TRUST...WE'RE IN GOD'S POCKET, ALL IS WELL

A faint and fleeting thought this morning: Jesus lived Trust. 

Thoughts of Jesus rarely mingle with my own thoughts, so when they do, I listen...a tish apprehensively, but I do listen. 

Fairly recently, and uninvited, the thought for me to trust, for me to learn Trust, has presented itself....kinda like a bum, begging for a buck...unwanted but in need. We know the uninvited thought can be sacred so we do not want to ignore it...yes, but, reason dares not cater to it...beware, look out, be careful blares a tuneless song.

The Father knows our needs....my morning reading which is on the Sermon is all about Jesus going out all but barefoot and penniless, walking and talking and supping with the uneducated, the poor, the whores and the publicans.

Who hasn't read that? More specifically, what seeker of still more spiritual growth hasn't read that...and thought, so what's the point? Or, that may just be me, but it went over my head like a hairnet...not the surface message, I got love all, but the underneath message, I missed trust by giving all not getting.  

Trust that our needs, i.e., our life, breath, health, wealth, flow to us from our Father within...Now. Whether we know it or not, we shall never not have enough...so give.

The Lord is our shepherd, we shall not want...we have enough. Trust.

Thank you.

GOD IS RELEASED FROM WITHIN

When we decide to embrace hope—when we choose to make that our goal and our message—we release a flow of energy that cannot be overcome. -- Retired Episcopalian bishop and Choctaw citizen Steven Charleston, Fr Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation of June 29, 2023 

Our supreme purpose in life is not to make a fortune, nor to pursue pleasure, nor to write our name on history, but to discover this spark of the divine that is in our hearts. —Eknath Easwaran 

That "flow of energy" that Charleston mentions is Easwaran's "spark of divine," and both, the flow and the spark, are the God we seek...in which hope lives.

To myself I say: Pay attention! God lives within...is in constant release from our heart.

My ongoing search for the Father within is taking me deeper...less dependent on the hairs-on-my-head count, more dependent on my unknowing-but-believing feelings. 

I am not overly familiar with the Bible except to quote it when I agree or want to agree with something it says...thus, I quote:  

...all things are possible to s/he who believes....Lord, I believe; help me mine unbelief. -- Mark 9:23-25 

Thank you.

OUR FEAR IN GOD'S HANDS IS OUR TREASURE

I suspect that trust is today's Holy Grail for many spiritual seekers. 

To trust a Power greater than our self to have our back, to be on our side, to be for our benefit...according to our lights. And, there it is, the poison in the pretty...according to our lights. 

The building blocks of trust begin with facing our fear du jour and moving toward it; showing our bum in public; allowing fear of rejection, dementia, poverty, et al.,  their place at our table sans silent suffering or whistling-past-the-graveyard bravado; meeting every instant's mental Uh-Oh with our heart's Thank You. 

To honestly trust the higher Power is to realize love on a whole new plane...by not fearing but being open to the unknown be it by pain or plenty. 

The new lesson is in the same-old-same-old,  resist not evil...nonresistance, a higher realization of love down deeper. 

It is baked in our decision to trust God with our fear of rejection, dementia, poverty. We are headed toward glory with our recognition that nothing turns us to God faster than fear. Resist not, welcome!

We discover our dark fear in God's hands is our greatest treasure.

Thank you.   

RESIST NOT, WELCOME AND BE CALMED

When we are feeling like our skin's on crooked, and there is no immediately recognizable cause...when there is no rhyme or reason or, to be more precise, no person or thing to blame...praying thank you without having a clue as to why calms our mind almost without fail.

Ponder this: unavoidable suffering, valid hurt, necessary suffering...against reasoning mind standards, each is for the benefit of our Soul. Each is of God and tells a story unto itself. 

When experienced not by self-determination but by an inner need, our pain is not so much physical as an ever-deepening, albeit well-disguised, spiritual longing. 

Examples from my personal experiences: unavoidable suffering, our egoic pain as we are being separated from a self-determined objective; valid hurt, our grief over the loss of someone or something we had held dear; necessary suffering, our giving over, giving up, giving in for the benefit of another...especially a less-than-loved person or habit in our life. This is the first step toward acceptance.

