principle that upgrades our thinking, feeling, doing, being is whatever personally works for us. It is not overly important what we turn our mind to as long as we turn it away from our self...away from our perceived problem which is...always...self disquised as An Other.

Personally, I try to go to thoughts of lilies of the valley. A peace follows, and fairly soon thereafter a grin is working its way free as I say, "Oh, get over yourself!" 

Who's kidding whom? It is self alone that is the block to God. So there, my go-to spiritual principle...Get Over Yourself.

Thank you. 

RESISTANCE NURTURES RESISTANCE

Blinding flash of the obvious:  My spiritual principles today are based on a new way of thinking; namely, for the benefit of the other. 

"The other" is our own mental picture of what or whom we are resisting at the moment....could be a person or a habit or even a memory.

New way of thinking: No matter the perceived problem, the solution begins with thank you. 

Recalling the spiritual lesson what you see is always yourself, we slowly learn for the benefit of the other can only come through gutbucket acceptance...of our own self. Which is a whole new trip. 

Many of us seek self-acceptance through self-flagellation. That's akin to trying to stay out of trouble with our creditors by robbing banks...uh-oh. 

Self-acceptance comes by way of the very warts we try so hard to erase, delete...hide. 

The warts we try so hard to hide is the trick pony...that keeps them mentally front and center. Resistance nurtures that which we resist.

Warts...hug them and kiss them and let them go. And no, there's not a chance we will ever fully understand the exact how of it...that's how faith is born and trust grows. 

It is the very welcoming, not resisting, that opens us to God's will, God's way. 

Thank you.

SPIRITUAL LACK SAVES US BY BREAKING US

According to Fr Richard, what human beings want is resurrection without death, answers without doubt, the conclusion without the process. 

There it is, truth on the hoof. 

Especially appealing to the egoic mind is the wish for answers without doubt. But, who's kidding whom? All three parts get an emphatic, albeit rueful, Yes!  

Interestingly, resurrection without death gets the least mental time...probably because we have little  consciously vested interest there. "Answers without doubt" is a daily as is "conclusion without the process." Death, I suspect, falls under the safety net of denial so we seldom visit there.

Our material world is all about self, self-interest. But isn't life itself? We beat ourself for being so self-centered but, be it by sex, society and/or security, what has more claim to our head and heart than a  satisfied self? There's a paradox...it is spiritual lack that saves us by breaking us. 

Our own quagmire...built by self, felled by self...holds the key for our redemption: Utter and complete powerlessness. It is only when the egoic mind is running on empty, and in defeat owns that, that we are freed...unknowingly freed...to begin our spiritual growth.

Fr Richard puts the cap on it with this truth that we must needs experience: Our love affair with God is always going on inside of us, almost in spite of us, and all we can do is start saying 'yes' and start recognizing and honoring it. 

Unless and until we experience the power of "yes," a.k.a., "resist not," and recognize/honor a Power greater than ourself, we will stay stuck in self living in fear of not having enough...not enough food, friends, money.

Leave your [safety] nets and follow Me.

Thank you.

ACCEPTANCE...A HIGHER REALITY

Today my definition of Love is nonresistance to what is.

My deepening sense is Love comes in a single dot of Divine within...within each and all, everyone and everything. I understand it not at all, but I do believe that none...human, animal, plant, water, stone...is without that minute dot of Divine.

I believe our dot of Divine is nourished by Love, nonresistance to what is, and it grows us by our missteps, mistakes and errors in judgment.

Slowly comes the dawn, that which our reasoning mind resists, any mistake, is that which God adores for those are the slivers of gold that paves our way back to him.

Our resistance to what is...our resistance to Love in a word...is fed by our continuing reliance on our egoic mind.

The inevitable crash and burn for us is God's hand up, up to the higher consciousness of Love...nonresistance to what is. Which, in God's good time and our willingness to be open, we realize is acceptance.

We are lifted out of resignation, stuck in self, up to a higher reality, acceptance.

