OUR FATHER, OUR FRIEND, WHO LIVES WITHIN

Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth. --  Matthew 5:5

Blinding flash of the obvious: Unrealized, that is the permission I have ever sought...to be the meek, the inheritor who can pass it on.

Blessed are the meek has been circling in my head for some time now...in realizing that, I know it is in me as me...my responsibility is to live it. 

I don't suppose that we can live as anything we do not fully comprehend. To many, meek means weak, and thanks, but no. We must slowly open to the spiritual nature. 

We waste years ignoring the deeper meaning of life itself, and meek may lead the way. Meek is to be moved within...down to a higher consciousness.  Ah, taking care of No. 1 is now being taken care of by No. 1. 

New light breaking: No. 1 is not us...and whatever flows after that flash is from No. 1, our Father, our Friend, who lives within. 

Oh, of course...the Father and I are One answers exactly how the meek shall inherit the earth.  

Thank you.

ON STAYING OUR HEART IN THE FACE OF OH, NO!

My first journal entry this morning: Do not lose heart.

I immediately realized this was from my Father, my Friend, and I was deeply grateful. Deeply relieved and grateful. 

My road recently seems to be rough, rocky and wrong way. The word "depressed" entered my consciousness yesterday for the first time. It entered as a question so I'm taking my Friend's words as my answer.

Those words assured me that all the 6s&7s appearing in my life are for my benefit... my inner benefit where no one can see (and admire?) them. 

All that others are seeing (or I fear they are seeing and judging) is for my benefit, too. How else do I learn to agree with your adversary quickly? How else to love your enemies?

My recent experience of being at cross-purposes with a friend comes to mind, and I see his "take" on the happening is for my benefit, too. I do not need to explain, apologize, shame or blame either of us. 

He has served his purpose in my life, i.e., deeper spiritual growth, and I have served my purpose in his, i.e., just two ships passing. 

Thank you.

GOD'S HAND IS IN IT ALWAYS AND ALL WAYS

The long-ago blinding flash of the obvious, God's hand is in it when both sides come out the winner, is leading to a deeper understanding of the spiritual nature of "winner."

 

We must begin the process of learning how to accept that another's idea can stand with our own idea and both be God's will, God's way...neither right nor wrong but entirely acceptable as is.  

My self-determined result was that both sides would merge in agreement as one. They may, but not necessarily. In any single situation, each side has their own understanding of God's will, God's way. 

We must come to freely accept each understanding as equally valid. I doubt this can be done by self-will...that's why it's called God's will.

My breakthrough came with my car being towed, and my friend coming to my aid. I praised him to high heaven, named him an angel straight from heaven because that is exactly how I felt in my time of need. According to him, however, "I just gave the lady a ride." 

I had the devil's own time letting that be...or letting go of my idea of angel-in-disguise. 

Comes the Light...I did not need to fold the angel wings; he did not need to upgrade his ho-hum opinion. Both are of God...legit and spiritual, spiritually legit.

God's hand is in it when both sides come out the winner...and a winner joys in acceptance. 

Thank you.

UNEXPLAINABLE? YES, BUT TO GOD

My new maid service is a disaster to my mind. I have spent the last day worrying, fretting...rehearsing...letting them go but also getting my keys back. Getting them told off, set straight, shamed...ah, but in a spiritually sounding way so that I can get my will, my way and sound godly into the bargain. 

The trouble with spiritual growth is it works but never to the satisfaction of ego.

My morning blinding flash: I need to meet their non-service disaster with love...but a new kind of love...not my same-old-same-old currying-favor love (placate and resent), but the love the Sermon teaches of which I am a rank, half-century, beginner. 

It is exciting to realize this is precisely the same as I need to present to the one to whom my thank you card was rudely rejected. 

I feel comforted accepting this as the core of my today's initiation...to be met with disrespect yet to return love that I know so little of. I'm on the path with the three X guy...still spending too much time in trashing thoughts but speaking no disrespect to him or about him.

Then, all at the same time, several similar "unexplainables" came to me...with me extending my idea of love...or respect at any rate...and receiving disrespect in return.

