ON TRUSTING OUR INNER AUTHORITY

The key to living a complete and fulfilled life lies in the realization that there is a mystical, transcendental Presence within us that has already provided our infinite supply unto eternity, that contains within itself our companionship unto eternity, and that has within itself the power of fulfillment. -- Joel Goldsmith, "A Parenthesis in Eternity," p 269

We can believe that we believe...we can know it and show it, we can, etc., etc., etc. Hey, we can and we do! Yet still, in the dead of the night, we can be awakened by scarifying thoughts all dressed up as Truth...also in the bright light of high noon, a random thought will stab us in the back...or the heart. 

Signifying nothing. 

There. Our forward, march! 

We begin again with the realization that we must take nothing personally. To take fear personally is to own it when it is never ours to own...it is ours to welcome into submission. Fear cannot stick when it is being loved...love transforms it. 

I think...and think I believe...that our real problem is that we know naught and less than that about love. Neither how to love, nor the many different levels of love. 

I've accepted the theory that there are only two emotions from which all others spring...namely, love and fear. I have come to accept for me that love is living with fear peacefully. We cannot get there by self-will or by self-knowledge alone. We come again to the realization that we must go to God for God...and that is all. 

God, the Presence within, knows our needs. We trust It. Trust...grateful acceptance.    

The Crucified revealed to the world that the real power that changes people and the world is an inner authority that comes from people who have lost, let go, and are re-found on a new level. Twelve-step programs have come to the same conclusion in our time. -- Fr. Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," June 11, 2015

Thank you.

P.S. Years ago, I read the book, "Love Is Letting Go of Fear." by Gerald Jampolsky. I just Googled it, and it's still in print...I found it a wonderful read and spiritually educational. 

SEEING OUR REGRETS THROUGH GOD'S EYES

This morning I wrote out my commitment to my recently upgraded ponderables. The gift of finding the gold in life's less-than situations also applies not only to finding the good in a bad situation but also in my own thinking...finding the gold in the old so to speak. Actually, it is another leg up in changing our mind.

Looking back, I remember when I began to risk standing up for myself, voicing my opinion, making myself heard...all new-to-me gifts that previously were not available to this victim of her own fear-based thinking. 

Those years are long past, but I believe I have made a U-bie...going back while moving up, at all times deeper. 

Finding the gold in the old lies in not resisting our regretful thinking, but welcoming it...by seeing the situation from another angle. We lift our eyes and silently seek to see it through God's eyes.

As so often happens (thank you), Fr Richard's Daily Meditation today touches on my current experience. Today's is about this transformation, and I quote: Authentic spirituality is always on the first level about us—as individuals. It always is. We want it to be about our partners, our coworkers, or our pastors. We want to use spirituality to change other people, but true spirituality always changes us.

That is the point of awareness at which my U-bie began its turn. From experience, I know the turn began long before...staying with it is birthing the transformation.

Our first glimmer of God's gold we mistakenly take for a done deal. Per Fr Richard, we must beware of willpower...many of us intellectually accept and try to execute by willpower...they have changed their minds but not their hearts. It is not a done deal, it is but a way station. 

Again, looking back, we recognize the necessary slog is the pearl...along with the realization that the spiritual life is our way station on our road home.

God's Way...the street where we live.

Thank you.

I AM THAT I AM, II

[The following is a reprint of my post of  October 17, 2016.]

I am reminded one more once: All we need realize is that we are the source of all our woes and of all our wonders.

Too often we only think of our self as the source of all our woes. That we are the source of all our wonders goes unappreciated, and that's the one to glory in.

Our lesson, of course, is that we cannot glory in our self without realizing God the Father is our Being. There. There's our glory.

Thank you.

HOW TO CHANGE OUR MIND...LOVE AND LAUGH

As I return to my daily meditation on the 23rd Psalm...a spiritual exercise that gives me a sense of peace and purpose...I share some of today's idle thoughts and blinding flashes:

When asked why I didn't buy a ticket for the recent billion-dollar lottery, I said that with my rotten luck, I'd probably win. Joking! Just joking! 

Yes, but. Personally, I do believe my winning the billion-dollar lottery would be my heading down the road to ruin for I would no longer rely on my present, and ever with me, consciousness of enough. I would be stuck in the consciousness of fear...of losing my big money win. 