According to me, resignation is self-centered fear, stuck in self not daring to trust a power greater than our puny self. Acceptance is unquestioned reliance on a Higher Power, that single dot of Divine which lives in us solely for our benefit.

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

Thank you.

YET STILL MORE SPIRITUAL GROWTH

Blinding flash of the obvious: God is not only in this world, this universe, but in all the galaxies. God is all good, therefore good is primary in all there is, seen and unseen, known and unknown, discovered and to be discovered...good is primary, paramount. Resist not. 

It is not that which our eye can see, that our reasoning mind can understand, that proves God...it is that which cannot be seen, cannot be reasoned. This, too, we meet with love. Life is not for us to manage or to control for our advantage, life is for us to welcome as is with the love of God we hold within. 

Our mind has long since been changed from believing that proof of God is in the material good in our life...lifted higher...up to the bane of life being our boon. We are ever awakening...our eyes are ever opening. 

This is the same journey today only higher still...away from either gathering or giving God's good to living it. Now we see our good is gathered and/or given by grace and by God.

It is not an easy adjustment...words alone no longer have heft, our thoughts are still hauling too much weight. Slowly, we are adjusting to this, the same inward journey it has ever been since recognizable time began...always deeper, to a higher consciousness. 

Our trust is in God's will, God's way already perfected life as we live it.

Thank you.

LET IT BE...LOVE AND LAUGH

My blinding flash of the obvious aborning: I need to 'find' God deeper, my own God, the God I inner know is with me within me.

Later, I came across a quote of Fr Richard's: You cannot not live in the presence of God. This is not soft or sentimental spirituality; ironically, it demands confidence that must be chosen many times, and surrender that is always hard won. 

To me, the most important part of that message is, ...it demands confidence that must be chosen many times, and surrender that is always hard won. Like I don't eyebrows-up know that? Like I don't preach that on the street corners of my mind! 

OH...the great stand-up-and-shout word: That means I'm doing it right. 

That's the message...it demands confidence that must be chosen many times. With surrender digging in its heels behind. 

God's will, God's way is becoming one of my most important flashes. Looking back, I recognize God's will had become pretty much rote to me.

God's way is my new flash that seems to deepen daily. Its message is not new...cannot be new...it is the meaning that deepens, that expands my own consciousness, that gives fear a hand up to unfear...to the simplistically holy whatever will be, will be.

Again, the Father knows our needs...and, again, Yes! 

Thank you.

LEARNING BY LOOKING BACK

Keep it simple. Utter simplicity lies in the two vows that sustain our still more spiritual growth: (1) Let go of the idea that we have an alternative, and (2) love and laugh.

Here's me today: Remembering many of the mistakes I made ten, twenty, thirty years ago...for which I have found peace in my apologies and amends...and today am learning from them at a way deeper level. 

The punchline seems to be heading me toward my long-since forgiven mistakes, missteps and errors in judgment, my slivers of gold, as my now learning board. 

When others, friends and unfriends, are doing now that which I did then, my need is to silently with a loving attitude surrender my thoughts, detach from any judgment...good or not good...and trust me to give over, give up, give in by grace and by God. 

New to me is that I do not need to overthink it, I inner know.  There...me actively experiencing my trust in the Father within. 

When, not if, I am wrong, I will be turned in the right direction...with love and laughter. The same love and laughter I'm learning how to now extend to others which is different from my love and laughter of yesterday...there's no self in it, only awe and a certainty that only I can screw this up. Ah, and when I do, I get to love and laugh.

God loves me so much. You, me, us...God loves.

Thank you.

ON TRUST...AND GIVING GOD A GRIN

The spiritual experience is about trusting that when we stop holding ourselves, Inherent Goodness will still uphold us. Many of us call that God, but it isn’t necessary. It is the trusting that is important. -- Fr Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation, December 16, 2022

I often say that the hardest thing life will ever ask of us is that we change our mind. Fairly often I will  receive the quiet word: We cannot change our mind, but God can and will...whether we seek it or not.

