GOD MAKES GOD KNOWN...NO DOUBT ABOUT IT

Recently I had cause to ponder exactly what spiritual in nature means to me. Specifically, what spiritual means to me.

 
It took some serious searching for me to come to this, my own understanding and definition of spiritual: Spiritual is not God, but certainly it is Higher Power inspired. 

It is that inspiration that gives it meaning, i.e., to have an active sense of peace and purpose.

To have a purpose in life is God's hidden-in-us gift for us to release by our living that purpose. 

Many of us spend a great deal of time thinking, studying, analyzing...then regretting our over analyzing. Only when enough of like "little things" happen, do we begin to see our light...like the time we gave over when we did not mean to but somehow we gave over.

The light is our purpose...we cannot self-will it, we can only recognize, realize and feel gratitude for the evidence...we are living our purpose, God's will, God's way.

[As an aside and just my opinion, but if the light comes without realization but from thinking alone, we need to hug it and kiss it and send it on its way. It has self-will written all over it...in invisible writing.]

God makes God known...God's will, God's way. No doubt about it.

Thank you.

GOD DOES NOT FORCE

My Sunday morning blinding flash of the obvious: God does not force, he beckons. 

Our reasoning mind forces. In our youth, it led without regard for aught but self; slowly it loses power as we age, then cowers in a corner of our mind in old age. 

Comes the flash: We heed age's call not...the beckoning of God grows stronger as we allow it to lead us.

:
Lord, thank you for giving me the words, the Truths, to pray to you. Amen

Thank you.

OUR DIVINE INTENTION...TO KNOW GOD ARIGHT

One of my daily readings is Eknath Easwaran's Words to Live By Inspiration for Every Day. Every year I feel gobsmacked when I read: ...we have discovered another dimension to life, another realm -- changeless, eternal, beyond cause and effect -- on which the entire physical universe rests. 

It seems new to me each year, and I know I want that, and I commit to making it happen. Then I am surprised when I realize...again...it has happened. 

I first noted and underlined those words in 2003! I have been growing into that truth every day since...sometimes easily, sometimes not so much, but always heading in the right direction...through still more spiritual growth. 

Today I am grateful that the silent answers to my inner questioning continue to grow me spiritually.  

To me, this is how Jesus could be crucified...with no outward resistance, no screaming in agony, only blessing...vocally blessing...those who did him so wrong. 

I pray the possibly innocent Marcellus Williams was in this other dimension to life when he was executed by lethal injection in Missouri recently...God bearing witness with him. 

I believe that today, and my divine intention is to stay open so that more may be revealed. 

Thank you. 

GOD'S GRACE OF ACCEPTANCE

Our practice, whatever it is, must somehow include the problem. Contemplation is not the avoidance of the problem, but a daily merging with the problem, and finding some resolution. -- Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditations, September 27, 2024

That from Fr Richard is the answer to my quiet time request this morning. I consciously, without qualifiers, gave my thoughts over to God, asking that he do with them for me as he saw fit. 

I recognize what I unconsciously already knew that when my thoughts go for a walkabout, I take ownership by negatively trying to change them, upgrade them...without God's interference. 

According to Fr Richard, we can't have one without the other:  I can’t risk losing touch with either my angels or my demons. They are both good teachers.

Again, acceptance. 

It is repeatedly proven to us that acceptance is the answer to all of our problems. Yet acceptance is seldom if ever the first place we go for solace. The first place our reasoning mind goes is how can I fix this for my comfort right here and now.

I suspect acceptance is so difficult to actually do...not think about or talk about or analyze, each will point us in the right direction...it is the honest-to-God doing acceptance that is the bane of our reasoning mind. If we're mind-wrestling with how to accept a problem, we already believe we are either right or not wrong at any rate.

Here comes Fr Richard with the answer...which we recognize as already known to us but never fully realized:  By nature, I have a critical mind and a demanding heart, and I am impatient. These are both my gifts and my curses. Yet I can’t have one without the other, it seems. I can’t risk losing touch with either my angels or my demons. They are both good teachers.

Negative self-help sans input from our Higher Power stays us in self...feeling unloved, feeling unneeded, feeling unwanted, feeling unappreciated...in short, feeling unprotected. 

Know this: We are not unloved, unneeded, unwanted, unappreciated...not unprotected...what we are feeling is self-centered fear at feeding time. Only God's grace of acceptance can feed that beast.

Thank you.

