ON BELIEVING...BUT NOT FANATICALLY

Fr Richard has written of a deep transformation that isn’t achieved by magic or miracles or priestcraft but by a vital spiritual experience that is available to all human beings. 

Comes the slowly blooming light: That transformation is a long time coming...as in the rest of our natural life. That fairly well defines still more spiritual growth...our new, every day new...way of seeing, hearing, knowing is that deep transformation. 

When, not if, we forget that we are spiritual beings living from a higher plane...meaning that we want to smack Joe or Sylvia upside the head for irritating us...we have learned to shoot a quick thank you. That is exchanging our want for our need...love and laughter. 

To complete Fr Richard's quote, that transformation leads to an emotional sobriety, immense freedom, a natural compassion, and a sense of divine union that is the deepest and most universal meaning of that much-used word 'salvation.'

Just an afterword: I had the devil's own time in adding the end of Fr Richard's quote; namely, that is the deepest and most universal meaning of that much-used word 'salvation.'

Why the hesitancy, I am not certain sure, but I suspect it has to do with the word "salvation." That has a ring to me of what I identify as "White religiosity," or the rigid, righteous and right of the White entitled-to-be-religious-fanatics...not to be too rigid, righteous and right about it myself. 

I give myself points for adding it, I take a couple back...just because.

Thank you.

SOME ACTION IS TO SIT AND WAIT ON THE LORD

I have been mentally struggling with a what-to-do problem. "Jerry," a friendly acquaintance of mine, has co-opted a special symbol from the Fellowship of which I am, he is not, a member. Only one other member is aware that he is not a member of that Fellowship. He is now sharing as if he is a full-fledged member but does not specifically identify himself as such. 

My quandary is threefold: The other member who knows of his deception seems to have no problem with it; I do not choose to be either a gossip or a do-gooder; finally, believing this to be detrimental first to my Fellowship and second to Jerry, is it mine to address? 

I believe I got my Quiet Word this morning: Speak to Jerry with love...of him, not of what he is doing. Speak to him alone...bring in no known "heavy hitters" to back me up. He is not to be condemned but reminded that his membership and thus his actions need to be clarified. In short, he needs to come clean since his next step may be to act as a mentor for which he is supremely unqualified.

Ah, and here comes my egoic mind shouting her proverbial What if? In the end, what if what I say goes right by him...he shrugs and changes not? 

All it takes for bad to win is for good to sit silently by. --  Edmund Burke, radically paraphrased 

Immediately after writing, I opened Joel Goldsmith's "The World is New" at p. 69, and read: Ultimately, we shall realize that any and every obligation -- family or otherwise -- is not our personal responsibility, but that of the Christ ***. No demand will be a drain if we catch the central point that the demand is not being made upon us, but upon the Christ, and we shall look upon ourselves as instruments -- transfer agents-- through whom our family, friends, or relatives are supported.

Reasoning mind translation: Love and laugh and do the next right thing. If wrong, promptly admit it...and love and laugh.

Thank you.

ONE...I AM/WE ARE/LIFE IS

Blinding flash of the obvious: No miracles happen when we shut down and take no chances.

No inner-miracles happen when we take no chances...which is what decisions are, chances. Self-protected we close down, locked in our self-determined objective, holding to that material feeling of safety. 

That flash immediately opened another: Thou prepares a place before me in the presence of my enemies. Ah, there be the secret of One-ness. Thou are the great I Am is i...I/i prepare a place before me in the presence of my enemies.  

I/ i prepare the place that brings my enemies to me; i fear them not for I am with me/within me...I am doing the bidding just as i am. 

I Am/we are One. 

All of those one-thought came right before I read today's Fr Richard's Daily Meditations with a quote by author and minister Danté Stewart: I started to see that my Black rage in an anti-Black world was a spiritual virtue…. 

There...One-ness: Black rage in an anti-Black world was a spiritual virtue. 

We are/life is One.

Thank you.