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. Ah, want...self-will is born in want, want is born in resistance...resist not. To not want is an inner knowing that I have enough, I shall never not have enough...to want is to lose the consciousness of having enough. 

It was the consciousness of enough that flashed one morning with The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want...I have enough. That is what keeps my coffers (material mind) and my consciousness (spiritual mind) filled with enough. I take care not to go for more than enough...I can never need, only want, more than. I have enough to meet any need that arises. 

He prepares a place before me in the presence of my enemies. My enemies are my rues, regrets and remorses, all self-generated...resist them not, welcome them...resistance lowers consciousness and gives power to ego, my enemies' home. We hug them, yes, and kiss them and let them go.

Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I shall fear no evil for thou are with me. The valley of the shadow of death is lower consciousness, i.e., the egoic mind or self-will. Thou are with me is the grace of a changed mind to higher consciousness.

Thy rod [love] and thy staff [laughter], they comfort me. This is my favorite....it's the entire how-to manual for changing our mind.

Thank you.

RADICAL AMAZEMENT, SPIRITUALITY'S ROOT

[C]ontemplation is simply a way of maintaining the fruits of great love and great suffering over the long haul and in different situations.. -- Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, July 27, 2023

What's a little scary and way wonderful is the casual mention of contemplation being a way to maintain the fruits of great love and great suffering as we live life daily...which, face it, is over the long haul and in different situations.  

Who doesn't seek great love? Then comes the ever-new slant which links great suffering to great love...kinda like they are one. Uh-oh.

Spiritual growth takes us still deeper, and we see that we unknowingly live that answered prayer, a life of contemplation, at all times. 

I've been talking, thinking, analyzing...even growing...but I am at the bare beginning of realizing, first, my life is contemplative, second, suffering to love is doing it right.

There...the hardest thing life is ever going to ask of us is that we change our mind, an old BFO made new. Ah. We are in the change-of-mind stage needed to attain and maintain great love and great suffering, the gifts for which we pray daily. Amazing.

....'radical amazement,'  that sense of 'wow' about the world, which is the root of spirituality. -- Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, in Fr Richard's Daily Meditation, July 27, 2023 

Thank you.

ON GIVING GOD SOMETHING TO WORK WITH

Like many others today, we are realizing how three years of being isolated by the pandemic have changed us...for me, I am experiencing the me of long ago. The me that was shut down...all but mute from fear...unsocialized is the prettiest way to put it.  

We pray for God to...do, give, take away, turn us perfect, whateverwhateverwhatever. 

The answer flashes: Give God something to work with. 

I am reminded of the guy many years ago who said to me, "Honey, if you really wanna change, you gotta hold your nose and take a leap of faith."  True then, true now.

My leap: I invited three others with whom I am acquainted to join me for lunch after our meeting today. That is such a no big deal...or three years ago, that could have been so. Ah, but three years ago it would not have entered my mind to invite to lunch three people I barely know...I was socialized back then (or close enough).     

As I think about lunch today, I pray thank you that I can and will participate...that I can and will speak up, listen, be a part of...I have given God something to work with. 

Thank you.

"YES" ENERGY CREATES GOD'S AGENTS

Our first energy has to be 'yes' energy. From there we can move, build, and proceed. We must choose the positive, which is to choose love, and rest there for a minimum of fifteen conscious seconds—it takes that long for positivity to imprint in the neurons, I’m told. -- Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation, July 25, 2023 

This is one of the most important paragraphs I have read...possibly ever read. Specifically, We must choose the positive, which is to choose love, and rest there for a minimum of fifteen conscious seconds—it takes that long for positivity to imprint in the neurons,

The idea for the title of today's reading, "What We Resist Persists," was a long-ago gift to me, coming soon after my heart welcomed resist not evil as my personal gold. As I often mention, that, resist not evil, built, and builds, my spiritual growth in and around me. 

Looking back, I suspect it was that concept that opened me to "mirror image," namely, what we see, how we interpret what we see, is the opposite of God's view...sounding the clarion call of "change your mind." 

Today we can experience the positive view all but simultaneously with an Uh-Oh appearing. We find that nothing brings happy to our head, heart and face like a no-thought experience of the positive, another giftee so to speak. 

The turnabout is spiritual action...not of the head but of God..."yes" energy in fact, and it is gifted to all who are open. 