I hesitantly admit that I wrote in my journal just this morning that I am having my mind changed...which was news to me even as I wrote: 

I am becoming willing to be the first to give over, give up, give in...not by self-will but by grace and by God. My egoic mind is not stupid...it is trying to insert itself for the glory. So far I have been brought back...to let God peace my mind and my heart toward another.

Further, it is in today's God Calling that it is written: Stop thinking your lives are all wrong if you do not feel it. According to me, that is one of the most important sentences in the entire book. I suspect many of us doubt purely because we do not feel it enough, 

Ah, I am brought into the fullness of trust, and I am realizing that trusting God is not a seamless feeling of peace, love and joy. 

Trusting God is often realizing the love I have within me, whether I feel it or  not, is held within me at the ready for the unforeseen need of another. The other being the one arriving in my consciousness at the moment and, face it, the one who is often. and for real, a reasoning-mind rejectable. 

Trust can never be self-generated; it is, however, generated from within. We hug it and kiss it and never let it go even...especially...when we do not feel it. 

According to me, that's called, giving God a grin.

Thank you. 

LIFE REALLY IS LIKE A BOX OF CHOCOLATES, 2

[The following is a slightly reworked rewrite of my post of October 22, 2015.]

Life is a conundrum, a paradox, an enigma:

How do we get love? We give love away.

How do we get a vibrant, alive and spirit-filled mind? Through silence.

How do we overcome our enemies? Embrace them.

How do we win an argument? Agree...quickly.

How do we know for certain sure there is a God? We don't.

How do we accept not knowing? We laugh.

How do we laugh when reliance on God is seriously essential in our life? We love and laugh.

Where do we learn how to love and laugh? From the Father within.

Thank you.

GOD IS PRESENT NOW...ONLY NOW

Blinding flash of the obvious: My God, why hast thou forsaken me? There...the ultimate death of ego. 

Again, the paradox...again counterintuitive. 

With still more spiritual growth, this is subject to change, but right now I submit that spiritual growth demands the end of our reliance on "common sense."  Paradoxically, our answers now seem to question our utmost trust in the God of our own understanding: Against our want-to, will we out loud admit our doubts, fears, trepidations? 

When the answer is of God, as all spiritual answers are, it seems it must needs be counterintuitive. Thus, we must admit our doubts out loud for anyone to hear...or not. Ah, the crash and burn of ego. God arises in our consciousness from the ashes of our ego's flameout...and we are reborn as Love.

That may be the real test of our understanding of our chosen God. Looking back, I realize that until I passed my own test, the God of my understanding was just so many pretty words.

A comfort to me is knowing that there is no God in yesterday, there is no God in tomorrow, there is only God Now. 

Thank you.

GOD IS EXPERIENCED THROUGH LOVE ALONE

God refuses to be known intellectually. God can only be loved and known in the act of love; God can only be experienced in communion. -- Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, December 8, 2022 

God can only be known in the act of love. Hmmm. I ponder that each time I reread it. It grows deeper with each reading.

Today the thought flits by...an act of love is having a two-sided discussion (me on one side, s/he on the other), and it ending with hugs...nobody's mind changed but no quarreling either. 

I experienced that yesterday. At the end of our discussion, I knew as we parted with hugs that God's hand was in that. He had guided us through because I doubt not in the egoic mind of each of us was the unspoken certainty: I am right.

Why wouldn't it be? Instead of beating the bejesus out of our self about such a self-centered thought, open our mind to the reality of human nature. I started the conversation with my opinion in the form a a question...she responded with her opinion which was the opposite of mine. We discussed the whys and wherefores, and ended with a silent agreement that neither of us was going to change our mind, so pish-tosh. 

Now to watch how God grows the seed that was planted. God's will, God's way...meaning, the seed that grows will likely have not a whit to do with our discussion. The discussion may well have been the fertilizer needed to grow the something better that can now come.

My plan is the hardest for me, as in, to sit and wait on the Lord...I'll need God's help there for sure. 

