THE WAY OF LOVE...EGO-DEFLATION IN DEPTH

The same Spirit that Jesus received now rests on anyone who follows him. -- Fr Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation, May 31, 2023

It is valid, it is allowed, it is encouraged to learn to live by the Way of Love, the teachings in the Sermon on the Mount. The Sermon, my Primer, is still my go-to when I am stuck in self.

It is not a "spiritual bypass" to commit our self to reliance on God and the teachings of God, to know our answers are spiritual in nature no matter our personal piques and vales. 

According to Fr Richard, The forces of empire and establishment will tell you that’s a worthy cause but impossible in this day and age. They are wrong...What it takes are disciples who together follow the Way of Love.

My personal proof of that came just two days ago: A brand new insight about me at age 10 (during the period of my brother's illness and death) had popped, totally unexpected. It all but announced itself as the missing link I'd sought for so long. 

I was sharing that period with my friend, a Methodist minister, and in the share the words valid hurt came from my mouth. Both my friend and I repeated them and smiled. 

Those two words, valid hurt, "explained," forgave, clarified and ratified me then, my brother then, me now...and God into the mix. I had neither inclination nor need to analyze or even ponder them further. 

What it takes are disciples who together follow the Way of Love...the way of I shall fight no more forever, the way of We have ceased fighting everything and everybody, the way of Resist not evil. 

For the selectively Hard of Hearing, the way of ego-deflation in depth.

Thank you.

GO BEYOND REASON TO THE LIFE-GIVING SPIRIT

Christ is portrayed as a “life-giving Spirit.” The believer has a responsibility to live her life in the power of the Spirit. This responsibility should not be taken lightly, as one should not ignore the depth of the Spirit’s power. Walking in the power of the Spirit is life-changing, as the Spirit becomes an agent through which transformations can occur. -- Theologian Grace Ji Sun-Kim in Fr Richard's Daily Meditation, May 30, 2023

That paragraph is powerful beyond words to tell. 

The believer has a responsibility to live her life in the power of the Spirit. 

"The believer"...that's me..."has a responsibility." It is not a choice, a will-I-or-won't-I? Today?...or wait till tomorrow? No. To have a responsibility is Now...not just to think it, or talk it, or even preach it. The responsibility is to live my life in the power of the Spirit Now. 

It confirms me, my BFOs, my realization that one thought originating in the heart not the head has all power...can birth change in the time it takes for the thought to pop.

Now comes Goldsmith's belly-burner: This requires that in my life right now I put into action that which I say...that which I am writing about this red-hot minute.  

Walking in the power of the Spirit is life-changing, as the Spirit becomes an agent through which transformations can occur.

Comes a fleeting clue...it is not ours to cause, we can cause nothing. We are changed, transformed, by the Spirit within. Ours is to live our life showing forth that transformation...and the way for doing just that is the Sermon on the Mount...a for instance, if someone slaps you upside your head, turn the other cheek. 

Easy it ain't...this is probably the basis of Fr Richard's lesson on necessary suffering. Meaning, if it isn't egoically painful, we're not doing it right. Yet we experience a spiritual lift when we do turn the other cheek. There it is...the pearl beyond price, 

Again, we must go beyond reason to love.

Thank you.

ONE PRAYER, ONE ANSWER...THE HOLY SPIRIT

The Divine Indwelling is central to authentic Christian spirituality.... No wonder we seek power in all the wrong places—since we have not made contact with our true power, the Indwelling Spirit.... As when Mary conceives Jesus by the Holy Spirit, it is 'done unto us'  and all we can do is allow, enjoy, and draw life from this powerful gift. -- Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, May 29, 2023

In the very early years of my new life, I was asked something like what my expectations were now. My answer was along the lines that I wanted to find the God of my own understanding. Looking back today, I know I did not have a clue what I meant...but God did. 

Considering the various therapies, counselors and shrinks I have applied to over the years, I can see that I only knew my wants, never realized my need. Materially, I wanted to be fixed in order to get a man, get married, live happily ever after; spiritually, I needed not to get, but to realize what I have...within me now, God.

For a while I looked in the wrong direction, allowing life's traumas to define me as alone and afraid. It was that wrong direction that righted me, that led me to crash and burn, to rise up from my ashes, to find my God. 