CRASH AND BURN, THE ROAD TO ACCEPTANCE

Anxiety is with me this morning...for which I pray thank you. Today I can look back, not with regret but with welcome...and still feel anxious. That's me being me.

I experience fear differently today...from a new angle as it were. All our thinking, studying and questioning...hope and despair...were then and are now an essential part of our spiritual growth.

I do not know, or much care, who first said that which we fear we cause to happen, but I do believe it to be true. Knowing that does not take the fear out of fear...it does better. It opens us to the Father within who moves us forward, through the fear to a peaced mind.

It is that total and essential loss of hope that dumps us into the dreaded surrender. Surrender, that which we had tried so hard to avoid has just become our sliver of gold. Surrender is now realized and embraced as acceptance. 

Acceptance, the righteous road through crash and burn into the new light...out of the egoic mind into God's will, God's way.

Thank you.

TO BE COMMITTED TO THE LIFE OF THE SOUL

This is what it means to be a mystic, what it means to be committed to the life of the soul:  To show up for what is, to be present to all that is, to take refuge in the boundless intimacy of exactly what is.  Mirabai Starr in Fr Richard Rohr's Daily Meditations, September 25, 2024.  

I read Starr's quote and in less time than a heartbeat, I saw the haps of my life this week, i.e., my stopped-up guest bathroom john, my overflowing bathroom sink, my leased car's dents, etc., just as I need to turn it in for another leased car, my loss of friends at 80+ with their moves to Senior Living or to the home of a son or daughter, or to answering death's call. 

I am experiencing each with remarkable equanimity 100% due to my relearned, remembered, recalled original God-lesson: All our woes are gifts in disguise. 

The learned lesson that invariably lifts me up, turns me in a better direction, and causes me to love and laugh...the business venture I entered with five friends in the early '80s. The business went bankrupt, friends took off for Italy, I got a job which gave the IRS a place to hang its hat, and I was gifted with the $50,000 debt to pay. 

That was too immense for my reasoning mind, so it was kicked up to God who did not pay the bill, he gave me better than that. He gave me peace as I faced the music and danced...with the IRS! And paid off every penny over a lot of years, but they were helpful...they just wanted and got their money...and I got the spiritual roots that are growing me to this day. I got the better deal.

I like my stripped-down version of Mirabai Starr's quote... what it means to be committed to the life of the soul: To show up for what is, to be present to all that is, to take refuge in the boundless intimacy of exactly what is.

Yes, please, and thank You.

Thank you.

ALL THAT HAPPENS IS OF GOD

And so I came to the graced realization that I could, in the midst of my life in the world, cultivate a contemplative culture in my heart by my fidelity to a daily quiet time in which I could learn from God how to love and be loved by God. -- James Finley, Fr Richard Rohr's Daily Meditations, September 24, 2024

Finley's quote describes my awakening experience nearly perfectly. I say "nearly" since he once lived and studied in a monastery and is considerably more in tune and/or attuned to an educated understanding of God than I. Which is not to put my understanding down or to elevate his...we are each on God's chosen path for us individually, personally and perfectly. 

To me, that is a good description of the ways and wonders of God...he and his perfect work are individually suited to each individual in the universe...with a like ribbon running through for each and every one of us...dogs, cats, insects and alligators included. According to me.

My yesterday was a good example of my walking-around life at 6s & 7s...nothing that I started got completed as I had intended. I told a friend I was running on empty. When I journaled this morning, I was pleased when I wrote that being physically exhausted is not running on empty. I realized I had confused physically tired with emotional and spiritual lack. 

Then, when I read in my God Calling, take all that happens as My planning, I re-realized that all that happens in our "temporal life" is just one part of our spiritual, mental and physical life. Reading take all that happens as My planning, I felt God at my back, smiling. 

My very well-read book, God Calling, truly is God calling. Amen.

Thank you.

SAME-OLD-SAME-OLD, MADE NEW AND RIVETING

The deep self seeks something more radical and intense from life, and longs to be united with its Source. This is the monk within.-- Beverly Lanzetta, Fr Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation, September 23, 2024 

For my very own clarification: I identify with Lanzetta's post in today's Daily Meditation...I mean, I really identify. My recent "new mind" is described to a T, and called "authentic;" however, there is that discomforting, thus disqualifying to me, "monk." As identified in the dictionary, monk is a religious man period end of discussion. 

I usually do not get hung up on gender words...God and Christ are male to me, but if female or neutral or whatever to others, fine by me. But the word "monk," "the monk within," just does not sit comfortably with me. 

