ON BEING GOD-RIGHTED

Yesterday, March 30, 2023, Donald J. Trump was indicted. 

I pray for the Soul of America...that We be righted. Please, thank you, Amen.

To inner know: ...that We be righted can and will take as long as it takes. A righted Soul does not realize time...it sees right, does right, and that is all. Whether we know it or not.

In our own time, we are God-righted. Not by will, not by want-to but by God alone. Alone, al-one...you, me, him, her, they, them, we, us...Donald J. Trump, too. All one, God alone. 

Thank you.

GOD IS LOVE, II

[The following is a slightly reworked reprint of my blog of November 20, 2021.]

You know when God is with you utterly, completely, endlessly, without fail? When you feel it least.

When you feel you're really out there in the ether without a tether and all the slings and arrows are coming right at you directly, and it is personal, and it is not fair, and where's the great vaunted God now? 

That's when God loves you best.

But, should you forget...he also loves you best when you know it and you show it. With no effort...no trying. Just by breathing in and out.

That's God for you.

Thank you.

NOT KNOWING TRANSFORMED INTO UNKNOWING

Blinding flash of the obvious: All change births suffering. 

My thoughts take flight...change begins with suffering...suffering, the fear of not knowing...I soar like a kite in a high wind and crash in an instant when the mind changes...self, seeking its say.

Suffer the pain brought by fear of not knowing...the unknown we feel because we have made a change...wittingly or unwittingly, a change has come over us, and we do not know what we do not know, and we do not know how to navigate...or whether we can figure out, or learn, how to navigate...or if we should try or turn around and go back because we may be going down that wrong road again...if we go back we can try a different way which will lead us to change which will birth suffering...oh! is this then the path to necessary suffering? Necessary suffering...God's will, God's way. Not knowing is transformed into answered prayer...unknowing,. Thank you.

Change begins with suffering...suffering, the fear of not knowing that intuition and inspiration transform into the necessary suffering of unknowing, or, God's will, God's way.

Thank you. 

OUR ERROR BIRTHS OUR SALVATION

When we hear or read a truth and connect with it, often without further thought we mentally make it our own. We memorize it, quote it by rote, preach it...and get agitated when another hears it from us and quotes it as their own...without "attribution."

 

Our first mistake is not allowing God's will, God's way to make it our own, i.e., by our suffering for it. A hundred times out of a hundred (to quote my friend Natalie), our suffering is us showing our bum in public by whatever means we...unknowing...choose to take.

Our second mistake is not accepting that getting agitated when we are not given just props is purely ego doing its thing...we become rigid, righteous and right, and we stand on it. 

Error births salvation, or, resentment aborning with God's will, God's way following in the lead.

Face it, God's will, God's way usually gets its start from our ego's power-driven wants. The spiritual clean-up crew ensures that we need never regret a resolved resentment for the resolution is always of God. 

He goes before us to make the crooked places straight. (Doesn't promise there'll be no crooked places.)

Thank you.

TRUST GOD, GALOSHES AND GRATITUDE

 Egoic mind: Go big or go home.

Spiritual mind: Go little to go Home.

For some time now little, littler, less than have been pushing me...as in my right way to go. I haven't preached it...face it, it does not make a lot of sense...but I cannot turn from it. 

The long-ago BFO, God on the head of a pin, came to me recently, and I was comforted. I do not doubt today that was the lead to little becoming my new way. I admit that nary a person has verbally agreed, or even made agreeable listening noises, to my little talk...but I stand on it.

Imagine my joy when I read Fr Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation today which confirms little for my spiritual way: That constant experience of littleness is the Franciscan way.....Thérèse of Lisieux called it her 'Little Way.'

Fr Richard further: Constant failure at loving is ironically and paradoxically what keeps us learning how to love. To me, that explains little as coming to understand that letting go, or in truth losing, is the way we continue to learn to love and laugh.

Trust God, wear your galoshes, be grateful.

Thank you.

ENLIGHTENMENT...GRIT, GRATITUDE AND GRACE

Enlightenment. The perfect word for the instant of realization. 

My enlightening moment came this morning when I realized that all alone has ever been my self-determined objective. All the while my egoic mind has feared all alone.

This realization came by way of a cat food commercial. (God's will, God's way sometimes comes with a giggle.) Cat, of course, is adorable, and is wandering around the kitchen, sniffing for the food...Cat in her voiceover is "yesing" this and "noing" that, and at one point she says, "OK, pet me." A human hand comes down and touches Cat's head, and Cat says, "OK, that's enough," and she moves on. 