I have taken many wrong turns, made many U-bies, yet ever found me in a better place...seeking higher consciousness deeper, i.e., the God of my own understanding. And that is enough. That is enough for me there is nothing more. 

Just as Fr Richard wrote, I now believe the answer, the solution, the gift is always the same...the answer to every prayer is one, the same, and the best: the Holy Spirit!

Thank you.

FORGIVENESS...FREEDOM FROM SELF

Forgiveness demands three new simultaneous 'seeings': I must see God in the other; I must access God in myself; and I must experience God in a new way that is larger than an 'Enforcer.' -- Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, April 30, 2017

When we feel hurt by another's snide or snarky or even untrue remark, that wound is on them...theirs to atone for.  In that instant of hurt or anger...which is hurt in disguise...it is ours to forgive. 

What we all but refuse to learn is the minute we respond in kind or natter at will to others about the hurt....we have us a self-inflicted wound.

A self-inflicted wound makes a mockery of forgiveness in the wash of ego's "poor, pitiful, put-upon me." With ego riding herd, the hurt is justified and hardened by our rigid resistance...going for the victim's balm of pity, and, ahem, to pay back the originator.

The hurt grows by the continuing self-infliction of the wound. Rethinking..."venting" which is a fancy word for blaming...is to nurture it. We are healed by accepting that we made a decision based on self that has placed us in this position of hurt. This is infallible. 

We must accept ownership...kiss it on the lips...before we can know freedom from this pain. 

That freedom is forgiveness; i.e., we must see God in the other; we must access God in our self; and we must experience God in a new way that is larger than an 'Enforcer.'

Thank you.

WHEN SPINACH BECOMES GOLD

Comes the time when we hold our nose and take a leap of faith...we quit quoting neighbors, mentors, friends and teachers...we become less visible, often misquoted, misunderstood, ignored. 

Jump up and shout Hallelujah! 

We're on the right road, heading in the right direction.

NOTE: This blinding flash of the obvious I first realized and posted on 10/7/21. It still bears fruit, and I am still grateful.   

Thank you.

SIT AND WAIT ON THE LORD, II

[This is a reworked reprint of my post of  November 4, 2016.]

In pondering the concept of impersonal love I'm trying to find an apt description for my understanding of it. It is clearly spiritual, but then what? Nonresistance may best fit it, the hook being that nonresistance cannot mean doing nothing in the face of evil. Some famous someone once said that all it takes for evil to prevail is for good people to do nothing.

Yes, but...there's the Sermon's "resist not evil." What about that?

Ah, here comes the sun! Resist not evil must take us into a higher consciousness...where we rest in the understanding that the Father knows our needs. That is the place we need live. We resist not...in Love. Love is not only the home of our inner Source, it is our inner Source. 

Nonresistance, Love, is what releases our higher power. That power that changes an ugly-appearing situation for the better is not in the reasoning mind but in our higher consciousness.

Resistance is reasoning mind over thinking, ever analyzing, keeping higher help at bay; nonresistance opens the door for our Source to flow forth...I stand at the door and knock.

In general, we don't live 24/7 in a state of higher consciousness, but that is why daily we need to make our self available for God. 

We set aside time every morning, inviting God to change our mind, to detach our thinking from our material wants and open our self to unknowing. Blinding flashes often follow.

Sit and wait on the Lord -- Psalm 27:14

Thank you.

THE PROVEN PATIENCE OF GOD...INFINITE LOVE

My yesterday's blinding flash of the obvious: The very thought of a need is God's 'done and done.' Hence, the ego's fret, sweat and worrying 'how to?' are of naught.

All worry is of the egoic mind denying the evidence of God's already perfected work. 

 
From today's God Calling: But the inner urge of Life within...carries out that task. The Kingdom of Heaven is like unto this.

Have read God Calling for nearly fifty years, and today's entry affirms yesterday's BFO as if it had been preordained...oh, wait. It had been! That's the point! 

James Finley in Fr Richard's Daily Meditation today: To summarize Thomas Merton, there is something within you that is not subject to the brutalities of your own will, for it is that in you that belongs entirely to God.

