THE GIFT OF TURMOIL

'12 At the point of unexplainable is where the miracle of God appears. -- my handwritten note in a daily reader

For whatever reason, upon reading that note, the word turmoil came to mind...as in, turmoil is the point of unexplainable. In that regard, turmoil is neither bad nor is it good...it is a personal perception...personal to us and to how we perceive it and respond positively or react negatively to it.

Two levels of consciousness are laid bare... spiritual mind, love or peace, material mind, fear or worry.

 

The point of unexplainable, turmoil, spiritually is having no way to explain God's will, God's way and that gives us peace; material mind rejects that whole concept including, therefore, peace...or inviting, therefore, worry.

Simplified, spiritual mind is our boon...material mind, our bane. And here comes life riding in on its black and white horse: Spiritually, a boon often comes in disguise. rarely looking good; materially, a bane often comes looking like a million bucks. Turmoil. Unexplainable. 

  

At the point of unexplainable is where the miracle of God appears.

Thank you.

SPIRITUAL PRINCIPLES...THE FOREVER SOLUTION

Contemplative life flows in a circular pattern: awe provokes introspection, which invokes awe. -- Fr Richard's Daily Meditation, August 30, 2023

According to me, life itself flows in a circular pattern...from birth, we move out and up, are met with our life and move down, are met with our life and move up. It is the decisions we make at the point of movement that determine our physical, psychological, spiritual life experiences. 

We are heading in the wrong direction when our emotional needs rule our life. Likewise when we shut down our emotional needs and live from our own intellect. Many of us today...too many of us in my less-than-humble opinion...head for the shrink's couch, taking care of the head being our priority. That is not a wrong decision, to depend on it is the problem. That stays us in the surface answer...analyzing the problem, our momentary satisfaction our goal.

In this regard, it is not our first thought but our last thought wherein we find our answer, in the Light Divine...smaller than a pinpoint, the Light of the World. 

That is where the answer to our upside-down is found, in such as Resist not evil or Welcome! There we discover the spiritual nature of upside-down...which is beyond the reach of the reasoning mind. 

In the short prayer of thank you, we find within the divine light and accept the less-than-wonderful facing us. It is not magical, it is metaphysical that thank you solves, dissolves, resolves all our perceived problems. Not quick, fast and in a hurry as the material mind demands, but God's will, God's way in God's good time...for our benefit.

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

Thank you.

THE REST OF OUR LIFE TASK

[To know] God is largely a matter of letting go of resistance to what the moment offers or to quit clinging to a past moment. It is an acceptance of the full reality of what is right here and now. It will be the task of our whole lives. -- Fr Richard's Daily Meditation, August 29, 2023

That paragraph is an apt description of what to me is the most important instruction in the Sermon...i.e., resist not evil. 

Until we "get" that, we are living on the material plane of life. To go deeper to the higher level...well, resist not. Who's kidding whom? To resist not evil is to resist not...period. Face it, who's going to resist good, abundance, happiness?

Learning to live those three words are, to quote Fr Richard, the task of our whole lives. This is the deeper way to a higher way of living...of thinking, feeling, doing, being...that physical effort cannot touch. Ah, but we do not resist not by sitting by the side of the road, hoping for happy. We resist not by learning the lesson of, say, turn the other cheek...by living the Sermon.

The whole of the Sermon of the Mount is a virtual how-to booklet for a way to give over, give up, give in with no "what about me?" playing in our head. We have earned our trust in God, that God has our back. Without thought, we trust that all parties will come out happy, joyous and free.  

Living that trust which we have earned is the rest of our life task.

Thank you.

THE WORD OF THE LORD...THANK YOU

Blinding flash of the obvious: If, through my own actions or inactions, I am hacked, all my accounts, passwords, $$$ wiped out, unrecoverable, that, too, would be for my benefit. There. The Word of the Lord. 

I need to take that BFO deeper...let it get centered...for it is Truth. 

That being so, it is also true when, not if, I am snubbed, snarked or deliberately misunderstood, my need is to love the snub, love the snubbers...that, too, is the Word of the Lord.

The only other option on the material plane is fear. I once read that we have two root categories of feelings, love and fear, and I have since held it as my truth. All emotions spring from those two...simply put: Feeling good? Love. Feeling less than good? Fear. Accept that and let our inner work begin.

