NONRESISTANCE...LOVE'S BLANKIE

Fr Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation today is virtually all about the sick, sad, sorry and downtrodden, women in particular, who rose above their material experience [fear] into their conscious contact with God [love]...or, reasoning mind supplanted by spiritual insight births enlightenment.

My very first turning to God came from panic attacks...specifically, fear that I was losing my mind, that I would end up in a mental hospital in a straitjacket never able to hold a book again.

Acknowledging that it was fear of my mind breaking that had turned me to the Father within freed me...not from fear, our testing God, but from my fear of fear.  

That original experience of panic attacks brought me into the Fellowship, took me deeper into its sacred program and committed me to spirituality over psychiatry. Panic attacks were not removed, but fear of them was. Ah, there it is, the pearl beyond price.

Today, the specter of dementia is leading me...without panic...deeper into conscious contact with the God of my understanding. 

Just as I once grew into gratitude for anxiety for deepening my spiritual consciousness, I pray thank you for my fear of dementia today. How could I not when I recall how fear became my turn-to-God friend. 

As an aside, I have been doctor-tested and cleared...I know to do my footwork...but my faith is in the Father within. All my old fears have been allayed...not removed, just allayed...just as this one is welcomed to rest by the wayside.

My original fears...of anxiety, of being left all alone, of being unloved, unwanted, unneeded, unappreciated...all have been enveloped by love in the form of nonresistance. Yet free to return...to be met again by faith.

Those so-long-ago yesterday experiences have proved daily to be God's as-needed gifts for me. I love and laugh as I recall that nothing turns me to God faster than fear.

Thank you.

A WORLD ENWRAPPED IN GOD'S LOVE

Remember this: There are always two worlds. The world as it operates is power; the world as it should be is love. The secret of kingdom life is how we can live in both—simultaneously. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," July 31, 2024

I have long thought and I write of the two worlds available for us to live in...the material world and the spiritual world. Those of us seeking still more spiritual growth have the primary goal of living from our spiritual mind and failing more than a few times...that is when, not if, we're doing it right.

I have two rules of life that from the get-go until right now have guided me: 1) If I don't take a drink, I won't get drunk; 2) Live by the Sermon on the Mount, period...no promises, no guarantees, just do it. 

I ace the first one every day; I strive for the second one the majority of the time...that is 51 percent, and anything over that is probably ego-chatter.

Now, here comes Fr Richard with kingdom life...with the proposition that we can live in both the material world and the spiritual world simultaneously by keeping our eyes intently on the world as it should be....

I pondered that this morning and was gifted with a blinding flash...we are already doing that, living simultaneously in the material and the spiritual world. Our goal has ever been for still more spiritual growth, and we have walked that...talked it a lot but that was necessary to get us to the walking it stage. 

I know today that I would rather give happy than get happy...which is no great shakes since we must have happy in order to give it. That is when we realize the answer, that there is only one answer, and it is already ours...love, look within. 

The world is enwrapped in God's love...ours to draw from with or without natural knowledge. 

Thank you.

THE ASSURANCE IS...GOD IS OUR LIFE

 [W]e don’t truly comprehend any spiritual thing until we give it away. Spiritual gifts increase only by 'using' them. For James, to 'actively put it into practice is to be happy in all that one does' and 'if good works do not accompany faith, it is quite dead.'  -- Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, July 26, 2024  

That first sentence is daunting to me...we don’t truly comprehend any spiritual thing until we give it away. 

The fact of the matter is that fairly often we are praised for our spiritual share or of-God advice, and we have not a clue what we are being praised for. 

The paradox is that if we are aware of what we are being praised for, no doubt we are at least a tish proud of it. On the other hand, claiming that we do not know invites a suspicion of false modesty. That is not only a quandary, but also an example of Truth wrapped in an enigma punctuated by Huh? 

For a long time, I felt that the deeper I dug, the closer I got to you're going down that wrong road again. Actually, that wasn't a feeling, that was a fact. 

That's when Fr Richard came to my aid with his, we don't get to God by doing it right, we get to God by doing it wrong. That erased the long-time bane of my life, my rues, regrets and remorses, and gave me love and laughter, the assurance of God in my life.

That was also the birth of my realization that God's will is counterintuitive. When we have a "good idea" (as in, "I'll pray about this, and God will make it so"), count on it...we're heading down that wrong road again. That is how we learn the difference between a self-determined objective and the perfect objective which is of God.