I'm going with whatever identifier flows from my brain to my fingers as I type...I've already made more of it than it matters. I doubt God cares what we call him as long as we do call him.

Recently with my new mind coming forth, I have pondered, written, thought, talked about this inner knowing, urging me to dig deeper...inviting me to find It. Which I thought I had with the gift of the new mind...now, as I read and identify so completely with Lanzetta this morning, I feel gobsmacked and nonplussed. 

Apparently, I have only just begun...again! This is the way of still more spiritual growth...we learn it anew with every backward step forward and every downward step upward! 

I will read Lanzetta again and again...and relearn something completely new each time. I feared as I started this journey that I would be bored...what's to learn after you come to believe that there is a God and he's got our back, I thought. 

We learn again, and it is new each time, deeper at a higher level...higher at a deeper level: Love and laugh.

Thank you.

TOUCHED, HUMBLED, TORN...BLESSED, I

[The following is a slightly reworked reprint of my post of October 30, 2015.]

'We should be willing to act as a balm for all wounds.' -- The last words in the diary of Etty Hillesum who died at Auschwitz in November, 1943, at the age of twenty-nine. [From "An Interrupted Life, the Diaries of Etty Hillesum 1941-43"]

I do not believe there is a snowball's chance of any human becoming "willing to act as a balm for all wounds" without herself being an authentic spiritual experience. An authentic spiritual experience is said to come from profound love or intense suffering. Haunting and hurting pain, both.

I used to pray for an authentic spiritual experience, and believe me intense suffering was not in my plan of action...and profound love was all about rainbows, roses and butterflies. Imagine my resistance when I realized they are one.

I wonder, though, as I read again "An Interrupted Life," how far have I come from my starting point, really? Oh, from my eyebrows up, I'm light years advanced. I have suffered deeply and I have come to love deeply the very source of my suffering...for where I am, for who I am. 

We are, however, referring to the Holocaust. Being a victim of evil beyond imagining during the Holocaust. Being taken to Auschwitz...to the showers at Auschwitz. And up to the end, thinking of...even desiring to be...a balm for all wounds.

All who read of Etty Hillesum and are touched, humbled, torn are strengthened by our weakness...our desire to lighten such a load seventy-some-odd years later is in itself of God.

Etty Hillesum lives.

Thank you.

THE VIEW FROM THE SPIRITUAL PLANE

I ponder again the two ways of experiencing our life...one way is through our material-mind's eye, and the other, we can lift up our eye to view and do it spiritually. Thus the re-realization: The worst thing to ever happen to us is the best thing to ever happen to us. 

Our new view is to live life...every day and every way...from the spiritual plane. Since our reasoning mind's eye has ever received the first look, we must needs lift up our eye...ASAP, p.d.q., and without hesitation. 

We are turned from the place of reason, or same-old-same-old, up to the spiritual, and our new view opens before us...transmuted into a beauty we cannot wholly comprehend. There. The door is opening for our rest-of-life adventure...we begin to comprehend this new view one minute at a time. There is no "next week, I'm gonna...," there is only Now. 

Complete comprehension...i.e., living it...will take as long as it takes. It may happen in a heartbeat; it often feels like the 100 years' war, but that's when we are doing it right. That's when thank you sings its pretty song to us...for us.

Thank you.

TO GIVE GOD PERMISSION TO LOVE US

Through prayer and contemplation, we change from the inside—from a power position to the position of vulnerability and solidarity, which gradually changes everything. -- Father Richard Rohr

Blinding flash of the obvious: It is not the generic Gertrude I am resisting; it is my perception of Gertrude that I am resisting. 

In my quiet time, as my inner thoughts expand, I realize that it is never the person, place or thing we resist; it is our perception of that one that we resist. Now, a rest-of-life walkabout...how to live this?  

Fr Richard's Daily Meditations today gives the answer, plain and simple: Go within...our answer is ever within; specifically, how we get to what he describes as that deep place where we do not want to publicly expose, humiliate, or defeat our opponents. 

It was and is important to me to accept there are various ways and means for personal prayer and meditation. I'm a believer that their importance lies not in how we pray and meditate, but that we pray and meditate in whatever way we are led. 

My personal experience is that daily I need to make myself available (sit and wait on the Lord), trusting the Lord to carry the load...i.e., our consciousness forward, upward, down to the higher plane. 