In that instant, I knew. I am a cat person. I knew from my toenails up that is me, and that has never not been me. OMG, I am a cat person. Here's me...almost always kinda dreading my thought of me as the untrained puppy type person...the too-friendly, in-your-face-and-lick-it person. 

Another discovery about enlightenment is that it rarely comes unaccompanied. Here it is, dragging the rest of my story behind it. 

My recent journaling has been leading me to this realization...to the ribbon running through my life. Starting with the realization of my childhood PTSD experience which helped lead me as an adult into a program, spiritual in nature, that turned me inward to the God of my own understanding. 

In the instant of recognizing Cat as me, a boatload of questions got answered...if not with a belly laugh at least with a grin. 

With grit, gratitude and grace, we take as long as we take...with whatever tools are best for our awakening. God does not take shortcuts.

Thank you. 

TO DEVELOP A TEACHABLE HEART

My morning blind flash of the obvious: All spiritual growth has but one aim...to trust God.

Our life has become simplified...now our only need is to trust the God of our own understanding with all our heart, soul, body and brains. 

Our life has become complex...now all of our still more spiritual growth has but one aim...to trust. To trust the God of our own understanding...to stand on it as we walk behind it. 

Accepting that as our primary need, our go-to goal has just transmuted...to develop a teachable heart. 

Keeping it simple, we begin by understanding that to develop a teachable heart, we must become comfortable not knowing...by saying, “I don’t know” followed by "but I'm willing to find out...to learn." 

The proof of our willingness is by our doing not by our thinking or saying or wanting. 

Comes the bright and beautiful dawning: Trust. Trust God and begin. He'll lead the way.

Thank you.

TO UNKNOW...IS TO KNOW

My journey today seems to be that path between still more material knowledge and still more spiritual growth. It's kinda like walking the razor's edge...seeking to learn, to get clear of, the childhood cause of my PTSD and seeking to unlearn my material hooks and balances. 

For some time now, my spiritual journey has been about unknowing, or detaching from my intellectual need to figure it out. The path has ever led to my spiritual need to detach...release...let go. 

I am particularly comforted that Fr Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation today quotes the author of The Cloud of Unknowing as always saying you’ve got to balance your knowing with a willingness not to know.  

Further, The author of The Cloud teaches...we must go into the Cloud, where we actually don’t need to label anymore; we don’t need to know that we know. I think the biblical word for that–and hear it now in a  whole new way—is faith. 

Balance is the key...to balance our knowing with a willingness not to know.

I am convinced...or mightily suspect...that infinitesimal space in balancing, that space between knowing and unknowing, is where the God of my understanding lives. There is no material mind way to get there. It is unknowing, and in faith we awaken there.     

The un part. The essential part. God is in the un. 

Thank you.

WE ARE BEING 'RIGHTED'...THANK YOU

As I was awakening this morning, I had a blinding flash of the obvious: My thinking alone is all that is needed to change for me to be 'righted.'  

It is a spiritual conundrum that our daily resistants are our slivers of gold, God's giftees. Yesterday,  spiritual conundrum was not my go-to, so to speak...as in, yesterday was my mudpuddle-mind day. 

To not get bogged down in the problem, just know that the day before yesterday Verizon and Comcast both done me wrong. Their screwups or, truth to tell, they, became the center of my reasoning mind's problem which is where I screwed up royally...the solution went begging until I had this morning's BFO.

All that needs to be "fixed" is my thinking...not Verizon, not Comcast, not any personal inconvenience, not any mental, physical or psuedo-spiritual ailment...just my thinking. Not even my thinking about those things. All that is needed is a trusting mind...with fly-by intrusions that, after a short struggle, I let fly by.

I have known, and do say often, 'Upgrade your attitude, downgrade your problem.' This is it. 

Not getting my desired result would be the same as getting it...immaterial to God. Primary for me will be when, not if, my thinking is changed...not by me, by God. There it is...on the road to being "righted." 

Lord, hear my prayer, thank you.

Thank you. 

GOD AND I ARE GOING FOR IT

Per author Cole Arthur Riley,  [T]he path to wonder is not sophistication or intellect or articulation; it is a clock wound backward…. (From Fr Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation of March 20, 2023.)

For a while now, I have been writing about the gift of smaller, littler, less-than, and how that is my new spiritual aim. One day to become childlike flashed, and a day or two later Fr Richard's dailies started running meditations on having a child's mind. I take note when that happens.