This is what I opted for originally...love your enemies, do good to those who curse you. Clearly, that is of God for the reasoning mind still rebels on the reading! 

I am grateful from my toenails up that I have experienced love and laughter solely from doing this that I opted for, i.e., the Sermon.

God is so good to me. Unrealistic...unreasonable...unexplainable...you betcha! Yet I can only want more.

Thank you. 

WE GO TO GOD FOR GOD, AND THAT IS ALL

Lessons learned...lessons a-learning: 

If the only prayer we ever pray in our lifetime is 'thank you' that would suffice. 

As long as we keep praying to be kinder, more loving, more generous, less judgmental, the more we deny the kindness we have, the love we are already filled with, etc.

Grace is always a humiliation for the ego.

The 'last' really do have a head start in moving toward 'first,' and those who spend too much time trying to be 'first' will never get there.

Spiritual growth is essentially counterintuitive...it really doesn’t make any logical sense.

We must go beyond reason to love.

Yet even when we have a strong sense of spirituality and relationship with the sacred, we can experience anguish, doubt, despair, misery, and darkness. 

 'Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me'...thy rod and thy staff are love and laughter,

'He prepares a place before me in the presence of mine enemies'...my enemies are my rues, regrets and remorses, and it is God who prepares the place before me in their presence. That which I ask God to lift is God's gift for my benefit.

We go to God for God...and that is all. 

And so much more...a blessing each and every one.

Thank you.

RISK SURRENDER...LOVE AND LAUGH

Today with trepidation I suspect that my reliance on the Sermon has become my risk-free insurance...give over, give up, give in of self-interest, self-reliance, of self. This is an in-depth lesson in silent speech...oh,BFO, also known as prayer. 

My next step up, apparently, is I now let the love within speak aloud...remembering always that love speaks, love does not preach.

This comes at an opportune time for I am seeking to fully realize that the Father and I are one. One cannot speak of what one does not fully realize.

I get it all over again, for the umpty-umpth time, I will never get "It" until I quit looking. Knowing the help I seek is already mine is true to me from my eyebrows up...moving that down to my belly button or my toenails or wherever God is in the moment, is not mine to do, it is mine to realize...and there, the Father within. 

It is akin to trying to see God with the naked eye. 

We can't be faulted for trying. As has been written, we must try with a will or fall by the wayside. It is in trying the same thing over and over, expecting different results, where we fail...the same thing is our self-determined objective. 

We risk surrender...in the vernacular, I don't know. In that surrender of self-will, we accept God's will, God's way. We love and laugh.

We also have to remember that taking risks invites greater reliance on God: The God of wild places requires risk. -- Theologian Tony Jones

Thank you.

RISK PEACE IN ANXIETY TO KNOW GOD

People waste so much time in seeking to work out what they see. I declare to you that in the seeing My purpose, all is done....the very sight is the power that clears away every obstacle along that range of vision. -- God Calling, April 14

My morning started with either an ego-lowering thought or a blinding flash: It is my 'me' that is dragging foot and calling it anxiety.

I've been feeling like a boatload of anxiety has floated into my life. I've thought of it as "the 80s" and gently sweat through it. Anxiety, however, has its own will and way. It brings favorite fears with it and reminds me that God is not available on demand.

A favorite quote, we must go beyond reason to love, is getting baptized in the river of realization...I quote but do I do? Do I go beyond reason to love?  

Faith, guided by anxiety, earns her wings! 

I have just read again: We must remember that the peace we long for is within, a spark of the divine that resides within each of us. We need to risk opening to the wild places [beyond the security of our material mind] which invites greater reliance on God: The God of wild places requires risk. (With my additions bolded, I lifted this Tony Jones quote from Fr Richard's Daily Meditation of April 22, 2024)

 I hear the Word...The Father and I are One. I risk feeling righted! I pray Thank You. I am peaced.

Thank you.

ACCEPTING RESPONSIBILITY...IT IS TO LAUGH, I

[The following is a reprint of my post of May 31, 2013.]

