PRAY TO UNTHINK, TO UNLEARN...FOR FAITH

I am beginning to suspect...realize?...that all my learning is leading me to unthink. The reasoning mind is essential to us daily...but gets in our way a lot when our spiritual mind is aborning.

I do not doubt that a great mental burden will be lifted when we begin to unlearn and rely on our inner self. Face it, our main security blanket is just words, pretty words and true, words of gold even...but He will not remove the gold from the crucible until all the dross has gone... [God Calling, p. 5].

We may speak pretty but until we are living upright and righteous and without forethought, we are missing the Source...we are speaking by rote and expecting riches.

Maybe unlearning and unthinking are the roots of faith...and I say without blushing, no wonder faith is so hard to grow into...it asks us to go against our natural self. From the eyebrows up, that makes sense...moving it down to heart and soul is for God to do His thing.

Then we shall no longer complain. / Then everything that God has done with us / Will suit us just fine, / If you will now only stand fast / And keep hold of sweet hope. —Mechthild of Magdeburg from Fr Richard's Daily Meditation, October 28, 2023

Thank you.

ON LIVING BY SPIRITUAL PRINCIPLES

Blinding flash of the obvious: It is not what is said that hurts my feelings, it is how I choose to hear it that hurts my feelings.  

Our need is to upgrade our hearing, meaning lift it from the egoic plane up to the spiritual plane. That process requires "Sermonizing," or, living by spiritual principles.

First, we pray thank you which turns us to our Inner Power for acceptance of what we have heard and from whom we heard it. Second, same as first unto infinity which is now our life. 

Acceptance is not questioning the mystery of divine/human union...clean acceptance is based on that mystery. "It" keeps coming back egoically until we get it right spiritually...meaning all sides come out the winner. 

All sides come out the winner is the rub, of course. Short and to the point, we gotta get over our own self. 

As in every religion, there are times, places, and people who 'get it'—the mystery of divine/human union. There are different stages and states of consciousness, and all are part of the journey. -- Fr Richard's Daily Meditation today.

Thank you.

NOW LIVE THE GIFTS OF GRACE AND GRATITUDE

 On awakening, I almost immediately went to my attack mind to continue the egoic dance with my nemesis du jour...namely, how s/he is wrong, and I am right. 

Then I read my Rohr Daily Meditation, and I knew the following paragraph could've been dedicated to me: 

The first foundation of any true religious seeing is, quite simply, learning how to see and love what is [e.g., our nemesis du jour]. Contemplation is meeting reality in its most simple and direct form unjudged, unexplained, and uncontrolled!...If we don’t know how to love what’s right in front of us, then we don’t know how to see what is.

For each seeming nemesis, that which ticks us off regularly or rarely, we need to learn how to see through our Inner Power's eyes and to love what we see. 

Almost assuredly we will need to make a deeper dive into the meaning of love...to us personally. Like the word spirituality, which I had to grapple with to get a true meaning for me, the meaning of love changes...it deepens at a higher level, and we need to do likewise.

I'm guessing this is a rest-of-life proposition which is an altogether good thing. Face it, it keeps us turned to God the majority of the time...some days a lot, some days barely 51% but that's the majority of the time. 

Praise God for the gifts of grace and gratitude...now to live them. 

Thank you.

ON TRUSTING OUR INNER POWER

A deeper level of understanding higher comes in the reading of Mechthild of Magdeburg...how at the end of her sacred and sanctified life she lost all material and spiritual connections. Blind, helpless to even dress herself, cared for my nuns, she said, If this is what God wants for me, this is what I want for me. 

There it is.

Seeing...trusting...God's will, God's way through our will, our way eyes/perception is the answer, The Way.

Ah, but to go for "less than," to even think we know God's "less than" plan, is to stay in our self-determined objective mind...there is no God there.

We get what comes to us not by self-might, but by our inner light... unknowing with trust is faith in our Inner Power. 

Thank you.