Again, unavoidable suffering, valid hurt, necessary suffering are of God...resist not, pray thank you and be calmed. 

Thank you.

SPIRITUAL IN NATURE, THE SPARK DIVINE

Blinding flash of the obvious: Spiritual in nature - all are birthed spiritual in nature.

I suspect that our rues, regrets and remorses come when we are hunkered down within longing for the outer...for showtime!...all the while thinking, "This time it will be different." 

As a line from the song "Loving Arms" puts it: Looking back and longing for the freedom of my chains. What can one do with that but love and laugh? With/for/at oneself. 

It is that love and laughter, of course, that opens my senses today to more shucking of my shields. I almost dare not hope...am I becoming more like a child, un-selfed...unself-conscious, -aware, -protected? 

I choose to believe that the spark Divine grows within that by its light we might see the smaller me, more of God than self. 

Thank you. 

HUMILITY...LOVE IT OR LOVE IT

Ah...caught in a maelstrom in our own mind.... 

That was my yesterday's travail. 

Today's blinding flash of the obvious: My humility was a quart low, that's all. 

God loves me so much.

Thank you.

LISTEN. CLOSELY. CHOOSE. WISELY.

When caught in a maelstrom in our own mind, we are often advised to "turn it over," or, in short,  fuhgeddaboudit. If only.

There, however, is the root of our still more spiritual growth...we hear fuhgeddaboudit, and we recognize the self-determined objective that no longer works. Then. Right then. We are graced by trust that God is on the field...how will be made clear...and the door upon which I knock is opened to us.

Our awakening is the realization that the spiritual decision we must make is to turn over not our problem du jour but our will and our life. To the care of God. 

That decision, honestly and truly made, transmutes frets, worries and maelstroms, i.e., fear, and we know peace. That we will feel fear again is accepted, but we are freed to love and laugh in the midst of it.

When fear calls, we get to determine again which side to choose. Comes the all-clear: Our choice has already been made...pray thank you, and be peaced.

Thank you.

ON SPIRITUAL REWIRING...FROM SELF TO UNSELF

Blinding flash of the obvious: Seek to find the Divine spark in change, i.e., realize all that we do, say, show is God's will, God's way...whether we know it or not.

I have sought for a long time to move away from self-determined objectives, to center me in that moment in the perfect objective of God. 

The many recent unplanned, even unwanted, changes I have been experiencing seem to be leading the way. 

Some of my changes seem to be the exact opposite of my best wants...I want to do this for a friend, I want to do that for the Fellowship, yet I have been unconsciously blocked. Same goes with NOT calling friends whom I miss, NOT doing my usual way of life, but doing that which would never have entered my reasoning mind as a good idea...as in, making my head and my heart available for any less-than of life. 

I welcome these changes, but the thought did occur...why? Flash...to rewire my brain...to detach from relying on living my way by learning to rely on God's will, God's way. To trust in a word. 

I am following by doing what I am now recognizing flows out from me...not from my "me" self, but from My Self, and not by conscious choice, but by unconscious acceptance.

I had not grasped the importance of the divine spark in these changes so have been "explaining" them in reasoning mind terms. (Still playing to the ego...or paying for the ego, more like.) Realizing the importance is in the process of changing me...has allowed the changes to continue without (too much) doubt.  

I am learning that it is vital that I remember when a change occurs, along with my thank you, to be open to guidance in living the change God's will, God's way. 

In short, consciously invite God to lead...then unconsciously follow.

Thank you.

EGO-STANDARDS V. GOD'S STANDARDS, II

[The following is a slightly reworked reprint of my blog of April 14, 2010.]

As I was brushing my teeth this morning, I had a blinding flash of the obvious: You need to lower your standards. 

Since my standards aren’t extraordinarily high to begin with, I knew that could not mean what it seemed to say.

I realized that I was being told to lower my ego standards. It is in letting go of ego standards that one reaches God’s standard…Love.

Deep in the center of one’s being is that standard that brings perfect peace. It is known by various names…the Golden Rule, service, loving kindness are a few. The practice of any one of those can and will bring one perfect peace. 