In a flash, "a clock wound backward" spoke of becoming as a little child. It also describes my inner self today. The littler, smaller I have been seeing as good is happening...showing outwardly as immaturity at best. In short, my egoic mind is not on board with less-than. 

Being kept virtually in isolation due to the pandemic, I have been saying that I need to be resocialized. These inner changes are clarifying my thoughts...I expect I'd feel just as unsocialized if there'd been no pandemic to keep me in isolation. 

An example is my recent breakfast with a friend when I ran my mouth about nothing and less than nothing...my friend just looked stumped. I'm fairly sure we both had in mind an interesting conversation about the new book we're each enjoying. She even brought it up, and I ran all over it with childish chatter. (I use that term, childish chatter, deliberately...hopefully.)

I am comfortable with and within my reasoning mind...I know God has a place there, too. But being gifted with a deeper way to see that is beyond reason...the pearl beyond price. 

God's got my hand, and we're going for it.

Thank you.

PEACE OF MIND, II

[The following is a reprint of my post of October 22, 2016.]

[Some time] ago, when a part of my job was to preview speakers for our annual conferences, I heard one of the original seven astronauts speak. I wish I could remember his name because his message is still with me.

He told of how in his younger days, back when he had just started up his career ladder, he had a group of young pilots under him, a couple of whom were just the bane of his life. They were very good in class, in training, with others...they just ticked him off with every breath they took.

He finally was forced to go to his mentor for help...he was looking for ways to get those guys gone from his program, but his superior would have none of that. He was told that if he got shut of them, their replacements would be as trying, and more so, than the two he got rid of...guaranteed.

His mentor's suggestion: Find something you can sincerely respect in those two and concentrate on that alone. It will come to be that is the way you think of them...with respect.

I remember the neat feeling I got of identification, of validation if you will, for that is akin to the gift I was given, i.e., "find the gold in it," when I was up against my first Wall of Unacceptable.

I'm a believer that that is the secret to finding peace of mind...praise takes away our resistance which is the ego's pony to ride. When there is nothing to resist, our ego can find no purchase. Without purchase, our thoughts quiet. There it is...a quieted mind is a mind at peace.

Thank you.

TRUST GOD...AND THAT IS ALL

Some kind of falling, what I call 'necessary suffering,' is programmed into the full journey….It is not that suffering or failure might happen, or that it will only happen to you if you are bad (which is what religious people often think), or that it will happen to the unfortunate, or to a few in other places, or that you can somehow by cleverness or righteousness avoid it. No, it will happen, and to you!...Losing, failing, falling, sin, and the suffering that comes from those experiences—all of this is a necessary and even good part of the human journey. -- Fr. Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," October 9, 2013.

Our spiritual growth now is solely concerned with personally living this good part of the human journey, necessary suffering. To the reasoning mind that is definitely a contradiction in terms. But who knew? None stuck in the reasoning mind can know that necessary suffering is the higher path to our Father within. 

Our reasoning mind does not have a clue, cannot know, how we experience that without regrets. The good part of our journey begins with the realization that whatever our regret du jour is, the remedy is an immediate thank you. 

Unknowing, we invite necessary suffering and earn spiritual ownership. Deprived of a voice, egoic mind fades, opening us to gratitude and our unthinkable answer: Trust God. Unknowing. Unquestioning. Trust God.

Trusting God is still more spiritual growth, and that is all.  

Thank you.

THE NEW REALITY...GOD'S WILL, GOD'S WAY

Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. -- Matthew 18:3 

Fr Richard's paraphrase: I’m telling you once and for all, if you do not go back to square one and start over like a child, you will never be able to see the new reality. -- Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, March 19, 2023

Ah, 'the new reality' -- my confirmation that PTSD is God's will, God's way, recalling me to the long ago core of my misconception. 

Here comes the egoic mind dragging my old reality behind...trying to figure it out. Whether it's idle chit-chat or deep sharing, when my mouth closes, I See Me's questions start running laps in my mind: Did I just sound like a fool? Did I just make an ass of myself? 

My new reality loves and laughs...eventually. I doubt not in my new reality of unknowing...unthinking trust...trying to remember to constantly affirm that God has my back. 

We must never presume that we see, and we must always be ready to see anew. [Yes] it’s hard to go back, to be vulnerable, and to say to our soul that 'I don’t know anything.' -- Ibid.

Thank you.

THE NUTRIENT IS SPIRITUAL GROWTH

Today's "God Calling," my daily reader of fifty years, has a pearl that I marvel at almost yearly when I read it again. 