A mini BFO...those are words, just words, unless and until we consciously...literally...in trust, sit and wait on the Lord. 

Over the years, I've made myself available in many different ways and means...and been led for the past thirty or so years to sit in my quiet space, turn my thoughts to thank you, and bring those thoughts back to thank you every time they go on their own walkabout. 

The good news...I have been changed. Not so much outside, other than by age itself, but my inner responses to life itself are the majority of the time without thought peaced today. The further good news...I long for this change to grow ever deeper as I continue to make myself available daily.

John Dear describes the importance of connecting with our core identity as children of God: We need to give God permission to love us.

Thank you.

MORE IS BEING REVEALED...PAY ATTENTION

Non-violence is the greatest and the most active force in the world.... One person who can express Ahimsa in life exercises a force superior to all the forces of brutality. —Mohandas Gandhi, Harijan, March 14, 1936  -- Fr Richard Rohr's Daily Meditations, September 19, 2024  [Note for me because I keep forgetting: Ahimsa is the ancient Indian principle of nonviolence which applies to actions towards all living beings.]

I became a believer in the teachings of Gandhi, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., et al., long before I could walk those teachings. I memorized the words, quoted them, and I knew myself blessed for knowing I was connecting with them deeper than intellectually...that I was heading in the right direction because that knowing was purely a gift from God. 

This morning, I was given the quiet-time gift of acceptance...that I am no longer the rank beginner that I think of myself. The rest of that gift is knowing that the decision was made for me when, without conscious effort, I resisted not a spiritual effort of mine being voted down. I inner loved and laughed...which I only realized in looking back. It all happened outside my conscious effort.

I note this for my own self...if, in good conscious, I can no longer hide as a rank beginner, that means I must turn my reasoning mind away from peace in silence toward peace in nonresistant action. 

Huh? 

Geez...I do not know what nonresistant action looks like, even means...or, the word without the bark on it, how it can be done begun by me.

All of these thoughts originated this morning in my quiet time, and I'm borderline sorry I've written them down...once they are in black and white, they are out of their hidey-hole, now inviting or mocking...only I can choose. 

The hoary fact is whichever I choose becomes my new mindset's way of life...or my old ways trying to look pretty.  

OH...blinding flash: It is not mine to choose...the Father within has already chosen, made the change, is right now leading me free.

God is so good to us. 

Thank you.

LET. IT. BE. WHAT IF THAT IS ALL?

I felt utterly gobsmacked as I read Fr Richard's "Daily Meditation" this morning. It was all about that which I had just finished meditating on, even journaling about; i.e., my new mindset. nonresistance (or nonviolence) as the forever answer.

My new mindset is the promise of the 4th dimension alive within me...Now.  Ah, but with the counterpunch that my new mindset requires a double down of effort not of the head but of the heart and soul over which I have no mental control. 

It is the Divine Spark within us that does the work, it is ours to seek that ever-elusive Divine Spark.

In the writing today of Palestinian Quaker Jean Zaru on living nonviolence I found instructions for living my new mindset of nonresistance. It will not be easy, it will not be live and let live without a step up and into action...with every step forward requiring a renewed commitment to nonresistance.

Unless and until the reasoning mind is peaced, it will be very much with us. It will never not be with us, but I feel a giving over more quickly, with less pushback Now.

Blinding flash...it may be that living in the Fourth Dimension is Let. It. Be. Whoa...reasoning mind knows the hard work will have just begun...spiritual mind will just pray thank you.

Thank you.

RESISTANCE = VIOLENCE...RESIST NOT EVIL

....pain is physical discomfort, but suffering comes from our resistance, denial, and sense of injustice or wrongness about that pain. --  Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditations, July 5, 2023 

Resistance is violence in disguise...dressed up as right. Rigid, righteous and right is our learned definition of resistance but we hide from our own self the rigid and righteous part of it. Right standing alone seems...well, right.

I am reminded of my recent flash; i.e., our problem is never the named thing; it is fear of the named thing. There...proof of Fr Richard's quote that's suffering comes from resistance. 

The cure to our suffering is purely spiritual, not available to us through our reasoning mind. We can "know better" yet suffer all the deeper. 

Again and yet again, self-knowledge avails us nothing...especially when we sit in that self-knowledge feeling unloved, unneeded, unwanted, unappreciated. That is our head looking out there...for someone to blame...rather than looking within for the how, what, why we invited this that is causing our suffering.

