A SILENT THANK YOU COULD HEAL THE WORLD

Showing your bum in public is also spiritual. -- Francis X., my late, still beloved, mentor.

I have always loved that reminder...I quote it often. I am here today to report that actually doing it is not as easy to love.

I took a risk yesterday. I mentally debated it, then virtually held my nose and jumped. Bottom line: I showed my bum in public, a.k.a., I told the truth. I shared about a new form of anxiety I am experiencing...being pea-green-purple-petrified, afraid to call for an appointment with an acupuncturist. Note, please: Not afraid to go to an acupuncturist, but afraid to make the phone call. 

That did not then, does not now, make reasoning mind sense, hence the anxiety. I shared, the anxiety lifted, I called and got an appointment with my acupuncturist. There...proof that God's hand was in it. God's handy work is counterintuitive...it goes beyond reason. 

If we're trying to make a decision to do something whereby we can clearly see the benefit or the cost, usually we are staying in the reasoning mind. It may well be, and often is, the thing we need to do, but there is no spiritual growth in it. Like peeling potatoes...want steak fries for dinner? Peel the potatoes. 

But the little things...like receiving a slight that was really no biggie. Too small to mention but not small enough for ego to let go of. I'm convinced they are so toxic because they are too small to mention even to a sympathetic friend so we are left holding a smidgen of dirt and no place to smear it.

This is where thank you earns its keep. As we have learned, thank you is akin to a magic pill for lifting up our thoughts and prayers. It quite literally upgrades our attitude...that is not by our will or our way, that is God's perfect will at work. 

An added bennie? Quite often, a silent thank you will spread its wings and heal other minor bumps and bruises that we are unaware of...we just feel more loving in general. And send another thank you...whoa! If we got this going, the world's ills could be healed in no time...with God leading the pack!

God loves us so much.

Thank you.

FEEL FEAR, AND GRATITUDE IS ON THE WING

From my 12/7/17 post:

Everything that is happening to me, that is happening in my life right this very instant is answered prayer...is the answer to my very own prayer as generated by my thoughts, my judgments, my fears, my praise, my pleasures.

It is what I do with this answered prayer that determines my ability to accept my life right this very instant. The more accepting I am (transparent), the more content or more giving I will feel. The less accepting I am (opaque), the nastier and needier I will feel.

There it is. That which was my truth in 2017 was built 100 percent on my experience...and today feels wobbly at best if not on fractured legs.

Since I long ago simplified my life by accepting that there are only two feelings, love and fear, from which all other feelings flow, then I am today walking through fear. More important is my inner knowing that the promised initiation into higher consciousness is continuing. 

It is that acceptance that gives me over to the care and feeding of a Power greater than myself while I continue to feel empty-headed, fuzzy-minded...yet calm. A new sense of anxious calm for sure, as in no shaky hands (my anxiety's one-time standard bearer), no fear that I am losing my mind...well, slight apprehension of Mental Cognitive Disorder the test for which I aced at the doctor's office (ahem). 

Mainly, I recognize this is not only for just getting through now, but I suspect it is to be the inner core of my life. Anything I know now is guidance for letting go of anything I know now. If we don't feel fear in that situation, we're not doing it right. 

I am reminded that nothing turns me to God faster than fear. There...already gratitude is sprouting her wings.

Thank you.

OUR OWN ANGEL

We cannot experience rebirth, being 'born again,' without experiencing some real form of death first.... The old self always has to die before the new self can be born, which is the Passover experience we resist. - Fr Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation, March 24, 2024

This morning I am pondering this note that I wrote in my daily on this day in 2015: [Gertrude] again blows up...calls me names and excuses herself...again I think 'thank you'--acceptance and gratitude.

This has two-fold interest to me: First, it dates when my friend first "broke bad" with me for she is now in full-blown dementia. I suspect that was the beginning of her disease...nine years ago at least. Second, it is evidence that I was comfortably living my thank you at least nine years ago. 

This is of interest, not real importance, because I'm still thinking of it as my "new" way of life as if my rewiring began a week or two ago. Actually, that is good. Every day we live...without thought...in our higher consciousness raises our consciousness a tish more.   

The experience with my acceptance of my friend and her blow-up at me is evidence of a small egoic death. My reasoning mind self coulda, woulda, shoulda shut her up in a heartbeat...I have earned respect, and I'll get it if I ...fill in the ugly blank.

It was at least 45 years ago that I first read the sentence we must go beyond reason to love. I knew it for truth even as I read it and even if I did not know how...I realized that was for me to learn.   

We never need fret about how we are going to get our spiritual needs met...we have our angel bending over us, whispering Grow.