Titled Claim Big Things, it has The Word...Claim big, really big things now. Remember nothing is too big. In my early years those words gave me permission to ask God for my real heart's desire: Diamonds and dollars...with an emerald ring thrown in. 

I do not recall how many years it took before I connected with the rest of the reading; namely, Such wonderful things are coming to you, Joy -- Peace -- Assurance -- Security -- Health -- Happiness -- Laughter. 

My realization came when I saw that those are all inner things...all big inner things, but inner, not outer, things. 

I laugh to admit, that sentence comes before my favorite about nothing being too big to ask for. So it's not like I wasn't given a clue as to what really big things are to the Lord. 

Blinding flash: These are all inner gifts which seed is within us at birth...the seed as nurtured grows..the grower is God, the nutrient is still more spiritual growth. 

Thank you.

HOW? PRAY THANK YOU IS HOW

Let nothing disturb you. / Let nothing upset you. / Everything changes. / God alone is unchanging. / With patience all things are possible. / Whoever has God lacks nothing. / God alone is enough. —Teresa of Ávila

Here comes reasoning mind, arms akimbo, with her everlasting, neverending, question...how? 

Our worst fear at one time was the diagnosis of cancer...so feared we could only call it "the big C"...but with God leading to medical breakthroughs, it has moved down to second place in line. Alzheimer's has taken over first place...so feared we have taken away the capitalization and named it "dementia."

Jump up and shout hallelujah for we have the answer...we have lived the answer. "How?" is a non-question to us today. If our incurable, progressive disease can be a good thing...and it is to us today... then so can this be. God's will, God's way. 

The medical profession has discovered ways, in most cases, to make an end run around our dread disease, but there again, in most cases, the end run is linked with the first breakthrough, spiritual in nature. 

Quite as important was the discovery that spiritual principles would solve all my problems.

Our new worst fear comes...worry-free we pray thank you. Our "how?" has its answer: God with us/within us cannot not guide us, cannot not let us know all we need to know, cannot not shield us from our unknowing. 

We go to God with our thank you...God's will, God's way responds, and for our benefit.

Thank you.

ON REACHING THROUGH THE MAZE OF ME

My Lord, what a morning. I feel like the tangled ball of yarn that needs a mother's untangling. 

My thinking is so muddled...muddled purely because I am regretting the meeting yesterday when my me was large and in charge. There were three, maybe four, self-centered things that I did without a thought...then did not think to apologize or even to acknowledge why an apology would be decent. 

Holy moly! I wrote the above, then inadvertently pulled up my yesterday's post. Talk about God's lesson plan for today.  I quote...me...even as I blush from my toes to my nose: 

Our rues, regrets and remorses are the foundation on which our lessons are learned. What else sends us to God so consistently? 

Spiritual growth not only allows, it demands that we make mistakes. Regrets are evidence that, with or without malice, we did less-than-wonderful, and that it was done without thought for another...i.e., with selfish want-to....We slowly realize that our regrets do the job if/when/as we grow spiritually. 

The word "slowly" is profoundly prophetic...or God grinning. 

As I so often preach, knowing the right words is useless if we're not doing those words...making them ours by living them. Well, this is me, living them...reaching through the maze of me for love and laughter.

Thank you.

AH, TO GAIN WHAT I BELIEVE IN

Lessons learned...and still learning: Our rues, regrets and remorses are the foundation on which our  lessons are learned. What else sends us to God so consistently? 

Spiritual growth not only allows, it demands that we make mistakes. Regrets are evidence that, with or without malice, we did less-than-wonderful, and that it was done without thought for another...i.e., with selfish want-to.  

We no longer pray for God to make us a better person...that's just another ask, or self-determined objective. We slowly realize that our regrets do the job if/when/as we grow spiritually. 

The promise kept is realized in the Father knows our needs. Our understanding of answered prayer stems from a deeper understanding of the gift of free will together with our trust in the Father knowing our needs. In trust, we can return our free will...with gratitude. 

As we grow into the spiritual nature of life itself, we claim ownership of our thoughts, feelings, acts and actions...and experience the joy and the folly of relying on our free will alone. Joy is fleeting, folly is forever.  

That experience, folly forever, ensures regrets, the basis on which our lessons are learned...or God working in our life, turning us from self toward Self.

In God's hands, our folly is our road to the better self we once prayed for. There it is. Answered prayer. 

