LOVE OUR ENEMY...INCLUDING THE WORD JESUS

The ancient Israelites were told 'to love your neighbor,' but Jesus takes it to the nth degree. He says, 'No—love your enemy.' -- Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Bulletin, October 30, 2024

My experience has been that the first change we must make is not in loving our enemy but in losing our resistance to our own take on the word Jesus. 

According to me, we have no inner connection with Jesus which is the Jesus we heard preached about as a child. We only have a foul feeling when we hear the word Jesus...an Oh, No...not going there...no way. 

Then we let our own idea of loving our enemy take charge, and we come up with exceptions to the rule every time. As in. yeah, but not Nazi Germany, or yeah, but not Bull Connor; and yeah, but not etc., et al. 

I admit, getting over the very word Jesus is still my mountain to climb...it's more a hill now, but it's still for me to climb. My tried-and-true Big Book comes to my aid: We must try with a will or fall by the wayside.

My inner goal is that I welcome Jesus into my head and heart as a friend who is only in it to win it for my benefit...and my benefit is always and forever for others. (And I get carried along on the wings of the Dove...face it, I love my spiritual fantasies.)

Thank you. 

FEELING LESS-THAN...CLOSE ENOUGH

I'm feeling less-than today, but less-than dressed in hope...another gift of my 80s.

There are way too many stumbling blocks in my life right now...life's what-to-do, what-to-do? Been here before, but now that the 80s have wrapped their feathers around me, I'm not feeling panicked. 

This is a fairly new space for me, for my conscious thinking...fancy way of saying I do not have a clue about anything I am facing right now.  

I hear the voice of my yesteryear friend saying, do something about something. 

That's my yesteryear friend who, at that time, I thought was a nutcase because what does do something about something even mean? My thinking, when we're faced with insurmountable problems, we need...ah, comes the light: We need to do something about something just to move us off the dime...Now. 

There. That simple thought may have been my original blinding flash of the obvious that led me to trust my friend...and God. The pearl beyond price.

I'm glad they are both in my mind's eye today...still speaking truth, i.e., keep it simple.

God is so good to me. God is so good. God is.

Thank you. 

SLOW ON THE UPTAKE? THE LORD WILL WAIT

From my journal this morning: 10/28/24 - Is my new Civic my higher-consciousness chariot? On its one-week birthday, I scraped the entire right side of the car against a wall...the same wall I drive by every day with never before a ping; then the registration was returned, filled in wrong by me; and new license plates needed to be put on by the 26th, already two days late. None of these 'events' are new to me...every year, pretty much the same thing. Yet, this year, it's as if I've not been here before. 

Blinding flash: Divinity rises out of the ashes of self-determined objectives. 

A few self-determined objectives for instance: My leasing a new car rather than trusting that I no longer need a car or possibly can no longer physically handle a car what with my eyesight fading.

I am wavering in my trust of my BFO...is it wishful thinking? or is it God's will, God's way made new in me? 

I wish I had someone here to talk all this over with...oh wait! I do! The Lord is with us within us, without us Now. Ever reminding us of the new way of thinking, feeling, doing, being. The choice is mine to believe or not to believe. 

Actually, it is not my choice...I turned my choice over to the God of my understanding some fifty years ago, and I have positive-proof evidence in my life's experience.

More will be revealed. I am reminded: More has already been revealed...I am just slow on the uptake. 

Thank you.

TWO WAYS TO SEE ONE THING, I

[The following is a reprint of my post of December 24, 2016.]

I just read an old note I wrote in my "God Calling," and it thrilled me to my toes. All I had written was, Yesterday, I gave over to John in a very small but ego-denying way. Thank you.

I made note of it because I had just started the big turn from thinking any giving over was proof I was gutless and would never be able to stand up for myself, take my own part, know and show that I'm just as good as anyone...the poor-pitiful-put-upon-me list drags on.