The answer is seldom as shameful as we fear...it is the result of our reasoning mind getting ahead of our spiritual mind. Our reasoning mind always legislates for itself, the spiritual mind does not legislate...it generates love and laughter, and that is all.

There is our lesson come to fruition: Give over, give up, give in...love and laugh.

Thank you.

LIVE LIFE AS AN UNSELF-SERVE MARKET

Peace of mind. Doesn't that seem to be the Unreachable Star? 

It occurs to me that it seems so unreachable because we think peace of mind and unconsciously attach forever to it. 

Some time back I noted that peace of mind begins with our change of mind...from seeking a self-determined objective to seeking God's will whatever that may be. 

I also noted back then that we find peace of mind in an accepting mind when we resist not but trust our inner connection, God. I find myself grinning at these notes of mine from back then. Face it, seeking God's will with no qualifier(s) is one steep hill to climb...it's hard enough to realize the truth, it's a whole 'nother stretch attempting to do it...to live it.

Ah, there is the grit and the glory of still more spiritual growth. We begin our spiritual journey with that as our Call, seek still more spiritual growth, and that is all. Lesson a-learning: seeking still more spiritual growth is for our lifetime...probably until three days after we're dead.

That makes spiritual-mind sense but not so much sense to our material mind. I suspect that's when we begin to realize that we are on the right track, heading in the right direction...when it makes very little sense to our reasoning mind but gives us inner comfort. Also known as peace of mind.

There is no cheap peace of mind...it comes neither cheap nor easy, but when it comes, we know joy beyond thinking. That's when the genius of tell no man is born within us. It is not for talking about, it is for walking about...sharing like it's an unself-serve market. Whatever any one sees and wants...it's theirs in the recognition. As it needs be. 

God's will, God's way.

Thank you.

LOVE LEADS US INTO & OUT OF OUR PROBLEM, I

[The following is a slightly edited reprint of my post of September 16, 2022]

Love is not given to us to help us solve our problems. Love, rather, leads us into our problems. -- Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, September 9, 2022

Isn't that wondrous? Isn't the truth of that wondrous!

Love leads us into our problems, else how could we learn to love your enemy as yourself? Comes the dawn...our enemy is not always or even necessarily a human. Our enemy is whatever we are resisting.

Here's an answer: Whenever we feel resistance, turn into it, hug it and kiss it and let it go without another thought.

Here's the problem: Without another thought. There it is...the rabbit hole. Do not go there. Which advice sends us there p.d.q. So go there. Ponder. Analyze. Argue. Debate. Beat breast. Wail. Surrender.

Surrender, ego's word for loser, God's word for acceptance...and peaced which is gratitue...and gratitude is love.

We are now at the door of love...closed to the egoic mind, opened by grace's kiss on ego's lips, calming it as gratitude blossoms...and God smiles.

That is how love leads us into our problem...by the grace of God and gratitude.

Upgrade our attitude, downgrade our problem.

Thank you.

SPIRITUAL COMFORT...THE RIGHT DIRECTION

Grace re-creates all things; nothing new happens without forgiveness. We just keep repeating the same old patterns, illusions, and half-truths. — Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, September 14, 2024

Forgiveness. I am surprised at how resistant I am feeling at that word. Ah, how am I feeling resistant right now?  

I'm feeling like that it is sanctimonious, it is pretentious, it is above my touch, it is too cool for common folk...whoa! I am very well aware that at no point am I owning these feelings of mine. No...it, the word forgiveness itself, is the victimizer...or feels like it is. 

So, from my own experience, my spiritual awakenings, I realize this is not for me to look deeper into with my reasoning mind, this is for my higher Power to heal without an ask from me. When, not if, I find myself no longer doing the dirty, I'll realize that I haven't been doing the dirty for some time...that it has been lifted out, washed, brushed and put out to pasture. 

Again, I am reminded that our reasoning mind is not for "figuring it out," it is for opening to the fact that all our questions have been answered...answered for our benefit, and forgiveness was the key that opened the door. Forgiveness given to us not with bells, whistles and accolades, but with a holy shrug and the recognition that our victimizer was for our benefit all along.

The why of it does not matter when we realize God's will, God's way is not for us to agree or disagree with...it is for our thank you and that is all.

We'll be three days dead before we internalize that unto our spiritual, or even personal, comfort...but we'll be heading in the right direction every step of the way. There's our pearl beyond price.

Thank you.  