If we do not live, consciously and daily, in the new consciousness we have been raised to, we will revert to our lower consciousness, sometimes our lowest consciousness, depending entirely on our own self-will, our own self-absorption...or, put another way, depending on however hungry, angry, lonely and/or tired we allow ourselves to become. For each of those at its most extreme will allow no God, no spiritual force, to exist for us...it will only allow our hunger, anger, loneliness and tiredness to be at that moment.

Unfortunately, our lower consciousness, our reasoning mind, must always have someone or thing to blame. The last place our reasoning mind is willing to look is to ourselves, our own choices, our own decisions that got us too hungry, angry, lonely, tired to begin with.

Amazingly, it is in accepting responsibility for our original choice, that we find peace...usually through laughing at ourselves.

My rule of thumb: If I can't honestly laugh at it, I haven't accepted responsibility yet.

Thank you.

WANT TO HEAR THE BIRDS?...LISTEN!

Blinding flash...my entire "towing" experience, beginning last Sunday, is further initiation...for my benefit. 

Everything I do that mentally causes me pause (sharing yesterday and feeling shunned; driving home passing the bicyclists and facing oncoming traffic when bikers would not move over into their lane; perceived silence from a friend when I shared my experience, and whatever comes today) are my continuing initiation, counterintuitive, and for my benefit...inner and outer benefit.

Thank you.

A BLESSING WITH NO FINGERPRINTS ON IT, I

[The following is a reprint of my post of December 6, 2019.]

Trying to avoid suffering is probably the cause of most personal suffering. Same goes with trying to avoid making a mistake...we either wind up with a head full of worry but doing nothing, a major mistake, or we wind up causing unintended consequences which invites mistakes.

The answer, we find all over again, is to sit and wait on the Lord with the inner intention of going to God for God...and that is all.

To sit and wait on the Lord is in spiritual consciousness the time for inner action. This is the time when we detach from our busy mind race-race, run-running on how to avoid or to fix our perceived problem.

Now we sit quietly and offer up a conscious invitation for our dreaded perception to walk right in, sit down with us and share a cuppa. Then we let our mind float to the many promises we have read of and invite any one up to do its thing.

Say that we are given It is I, be not afraid (John 6:20). Our mind's eye (I) recognizes our dread and our mind is changed...what we are dreading is the gateway up deeper, our sliver of gold. We realize that this, too is of God, and we hug it and kiss it and let it go.

This, of course, is not a one-shot deal...it takes as long as it takes to break completely free of our own imaginings. Often and oh so often we find it gone, leaving us wondering when we were freed.

There it is, the pearl of great price: We know we are blessed for clearly self 's fingerprints are nowhere on it. God can and will when self-protection takes a hike.

Thank you.

DOING IT WRONG LEADS TO PEACE OF MIND

By love, God can be embraced and held, but not by thinking....You must also know that this darkness and this cloud will always be between you and your God....So be sure you make your home in this darkness. It’s the closest you can get to God here on earth, by waiting in this darkness and in this cloud. -- extracts from The Cloud of Unknowing 

 

It is a wonderment to find comfort in the words of an anonymous 14th-century mystic that the darkness and the cloud will always be between us and our God. 

We were taught, and have sought to believe, that if we prayed hard enough, acted good enough, spoke with love only, we would feel good about our self, we would be fear-free, guaranteeing our perfect peace of mind. 

Ignoring the fact that to seek perfect peace is still a self-determined objective, we carried our own personal cross of less-than...never good enough...and seeking, studying, pondering more and harder became our how-to. 

When we came across the quiet word that we must go beyond reason to love, our life changed...or, more to the point, our mind changed which changed our life. Our changed mind lifted us into higher consciousness, and we began to think, feel, do and be from a place of love, i.e., God consciousness. 

The rude awakening, albeit necessary suffering, to be lifted into God consciousness does not preclude living in the natural world. That explains the comfort we receive from the words you must also know that this darkness and this cloud will always be between you and your God. 

Or, as our home-grown saint Fr Richard has written, we don't get to God by doing it right, we get to God by doing it wrong. There's our peace of mind...if we will use it.

Thank you.