Thank you.

DON'T RESIST...EMBRACE, I

 [The following is a slightly reworked reprint of my post of March 31, 2013.]

A friend of mine, many years ago, was having trouble letting go of her only child who was going off to college. In a moment of complete despondency, she said, "I'm just going to have to hug her and kiss her and let her go." With which she burst into tears.

I was struck mute for I knew from my toenails up that that is it...that is the answer to most anything in life. Fear of tomorrow?...fear of anything! Hug it, kiss it, and let it go. Have a potential resentment? Hug it, kiss it, let it go.

That cannot be done, of course, by simply saying those words. But that is what we learn to turn our minds toward when a fear, a doubt, a resentment rears its ugly head. We turn our focus to the hug, the kiss, away from poor-pitiful-put-upon me...for that, unfortunately, is NOT a dead-end street. It spirals down until we seek God's help in changing our minds, our focus...so why not go there first thing?

In other words, don't resist, embrace.

Thank you.

GO BIG OR GO HOME...GO LITTLE TO COME HOME

Constant failure at loving is ironically and paradoxically what keeps us learning how to love.  -- Fr Richard Rohr

Constant failure at living is ironically and paradoxically what keeps us learning how to live is also true...the truth that lifts us higher into a deeper understanding, into the counterintuitive nature of life. 

The counterintuitive nature of life is spiritual growth, plain and simple. It is the key that unlocks our reasoning mind's hold on us...specifically on our feeling of need to be in control of life. Our need/want to be in control is just our opinion based on our perception of our life...there is no Higher Power there. 

Still more spiritual growth is our first need for there our search for God begins. Until we began to discern that our self-centered view of life would always keep us stuck in self, we held only material goals...for sex, society, security.  

Success on the material plane is as far as most of us want. It takes that which we do not want, failure, usually a cataclysmic personal failure, to turn us around...to change our mind. 

Our mind is changed from wanting big to seeking little...little, as in coming to understand that letting go, in truth losing, is the way we continue to learn to love and laugh. Since that is not an act of will, it can only be a gift of grace. It comes in God's time, and the harder we try to get it, the more elusive it seems. 

There...proof of Fr Richard's constant failure at loving is ironically and paradoxically what keeps us learning how to love. And we get a glimmer of the spiritual meaning of love...it is life itself in the aura of God.

Thank you. 

THE LAST SHALL BE FIRST

This "new" path I'm walking is as old as Jesus, Mary and Joseph...my spiritual triad. I'm learning to look to Joseph for my do the next thing, to Mary for my ask not, and to Jesus for my counterintuitive acceptance.

It doesn't seem that long ago when I would not acknowledge any of the three as important in my life. I love that Joseph was the last one I recognized, and now I consider him my spiritual guru. 

To my reasoning mind, he showed the most faith of anybody in the Bethlehem story not named Jesus. Face it, his fiancée came to him telling him she is pregnant...by the Lord! And he believed her. All else stems from his belief, according to me.

Admittedly, accepting Jesus for my spiritual growth was one of the hardest mountains I had to climb. I doubt I would have even attempted it if I had not been made aware that the Sermon on the Mount was the original textbook for my fellowship. 

The quiet word I got, and I cling to, is that Jesus is spiritually essential for my growth, but blabbing his name is ego...so I don't. 

Joseph, now. There it is for all the world to see and few to take notice...faith in work clothes. No frills. No razzle-dazzle. I'm convinced he is where Jesus got the grounding for his Sermon...all the Sermon asks of us is that we put the other, any other, ahead of our own self. And didn't Joseph show us how that is done? Indeed.

Thank you.

BELIEVE...TRUST...LOVE AND LAUGH

According to the Talmud, every blade of grass has its own angel bending over it, whispering, 'Grow, grow.'

I love that quote so much it hurts. I love the picture that springs to mind the minute I read it...no matter how often I read it. 

Think of it! Every blade of grass with its own angel. Our own bending over us, the blade/child, whispering to each of us personally to trust...to trust by growing right where we are...Now!  

I'm betting there is a blade or two in there feeling unloved, unwanted, unneeded, unappreciated. With its own angel bending over it whispering words of love...words of encouragement...words from the Lord. 

The eye-ear-mind-opening News: It is the blade/child feeling unnoticed who is bound for glory. 

Face it, who else so needs those words of encouragement...of caring...of love? And all that blade/child needs do is heed the word, the word of the Lord. No pondering, no thinking it through, no analyzing, no talking it over...just heed. Pay attention to...give agreeable notice to...resist not. Just do.