We have learned, however, that one cannot practice them in order to get perfect peace…or indeed in order to get anything.

One practices love in order to love. There...perfect peace.

Thank you.

WELCOME THE UNLOVABLE...LOVE AND LAUGH

Our supreme purpose in life is not to make a fortune, nor to pursue pleasure, nor to write our name on history, but to discover this spark of the divine that is in our hearts. —Eknath Easwaran

From my own experience, the spark of the divine that is in our heart is ever present, ever working for our benefit, and remains hidden, out of material sight and mind...until we see, we know, and we doubt anyway.

It is wholly counterintuitive, but it is that very doubt that is essential to our still more spiritual growth.

\We have come to believe, now we need to prove our belief...proof is trust, and trust is acting not talking and even less pondering. Trust never, not ever, comes easy.

The human condition, ego and I See Me are the Holy Trinity of our material world. That's another reasoning mind/counterintuitive punch in the gut.

We cannot fight them, we cannot resist them, we cannot make an end-run around them. We walk through our fear of them to welcome them. In short, we trust the spiritual principles that have proved true...we love and laugh as we pray thank you. 

We have to experience the negative side of reality along with the positive. -- Father Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, June 21, 2023 

Thank you.

SELF MADE SELFLESS...BY GOD AND BY GRACE

I have said often that when I turned 80 it was as if a switch had flipped within me, and I became...or am becoming...a different person.

I journaled just this morning about the changes that are taking place within me, the results of actions I have taken sans any thought or decision made. A for instance: yesterday was to be "wash day," meaning immediately after my quiet time and my breakfast, I'd get my wash done. 

Without thinking about it, I did less than nothing until around 3:00 or 3:30 PM, when, again without thought, I got the basket of dirty clothes, tossed the first load in the washer, after which, the second load, and finished shortly before 7:00 PM. 

My forever code has been, If it doesn't get done in the morning, it doesn't get done. Clearly, this is a major change to a minor way of life. It probably feels major because I had no part in the decision, but I look like a puppet in my mind's eye. 

This is the most I've thought about it, mayhap because of my note in my God Calling. Exactly one year ago today, I wrote, I am in deep initiation work now...on the razor's edge of self and selfless. This reminds me of my recent realization that my self-confidence is being transmuted into God-assurance...self into selfless. 

I have to believe these "little" changes are the ribbon running through...raising my consciousness by God and by grace...more proof that my life is not mine to fix, it is God's to do with me, to build of me, God's will, God's way. 

This I know...from experience...never dismiss ego. It will be with me until three days after I am dead, and any self-directed divergence from Me First, "i" in charge, is ego...Edging God Out. I can love that, too...actually, I can love knowing that. There...assurance God is doing my thinking for me. 

Thank you.

MORNING BLINDING FLASH OF THE OBVIOUS

I am the source of all my woes. 

All healing begins within. 

Regret not our woes for they lead to our healing.

Thank you.

IN PRAISE OF BAFFLED GRATITUDE

Our shadow is what we refuse to see about ourselves, and what we do not want others to see. The movement to second-half-of-life wisdom has much to do with necessary shadow work and the emergence of healthy self-critical thinking, which alone allows us to see beyond our own shadow and disguise and to find who we are.... -- Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, June 18, 2023

If man lived apart with Me and only went out to serve at My direct command, My Spirit could operate more and accomplish truly mighty things. -- God Calling, June 18 

It is My spirit that is making all the small changes in me Now...all leading to the egoically unfavorable changed me as I acknowledge with praise and gratitude (thank you) and resist not. 

This, then, must be Fr Richard's second-half-of-life wisdom, and I do feel gratitude. Baffled but grateful. 

Blinding flash of the obvious: Worrit not how, praise the unknowable how as we are led. 

Thank you.

THE DIVINE IN DETACHMENT

All that owned them, all that possessed their minds and hearts, their attachments and compulsions, must be healed and reconciled. Desert ascetics called this process of moving toward inner freedom detachment. -- Laura Swan in Fr Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation, April 25, 2023  

Lessons we learn from the process of detachment from the valid hurts of our lives determine the core of our life as we live it...as a child, a teen, an adult, an elder. The spiritual news is the valid hurts are not our core, it is the divine spark within detaching us from those hurts that is our core. 