I'm glad I date my notes and that I made note of this because, in truth, it isn't all that old. In my mind, I've been doing this for a long, long time..."this" being giving over. And there it is...that is my ah-ha. I've given over for a long, long time, only I've just begun to realize it as God's better way and not ego's wimp-out.

This is proof again that there are two ways of looking at every one thing...through our ego's eyes and whine or through God's and bask in sunshine.

Thank you.

LORD, HEAR OUR PRAYERS

The straw that broke the camel's back. -- old adage

Billionaire Jeff Bezos, the owner of The Washington Post, using that fine newspaper to line his bank accounts, feels like the last straw, and I feel bereft. 

Lord, hear our prayers.

Thank you.

KNOW NOT HOW TO LOVE? LOVE DOES ITS THING

This period in which I find myself living, my 6s&7s daily life, I have considered to be part of my Initiation. According to my morning's flash, all life is Initiation. This is not a new thought but today it is a realization, all of life is Initiation for our spiritual benefit. 

I have come to that conclusion based on my life since October 3 when I scraped the entire side of my one-week old car. New thought, new love...God's will, God's way.

My life has appeared to be running upside-down and backwards...all the daily needles and pins working against me. All of which, by the grace of God and my new concept of love, I have met, not rigid, righteous and right, but with gratitude...and, who is kidding whom, with the proverbial crossed fingers.

Without mental gymnastics, with little rancor, i.e., resistance to the picture appearing, all daily needles and pins were met by my higher Power knowing all was for my benefit when, not if, I welcomed all with my new, barely realized, love. 

My not knowing how to do that, it was done through me...go beyond reason to love proved itself again. 

Old motto made new: Give all glory to God and keep on trucking.

Thank you.

PREACH NOT, SPEAK TRUTH...AND TRUST

As I have often said, my journal is essential to me because it, in effect, writes itself. I am sometimes surprised by what I read later. Today's entry is a "for instance" for it almost shocks my conscious...it is very telling to me:

I need to open my thinking to the FACT that I, too, am being adversely affected by Trumpism, America on the verge of fascism...and I do not even know exactly what fascism is...it is not democracy is what I do know...democracy is my free voice heard...ignored or not...I can and do speak free...I am realizing that this is not fantasy-fear, i.e., we are the German people of the '30s who ignored Hitler until he was the power...that Trump IS on the verge of taking control of America is a real threat...Lord, hear our prayer...Thank You.

Well, that sent chills up my back...chills with a voice of its own: "Do something...but what?"  

Vote, of course. Publish my written word of peril-at-hand. Think my gift-thought, and this, too, is of God. Speak but don't preach. Trust.

Trust that the power of God is greater than any human power. Trust that what we think, do, say is God's will, God's way for the good of America and the consciousness of like-believers...i.e., for the good of the Universe, God's will, God's way.

Then continue to walk, talk, think, live in that higher consciousness...with Thank You leading the Way.

Thank you. 

TO SEEK GOD'S WILL, GOD'S WAY

 I can see no other way for discernment than a life in the Spirit, a life of unceasing prayer and contemplation, a life of deep communion with the Spirit of God. Such a life will slowly develop in us an inner sensitivity, enabling us to distinguish between the law of the flesh [ego] and the law of the Spirit [soul]. -- Henri Nouwen, Daily Meditation, October 23,2024

My ego disguised as my own spirit often dons its high-heeled sneakers and goes for a walk-about. Yesterday exemplifies such an occasion...my reasoning mind, wrapped in rigid, righteous and right, was at work and in overdrive.

Long story short...around noon yesterday, my personal parking space was taken over by an outsider, even with ample signage warning that towing is enforced. 

I went to bed last night at 9:00, the other's car was still in my parking space, and I was worn to a frazzle from having made multiple trips checking on if, when and how much longer before the tow truck did its work. The fear, of course, was that my car would be towed, and the other left to gloat.

As I went to bed, I prayed God's will, God's way and actually slept at peace. 