I would gladly risk my life to gain what I believe in…. -- Teresa of Ávila, The Book of My Life

Thank you.

CROSSING OUR EDMUND PETTUS BRIDGE

We must learn to penetrate things and find God there... -- Meister Eckhart

To penetrate...to look back, to turn around, to turn from looking outward, seeking answers out there, to looking inward, penetrating within, and finding God there.

It is in looking back that we find our true teacher, and it becomes more precious the longer we live seeking spiritual growth. We get to experience the many different levels of our earlier blinding flashes...acceptance, for one. At 80+, my acceptance of acceptance has changed dramatically...so many levels, all within. Most, when first recognized, have been batted down as "old" thinking. 

For instance, there is we must learn to stand up for ourself, which was true when we first got it. So we learned how, perfected the art and were heading toward rigid, righteous and right. Our spiritual growth opened a new door, and we felt the lack of God in our self-actions...the good in guilt.

We found at the new level that it is not for us that we need to stand up, speak up, be present...not for us but for the other.  In trust, we recognize that the other is not the one being attacked...no, the other is the one doing the attacking...the one we are resisting. 

Comes the dawning, our perceived enemy is fear in disguise, and nothing turns us to God faster than fear. Gratefully, we accept our answer is to love your enemy as yourself...clearly not by self-will, or by self-knowledge for that matter. Through God alone can we accept this new reality.

By God's will, God's way, we stand up...willing to be ready, ready to be willing, to do our part in making good trouble, as our late beloved John Lewis knew it to be. We need not fear, nor expect to be called to cross Mr. Lewis' Edmond Pettus Bridge, but every personally courageous act we take for the benefit of the other is our Bridge.

From Teresa of Avila's The Interior Castle: What he wants is for you to be much happier hearing someone else praised than you would be to receive a compliment yourself. There. That's our Edmond Pettus Bridge.

Thank you.

A DEEP REVERSE LEADING HIGHER

What the mystics know, and what we’re having to relearn, is that it’s through a kind of luminous darkness of nonattachment and humility that we come to be seized by real love, God’s love....Once we lost a spirituality of darkness as its own kind of light, there just wasn’t much room for growth in faith, hope, and love.  Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, March 13, 2023

I keep rereading that paragraph...trying to absorb a luminous darkness and a spirituality of darkness. I got that rare wedded understanding with my first reading. That is awesome...it clarifies my "mirror image" understanding; i.e., God's will, God's way is spiritually my will, my way...deeply reversed leading higher.   

This opens me...my heart and my mind...to Saint Teresa's The Way of Perfection (by practicing fraternal love, compassion, kindness, etc.). Our experience practicing this Way has been, is, rocky, rough and rutted...leading the reasoning mind to believe we are going in the wrong direction. No. We are going in our new direction...away from self.

We can expect to be God-guided over the rugged road by living our new realization that ego = selfish. 

Substituting the word "selfish" for "ego," which tends to divorce us from our part in it ("ego's fault"), we are humbled into the admission that, sans egoic knowledge or consent, spiritually we have accepted selfish as our own. 

Still more spiritual growth in short: Humbled into admission, acceptance is birthed and transmutes suffering into the Pearl.

Teresa says in one place, it is not that we are happy for the suffering....We are happy for the new level of intimacy with God that the suffering has brought us to.

Thank you.

LOOK INWARD, ANGEL

[The following are thoughts lifted from my blog of October 18, 2012, Look in the Opposite Direction.] 

As an aside these many years later, I am grinning as I accept that what I wrote then is truth...only more eyebrows-up truth than experiential. I give myself points for knowing that rather than the rod for not perfecting it by now. 

So, here's my today's take on learning to love:

Learning to love is not just about learning to love others. Learning to love is to look in the opposite direction...realizing there is nothing to get, only to give. 

It, love, is a power, already within us/without us. When we let that power flow forth, we detach from our fear-based self-interests, accepting that which we fear is in our Self interest. By walking toward it, our arms outstretched in welcome, we see it is not coming toward us, it is coming from us, our arms outstretched to release it.

It is love...love of people and pets, tiaras and tears, the sacred and the not-so-much...it is love, and it is everywhere.

Self-consciously grinning, I am near certain that this is from my own experience: God is love and laughter. All-encompassing...ours.

Thank you.

GOD'S GLORY, LOVE AND LAUGHTER

Not new but never remembered long enough to get worn out: Our egoic mind seeks to be absolved of all blame always. 

Our go-to panacea, resist not evil, comes to mind as we remember, what we resist persists.