TEN THOUSAND SURRENDERS TO MERCY

Mercy is a way to describe the mystery of forgiveness. More than a description of something God does now and then, it is who God is. -- Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, September 13, 2024

Blinding flash of the obvious: Mercy - give over, give up, give in

The words give over, give up, give in were given to me some time ago...out of nowhere with no instructions/directions or strings attached. I knew them for what there were...a package deal, for my benefit personally powerful only by constant use.

Without thought, I since have relied on them primarily (constant is dicey) as a reminder to my own self's wants. 

I knew when first they entered my consciousness that I had been handed the answer...the answer to any fear or self-determined objective that may enter my consciousness. The 4th dimension answer to any 3rd dimension wish or wonder.

Looking back, we see the foundation of trust being built...not by self but by the divine image within us that we slowly realize as truth.

And my quiet word, give over, give up, give in, sprouts wings...soaring ever deeper.

God’s love ...is written in the divine image within us. It’s given; it sits there....We do not attain anything by our own holiness but by ten thousand surrenders to mercy. -- Ibid.

Thank you.

LOVE, LAUGH, JOY IN THE UNKNOWING

I remember way back in the day when I was asked what, more than anything, I wanted, what I thought would bring me happiness. 

My answer was peace of mind. I was in my early twenties. I knew nothing about spiritual growth, was still clinging to my shock-value opinion that there is no God.

Here's me, some sixty years later, and that answer, peace of mind, is truer still, albeit with the clarification, the peace of mind that passes all understanding. 

Spiritual growth, and age never discount age, has taught me that we will never have peace of mind until we release our egoic need to be right...or and not wrong. 

According to me, peace begins with our inner realization that forgiveness is our sliver of gold no matter life's picture before us. Toward that end, we must first divorce our self from our own opinions birthed in our personal sense of right and wrong. 

When we can honestly accept that we spend way too much time obsessing over our uglies, leaving too little time in thanks for our gifts, we can stop ignoring God's pearl within...the nesting place of peace. 

The majority of the time today I rest with my mind at peace while still seeking that God-peace that surpasses understanding. Times in between I get a giggle at me still seeking that which I already have. 

Love and laugh. There. The pearl beyond price. 

Thank you.

HUGS...HUGS!...CAN LEAD US TO GOD

A long-ago yet ever-new blinding flash of the obvious: 'Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me'...thy rod and thy staff are love and laughter.

This love and laughter reminder comes to me today just as hugs...hugs!...are leading me to a deeper place, higher.

I was not a "huggie" person back in the day, but in truth none of us were...we shook hands. Came the day when hugs tiptoed in to snuggle up within...and it seemed to me that everybody was hugging. I was feeling left out because...well, because that was me being me.

My strong suit, I am teachable, came to my aid, and I started hugging with the rest and the best of them. 

Now...here comes another "when I turned 80" story...I am beginning to notice I am not getting hugs...for no obvious reason. Everybody is as friendly as ever, as welcoming...just not hugging. Fortunately, I have learned, and I do live the lesson: When puzzled, put-upon, hurt, angry, shamed, fearful, look within. The solution to any me problem starts within me.

No hugs? Am I retreating? No...just returning to my natural state. This may be the reason my special meeting friends are in my life. For my deeper realization or for theirs? For both or for all of us? 

Yes...just yes.

When I felt the others withdrawing and going elsewhere, my first inclination was to immediately grab each in a bear hug...only that is still a self-determined objective. I saw that I needed to let hugs come to me as I needed them...I being for the benefit of everyone. Each of us has our own benefit...the end result of which is to unconsciously give love to others in order to receive it. 

Hugs may be just another step up in consciousness...albeit a most important step up. I stand on it as I am moved up to the next level...of which I am ignorant. The conscious mind retires as consciousness is raised higher, and here comes trust loving and laughing.  

I journaled all of the above as it came to me this morning, after which I read in God Calling, "You do not make yourself loving and strong and patient and humble. You live with Me, and then My life accomplishes the miracle-change."

Do not tell me God isn't with me, within me, doing for me exactly what I need in the very instant. You, too!

God is so good to us.

Thank you.

******

My "new" 80s way of thinking is on the job! My consciousness is being raised

 

TO HOPE WHEN THINGS ARE HOPELESS

I have posted this Chesterton quote before, probably more than once, and doubt it not, I will post it again.

Truth is truth, and this is it:

 

Loving means to love that which is unlovable,

Or it is no virtue at all.

Forgiving means to pardon the unpardonable,

Faith means believing the unbelievable,

And hoping means to hope when things are hopeless.