We are all God's agents whether we know it or not.

Thank you.

ON LETTING THE SPIRIT WITHIN JUST DO IT

The way to any universal idea is to proceed through a concrete encounter. The one is the way to the many; the specific is the way to the spacious; the now is the way to the always; the here is the way to the everywhere; the material is the way to the spiritual; the visible is the way to the invisible. -- Fr Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation, July 24, 2023

My quiet time started this morning with thoughts of my teenage friendship circle of Retta, Jude and me and our journey unto today.

Material mind facts: Retta married, and they had three children; Jude, married and they had no children; I never married, I had no children. To my reasoning mind, I see me at the bottom, Jude is the next level up, and Retta is at the top.

Spiritual mind: Retta's focus stayed on family; Jude's focus was on her husband; my focus became spiritual growth. Spiritually, we are reversed yet in the reversal, we are Oned.

My simplified view: Both material or reasoning mind and spiritual mind are different levels of consciousness, with spiritual just a reversal of reasoning. I hope/want/need to stay my focus on inner knowing Retta, Jude, me and you as One in God.

Most important is realizing that raised consciousness comes and goes depending on our desire and our commitment to...bah-da-boom...letting the Spirit within do Its job.

Thank you.

PRACTICE STAYING MENTALLY IN THE NOW, II

[The following is a reprint of my post of December 7, 2012.]

I often write about how long ago it was that I realized this or that. That is my ego assuring me that I'm not a newbie here...that I got cred.

I suspect I need to start writing "a long time ago/yesterday" until I do not feel the need to qualify myself. At least I've learned not to promise me that I'll immediately perfect myself and start writing "yesterday" alone.

This is a great way to practice staying mentally here and now...and there's my carrot. It is my truth that we can never over-practice staying mentally here and now.

Thank you.

FEAR...THE HIDDEN PEARL BEYOND PRICE

In the early Christian Scriptures, the message seems to have been heard in great part by people on the bottom. Those who are outside or at the edges of the system understand, while those who are inside or at the center are the ones who crucify. [Edited] —Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation, July 22, 2023 

In general, we who are spiritual seekers arrive broken, praying to be "fixed" according to our idea of fixed.

When our prayers are answered just as we prayed, we feel grateful...until a sense of something ain't right edges its way into our consciousness. 

Ego begins to do our thinking for us...dissatisfied seeps into our life. Too soon, ego and dissatisfied are married up and driving us. 

Very simplistically, this is the point where reasoning mind and spiritual mind split...as in the reasoning mind going for material, the spiritual mind going deeper, seeking higher.

It takes time and a lot of time for the way to become clearer, and we get a glimmer of light: God's will, God's way works together for our good. Spiritual mind leads, leaning on the likes of the Sermon; material mind follows, doing the digging to clear away the detritus of ego, which forever legislates for self. 

Blinding flash of the obvious: Our ego and its self-centered work is the bane that we must welcome. 

We have ceased fighting everything and everybody; we welcome all with our thank you. 

We recognize that it is our fear of powerlessness that turns us to God, but priceless is the realization that nothing turns us to God faster than fear. There, the hidden pearl beyond price. 

We feel fear, we pray thank you...we mean it.

Thank you.

TO REMOVE A PROBLEM, RESIST NOT...PRAISE

The Way of Praise -- July 21

I am teaching you both My Way of removing mountains. The way to remove mountains is the way of Praise. When a trouble comes think of all you have to be thankful for. Praise, praise, praise.

Say 'Thank you' all the time. This is the remover of mountains -- your thankful hearts of praise.

The above is today's entry from God Calling in its entirety.

With that, the reasoning mind, being reasoning, can, will and does have a question: Then what? 

Then we do something about something. Fold socks, put clothes we haven't worn in over a year in the bag we have for the Salvation Army, call the Animal Shelter and volunteer our help, etc.

We keep it small...we are learning the smaller the task, the more likely we will do it. So...Just. Do. It. 

The Big is in repeating thank you all the while. Too simple? Just. Do. It.

Thank you.   

CEASE FIGHTING...LOVE AND LAUGH

Apart from conversion and until the ego is transformed, everybody wants to be at the top. ... In the contemplative journey, unless we see this necessary humiliation of the ego and defeat of the false self, we don’t undergo basic transformation. - Fr Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation,  July 20, 2023 

It is a hard concept to grasp, but losing face is a spiritual winner. On pondering, losing face is a dead-ringer for ego reduction in depth, the first step in spiritual growth. 