This morning, the car is gone, and I have found another level to my initiation...the need for me to find within me a deeper way to do love. We learn early that to love is not always to show forth rainbows and roses...ah, we learn the words, but the doing? 

The doing is the action we must take that benefits all parties in a boondoggle...which is not ours to self-determine. Ours is to first trust...then do something about something, and when wrong, to promptly admit it. 

This is the long journey...changing our mind. From I am right and you're going to pay, to I am right, but I'll rise above it, to there is no right or wrong, only God's will, God's way...now, how do I show that forth? 

There. That is our only goal today...to seek to do God's will, God's way. Imperfectly. sincerely. 

We have to learn when our own spirit is at work and when the Spirit of God is at work. Paul calls this gift the discernment of spirits. -- Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, October 23,2024

Thank you.

THERE IS NO CHEAP HUMILITY...JUST THANK YOU

Spiritual director Ruth Haley Barton writes that the Ignatian practice of discernment helps us to recognize God’s guidance in our lives....an authentic discernment process identifies love as our primary calling. *** Discernment is intended to take us deeper and deeper into the heart of God’s will: that we would follow God.

The Ignatian practice of discernment is a practice about which I know nothing. To the best of my recollection...dicey at best...I've never heard of Ignatian anything. 

Yet when I read Barton's article this morning, I was home...gratefully home. I had a new light glowing within me.

I realize that it has been burning for some time, but it got its legs with my share last Sunday morning when I shared about love...about my need and my answered prayer in finding a new definition for love. No one there had mentioned love as such...it wasn't even on the table. That I would mention it...I who can sometimes still get embarrassed just hearing the word...spoke to me even then as I continued with my share.

As usual in my spiritual growth, I thought no more about it, yet two days later, I am realizing the answer to my unasked questions...the answer being love. Love...neither physical nor mental, but love entirely Self birthed, driven and experienced with any personal effort at bay. 

Here's my great and glorious blinding flash: From what I read about the Ignatian practice of discernment, that has been my goal for living (imperfectly met) for all of my spiritual-growth years. 

Love all, give love, learn to love as God loves...without exception...I was gifted with that knowledge...imperfectly...way long ago. That's the experience of the rough and rugged road we walk. To stumble, fall, doubt, get up believing and carry on, repeatedly, is to be blessed by God and to keep on living it just so, doubting and believing interchangeably. Then...home. 

There is no cheap humility; spiritual growth is learning to love and laugh...and practice gratitude.

Thank you.

OUR PRAYED-FOR YET ALWAYS UNEXPECTED GIFT

Until we discover the 'little way,' we almost all try to gain moral high ground by obeying laws and thinking we are thus spiritually advanced. — Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, October 5. 2024 

It seems I keep being returned to the "little way." 

I can accept that because some time back I thought of my new-to-me spiritual path as less than the fancy-schmancy ways I was hearing as being taught...a lot of religiosity, smoke screens and high-dollar verbosity. None of which fit me...thank you, Jesus.

I had long since made peace with my "new" or "little" way, but it was a comfort to receive from my beloved Fr Richard written assurance that my way was God's way for me. 

I have taken a few self-will directed trips and/or tangents, none of which I regret...each helped me learn that we have only one need, and that is we need to change our mind. To change our mind is of God and not possible by the unaided will. The higher lesson we re-re-relearn: God's will, God's way is already done...completed...perfected within us.

Yet, there's the reasoning mind's quandary: Unwilling to chance personal acceptance, we keep trying to "get" it which is reasoning mind's block and spiritual mind's gift. 

Until three days after we are dead the umpteenth time, we'll still be trying to "get" it. No doubt, that is a rest-of-life fact that, when accepted, brings love and laughter and the comforting knowledge that we've doing it right by doing it wrong. 

God's will, God's way does not arrive by reason...it's a prayed-for, yet always unexpected, gift.

Thank you.