We go to God for God and that is all.

Thank you.

NOT TO DISCOVER BUT TO RETRIEVE, I

[The following is a reprint of my post of December 30, 2013.]

It is such a comfort to me, when a problem looms, to remind myself that that problem has already been solved.

I usually want to get in the midst of it, figure it out (to my advantage), get all concerned to agree with me, but I need to quiet my mind, to listen. To listen...not for the answer to my perceived problem (for in God's world, there is no problem), but for the discipline of simply sitting quietly and listening.

As Fr. Richard Rohr writes, "...spiritual knowledge is more like retrieving than discovering."

Whatever answer we need (which likely has not an iota to do with what we're thinking we need) will come to us. That answer may look less than wonderful and a butt-biter into the bargain, but it is, in truth, our gold mine.

All we need remember is the promise: "Be not afraid...it is I."

Thank you.

MATURE SPIRITUALITY IS TO LOVE AND LAUGH

All mature spirituality is about letting go and unlearning.  ***  The ego defines itself by its attachments and revulsions. The soul does not attach, nor does it hate; it desires and loves and lets go. -- Fr Richard Rohr. Daily Meditation, July 1, 2024 

Spiritual maturity begins when we realize our desire in any disagreement is for both sides to come out the winner. Maturity is born in the realization that the human condition precludes that from happening...only a Power greater than our self can pull it off. 

Both sides come out the winner not by self-determined objectives but by an inner lifting of our self-determined objectives. 

Just because it is a good, right and honest objective does not make it God's will. 

This we know, when we seek to let the other side win, our primary goal is for that to happen in the least hurtful or embarrassing way to us. 

The manner in which we want it removed is the tell...it remains of self, for self, by self. There is no God in that.

Knowing all this, we appreciate that a self-determined objective that is good, right and honest is heading in the right direction...toward God's will. It is staying put that delays our spiritual growth. This is when we hold our nose and take a leap of faith.

All mature spirituality is about letting go and unlearning. 

Thank you.

GOD'S HAND IS IN IT...ALWAYS AND ALL WAYS

Just five days ago, I watched President Biden on TV announce he was giving up for the good of the country his campaign for re-election to the presidency of the United States. With that declaration, he gave up his very active career as a positive force in politics. 

The president has had a boatload of tragedy in his life, but I can only imagine that qualified as the worst day in his political life.

From my own experience, the promise came to mind for the president that the worst thing that could happen to us can become the best thing that could happen for us. 

As that thought floated, another memory of me back in the day entered...of me in my early self-adoration days when I was one of the first younger woman in my Fellowship's area. The door was opening to others to come but many who came at that time naturally turned to me. My ego and I took it as personal...not to mention deserved. (Uh-oh...watch out for that first step....)

By God and by grace, the wall I hit was that the other women eventually turned away from me to find their own spiritual path. 

That was me at seven into nine years in the Fellowship. Those were times of serious pain...what today I know to be necessary suffering, or the way out of self into Self. 

My suffering finally brought me to my spiritual group meeting where I was forced to admit, out loud and weeping, that I did not know if there is a God, "but there is no God in my life today." Oh, the egoic pain...which hides in our heart making it the more excruciating.   

This was my second crash and burn...crash and burn, that which we try with a will to avoid and, given into, becomes our pearl beyond price. Thus began my serious search for still more spiritual growth in and within my Fellowship...and praise God continues to this day. 

As I ponder my view of today's political maelstrom...primarily American, but worldwide...I am lifted by the promise: God's hand is in it...pray thank you and keep the faith. 

Thank you.

THE TRUEST WILL OF GOD

Remember, always remember, that the heartfelt desire to do the will of God is, in fact, the truest will of God. At that point, God has won, the ego has lost, and our prayers have already been answered. -- Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, July 25, 2024  

Blinding flash or free-floating thoughts: I always, always, always know a deep and ever deeper connection/comfort/realization when I read or am reminded that I...we...do have an inner Source, that it is God, that God is within me and thee and my...our...only job is to seek that Source by prayer and meditation daily...to seek as the Spirit moves us to seek until we feel connected/comforted/peaced...unto knowing our prayers have already been answered.

Oh, ain't it good, ain't it good, great God, knowing that You love me!

Thank you.