Clearly then, to hate snubs and/or snubbers is to fear them...and the answer? Feel the fear and love them anyway. 

For that, we must go to God to continue our learning to kiss it on the lips as we pray thank you. Again, and always, the Word of the Lord.

Thank you.

A LIVING SENSE OF PEACE AND PURPOSE

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

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

To go a step or two further: ...a mind at peace is spiritual in nature; spiritual in nature is a living sense of peace and purpose. Ah, God's will, God's way.

Thank you.

LIVING IN GOD'S HUG

Blinding flash of the obvious: We pray for a forgiving heart and are given disrespect, snarks and snubs. There...the spiritually rough and rocky road to forgiveness, a.k.a., God's Way.

It is all the responsibilities that go along with forgiveness that are our bane and our boon. 

The process begins with the bane; i.e., changing our mind. Changing our mind is our lifelong opportunity to go to God for God and that is all. Our resistant mind is being changed to welcoming...by putting another first, or walking the spiritual road, God's Way, every time. 

The boon then becomes the change in our mindset...from me to we. 

Without thought, our resistant mind will continue to be rigid, righteous and right, but meeting with love and laughter, the time is shortened, the want-to is cut down, we are being freed Now.

To live in the Now is to live peaced...in God's hug.

Thank you.

KARMA...GET READY TO GET GRACED - II

[The following is a slightly reworked reprint of my post of  June 6, 2019,]

I awoke with disgruntled thoughts toward another, a perceived heckler. Searching my own self, I got clear...until I know, feel, realize and accept within myself love for all, heckler or not, I will be stuck in my reasoning mind resisting others' behavior toward me. 

According to my understanding, others' behavior toward me is ever a direct answer to my own inner prayer; i.e., to stand silently before my judge unmoved and unresisting with love my only hope...love being the attraction of all things toward all things. 

My disgruntled thoughts are a prime example of God speaking, angels singing, and my ego Lucy still resisting. It's no secret that until I resist not, Lucy leads the way. Ah, there it is, the key: There remains something deep in my resistance that is for my benefit. 

Be grateful...be graced...be freed from the bondage of self.

Thank you.

WE GO TO GOD FOR GOD...PERIOD

The road to serenity is rocky, rutted and rough...to the reasoning mind's eye. Ah, but the rocky road to serenity is the only road there is. 

We waste our time, our energy, our inner resources looking for a shorter, less painful way. The trouble is, we find that shorter way fairly easily only it leads right off the cliff...away from God deeper into self.

We learn...and then spend the rest of our time on this earth relearning: Go to God for God and that is all.

God's will, God's way. Empty our head and our heart of all else but our open invitation to God to do with me, build of me as Thou wilt, Thy will, not mine, be done.

Ah, serenity.

Thank you.

OUT OF REASONING INTO INTUITION

Long ago blinding flash of the obvious: The hardest thing life will ever ask of us is that we change our mind. 

Recent expansion of that BFO: It is not our material mind to which the change refers, it is the spiritual mind which is ever in a state of upgrade...rarely consciously realized. 

The spiritual mind is moved higher by going deeper...out of self-determined reason into God-guided intuition. It changes from I'm right/you're wrong to neither is right nor wrong, just a loving acceptance of what is...Now.

We cannot "do" this, we cannot control this, we can only practice the principles of mutual apology, healing and forgiveness.

Perfectly put, from Fr Richard's Daily Meditation today: Jesus, many mystics, and other wisdom traditions—such as the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous—show that sin and failure are, in fact, an opportunity for the transformation and enlightenment of the offender. 

Regret not our sins and failures for they are opportunities for our transformation and enlightenment. It all begins, and more importantly grows, with forgiveness...accepting God's forgiveness and extending that same forgiveness now made our own.  

Thank you.

OUR MIND IS CHANGED BY GOD'S UPGRADE

Your new freedom will depend on your ability to rise above earthly things. -- Daily Reader, August 21 

When we read a spiritual truth and...finally...understand that truth, a mistake we make is immediately we believe we now have that truth in our toolbox. We do not. We have it in our brain box, which is hard to hate, but our need is for it to move down to our heart, our gut, our Soul. 