A NEW LESSON IN REJOICE AND BE GLAD

Mechthild of Magdeburg reached a point of fragility when she became blind and wasn’t able to dress or feed herself...and God took away all traces of the felt sense of God’s love. She comes to the end of her life in a state of powerlessness....She becomes utterly ordinary, falling away from the ability to gain footing by her own power to do anything at all. She says that if God wishes her to live this way, then she wishes it too. -- Fr Richard's Daily Meditation, October 27, 2023

Earlier this morning, before I read of Mechthild's experience, my thinking hovered around my old age bringing me into this state. I felt no fear, no trepidation, I simply allowed it as a possibility.

Later when I read Fr Richard's Daily Meditation, I got validation, acceptance, of this not as a future fact for me but as a future possibility...that such, too, would be on God's watch, so to speak, so therefore right for me.

Most importantly, I was reminded that in death as in life God's will, God's way seldom is in concert with our personal wants. There...another rejoice and be glad. 

Thank you.

GOD IS IN THE UNEXPLAINABLE

Morning blinding flash of the obvious: The unexplainable is love, too. 

Only recently I realized that I had not paid my respects to my beloved friend when he was dying from throat cancer. By that I mean, the entire two years from diagnosis to death, I did not so much as say "Sorry to hear that" or send him a card, a text, an e-mail, a handwritten note...I'm talking nada.

I am in earnest when I say I only recently fully realized my nonactions. 

This is a man who was a casual friend with whom most everybody (to my knowledge) felt a happy rapport. He was not an intimate friend, he was a spiritual friend, and whenever I saw him, I felt a jolt of joy. 

I do know that I never took seriously his diagnosis of cancer...meaning, I never gave it a home in my head or my heart. It was to me nonexistent. And I consciously did not attend his funeral. I made it to his visitation, gave my condolences to his wife and his mother, stayed the accepted half hour and left. 

Just this past week I have been thinking of him...and my nonacceptance started floating through my mind. I felt neither shame nor guilt...my two favorite places when I'm unsure of myself...possibly because my behavior was so alien to me. I simply know and do better than that...whether I want to or not, and for him I would want to.

I have been unable to justify me to myself...maybe because I feel no shame, no guilt. My nonactions were not deliberate, they were unknowing. I do know that I purely loved the man.

Clearly, this BFO was a God gift, and I am grateful: The unexplainable is love, too. 

Thank you.  

WE REMEMBER NOT TO QUOTE BUT TO DO

Ir is not what happens to you but how you respond to it that matters.-- Epictetus, a Greek Stoic philosopher 

The things we learn. Here's me thinking that quote was said by a friend of mine in a meeting some 40 years ago. No doubt he did say it, but he didn't give Epictetus credit...like me, he probably didn't know that. 

And what does it matter? Other than to enlighten us to the well-quoted fact there is nothing new under the sun. 

What matters is not how well we remember that to quote it, but how well we remember it to live it. 

I came across a note of mine written in 2012: I am learning how not to take slights, snubs and other miscommunications personally…they are not. They only become personal if and when I personally attach myself to them…respond to them…resist them.

Recently a friend and I planned to go to a two-tiered event. I said up front I was willing to go the first half hour but not the second hour of the event. She seemed a tish hesitant but agreed. 

Came the day, I got there, she wasn't there, she did not show. She called the next day wondering what happened that I wasn't at the hour-long event, and she began her explanation.

I knew, whether my suspicions were right or wrong, it's over, no permanent injury, so I  said we just had a miscommunication. If gobsmacked has a sound, she had it along with very grateful, and that was it, we went to lunch.

Being reminded of that feels good because I then recalled a few other instances where I'd held my peace. It really feels quite nice. 

From that good memory, I'm thinking we need to keep our inner "wins" active...as in ponder them....appreciate them within our self. They, too, need love...and the encouragement to do it again.

Thank you.

WE ARE A PEOPLE SPIRITUAL IN NATURE

[The following is a slightly reworked reprint of my post of October 29, 2021.]

In one of my daily readings this morning, I came across these words: ...then they are part of the grand movement of love in the world, which is the movement of God in the world.

Blinding flash of the obvious: the grand movement of love in the world is what we are living in right this moment. Resist it not for it is our path to freedom from our own self, that which led us here in the first place.