WE HAVE ONLY JUST BEGUN

To finally surrender ourselves to healing, we need to have three spaces opened within us—and all at the same time: our opinionated head, our closed-down heart, and our defensive and defended body. That is the work of spirituality. — Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, July 20, 2024

There it is, the definition of crash and burn: three spaces opened within us—and all at the same time. 

Those three spaces are not within our conscious power...they come from a Power greater than our self. They come without conscious invitation...we can pray till our face falls off and naught will come of it for those prayers are born in the reasoning mind for the peace of the reasoning mind...primarily to avoid the spiritually necessary crash-and-burn. 

There be God's hand: Crash-and-burn is the gates ajar, entry into the counterintuitive...beyond reason. We must go beyond reason to love. 

The reasoning mind is all about get not give...how to get security, protection, abundance, personal love, peace of mind. 

To surrender our self to healing is to change our mind...which, we are slow to learn, is God's job. 

The spiritual mind is about giving impersonal love, the love of God, and that is all...because that is all.   

First lesson learned is that for us in this life neither way is a forever path, we mix and mingle get and give as we seek still more spiritual growth. Gratefully we cling to Fr Richard's we don't get to God by doing it right, we get to God by doing it wrong. 

The eye-opener is proof of the truth about self-determined objectives...that they are not of God. Our prayer was actually a self-determined demand. As in, Snap to it, God...heal me already. Oh yeah, please and thank you.

The good news is we have just begun the work of spirituality.  

God loves us so much.

Thank you.

A CHANGED MIND...A RAISED CONSCIOUSNESS...

You can give the entrance to fears and despondency....Set yourselves the task to allow nothing to disturb your peace, your heart calm, with Me...Look on each difficulty as training to enable you to secure this peace. -- "God Calling," July 23 

My handwritten notes in my daily readings: 

'23 - feel change re consciousness inside...thank you. 

'24 - experiencing same now...thank you.

Today I realize this has been my journey toward raised consciousness...regrets dancing a dirge in my head and brought to heel by thank you. 

Those regrets formed the ladder up which I climbed...slowly...ever acknowledging, by a simple thank you, God's guidance. All for the purpose...albeit unknowing...of shucking my shields for the realization that our regrets are our gold. 

God is so good to me.

Thank you. 

TRUST...TO BECOME UNSELFED FOR OTHERS

'Amazing grace' is not a way to avoid honest human relationships. Rather, it’s a way to redo them—but now, gracefully—for the liberation of both sides. Nothing just goes away in the spiritual world; all must be reconciled and accounted for. - Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, Jully 22, 2024  

First, we are told to trust God, and our immediate response is "OK," with not a clue what or how or even why.

Then, we are taught that we must simply trust. And again...not a clue as to how, we are willing. Only, how do we learn to trust? 

That's when we hear that we must become unselfed. This time, we need to find out what unselfed even means with the SOSO...how? How do we become unselfed? 

Gratefully, we are seeking still more spiritual growth, so we are willing. The old adage we're in it to win it holds one hand as the other hand holds our nose, and we take a leap of faith. We land against what feels like a steel wall, only to learn that is what self-will feels like. 

We slide down that wall to puddle at the bottom, broken, wiped out. We want to curse and cry and beat our breast and wail...we've done it wrong again! Unbeknownst to us, we are getting why we must do it wrong to get it right...to become unselfed.

This process takes as long as it takes...only the invisible trust within knows the when and where for us. Trust earns its stripes when we are ready, and It lifts us up into a higher consciousness. 

Rarely do we realize this in the moment...life just becomes brighter. We know it and we show it and are amazed when others remark on a change in us. Without silently weighing the odds, we have become generally helpful...no biggie, just there as needed.  

We are learning a higher lesson: To become unselfed is to be Self'd...with the God of our understanding alive in our heart, our soul, our body and our brain. For others.

Thank you.

DON'T TELL IT...BE IT, I

[The following is a reprint of my post of August 28, 2012.]

I've been pondering what steps I can take toward living the golden rule...what small steps nearer to people I'd rather not be close to.

Recently, I shared with some friends about treating a person (whom I find irritating) with simple courtesy. Unfortunately, I'd previously run my mouth...a lot...about what a fraud this person was, and my friends had completely agreed about her. This time, as I shared, I had the creepiest feeling that I was parading myself as holier-than-thou.

Once again, I learn the same-old-same-old...whatever you are, or are striving to become, the more you tell people that, the less it appears to be true. When they can see it in you without your talking about it, then it will be true.