It is that divine spark that opens our eyes, and we see we have been awakened to the sacred mystery: The hurts, the pain, bring healing...from within.

Pray not to have the unwanted removed, pray thank you for the divine spark that allows us to see the unwanted as another sliver of God's gold. Another blessing in disguise.

God moves in mysterious ways his wonders to perform.

Thank you.

FOREVER AND ALWAYS IS NOW

I have meditated with the 23rd Psalm for many years...that comforts me. Here are some thoughts that have come and gone, come again and leave new thoughts for my meditation: 

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. I have enough...to not want is to have enough...Now. Enough supply, health, mental acuity, friends, ability to meet whatever, whenever, wherever...Now. When we think outside of Now...either forward or backward...we invite fear to do our thinking for us. Fear will whisper, "Not enough," but my shepherd's answer is, "I Am. Enough." 

 

Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil for Thou are with me. The valley holds my rues, regrets and remorses, and they birth the Number One offender, resentment. I focus on my shepherd, kiss my remorses on the lips, and know that with God there is no evil to fear.

Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me. "Thy rod and Thy staff"  are comprised of the ego's pain of resistance...one, to owning my part, and two, to forgiving the other who had no part in my part.

Thou prepares a place before me in the presence of my enemies. My enemies are my character defects...led by my taking myself too seriously which invites self-pity, self-centered fear, self-will...self, in a word. What we resist persists. The preparation is for my benefit in learning to accept my enemies with lovingkindness.

Thou anointeth my head with oil, my cup runneth over. God loves us singly, separately, all together, as One. There is no God in yesterday, there is no God in tomorrow, God is Now. 

Thank you.

THE GOD WE WANT IS THE GOD WE HAVE

Blinding flash of the obvious:  My self-confidence is lessening...my God-confidence is deepening.

I was thinking this morning of my planned drive out to pick up a friend for lunch today, and my loss of confidence in driving reared its snake's head. Just as the thought recurred about my loss of confidence, the assurance of God-confidence flashed, and I felt God's hug.

Fret not, God-confidence is trusting God, and, well-tended, as reliance on self leaves, reliance on God grows.  

Here's ego's hook...believing God has failed when I do not get what my self-confidence had or was seeking. No...evermore, No. I may never regain my confidence in driving, but...heed this...I am a better driver for it. I follow the speed limit now. I give others the right-of-way without grudging...or judging. I pay close attention to the road. The difference is I once did all (or most) of that without thought, now I must concentrate...use my brain.

 

Just because God-confidence grows does not mean we get what we want, it means we get God's perfect will, God's way. Our want may never be a thought to God, that's for the material mind to tend to...that's why we have a brain. So use it and trust God.

Here is the Good News: The God we most deeply want IS the God we actually have....  Fr Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation, June 15, 2023

Thank you.

RESIST NOT, WELCOME ALL...LOVE AND LAUGH

I tend to believe that my most important spiritual direction lives in We have ceased fighting everything and everybody.

I recall my resistance to that...pretty much the same reaction I had on first hearing Resist not evil. And my gutbucket jolt when I realized that they mean the same thing. 

I have never forgotten that...which is not to say I always remember it...it is just that when they come to mind, I feel God in their essence.

We must not forget that only we can access that for our benefit...and "for our benefit" essentially is for the benefit of others.

Same goes for Chief Joseph's heart-melting promise: I shall fight no more forever. Oh, to be able to promise that without egoic qualifiers whispering in our head. There...that is free.

Another reason to love and laugh...the assurance, He goes before us to make the crooked places straight. 

Thank you.

ON REWIRING THE BRAIN...PRAY THANK YOU

 Random offerings: My calendar was all jammed up when I looked at it yesterday morning...and dreaded. By the afternoon, it was cleared...by cancellations, rearrangements and grace, all incoming. 

Blinding flash of the obvious: One thought brings forth God's divine will and way.

There It Is: One thought. Change. Small gifts. From God. 