I ponder that, and my thoughts go to my beginnings, and I recognize where we are right now is where I was back then. My own need led me to crash and burn and so to a Power greater than self, God, and thus to love and laughter.

Today, we are at a place embodied by a self-fed leader, his acolytes and like thinkers. We need recognize and accept that this place, these thinkers, this leader, were given us by our own need. To become that which God created...love and love alone...we, you and I, need to crash and burn with our resistance to all of that.

I firmly believe our country, born of spiritual (not religious) principles, sturdy in its democratic laws, can and will withstand the battering from within. But what if it is you and I that stand at the door with love and love alone as the protectors of our country? We must rid our own self of our like thinking and offer love and love alone...oh! and laughter, which is love out loud.

This is a country, we are a people, spiritual in nature. We may seem lost right now, but we pray our thank you knowing we are not lost, we are in the process of finding our rightful place. Let it be.

Thank you.

TO CHANGE OUR MIND...FEELS RIGHT RISKY

The big and hidden secret is this: an infinite God seeks and desires intimacy with the human soul.  -- Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, October 22, 2023

Apparently, "the big and hidden secret" has shaken me from my toes to my nose. I keep pondering that paragraph in its entirety (see my 10/22/23 post), and here's me writing about it...yet again.

The big tell, I am getting a thorough cleansing. My nose is running like a faucet...I've been up for two hours, have gone through one full box of Kleenex and am starting on my third "nickel" pack. That is cleansing according to me.

As we have learned, and Rohr reminds us often,  it's God in you that loves God. You, on your own, don't really know how to love God.

I don't resist that truth, but the in-depth description of God's love for us has been daunting, as in: mystery, tenderness, singularity, specialness, changing the rules 'for me,' nakedness, risk, ecstasy, incessant longing. 

Face it, that reads like a trashy romance...of which I am a prime reader but not for my spiritual growth!

And further: [The big and hidden secret is this: an infinite God seeks and desires intimacy with the human soul.] Once we experience such intimacy, only the intimate language of lovers describes the experience for us....

I hear the echo of a favorite BFO: The hardest thing life will ever ask of us is that we change our mind. 

Indeed.

Thank you.

SIT AND WAIT ON THE LORD

The big and hidden secret is this: an infinite God seeks and desires intimacy with the human soul. Once we experience such intimacy, only the intimate language of lovers describes the experience for us: mystery, tenderness, singularity, specialness, changing the rules 'for me,' nakedness, risk, ecstasy, incessant longing, and also, of course, necessary suffering. -- Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, October 22, 2023

Is this then my block? 

My seeking while resisting the experience of intimacy with God whom I have personalized? This "infinite God's desire for intimacy with the human soul" being my nemesis? 

This is a sit-and-wait-on-the-Lord...all my thinking, analyzing, begging prayers will just result in more thinking, etc., etc., etc.

Do Your thing, Lord, please and thank You.

Thank you.

TO INTUITIVELY KNOW...TRUST, II

[The following is a reprint of my post of  November 18, 2020]

We must all overcome the illusion of separateness. It is the primary task of religion to communicate not worthiness but union, to reconnect people to their original identity....God’s job description is to draw us back into primal and intimate relationship. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," November 13, 2020

As I read Rohr's quote above, I wondered...do I believe that? Do I believe "the illusion of separateness?" From my eyebrows up, yes...or, is it that I just don't question it?

I remember a class in philosophy back in my college days. As I recall, and my recollection is subject to question these many years later, but it's mine now: The concept being taught that day was that nothing is material...it, we, everything is whirling, whizzing altogether whajamacallits. It made not a lick of sense to me but I never forgot it.

Years later, when I began seeking spiritual answers, Golas's "Lazy Man's Guide to Enlightenment" fell into my hands, and the first few pages backed that up. I intuitively knew that to be true and did not try to figure it out. Interestingly, it was in that first reading of the "Guide" that I learned "we must go beyond reason to love."

I doubt not that background gave me the key to opening so readily to the Sermon on the Mount. In my experience, spiritual truth comes to us almost in reverse of rational thought, and the Sermon in its entirety proves that point...in particular, resist not evil.