Harder still to grasp is that spiritually we cannot depend on self to bring ego down. Even reading spiritual material daily and talking it...writing daily tracts...will not bring us that necessary basic transformation of ego where losing face is to love and laugh. 

To try to bring about ego reduction in depth...ego deflation...is an ego trip. It is a self-determined objective that sounds good, righteous and holy, but it is not of God, it is of self. 

The rest of that story is almost always that we must walk that path, trying with a will, before we hit the can-do wall to accept the dreaded "loser" label. It is an inner lesson in learning about love and laughter. 

It is the inner learning that deflates the ego...that resists not, but loves. A loved ego does not act out; it is, however, ever ready to show its bum in public. Ah, but we have ceased fighting, we love and laugh. 

Thank you.

TURN AROUND, DON'T DROWN...IN SELF

Growing, our inside growth, is of God. We cannot dictate it, direct or control it...we can only live it whether, as we are living it, we are knowing it or not. The promise, spiritual in nature, is that we will realize it in God's good time.

This morning I realized a sense of feeling "free at last," that my low-grade anxiety had folded its tent and moved on. 

Then I read my note in God Calling from 2015, "....This feels like freedom at last." Eight years later, same free-at-last feeling.

That caused me pause, a pause filled with a sense of peace and purpose. Not self-generated but realized as present. I knew I was in a spiritual place...experiencing inner growth, of God.

My morning meditation on the 23rd Psalm came to mind, specifically, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, together with Thou prepares a place before me in the presence of mine enemies. I recalled my early realization that the Psalm is not a one-day wonder. It is a Thou art with me one-day-everyday promise. 

So that when not if we are feeling fearful, down-and-out, all alone, we recall that nothing turns us to God faster than fear. We are calmed knowing our inner growth is using the material mind to remind us that God is ever on the field. 

Plain and simple: Turn around, don't drown...in self. 

Thank you.

GOD'S WILL, GOD'S WAY...EVER FOR OUR BENEFIT

Our spirituality is how we hammer out the meaning of our encounter with God …: here, now, in this place, with these people, in the midst of this struggle. -- Murphy Davis comments on Matthew 25:31–46 from Fr Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation, July 18, 2023

Spiritual, spirituality, has been much in my thoughts lately. Thoughts of exactly what that means to me personally bounced around freely, and led to my accepting spiritual as having a sense of peace and purpose.

I love that I got my definition just days before I read Murphy Davis' quote, above. It fits so well my daily encounters with God in the form of those with whom/that with which I have come in contact. 

Today I am realizing my sense of peace and purpose is called upon in the instant I feel resistance...that determines how I hammer out the meaning of this encounter with God here and now.  

I know this to be true but I recognize that for real by looking back...back through rues, regrets and remorses at where I have been, what I did, how each situation was handled. In the end, I can identify God's will, God's way without my having a spiritual clue at the time...and it was those dreaded remorses that got me righted inside. 

The positive side of looking back is the outcome is there! And one hundred times out of one hundred, the outcome shows God's will, God's way for my benefit...and not even close to my original want.

Don't tell me God doesn't have a sense of humor...a.k.a., love and laugh.

Thank you.

THE ROUGH AND RUGGED ROAD TO PEACE

Don’t rush, even though you’ll be tempted to see these times of spiritual dryness and aspiration as a mistake, a sign of failure you want to put behind you. Instead, slow down and hold this moment as an opportunity to express and strengthen spiritual desire. -- Brian D. McLaren, Fr Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation, May 21, 2023

Seeing these times of spiritual dryness as a mistake, I'm convinced is the egoic mind's power hold over us. Leaning on reason, we can only understand spiritual dryness as a mistake...we must be doing something wrong to be in this hurting hold even while we are praying desperately for God to come to our aid.

It is hard to accept but true...going to God for our idea of aid is going in the wrong direction. We recall learning that going to God for is the building block for self-determined objectives. 

We have a want, we believe it is a need, we figuratively fall to our knees praising God lavishly and begging him to stop our pain. To prove our sincerity, we add Thy will, not mine, be done.