Again, a black-and-white affirmation of my BFO that one inner-realized thought of a need belongs entirely to God...which fulfills the need in the instant.    

My yesterday's BFO is my pearl beyond price, the assurances from God Calling and Merton are back-ups that I have read before, believed as I read the words, but ego, using self-centered fear, held me in thrall. 

To receive the word from within, that the very thought of a need I just became aware of is already met by God, fills me with awe...with gratitude and awe. 

There it is...the proven patience of God. And what is that patience but love...infinite love? 

Thank you.

ACCEPTANCE WRIT LARGE

Acceptance is the well-hidden gift of surrender. Surrender, egoically, is to lose...spiritually, it is to win. -- Lessons learned

If the only prayer you pray in your life is 'thank you,' that would suffice. -- Meister Eckhart

But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil... -- Matthew 5:39    

We have ceased fighting everything and everybody. -- Anonymous [This is "resist not evil."] 

I shall fight no more forever. -- Chief Joseph

Things don’t happen to us, they happen for us...God's will, God's way.

The hardest thing life will ever ask of us is that we change our mind. -- Blinding flash of the obvious

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

Thank you.

UNLEARNED KNOWLEDGE CLARIFID BY GRACE

Blinding flash of the obvious from March 29, 2022, upgraded: Shuck the shield of what i know...detach from learned, let unlearned knowledge flow forth...not to impress, but to depress self's image...seek the [Cloud of] Unknowing.

The unlearned knowledge that flows today is ever being birthed in the blinding flashes of the obvious, deepened, turned upside-down, reborn as less-than...God's will, God's way. My reasoning mind had held more. 

A whole new body of unknowing is aborning as my new Golden Goose. Formed by the half-remembered or reinterpreted BFOs of yesterday, born again is born again. 

Less-than-wonderful will ever be spiritually clarified by grace and by God.

Thank you.

GOD HAS MY BACK, II

[This is a slightly reworked reprint of my post of August 28, 2008.]

In my quiet time this morning, I read a reference to the Bible verse that advises us to take no thought for what we shall eat, what we shall drink, what we shall wear...our Father knows our needs.

The thought popped that I have never heard of a naked “bag lady.” The very term “bag lady” negates the probability…chances are, if she’s toting bags, she’s got something with which to cover herself.

I then imagined myself as that bag lady. I’d be praying for something to eat, drink, wear while eating out of dumpsters, drinking rainwater, wearing rags…never realizing that these are my answered prayers. If I’d give God me-clearance, He'd do considerably better…for sure, not any worse.

How deep within am I willing to know God? Like the bag lady's dumpster, rainwater and rags, I already have all that I actually need...my self-determined want is the problem. 

God has my back. Mine is to believe, trust, live that fact, knowing and showing care and concern for others by not imposing me or my wants on them.

When (not if) I feel disrespected by another, I know that to return disrespect for disrespect is to pick up mud and sling it in my own face. First rule of spiritual growth still applies: Keep it simple...God can and will always do better.

Blinding flash of the obvious: Go deeper within, beneath wants. Find what is already ours...God.

Thank you.

GOD LAUGHS FROM OUR BELLY...AH, PEACE

It seems the older I get, the simpler my lessons...probably because my lessons have already been learned. By me. Repeatedly. 

This day's new-old...refurbished!...lesson is: Don't be sorry, be grateful! To live in sorry is to live facing backward...look within for the source of the sorry, hug it, kiss it on the lips. wave it goodbye. 

Again, we realize that the hardest thing life is ever going to ask of us is that we change our mind, and that we change our mind for the benefit of the other. That is to take ownership, and until we do that, until we own our "sick, sad and sorry," it owns us. 

We learn that regret not, love and laugh are just pretty words without serious inner work. It is full ownership of our regrets that loosens their hold...transforms our thinking, feeling, doing and being. 

The Father within loves and laughs. From our belly. And we are peaced.

Thank you.

ON ROACHES AND RESENTMENTS, II

[The following is a slightly reworked reprint of my post of  November 23, 2013.]

I'm of the belief that those who don't or won't believe in a Power greater than themselves have an ego problem. Happiness is all about ego reduction in depth, according to me. I'll never ace that course, but I know the right answer, and I aspire to do it. That answer, of course -- "Others...for the benefit of others." 