I have ever been grateful for my intuitive nature which, I believe, eased me into going beyond reason deeper to the higher meaning of life. The Sermon has been...and is...my how-to manual.

Yes, I do believe in the "illusion of separateness," and no, I cannot reason it out.

Thank you.

ABJECT FAILURE AS OUR SAVING GRACE

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 Meditation, November 24, 2021 

These are comforting words...but, face it, when we're in the midst of conflicts, do we consider for a hair's breadth that this is "good" and a "need"?

Spiritual growth has led us well...it is the daily living of what we've learned that is the rest of our education. 

We know that conflicts of any kind are ego-born, self-maintained and impossible for self alone to overcome. We know that, of course, when we are in smooth sailing mode...but our boat gets tipped and observe how quickly we forget.

Ah, here comes God's will, God's way to shake us up, break us down, turn us around...which feels like abject failure. 

Lesson a-learning: We must go to God feeling like an abject failure...where we find failure is our saving grace. We get grateful as we experience God's will, God's way as our necessary mirrors for us to spot our shadow self.

An older insight flashes again: Fear not being thrown into the lion's den for the lion in the den is Aslan.

Thank you.

HOPELESS IS OUR BEST HOPE

With all the brass band chaos parading around our world, it is difficult showing...or knowing...joy in our heart...which brings to mind an old saying, Get happy if it kills you. 

That's not bad advice...if we don't get happy, if we are stuck feeling angry, morose, or just "merely" depressed we're going to be sunk in self...face it, sunk in self is not known to reach for the stars. 

But happy does. Happy reaches for the stars.

Happy is our joystick, and lest we forget, it is entirely up to us to use it. Aim toward the stars, get them in focus and pray an enthusiastic thank you...repeatedly.

When, not if, that fails us, the lesson begins...we pray thank you and, no matter what, we mean it. 

The learning lesson is to experience God's will, God's way, and that it in no way resembles our will, our way. Our idea for thank you? Primarily, getting more money...a lot more money.

Paradoxically, hopeless is our best hope. Hopeless has nowhere to go but to God.

Many of us have pulled off our best wish for our self and even had a dream or two come true, yet in seemingly no time it crashed around us. 

Here's my take on God's will, God's way: We are on the right track, moving in the right direction when we find life is neither a boon nor a bane, not for our benefit, not to take us down. Our mind is changed not by self, not for self, but by the Spirit.  

All we need be is willing to lose all thought of life being for our benefit. Know this...our reasoning mind cannot get us there. 

We must go beyond reason to God.

Thank you.

THE HAPPY DANCE AND GOD'S LOVE

The holy gift of thank you is with me this morning.

I'm convinced that thank you opens our mind and our heart simultaneously allowing us to see from the other person's perspective...or to seek to understand their view and stop doubling down on our own hurt and anger, our self-absorbed negativity.

The holy gift of thank you is nonresistance, transmuting the perceived difficulty into our angel. There...the sliver of gold that turns us within to God where there is peace of mind.

Peace of mind, no matter our perception of life's difficulties and troubles, is to love and laugh. Maybe do a little happy dance. Ah, the happy dance...warm and wonderful evidence that God is just crazy about us.

Thank you.

GO BEYOND REASON...REPEATEDLY AND OFTEN

Action without contemplation is the work of hamsters and gerbils. It gets us through the day, it gives us a temporary sense of movement, but the world is not made new by spinning wheels going nowhere.  -- Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, October 15. 2023

There it is...the definition of a self-determined objective...action without contemplation. That is self, constantly scratching the surface, thinking to get deeper.

The mental material actions we have are the same as the mental spiritual actions we have. It is our mindset that determines what those actions will be, what we show forth, i.e., our behavior. Our inner projects our outer. 

Just holding good and pious thoughts is still the self seeking its own reward. It is our inner attitude of mind that determines our outer behavior, that defines our comfort in our world. 

Self determining to never gossip, and never verbally gossiping but with our mind full of judgment...we'd best go ahead and gossip. Get the earned punishment. We won't do that too many times before we find ways to love that which we were bad-mouthing. There. That is spiritual growth down and dirty...and real.  

