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.