My golden rule has been, and I suspect is going to remain, "Try not to be as nasty as you want to be." Which is kinda hard to brag about.

Thank you.

THE BLESSING OF FEAR

The God of our own understanding comes with acceptance...acceptance comes from surrender...surrender comes from crash and burn....crash and burn comes with fear. 

Nothing turns us to God faster than fear.

Fear opens us to the Higher Power within...which is released to do Its thing for our benefit albeit against reason, i.e., our own understanding. 

This brings us to the cursed, but blessed, turning point...between what we have, material knowledge, and what we need, spiritual enlightenment. This promises to be a rest-of-our-life proposition...away from the material world up to the divine, our raised consciousness.

This is the reasoning mind's rough and rugged road purely because to the reasoning mind it appears to be littered with toadstools and turkey tripe, but to higher consciousness these are beyond diamonds and pearls. These are the Word of God made our own.

The Word of God...love and laugh.

Thank you.  

SURRENDER TO WIN...A DEEPER DIP HIGHER

We don't get to God by doing it right, we get to God by doing it wrong. -- Fr Richard Rohr

That is one of my all-time favorite Fr Richard quotes, we don't get to God by doing it right, we get to God by doing it wrong. It is a favorite because it never stops growing.

Today's Daily Meditation is an exercise in the making of mistakes as an acceptable part of our life. The difference between the material mind and the spiritual mind is clearly delineated here. 

In the material world, we learn mistakes are mainly just Don't...period, end of lesson. We begin our climb in the spiritual world when we hear, then accept, the new lesson: When (not if) wrong, promptly admit it. 

There it is, the key to right being birthed by being wrong...the involvement of another. How wrong can we feel when we're talking only to our bathroom mirror?

We read Fr Richard: It’s not about punishing one side, but liberating both sides. We learn: God's hand is in it when both sides come out the winner.

In that lesson, we begin a fuller realization of personal powerlessness, i.e., this is not something we on our own can do just because it is the right thing to do. No...this is another deep dip in surrendering to win. 

We surrender our egoic need to come out on top, be first, never give in. In other words, we go against the basic rule of the reasoning mind. 

Then we find that is just the first part...by surrendering, we give in not to another party but to the spiritual reality that the deed is already done for the benefit of both sides. 

Love wins...impersonal love, the spiritual nature of love...there is no ego in the spiritual nature of love.

We cannot "get" impersonal love...no amount of praying, striving, seeking will bring impersonal love to us. It lives with the Father within us and is released by the Father's ever-flowing love when, unknowingly, we become ready.

We are brought to the deeper...the higher...understanding of we don't get to God by doing it right, we get to God by doing it wrong. 

Thank you.

FEAR...HUG IT AND KISS IT AND LET LOVE SLIP IN

Right after I went to bed last night, I sensed free-floating anxiety all but asking to come in...to take hold of me. I did not fight it (thank you), I let it wait there at my shoulder expectantly as I took a quick inventory of me, my day, my week. 

I felt my consciousness shift when I recognized my anxiety was naught but resistance, that it was resistance I was experiencing. 

That recognition allowed me to ask God's help to freely examine it. I had just gone to bed, relaxing into sleep, when fear came inviting itself in. I consciously prayed thank you, my Welcoming prayer, and I cleared my thoughts.

My resistance became clear...to the oppressive heat which kept me indoors without face-to-face contact for nearly a week, to my fear of our political situation and for America, and then, of course, to the daily nits and gnats that make their home in us.

My resistance fell away, angel wings enwrapped me, and I slept.

When we decide to face a fear, to welcome it, to kiss it on the lips, then that fear is defanged. God has us...you, me and our fear...in the palm of his hand. No safer place.

Thank you.

IT MATTERS NOT HOW SLOW WE GO...TRUST!

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 love the above with its assurance that our suffering calls forth our own inner self, our soul. Reading about suffering often brings a Yes! to mind when one is not suffering. Yet...when suffering is upon me, invariably I'll be humming the old '50s song, "Please Release Me, Let Me Go." 

We need all the spiritual information we can get...and we're often still amazed at the many different people and places that qualify for our spiritual information to see us through periods of suffering. 

It is staying in the information-gathering stage that stays our spiritual progress. Getting a blinding flash of the obvious rings so right and true and beneficial and of God that it is way too easy to stay there...basking in the self-qualified spiritual light. 