LOVE AND LAUGH...AND PRAY 'THANK YOU'

Seek joy in God and peace within; seek to rest in the good, the true, and the beautiful. It’s the only resting place that also allows us to hear and bear the darkness. —Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, October 12, 2024

To be peaced in the midst of uncertainty is the Crist within...over which we have no control, only unquestioning grace.

There are many unanswered "topics" floating in me, around me...I seek no answers, I pray thank you, and I do two loads of wash. If I kept a diary, that would be my entry for yesterday.

My life seems to be at sixes and sevens right now...yet I fret not. I repeat my today's favorite message, and this, too, is of God, and I do the next thing appearing to me.

There...the first sentence of that last paragraph is an accurate indicator of where I am today; i.e., my life seems...I fret not. 

I suspect this is the place I have so long sought. 

Now what?

Love and laugh and keep on keeping on comes to mind. My understanding God is very practical...and I am very grateful.

Thank you.

LIVING LOVE IN THE MIDST OF TRAVAIL

From  my journal this morning: I keep rereading the obit of a long-ago acquaintance, Joe Doaks (wife Anne Too). It is so beautiful...they lived a good life together for 65 years...I only remember them from high school of course but the obit makes me happy...for their children who wrote it, wrote it from pure love. There...that's the gift of a well-lived life.  

Ah, underneath is the belly of the beast...there lies our personal tenderloin. We each live and breathe as we see fit in the moment whether we realize it or not.

On my first read of the Doaks' obit, I felt gobsmacked by the beauty. When I let it perc, I could accept, without put-down, their hard times that need not be mentioned in death notices but are the zipline of life.

By my own standards and in general, I live a good life. We each live the life of our own standards no matter who or what we blame or credit. 

My personal belief: Cultivate gratitude which holds the new and deeper meaning of love and laughter...then through love and laughter live the good life, unselfed, in the midst of life's gift of travails.

Thank you.

OUT OF SELF INTO GOD'S WILL, GOD'S WAY

Hard and soft, difficult and easy, painful and ecstatic do not eliminate one another; they actually allow each other.  -- Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditations, October 11, 2024   

That, then, is our way to Oneness: Each opposite melds into the other...spiritually. Spiritually, the Way that opens us to a new life. 

No doubt material mind can clone it, or scientifically make it appear to happen, almost always for profit, but for us its value is in its spiritual nature. The higher concept of oneness has no outer or profit value...only inner or peaced value.

Hard and soft, difficult and easy, painful and ecstatic...the lesson we are learning is that we must walk through the hard, the difficult, the painful to reach oneness, to become Oned. 

It's the same old, same old, made new again...we hold our nose and take a leap of faith. Doing it right in faith is to crash and burn to arise from the ashes happy, joyous and free. 

To get there, our reasoning mind must be changed...changed from self-determined objectives to unselfed, of-God, objectives. We must be unselfed for Self to be freed.

Our good news is that we ever have been heading in the right direction...we are well on the road out of self into Self, God's will, God's way, 

Our great and glorious news is this is the path we will follow for the rest of our life...lives.

Thank you.

AND THIS, TOO, IS OF GOD

In the material world, positive thoughts are good, negative thoughts are bad. 

There's the difference between a material and a spiritual mindset. The material is mentally based and two-leveled, positive and negative; the spiritual is singular, One. 

Spiritual growth gives us another perspective. We learn that our negative feelings, our what ifs, our fears, may be are heading us in the right direction...with positive thoughts, when spiritually directed, raising us deeper.

My only prayer back in the day was for peace of mind. It was a shock when I realized that peace of mind to me at that time was equivalent to a lobotomy. 

My dawning sense today is that all our dreads are gifts in waiting...with singular wants keeping us stuck in those wants. The unsecret but well-hidden code is: and this, too, is of God...silently spoken within to our world as it presents itself to us. 

In short, all of our dreads are gifts in waiting...same goes for our wants transmuted. Spiritual growth is accessed by the grace of gratitude.