This I know:  I am in charge only insofar as i let Me be.  

Thank you.

TRUST AND BE FREED TO LOVE AND LAUGH

Blinding flash of the obvious: To come to truly trust myself, I must openly meet my fear...anxiety, suspicion, et al...whenever it makes itself felt within me. 

I tend to think of openly meeting fear as a surreal "meet and greet." Spiritual growth has taught us we can neither top fear, nor stop fear, and as long as we are trying to, it owns us...we are powerless in its grip.   

So to openly meet fear, we must walk through it, God's will, God's way...shaking and quaking if that be the way, and before friend, foe, or unknown passerby. 

Here's the lesson...to walk through fear openly does not give us ownership, it gives us the peace that passes understanding. To resist it by affirmations and the like is still resistance  and gives it ownership...there is no peace there. 

This I know, fear will come to call whenever a mental, physical or spiritual opening appears to it. The egoic mind's hard bar to cross is that it cannot banish, manage or control fear. 

Oh wait, here's a BFO to ponder...looking to end fear is to deny God his perfect work. 

Spiritual growth is still teaching us that in our time of trouble, on God's timetable, we can and will hear the Word: Be at peace....I have perfected this. In trust, we are freed to love and laugh.

Thank you.

GRACE DISGUISED = RAISED CONSCIOUSNESS

Coming In On a Wing and a Prayer...one of my favorite World War II songs...describes how I am feeling this morning.

Here's my personal paradox:  I am realizing...in wonder!...that ego deflation in depth is the birth of raised consciousness. Lest we forget: Ego Reduction In Depth (ERD) is personally, thus excruciatingly, painful, and it is such because it is reasoning-mind embarrassing...humiliating if we're doing it right.

When, not if, we try to make an end-run around the pain, know this: ERD cannot be sought-after, prayed for, "welcomed" in a word. No matter how we imagine ERD, it never shows up there. Plain and simple: It is not of this world. If it were of this world, we would go for control, try to get on top of the situation, stay stuck in ego paradise in fact. 

My mentor used to say...and I lovelovelove the phrase...Showing your ass in public is also spiritual.  

I'm coming from experience when I share that showing our bum in public can be as spiritual as it needs be, but actually doing it is pure pain. 

But here it is...the birth of the wondrous news. After my honest-and-true doing the deed...given the necessary deflation time for God to usher in his spiritual principles (or for a good friend who calls to talk about it), I am peaced. The peace that passes understanding. 

The fact of the egoic humiliation still stands...but it is weeping now for it has lost its power, its meaning, its reason for living.

This, then, is the spiritual necessity for ego reduction in depth: To raise our consciousness.

To raise our consciousness another inch or another mile, makes no nevermind...we are in God's territory again. 

Fear not the pain of ego deflation. After the fact, never before, we realize that was grace disguised as  humliation and trailing peace behind her...ah, another Angel Unaware.

Until we meet a benevolent God and a benevolent universe, until we realize that the foundation of all is love, we will not be at home in this world. That meeting of God, that understanding experience, cannot be communicated by words. It is a gift given through encounter with Spirit. -- Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, December 11, 2022

Thank you.

GOD IS NOT AVAILABLE ON DEMAND

The spiritual question is this: Does one’s life give any evidence of an encounter with God? Does this encounter bring about through us....the “fruits” of the Spirit: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, trustfulness, gentleness, and self-control”? -- Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, December 12, 2022 (slightly edited)

I'm about half convinced that any evidence of an encounter with God that we recognize is as like to be ego talking as God. Which is as it needs be...ego is reduced just as God is enhanced by our recognition of them. We resist not ego, we hug it and kiss it and let it go...we resist not God, we pray our thank you and know gratitude.  

The hard-to-accept reality, according to me, is that we do have moments of love, joy, etc., every day...moments, fleeting Angel Unaware moments. I suspect God ensures our unawareness, knowing full well that a consciously aware ego would snatch and run with it as its own.