It is that journey that grows us spiritually. It takes as long as it takes to which I have learned to think, until three days after we're dead which stills the time clock of the ego...there yet? Yet? How long, oh Lord?

We are delayed by fear, the fear of changing our mind...it took so long for us to get this truth that we cling with a will, entertaining ideas of how to fix, dissolve, resolve...ever looking in the wrong direction, outward for our wants, rather than inward for our needs.

Our mind is being upgraded. Upgraded minds are spiritually changed not by self, but by the very Source we are seeking, our Father within.     

Our Father knows our needs. -- Matthew 6:8

Thank you.

MATERIAL MIND vs. SPIRITUAL MIND

"As Isaiah says of God, 'My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways' (Isaiah 55:8). Yet I am afraid we largely pulled God down into 'our thoughts.'"  -- Fr Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation, August 20, 2023

According to me, we can go to every psychiatrist known to man, get our self-esteem back if we ever had any, learn how to 'stand up for our self,' learn how to 'stand up for our self' with lovingkindness, become self-assured but not arrogant...in short, get over our self. Yes, we can. 

Yes, but....

If we learn all that, live all that, and do it to a T, if we do it by self-willed knowledge alone, we have not yet begun our still more spiritual growth.

To repeat: As Isaiah says of God, 'My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways' (Isaiah 55:8). 

Thank you.

ON HEARING FROM GOD

The following is lifted in part from spoken word poet Amena Brown's response to the question, “How do you know when you’re hearing from God?”:

 ...sometimes the best thing we can do is put our hands in the middle of our chest
Feel the rhythm there
Turn down the noise in our minds, in our lives
And whisper,
God
Whatever you want to say
I’m here
I’m listening

To me, the most important words in that excerpt are: Turn down the noise in our minds.

Lesson learned early, and that we relearn and relearn and relearn...the noise in our minds is our ego justifying our separation from God. 

A large part of our problem is our belief that we hear the lesson and believe that in the hearing we have learned...no. 

The inner-eye opener is we gotta do it wrong to get it right! Our ego justifying our separation from God is doing it wrong...that's what turns us back to God...ah, doing it right.

Nothing is wasted, there is no wrong that God hasn't already righted...there is no right that ego won't lay claim to, thus get wrong...for God to right. Whoa...getting all up in my head here. 

But when it's true, it's true.😊

Thank you.

TO EXPERIENCE GOD'S LOVE, LOVE OUR ENEMIES

The experience of God’s love means...extending to others forgiveness and approval and acceptance...it even means loving our enemies. -- Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, August 18, 2023

From my eyebrows up, I know that to be ignored, snubbed, disdained is for my spiritual good...I preach that to me regularly. Yet, here's me today getting exactly that treatment, and I am resistant...big time.

My Backstory: I am doing what I can appropriately do, no manipulation, nothing nasty...but my thoughts are slinging slop and justifying it. My innards keep twisting, always trying to get free by nailing another to my judgment cross. Sometimes I am trying to figure out the why of it but always what I can say to top them to stop them. Not to stop them with love, but to top them with the same disdain I am resisting. The disdain that I know binds me to self. 

In my morning quiet time, I prayed thank you, and acknowledged that My Backstory is assuredly God's gift to me personally. It is for this I caught the truth of resist not evil...of turn the other cheek. We must catch the truth before we can walk it...but walk it we must to prove it by our own spiritual growth. 

To know spiritual truth only from our eyebrows up is to stay stuck in the reasoning mind...not walking it, just talking it. Kinda like the Texas saying, "All hat, no cattle." 

  

We must go beyond reason to love. I choose to believe that every time that quote comes to mind it moves inchwardly deeper into my Soul.

Thank you.

TO CHANGE OUR MIND...DEEPER

The most difficult thing life will ever ask of us is that we change our mind. 

Learning how to change our mind begins with the practice of the art of meditation. We begin by learning to take every resistant thought deeper for every resistant thought is a resentment seeking its own birth canal. 

We will have many ah-ha moments...and believe each time that we have found our answer. Ultimately...and it takes as long as it takes...we see the apparent cause of the resistance is ego, plain and simple.

We go deeper...deeper...and deeper still. Until we come to the rock, the actual cause for our resistance. Ah, there be me dressed up as right...the rigid, righteous and right rock. 