I suspect that blame lives in ego's care as fear...born again daily and ready to fight. Thus, we make room daily for our conscious contact with the God of our own understanding...to learn and forget and relearn...repeatedly. 

We need to be reminded until we no longer need to be reminded that blame is fear is spiritual growth aborning. Then it is living us ever lifting us deeper into God's hidey-hole. 

That is the unpaved road to God's glory, love and laughter.

Thank you.

HEAR THE CLARION CALL OF SILENCE AND BE

I am on a pilgrimage...that I know I am on pilgrimage...hmmm. It isn't gratitude, as such, that I am...not feeling, but...that I am in. 

I am in a substantive state. 

That word substantive has been popping and bobbing in and out of my consciousness for a couple days now. It just connected, thank you.

Blinding flash of the obvious: I know I am on pilgrimage by the silence of my inner voice, unseeing eye, unhearing ear. I am being. That is all, and that is everything. I be. 

All of that seems mystical to me...which feels a tish dicey. Mystical and I have a hard time believing which one of us is real. 

Yet I know, and I know that I know. Substantive defines me here and Now. I have not a fret, not a worry, neither a what if, nor a yes, but...right here and right now. There...substantive is already proving its worth. 

I hear the clarion call of silence, and I am peaced.

Thank you.

BEWARE SCRUPULOSITY...LEAN ON GOD

Holy moly! I just had a revelation of me being me...and not the cleaned-up me. 

Yesterday, after a gathering of friends, a woman who offends my judgmental mind came up to me and started chatting. I was friendly, chatted...and when I was through chatting, I walked away. Without even a by-your-leave. She may have had more to say...which, no doubt, is what I was avoiding.

There it is. Who I was is who I am. 

Now, that is not serial-killer awful, but at my age, with spiritual growth long being my guide, I have not only the right but the spiritual obligation to.... 

Uh-oh. 

To what?  

I suspect this is another of God's answered prayers. His, looks like an old lump of coal...Oh! It's a diamond answer. This is how faith grows...go with the lump of coal, trusting. Then next time I meet this Gertrude, I can have a kinder mindset, a gentler attitude...needed evidence of love growing in me.

Who's kidding whom? That is not just for Gertrude next time. If I don't have it for any and all, I don't have it. 

Whoa, I just slid over into scrupulosity territory. Scrupulosity could sink the Good Ship Lollipop if that ship had a soul. 

I just need to clean up my act with Gertrude...as in, get over myself. Next time we meet, be friendly and let her lead the next step.

Lessons learned. 

These lessons seem to come only when we least suspect our need. Sneak attack? Or God Calling?  Hint...God Calling.

Thank you.  

HERE AND NOW IS PERFECT...HERE AND NOW

'This moment or this place is as perfect as it can be.' As long as we think happiness is around the corner, it means that we have not grasped happiness yet. Because happiness is given in this moment and this place, and this moment and place are as perfect as they can be. - Father Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, March 5, 2023

Happiness is a state of mind...just as sadness is...as anger, self-pity, envy, etc., are. Proving again the answer to unhappy is a change of mind. Or, a change to our state of mind. 

We've found that we cannot change our mind on want-to alone or on petitioning God to change it for us. We slowly accept that what we're doing today is based on the mistakes we learned from. We are building a spiritual state of mind by making adjustments, inviting new, tossing old...giving heft to the saying that you must do it wrong to get it right.

 

According to me, a true change of mind begins with a change of our consciousness, which is God's territory over which we have no say-so. Here, our can-do is more a bane than a boon since the change is spiritual in nature, and trying becomes a block.     

As we know, when we upgrade our attitude, we downgrade our problem. Yes, but. Oh, realization aborning: trying to upgrade our attitude is akin to trying to change our mind, a hard lesson in futility. 

Trying is the poison...trying is reliance on self. Self-reliance is ego on parade. Resist not. 

Without thought, we shoot a grateful smile and exchange trying for an image of lilies of the valley, or a puppy at play, or a kitten with a ball of yarn. God things. God takes it from there. 

'This moment or this place is as perfect as it can be.' There...our affirmation of God's will, God's way.

Thank you.

STANDING IN THE LIMINAL NOW

I am experiencing a two-tiered memory based on a recent "out of the blue" forgotten event. It occurred around my brother's illness and death, his trauma and my never-acknowledged inner trauma...when he was 12 and I was 10. The event clearly defined my experience then and my choosing to hide from it until now. 