Instead, slow down and hold this moment as an opportunity to express and strengthen spiritual desire.

Yes, but. That does not make a lick of sense.  

Our tiny slice of divine wisdom leads us to a writing of Fr Richard: Humans often end up doing evil by thinking we can and must eliminate all evil, instead of holding it, suffering it ourselves, and learning from it....  

Realizing evil represents our pain, we give up all hope of relief from that pain. Feeling hopeless, disgruntled...not to mention unwanted, unneeded, unloved, and unappreciated...we surrender. 

Totally unbeknownst to us, we are now heading in the right direction. Away from self-will, toward God's will, and we come to born again realized in a new light. We are born again in consciousness...this is the road to higher consciousness...dying to self, born again in Self.

The infinite love of God can come welling up, and something of the depth dimension can begin to shine through in our dilemmas. -- psychotherapist James Finley,  Fr Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation, May 23, 2023

Thank you.

ONLY LOVE...NOT KNOWLEDGE...LEADS

By love, God can be embraced and held, but not by thinking. *** No matter how sacred, no thought can ever promise to help you in the work of contemplative prayer, because only love—not knowledge—can help us reach God. . . .You must also know that this darkness and this cloud will always be between you and your God, whatever you do. They will always keep you from seeing Him clearly by the light of understanding in your intellect and will block you from feeling Him fully in the sweetness of love in your emotions. So, be sure you make your home in this darkness. Stay there as long as you can, crying out to Him over and over again, because you love Him. It’s the closest you can get to God here on earth, by waiting in this darkness and in this cloud. Work at this diligently, as I’ve asked you to, and I know God’s mercy will lead you there. . . . (from Carmen Acevedo Butcher’s translation of "The Cloud of Unknowing with the Book of Privy Counsel")

Thank you.

UNKNOWING IS OUR PEARL BEYOND PRICE

Blinding flash of the obvious: My unknowing is my gift.

 

My unknowing is spiritual in nature, is of God, and encompasses my goofs, the inadvertent displays of my ignorance...in public, my lack of social graces...in short, me showing me without a cover story.

My unknowing is that which I prayed God remove, or at least keep hidden from others. Never realizing if it's hidden, it is hidden within me. Where else could it be? It is that which awakens me at 3:00 AM to needle, shame and berate me.

And that is my gift? 

But, of course. 

With the blinders of my own opinion off...or loosened at any rate...I can more easily recognize that it has ever been my "hiddens" that first turned me to God, and that continue to, now with a sense of compassion mixed in. 

It is that compassion that birthed my BFO, that God grows within me as I learn to live more focused on others.  

My experience with shrinks, and I have been to a few, is that I have never felt that I have broken through for the benefit of others...and not much for me. 

My experience with still more spiritual growth is where I have been blessed beyond measure. The blessing is my acceptance of that which I had prayed so hard to lose is now my source of love and laughter. 

The shrink-knowledge I have acquired has been good but basically self-centered; spiritual knowing has brought a sense of peace and purpose. 

Proof again of the presence of our unsuspected inner resource. 

Thank you.

SPIRITUAL...GRATITUDE STRUTTING HER STUFF

For whatever reason, spiritual...the word spiritual...keeps returning to my consciousness. I have ever resisted religious, or the act of being religious. To me, the act of being religious just has an unwelcome odor to it.

Spiritual, though, feels welcoming...no heavy-duty messages hidden within, begging to be brayed...not to be too judgmental about it. 

Since the word spiritual has been hanging over my head, I have been analyzing exactly what its meaning is to me. I've come up with many vaporous words but no meaning so I've resorted to Google: In short, spiritual - having a sense of peace and purpose. I only love that.

Further:  Spirituality recognises that your role in life has a greater value than what you do every day. It can relieve you from dependence on material things and help you to understand your life’s greater purpose. Spirituality can also be used as a way of coping with change or uncertainty.

Just reading the meaning has helped me cope with the uncertainty that was causing me to judge religious so harshly. There is nothing wrong with religious, or religion, the "wrong" is in my reaction to it, allowing my egoic self to override my better nature. 

It is these little joys, these teeny-tiny overcomings that are God's slivers of gold, that allow gratitude to stuff her stuff. That is good news, and I am grateful.

Thank you.   