We are each of us the blade/child with our very own angel bending over us whispering words of love...and needing the word of the Lord.

Thank you.

TRUST GOD AND DO THE FOOTWORK

As I've mentioned, repeatedly over the years, I am on a new path...seeking to do God's will on trust. It is not easy...the material mind has a will of its own where trust is accepted only after any perceived problem has been analyzed, overanalyzed and questioned one more once.

Since we cannot for sure know ahead of time how a new action will turn out, or more to the point, how to our reasoning mind it will turn out, analysis paralysis is nearly inevitable. It may (usually does) appear to be an OMG...then we CYA ASAP and leave the ashes of our butt-on-fire all over the place...when it was God's will, God's way to begin with if we had trusted.

Ah, but the disorder we bring about is the beginning of our still more spiritual growth. And the beginning is ever with resist not...resist not owning our mistakes for our admission paves our golden path to God. We must quit allowing lies to do our thinking for us. Just because we don't say them aloud doesn't mean they aren't blocking our spiritual growth.

There it is. The proof that spiritual growth is counterintuitive. All God's work is for our benefit no matter what our "common sense" tells us.

Trust...our new watchword. Whatever comes to us...or appears to be coming to us...we say thank you. We trust.  And learn that to do God's will on trust is not easy...it is, however, incomparably rewarding.

Thank you.

THIS TOO IS OF GOD

Blinding flash of the obvious: I know not what I seek, I know only that I seek. 

I am peaced knowing the Father and I are one. I do not need to know any more than the Father knows our needs...and supplies them, unasked and fully furnished.

It takes our hard lessons learned to realize...again and again and again...this too is good; this too is of God

Thank you.

RESIST NOT...ACCEPT IT WITH A KISS

Before I inadvertently chose still more spiritual growth, my daily life seemed to be a series of good news, uh-oh, not-so-good news.

Then came the big reveal...spiritual growth is akin to daily life! Except for the little bump...basically, to win we must lose. 

Life is a series of less thans and thank yous, but spiritually, the mysterious thank you always leads the less thans from behind. It is the fallback that forms the necessary steppingstones for authentic spiritual growth forward. 

We begin to glimpse the counterintuitive way.

Slowly we learn that much of our vaunted spiritual growth had been wishful thinking...oh, the chagrin. Then we discover our chagrin to be God's love-and-laugh gift...to love and laugh at our self all rigid, right and religious is the priceless pearl.

There. We can see more clearly now...our inadvertent opt for spiritual growth began with our resistance to the Sermon on the Mount. (Note: If we're expecting the Sermon to make reasoning-mind sense, we're going down that wrong road again...aim higher.) 

Short and to the point, the spiritual solution to daily problems is to feel the resistance and do it anyway. Kiss it on the lips and do it anyway. Hug it and kiss it to let it go. There is no cheap spiritual growth.

Thank you.

NECESSARY SUFFERING...THE GIFT OF GRATITUDE

Suffering is the only thing strong enough to destabilize the imperial ego. It has to be led to the edge of its own resources, so it learns to call upon its Deepest Source. Some might call this the God Self, the True Self, the Christ Self, the Buddha Self, or just the soul. -- Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditations, April 28, 2017   

I am in a period of intense anxiety...it is not the anxiety I have known and come to accept...there are no shaking hands, sweaty palms, tears...no self-pity for that matter. Just frissons of fear for no known reason.

Comes the light...this is necessary suffering. Not the reasoning mind suffering we have known and stumble-bumbled through. This is the suffering that is welcomed by a raised consciousness deeper. This is riding our North Star, that which turns us to God no matter what our egoic fear is so loudly whispering. 

Our prayers once were to be relieved of our suffering, of our fears, of our pain...real or imagined. It is a dreaded yet great gettin' up morning when we realize spiritual growth is counterintuitive. If it feels good because the suffering, pain, fear have been lifted...oops...we're going down that wrong road again.

As Fr Richard notes, Suffering is the only thing strong enough to destabilize the imperial ego. Our spiritual growth has long depended on ego reduction in depth...today it depends on our knowing that for Truth. It is our spiritual lodestone, and we are grateful.

The way down always teaches us. - Fr Richard Rohr

Thank you. 

FEEL FEAR, BE COMFORTED...LOVE AND LAUGH

I suspect the generally accepted idea of "everyday mystics" is as written about in Fr Richard's Daily Meditation today, to wit: Everyday mystics are people who commune with the presence of God, receive guidance through prophetic visions, voices, and dreams, and commit themselves to living for God rather than solely for themselves.

I am relieved to report that that is not my idea, not my experience, with everyday mystics.