I journaled about it exactly one year ago, yet recently coming across that entry, I had no memory of the event or of writing about it. I had written in my journal a separate but important fun fact that happened around that same time, and I remember it precisely. The no memory is solely around my brother's illness and death and my experience then. 

Reasoning mind faced with fact and a blank memory fears dementia. 

To reiterate, for my own benefit, I was led to reread my year-old journal entry, I remember everything about that which I wrote except for anything at all about my brother, his trauma and my never-acknowledged inner trauma. 

In short, I was given the memory of a forgotten event that clearly defined me then and since and my choosing to hide from it until now.

I hesitate but I hope...a 4th-dimensional breakthrough?  

What I am taking from my two-tiered memory...dementia? 4th dimension?...is based on a quote from Fr Richard about pilgrimage: I am walking into liminal space, with a familiar past of place and spirit left behind and a future promise of spiritual power, wedded to tangible, material things, in the distance. 

Or, my words: In this pilgrimage I seem to be walking, I know the apprehension of dementia and the hope of 4th-dimensional consciousness. 

I stand in the liminal Now...with God.

Thank you.

HAPPY, JOYOUS, FREE...GOD'S WILL, GOD'S WAY

It is a comfort that there are words, ideas, truths that, seemingly, we stumble upon and in a flash we know this is evidence that we already have it, have always had it within. We recognize our spiritual growth is growing us.

We know (from experience!) that if we don't rely on a Power greater than ourselves, by whatever name we choose to call it, we're going to live feeling peeved...not to mention wronged. There it is...our ego leading our suffering self.

Ego always legislates for itself. Clearly, with a not-always-right-just-never-wrong ego, spiritual growth goes begging. Somebody is going to lose, and it is that fear, of our losing, that breeds resentment. 

Resentment is the ego's livelihood...without resentment, it'd be ego going begging. To send ego begging is, to quote Rohr, to trust descending religion where the primary language is unlearning, letting go, surrendering...serving others. 

According to me, descending religion is self entrusted to the care of God...freed, we serve others without forethought, preplanning or trepidation. 

Happy, joyous and free...God's will, God's way.

Thank you.

THY WILL, THY WAY...BY GRACE, BY GRIT, BY GOD

Well, I had an interesting morning...an eyeopener, actually. 

My notes in my morning readers tell a tale...possibly the rest of the story regarding my brother's illness and death when he was 12 and I was 10 which has been so with me the past few days into weeks.

It started with my opening my Easwaran and read a note I'd written one year ago exactly...then opened my Voices and saw that I wrote the same thing there...namely:

'22 BFO: I got up on Paul's bed & comforted him & he knew it & was peaced...thank you. (Voices) 

Then Easwaran, '22 BFO: I crawled up on the bed w/Paul & comforted him & he knew he was not alone...thank you. 

As I have written, a couple weeks ago I had a memory flash, not a BFO but the actual memory, of me not comforting my brother in his dying pain...of pretending I did not see or hear him as I walked by his bed, and the remembered shame I felt at the time and could do nothing about. More, the shame that I felt in the instant of the memory's awakening...and blossoming now in its own spiritual growth. 

As an aside, I note that the BFOs gave spiritual awareness before the memory sprouted. We can believe they were the inner assurance to the memory that it was ready...safe...to come out now.

Lord, hear my prayer: For whatever reason, I have no memory of these BFOs today...and there is my gift. Thank you for the notes...if they are evidence of oncoming memory loss, thank you; if they are to further my freedom from my past, thank you.

Of course, my egoic mind was jarred...not full panic I am delighted, more likely relieved, to note. Then it occurred to me, so what if today I don't remember? Last year I knew that I would need this reminder, and I have already solved the as-yet unknown next one up. Thank you.  

The pearl beyond price is in the expanding growth of the gift. This is answered prayer...if dementia comes to me, I can worrit not. This is proof...or the blueprint anyway...that God with me/within me has ever, can ever and will ever guide me, will let me know all I need to know, will shield me from the dreaded fear of not knowing. 

Divine mind meets our needs, regifts them as needed and never fails...God's will, God's way. The sliver of gold...this is our personal road to the unknowing we seek. 

Thank you.

ON TRUSTING GOD'S WILL, GOD'S WAY

My recent bubble flash regarding my brother's illness and death brought the truth to my ten-year-old self that she, that we, had no part in it. She is, I am, healed. More digging to root out or beg pardon or make amends is egoic mind hanging on to the old...self-punishing so as to ascribe it to God. 