When we go forward, often to find we're moving in the wrong direction, all that spiritual information comes to our aid. The choice is ours...to love and laugh, i.e., resist not, or to suffer ego's resistance, self-pity leading the way...until acceptance hugs our resistant mind, and we walk freer. 

The truth breaks slowly that the blinding flash of the obvious is in general the green light...to Go. Move. Trust! 

It matters not how slow we go; it is that we step forward, relying on our long-ago decision to trust God's will, God's way.

Thank you.

TRUST, FAITH AND HAPPY DESTINY, I

[The following is a reprint of my post of December 15, 2019.]

Trust in our Father is not eyebrows-up knowing how or when or where His perfect work will be performed. No. Trust is inner knowing that it has already been performed...and all is well.

All is well when to our reasoning mind's eye it looks scarifying. Or not what we want at any rate.

I quote (again) Fr Richard Rohr's line, Grace isn’t a gift for getting it right but for getting it wrong!

There's the road we trudge to trust, to faith in our Father which leads to our happy destiny.

Thank you.

GOD, THE JUNEBUG AND ME

All mature spirituality is about letting go and unlearning. -- Fr Richard Rohr

The following is a note I wrote in my God Calling in 1985...of me trying to help free a Junebug caught in a window screen of my bedroom:  Tried to help a Junebug at my window get free...finally told it that it had God same as me and it'd have to let God do it because i couldn't and I turned around and it was free. 

I wrote that in my God Calling when it happened on June 14, 1985. I still remember my awe seeing it flying free. Truly, I had tried to free it, punching around it with a pencil until I realized I would kill it before I freed it and finally gave up. 

As I turned and walked away, immediately I heard a buzzing sound. I looked over my shoulder and saw the Junebug flying away, free...well, to say I was gobsmacked isn't putting too fine a point on it. 

I was just 14 years into my search for spiritual growth, and I knew this was a God-gift experience...for me and for the Junebug. 

In truth, I still believe that, and I feel just as awed right now as I felt then. It was so of God. Just as every single happening in our day is...all we need do is get out of God's way to believe.

Thank you.

FEARFULLY WE STRUT OUR STUFF...BEHIND GOD

There is an inner resource within us/without us...unseeable, untouchable, unbelievable until necessary suffering visits us, and unwilling but grateful we are brought to belief.

By its very nature, that inner resource is primarily reliant on necessary suffering to break through...ah, but our holdback is that inner resource is primarily reliant on necessary suffering to break through. 

Comes a blinding flash: Necessary suffering is that that which we avoid, deny, fear, yet it is only by relying on it that our inner resource lives.  

My necessary suffering today is a sense of heavy, heavy over my head. I am feeling weak, deficient, dependent and alone...wavering. My long-ago fear of a mental breakdown is tickling my bones, and I admit I am utterly powerless to my favorite fear of being left all alone. 

It is important to emphasize that I do not fear being alone...I prefer it. It is being left all alone that I fear...that is death's disguise, her "gotcha."

The meek shall inherit the earth. The weak shall inherit God's strength as, utterly reliant, we fearfully strut our stuff...with angels hovering and God as our guide. Feel the fear and do it anyway is not just a saying.

I walk with God...He knows my name...I am grateful. Please, thank You, Amen.

Thank you.

REASON TRANSMUTED...GOD'S WILL, GOD'S WAY

All that we hope for in this world cannot be realized without our transformation and participation. If we truly seek the will of God, then we must seek the path of love that will lead us to truth and from truth to freedom. -- Ilia Delio

The path of love is nonresistance...resist not evil (Matthew 5:39) are probably the words that led me to my ongoing transformation and participation in still more spiritual growth. I resisted them until nonresistance won.

I have no doubt that those three words, resist not evil, are more resisted than almost any other words in our spiritual growth.  They do not...cannot...make a lick of sense to the reasoning mind. Ah, but they are the key to our opened mind that allows us to go beyond reason to love.

According to me, it is reason itself that guards the gates of Heaven, that ties us to self. Reason alone gives us our need for a sense of self-protection. Hug it and kiss it and let it go are not welcomed words to the reasoning mind. 

Here's the hook...reason, too, needs to be loved. It is reason that resists resist not evil. Once we hug it and kiss it and let it go, we are raised out of reason-reliance. 

Raised out of reason-reliance, reason is transmuted by grace and becomes acceptance or God's will, God's way. 

Thank you.