-- G. K. Chesterton

THE FATHER AND WE ARE ONE

The Spirit within us creates an unrelenting desire toward forgiveness and reconciliation. -- Father Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation, September 9, 2024

The Spirit within us...there. That is the key, the key to the kingdom of spiritual growth...the Spirit within us. 

There is that Spirit within us that we think about, speak of, want and seek ...that we believe we believe in. Yes, but...how do we prove to our often-doubting self that it lives? 

Others may see it in us, or say they do, but that does not relieve our dicey certainty. Even while we're saying our thank you, we can walk away wishing we really could, did, would believe as others seem to think we do.

Blinding flash of the obvious: There is a Spirit within all of us, the same Spirit is connected with and to each of us.

A raised consciousness experience:  Ar 6:45 AM, 9/9/24 I consciously connected with and to all the people in my life...known or unknown, remembered or unremembered, living or dead, affected or unaffected by me...my peeps. I asked for their forgiveness for my ignorance and arrogance, and I sensed by my faith that the Christ spirit instantly flowed in and to the Spirit of all...and from them to their peeps, living or dead...thank you.

The Father and we are one.

Thank you.

WE GET TO GOD BY DOING IT WRONG

When we are at peace, when we are not fighting it, when we are not fixing and controlling this world, when we are not filled with anger, all we can do is start loving and forgiving. —Richard Rohr, 9/7/24

That is resist not evil (Matthew 5:39) plain and simple.

 Resist not must be the law of the Lord, according to me...anything else is mental gymnastics. 

Nonresistance is the secret of peace of mind, body, Soul and Spirit. 

Nonresistance, I'm guessing, cannot be achieved by the material mind. We must go to God to recognize, realize, live nonresistance. 

In the human condition, we are born on two levels...mental and spiritual. We spend the majority of our time on earth on the material level. Those of us who know a need for a higher consciousness must go to God, consciously and constantly. The hard lesson to learn is that we must go to God for God and that is all, everything...for that is all, everything.

There are the rare and precious few who know God from within early and forever...the Buddha and Jesus, of course, but I refer to walking-around people like Lincoln, Gandhi, Mother Teresa. Yet, they all had to crash and burn to come to their higher level of consciousness. 

From our eyebrows up, we say welcome while resistance dogs our path...that's if we're doing it right. Which makes welcome Fr Richard's we don't get to God by doing it right, we get to God by doing it wrong.

Thank you. 

TRANSMUTATION...EGO FEARS, GOD APPEARS

I have just begun to realize how very unthoughtful I am. I decided this morning to seek self-discipline from within...to seek not only to act thoughtful but to be thoughtful.

I had to grin...face it, Franny, another impossible decision to fulfill...another subterfuge of ego, trying to use God as its cloak. 

Yes, but! There is transmutation...when ego fears, God appears. 

When (not if) this change in me comes, it will come from within me, from the higher Power within me, carrying me through my own what-to-do, what-to-do bafflement. 

As long as we seek a self-determined objective, it is ego operating for its benefit even when it benefits not just us but others. God's love benefits ego, too, sought or not.

If a Power greater than myself, i.e., the Power within me, is not doing my thinking for me, my ego, wrapped in apprehension, seeks safe harbor out there. 

Ego is not evil, but it is not built to readily accept that there is a power greater than itself. There it is...human beings' divine choice.

Thank you.

MAKE A LEAP OF LOVE...INTO LIFE

Perhaps the old phrase (thanks, Kierkegaard!) “leap of faith” … would be better rendered a leap of love. —Brian McLaren, Fr Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation, September 5, 2024 

Here's me today...nearing the end of my life and looking back at the choices I have made that are welcoming now. 

My first thought was that they were shaming me, my old (yesterday's?) thinking, but it is not shame I feel...it is peace. I do welcome that which I see as me just as I am today...alone, but never all alone. There, my life-long deepest fear of being left all alone is no longer waiting inside me ready to pounce but affirming that God is ever present with me, within me. 

I know, feel, understand, realize...I am not alone, I have never been alone, I can never be alone. I am... we are...companioned with the Father within. I am peaced. 

The recent obit of a childhood acquaintance is tickling my brain this morning. The obit named her five life-long friends...none of whom ever left our hometown, all had married, had children...each had a life well lived no matter the slips and slides, the glories and gollies...friends together. 

I had to wonder: Do I envy, or do I pity? 