I consider myself and most people I know to be everyday mystics. To me, we are people who know God inside/outside, but primarily in all the Oh No! places of life...the place where fear lives.

We are open to those experiences by thank you, and that is all. God knows naught of fear...thank you is our understanding of God welcoming it, allowing it to pass on through, playing hit and/or miss with every nerve on its way...still welcoming it.  

With God in us, fear cannot stay to rule. We resist it not...we let it come in, sit down as we turn it over to God to do with as he will. God's will, God's way. 

This is the rough yet ready way of this everyday mystic. I am met with Oh, No! experiences whenever they arise, and I feel fear. I pray thank you, and I repeat my long-ago blinding flash, I feel fear, God is near. I am comforted. 

Then I am free to tell on me...to love and laugh.

Thank you.   

CHANGE OUR MIND AND BE SET FREE

I often say that the hardest thing we will ever be asked to do is to change our mind...mainly because it is all but an impossibility to change our mind when we're relying on that same mind. More often than not, in the common areas of life, we just say we've changed our mind and then go along with the crowd.

Ah, but our search today is for still more spiritual growth...there ain't no go along to get along in spiritual growth. We have come to realize...to accept...that seeking spiritual growth is seeking to find God the Father within.

Along those lines, I have lifted the following from an earlier post of mine:

It really is not an easy thing to accept unto gutbucket belief that we have a loving God alive and well within us. 

That this God has our back, is only loving...and all that comes from that God is love, no matter what our lying eyes tell us. 

It is love, it is for our benefit, and all we need do is get happy about it...without eyeball evidence that this is a good thing.

True in 2014, truer to me today...I'm taking that as proof of growth.

Lift up mine eyes that I may see. Change my mind and set me free.

Thank you.

CHOOSE...THEN SERVE, I

[The following is a slightly updated reprint of my post of March 12, 2017. It is of course truer to me today than it was seven years ago...love and laugh. 🙏]

Old age is the most unexpected of all the things that can happen to a [hu]man. -- Leon Trotsky

Now there's a truth. What's so stupefying is the many surprises old age brings. We hear about the aches, pains, ailments of old age from early on. Regrettably, that's all true. However, it is only in arriving there...and so soon!...that we experience things no one ever talked about. (Or was it that we weren't listening...hey, old age is not about me!) 

We sometimes feel an unease, a doubt of our abilities, an uncertainty that seems to hover without ever landing.

Those who never left the false security of the reasoning mind are forced to rely on self-solutions. Some of us double up...triple up!...on meds. Most at some point carp, cry, complain. That's the reasoning mind on parade when fear says it's being left all alone.

Those who threw in with still more spiritual growth get an inside rush for, once again, here's comes God to save the day! We get the golden goose reminder that the solution to our problems is rarely if ever what we have in mind. My old-age want list is that I quit with the aches and pains already, get my 20-year-old's self-confidence back, and fuller hair, please and thank you.

This is how we learn that bottomless truth, spiritual principles can solve all our problems. My aches and pains are here to stay...but today I am doing a half-hour of exercise every morning...and enjoying it! My 20-year-old's confidence went the way of my 20-year-old me...so I'm asking friends for an arm to lean on, or to go with me when I'm feeling uncertain. Fuller hair...I'm holding out for it not getting any thinner. Ego dies hard, and my ego Lucy has her standards.

So, the solution to all our problems is to surrender and accept what is. Then set about changing our life's circumstances by letting go of what we want and feeling gratitude for what we have.

When we upgrade our attitude, we downgrade our problems. But only if we choose to, and there it is...our choice. Choose you this day whom ye shall serve.

Thank you.

ASSUME THE BEST...THEN BE THAT

Trusting love may be the hardest thing we will ever do. A lifetime of learning has led me to believe that we need to be open to love by being less self-protected. 

The spiritual change is our need to give, not get, love. We are born with love inside, ready to be tapped, but we spend our time and energy trying to get love from rather than to give love to.

Interestingly, as I was pondering this, I came across a previous post of mine in which I had written:

To love the fire in the forest, the plague in the village, the rot in the fields...for they are nothing but a call to surrender. I take heart in reading of those who lost everything in floods and fires, disasters of all kinds, and years later testify to that being the change that bettered their lives. In breaking them, it caused them to seek and receive help from a power greater than themselves.

We slowly move our belief from the head, into the heart, on down to our gut, further down to the soles of our feet. Then we stand on it!

When I read that this morning, I felt gobsmacked...it felt like new news, and it is enlightenment at its rawest, yet it had come to me, and I had written about it in 2016.