REMEMBER, REJOICE, REPEAT...THANK YOU

I awoke this morning with an unfamiliar feeling. As I lie there, I let the sense deepen, letting it speak to me rather than me questioning it. It came to me: I knew I was freer...not freed, but freer. That my seven years of initiation, 2017 to 2024, had lifted me to a higher plane not by will but by grace.  

 Remember, rejoice, repeat. Thank you.

My share yesterday, in which I mentioned the inner discovery of impersonal love and laughter, came to mind. I hardly knew what to say then because I barely realized the gift I'd been given...full realization is for the rest of my life, I'm learning.  

All I know for certain is that love and laughter have been my go-to for many years, but this is a higher/deeper knowing...the joy, the rightness of IMpersonal love and laughter. 

 Remember, rejoice, repeat. Thank you.

Waking with the sense of an upgraded change within me...I had to wonder. What did that mean...to stop and sense impersonal love and laughter?  

It brought me a fuller awareness of that impersonal love and laughter...I had no want-to, no "jump-and-shout," no "shout hallelujah." I felt peaced...all over. From my nose to my toes. I wasn't grinning like a Chessy cat, I wasn't even wanting to. I was peaced.

This I know: This, too, shall pass. 

This, too, I know...it will only pass to the degree that is necessary for me personally to grow stronger in faith. I dread/welcome growing through another period of necessary suffering; i.e., letting go of egoic fixes (self-determined objectives) and welcoming anew "Oh, No!" (God's perfect objectives).

 Remember, rejoice, repeat. Thank you.

Thank you.

STAY OUR FOCUS: GOD'S WILL, GOD'S WAY

America is in crisis today because of our divided consciousness...self-driven profit/power vs. God-inspired democracy.

We need to stay our focus on our belief that God's hand is in this. We hold God's hand and pray thank you for all we perceive. We are reminded that God knows all...first...and has already righted it for the good of the universe no matter how it appears to our mind's eye.

Trump and his followers may "win," we may "lose," and that may be the perfect outworking for the benefit of America and of the world. God's will, God's way, and thank you. 

I am reminded (again!) of Saul on the road to Damascus...Saul, a less-than-wonderful self-willed officer, turned into Saint Paul. That turn-around is available to Donald Trump, et al., and to you and to me. 

In the end all that matters is that by our life, God lives for the benefit of all.

Thank you.

THE GATES AJAR, OUR CHANGED MIND...OF GOD

Changing our mind is of God. 

When we honestly believe we are right, we will not be able to change our mind on a should, a shame or a pain...or even an "ought to." It is our realization that to do God's will, God's way is to do right spiritually that changes our mind. Changing our mind is of God.

To the material mind, "to do right spiritually," usually seems wrong because it goes against our ego's wants. We come to realize that "to do right spiritually" is, without thought or preplanning, the inner realization of Spiritual Truth whose basis is give over, give up, give in.

Take for instance resist not evil. Resist not evil is wrong to the material mind, but to give over, give up, give in from our raised consciousness is to let go and let God, allowing impersonal love to blossom and turn perceived evil into peace. Evil cannot survive in God's will, God's way.  

There...the sliver of gold, our raised, or God, consciousness gives us the Gates Ajar, the opening through which God flows freely.

Thank you. 

DOING IT WRONG TO GET IT RIGHT

By denying their pain and avoiding the necessary falling, many have kept themselves from their own spiritual depths—and therefore have been kept from their own spiritual heights. -- Fr Richard's Daily Meditation, October 12, 2013

I do not doubt that "avoiding the necessary falling" has been the first cause and bane of most of us...or, specifically, of my own self. 

Slowly we learn that we must live that...even against our own inclination...in order to come to understand it, thus, to believe in it. Until we believe in it, we will continue to go to any lengths to avoid the necessary fallings.

Going to great lengths to avoid making a self-perceived mistake was our how-to for personal growth. There again, however, is the proof of doing it wrong is to get it right. It is doing it wrong that turns us to God so quickly...going down the right road in the wrong direction. I suspect that's how my mentor was gifted with showing our bum in public is also spiritual. 

When our primary goal is for still more spiritual growth, showing our bum in public does not fill the bill...at least to our reasoning mind. Ah...another example of God's will, God's way not being of this world...we must go beyond reason to God.

Again: By denying their pain and avoiding the necessary falling, many have kept themselves from their own spiritual depths—and therefore have been kept from their own spiritual heights. 

Thank you.