WE ARE RAGGEDY EXAMPLES OF GOD...HOORAH

A deeper understanding of that which I already knew came to me in my quiet time this morning. I have ever known that I am living my worst fear...of being all alone. Actually, that is not my worst fear, my worst fear is of being left all alone. That is where my hidey-hole has been. I made sure I'd never be left all alone by never letting in anybody who could then leave me. 

My morning blinding flash of the obvious is that being alone has always been God's will, God's way for me. My self-determined want has been my block; I could not, would not, allow that to be the Truth. 

I can only assume why God's will and way has been for me to be alone...maybe to grow the gift of my spiritual nature deeper? To be a walking-around messenger for the Higher Power? More likely to be humbled by my egoic self until I am a raggedy example for like walking-around egos on earth. 

With that as a possibility, I feel peaced...I do that well actually. I do draw others to me, I am neither a falling-down failure nor a shining star...I am a Carter, I am a child of God, and I am unique. Same as you are. Ain't that good news?

God loves us so much.

Thank you.

ANGELS...MESSENGERS OF DEEPER MESSAGES

St Francis [of Assisi] found the transcendent not 'out there' but 'in here'—the transcendent was largely revealed at the depth and 'inner' of things. This is what we actually mean by 'angels.' Angels are the transcendent within of things. Everything, therefore, has its angel or 'messenger'! They make all things 'fly,' as it were, and all things are messengers of deeper messages. -- a parsed quote of Fr. Richard Rohr from 2013  

I love that quote so much that it almost hurts. I have pondered it many times over the years...the first time I posted it, I admitted I did not yet know its underlying meaning but the beauty of it enwrapped me.

The beauty still holds me close, plus I have found my inner meaning. A BFO...blinding flash of the obvious...that I experience is an angel. I have always known that I just did not know its name. I do not hesitate to claim it now as my Truth. 

Each BFO contains a deeper meaning that lifts my Soul. It brings the proverbial spiritual in nature feeling to my heart and head whether I "get" the deeper meaning immediately or not. That is beyond simple security...joy, peace, love and laughter pop, seemingly from my toes to my nose...and I am peaced.

The lesson alearning is to enwrap that feeling within me...without care, it can be usurped by ego's self-centered fear, and it is a climb back up. Ah, but with God all things are possible.

Thank you.

PEACE...BE STILL...LOVE AND LAUGH

Continuing with further insights born by recent trauma, today's Daily Meditation in which Barbara A. Holmes compares jazz with spiritual growth is right on point: The straining trumpet blasts away the illusion that our upward mobility will bring peace. 

Substituting panic for jazz: The panic blasts away the illusion that our upward reasoning mind mobility will bring peace.

Holmes further: To subject everything to rational analysis reduces the awe to ashes. The restoration of wonder is the beginning of the inward journey toward a God who people of faith aver is always waiting in the seeker’s heart. [Other than ain't it the truth, enough said.]

There it is...the quiet word: It is time for our constant analysis to be peaced, for us to sit and wait on the Lord. What we need will be made clear...our lesson has already opened for us.

Peace...be still...love and laugh.

Thank you.

MENTAL TRAUMA...A SPIRITUAL AWAKENING

Fr Richard's Daily Meditation today is about the gift of art and how it grows us. I had a traumatic experience yesterday, that was more mental than physical. I am amazed...delighted!...that Fr Richard's experiences with good art are transmuting as my trauma's spiritual gifts to me. 

Using today's article, the following bolded words are my very primitive coordinating insights:

"Sometimes, when we can’t take our eyes off a picture or work of art [or a trauma is visited upon us], an epiphany is happening. We don’t yet know what we’re knowing while the wisdom of the unconscious is being ferried across to the conscious mind. This I have been experiencing...insights into my very scary experience from a spiritual perspective.

"Art [mental trauma, as in necessary suffering] invites audiences to consider the spirituality and transformative power of images.

"Engaging with art [mental trauma, inviting a higher meaning] means we have to slow down to allow a new experience to enter which perhaps cannot be accessed in another way. So far, this is true and feels like the diamond in the rough.