So I sat quietly and let me be opened to the fact that I more rather than less live that today...in effect, it is all about the worst shall be first. Holy moley...Jesus was right!

Clearly, God does his work within us while we are seeking to stay spiritually fit...to give over, to resist not, to trust...to trust not just God but people in general...as in, assume the best and try to be that.

We are bettered without knowing it...until we are given to do something totally out of our known character, and in wonderment we say, "That was not me."

Well, yes it was...it was the Father within us doing the works, proving the Father and I are one. There...the Man is right again. 🙏

Thank you.

WORDS I LEAN ON

The wheels of justice turn slowly, but grind exceedingly fine.  -- Anonymous

We cannot not live in the presence of God. This is not soft or sentimental spirituality; it ironically demands confidence that must be chosen many times and surrender that is always hard won. -- Fr Richard Rohr

Looking back and longing for the freedom of my chains.... -- Kris Kristofferson

The first quote about the wheels of justice, I hold in my heart and sincerely trust that to be true.

The second quote affirms my experience...which helped change my mind from this-cannot-be-right, to thank-you, God...and to mean it.

To keep me honest, the third quote is part of my favorite line from the long-ago song, "Loving Arms." Looking back and longing for the freedom of my chains describes my rues, regrets and remorses to a T...and changes my mind for the better p.d.q.

Thank you.

UNORIGINAL RANDOM THOUGHTS, I

[The following is a reprint of my post of December 10, 2012.]

Random thoughts...all of which have been said before, but they're on my mind today:

There was a time, back in the day, when I worried that I was not humble enough. Then I came to see that I would have to get humble before that could be a problem. After which I realized there is no "humble enough." Every waking moment is a realistic chance of our being humbled...and being humbled by our own design. The best we can hope for is enough sense to see our part in it, to take responsibility for it...that is humility aborning.

And, no, believing that we are nothing but worms in the dust is not humility...it is ego on parade, dressed up as Less Than You Are Thus Worthy of Note.

Fear of financial insecurity, fear of anything, is just another way to stay stuck in the belief that our fear has more pizzazz than God, which after all is a power greater than our reasoning mind.

In the material world, fear is essential for there are only two emotions: Fear and Love. If we're not feeling so good about something/anything, that is fear; if we are feeling good about something/anything, that is love. It is essential that we recognize each so we can upgrade our attitude about whatever we're feeling not so good about else it will grab us by the hair of the head and run away to wherever it chooses to run. Likewise, it is essential to recognize the good feeling for love so we can wallow in it.

Money is not the root of all evil. It is the love of money that is the root of all evil. There is nothing wrong with money or prestige and power...it is our obsessive search for money, prestige and power that beggars us.

God loves us just exactly as we are right this very minute. On a good day, I love you a tish more than I love me...then humility whispers, "Liar, liar, pants on fire."

Thank you.

FEAR NOT GETTING IT WRONG

Rather one must learn an inner solitude, wherever or with whomsoever he may be. He must learn to penetrate things and find God there, to get a strong impression of God firmly fixed on his mind.  -- Meister Eckhart

What joy I feel! Eckhart's quote speaks of living in raised consciousness. My experience yesterday is evidence that I am! On occasion, as needed, and by grace, I am living in raised consciousness. 

Yesterday as my mind went to blaming my friend and setting her straight in a "kind" way, the thought bloomed, "She is not the wrong one...I am." The thought repeated itself until I realized the counterintuitive insight that I was missing. My view of her "wrong" had been "righted"...released in a word. 

Released not by thought but by God's grace.  

There it is...inner evidence of raised consciousness...without thought, without reasoning, without prayer, the change came from within, and I felt peaced.

We must not forget the deeper truth...that these moments of realization are our way to a higher depth. Our focus today is not on getting it right but not fearing getting it wrong.

To be sure, this requires effort and love, a careful cultivation of the spiritual life, and a watchful, honest, active oversight of all one's mental attitudes towards things and people. It is not to be learned by world-flight, turning away from things, turning solitary and going apart from the world. -- Ibid.

Thank you.

THY WILL, THY WAY...TRUST AND WONDER

To grow to our full height, we need to be challenged with tasks that draw out our deeper resources, the talents and capacities we did not know we had. We need to be faced with obstacles that cannot be surmounted unless we summon every last ounce of our daring and creativity. -- Eknath Easwaran, "Words to Live By," March 13

My thinking, feeling, doing, being all seem to be roiling together in a cauldron of confusion...or is it wonderment?

A week ago today I said to a friend...without thinking, apropos of nothing...I Am God. I said it without thought or mental preparation...the words just fell from my lips. Neither of us said so, but it's not too hard to imagine that as put-offable.