OUR UNSUSPECTED INNER RESOURCE

Life is spiritual in nature...we are spiritual beings seeking to become spiritual beings. As long as we are stayed by that self-determined objective, our wishes and wants blind us to our unsuspected inner resource. 

Self-determined objectives are not of God, are wholly of self even when right for us.  It is our will that lets no light in...no love, no laughter...just self utterly determined to get that which, unknowingly, we already have, i.e., our unsuspected inner resource.

A life spiritual in nature is love given without a thought of getting a return on our output...it is to give with an open hand, head, heart...to live "get free."  That cannot be done with an unaided will.

The unsuspected inner resource is ours now, has never not been ours, has ever been the source of all good in our life, has turned less-than-good into our pearl...it is unsuspected, it is inner, it is our resource. 

That unsuspected inner resource is sometimes thought of as a Power greater than ourself. Some choose to call it God. Worrit not its name. Believe.

Thank you.

FINDING THE GOOD IN A DICEY SITUATION

Continuing to ponder spiritual in nature, I'm thinking that finding the good in a less-than-good situation is heading in the right direction. 

Fr Richard Rohr has written, God is to be found in all things, even and most especially in the painful, tragic, and sinful things, exactly where we do not want to look for God. 

Our reasoning mind seeks peace, according to our definition of peace, and painful, tragic, and sinful do not fit our definition...are not even minimally acceptable. 

Trying to define peace of mind...ah, there's a minefield. Face it, everyone's definition of peace of mind is inherently and intensely personal...beginning, as it must, with our own peace, our own mind. That, of course, brings us smack dab up against the forever challenge...the need to change our mind. 

That is a forever need when we're going for still more spiritual growth for that is the crux of raised consciousness. Spiritual in nature necessarily begins with our raised consciousness.   

Think of raised consciousness as an unresistant mind in the midst of trial, travail and personal pain. Then the sinkhole opens; i.e., getting that unresistant mind, that mind at peace. There's our ego's hook, it's gotcha! 

We will know the right answer, i.e., loose it and let it go (John 11:44), long before we are living there.  Recognizing that...and with that, realizing that time is on God's side...and so are we...brings thank you riding in on its white buffalo.

We are peaced.

Thank you.

SPIRITUAL POWER HIDDEN IN POWERLESSNESS

Sometime back I read that spiritual power is always hidden inside of powerlessness. 

It takes a boatload of still more spiritual growth to bring reasoning-mind truth into agreement with that spiritual truth. According to me, to willingly subjugate self for spiritual enlightenment is the essence of the road less traveled.

Unless and until our wants have been transmuted by grace and by God, our wants will center on self...transmuted, they become spiritual in nature, embrace others and transmit Love. 

We are active participants in this transmutation all the while knowing it for God's gift. Ah, spiritual power hidden inside powerlessness 

Thank you.

SURRENDER...LOSE TO WIN TO LOVE

To realize that life is spiritual in nature is to begin to understand living in radical solidarity with everyone and everything else.

I'm guessing that it takes a lifetime...or two...or more...to fully grasp living a life spiritual in nature. Face it, that is what is known as a heavy lift...meaning, it is next door to impossible when relying on self-will for our self-determined objective. 

To stand in radical solidarity with everyone and everything else is to surrender. To surrender any and all self-determined objectives in exchange for the perfect objective of God...Love. 

Clearly, the way to live such a life begins in our thoughts.  We must consciously bring our thoughts into that radical solidarity with everyone and everything else. This takes time and more time only to realize that is the end result...when we have surrendered all hope of being right or even of being piously wrong. When we have given over, given up, given in...surrendered, in a word.

Surrendered in the realization that to cease fighting everything and everybody is to live a life spiritual in nature...free in God consciousness. 

Blinding flash of the obvious: To surrender is to cease fighting is to lose is to win is to Love.

Thank you.

NOT TO DISCOVER BUT TO RETRIEVE, II

[The following is a reprint of my post of  December 30, 2013.]

It is such a comfort to me, when a problem looms, to remind myself that that problem has already been solved.

I usually want to get in the midst of it, figure it out (to my advantage), get all concerned to agree with me, but I need to quiet my mind, to listen. To listen...not for the answer to my perceived problem (for in God's world, there is no problem), but for the discipline of simply sitting quietly and listening.

As Fr. Richard Rohr has written, "...spiritual knowledge is more like retrieving than discovering."