The tripwire is that God's fruits, love, joy, peace, patience, etc., are not available on demand. They are gifts,  present in a heartbeat, leaving a glow in our heart. We are on the road to an unfailing faith that works when these fleeting moments, coming without our knowledge or control, send us to bed smiling because "something touched me today." There...each time, we doubt less that it was God.

To me, in the end, our true test is realizing God-encounters for the benefit of another.  A God encounter brings change, an elevated consciousness...that is free wonder and glory. The change is proven when, not if, we freely pass it on without censure or selection...see a soul in need, silently love them consciously and freely.    

Blinding flash of the obvious: God's will, God's way =  the other's will, the other's way...with love. 

Thank you.

IT IS IN DOING, NOT JUST KNOWING....

I am blessed beyond knowing. My material life has been feeling...let's be kind and call it "unsettled." Or, to speak my me language, "FUBAR." 

What I learned way back then, and it seems to be holding, is: I must go to a meeting and, without explanation, justification, or apology, share my embarrassing...humiliating!...fear. 

The very thought invites ego to do my thinking for me, as in, Don't do it...you just know everybody will snicker at me and think I deserve it and will tell everybody their suspicions are true, that I am a phony and a fool.

With thoughts akin to those, I did the dirty yesterday. I shared my "unsettled" me at a meeting, felt not a whit better, ate dinner, got out of me enough to cheer WNBA star Brittney Griner's homecoming....and here comes God calling in the form of a friend from the meeting. 

She heard me, she lent me her lift, we laughed and scratched, and I went to bed knowing I done good. I did what I'd learned way back then, which, before the fact, feels no better now than it did then. 

The fact to cling to: It is in the DOing...the showing our bum in public...that it becomes spiritual, the pearl beyond price.

God is so good to me...to us. He does not, he cannot, he has never deserted any one of us...even when, never if, we fall into that trap of egoic fear for self image. I'm convinced that the fault is our believing that falling into the egoic-fear trap is wrong. 

That which we think is wrong with us we finally realize is and has ever been God's will for us...that which makes us whole as our own self. -- BFO from July 15, 2021

Thank you.

JUST MAKE OURSELVES AVAILABLE, II

[The following is a reprint of my post of  October 31, 2016.]

Making ourselves available to God in the early morning before our world awakes, peeved and petulant, is the single most important thing we will do each, every and any day.

Get quiet. Be still. Smile. For no reason (and don't go trying for a reason).

It is the stillness that enables us to hear God...the thoughts of God. And if we imagine for a second that any thought of ours can be better than that...please.

Thank you.

FREED FROM ME IS FREE

Judgment is the currency of ego; mercy is the currency of the Spirit. --  David Capps, "Sermon on the Mount"

I have read Capps' "Sermon" several times (and I'm still a tish ambivalent about it), yet just this morning, my ear heard the words I read, and I ponder them now.

I find it fairly easy to see judgment as ego's go-to; mercy still sits up above my learnin'...not above my want-to, just above my got-it. Let's just say I feel slightly resistant to the word "mercy"...it gives off a holier-than-thou whiff. Which says more than I want others to know since I don't quite get it yet myself.

Judgment, now...I know judgment. 

I can easily get why and how it is ego's go-to...and I get it because my thoughts can so immediately go to how Generic Gertrude does life wrong, sits in judgment, thinks s/he's better than, etc. The best I've got there is I laugh at myself when I catch me at it.

I read another lift-me-up line this morning...author Debie Thomas wrote, To know God is to unknow God. 

My ain't that the truth? whipped through my mind almost before I finished reading her sentence. 

So, I've got "mercy" and "to unknow God" on my plate this morning. I suspect finding mercy within us is the first step toward unknowing God to know God. 

It is my idea of mercy that I need redress...in both senses of the word. Redress, to set right, and re-dress, to get her a new dress. Who's kidding whom? Any time a word seems too holy, I See Me is doing my thinking again. Redress! Go to God to change my mind, and I'm set right in new thoughts.