"I believe good art, good poetry, and true mythology [mental trauma, necessary suffering...Fr Richard's cosmic story] communicates, without our knowing it, that life is not just a series of insulated, unrelated events. The great truths—when they can be visualized in images—reveal deep patterns, and reveal that we are a part of them. That deeply heals us, and it largely happens beneath our conscious awareness.

"We don’t close our eyes to the world’s pain, but on a deep, unconscious level, a cosmic story offers us healing and coherence. I began receiving a higher understanding of my trauma as soon as I arrived home and was alone...I knew that this, too, was of God and thus for my benefit...and, equally important, for the benefit of my friend who was a part of the experience."

Here's the natural mind's hard part in spiritual awakenings...waiting for the proof of purchase, so to speak. I know within me, this entire experience will prove to be of God...my egoic mind is saying, "When?"

I love it. 

Thank you.

THE PERFECTION OF UNKNOWING, I

[The following is a reprint of my post of April 29, 2015.]

Deep acceptance of ultimate mystery is ironically the best way to keep the mind and heart spaces always open and always growing. -- Fr. Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," April 29, 2015

I believe those of us who have chosen the spiritual path have made the U-turn...away from our logical reasoning mind (as in, how can I fix this, make that happen, not happen?), toward the ultimate mystery...realization, yet unknowing, of God's perfect outworking of life itself. Yours, mine, that child we worry so about, an elderly parent, a lost friend...lives already perfected. Ours to let them be.

We may not understand the perfect outworking for, being of God, it benefits all, the how of which the reasoning mind is not built to understand. If we divorce our self from our fix-it reasoning mind, we will not need to understand the how of the perfect outworking. That is the perfect outworking.

Thank you.

A LESSON IN LOVING...FROM ME TO ME

Morning blinding flash of the obvious: I need to risk extending love un-self-consciously with no hope of receiving love or even acceptance in return. 

Un-self-consciously is the spiritual key. I'm guessing unselfconscious is God-conscious, or the gates ajar at any rate. 

It is our thoughts that need spiritual guidance...our mouth knows better today, "better" meaning to stay closed. Too often, though, that gives thoughts free rein, and free rein to our thoughts is akin to a fire sale at Macy's...chaos.

To openly give of our self...not through self-will, but through the Spirit within...starts with unselfconsciously extending our hand, a word of welcome, our thoughts for the other.

All of that was learned in junior high school etiquette class...knowing how to becomes quite mechanical over the years. We are on the spiritual path going in an entirely new and higher direction now, and all of those words have become just so many words. 

Face it, this is where I do not know is the only acceptable answer to just about anything we are seeing in a new light. 

The way to love, not to get but to give, is not to choose to whom, but virtually blindfolded to extend welcome to whomever...without overwhelming. Ah, there's reasoning mind setting up limitations. When, not if, we are unselfconsciously extending love, we trust God, always at the helm. 

We extend love to whomever is present...and try not to be aghast when "whomever" is the one person we've recently been less than loving to "because they were a jerk to me first." 

Show our happy face and trust. That's as good a start as we're likely to get for however long it takes...however long we take. 

Keep it simple, Stupid: Love and laugh.

Thank you.

OUR INNERMOST DESIRE IS ALREADY TRUE

Pray always; pray unceasingly. (1 Thessalonians 5:17)

That's another of the Bible's impossible-to-understand demands. It is literally impossible to pray unceasingly if we're praying as we were taught to pray...on our knees, hands folded, etc. Fortunately, we've come a long way from there, but we still need direction.

Here comes Fr Richard to clear the way: We can pray unceasingly if we find the stream and know how to wade in its waters. The stream will flow through us; all we have to do is keep choosing to stay there.

There's the key...find the stream...then through our continuing spiritual growth we know how to wade in its waters. The best part of the promise is that the stream will flow through us...the hardest part, all we have to do is keep choosing to stay there. 

Choosing to stay there, we come to find out...slowly, slowly...is learning to stay in the Now. From our first inner desire to stay in the Now, our consciousness is being raised. We can never think our way there, we need only build trust by praying thank you...and repeatedly getting out of our own way by getting out of our own head. 