Now we begin to actually meditate...the way our Father leads us. Almost assuredly it will not feel like Goldsmith but it is sincere, and God is good with that.  

The first fruit of meditation is the acceptance of our mistakes as spiritual gifts, realizing that to lose in the material world is to win in the spiritual. Be not proud of winning for there's the so-called snake in the grass.  

We are experiencing a spiritually changed mind...lifted deeper, from the material to the spiritual...to a raised consciousness. 

In other words, the Father within is changing our mind...God's will, God's way.

 

Thank you.

THINKING UNTO LETTING GO UNTO TRUSTING

Entering into the vision and love of God alters our perception of reality. - Fr Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation, August 15, 2023

Early morning mini BFO or half-awake thought: I am living between two planes...material consciousness when I mindlessly repeat my bane and my shame; Christ consciousness when I hear my inner truths.

The conundrum: My self-driven thoughts are my bane and my blessing. I can trust that I am being walked up the mount...away from reasoning-mind thinking toward God-consciousness. The journey started long, long ago and will take as many lifetimes as it takes for me to unconsciously live there. 

I take heart in Fr Richard's statement that entering into the vision alters our perception. It is not to ponder...that's trying to get out of the material mind by relying on the material mind to get out of the material mind.  

The rest is the spiritual journey...we use the mind we have, free-will and all, to let God turn us around. Changing our mind is not ours to do unaided. We let go and let God use our mind to make the change....paving the path for us to walk up that mount.

To ever remember: Think, think, think is God-given advice...we muck it up by believing our thinking will make the change. No. Our thinking is a lamp to light the way. 

Thank you.

PROTECTED, NO; SUSTAINED, ALWAYS, II

[The following is a slightly reworked reprint of my post of July 31, 2015.]

A thought that got my attention: “...the absolute love of God protects us from nothing even as it sustains us in all things.”

The "protects us from nothing" is the primary lesson we must learn in life, according to me.

That says to me that until we stop looking to God to protect us, change us, change situations that either we ourselves have no control over or we ourselves have created through ignorance or malice or misguided love...until then, we will never know the absolute love of God.

Even as it sustains us in all things!

We just don't know it...and have no chance of learning unto living it because we're too busy praying for God to do our will, not his.

Don't tell me God doesn't have a sense of humor. The proof? The answer to our self-driven prayers is always: Pray thank you...love and laugh. 

Thank you.    

INTO HIGHER CONSCIOUSNESS DEEPER

Struggling with one’s own shadow self, facing interior conflicts and moral failures, undergoing rejections and abandonment, daily humiliations, experiencing any kind of abuse or your own clear limitations, even accepting that some people hate you: All of these are gateways into deeper consciousness and the flowering of the soul. -- Fr Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation of December 8, 2013

I posted that quote on December 9, 2013...it fits me like a glove today. That good fit just flashed the reason why an uptight, skin's on crooked, something ain't right feeling has been riding my spine. I am meeting later today with my executrix/beneficiary...getting my estate in order, giving up all my account numbers, passwords, money amounts. No one but I have ever had any of those. 

Clearly, I am struggling with my own shadow self...I'm asking me to trust another human being with my material security. There are claw marks on my Soul from trying to trust God, skid marks on my very being, and that's from sincerely trying to trust the One I know as Love.

Another flash...and a deeper realization. It is not just giving up the keys to my material security, it is the portent of my Will coming into its own. What if that is unexpectedly soon?  

I understand that is a natural Uh-Oh and Whoa feeling...I got that understanding from talking my parents off the ledge when they were going through this. But this is me. And the folks are strolling across Heaven now.

I am getting a deeper understanding of why love and laugh are so prevalent in "God Calling." I'm already grinning at my feelings of fear and trepidation. 

Light bulb: I "found" the above Fr Richard quote today to assure me: All of these are gateways into deeper consciousness and the flowering of the soul.

Thank you. 

RESIST NOT...LOVE, LAUGH AND LET GOD

[W]e experience the universal being of God.... If we know where history is going and what God is leading us toward; if we know what our lives could and should be, why are we wasting time with all this violence and all this stupidity? -- Fr Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation, August 13, 2023

When we have worked so diligently...studied, analyzed, pondered daily...to do the Sermon, it is a  puzzlement that our first thought after we hear of Putin's path to perdition or of the Trumpist trumpeting is, in effect, kill 'em! Do away with them! Shut them up...shut them down...by their own violent means!