Admittedly, it'd be pity in my yesterday's consciousness, but not envy now...maybe admire is the best description today. And why not? A friendship circle that lives...thrives!,,,for a lifetime is rare and to be admired. Oh, that feels so right...we just made a leap of love.

 

Lord, hear my prayer, thank you.

Thank you.

COUNTERINTUITIVE PARADOX, OR IS IT JUST ME?

Unto everyone that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath. -- The Gospel According to Saint Matthew

There are real and vast changes taking place within each of us right now. This is about my recent ongoing experiences with unconscious changes. Interestingly, I say vast but I mean wee...too tiny to notice until they are too significant to miss. Kinda like the Gospel According to Saint Matthew.

I'm understanding getting and giving at a much higher plane...I was gobsmacked to realize that my life-pattern has been to receive hugs but to seldom as a matter of course to originate hugs. 

What brought this to the forefront happened at a meeting of friends recently...most everybody gave a hug to the friend I was standing with...all spoke, smiled, and chatted with me, none hugged me. 

Another friend who is just back from a month's vacation was there...we usually walk out together.  With no conscious thought, I did not welcome him back, nor did I wait for him to walk me out as he has done. I simply split...walked out alone and drove away. Again, with no conscious thought at all. 

My blinding flash: This is a gift of my 80s for my benefit...to learn, no matter how late the lesson, to learn to be aware...aware that each meeting with another, friend or foe, is an opportunity to give love...to give love in all its forms, not to wait for love to come to me. 

Ah, our mindset...the birthplace of God's will, God's way.  

Again, God is on the field in that we get to learn the difference between a self-determined objective and the perfect objective which is of God.

Self-determined, I would start hugging everybody in sight, even those who clearly did not want it...of God's perfect objective, I know naught. 

I have no idea how God is going to cause this change to come forth, but I trust God. He can and will reach out and give all the hugs that are stored within me that I have received from so many for so long...when he knows that I am ready. 

We make the decision; God makes it happen.

Thank you.

REASON...JUST ONE MORE OF GOD'S TOOLS, III

[The following is a reprint of a previous post of mine.]

We cannot solve the problems of the mind with the mind. -- The Buddha

Whenever I come across that quote, I know it for true...then I spend the next ten minutes pondering how it is true, why it is true....

Our reasoning mind will retire neither quickly nor quietly. It is interestingly pathetic, or pathetically interesting, how long we will cling to the belief that reason is our safety net...that "victory can be ours for the thinking." All the while we have had it proved to us...even proved by our own self...that it is detachment from reliance on our reasoning mind that sets us on the path to real freedom, the freedom from self.

Reason is essential to us as we walk the the rough and rutted road toward still more spiritual growth. It is our thinking that opens us to recognize reason as another tool of God's but not our safety net and not our security.

Reason, if used properly, clears the channel for God's thoughts to pour through. Reason is God's Roto-Rooter, if you will.

Our mistake is putting our trust in the Roto-Rooter instead of in God.

Thank you.

ACCEPTANCE: SURRENDER EARNING ITS WINGS

 Acceptance. Such a peaceful word. It even sounds comforting. 

Little known fact: Acceptance is another, albeit prettier, word for surrender. 

EEK! 

Face it, surrender is not, repeat not, pretty much less sought-for.

In the material world, or to our reasoning mind, surrender means loser; more explicitly, if I surrender, I am a loser, something to be avoided...no more questions, end of story.

Here lives the difference between what we think and what our living experience proves: We think surrender is to be avoided, yet we live surrender as we walk the rugged and awe-inspiring road to a Power greater than our thinking...to peace of mind...to love and laughter...to God.

Acceptance gives God the courtesy of letting him go first. 

Thank you.

'TURN THE OTHER CHEEK' IS LOVE ACTIVATED

But I tell you not to resist the evil person. Instead, whoever shall strike you on your right cheek, turn to him the other also. -- Mattthew 5:39

Blinding flash of the obvious: Turn the other cheek is not let me be walked on. 

Turn the other cheek is how we come to know and to show God's hand is in it. We become walking around proof that God's hand is in it for all...be their number 2 or 200+. 

The reasoning mind, home of the material world, cannot get us there unaided. It is our faith in God that ensures his love flows through us to and from any and all others.

Turn the other cheek is to trust the Higher Power, God, that both sides can and will come out the winner...which is impossible for the reasoning mind to pull off. 

Trust God with all our heart, our soul, our body and our brains; pray thank you, and love will shower our world.

Thank you.