We know today that we have found the stream, we know how to wade in its waters, the stream does flow through us, we do choose to stay there...but we only learn this by looking back. 

Looking back, we see our original regret has become our pearl beyond price...seeded by remorse, grown by prayerful tears, gifted by God's will, God's way.   

Everything is a gift...rues, regrets, remorses? Our pearls beyond price. Thank you! 

True encounter with Christ liberates something in us, a power we did not know we had, a hope, a capacity for life, a resilience, an ability to bounce back when we thought we were completely defeated, a capacity to grow and change, a power of creative transformation. —Thomas Merton, He Is Risen

There. That is our innermost desire and is already true...whether we know it or not.

Thank you.

BELIEVE IN THE LIGHT...LOVE AND LAUGH

Jesus says, 'Believe in the light so that you also may become children of the light' (John 12:36), letting us know that we participate in the same mystery, and he is here to aid the process. -- Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, April 4, 2024  

This is what I sense is happening in me...my conscious reminder to keep my thoughts upgraded to receive the message waiting within me.

I am so grateful that my life experiences remind me to ever question my state of mind and being or my exaggerating nature (inherited in the Carters' sense of humor, and I love it) will fly away with me. 

For a while now, I have been questioning whether I am in material world anxiety or spiritual world growth...especially when I have elevated thoughts or experiences, as in after I read in one of my dailies the exact experience I so recently had.

It is not only that I choose to believe...I am being led to believe, too! This is me having taken the fork in the road leading to higher consciousness. I am very hesitantly walking this new path of Trust, gratefully acknowledging that this is a spiritual gift, being consciously received.

Lest I forget, my material world footwork must not be neglected. I've made my 2-Do list, even done a couple...there are more. They ain't going 2 Do it themselves. Get crackin'...and Love and Laugh.

Thank you.

TRUST...SPREADING ITS WINGS

I need God's direction. The question: Is my recent unconscious behavioral change proof of authentic spirituality OR an indication of dementia?

My natural state of mind fears this may be dementia, but spiritual consciousness says this new, not me, feeling can just as well be God's will, God's way, heading me in a new direction. Never having been here before, it feels wrong...but somehow right at the same time.  

That is the nature of change...it feels wrong precisely because we've never been here before. Self-protection keeps our toes tacked to the floor...with our thoughts in turn around, go back mode. Spiritual growth lifts us up on the back of thank you.

I choose to believe this is trust having been born within me, now spreading its wings. Trust that God's will, God's way is always and all ways for my benefit.

Only later when I look back will I know the answer. This we can be sure of...the answer can be spiritually raised consciousness, may be dementia with a spiritual base, but it likely will be beyond imagining...God's will, God's way. 

Trust and let it be.

Thank you.  

GO BEYOND REASON TO GOD

Everyone’s an infinitely loved, broken person in a fleeting, often not-so-fair, gorgeous, lovely, unexplainable world. -- James Finley, Fr Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation, April 8, 2024

There's the secret...the secret to still more spiritual growth. We already are that which we are seeking.

Reminds us of the can't see the forest for the trees adage...we can't find our growth for pushing it out of the way looking for our growth. 

Then there is thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. We go to great lengths to avoid our own conception of that one. The reasoning mind can only think painful!, when in the counterintuitive spiritual world, thy rod and thy staff bring love and laughter. The painful part is getting over our own self to awake to love and laughter.

We can never enter the counterintuitive spiritual world by rational thinking...it comes in God's good time by way of inner awakening.   

Go beyond reason to find joy in being an infinitely loved broken person in this counterintuitive spiritual world. 

Thank you.

WE CAN CHOOSE TO LIVE FROM OUR HEART

It doesn’t lie in our power to make these insights happen, but here’s the key. We can freely choose to assume the stance that offers the least resistance to being overtaken by the fire that we cannot make happen. -- James Finley, Fr Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation, April 8, 2024

I am reminded of my BFO yesterday about loving God with all my heart, soul, body and brain. I noted that the brain is last, and that last is the first place we speak from. 