That is to participate in the unraveling of our spiritual growth. That is the crime against God. If we are not incrementally moving forward spiritually, we are moving backward...and at warp speed. 

Knowing right and doing right are two entirely different things until we are doing right without hesitation, justification or ought-to loudly whispering in our ear. Repeatedly reciting I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also becomes our block. 

 

We know to resist not evil but way too often it takes a tanker to move us there...all the while praying for God to do something. He has already...it is ours now to follow suit. 

There is the sliver of gold: To follow suit is to trust God and do something about something.

We turn the other cheek by thinking, feeling, doing a loving something. No matter how small the something, that is the opening through which God flows for the benefit of all. 

God's hand is in it when all sides win.

Thank you.

THE GOD OF MY UNDERSTANDING IN ANXIETY

Morning blinding flash of the obvious: What if my anxiety is God? 

That BFO almost scared me into denial of it. But it stayed with me, and I wondered more deeply, what if the God of my understanding lives in my anxiety?

I recall my great comforter, another BFO: I feel fear, God is here. 

God knows my needs...my needs are within me...my needs invite anxiety...anxiety turns me to God...God is within me. 

Ah, I feel fear, God is here. 

Let this be, ponder and praise it: The God of my understanding, appearing as my anxiety, is not to be prayed away but to be welcomed...with thank you.

Thank you.

GOD'S WILL, GOD'S WAY...RISK IT!

Even though the gold of your true nature can get buried beneath fear, uncertainty, and confusion, the more you trust this loving presence as the truth of who you are, the more fully you will call it forth in yourself and in all those you touch. -- Tara Brach 

If we're doing life right, we must go through tough times...walk rough and rutted roads...feel gutbucket fear. There is no thinking, talking, analyzing our way out of it, but try we must...we must for the alternative is to sink into that I don't care that I don't care state where I See Me rules.

We must put to use all the spiritual growth we've been seeking, finding, misplacing, finding, exchanging, and there in the 23rd Psalm that we meditate on daily: Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death...Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me...Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies....

Possibly for the first time, we understand that...and wonder, how can any of those three qualify as the good we seek? 

Dawn aborning...they form a fairly apt description of the "tough times...rough and rutted roads...gutbucket fear" we've been in. Yet centuries ago, that Psalm was written that starts, The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want. 

We shall not want...the Father knows our needs. Our need right now is the breaking down, loosing and letting go of our egoic mindset. Consciousness being raised is a heavy lift when ego is hanging on, clinging and clawing. That is the material mind resisting change, plain and simple.

We think we can loose it and let it go and walk free at last. Here's the rub...we cannot. But...God can and will if asked. Further, if asked with our 'thank you' when we do not have a clue, and no longer fret, how God is going to use us to get there. 

We risk coming to believe God's will, God's way...we trust.

Thank you.

THE EVERGREEN NATURE OF UNSELFED LOVE

Learning the lessons we need to learn...as in Eckhart's if the only prayer you pray in your life is thank you, that would suffice.

My yesterday's post has a line that all but jumped me this morning...namely, Ah, but now...now! Bob goes out without so much as a by your leave. I then described my budding resentment at being left out. 

Reading that, I was stunned by the memory, the realization, that I sent no get-well cards to either Jim or Bob...no e-mails wishing well, thoughts and prayers, nada. Thoughtlessness, maybe...it is always suspect. But I know better...I know deeper. I truly cared for each, yet I showed them nothing when they needed it most. 

My recent flashback of ignoring my brother Paul as he was dying flickers, as I fled past him in his hospital bed...pretending I neither saw nor heard him. Today's behavior is the same.

Again I see how much death did and does play a part in my life as today. There is no rational explanation for my total noncommunication with Jim and Bob... precisely as I was with Paul who was my hero, and he was dying. 

Denial is obvious if we stay strictly on the psychological level, but the spiritual way asks for more, go deeper to go higher. 

My moment of remembering Jim and realizing unselfed love...of knowing God there...halos Bob. 

Unselfed love continues to grow, to sprout wings and to fly, encompassing all...spiritually ensuring still more will be revealed. 