TRUST GOD TO SPEAK OUR TRUTH

I am very leery of people who quote the Bible word for word with commas and semicolons in place. 

Actually, I'm leery of quoters who just repeat what they have heard as if it is original to them. Until they have made the words their own through their own experience (their own usually humbling experience), they just know the words, and that is all.

F.X., my late and beloved mentor, once told of people who would come to him speaking words they forgot they had heard from his lips...the "sound good" words. 

I have noted that nothing is original to me, and I halfway regret that...and not for my "ownership" but for the other's growth. The way we speak our words is as original as a fingerprint...the words aren't original but the way we say the words is.  

When the words we speak do not come to us unbidden from our head, our heart and our gut...from inner truth not for outer effect...they may sound good, but they will do our spiritual growth not a lick of good. Worse, they have the possibility of hindering that growth. 

I have learned to trust this: God holds our own words in safekeeping for us to speak as we are readied...my words are mine, F.X.'s were his, Joe Doaks' are his. Until we speak our own truth given to us by the God of our own understanding, we hold our spiritual growth at bay. 

Speaking of social intercourse alone, we don't get to God on Sylvia Schloppenhaufer's words, thoughts or ideas...we get to God on the words he holds for us to speak as our consciousness is raised.

Thank you.

ON BEING OPEN TO WHAT IS...RIGHT NOW

Our own idea for still more spiritual growth is not of God, it is a self-determined objective.  As Easwaran's "Words to Live By" has it in today's reading:  ...what the mind wants to see ... is the profit or momentary gratification it is interested in.

The blinding flash of the obvious that spiritual growth is nearly always counterintuitive has opened my mind to acceptance of the is-ness of each minute. Analyze not, fret not, see with the mindset of this, too, is of God.

We cannot for a certainty know the outcome of the next second one second before it happens...God's will, God's way. We only realize that in looking back.

Not knowing but joyously living Now opens the gate to the Secret Garden of God. 

Joy is the sovereign balm for all the ills of the world, the spirit-cure for every ailment. -- "God Calling" today.

NOTE: The above is my today's journal entry written at 5:00 AM. Now to live that. I love and laugh and joy in the fact that I know the words...I may not live them to the max till the next lifetime or two, but I know I'm heading in the right direction. God is so good to me.

Thank you.

THE UNWANTED PEARL...SELF-DISCIPLINE, I

[This is a reprint of my post of March 26, 2016,]

With self-acceptance must come self-discipline else the reasoning mind will take self-acceptance as its license to remain self-will-run-riot. There is no peace there.

Our self-acceptance together with self-discipline leads to a turned-over-to-God life...without self-discipline, we're akin to monkeys run amok.

We learn to remind our self, often and as needed: Most important is the discovery that spiritual principles could solve all my problems.

Thank you.

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

A person must pass the lessons learned on to others—or there has been no real gift at all. -- Fr Richard's Daily Meditation, February 23, 2024

A meeting I recently chaired has been running regrets in my mind...as in, I shoulda, coulda, woulda done it better if only....

This morning, I recalled my quiet time before the meeting when it flashed that the group already knew and lived their own understanding of the spiritual subject matter I was to speak to. I did not need to explain my take. That seemed to be an idle thought at the time, but just now it showed its wings.

I can shuck my egoic regrets and get grateful that I shared what I shared. Of this I am sure, it was purely from my experience, came blessed by God and had no ego attached. 

In trust, I believe that share planted in at least one of the group the seed of acceptance of a Power greater than ourselves. 

That Higher Power can and will if sought and always for our benefit.

Thank you.

THE COUNTERINTUITIVE GRACE OF REASON

Our reasoning mind is our friend as long as we don't let it wander over into ego's territory. As we have learned...repeatedly...ego has a loudmouth and a strong will. 

We remember that all of our spiritual understanding is counterintuitive, and here's counterintuitive at work: Ego's nature is our blessing for...just like fear...it turns us to God...a tish slower than fear, but eventually, depending on our diligence. Our spiritual nature gets a workout coming to accept reason as our friend.