What we need do is sit in silence to absorb the wonder of it... of our heart full of love flowing over into our soul into our body with the brain slowly awakening to the wonder of it...and wanting to talk about it. Uh-oh.

No wonder we tend toward addlepated when we're going for a spiritual life...too often we speak from our intellect totally bypassing our Father within which is ready, willing and able to speak from our heart. 

Silence...sit in silence. Trust is born, bred and grows in silence. Thomas Merton said it beats in our very blood whether we want it to or not.

We have to look for the thread of sensitivity to such insights and decide that we’re going to live this way. It’s a kind of obediential fidelity that nobody can see but it matters more than everything. -- Ibid.

Thank you.

IF IT PEACES OUR HEART, GO WITH IT

For a while now, I've been feeling off-kilter, that old skins-on-crooked sensation. 

I have wondered, even journaled, whether this was low-level anxiety, to which I am partial, or the initiation to which all spiritual seekers participate (whether we know it or not). In other words, whether this mixed feeling is my now life at 80+ or my ongoing spiritual initiation.  

Then, big WOW, just this morning the eclipse came to mind. The eclipse...the sun/moon activity! 

Can that be the source of my whopperjawed feelings? Just as the full moon in my early years was a reliable crazy indicator when all of us in the rooms were feeling off-kilter...reminds me of Kath's Something. Ain't. Right.

That makes such good sense to me that I'm not going to analyze it. Why not let it be my truth...who's going to say me nay? And it peaces my heart which is hard to hate.

Thank you. 

THE NEW SHAPE OF REALITY

The resurrection is not Jesus’ private miracle; it’s the new shape of reality. It’s the new shape of the world. It’s filled with grace. It’s filled with possibility. It’s filled with newness. — Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, April 6, 2024

The current state of consciousness of the world today is chaos. According to me, we are clinging to the old dual (win/lose) mentality that is fear-based, resisting the new shape of reality that is grace-based and love wins.

Unrealized, the consciousness of we the people, i.e., world consciousness, is being lifted up...exchanged actually. New Thought is aborning and there is the source of chaos. Change without the reasoning mind's knowledge or consent is fear producing.

A spiritual metaphor spins itself: Surrender, or crash and burn, equals crucifixion...New Thought, or raised consciousness, equals resurrection.

Crash and burn is involuntary...it cannot be preplanned else it is a self-determined objective, of self not of God. Spiritually, it is crucifixion, the surrender, i.e., death, of self-will.  

Surrender by way of necessary suffering births acceptance, raising consciousness to New Thought, the home of a Power greater than our self, greater than our dual thinking.

Away with the fear-producing chaos of anxiety, anger and fear. I'm inviting this in to be the new shape of reality...the new shape of the world...filled with grace...filled with possibility...filled with newness. 

Thank you.

TO FALL INTO LOVE, PRACTICE FALLING

 It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. - 1 Corinthians 15:44.

That quote knocked my socks off when I read it recently. I felt gobsmacked...I have known and said for a long time that I live in two minds, one of this world, i.e., material, the other of God, i.e., spiritual. I thought that was a quirk of mine...God's way of helping me process his truths.

Well, there it is. Spelled out in black and white in the Holy Bible: There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. I only love it.

I admit it's hardly surprising that I'd never read it since I have never been a serious Bible reader. Other than the Sermon on the Mount, I've never studied the Bible...and my studying the Sermon came for entirely selfish purposes.

That is an excellent example of spirituality being counterintuitive. I selfishly studied the Sermon to build my sense of self as a good and decent person...and found that worked only if I gave it away. Even as I was learning, I was giving it away without for one second being consciously aware of God interworking among others and me.

It is a fact...whopperjawed but fact...that my spiritual growth has come primarily by looking back. As I look back, I recognize that 99.99 percent of what came to me disguised as dreadful was to become another pearl beyond price. 

That may be the secret to how Meister Eckhart learned if the only prayer you ever say in your life is thank you that would suffice...I kinda hope so.

It is comforting to realize the one-ing of material mind and spiritual mind has come by Love, the Love which is God.  