Thank you.

OUR SEAT AT THE TABLE

Any self-image, positive or negative, held too tightly, reinforces our attachment to the false self. --  Fr Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation, July 9, 2023

 

Yet another friend has died...three gone in six days. The lessons to learn that are sneaking, slipping, marching out from within...with a little help from my Friend...are priceless.

I was lifted deeper for Jim into unselfed love. I felt peaced for Cyn. Ah, but now...now! Bob goes out without so much as a by your leave. I got an e-mail giving the time and place of his memorial service, and I didn't even know he'd passed. There it is, the source of my full-blown resentment, not being "in on" his dying. Left out. Ignored. 

Seriously. My ego went on a walkabout...an obsessed walkabout...with ways to let it be known that I was wronged...the old, "What am I, chopped liver?" singing loud and proud.

Our commitment to still more spiritual growth can, will and does carry the burden of proof that God has our back. I began the serious work of letting God change my mind (which boils down to trust God and fret not). 

This has reawakened my unloved, unneeded, unwanted, unappreciated hangup...but now with the cure, love and laugh. Trust uses the roughage of self to ensure we know God's will, God's way...always and all ways.

The first words I heard in my quiet time this morning, You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies, proved my chopped liver to be God's pearl beyond price. 

My now cure is that my egoic enemies, unloved, unneeded, unwanted, unappreciated, are words signifying nothing but a good reason to love and laugh when taken too seriously. 

Our forever cure is that our enemies are all egoic in nature signifying nothing but a good reason to love and laugh when taken too seriously. 

Best: Jim, Cyn and Bob have a seat saved for us at the table.

Thank you.

FROM SEPARATE SELF TO ONED

For all practical purposes, this change of identity from the separate self to the connected and True Self is the major—almost seismic—shift in motivation and consciousness itself that mature religion rightly calls conversion. -- Fr Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation, August 7, 2023

I suspect that holding the reality of this change of identity will prove our spiritual mettle. There's the flash... holding the reality is the key.

The opportunity to prove that came yesterday. I had lunch with relatives, one of whom was my childhood idol. Ah, back in the day, she was spiffy...looks, words, action and attitude...she had it going on.

She has been diagnosed with dementia which has not yet progressed to its extreme.  

I was gobsmacked by her now appearance...how easily she could have been mistaken for a baglady. Then...then!...came my seeming inability to detach from my focus on her appearance. Guilt slithers in whispering "shallow" and "superficial." Shame is on the attack. 

Comes now our spiritual nature sorting, hugging, kissing it on the lips with thank you. Human nature tends to focus on the appearance of a personal Oh No until we can own it...meaning until self-judgment gives over to unselfed love. 

It takes as long as it takes, but thank you cuts the lag time.   

Thank you.

TO UNKNOW, WE MUST BE UNSELFED

We cannot build any serious spiritual house if we do not first find something solid and foundational to build on—inside our self! Up to now, we have been more driven by outer authority than drawn in by the calm and loving inner authority (the in-dwelling Holy Spirit) of prayer, practice, and inner experience. -- Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, August 7, 2023  

It is that essential something solid to build on that invites our streaming unconditional thank you to divert the material mind from our self-wants to our spiritually unselfed needs.

Our egoic mind cannot seek unselfed anything...the purpose of the ego is self-wants achieved yet never satisfied...even when dressed up "for the benefit of others."  

Unselfed love came to me in my realization of love for another. It had no self in it...it was the unselfed love of God that came from God. We have no conscious part in our love of God...of God's love of us...there is no self, just a warm, all-encompassing love.

It seems reasonable and right to seek to feel our love for God, God's love for us, but to seek that feeling is to stay in the self-determined objective of the material mind. The block is seeking not God's will, God's way, but ego satisfaction. 

To seek eyebrows-up knowledge is not spiritual in nature...that is to hinder the love already within us. To unknow, to become unselfed, we must go beyond reason to love. 

Thank you.

THE INVISIBLE LIGHT OF HEAVEN IN EVERYBODY

At the center of our being is a point of nothingness ..... This little point of nothingness and of absolute poverty is the pure glory of God in us. ..... blazing with the invisible light of heaven. It is in everybody. 