Our thoughts are not determined by our spirituality, our spirituality is determined by our thoughts. 

Go beyond reason to love.

Thank you.

SEEK YE FIRST...HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS

A note in my today's God Calling reminds me that one year ago today I realized the power in "the least"...that to seek "little" is to find more. 

I have been pondering, sharing, not resisting that idea the year since. 

To seek for less goes against the material mind...more, better, bigger has ever been our goal, probably because that is the human condition...the "right" way to think. When we are stayed in the material mind, that is the only way to think. 

Being moved into the spiritual mind, all seems to be topsy-turvy. As in, if someone slaps you upside your head, turn the other cheek, and/or if someone steals your coat, run after them and give them your cloak...whaaa? 

The major turnabout of the spiritual mind is the unthinking ability to put the other first...before our own interests. If we feel the need to think about putting another first, we'll most likely talk our self out of it. The inner quibbling is the clue that we are still "in it to win it"...or, for self alone. 

Most important is our need to accept that we are not in fit spiritual condition yet. We can do all the giving over mentioned in the Sermon, but if we are still doing it with gritted teeth and clenched fists, we are wasting God's time and our energy. I say "still" because that is pretty much how we get started...just recall what Rohr wrote, all healing starts with a struggle.

We are learning to live today for the good of the other...without thought, plan, or for the benefit of self...no grand scheme, big show, or fancy-schmancy. We are learning to trust God. 

We live to give, knowing what we give will return to us tenfold or better...but if we are doing it for the return, we'll go lacking. 

But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. -- (Matthew 6:33; my emphasis added.)
Thank you.

LOVE IS ABSENCE OF RESISTANCE, II

[The following is a slightly reworked reprint of my post of October 15, 2019.]

Idle paradoxical thought: The higher our reasoning-mind standards are, the lower our spiritual center seems. Ah, but the lower our spiritual center seems, the nearer to God we are.

Paradox explained: Our extremely high reasoning-mind standards are our self-protection...our God substitute. Our seemingly low spiritual center is below ego's radar bringing us ever nearer to God.

Imagine there is no such thing as evil in this world, only the perception of evil...that there is only God or Love. It would seem, then, that the appearance of evil can and must be loved.

To fight evil is to give evil life...separate from God. Ah, the birth of dual thinking...of right/wrong, good/bad.

To live in acceptance that there is only God/Love is to resist not evil. Freeing us to love our enemy...or to study war no more.

War! What is it good for? Absolutely nothing!

Thank you.

GO BEYOND REASON TO NONRESISTANCE

The purpose of the law is to make us struggle with it long enough so that we can find its real purpose. It's in the struggle that we learn. -- Fr Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation, June 17, 2016

Well, isn't that true of spiritual growth itself? Think on it: The purpose of spiritual growth is to make us struggle with it long enough so that we can find our real purpose. It's in the struggle that we learn.

The world today seems to be giving us ample reasons to struggle. The problem is, as it has ever been, we the people believe the purpose of the struggle is to win. 

It is not.

It is for all sides to come out the winner...or the loser. Makes no never mind when all sides are together...one'd.

This cannot be captured by the reasoning mind...we must go beyond reason to love. The no-frills fact is we must go beyond reason to nonresistance. 

Nonresistance...the journey to raised consciousness.

Loose it and let it go finally speaks the truth we understand. We must change our mind...exchange our mindset...seek deeper to go higher.  

We do not seek for self, God has our self; we seek with God for the benefit of others...and we are one'd.

Thank you.

ON FINDING OUR OWN DIVINE CENTER

Blinding flash of the obvious: We are each caught in our own maelstrom, i.e., life...we each must find our Divine center from which to be guided.

Making changes. Some time ago, I felt the need to make a change in my life...just that. I did not resist, I did wait for clearer guidance. 

Out of the blue, I found myself being moved to make what seemed to be minor...a change in my getting up routine, and I have been well-satisfied with my getting up routine. However, I have found that routine, set back when I had a career with my schedule set by others, no longer fits...it hinders rather than enhances, my spiritual director's long-ago warning.  