Love has to be worked toward, received, and enjoyed; the first move is to recognize our deep capacity for fear and hate. But remember, we gather around the negative space quickly, while we 'fall into' love rather slowly, and only with lots of practice at falling. - Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, March 28, 2024.

Thank you.

GRACE OF GOD AND FRIENDS, I

[The following is a slightly reworked reprint of my post of March 31, 2012]

Per today's morning meditation of Fr. Richard Rohr, "If there isn’t some way to find some deeper meaning to our suffering, to find that God is somewhere in it, and can even use it for good, we will normally close up and close down."

There's my truth. What I especially love is that I learned that truth a while back from another source entirely. Which is unneeded, but welcomed, assurance that I'm still on the right path, going in the right direction.

 
It's always fireworks in my heart when I read anything, including the long-gone Ann Landers column, that confirms my path. Probably because I was so long on a path that was mine and mine alone, and I was determined to keep it that way. I knew all there was to know about all there was to know, and if I didn't...don't let anybody else know. 

By grace and a lot of help from my friends, God found me somewhere in the mix and now uses me for good.

Thank you.

OUR UNCHANGEABLE TRUTH EVER CHANGING

Notes from my journal this morning:

We are being changed just as we are...gifts and faults interchangeable. Self-determined changes are of the reasoning mind and change our core not; changes realized but not self-determined are of God and form our changed core.

There will ever be others who misunderstand us...ours is to accept being misunderstood in order to understand others.

To silently accept through gritted teeth is ego, to silently accept with a peaceful heart is nonresistance. Nonresistance is the path to making welcome God's will and way.

Spiritually, seeing is not believing, it is not seeing but trusting that scores belief. The reasoning mind is vice versa.

We each have our own individual gifts...they seldom arrive looking good enough. Resignation to our poor, pitiful, puny gifts is ego driven by self-will; acceptance of those pitiful gifts is the beginning of Trust.

Each of these thoughts are according to me. I stand on them...until my mind gets changed.  

Thank you.

NO PARTY, JUST PEACE...THIS, TOO, IS OF GOD

If the resurrection really is the best good news that has ever hit the planet, then its goodness doesn’t depend on us.… The tomb is empty. Death is vanquished. Jesus lives. Period. -- author Debie Thomas, Fr Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation, April 2, 2024

There's my mini-BFO...by living in raised consciousness, not of the material world but raised up into the spiritual, we are carried over material death. We, by our raised consciousness, and not just Jesus but we, too, can walk free of the material ties that bind us to earth by our living the Sermon-taught love. 

Not to put too fine a point on it, but we will experience material world death, it is the afterward that holds the golden promise. For that, we continue to seek still more spiritual growth. There is no graduation party, there is better...God consciousness.

God consciousness, the counterintuitive knowing that fear is our pearl for it leads us back to God. Living in God consciousness, we meet life Now, i.e., openly. We may/will still feel a myriad of self-centered fears, but we are peaced by knowing that each one is of God.

Thank you.

COUNTERINTUITIVE UNDERSTANDING OF GOD

Each time we choose to surrender, each time we trust the dying, our faith is led to a deeper level, and we discover a Larger Self underneath. We decide not to push to the front of the line, and something much better happens in the back of the line. -- Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, April 1, 2024

I do not recall when I first got a glimmer of the counterintuitive nature of spiritual growth...that less was more, that bigger does not make for better...but I have practiced that...imperfectly...since. Still, I feel awed when I read the likes of Fr Richard's quote above which casually confirms that truth. 

Practicing that has made my life considerably more interesting...we quit pushing to get to the front of the line and find better happens in the back of the line. 

The first few times we hear that, our reasoning mind will balk which is why we've been led to seek still more spiritual growth...that is spiritual growth's training ground. The reasoning mind, not having been built to accept that, must be raised, and we find a higher consciousness waiting to be accessed from within. 

We seek, we study, we analyze...searching ever searching. We are looking in the wrong direction...out there. Yet, we must go in the wrong direction to be turned around...to look within...to find the Father within who doeth the works.

As promised, our faith is led to a deeper level, and we discover a Larger Self underneath. 

Thank you.