In our early years of spiritual awareness, we considered reason an enemy...to be turned away from. With the grace of God and a little help from our friends, we learned that reason is essential to us as we trudge the road of spiritual growth. Reason is just another tool of God's for our use, but it is neither our safety net nor our security. 

An earlier BFO is still true: Reason can help clear the channel for God's thoughts to pour through. We can think of reason as God's Roto-Rooter. Our mistake is putting our trust in the Roto-Rooter instead of in God.

Thank you.

TRUST GOD, GET BUSY AND BE STILL

I find myself committing more and more to being with others, of service to others, but within that "find," this morning I feel a tish discombobulated...like, This ain't me.   

As I have admitted more than a few times, I am basically a loner, and I have been totally comfortable with that state of mind and sense of self. Comes the aftershock of the pandemic, and it seems everything has changed. Everything means not just me and mine, but the dailies of life itself.

As for myself, the changes are not preplanned or even considered...seemingly, I look back and recognize major changes in my life and my lifestyle...all within a month or two, all but unbeknownst to me as they happened. 

I have always required a lot of alone time, and this morning I see/feel/know that I am not getting much ...the importance, I reckon, is that I am just now realizing my alone need. 

All of this came as I journaled this morning, and before I could reason a fix for myself, a thought scooted in: Trust God. 

We know from experience that more will be revealed, and lo! The following was my next reading:

This is where contemplation comes in. It is impossible to shift priorities if we are in a constant, busy, frenetic lifestyle. There has to be that pause, that breath, that waiting, that willingness to be still until we know. Be still and know—but the stillness doesn’t immediately lead to knowing. At first, we have to be still, and then we have to be patient until the knowing comes about. -- Rev. Dr. Barbara A. Holmes 

Don't tell me God isn't reading over my shoulder. 

Thank you.

SPIRITUAL GROWTH IS COUNTERINTUITIVE

BFO's golden oldie: Nothing turns us to God faster than fear. 

Fear of dementia is currently riding herd today on so many of us. Almost every day there is another friend who calls running scared. 

As we know, there is no cure for dementia, and too many drugs have, near the end of the list of side effects, words to the effect that this drug may cause the problem we're looking to fix...in CYA medical language that we can barely understand. 

An idea has come calling and continues to float in my head...that being, go not to meds, but to God. With all of our not-me-but-God experience, why not trust God? 

Trust God not for the self-determined objective of curing dementia but for a God objective such as helping sufferers of dementia to live their natural life on a new plane. The new plane being to gather with each other on occasion, as needed or desired, to share the grace of God and his most recent outworking of spiritual principles in our lives.

It is written that all of our problems can be solved by spiritual principles. Dementia is not a problem to be solved, but fear of dementia is. We give the fear to God, share our new meditative life with each other, pray thank you and expect a change of mind...God's will, God's way. 

Spiritual growth is counterintuitive. We are grateful that fear is never lifted out of us...it is used to light our path out of self back to God. 

Thank you.

"FALLING UPWARD" INTO GOD'S GRACE

Falling down and moving up is the most counterintuitive message in most of the world’s religions.... -- Fr Richard Rohr

I had what Fr Richard calls a “falling upward” experience yesterday morning.  I was invited to share at a meeting unfamiliar to me, and I did...to all appearances, it went well. 

To my egoic mind, however, it did not go well; to wit, I did not meet my ego's high expectations of me. No one in the room had any expectations of me so "it went well" to them.

There it is. Way too many of life's trials and tribulations spelled out plain and simple...we don't meet our ego's high expectations of our self. Also likely and another story, you don't meet our ego's high expectations for our self. 

Learning they are all the same is one of our great lessons...the punchline being, no blame, no shame attaches. 

So, what are we left with? Love and laughter, of course. Proving again that God's hand is ever with us. 

Thank you. 

FREEDOM IN SUFFERING THE PAIN OF OUR FEARS

Defining love for our own self is our life's longing...redefining love is probably more apt. 