Today, I wonder if my saying "I am God" was a turning point. Ah, there's my stuck place...my fear of mild cognitive disorder or my hoped-for raised consciousness turning point?  

The timing is the key...a year ago, I would have been ecstatic for my spiritual breakthrough, today with the fear of MCD coming on, I wonder...and pray thank you.  

OR those words may come to be the door opening for my doubting-but-seeking friend's still more spiritual growth. For sure they rattled her...who's kidding whom, they rattled me! 

Honestly, I got to my knees this morning and thanked God for my quandary...then read the Easwaran quote above and knew it for me for this day. Don't tell me God's not got my back. 

Thy will, Thy way...we can trust whether MCD or spiritual growth, Thy will, Thy way is for our benefit. 

Thank you.

FROM TOENAIL TO TRUTH...GOD'S WILL AND WAY

Blinding flash of the obvious: I Am that I Am...stay, study, ponder, find Truth here. 

Free-floating thoughts: I go with I Am that I Am is me, is my power...and it may well live in my littlest toenail. Go to the smallest, rely on the least part of that I Am for it is the greatest in me...the answer.

If that is true for me, it is true for all humans...within the smallest smidgen of God's littlest toenail, the highest powers of God-consciousness are there in full measure.

...there’s a place within us where those names have become one, God’s name and our name. That’s the source of the authority out of which we speak. -- Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditations, February 16, 2023

Thank you. 

EXPERIENCING THE SPIRITUAL ACT OF LOVE

I came across the following from a post of mine from March of 2015:

This is not an act of will. If our only goal is for still more spiritual growth, as in to know God aright, we will be led forward in ways beyond our reasoning mind's comprehension. This means, it usually arrives as an 'Oh, no!' * * * * * Face it, we'd never let go of our reliance on our reasoning mind if every fear we conjured up became butterflies and angel dust before our very eyes. [Sidebar: Or before we learned God's lesson.]

That is an apt description of what seems to be my lessons today. I am gratefully aware that my Now is as it needs to be because of a flash yesterday when another "Oh, no!" tried to come in. The immediate next flash was "I welcome this less-than-wonderful judgment, I hug the judger and let it be."  

By my thought, I could regret not the relearning for the welcoming was based on these words from the Sermon: Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you. 

Admittedly, I had to Google the exact words this morning, but the meaning of the words was with me yesterday carried by the nonresistant thought. In that instant I knew the judger to be an angel in disguise.

Slowly learning, I reacted not at all...neither overly warm nor with cold disdain. Normal...but with the warmth of acceptance flowing through me. 

Oh, wait! Is that love? The spiritual act of love? Yes, of course...what else could it be? 

God loves us so much.

Thank you.

THE WAY OF UNKNOWING

The road to God is the Way of Unknowing. --Fr Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation, December 27, 2023

My recent mental twister was the pain of not knowing...not knowing what to do, where to start or even how to. One hundred percent on the mental plane...anxiety on the hoof and running wild in my head.

I rode it to the outside of enough, which is my accepted entry into the kingdom, and my head aligned with my heart aligned with my soul, and I got calmed.   

Thank you opens the door, and we get it done in God's good time. Not a minute too soon, nor too late...which does not stifle the frisson of fear. It does stop fear from running roughshod in our belly. 

We don't march to fear's drum now...most importantly, we leave the how of it to the Father within. 

The road to God is the Way of Unknowing.

Thank you.

WE MOVE UP, WE MOVE BACK, WE MOVE UP

To have faith, to grow toward love, union, salvation, or enlightenment, we must be moved from order to disorder and then ultimately to reorder. -- Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, January 21, 2024

We love the truths that we have had to walk through, thoroughly experience and finally crash and burn into. We believe them to be ours forever...primarily because we reasonably believe we've got that lesson learned. Well, yes...that lesson for that time. 

Ah, but students of the spiritual nature of life learn...very slowly if we're doing it right...that these lessons come back. Repeatedly. In a different guise, of course. That is the basis of spiritual growth...all that we learn in the moment is for that moment so we can continue to grow. 

That's why the Sermon on the Mount is my particular favorite. No matter the problem we're faced with...itsy-bitsy or humongous...the basic answer is always the same...resist not evil. 

Personally, I've had to allow the word evil to take on many different meanings...resist not hassles. Resist not disagreeable people. Resist not being misunderstood, slandered, disliked. Etc., etc. etc.

My early spiritual growth was necessarily bass-ackwards...I agreed with everything and everybody. And gathered a boatload of resentments...which I could not resist not. There it is...God's sliver of gold.