So I have been allowing myself to be guided...either get up on awakening as I have for nearly 50 years, or lie abed, dozing on and off. 

One direction that has come to me I suspect was God's original goal for my making a change...it has proved to be of primary importance: When making changes, we must have in mind a spiritually determined goal or outcome. 

With my "getting up" in particular, to have no higher goal within was to wallow in self...with no thought other than "sleep" or "laze," attack thoughts come unbidden. 

So, when I decide to stay abed, I have a pre-determined spiritual goal in mind on which to concentrate my thoughts. Just lying in or "oversleeping" becomes self-centered fear in disguise...and some poor soul's inventory is about to get scorched.

Turns out that having a pre-determined spiritual goal in mind is good daily practice, too. We find we need to remind our self of our goal on occasion to get it set in mind...what better way to pray without ceasing?

Change...maybe there is no such thing as "a" change. Make one and others invariably follow...mayhap one of those following was God's chosen one. 

Thank you.

TO HAVE A SENSE OF PEACE AND PURPOSE

To quote Fr Richard Rohr, Duns Scotus called consciousness intuitive cognition, which he distinguished from rational cognition.   

It is a comfort beyond words to read Duns Scotus' definition of the two cognitions. My comfort is that my thoughts are, and have been, following in the path of Duns Scotus...before I ever heard of Duns Scotus. 

My definition of raised consciousness is spiritual mind as distinguished from material mind.

Spiritual mind is intuitive, present in the so-called blinding flash of the obvious...each, to me, a gift from the Divine Source which I call God. The material or reasoning mind is our daily walking-around mindset...where we have learned to keep thank you going to have a sense of peace and purpose.

The deeper we get into life, the clearer it becomes that spiritual perception is vital to the peace we seek. We learn our ways in the world in the first half of life. It is in the second half of life that we make a decision to turn our eye inward...trusting God to take care of out there.

Learning unto living our spiritual nature is God's will, God's way. Our spiritual nature is having a sense of peace and purpose for others. That is peace of mind, God's campground.

Thank you.

GOD'S LOVE...ALL ENCOMPASSING

Blinding flash of the obvious: I release all thoughts of my rues, regrets and remorses...they that plague me intermittently unto relentlessly. They are with the divine Source within to be done with. I now speak, think, feel...I Be...guided by the divine Power within.

Then the first thing I read: It is incumbent upon us to expand our experience of faith to embrace the full reality of our predicament and to inform the decisions we make from here on out. * * *  We seek…a place for an experience of the Divine within.... -- Margaret Swedish writing on climate change in the CAC Daily Meditation for today.

Here's the great and glorious result of still more spiritual growth: I trust my own  "experience of faith" to lead me...or push, as needed...in the way necessary for me to experience the Divine within.     

 In her article, Swedish also wrote, We are coming to the end of the world, or at least to the end of a world.

Yes...that is precisely how my BFO left me feeling. In loosing my regretful thoughts, in letting them go, that walking-around world is coming to an end...is being upgraded so to speak. 

This I know...I will experience rues, regrets and remorses again, but I'll be able to love and laugh in the midst of them. Hey...I've had real-life experience with this stuff...as in, taking myself too seriously? I love and laugh with me when (not if) I go there yet again. 

God loves me sooo much. You, too...and our little dog Toto.

Thank you.

GOD'S WILL, GOD'S WAY...EVER BENEFICIAL

As I awoke this morning, the thought flashed that my friend's experience yesterday was so awful to the material mind that it had to be God's will, God's way. 

Later as I pondered that, it occurred that it would come to be realized as beneficial both materially and spiritually.

As I was reading Fr Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation, that thought was enhanced by a quote of his: The power [is] to recognize that there is always another way for the promise to be fulfilled, another way for Divine Love to reach us. 

Over the years I have learned to accept that my solution to a sticky situation will ever seem to be the exact opposite of God's. That's when I learned we can't out-think God and to pray thank you for what is rather than continue to beg for my self-perceived good.