NOT FOR SELF, FOR OTHERS

Authentic God experience always leads toward service, toward the depths, the margins, toward people suffering or considered outsiders. -- Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, July 8, 2024

I read that definition of an authentic God experience, and I knew I would nevernevernever have one. 

Later, as I sat in my quiet time, the thought popped that I live an authentic God experience. That's not all, so do a lot of other folks. I don't imagine any one of us thinks of it as such, as an "authentic God experience"...to me, that kinda feels like "putting on airs."  

I choose to believe that Rohr's description is what just plain folks' lives are all about, only without the frills. I can't imagine any person with a desire for still more spiritual growth thinking about how we are led toward service, toward the depths, the margins, toward people suffering or considered outsiders. 

It is likely we don't try to imagine it because it doesn't enter our mind...that's where still more spiritual growth leads. God in people-clothes guides us...not for the benefit of self but for the benefit of others. We find our self without thought or plan doing service for others simply because we want to.

Now that we can believe is an authentic God experience. 

Thank you.

                            

Now that I can believe is an authentic God experience.

Thank you.   you.

GOD'S WILL IS OUR WILL...PURIFIED

Every level of growth builds on the previous ones. The principle is this: transcendence means including the previous stages. Then you can see the limited—but real—value of the early stages. -- from Fr Richard Rohr's Daily Meditations, July 31, 2013

That quote describes to a T my life experiences. Arriving at age 80, I began to experience its truth. I was being gifted with situations that I had experienced some years back...when they angered (scared) me, sent me down that self-willed road, turned me around...eventually...and I could see the limited—but real—value of the early stages.

I talk a lot about it, of experiencing again that which I newly experienced back in the day. That which when first experienced scared me, and I prayed...really hard...for it to be lifted since, according to me, it could not be God's will. 

Since that "wart of many lives" wasn't lifted, I lived to praise it for it was God's gift to me personally. My unwanted wart at its birth became a sliver of gold as I grew spiritually and has become my pocket of gold now that I am in my 80s. 

Lessons learned: A perceived problem being magically lifted is rarely God's will, God's way. God is always for our still more spiritual growth whether it seems so as we live it or not. 

God's will is our will purified...that is probably my basic life lesson. 

Thank you.

UNFETTERED ACCEPTANCE IS OF GOD

A Rabbinic text from the ninth century declares that every person is accompanied, at all times, by a procession of angels crying out, 'Make way, for an image of the Holy One is approaching!'  

I've read that often and love it, but I admit it took a while for me to realize that it does not say "Make way for the Holy One is approaching." No. It says, "an image of the Holy One is approaching." An image...that's you...that's me...that's our best friend and our worst enemy and any stranger on the street.

Now that is righteous...and not to be pondered, analyzed or debated, but accepted. Again, we go to God for we cannot self-will acceptance which, when done right, is of God. 

We let go and let God's perfect will enter our Soul unfettered by our reasoning mind. 

Thank you.

WE ARE GOD'S HANDS AND FEET

Blinding flash of the obvious:  It is not God that has brought us here, we have brought God here. It is God that can and will lift us up in his time in his way...slow down, listen, love the little things, and trust.

It is not God that has brought America here, it is America that has brought God here. Only God can right us...in God's time, in God's way. 

It is our hands and feet that will accomplish God's will, God's way...as we slow down, listen, love life's little things, and trust.

Thank you.

PRAY THANK YOU...IN TRUST AND HONESTLY

I really only love God as much as I love the person I love the least. -- Dorothy Day, one of the founders of the Catholic Workers Movement

There...that is a sobering thought on this 4th of July...as the history of my country is refreshed in my mind, bringing again tears to my eyes. 

This is not the first time I've read that quote of Day's...not the first time I've felt gobsmacked by its meaning. It just feels like the first time.

It was a quick trip to the realization that this is the first time that I recall having so very many people not personally attached to me that I love the least. Mercy...a half dozen names of the unloved popped to mind before I finished my sentence. 

That's not all...I feel justified. Justified, or rigid, righteous and right. But I am justified...rigid, righteous and rightly so! 

I have been consciously talking with God about my feelings toward the main person of my discontent for a while...not getting very far, but I give me points for awareness that it is my problem. 

What with the most recent...accumulating...events on our political scene, my definition of "justified" is changing...maybe my opposing the current events is God's will just not God's way. 