My self-determined objectives all failed me, and I was forced to dig deeper within my own self to find God's will, God's way for me for you for them. 

God's gift to me was the deeper understanding of resist not evil. Among other things, it's learning how to disagree without being disagreeable.

A couple of side bennies of that are learning how to state my truth softly, to listen without a mental rebuttal forming. Maybe the best is the warm feeling that comes when, without faking it, we can say, "I see...you are right." I hasten to add, that feeling does not come often...and never too early.

I know this...all that I know, all that I have written, can and will be mine to learn again...at a higher level deeper, at a deeper level higher. And I will resist...just not as long, not as hard, 

Proving yet again Fr Richard's wisdom, We don't get to God by doing it right, we get to God by doing it wrong.

Thank you.

CHANGED MIND...RAISED CONSCIOUSNESS

I once feared if I stated my truth, or I pushed back, that was being self-willed, or even smart-mouthed. Because I feared that, I often sounded like that. What a surprise...what a gift!...to learn that all that I need to do is change the tone of my talk. 

Being self-driven, my pushback was often defensive...my mental thank you has made all the difference. The same thing said with heart...with love...is inviting. 

If the one to whom I am speaking takes offense, that is their lesson to learn, not mine to teach. Ego alert: That truth needs prodigious spiritual awareness with kindness leading the way. 

It is right pitiful how easy it is to think "That's your problem" when we have stepped on another's toes without intention but also without caring.

It is very nearly a given that any hurtful thing said with a not-my-problem attitude cannot qualify as truth. The more we dress it up with spiritual bromides, the more ego's hand is in it. 

Paradoxically. when we realize our misdirection and turn within to our thank you, the error becomes the benefit...we begin to see the light. Our reasoning mind is changed, and our consciousness is raised if only a tish...every tish is a milestone in spiritual growth.

We make a leap upward when we are gifted with the realization that each of our rues, regrets and remorses is a sliver of gold that cracks the hard shell of ego and lets in the light of our Father.   

Thank you.

OUR SELF-HEALING POWERS WITHIN

Do we really want to find out just how far God will let this go before God 'does something'? Or could we instead perceive that God is indeed doing something, through the knowledge and work of people and through the self-healing powers built into the planet? -- Author Debra Rienstra, Fr Richard's Daily Meditations, March 7, 2024 

Self-healing powers! There it is. The self-healing powers built into the planet be the hidden power of God within...within you, me, them, all. 

For this we seek still more spiritual growth: To come not only to believe in, but to rely on, the divine power of the Father within. We seek only acceptance of the fact of self-healing powers within...before our intellect grabs hold and sends us down the rabbit hole of trying to figure it out.

There it is, the hard-to-hold spiritual hook...spiritual understanding is counterintuitive. 

The hidden power of God is ours already. Seeking our idea of it is our denial of it. Love and laugh.

Thank you.

THE COUNTERINTUITIVE BLESSING...UNTHINK

Here's proof of the truth of the old adage, we make plans, and God laughs. In my post yesterday, I wrote: I plan to do my taxes today.

I had completely forgotten...totally ignored?...that this was Super Tuesday, primary day! The day we vote for our choice to run for President in November. When I was reminded...well, talk about gobsmacked!

Not to put too fine a point on it, but my thinking got bollixed up, and I took some God-time to get straightened out, then dressed for show and out the door to go vote. By get straightened out, I mean I had to unthink. I let all my plans backtrack, start over and put me on hold.

The point of all that is simply that it reminds me of how important it is to me that my quiet time be the first thing I do each morning. 

My yesterday's "bollixed up" was my calm before my storm of yesteryear...when taking myself too seriously reigned.

I let that fact warm me right now, accepting that I don't think a lot about spiritual growth...I'm just grateful I live it. Having such a pure example, though, of what my reaction before would have been and my reaction yesterday is the pearl beyond price.

Again, my spiritual growth is counterintuitive. My set-in-concrete plans to do my taxes dismantled by my need to vote and I did not have a hissy fit. Beyond doubt, my self-determined objective met God's perfect objective, and I am grateful.

Thank you.

GO TO THE DIVINE NESTED WITHIN

Reminder: I do the footwork and God does for me what I cannot do for myself. 

My reminder came when I read those words in my daily reader. It's not as if I never heard that before...ah, but this morning, it came from the Divine nested within me. 

I am fretting about the new Turbo Tax forms and, because of them, dreading not being able to do my taxes this year...which I honestly like doing for myself. 