I am becoming aware that I am rewiring my brain...by my making unplanned changes, not doing the usual, i.e., the stale stuff, but doing the next thing differently. My ultimate...always and ever...goal is trusting God, to trust in God.  Occasionally, I have to remind me to stay aware...awake and aware...to beware of sliding into sloth. 

Brain rewiring made simple: Give constant conscious invitation to God's will, God's way. Follow the suggested changes that come; i.e., do not ponder, analyze or quibble. Make mindful note when right. Pray thank you when wrong...and we will be wrong if we're doing it right. 

It is important to remember that I cannot rewire my brain, I can. I willingly...gratefully...do the deeds. 

Always most important, pray thank you early and often.

Thank you.   

PEACE...THE NEED IS TO GIVE TO GET

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

The well-hidden secret that age reveals at its lighting snail's pace (as in, to my mind, it was 1990 five minutes ago) is what to do is revealed by what we are doing. 

Given no choice many years ago but to offer my arm to an elderly lady trying to cross a busy street in L.A., I became an unofficial "crossing guard." A choice I never would have consciously made...clearly, God's will, God's way. 

It was temporary and only in looking back could I realize the changes that single act would make in my life...in my consciousness. I became willing to offer help...unasked. See a need, offer to help...a concept alien to me at the time. For certain sure, I never became a candy-striper, it's the willing consciousness that made my inside change permanent.

This is of import to me today because three, maybe four, separate friends and acquaintances are in my life today, each in a need of their own, and I am available and offering my "arm." I did not go looking for "something to do," they are each God's gift. 

With truth riding herd, I admit my first thought was ever a variation on, "Oh no...I don't have the time...."  

We get to kiss first thoughts on the lips and let them go...then do what we need to do because now we want to do it.

There it is...the difference between raised consciousness and egoic mind. Raised consciousness is, without our thought God uses us for the benefit of another; egoic mind, or our way, is to grit our teeth and bear it, usually with resentment dragging foot but closing in.

Egoic mind...wouldn't we really rather be at peace?

Thank you.

GOD'S WAY: SURRENDER TO GRATITUDE

We absolutely need conflicts, moral failures, defeats to our grandiosity, even seeming enemies. These are necessary mirrors, or we will have no way to ever spot our shadow self. -- Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditations, November 24, 2021   

It feels like grace that this “trance of unworthiness” led me onto a spiritual path - Tara Brach

Without sin and the fear of sin; without conflicts and moral failures and the fear of same; without the “trance of unworthiness” and the fear of that trance, churches and the like would be out of business. 

As we have experienced, nothing turns us to God faster than fear...and there we were praying God remove fear from our emotional repertoire. 

All our fears may be in business just to turn us from our egoic objectives in order for us to seek a better way...the divinity of gratitude.

'The soul’s journey into God,' as Bonaventure put it, was to learn how to see the unity of all being, how to look for this partially hidden God, and how to honor those footprints everywhere once they were seen. It was a surrender to gratitude. -- Fr Richard Rohr's Daily Meditations, June 11, 2023

Thank you.

TRUST, FAITH AND HAPPY DESTINY, II

[The following is a reprint of a previous post of mine.]

Trust in our Father is not eyebrows-up knowing how or when or where His perfect work will be performed. No. Trust is inner knowing that it has already been performed...and all is well.

All is well when to our reasoning mind's eye it looks scarifying. Or not what we want at any rate.

I quote (again) Fr Richard Rohr's line, Grace isn’t a gift for getting it right but for getting it wrong!

There's the road we trudge to trust, to faith in our Father which leads to our happy destiny.

Thank you.

GOD IS ON OUR SIDE...AND PULLING FOR US

"We are healed of suffering only by experiencing it to the full." -- Marcel Proust 

"In the Sermon on the Mount, one of the pieces of gold glinting there is that Jesus proclaims those in want to be the blessed." -- from "The Sermon on the Mount, a brief homily, 1996"  

The [homily's] inference is that only those who are hungry for God will be fed by God...only those who are in some sense empty can be filled.

The blessed are blessed precisely because they are empty and can, therefore, be filled with God.

This understanding of 'emptiness' is quite at variance with the usual way we interpret the word 'empty.' In our culture, it is overwhelmingly a negative word: empty promises...the empty nest...the empty cupboard...the empty house.