We form our own definition the first time we have the cognitive awareness of love as ours to have...to get...to want. It is there at birth, but growing that love is dependent on our inner response to our outer circumstances. 

A baby born into all the human comforts, including a loving nanny, may grow up to be crooked as a dog's hind leg. 

A baby born into lack, with a hard-scrabble life before them, may become a beloved philanthropist whose primary goal in life is giving aid and comfort to others.

We all start with the same tools; namely, love and fear. Any feeling of good is love, from which all goodness flows; anything feeling not good is fear, from which all less-than flows.

Never forget, what we see is always our self. When we're taking another's inventory and finding them lacking...what in our self are we afraid to acknowledge...to own? 

Once we get the hang of this...and it takes as long as it takes...it becomes a comfort. Looking within for our motives about anything is infinitely preferable to being unaware of our desire to find yet another "glassbowl" to inventory...and lose our spiritual focus over.

We must suffer the pain of our fears to be freed...the longer we hide, deny, lie about their existence, the farther we feel from God. 

The big reveal...it is not God who moves.

Thank you. 

SHAME AND BLAME...GOD CALLING!

The fire in the heart of God is the same fire that burns in us once we have the interior vision that lets us acknowledge divinity within ourselves. —David Richo

There. That's what shame and blame are good for...turning us within to the God of our own understanding...seeking surcease when we aren't even sure what that word means.

I believe there is a sliver of gold in everything, specifically today I'm thinking of the intertwined shame and blame. That, too, is of God...name it, hug it, kiss it on the lips and recognize this as the counterintuitive road back to God.

When we finally recognize shame and blame as fear in disguise, we recall that nothing turns us to God faster than fear. We are experiencing the God gift of interior vision...or, our reasoning mind giving up the Ghost so to speak.

According to me, all spiritual growth is counterintuitive. Our reasoning mind is useful in bringing us to crash and burn, the least-wanted albeit essential step in continuing to trust spiritual growth over our reason.

That is the essence of Meister Eckhart's If the only prayer you ever say in your lifetime is 'thank you' that would suffice. What reasoning mind would ever think to say thank you for the less-than-wonderful feelings of shame and blame? 

I'm guessing that's why Rumi taught that the encounter with the holy is always anchored in earthy human experience. 

And why Thaddeus Golas taught that we must go beyond reason to love.

Feel shame and blame and realize ...God Calling!

Thank you.

BE AN ADVOCATE FOR THE EARTH, I

[The following is a reprint of my post of  October 28, 2021.]

In continuing to ponder the Wendell Berry quote, No matter how sophisticated and complex and powerful our institutions, we are still exactly as dependent on the earth as the earthworms, I have substituted for the words "our institutions," the words "we think ourself to be."

It is wishful thinking the minute we deny that we think of ourself as "sophisticated and complex and powerful." We're way too clever to use those words...we use lowering words like "shoulda, woulda, coulda." Words with not a lick of spiritual meaning...useless, in fact.

Ah, but how we think of ourself is no longer the point...our dependence on the earth and our care and concern for the earth and the earthworm is our primary. We are as dependent on the earth as the earthworm. Period.

Simply put, our want is to up our opinion of ourself, our need is to protect the earth.

We remind ourself that our wants are all covered by God who has our back, that we are a beloved child of God, act like it.

First off, we pray our thank you. Second, we remind ourself that to love others is essential to a healthy earth. Third, we set out to do that...we move no mountains, we throw the trash of somebody else in a trashcan.

Now, we continue the same.

Thank you.

GRATEFUL ACCEPTANCE...THE PEARL

Blinding flash of the obvious: I become blind in order to see; I become deaf in order to hear...thank you.

Fr Richard's Daily Meditations today quotes much from Rumi...Sufi mystic Jalal al-Din Rumi, thirteenth-century Persian poet. Since first I heard of Rumi, I have identified with his writings...and I see them walking me home:

Discipline is necessary to transition from the raw to the cooked. Only over time is the lover transformed into the image of the beloved…. Love is a school of fire. You embrace its mystery only in losing yourself, in finally becoming what you love. In the process, you discover that what you had thought to be entirely outside had been within you all along.