The above is from Fr Richard's Daily Meditation, August 6, 2023. It is Thomas Merton's description of his mystical experience of the True Self, excerpted and paraphrased. It is also a fair description of my epiphany which was shared in yesterday's post.

Thank you.

AN EPIPHANY...DEATH, THE GREAT AWAKENER

A dear friend died yesterday...Jim, with his dry wit and eagle eye, was a special person to all who knew him. He saw the phony person, action, word and recognized himself in it...he never mocked but humanized making it easier for us to see ourselves in the Uh-Oh. I will forever doubt he recognized that as an asset of his...he just lived it.

I had an epiphany after I went to bed last night. I was remembering my friend, and I realized that I had loved him with a pureness of heart...unsentimental, unrealized, unselfed actually. I was held in thrall awe, knowing that this was the love I have sought to feel for God for all these years.

Looking back this morning, I can know that was an awakening, spiritual in nature, to the divine love we are born with...my friend was the gift God used to open my fearfully yearning heart. 

Thank you my beloved Jim...rest in peace knowing you 'done good' even unto dying...you are not gone too soon...it is our missing your presence that feels that...God is always right and on time.

Thank you.

GIVE THE LOVE WE SEEK...GET PERFECT PEACE

Blinding flash of the obvious: Seeking ever inward, never outward, we find that for which we seek...love, God. 

Life is akin to a treasure hunt of our Soul...seeking, ever seeking that pearl of great price, namely, love. 

We find the bully, the hater, the less-than that lords themself over others...and it's like looking in our bathroom mirror. There I am, the bully, et al., achingly aware that something ain't right. 

We pray to God, asking God to fix us...to give us love. Our want is to get love...without a glimmer that our need is to give love. To give love to the bully, the hater, the less-than...the needy.

Comes the light...the love we seek is the love we must first give...that love is waiting within us to be passed on. We go to God for God and love flows forth. 

We rarely realize the gift in the moment...looking back, we are awed at God's perfect work that is waiting within us for the benefit of others...the peace that passes understanding.

Thank you.

ON SHARING GRINS WITH GOD

I just came across a card I saved that came from a friend almost ten years ago. The front shows a kitty on her yoga mat with a water bottle beside her. She is twisted into an incredibly complex yoga position, and she has a most disgruntled look on her face.

The inside reads, "I meditate, I do yoga, I chant...and I still want to smack someone!"

Best part...I just know God is grinning, too.

Thank you.

GOD PEACES THE HOWLING OF HATE

My journal entry this morning is all about now is the time for me to do love: Trump indicted for Jan 6 yesterday...now...now...my part now is to keep my mind focused on God in Trump, in Trumpers, in God peacing the howling of hate...welcome it, defang it with nonresistance within me, within my thoughts. How, I wonder...and I see: It all starts with thank you.

I then read Fr Richard's Daily Meditation, and...how can I possibly be surprised? It is all about the answer to my question...which is nonviolence, or love. 

To quote Father Thomas Keating, Love is all; not [love as] sentimentality, but love that is self-forgetful and free of self-interest.

How to defang thoughts filled with howling hate? Resist them not...welcome them with thank you, our invitation to God to do His thing. Only with God can all sides come out the winner.  

Historically, winning a war has meant defeating the opponent. But in nonviolence, there is no real victory until everyone is on the same side. -- Nonviolence educator Kazu Haga 

Thank you.

ON WALKING FREE OF ME

I will go before thee, and make the crooked places straight. --  Isaiah 45:2 

It is a tish surprising when we realize that our so-called enemies, too, go before us and make our crooked places straight. 

The surprise proves true in the feeling of inner freedom that comes when we accept that all of those discordant friends are our angels...that they turn us to God almost as fast as fear does.

Inner freedom brings joy, joy in the sense of lightness...almost of buoyancy...that we have even while walking down the street. 

It's a hoot when we see...when we admit...that all our joy rests in our changing our mind. Ah, it gets even better when we remember that a change of mind rests in our being ready to have our mind changed...that all alone we are incapable of changing our mind even when we want to. 

Since our idea for the change is rarely the same as God's, we must shuck all our self-generated ideas, and experience again the same-old-same-old: We go to God for God, and that is all. 

We walk free with that as our good news...then we know it, and we show it.

Thank you.