Here are a few of the things I've heard that help me remember that all I need do is get over myself:

• You know you're not in the now when the one you're talking to is not in the room.
• Message to be taped to the bathroom mirror: "You are looking at the problem."
• The recorded message on a friend's answering machine: "It's not them."
• Silent reminder to self about one you're resisting: "S/He may be right."
• The only way to do your inventory wrong is if you come out the victim.
• The hardest thing life is ever going to ask of you is to change your mind.

That last one is particularly important because the need is not to change our mind in order to agree with whomever we're resisting. No...for we both may be wrong. The need is to open our mind to God...to get a perspective from a higher consciousness altogether.

The fact is if we don't believe in a power greater than ourselves, by whatever name we choose to call it, we're going to be purely peeved...a lot. Ego always legislates for itself...each walking around ego is legislating for itself, and somebody is going to lose. Resentment aborning.

The only thing harder to get rid of than roaches is a resentment...don't let either in to begin with which takes our sincere cooperation with a power greater than ourselves...else roaches would have been eradicated long ago and resentments wouldn't still be our number one offender.

Thank you.

GET OVER OUR OWN SELF...LOVE AND LAUGH

Blinding flash of the obvious: The one and the only, the true and the final answer is the gutbucket realization that...for real... all the power of God is in forgiveness. 

That being true, the promise that the Father and I are One becomes more understandable...not as quickly acceptable, that's going to require our living detachment. 

God and I are one. I have all the power of God within me now. All the power of God is in forgiveness. All my power is of God in forgiveness...and that is all. 

My as-I-breathe world is getting a quick revamp. Comes the light...We have ceased fighting everything and everybody. What is that if not a life of forgiveness? And how long have I been imperfectly practicing that?

Talk about getting handed my marching orders and finding out they are what I've had all along...just without the frills now. Frills...just another word for "wants." 

Whatever comes, we welcome it with love and laughter...if it bites us in the butt, love and laugh; if it brings ugly up the gump-stump, love and laugh. To find the good in a bad situation...love and laugh.

To love and laugh, get over our own self. To get over our own self...forgive.  To forgive...give before we get...be the first to give love.

Thank you.

TO BE GUIDED FROM THE DEPTHS OF OUR SOUL

It seems that old thoughts. recognitions and realizations are returning to me as new, fuller and richer. The process of affirmation maybe...keeps coming back until we get it right.

When I began to be drawn to smaller, to less, to littler, I knew I was being led deeper to a higher place. Mainly because it did not make a lick of sense to me. But many years ago when I first recognized the importance of detachment to me personally, I remembered the words loose it and let it go. When first I read those words, I didn't relate to their personal importance...nevertheless, and fortunately, I made them mine.

Then unknowing started singing to me. Unknowing, I realized suffering as a necessary fact of life, both materially and spiritually. Shortly thereafter I read the words necessary suffering, presented as a spiritual act.  

For whatever reason, the 1960's book, Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me, just came to mind. I remember when it first came out, and the accidental death of the author, Richard Farina, just days after its publication, if I remember correctly, which is neither here nor there...what I remember is on first hearing the title, I knew it as both '60s smart-ass and deeply spiritual. I would doubt that but I remember saying those very words at the time to the friend I was with. 

Somehow and again for whatever reason, I sense that as the way of my spiritual growth...like, we  gotta put it in reverse to get where we need to go...go deeper to get higher...the last shall be first. OMG, I'm  channeling the Sermon! Don't tell me God isn't guiding us every step of our way. 

Psychologist and wilderness guide Bill Plotkin writes: By trusting your unknowing, your old standards of progress dissolve and you become eligible to be chosen by new, larger standards, those that come not from your mind or old story or other people, but from the depths of your soul. -- From Fr Richard's Daily Meditation of June 2, 2018.   

Thank you.

GOD...FOR THE BENEFIT OF ALL

I am a living paradox of Divine and human, just as Jesus is. — Richard Rohr

I wonder if I believe that. By "believe," I mean I wonder if I can prove that. Superficially...eyebrows up...I do believe, but down deep?  

Whether or not I believe it, I know to open my mind to accepting it. Discover where it leads me...it will lead nowhere if I reject it just because it has the name "Jesus" in it. 