The BFO was God letting me know that I am good to go...upward deeper to still more spiritual growth.

 

An affirming insight is that...ever and always...the steps we take, all or any part of the Steps we take, are of God. Not just this time, but in every aspect of our life. They bring the resultant good, God, changes within us, whether we know it or not. Just not feeling it is I See Me using ego to hang on...simply a hangover of the old self.

Our life's purpose aborning is the care and tending of our awareness...and when, not if, we forget, trust God's will, God's way to remind us. 

Every action we take now consciously originates in our new, changed self. We live it...and when wrong, for we will be wrong, love, laugh and promptly admit it.  

Thank you.

GRACED BY THE YEARS IN THE WILDERNESS

GOBSMACKED! I wrote in my God Calling on this day in 2022:  '22 shared my PTSD experience re my brother's illness and death at Gratitude Friday...thank you. 

 Today, in 2023, I wrote, OMG...I was thinking this year's BFO was my first PTSD revelation.

Then I find that in 2005 I wrote at various times of my prayers for healing me and my memories around his illness and death so long ago.

Ah, 2005, eighteen years ago. I do not recall what called up those specific prayers for that period of time but it is clear that my life was still being seriously impacted by my memories. Admittedly, this is after Steps to confession to shrinks to mat work with Kubler-Ross, et al., albeit sans meds. 

I remain grateful that I long ago was given this gift of gratitude so I can appreciate that I am under God's guidance. Even my self-invited mistakes are, through God's grace, for my benefit. 

Today I am twice- maybe thrice-blessed that all the shame I find me claiming today (a lot, thank you) is grace opening my closed door for God to flow out. 

My feeling thrice-blessed bloomed with my today's reading: Indeed many things which we shall not be able to discover either by the experiment of work or by the investigations of reason, we shall deserve to be taught by importunate prayer, by the revelation of divine inspiration. -- Richard of Saint-Victor

Do not tell me God's hand is not in this, my life. 

Thank you.

SELF-DETERMINED vs. SPIRITUAL

Count it all joy, my friends, when you meet various trials. -- James 1:2

In my morning quiet time, I read that we are counseled to not run from ourselves...we're encouraged to stay faithfully with whatever new life is being hatched within us. I have to smile for that spots where I am today...feeling hatched anew. 

Just a week or two ago, I realized the trauma to me of my brother's death when I was ten and he was twelve. I've always realized the in-general trauma surrounding his illness...who could not? The one seemingly simple action on my part that flashed before my inner eye, however, had caused me so much pain that I hid from it for over 70 years.

God's flash of the truth allowed me to let my brother know my shame and sorrow, and with that flash, I caught his understanding laughter. 

It then occurred to me that my brother's agony in dying was akin to Jesus' on the road to his crucifixion...God's will, God's way leading them ever upward, away from self, deeper into God's love. 

Blinding flash of the obvious: This is the same everyday road we walk every day...in our own shoes. 

The agony or the ecstasy is determined by whether we choose to live by self-determined objectives or by spiritual principles. 

Of course, in our walking-around world, neither choice eliminates illness, crucifixion or broken fingernails. The reality is that spiritual enwraps us in the peace that passes understanding...our self-determined objectives keep us ever resistant, wrapped in the fear of losing. There is no peace there. 

Thank you.

DOING IT WRONG TO GET IT RIGHT

 ....you do not have to go to the desert, you do have to go through the desert…. The desert is a necessary stage on the spiritual journey. To avoid it would be harmful. * * *   Ironically, you do not have to find the desert in your life; it normally catches up with you. Everyone does go through the desert…. -- author John Chryssavgis

That pretty much nails the flash that God's good comes to us looking like our not good...which was probably the genesis of accepting that the prayer "thank You" is sufficient for all life's needs.

The necessary mistake is when we try to make an end run around God. When we pretend that the pile of poop before us is really nuggets of gold that we can admire and walk on by...avoid, in a word. 

But this can't-be-true hook is true, is God's will, is necessary, is God's way, and is pointing us in the right direction...away from self toward God.   

As Chryssavgis wrote, The desert is a necessary stage on the spiritual journey. 

Short version: We don't lose self-will just by begging God to take it. We have a lot of self-will to stumble, crawl and cry through, make amends for, ask forgiveness for, accept forgiveness for before we crash and burn...if we're doing it right. 

Face it, the egoic mind cannot, will never, accept that as better than the egoic mind's way, and only God can overcome that.

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

Thank you.