  

Fairly often, while watching Jeopardy, the final question is waaay over my head...I just throw out a word or a name, saying "because I don't have a clue." And it turns out to be correct. Recently the question had to do with an ancient poet/warrior, and I said "Ovid, because I don't have a clue." And the answer was Ovid. 

My morning blinding flash of the obvious is that is the key to "a faith that works," and I realized I need to nurture that ability, to find it deeper, naturally. 

I plan to do my taxes today to the best of my ability...not to carelessly fudge anything so I can stop and turn them over to a professional tax preparer, but to sincerely make an effort. 

How else does God do for me what I cannot do for myself?

This begs the question...why do we fear making a mistake when God is our cleanup crew?...or to put it more prettily, when God does for us what we cannot do for ourselves. 

When we’ve run out of purpose, when memories of war sicken us, when Earth is attacked with unparalleled savagery for coal, gas, oil, timber, and profit, when poverty runs rampant and extreme wealth for very few soars, when friends betray us, and everyone we love lives far away … then, still beauty endures, and helps us make it through. Like God…. -- Marya Grathwohl, a Sister of St. Francis

Thank you.

OUR FIRST THOUGHT...SPIRITUAL IN NATURE

If I get my email first or start worrying and planning my day, the moment’s over. It’s done because I’m not really present. But we can preserve and protect those sacred moments before we read the news or check our email, before we look at social media or review the day’s agenda. If we can find a way to be present to the “givens,” especially the natural “givens,” I believe we can be happy. -- Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditations, March 4, 2024  

Fr Richard's reading today is about making a spiritual connection first thing. I'm taking that reading as specific to me...I need to continue what I learned 50 years ago: First thought, spiritual in nature, unformed and inviting. 

I have wondered if my proverbial 80s had changed that for me, and I allowed me to read the likes of "Breaking News" first. No...I need to return to a conscious spiritual connection first.

Fr Richard's givens come with his morning walks and are of nature, the birds, the flowers, all of God's giftees. 

My blinding flashes of the obvious are my givens, God's gifts to me, and they flow from within.

I can align myself with my BFOs by letting my first thought on awakening be thank you. Oh! or my long-ago thoughts of lilies of the valley. I feel the very memory lifting me deeper now.

Here's me already thinking of things to ponder, and my specific instruction was of thoughts unformed and inviting. Love it and laugh.

Here's a comforting BFO: God uses all that we are, every last thought, feeling, right or wrong sense of self, of others...of the weather! 

Going down that wrong road again? Get happy, God's got our back. This, too, will be for our benefit.

Thank you.

MY 'LESS THANS' ARE MY LESSONS

My morning blinding flash of the obvious: My 'less thans' are my lessons...my lessons are my blessings.

As I have learned, experienced and accepted, my life gifts nearly always come to me looking less than. Today, that realization is my pearl beyond price. 

When a less than comes calling, after a time of recalcitrant resistance, thank you just follows, and I am freed to do the next thing that comes to mind.

When I am first removed from the snafu, my mind is cleared to journal or text a friend or read, whatever. But on a deeper plane higher than when I was resistant.

 As I look back, I see again that my spiritual growth has been largely counterintuitive...that invites in my favorite Bible verse, Resist not evil.

Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh in re mindfulness: Embrace your anger with a lot of tenderness. 

Thank you.

ANSWERLESS...OUR TICKET TO RIDE

I am more and more convinced that the watchword of today's corporate world is whatever works well for the consumer, needs to be "improved." The consumer knows the so-called improvement as the curse for, all but invariably, it ruins the previously well-run product.

I began working on my taxes yesterday. (I am inordinately proud that I, i.e., Turbo Tax, do my own taxes.)  And, yes, the curse has struck again...Turbo Tax has "improved" its system.

I began working on my taxes at 1:00 PM and quit around 2:15 PM...about an hour in. Haven't touched them since. My one and only job now is to silence the what-to-do-what-to-do that wants to live in my head.

As I began my quiet time this morning, I was blessed with my angels bearing the word from my post from yesteryear: If nothing turns us to God faster than fear, then answerless is our ticket to ride, our answered prayer.

With that one sentence, I knew my fear had done its job for my benefit. It allowed me to recall previous like experiences with Turbo Tax with the resulting always right answer for me.

There is a spiritual energy in fear...acknowledging fear of our powerlessness invites the inner Resource that soothes the what-to-do into submission, and we are peaced. Peaced enough that answers from our spiritual taproot can move us forward. Unknowing, we do the next thing, praying thank you all the while, and fear of powerlessness is transmuted for our good. 

When, not if, the perceived problem is solved, we know God's will, God's way is doing for us...always and all ways.

All things work together for our good. -- Romans 8:28

Thank you.