In that regard, whether or not I accepted that I have an incurable, progressive disease over which I am powerless, I believed it, or I would not have made my first call for help. My reasoning mind was resisting the idea of my disease even as I made the call. 

That call eventually brought my realization of a higher Power within that has transmuted the power of the disease into spiritual power, beneficial to all...myself and others.

Through consistent and ongoing effort, we find everything we require through a divine force that exceeds our own capabilities. This supreme force transforms the grasp of the material mind, bringing opportunities to assist others. We find serenity.

Again and again and yet again, no matter the perceived problem or egoic doubt, my answer is: Resist not evil. -- Matthew 5:39 

Thank you.

TO PURIFY ATTACHMENT...LOVE AND LAUGH

All of life is a lesson in learning to love more deeply and truly....We have to learn the great art of detachment, which is not aloofness but the purifying of attachment. -- Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation,  June 4, 2018

Blinding flash of the obvious: All of life is a lesson in learning to love...learning the difference between personal [egoic] love and impersonal [spiritual] love

Egoic love is in it to get it; spiritual love flows by giving.

What if the great art of detachment is an unconscious appreciation for powerlessness? As in, giving over, giving up, giving in without thought of how or whether to. Living in the light of God's love, we would no longer have...or want...a personal choice.

The purifying of attachment--love and laugh as we give over, give up and give in.

Thank you.

HAPPY IS COMING HOME

This world is a place where we learn to return goodwill for ill will and love for hatred, to work harmoniously with others, and to put other people's welfare before our own. -- Eknath Easwaran, Words To Live By, May 15

That quote is a needed reminder that the Sermon on the Mount is our standard for daily living. More important, it is ours not by self-will, but by God's will, God's way, channeled through our raised consciousness. 

If we are "trying" to live it, we are still self-willing it, but fret not...we are heading in the right direction. Our spiritual mind is edging out the material, getting lighter by losing heavy-heavy-in-my-head.   

We stand on this: We seek God's will, God's way even as our thinking is being transmuted, and our consciousness raised. Comes then the realization...this Way has ever been ours, but self has blocked our in sight.

Not always, but more often than not, we now return goodwill for ill will and love for hatred, we work harmoniously with others, and put other people's welfare before our own.

Happy is coming home.🙏

Thank you.

OR, JUST GET OVER YOUR SELF, II

[The following is a slightly reworked reprint of my post of  November 23, 2017.]

We must go beyond reason to love. -- "The Lazy Man's Guide to Enlightenment," Thaddeus Golas

That quote is a favorite of mine. It gives me permission...permission I need if I am ever going to take nothing personally...to stop before I start, say, mentally justifying my desire to respond in kind.

Quoting the mystic Meister Eckhart, God is not found in the soul by adding anything, but by a process of subtraction. 

To "go beyond reason" is to learn the art of subtraction...detaching from want. Down and dirty: Hug it and kiss it and let it go. 

Interestingly, the idea just flashed re going beyond reason to love...love is what is beyond reason...love is not reasonable...to stay in the reasoning mind is to miss the miracle of love. (Enough. I think my reasoning mind just kicked in.)

It can probably all be boiled down to columnist Henry Mitchell's great line: Just don't be as nasty as you want to be.

Thank you.

IMPERFECTION DRAWS FORTH DIVINE MERCY

Rereading Fr Richard's Daily Meditations, I found in a Meditation from August 28, 2018: By including ordinary life, the Hebrew Scriptures include what most of us would call the problem—the negative, the accidental, the sinful—as the precise arena for divine revelation.

Then from August 29th: Imperfection is the pattern that draws forth the Divine Mercy.

I do not doubt those ideas formed my blinding flash that fear is God in camouflage...for it is that fear that so quickly turns us to God.

It is a balm to my troubled heart...no, it is my mind that is nattering, not my heart...to be reinformed of the basis of my today's walking-around beliefs. By walking around, I mean as we breathe, as we chat, as we think, as we live, we are knowing whatever our eyes see, our ears hear, that is God in camouflage, walking us through life as we live it.