There..."mercy" and "to unknow God" are right this minute perking happily, and I need ponder them no further. They'll lead me free when we're ready.

Let go and let God.

Thank you.

I TRY NOT TO BE AS NASTY AS I WANT TO BE

Looking back, I can see that being 80 and then some has opened me to what my still more spiritual growth has been building within me these last 51+ years. 

I recognize profound changes that at the time of their birth seemed small irritations or merely interesting. As they accumulate, I recall reading Goldsmith, Rohr, Easwaran, Watts, the Sermon, and others that describe the markers I am seeing in my spiritual growth. 

I freely own me today, looking nothing like I envisioned me as I read Goldsmith, et al. Specifically, I am nothing like I pictured me when I achieved all I read and aimed to become. I'm still me, same-old-same-old, only with enough sober living to not be the insecure rabble-rouser I was then.  

I'm still me...only knowing that I have God at my back makes a world of upside difference in me today. 

No doubt about it, my greatest change is inner which must needs affect my outer...less mouthy so less insecure, more concerned for other than me, still immensly grateful for my own golden rule, I just try not to be as nasty as I want to be, lifted from a Henry Mitchell column in The Washington Post  in the early '80s.  

To paraphrase Fr Richard, At 80+, I often feel that I can and do leave the full field of the future in God’s hands and whether I know it or not agree to humbly hold the present with what can only tentatively be known for sure.

Or, love and laugh. No one needs be 80 to get that.

Thank you.

RESIST NOT GOD'S HIDDEN WILL, REDUX

[The following, slightly reworked, is a reprint of my post of December 17, 2020.]

I saw years ago that learning about death for the first time...my grandfather's death when I was two years old...set the course of my life. The unconscious long/short of that news: Death meant being left all alone; ergo, never let anyone in, guaranteeing never being left all alone.

A blinding flash has redirected my thinking. What if my living alone has ever been God's will for me? What if my being alone was my before-conception invitation to God into my life?

Knowing me, if I'd not lived alone, spiritual growth may have made it to my bucket list, but it never would have headed my To-Do-Today List.

If I hadn't been alone, free to choose for my better self, would I have spent years studying the Sermon? Seeking still more spiritual growth as my primary mover in life? "Doubtful" is being overly kind to me.

Looking back at my life through my new perspective re God's will, there is nothing about living alone that I have been unhappy with...for long. I've had all the "agony and the ecstasy" that life offers, and if I do say so myself, I've done a good job of it. But, who's kidding whom? The good job has been purely through the grace of God and a lotta, lotta help from friends, lovers, nonfriends and "glassbowls."

Still looking back, where it seems my deeper learning is blossoming today, I recognize that my nonfriends and, face it, glassbowls did more for my spiritual growth than most anything or anybody else. Both require us to get over our own self...which is pretty much all there is to still more spiritual growth, isn't it?

Is it the nonfriend who stands between God and us? No. It is our resistance to the nonfriend...and all else for that matter. Resistance is the block.

According to me, the secret to living happy, joyous and free is plain and simple: Resist not, love and laugh, get over one's self...God's will, God's way. 

Thank you.

THE GRACE OF GRATITUDE IS IN MOURNING

Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted.  -- Matthew 5:4

Well. We learn a whole new and lovely way to look at rues, regrets and remorses...they are mourning. I'm rereading a book on the Sermon, and that finally spoke to me.

For whatever reasons, it seems this is where I am now...in my feelings of being all alone and to blame. I am immediately catapulted back to my dark days which form today's rues, regrets and remorses.

This I know...to continue to pray my thank you for the lost me of yesteryear...for she is still leading me to God. I ask and ask again, what else turns us to God so quickly but the dark days of our own self? Naught but fear, and I am God-peaced by my ask and by my answer.

I remind me that the day-before-yesterday, too, often qualifies as a dark day...when ego did my thinking for me, and I went along as if I never had heard of God or resist not and the like. 