Whatever answer we need (which likely has not an iota to do with what we're thinking we need) will come to us. That answer may look less than wonderful and a butt-biter into the bargain, but it is, in truth, our gold mine.

Ours to remember: Be not afraid...it is I.

Thank you.

ON BECOMING THE GOOD WE SEEK

Go with God and be the good you want. For the source of our billion bucks is within us...the source of all our good is within us. There from before conception, there now, there three days after we're dead. - Ari of Aslan1, December 1, 2014

If all of that is true, and we may believe it from our toenails up, can we prove it? Do we? 

We may prove it every day, but our egoic expectations hinder our realization. 

Since we believe that we believe, we expect to get that billion bucks, or at least to have a million bucks in hand. And there it is...our proof, shot to death by an expectation.

We must divorce ourself from expectations...go behind the bucks to the Source...under the good health to the Source...beneath the good life to the Source. 

Once we awaken to the Source within us, our life changes...we become a mini-Source...without conscious effort. Our consciousness is raised deeper, slowly, little by little, one baby step at a time. We live the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. If we shall not want, we have enough...I Am the enough we seek. 

We know this from our toenails up. We recognize its walking-around proof when others tell us how we have changed. Others being relatives, friends, dicey acquaintances as in not-enemies-but-less-than-friends...in other words, those with no currency riding on it. 

The best...we are unaffected by others' notice. We smile our thank you. We are peaced.

Thank you.

DAILY LIVING AT A HIGHER LEVEL DEEPER

Philosopher Bayo Akomolafe says the first thing you do is slow down... the call to slow down works to bring us face-to-face with the invisible, the hidden, the unremarked, the yet-to-be-resolved....It is about staying in the places that are haunted. -- Fr Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation, June 26, 2023

I heard the first thing you do is slow down some fifty years ago. The wonder to me is that it has stayed with me for I thought at the time that was purely bunk. It has, however, proven to be my go-to when my mind goes to race-race, run-run.

The last sentence in this quote is my tell. If I'd heard to slow down is about staying in the places that are haunted, I would have freaked since haunted was what I was running from. 

Here is an example of reasoning mind and spiritual mind processing from two different planes of consciousness: Haunted to the reasoning mind is the home of our rues, regrets and remorses...tormented in a word. Spiritually, tormented is the gift...that is self, feeling fear but knowing nothing turns us to God faster than fear.  

Reason is dependent on self, spiritual is of God. Reason, used with good judgment (slow down), is necessary to our daily life; spiritual, used with discernment (slowed down), is our peace passed on to others. Spiritual growth is all about daily living at a higher level deeper. 

Cling to the thought that, in God's hands, the dark past is the greatest possession you have - the key to life and happiness for others. -- Anonymous

Thank you.

ALL, EVEN COVID, IS FOR OUR INNER GROWTH

Blinding flash of the obvious: Whatever comes to me in the next second, day, week, month, year or 10 years comes for my benefit...be it diamonds or dust, love or left all alone, whatever. It is of God and for my inner growth. 

I am going through changes that I know not of. It is all consciousness-raising...or maybe my reasoning mind catching up with my already-raised consciousness? Maybe this is how it is supposed to happen? God raises our consciousness, and we tag along praying that he will when he has already? 

Leap of faith! Consciously choose to believe that we already have that which we pray for...faith, belief, trust. Then God's will, God's way prevails.

Finding the good, spiritual growth, in a bad situation, three years of virtual isolation due to Covid: Being stripped of people, friends, et al., to meet and talk with...being left all alone, my reasoning mind's worst fear...is leading me to conscious awareness of where I am already. By constantly praying for it, I have been resisting it...I am awaking at the place I've been praying for all the while.

I expect this to be ongoing change...this is consciousness-raising. Already raised consciousness is what we see when we look back...and realize God's will, God's way is ever ours whether we know it or not.

God is so good to me, you, them...to Putin, Trump and the generic Gertrude, too. 

Thank you.  

ON LIVING FOR THE BENEFIT OF OTHERS...TRUST

It takes great inner freedom to be a follower of Jesus. His life is an option, a choice, a call, a vocation for us, and we are totally free to say yes or no or maybe. We do not have to do this to make God love us. That is already taken care of. We do it to love God back and to love what God loves and how God loves!  -- Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, July 5, 2023

Hmmm...I ponder Fr Richard's message in relation to the difference between pain and necessary suffering. I have been comparing daily living as aided by shrinks vs inner spiritual growth. 