The realization came to me that which I life-long resisted has ever been my pearl, as in my fear of being left alone.  I equated that with being unloved, unwanted, unneeded and unappreciated. In Truth it has been God's will, God's way for me, for my peaced mind. 

In the process, you discover that what you had thought to be entirely outside had been within you all along.

Ah, there's the gift. I pray thank you for whatever comes...or appears to be coming...knowing that God's answer has already been fulfilled within me, ever flows from within out. 

Allowing that neither I nor my reasoning mind is likely to ever be in on the secret, we gratefully accept and question not.

Thank you.

GO BEYOND REASON TO LOVE...IN SILENCE

I may be at the door of acceptance...I am willing unto wanting to accept life on life's terms. The tell is that we know this, too, shall pass, and that, too, we can love.

We are peaced with the realization that daily life lessons are spiritual in nature. We cannot true-heart know this until we are living our very first spiritual lesson, i.e., resist not evil. In a word, acceptance. 

Three basic life lessons that defang ego biters are 1) take nothing personally, 2) do not be as nasty as we want to be, and 3) pray thank you for all we perceive.

Those are just so many words unless and until we cease talking them and are walking them daily, personally, silently. 

Thinking spiritual thoughts is not communing with the Lord. Talking, preaching, being right?...we're not communing. Not talking, preaching, being right...we're heading in the right direction toward experiencing the reality of silence as of God. 

Now we are opened to communing with the Lord. 

Thank you.

A DIALOGUE, II

[The following is a reprint of m post of October 26, 2016;]

I eavesdrop on a conversation between my ego Lucy and the Lord:

Lucy, ever defiant: I'm just as good as you are...why must I do what you suggest?

The Lord: You don't must, but I'd recommend that you look at what you're getting by not following my suggestion. Which, by the way, is to love and laugh. So love your friend Gertrude, your newest enemy...who was your friend an hour ago until you started resisting each other's ideas.

Lucy: Yes, but...she will think she won! She will think I'm a loser, a wuss...that she's better than I am...that she knows more than I do.

The Lord: My heart, what if all that is true? What if she does think all your worst fears...what if all your worst fears are her truth about you? Fighting her and winning that fight...or never speaking to her again...neither will change what she thinks about you nor will it make you what she thinks. Your resistance is what makes it seem true...to her and to you.

Lucy: Yes, but...I have been loving toward her. I have given over to her. She's just a sore winner. Why should I be the only one to give in?

The Lord: Because the giving in is giving up your own battle...it is not giving in to her, it is giving over to your inner being. It is giving in to get...giving up the battle with yourself who is at the moment named Gertrude, but it is you, Beloved Lucy. And it is you in giving over who will get the peace you long for.

Lucy: Yes, but...I'll be the only one who knows that!

The Lord:

Moral: Lucy must ever believe that she has had the last word. She cannot grasp that the Lord has better sense than to get in a prolonged dialogue with ego.

When will we ever learn, when will we ever learn?

Thank you.

GOD CONSCIOUSNESS...LIFE ITSELF

Blinding flash of the obvious:  Learning to love the less-than-wonderful in life ensures a wonderful mental outlook on life. 

Today's reading in "God Calling" seals the deal...in particular the one sentence: Life is really consciousness of Me.

A wonderful mental outlook on life ensures a fret-free life...a spiritually fit life. There...the spiritually fit life is really consciousness of Me.

I'm getting a wary understanding that the more I am enwrapped in this belief...not from my eyebrows up, but from my heart out...the more reasoning-mind less-thans are going to visit themselves upon me. My life lesson now is to dread them not, but to welcome them as they come calling.

But of course! That is precisely the meaning in the 23rd Psalm of Thou prepares a place before me in the presence of my enemies. "Thou" is me...I prepare a place before me in the presence of my enemies. 