This is where my new-found comfort, mourning, pays its way...instead of butting my head against my wall (my will), I feel blessed knowing that this is mourning, that I am mourning. 

Not being entirely stupid, we know that it is important that we realize the blessing from a different angle. Face it, called by any reasoning-mind name, rues, regrets and remorses will badger us until we are spiritually detached. 

Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted. We joy in that promise for it is the gateway to detachment. 

Linger not, walk through, pray thank you. 

Thank you.

OUR INTERNAL AWAKENING...SPIRITUALLY

Blinding flash of the obvious: Don't try to do God's will, by rote...do me, be me, the me that I am, but be me with Love.

I ponder "don't try to do God's will, by rote," and I see that's still a self-determined objective. I need do me, be me, the me that I am, fret-free, while doing love God's way...starting in my thoughts.

This I love: My "God Calling" note that I wrote on this day in 2014 says virtually the same thing as this morning's BFO.

It has taken eight years for me to "get" that I got that...then only by looking back. Looking back, I see the results of my doing that, always imperfectly, rarely to my liking, ever praying to "do it right, not by thought but by love."  

To "do it right" is to go to a deeper level higher...to become spiritually awakened  internally...with no conscious thought involved. It's like our reasoning mind takes a coffee break, sitting back smoking and joking with ego, and Love is on the field, doing its thing. 

Without thought, planning or praying, we do an act of love for the benefit of another...often unaware and surprised if and when we are thanked for it.    

It is on God's timetable that we recognize unto realization our internally awakened  self...even as it is showing up for the benefit of others and our own self. 

Thank you.

TO LOVE, DETACH...FEAR ATTACHES

Blinding flash of the obvious: Take the me out of any resistant thought, and ego is peaced.

"Resistant thought" is fear. That needs to perk in our head; then, as/if/when ready, drip down to our heart. It is a glib thought until realization nudges us, and we get a glimpse of the promise...ego peaced. 

Is there any greater daily-life promise than to have a peaced ego? 

It is the rough and rocky road toward peace that stays us. Well hidden and open for any to see...that road, too, is fear. Long ago lesson: There is only love and fear. All else falls under one of the two. 

To take the me out of our resistant thoughts doesn't even sound simple, but it is so beyond that. Reason dictates the Herculean effort that must be made...and we're not doing it wrong when we do try. That's how we learn. How we learn that we're going down that wrong road again when we set about trying to fix our self. 

Hardest lesson, praying for God to do it is still stuck in self. Our Father knows our needs and has them all ready already. We pray our thank you for God's will, God's way.

It takes courage to trust the faith we have, to hold gratitude close, closer than fear. It never seems enough...enough to banish our fear. And it is not...neither fear nor love can be banished. But we are not in it to win it, we are in it with trust that God has already won. 

There is nothing to fight for, everything to live for...unresisting. Unafraid. Peaced. Loving. 

Thank you.  

TO CHANGE OUR MIND...FROM ME TO THEE

 ....know that I will supply your need, not grungingly, but in full measure. -- God Calling, December 1

Note that the word is need not want and in full measure, not mostly.  To which we add, God's will, God's way:  God will supply our need in full measure, God's will, God's way.  

Our needs are always met. Fret not, ponder not in trying to figure it out, i.e., fix, our self. God has us, and as we are, as our life is right this minute, is as we need be. 

Our daily practice now is to thank God for the very thing (usually person) we are resisting. To make peace there is the entry to our divine center, to Me.

My long ago BFO, I am the source of all my woes, today reveals all my woes matured are God's  slivers of gold. Our first, basic and rarely recognized fear, God has forsaken me, finally is realized as bogus.  

Faster than a heartbeat we see our woes turn us to God...giving legs to "kiss 'em on the lips." Bingo! Entry to God lives in our nonresistance to our woes. Acceptance in a word, acceptance of God's will, God's way. 

Again, and yet again: The hardest thing God will ever ask of us is that we change our mind...from reasoning to spiritual. 

We go to God for God, and that is all. Get grateful.

Thank you.