That has become the basis for my spiritual growth. 

Actually, here's the short form of my spiritual growth:  fight tooth and toenail to get my want (self-determined need), lose, drag foot into well-okay-then, find acceptance, commence to preach, cease that and begin to practice, repeat preach/cease/practice until I get it right..."it" being God's will, God's way. 

We know when we are ready to cease squandering our energy on self-will...the Father within takes back the wheel. 

God: Never late, never wrong, ever unexplainably beneficial...for all.

Thank you.

ON GETTING OVER OUR SELF, I

[The following is a slightly reworked reprint of my post of  October 21, 2017.]

The "enemy" that is out there is the "enemy" that is within. When the enemy remains out there, we name it "you" and resist it by trying either to win you over or defeat you.

My enemy today is JoB who sees me as her enemy. It is difficult not resisting JoB's perception because my ego Lucy/Lucifer loves resistance (i.e., a fight).

My prayer is for JoB to walk free in my head and for me to walk free in hers. I give thanks that each of us connects with the impersonal love that ever flows in and through everything and everybody. OBTW, that impersonal love is the anonymous peace of mind.

But who's kidding whom...our first step is to not take our self so seriously.

Thank you.

SPIRITUAL MIND PUTS THE AUTHORITY INSIDE US

The established and dominant culture [material mind] does not have authentic promises because it seeks to maintain itself. . . . . God’s promises [spiritual mind] energize and expand the heart, deepening our capacity for life and our quality of being in this world. They put the authority inside us. -- From a 1980 talk by Richard Rohr

The material mind keeps such a strong hold on us because we can see, touch, hear...feel...everything it has to offer. 

The spiritual mind is based on our inside insight...not simply intuition but closer than not. 

Our search for God through spiritual growth builds our trust in spiritual over material without our ever being able to explain how. It is as Rohr said in his 1980 talk that God's promises energized and expanded...put the authority inside us.

The authority inside us is the goal...of the material mind. Spiritually, the authority inside us is God using our hands and feet, mouth and mind, to do for us for others. 

"Ask for" no more, give thanks and live peaced.

Thank you.

WHENEVER IS NOT A ONE-TIME THING

Whenever we’re led out of normalcy into sacred, open space, it’s going to feel like suffering, because it’s letting go of what we’re used to. -- Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, September 28, 2023

God Calling today: Rejoice at your weakness. 

That God Calling sentence has been underlined and highlighted a lot. The hidden hope has ever been that rejoicing at our weakness would remove the weakness. That...paradox alert!...is the exact opposite of our need. Our need is to recognize and rely on God's strength in letting go of what we're used to...our own puny strength. 

Today, having absorbed our lesson anew, we get a deeper understanding. Rohr's first word, whenever, is the tell...whenever is not a learn it and let it do its magic forever after. No...whenever means it keeps coming back like an earworm.

So let us experience the suffering of being led into a sacred space...this [is the] mysterious process in which we incarnate Your healing presence. 

Thank you.

EMBRACE HOPE...LOVE AND LAUGH

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. Hope is a light that darkness can never contain. -- Episcopalian bishop and Choctaw citizen Steven Charleston

We hope. We believe. 

That promised flow of energy is released...we love and laugh.

Thank you.

NOTHING IS AMISS NOW...STAY HERE NOW

Now. The saving grace of Now. I just experienced that saving grace. 

I've had a "heavy, heavy over my head" recently and for too long. It deals entirely with a what if? Meaning it is not pretty, it is not always present, but it is hanging fire in my head. 

The possibility just slithered in again, and grace met it. I sensed-heard, Nothing is amiss Now...stay here Now. 

I felt warmed, readied and righted. There's my assurance that I'm on the right road, heading in the right direction...with the full knowledge that if I'm doing it right, I'll make a wrong turn at some point. 

And that, too, will be for my benefit...there, God's recent gift for all life to come.

Thank you.

RESIST NOT...GENERIC LOVE GUIDED BY GOD

I read recently that Jesus lived in unrestrained love, inwardly free:  He challenged others not by argument or attack but out of a deep center of love....'Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also' (Matthew 5:39).