Oh my. Just after I wrote that last paragraph, I read: The spiritual journey moves us from recognizing that our group is God’s “chosen people,” even in our imperfection, to knowing that all people—in fact all of Creation—are God’s beloveds and are made in God’s image and are equally imperfect in that reflection. 

Fr Richard said it better, but we're proving the same point. Face it, we're on God's ground when we're proving the same point as Fr Richard.

Thank you. 

LOVE IS NOT STATIONARY...IT FLOWS

....the last shall be first, and the first last. -- from the Sermon

Long ago blinding flash of the obvious: We will never know peace until we let go of our personal sense of right and wrong.

My personal sense of right was that I get what I want, of wrong was either I don't get what I want or you get what I want.

The personal in my sense of right and wrong began to lessen when humility became a good thing to my mind and did not come easily...which is humbling but true. 

Truth makes a mental U-turn when we are graced with our dreaded surrender...as in, you lose speaks our name, and we can only agree. That is the birthing of acceptance out of the womb of surrender...it seldom, if ever, feels like God calling. 

That birth is the beginning of the mirror image of God working in our life. It brings the hardest lesson for us to grasp...there is love for any and all, or there is no love at all.

Thank you.

SURRENDER IS ACCEPTANCE ABORNING

Being willing to see down as up...and finally realizing God's will, God's way in that...is the beginning of our awakening.

This is a process, a process entirely about shucking our shields, hardly a one-shot deal. Clarity is muddled...coming in long, arduous, tedious, irritating, aggravating bits and pieces, dribs and drabs, but ever oncoming.   

Slowly we learn, even more slowly we accept, that the process is all about changing our mind; namely, detaching from reliance on our reasoning mind and attaching to reliance on our Father within. The paradox is that this cannot be done by self-will but we must try with a will or fall by the wayside.

We are more fully realizing that we must go to God to change our mind. We have relied on our own thoughts, feelings and prayers that God fix us as we thought we needed to be fixed...unknowing, the perfect change of God has already happened. 

We awake with the realization that our need is to Let. It. Be. Resist not evil...a.k.a., turn our idea of evil over to God to perfect. 

There's the magic: In that surrender, acceptance is aborning. In our soul. Flowing from within out.  Trailing peace, love and joy. To wrap ourself in even as we pass it on.

To reiterate: All great work for Me is done first in the individual soul of the worker. -- God Calling, May 10

Thank you.

OR JUST PRAY THANK YOU

All great work for Me is done first in the individual soul of the worker. -- God Calling, May 10

I read those words this morning, and I felt pierced...probably too strong a word since the feeling was so sweet but it did feel like a warm arrow to my heart...Cupid's bow and arrow comes to mind.

Not to get too over-the-top, but I knew it for my great truth...and that I have passed muster.

Again, I've been reading God Calling for 50+ years, so I have read that line 50+ times...and it needs saying that I have underlined it repeatedly. Today, though, my soul confirmed what my heart, body and brains have sought...even taught...all along. Ah, but with "not enough" too often playing its silent song.

I doubt not that "not enough" will continue humming its tune, but now, and from now on, I will get to love and laugh and joy in the egoic game. I can resist it not...just hug it and kiss it and let it go. 

Sidebar: I can be so certain of that from my experience with the dreaded fact that I take myself too seriously. Which, in all seriousness, I denied...until the day I got the quiet word and said out loud to another that there is nothing in this world that I can't take too seriously but especially myself. And we both hooted and stomped our feet and giggled and grinned. I've walked free of that defect ever since...taking myself too seriously whenever ego did my thinking for me, but always winding up loving and laughing at it/me again. 

I take heart in realizing that the Father knows my needs. I pray thank you and rely on it...there's my gold.

Thank you.

WE MUST GO BEYOND REASON...TO GOD

 '13 Whether summoned or not, God is here. -- note I wrote in my God Calling. 

Reading that long-ago note opened further thoughts: Whether we know it or not, God is here. Whether we believe it or not, God is here. Whether we feel it or not, God is here. And here is wherever we be in the moment.

The paradox is our willingness to accept those facts as true is our block. 

Our willingness says we got it; our realizing knows we have barely begun.

We slowly realize that our personal difficulty in accepting those truths is our perpetual reliance on reason. Meaning that our willingness is in our head. It must move down to our heart, to our belly, to our Soul. That movement is of God. 