We rarely associate emptiness with something good, and yet in this well-worn scriptural passage, it is deemed an essential ingredient in blessedness.

The message is clear: Guard your hunger for God, cherish it, let it increase...believing, as Jesus makes plain, the hunger itself is the blessing. -- further from the brief homily of 1996  

As an aside, the first time ever I read the Proust sentence, I knew it to be profound...and true. Yet when I read the homily, I so resisted the word "Jesus" that I missed the message entirely for a time. 

I do not doubt that happens for many of us. That we continue to seek still more spiritual growth, still study the Sermon against our reasoning mind's resistance, is proof that God is on our side...and pulling for us.

Thank you.

MIND, HEART AND SOUL, ALL ONED

We'll see as we get into the Sermon on the Mount, that Jesus intended for us to take the low road....When w are protecting our self-image as moral, superior, or 'saved' persons, we always lose the truth....In our time, we have to find a way to disestablish ourselves, to identify with our powerlessness instead of our power, our dependence instead of our independence, and our communion instead of our individualism. Unless we understand that, the Sermon on the Mount isn't going to make any sense. -- Fr Richard Rohr,  "Jesus' Alternative Plan: The Sermon on the Mount"

I read that and my heart sang...it seems like forever and, at the same time, just a day or two ago that the realization came that we must go for less rather than for more, that littler, not bigger, is the Way. 

Then, of all things, a daily reader that I no longer read, came to my hand. I opened it at random, and on April 8 I had written: 2001 - To not confront a friend but be willing to be confronted...willing, not from head but from heart. Thank you.

To ego, that is not good. To still more spiritual growth, that is the sliver of gold...the essence of powerlessness, of our communion instead of our individualism. 

Interestingly, ego-reduction in depth is painful while it is all up in our head...in the thinking on it. There, the rocky road to disestablishing ourselves. That's how the rocks become diamonds, the doing of it. 

God's will, God's way...rocks transformed into diamonds transmuted into peace of mind, heart and Soul, all Oned. 

Thank you.

NOT FOR ME, BUT FOR THEE, II

[The following is a slightly reworked reprint of my post of December 15, 2015.]

Fr. Richard Rohr once made mention of marriage and child rearing. Considering that, it has translated in my mind to mentoring. Some people are called to mentor. It's a sure path to ego reduction in depth, if you really allow your mentoring to mirror you, revealing your ordinary and weak self, but also helping you to experience unconditional love.

Interestingly, I picked up another book and read, "...he does his deed well who does it rather for the common good than for his own will."

Blinding flash of the obvious: The gift is to get over myself with her/him, not for myself but for the benefit of others. 

Ah, others I may not even know...to emit vibrations of love, forgiveness and peace to be received by whomever, wherever. We need never be consciously aware who receives our forgiveness vibrations for the whole world needs love.

Conquer self...all good within can thus be unblocked to flow out to others and return with twelve bushels full left over.

Thank you.

TO DISCOVER...TO RELEASE...THE DIVINE WITHIN

Our supreme purpose in life is not to make a fortune, nor to pursue pleasure, nor to write our name on history, but to discover this spark of the divine that is in our hearts. —Eknath Easwaran

Yes.

Thank you.

"THANK YOU" UNTANGLES LIFE'S DAILIES

A recent blinding flash of the obvious: Staying power...the only thing that determines personal staying power is our own willingness...even when there is no desire, no want-to.

Comes the light! It is our willingness to change...to not stay with what we think we need but to accept that we do not know what it is we need. 

Although it seems counterintuitive, we find we can get stuck when we only seek to know God's will...without trust in God by doing the thing in front of us to do. That stays us in our material mind...seeking a self-determined objective, afraid of finding it.

Break that down...or open that up...and we see the staying power is in our willingness to pray, not just say, thank you in the face of all that invites resistance to the dailies of life. 

A deep need we learn...repeatedly...is to anticipate dailies with a happy countenance. Face it, we can't do the happy dance with an unhappy countenance.

Thank you reflects the inner love and laughter that sings our life's song as we untangle the dailies of life.