I've been pondering that, trying to get a fix on love...other than romantic love or familial love, what does, say generic, love mean to me personally. 

I'm going with love is nonresistance. Period. 

With that in mind, picture a rattlesnake at our feet. We wouldn't resist the rattlesnake since clearly we would lose. We would silently, stealthily back away...give over. We would not need to hate the rattlesnake, want to kill the rattlesnake. No...we would need no judgment of the rattlesnake. We would need our judgment to decide how far and how fast we can back away from the rattlesnake...or to stand still and let the rattlesnake move on. Resist not.

I'm not about to keep the image of a rattlesnake in my mind to learn to live nonresistance, but, who's kidding whom, there are a kazillion things I can substitute, without thought, that I resist daily.  

Well, now. There is a fine example of contempt prior to investigation...I decide I'm not about to before I've come up with another workable image. This, after my inner-bragging recently about how good I'm getting at letting God's will, God's way be whatever "regrettable" comes from me or to me. 

I suspect it was God's prompting the use of nonresistance in place of love. Face it, love has too good a rep to be used with the image of rattlesnakes or personal poisons. Nonresistance, now...a right good fit.

Blinding flash of the obvious: Retraining the brain...that's what nonresistance amounts to. This cannot be done without using the Higher Power's wiring.

Thank you.

OUR FLUBS, TOO, ARE FOR OUR BENEFIT

I am slowly realizing that the most unexpected fact in true spiritual growth is how much we already knew before we learned from authentic spiritual teachers. It is only after it comes to us afresh that we can recognize it as already within us, waiting to lead us deeper to our higher self.

I can understand, as Fr Richard posits, the material world is the hiding place for the spiritual. Of course it is...our eyes can evidence the material, our Soul must transmute the spiritual.

Making that point clearer is my note in today's God Calling: 2014 - BFO...I must do for the Lord...to do for him, I must let him lead.

I realized that nearly ten years ago, and today I can see the times I got away from Self into self, and spent too much time regretting...yet now I see the flubs, too, were for my benefit. 

I learned lessons I did not know were mine to learn...spent time being humbled by my own missteps, and today know them as the gold in my still more spiritual growth. 

Thank you

LAUGHTER, THE GATEWAY TO LOVE

Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it. -- Psalm 127

In my world, they hand us the Big Book along with the quiet word: All your thinking has been done for you.

This is not to say we should quit thinking...it is to say that we can think all we want, but our thinking is now based on spiritual principles...for the benefit of the other, especially the other who is right this minute ticking us off.

The other who is right this minute ticking us off is an angel straight from Heaven. That one we call "other" is fear...styling! Looking good! Else why would we be giving it all our attention?  

The lesson I am currently smack-dab in the middle of:  We can never be outside of God's love...it is our own regrets with which we beat our self that imbues us with self-recrimination. No matter how off we are feeling, thinking, doing...take it to God and a trusted friend. 

We'll never get to laughter, the gateway to love, till we share every less-than thought.

There. Our first lesson in learning to love. 

Thank you.

LOVE...THE ULTIMATE IN NONRESISTANCE

I’m not going to call the True Self just 'life' or 'being.' More basically, I’m going to call it 'love.' We were made for love and love is who we are, as I believe we are metaphysically created out of the infinite love relationships that are the Trinity. -- Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, October 1, 2023

That speaks to me...I need to ponder love as nonresistance...and that, too, is for my benefit.

I have posted a couple times recently about being gifted with the phrase and this, too, is for my benefit. Talk about a gift that keeps on giving! It fits most everything I've run by it...most everything, baloney! Every less-than-wonderful thing I've held it up to, it has fit. 

The fit, of course, is in the change of our mind. We wouldn't test it on a "good" happening...of course that'd be beneficial to us...but on the fears, the hasn't-happened-yet-but-what-if-it-does? things.

There's our pearl beyond price...it takes away our fear of the non-event or the not-yet event. 

An unfearful mind is God's territory...our work is over. We long ago learned we cannot change our mind by self-determining to change our mind...we go to God with thank you, and be peaced.

Thank you.