True acceptance comes unfettered...free and clear. It is God's gift. 

We know it when we get it by the change in our attitude. We are no longer trying...crying and trying...we resist not, we accept, usually with love and laughter, meaning humbly. We may not realize it at the time or in the moment but as we look back...and we are graced with gratitude.

The hardest fact to make our own is the acceptance of that. Again, and yet again: We must go beyond reason to love...to acceptance...to God. 

Thank you.

THE GIFT OF UNCONSCIOUS AWARENESS

As we delve deeper into spiritual growth, we begin to see that the human condition is a needy condition. To the human condition, spirituality comes second, third...or last no matter the number. Even as we acknowledge the necessity for spiritual growth, our material mind is working the angles...how can this work for me?

If we do not grow spiritually, accepting ego reduction in-depth, i.e., ego deflation...because if we're doing it right, that's our reward...then ego-victory thinking will be our guide, ever ready to challenge. 

It's a hard lesson learning that to outwardly win an ego challenge is to inwardly lose a step in spiritual growth.

It is a slow process, this coming to realize that our need is to live by a higher standard than is accessible to reason...open to God and grace and inner growth. No longer living first for our own benefit...after all, God has our back...we are now living for the benefit of others.

We sense God's hand is in it even as it outwardly shows without our conscious awareness. That is to live the peace that passes understanding.

Thank you.

MIRROR IMAGE: D-O-G...G-O-D

 [E]verything shows itself...to be 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 trapdoor into salvation. -- from Fr Richard Rohr's "Daily Meditation" of December 14, 2013

That  describes what I call "mirror image" which is how I believe God sees the material world...what to our egoic mind is "No!" is often his "Yes!" 

I recall this morning that D-O-G is G-O-D spelled backward. Hey!..mirror image. 

Love and laugh.

Thank you.

BE WILLING TO SEE DOWN AS UP, II

[The following is a reprint of my post of May 29, 2019.]

Say we make a decision to turn our will and our life over to the care of God as we understand Him...the hard lesson we learn is that leaves all to God. Every jot and tittle, every breath we take is left to the care of God.

God will ensure a happy return to all of our endeavors...ah, but it, that happy return, will not be all in our singular favor. It will be in the favor of all, which, to our reasoning mind, does not look like we've come out the "winner." It may well appear that we've finished at the end of the line.

That's how we learn if we're asking God to help us "win," meaning to fulfill a want or to come out ahead, we are ego-talking and only our self can hear.

God's will for each of us benefits each of us...the pearl beyond price is when we realize our happiness lies in the fact that God favors not one but all to our individual need.

In losing, we win...and the meek shall inherit the earth.

Thank you.

GOD'S WILL, GOD'S WAY, GOD'S TIME

The times are urgent; let us slow down. -- Author Bayo Akomolafe

The most spiritual thing you are ever going to do is slow down. -- First heard by me some fifty years ago, not understood at all then, never forgotten, growing clearer every year, holy writ to me today.

The egoic mind resists, the spiritual mind persists. 

Slowing down when fear is urging us to get outta Dodge quick, fast and in a hurry is spirituality at its finest, also when it feels downright obtuse.  

We quote the spiritual need to go beyond reason to love...we all but preach it. Ah, but being met with the actual need to do it? There's our proof come calling. 

We come to trust...in the face of fear, in the face of our brain not knowing what God's will, God's way is...we come to trust that this is for our benefit. Not for my benefit or your benefit or their benefit...for our benefit. 

The Divine Good flows for the benefit of all...slowly, slowly. Ah, but truly. 

Thank you.

ON RIGHTING A WORRIED MIND

We are punished by our wrongs more than for our wrongs. -- Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, August 16, 2018

After a fairly sleep-deprived night, I awakened remembering that it is not the various ankle-biters that are my culprits, it is my resistance to them. My uncalm mind is the true culprit, goosed by the nattering thought that I seek to trust the higher consciousness within me...which, independent of my feeling it, is growing deeper as it...yes!...raises.

Again quoting Fr Richard: Don’t waste your time calculating degrees of imperfection! Imperfection is the pattern that draws forth the Divine Mercy. 