Face it, that is I am the source of all my woes which I first heard nearly 50 years ago and have believed for the past 45. How else could I have experienced nearly 20 years of the IRS as a spiritual necessity in my life...which it was, and the memory of it still is.

It's all about trust...trust God, clean house, help others.

Thank you.

REALITY IS OF GOD WITH US, WITHIN US

Blinding flash of the obvious: It is not positive thoughts that determine our fate, it is the reality of God in those thoughts, that is the determiner...God, with us, within us, that we are dependent on whether we know it or not. 

What about our negative thoughts? They, too, determine our fate. Ah, but they are egoically directed downward into the stagnant pool of self-interest. There is no love there.

Positive thoughts are directed, led and guided, by God...for the benefit of all. 

Thank you.

BLINDING FLASH OF THE OBVIOUS, II

The following is a reprint of a BFO of mine first posted on February 9, 2017...it is particularly appropriate to me today:

When there is something that is wrong and you know it and you can see exactly what it is that is wrong and you try to fix it and it does not fix and you try again, harder, and it stays unfixed...you are looking in the wrong direction. You are looking out there...at the problem. Look within. To the solution...spiritual principles. All spiritual principles are within us, have been there since before conception, will be there three days after we are dead...and 1,000 years after the world as we know it is no more, spiritual principles will be in the ether...waiting to be realized and released by a willing soul once again.

Thank you.

GOD CAN...MORE READILY WHEN SOUGHT

Blinding flash of the obvious: Fear of being separated, need to be separate have ruled my life.

Fr Richard has shared that our tendency to isolate ourselves springs from a genuine need for the inner work of contemplation. There again, the bane is the boon...the counterintuitive way of the Lord.

I feel myself opening further to my need for the inner work of contemplation...and I recognize that has been the well-hidden driver and keeper of my heart and Soul my entire life.

Whenever I have that skin's-on-crooked feeling, I know, and I know I know..."God's hand is in this." I was discomfited to learn that some friends heard that as my saying that God was the cause of my upset. Ah, when will we ever learn? I am the source of all of my woes, remembered. 

We are the root of our rues, regrets and remorses, our less-thans. God's hand is in it to pull us through, to bring us to him. God's hand is love's guide.

To know I am One with God is my desire divine...only God can move that to my heart and my Soul. I've got more than enough me-wants, but I have only one need...God's will, God's way. 

Thank you.

NEEDS ARE FULFILLED BY THE FATHER WITHIN

I had a memory-flash yesterday that almost brought me to my crippled knees. It brought with it an answered prayer...the answer I have been seeking for nigh on 50 years.

The background: It was around 1975, and I was with my friend Sylvia who was going blind...we were at Johns Hopkins Hospital for her to receive further analysis and possible treatment. 

Sylvia, who had a fairly public reputation, misplaced a book of our Fellowship that had her ID in it. She completely panicked, yet I completely knew God protected her...that the book would be found with no adverse conditions redounding to her. That is what happened, and I gave my first mental high five to the God of my understanding.   

Because I gutbucket knew that this was God's assurance...that it was not me thinking, "I'll bet God won't let bad happen"...that wafted to my friend who then could nurse a wobbly belief. Another God-gift considering the condition of her eyes and her stress level which was too high already.

Here's today's miracle by way of answered prayer: I had forgotten that happened, yet it is the answer, gift, solution for which I have been seeking for so long....that being for the Lord to let me know He is with me Now...a sign, an insight, a premonition...anything! Yet I have it...have had it since I received it and trusted it for Truth all those years ago. 

It's not that we forget but rather that life adds so much good and less than good that a lot gets swept aside. 

Oh! BFO...that's how we build trust in God to provide the readied-and-right swept aside and the never-before-thought-of as needed. 

Trust and be not afraid.

Thank you.