Resist not, dig deep and find God's way to change...to change my mind, to change my take on events, to change the events not to my liking but to God's perfect intent, i.e., to overcome evil with good. Ah, there's my sliver of gold, to overcome with love as opposed to eradicate with hate. 

 

My new marching orders, my daily Open, Sesame to the Father within, are to love and laugh at my efforts to live and breathe this when all I need do is pray thank you...with the added caveat of meaning it. 

There's the blood, sweat and tears of our prayer of thank you...honestly meaning it. 

Thank you. 

KEEP OUR EYE ON THE PRIZE, THE DIVINE WITHIN

The spiritual journey begins with a pause, a centering-in-God pause, and over time becomes a constant and ceaseless prayer, an honoring of and a connection with the Divine in you that awakens your essential self. -- Spiritual director Caroline Oakes, Daily Meditation, July 3, 2024

The worse the national news appears to be today, the more convinced I am that we are in God's hands. Face it, most of us didn't originally come to God because it seemed like a neat idea...we came out of gutbucket need...God-inspired, God-delivered need.  

Still, it is difficult to keep that thought in the forefront of the mind even having had a crash-and-burn experience bring us to our peace. However, we are brought back to it in a red-hot minute, when needed.

That is how we learned to welcome life's less-thans, by being brought to the realization that underneath are the everlasting arms is truth...our personal truth, not just a pretty saying from the Bible. Admittedly, we never heeded that saying till we crashed and burned, a.k.a., when we needed it.

We would have no working knowledge of those arms if we were as unfettered as we want to be, as we pray to be. It is our prayers, however, that have led us to the place we need to be now. [Think of the line in the 23rd Psalm, Thou prepares a place before me in the presence of mine enemies.] Filled with anger...i.e., fear...over the state of America and our life in it today, we wonder what we can do to help right it. 

Comes now our answer, a centering-in-God pause, and over time becomes a constant and ceaseless prayer, an honoring of and a connection with the Divine in you that awakens your essential self. 

God's will, God's way is not of the reasoning mind...we discovered that as we looked back and realized our worst fear had become our greatest blessing...and always we had been an active part of it. 

That was true then...that is true now. Our way will be made clear to us in the moment...Now...as we keep our eye on the prize, the Divine within.

Thank you. 

WE GIVE OVER UNCONDITIONALLY...WITH LOVE, I

[The following is a slightly reworked reprint of my post of December 29, 2022.]

We learn early on that we are the source of all our woes, and that resentment is the trigger for our woes. It is best to learn early and not forget that justified resentment...is there any other?!...is purely willful ignorance. A get-out-of-jail-free delusion.

The good news is that there are tools to use to head off a resentment completely. The bad news is to own those tools, we must be willing to give over to whatever/whomever we are resenting. To give over unconditionally. With love.

All of which brings us back to the God news...our mind is being changed. Our consciousness is being raised...we are being focused on better than our egoic feelings, and only good can come from that.

It's a given that ego is ever available to us and has but one goal...to legislate for itself. Ego...edging God out.

This we know: When we made our decision to throw in with God and God alone, we began to receive still more spiritual growth daily...away from ego to a higher level deeper.

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

Thank you.

GOD'S HAND IS IN THE CHAOS...LOVE AND LAUGH

President Biden's debate performance last Thursday night was so reasoning-mind awful...disastrous, not to put too fine a point on it...that we can believe and joy in the belief that God's hand was in it. 

The President could not have sounded worse, but underneath, behind the scenes, unbeknownst to the reasoning mind's abilities to produce a solution, always there is God...the hand of God lifting the heavy load of logic, imbuing our need with his perfect answer of love and laughter. 

I have a couple of real-life examples: First, in 1971 when I was diagnosed with an incurable, progressive disease, I thought...I knew...my life was over. Today and every day of my life since, whether I knew it or not, that diagnosis has been God's perfect gift to me, for my benefit. 

Second, in the early 1980s, when the business that I was part-owner of went bankrupt, all the other partners went to Italy, and I got the $50,000 debt...and the IRS. Fairly early on, I came to realize that this had to be a spiritual gift to me...and indeed that is what it proved to be. Plus, I paid off the entire debt...without a glimmer of resentment. There's God's perfect gift to me.

When the reasoning mind sees less-than-wonderful, faith calms us, knowing that out of chaos comes un-figure-out-able peace. The Ship is righted not by blaming and shaming, not by logic and lies, but by God's will, God's way...love and laughter.

This I believe.

Thank you.