Blessed mercy! There is the source of my peace. It is akin to my long-ago BFO that fear is God in camouflage...for nothing turns us to God faster than fear. 

I sense gratitude awakening in me...I am grateful for my unrest, that uncalm mind, as it brings my focus back to God...to God's will, God's way. 

Those four words come and...voila!...my worried mind is righted. God is so good to me...for me.

Thank you. 

THE INEFFABLE POWER OF THE DIVINE

Coming out the other side of stuck is a slow lesson in learning. Only in looking back can we realize the slower the better for our Soul...our getting-out-of-self self. 

Just this morning I read, Getting stuck in the past is like guarding a cemetery. Is that not great? Great in its simple truth. It did not say who said it, likely Mark Twain or Abraham Lincoln, I give them credit and pass it on as ours.

The thing we learn about stuck is, it means...always, ever and ever, no exceptions, without fail...stuck in self. We cannot be stuck in Gertrude or Mortimer or whomever/whatever else we are blaming; inevitably, in full Light, we see self. 

Bad news/good news: Be assured that this is not a one-off, not as-is permanent...it is, however, recollectible. The foundation of spiritual growth, the ineffable grace of God, invites us to dig within to build our trust...using our lessons learned, recollected repeatedly and growing.

As we see true, we welcome it, trusting that the sacred God's will, God's way is living our life...whether we know it or not. 

Thank you.

ON THE PLANTING OF LOVE WITH LAUGHTER

I stumbled on a writing of mine from 2017...what I wrote is akin to what I am experiencing today. The difference is when I wrote it, I was in the process of coming to believe it...kinda like, I hope I'm not lying here. 

Great and glorious news...I wasn't lying! 

I am living today what I was hoping in 2017; i.e.,  Everything that is happening to me, that is happening in my life right this very instant is answered prayer...is the answer to my very own prayer as generated by my thoughts, my judgments, my fears, my praise, my pleasures.

Clearly, what I was living then did not qualify for a material world label of "pretty" or even good news.

This invites the comparison to what I am living today...life appearing as less-than-wonderful but being lived in the way I was hoping for when first I wrote about it. If not full-out laughter, then smiles...non-resistant...accepting in a word.

I am experiencing splinters and snags and bumps and bruises...and a mind free from "#%$& +^" with a heart full of peace. Mayhap surprised peace, nonetheless peace.  

I wrote in 2017, The more accepting I am (transparent), the more content or giving I will feel. The less accepting I am (opaque), the needier I will feel.

I wrote that on faith...on what I'd read and heard from friends who have gone before me, from Fr Richard, Goldsmith, Easwaran, et al. The good news is none of them lied. I have not cursed and cried, beat my breast and wailed...no, not even once! I've pretty much just grinned at myself in my today's walking-around reality.

It may well be that the better news is...I know #%$& +^ will come again. I will arm wrestle with God again...I will take myself too seriously again. 

Best news: When, not if, that happens, through the God of my own understanding, I am freed to love and laugh and share my truth of the matter. That's how love with laughter grows.

Thank you.

THE JOY OF LIVING IS IN DETACHMENT

Every time we catch ourselves getting [resistant], every time we catch ourselves acting as if the outcome of the situation has the authority to name who we are, we are to take a deep breath and remind ourself that it’s not true. —James Finley

In that one sentence, Finley gives the basic instruction for our journey to find within the God of our own understanding. This is a process...a lifetime process of moving toward inner freedom. We are learning to live the spiritual act of detachment.

In the instant, every regret, every egoic hallelujah is cosmically transmuted for our benefit, all the while requiring constant inner care to ensure our continuing growth...or, prayer without words.      

All of our rues, regrets and remorses are evidence of the God of our own understanding leading us free of our egoic self. Resist them not. Without them we'd have no clue about forgiving, or loving our enemy, i.e., ourself. Or to love and laugh.

We earn the priceless thank you with what instructor Caroline Oakes describes as a continual pausing to let go of egoic attachments, fear, judgment, or expectations and then a returning to the Divine Presence again and again.

Detachment is the raw explanation of the mirror image of God. It takes a lifetime and yet another to be raised deeper into God consciousness for to live there. That is the joy of living.

Thank you.