THE PEARL: ACCEPTING WHAT IS...NOW

To participate in the reign of God, we have to stop counting. We have to stop hoarding in order to let the flow of forgiveness and love flow through us. -- Fr Richard's Daily Meditations, February 6, 2024

Here's a new thought on the February 6 entry: To participate in the reign of God, we have to stop resisting...to let the flow of forgiveness and love flow through us.

To arrive at a doable life of nonresistance requires a boatload of resistance...we are, after all, detaching from reliance solely on our reasoning mind, the home of our will. That is a slow, steady peeling back of our resistance...till we get a tiny little yes.  

Seeking to detach from our will, our self-determined objective, is seeking within to find the pearl beyond price, God's will.

We are finding that true detachment from our will requires but one thing...that we change our mind. That we are incapable of by our unaided will...our aid coming from the Power greater than self.

 We're reasonably good with when wrong promptly admit it, but the toughie is when right promptly forget it. We are learning, inch by cautious inch, that there is no right, no wrong...there is only Is. 

Acceptance of what is right now...only reachable right now, only reachable by thank you, only reachable coming from our heart, not our head. Ah, the pearl beyond price...never reachable only realized, as needed, Now.

Thank you.

GRATITUDE LIVES IN OUR SOUL

Never fear being thrown into the lion's den for the lion in the den is Aslan. -- Long-ago BFO

That blinding flash of the obvious returned this morning...just as I was having thought-fear of covid making an uninvited stop here. I originally received what I consider to be the world's most complicated covid test kit...I'm dreading having a go at one of them again.

Actually, I shoulda, woulda, coulda used it immediately, then, when it didn't work, I would've been cleared to go to CVS...and wait in their long line to be tested. Oh...there's my why not.

Amazing how our personal lion's den changes...when, almost invariably, whatever we're wrenching from God's care can only be healed by God's care.

When will we ever learn? And there's a canard. We have learned...repeatedly! 

When will we ever do...without dragging our feet? We justify by blaming the human condition when we well know it is lack of faith that is our dilemma. Well, rats...

Never leave a dilemma with rats...God loves us just exactly as we are. The more convoluted our feelings and thoughts, the deeper our search for God. 

I feel gratitude in my Soul right now.

Thank you.

IF IT'S A NEMESIS, IT'S AN ANGEL

Self-acceptance has a rough road to walk. True self-acceptance requires a strong connection with a Power greater than our self...else it's still self-will pulling our strings. 

The bane of self-acceptance is an unspiritualized ego. Just as God is, ego is ever with us. God is with us for the benefit of all...human, animal, flora, fauna...all. 

On the other hand, ego lives in humans only, also is ever with us, and is for the benefit of one, namely, the imperial me. Each of us separately has our ego whose only role is for our benefit, whatever it takes and however we get there. It often feels that ego builds us up just to beat us down. 

Thankfully, God has providence over ego, too. Raising our unspiritualized ego is our life's primary responsibility.

Ego cannot be defeated by self-will...cannot even be lessened a tish on occasion or as needed. Ego can only be lifted by our own spiritual growth...in short, by God.

Ego reduction in depth is our goal, and how-to is spelled out by Easwaran in today's "Words to Live By":  Meditate and put others first and learn to be detached from the results of action, all together. 

One is not more important than another but learning to be detached from the results of action has been my nemesis. Ah, blinding flash: If it's a nemesis, it's an angel...nothing turns us to God like a nemesis does.

It’s not your fault, but it’s your responsibility. How you experience whatever conditions life hands you correlates directly to how much responsibility you choose to take. -- Buddhist teacher angel Kyodo williams from Fr Richard's Daily Meditation, February 5, 2024 

Thank you.

GO BEYOND REASON...TO GOD

We must go beyond reason to love... -- Thaddeus Golas

That is one of my favorite quotes. I quote it a lot although I may be just beginning to inner understand it.

Taken to a deeper level higher, we realize we must continue to surmount our material-mind concept of love. My understanding of love has changed dramatically...but it is still a fairly material-mind concept. 