A short and way-too-simplified thought, but it opened my mind: Shrinks are paid to help us through our human pains; spiritual growth comes without a dollar value and welcomes necessary suffering.

Fear not the human pain that comes with the dailies that shrinks help us to not take personally; welcome necessary suffering, the higher lessons of living for the benefit of others...of giving over, giving up, giving in with love and laughter.

Human pain is basically getting over ourself, with when wrong promptly admit it, or unselfish honesty, as our guide; spiritual growth comes with our choice to go to God for God and that is all...which cannot be landed by reason. Face it, the egoic mind is out of its element here. 

My earlier years were all about me, my, mine and how to get me more. I was not an unhappy person, I just wasn't satisfied. 

My life has come to be about giving over to the other...particularly the other I'm not enchanted with...and finding spiritual growth in love and laughter there. 

It takes great inner freedom to go to God for God and that is all.  We do not have to do this to make God love us. That is already taken care of.

Thank you.

CHANGED, HEALED, HUMBLED...LOVE & LAUGH

Looking back I see change in action in my life. Thoughts float freely of my recent inside changes, and I become aware that none of my changes were self-generated or self-effected. 

Blinding flash of the obvious: To be changed is to be healed is to be humbled. 

To begin to change, we first must recognize that which needs changing and accept that it is never "out there." This is a long-time process mainly because we stay stuck in our own mind trying to figure out how to fix us.

We start with that which we dodge naming, a defect of character...we call it a "flaw in temperament" or, even prettier, a "personality trait." We learn this: Until we own our defect, our defect owns us. 

There is our answer...our defect is invariably our dependence on ourself to make the change when that has never been ours to do. Ours is to surrender...to lose. To lose ourself to God, to lose our self-determined objectives to God's perfect objective...love. That is all. Love.

Love that which is causing our angst. Love will not remove that which is causing the angst, it removes the angst. In exchange for love and laughter.

To freely love and laugh at our own self is to be changed, to be healed, to be humbled.

Thank you.

WORST BECOMES FIRST...GOD WINS AGAIN

Some unbidden thoughts in the night that we welcome in the morning:

Curse not our rues, regrets and remorses...welcome our defects of character...they are our Chariots of Fire that are carrying us to God.

What else but fear turns us to God so quick, fast and in a hurry? What else but self-determined objectives bare our bum for all the world to see and turn us to God, our once last, now first, hope and prayer?

We judge not Joe Doaks who is as a gnat creating an obsessive nuisance in our brain. No. We pray for our thoughts about Jo Doaks who may be close enough to perfect as is. It is our own thoughts about them that must change. 

Face it, our thoughts are the only thing about any person, place or thing that we can change, and then only through prayer...get-out-of-self prayer.

The hardest thing that will ever be asked of us is that we change our mind.

Thank you.

REALIZING ANEW OUR CIRCLE OF LIFE

'Spiritual in nature' is to stand in radical solidarity with everyone and everything else. (Paraphrased from Fr Richard's Daily Meditation today.)   

Recently, spiritual in nature has made a home in my head and my heart, and today it means we become like a child...full of joy...accepting frogs, Fritoes, mud pies, and Right Now equally...for fun, for love and laughter.  

Our spiritual gift is the Divine Spark...already our own, born within our first breath, steady always, and coming from God, returning to God. There...Aslan's Circle of Life. 

God loves me us so much.

Thank you.

RESIST NOT EVIL...WELCOME PEACE

Blinding flash of the obvious: For me to question, to rue or regret, anything I do, think, say or be today is for me to question my God.

My earlier desire, borderline commitment, to living God's will, God's way has grown baby legs...and they are being strengthened. 

My material mind mistakes, showing my bum in public, the errant thoughts, all have ever worked together for my good...unrecognized and unrealized as such even as they were bringing me to Thee. 

I am now gratefully awake, aware that my future path is to stay on this path. Realistically, I get to bring myself back to it when reasoning mind seems reasonable, and I bite the apple.

My good today lives in my welcoming the pains of the "new" me that come with God in the process of changing my mind...ever bringing me to higher consciousness...deeper. 

Thank you.