A happy heart maketh a cheerful countenance. -- Proverbs 15:13

Thank you.

FINDING THE SPIRITUALLY VITAL WITHIN

Until an objective inner witness (the Holy Spirit) emerges that looks back at us with utter honesty, we cannot speak of being awake or conscious. 

Until we move to self-reflective, self-critical thinking, we don’t move to any deep level of consciousness at all. 

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 Rohr's Daily Meditation, May 30, 2023

Thank you.

LOVE LIVES IN HUMBLE

I shared with my friends yesterday...and spent way too much time regretting what I had shared. As in: I said nothing...it was almost childish. They must've thought.... 

This morning I read, It [love] is the only weapon with which sin [rues, regrets, remorses] can be driven out. 

I thought of my yesterday's share that I had been so regretting, and I thought, this, too, needs love. 

So I wrapped my regrets in a warm blanket of love and kissed them on the lips. I felt peaced. Through love, the un-gussied-up share that I had so regretted had humbled me. 

Came the flash: Love lives in humble. 

Humble frees us from the egoic pain of our remorses. We are free...love and laugh.

Thank you.

ON STAYING OPEN TO GOD'S WILL, GOD'S WAY

God is in every cell, every person, and every activity. Whether it feels like it or not. God is creating. With yarn and needles, hiccups [my emphasis added], unraveling, do-overs, a rhythm, and individual stitches, God is making something new. -- Dr. Monica Coleman, Fr Richard's Daily Meditation, May 24, 2023 

As I have been noting of late...and am finding more and more...it is the little things that speak most clearly of God's personal care and concern for me. Take, for instance, the self-emphasized word hiccups. 

Hiccups have been the bane of my life as far back as I can remember. Just recently, my high school friend mentioned, when they came again, how they had plagued me back then. 

This is important to me because I talk to my God when they come...and I do not speak softly. In my most I-have-had-it voice, I call, OK, Lord...here they are again...the hiccups! You've got the power...use it! What's your hold-up? Shut 'em down already!

The glorious punchline...they stop. Obviously not forever but nine times out of ten until they come again...which is close enough to perfect for me. 

I'd rather keep the hiccups, knowing them to be God's will, God's way, than be freed from them by my own self-determination. So, in the last year or two, I've been adding: If you have something for me to learn from these hiccups, open my ears that I may hear, open my eyes that I may see, open me to do your will, your way. 

I do not doubt more has already been revealed...I'm just slow on the uptake. Which, God knows, works best for me.

But I promise...I was thrilled from my toes to my nose when I saw "hiccups" mentioned as a thing of God's creating.

God moves in a mysterious way his wonders to perform -- Luke 24:16

Thank you.

THE GRACE OF GRATITUDE...NO ONE-SHOT DEAL

Those who have gone to their depths uncover an indwelling Presence. It is a deep and loving 'yes' inherent within us. ... This True Self still must be awakened and chosen. The Holy Spirit is given equally to all; but it must be received, too. ... The Holy Spirit is never created by our actions or behavior; it is naturally indwelling, our inner being with God. -- Fr Richard's Daily Meditation, June 1, 2023

Well, there it is. The essence of my troubled mind...the source of my fearful discontent...apparently is that I do not dare to wholly believe. I See Me in my egoic mind blocks my "feeling" it even though I know it to be true. 

That I know yes, i.e., acceptance, is the answer to all my woes, assures me that I do know it for true. My holdback is that I am forgetting...or am I egoically discounting?...my early abundance of tears and fears that eventually and inevitably worked together for my good. My good by way of surrender transformed into acceptance.  

I do not feel I have gone to my depths and uncovered an indwelling Presence. Yet, looking back over the years, I realize my depths in all my tears and fears...it is they that represent my "widow's (old maid's) mite," i.e., my all. 

Flash...not feeling is the material mind's hold...reason giving precedence over spiritual. Comes the gift, the realized truth that this True Self still must be awakened and chosen....but it must be received, too. 

Thoughts being redirected: God, in my fearful discontent, revealed that I am in the process of receiving being awakened and chosen. Humbled, I recognize a work in progress, not a one-shot deal.

I am graced with gratitude.

Thank you.