We have read, and from our eyebrows up we believe and repeat often, God is Love. Our big Ah-Ha moment came when we realized that the love we must go beyond reason for is not available to our reasoning mind. 

 God...which we are incapable of fully understanding...lives within us whether we know it or not. There it is...the key opening us to the inner kingdom of trust. 

Our life now is building on the trust that we are living today, knowingly more often than not.

Thank you.

A PEACED MIND THE MAJORITY OF THE TIME

Time is what keeps the light from reaching us. There is no greater obstacle to God than time....  --Meister Eckhart

Now. We live Now and only Now...whether we realize it or not. 

Knowing from our eyebrows up that we live in the Now often feels like useless information, but it is not. It is akin to kiddiegarten for spiritual growth. We hear it, we get it, we do not do it...because how?

A reminder here of the old but ever-practical joke questioning how one gets to Carnegie Hall...the answer, practice, practice, practice. In general, the same goes for learning to live in the Now. Learn, learn deeper, learn deeper higher, repeat. Repeatedly. 

My take on Meister Eckhart's "Time is the greatest obstacle to God" is that time invites us to rue the past or dread the future yet rarely stand silently in the Now. To be thought-free in the moment is of God. 

We pray for our dear one's future, our own financial upturn, our pet's long-term recovery...and there is nothing wrong with that if it peaces our mind. Trouble is it does not bring lasting peace...we're left feeling unfulfilled, disgruntled, alone and so lonely. Blaming God.

Meister Eckhart gave us what to my mind is the perfect prayer: If the only prayer you ever say in your lifetime is 'thank you' that would suffice. 

From my own experience I know that praying thank you for my dear one's future, my own financial upturn, my pet's recovery did not bring answered prayer as I perceived it. It did, however, bring me timely peace of mind.

I was gifted with that which I'd longed for since before I knew I needed it...a peaced mind. I have lived with a peaced mind the majority of the time ever since. I return there as needed. 

Thank you.

LIVING LIFE'S PROBLEMS...NOT FIGHTING THEM

Having problems and overcoming them is what life is about. -- from a daily reading 

The hoped-for human condition on the material plane: The more educated we become, the more intellectually fit we are, the more self-confidence we will have...the more healthy, wealthy, wise and loved we will be. This pretty much ignores the fact that problems and overcoming them is the human condition.

Many living locked on the material plane found only failure and a defeatist life. Many others were led to an inner failure that, shockingly, delivered the success we did not know we sought. We were raised to a higher plane and found our heart home.  

It was in trying and failing and trying again unto crash and burn that we found a Higher Power where we slowly realized we have ceased fighting everything and everybody. That sums up the beloved promise of Chief Joseph: I will fight no more forever. 

The following two quotes lead Eknath Easwaran's entry today, and, in effect, are both in agreement with this:

For the outer sense alone perceives visible things, and the eye of the heart alone sees the invisible. -- Richard of Saint-Victor

I found Thee not, O Lord, without, because I erred in seeking Thee without that were within. -- Saint Augustine

There...God's assurance that we are on the right track heading in the right direction.

Thank you.

TRUST GOD, BEAR WITH OTHERS, BE FREE

Bearing with people is the essence of nonviolence. -- Eknath Easwaran

There it is. Truth on the hoof. 

Recently, I went through the devil's own mental mishmash, getting a personal offender told, set straight, sorry, shamed, not to mention grateful for my setting them straight, sorry, etc.

Their offense was they weren't doing it right, and the it changed by the minute. Of course, in that mental mishmash, I was shooting prayers like Annie Oakley doing her thing at the county fair. Prayers for the offender, prayers for me...all of which boiled down to words, just words. 

Lesson learned: Never discount those words...we can't rely on them spiritually, but we need to love them anyway. Love will lead us free from our mishmash...resistance will keep us there. 

Plus, why waste our breath and God's time beating up on our self for not being good enough? That's all beating up on our self is about, not being good enough. Be better. 

Trust God and for sure we will be better. The shortcut to trusting God? Bearing with people.

Thank you.