Which isn't to say that we will never have another worry or another happy...it is to say when, not if, we have any negative thought or feeling, i.e., fear, we p.d.q. turn to God. With no personal plan of alternative action, a tish nervously we think, and this, too, is of God. Ah, peace of mind. 

God's will, God's way in God's time.

Thank you.

TO LOVE TRUTH, WE MUST LEARN TO LIVE IT

There is a journey you must take. It is a journey without destination. There is no map. Your soul will lead you. And you can take nothing with you. -- Meister Eckhart

*************

And of our good deeds: 'See thou tell no man.' -- Matt. 8:4

*************

Now comes the part that makes the 'belly bitter'...the living of these truths. -- Joel Goldsmith

*************

There...my three live-by promises. They form my personal foundation: The worst thing that could ever happen to us, in God's hands, is the best thing that could ever happen for us...whether we realize it yet or not. 

I invite my today's worst fear, that Donald J. Trump will win the presidency in November, to have free rein in my mind. I resist not the fear of it...I hug it and kiss it and let it flow. 

My mental exercise: See rigid, righteous and right Saul being knocked off his horse by The Word and living thereafter as Saint Paul, and allowing that this, too, can happen for Trump...and you and me! 

I do not wish evil or even bad luck on Trump...what goes around comes around...I wish God's will, God's way for Trump...which can only benefit all.

Thank you.

WITH NOTHING HANGING FIRE...PEACE

Blinding flash of the obvious: God's will can never make sense to us until we are raised into the consciousness of God's will...then it is the only thing that makes sense.

Walking through all the uglies in the world is heading in the right direction when our singular goal is God's will, God's way. God is ever with us for our benefit to see us through the material world...i.e., the muck and the mire and the beauty and the security...all the temptations of the egoic world.

Those things I know, and I know I know...ah, but The Hook: I still must prove them in my own life by my own life's experiences...namely, my response to my life's experiences. 

In my early years, my go-to was we must try with a will or fall by the wayside. Later, that married up with self-will...loose it and let it go. Egoic mind may understand that but invariably puts it to use for self's purposes. Only spiritual growth brings higher understanding.

When we learn that we do it wrong to get it right, we are on the right road toward getting over our obsessive need for the perfection of our own opinion. That is one long road...if we're doing it right.

Back to my response to my life's experiences. My physical condition today is achy at best...my mental condition, achy but unfatched. Spiritually, I'm looking forward...peaced, or close enough. I have no If Onlys hanging fire. 

God is so good to me...to us. God is good.

Thank you.

WE ACT...GOD PERFECTS...TRUST

Seek joy in God and peace within; seek to rest in the good, the true, and the beautiful. It’s the only resting place that also allows us to hear and bear the darkness. Hard and soft, difficult and easy, painful and ecstatic do not eliminate one another; they actually allow each other.  -- Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditations, October 11, 2024    

Blinding flash of the obvious: This is what I am living today...in my unsteady, stumbling, bumbling way but ever forward...with detours.

Is it self-will that keeps interrupting questioning whether I am doing "it" right? Or is it God nudging me on...right or wrong? 

Lesson long-time learning, in the end right or wrong, God perfects it for our benefit. Yet. I See Me natters, what if this is still self-will and I'm doing a physical harm by not seeing a doctor asap? Lord, hear my prayer, thank you.

Early realization: We either throw in with God one hundred percent, or we sit by the wayside and wait and worry. Growing realization...there are times when to sit and wait and worry is God's will, God's way.

New realization: Whatever way we are doing life at the moment is God's will, God's way...let it be. Trust.

I do have enough life experiences to trust my instincts now. My sit and wait on the Lord is right, and I trust it, wobbly as it is in me.  If it is not God's will, God's way, i.e., right, I'll find out soon enough and that too will be of God and for my benefit.

Thank you.

COMMIT TO THE SPIRITUAL LIFE...THEN LIVE IT

Something happened to my shoulder recently of which I was unaware...I awoke one day with a sort of stiff shoulder. The day after that, pain had moved into my neck, screaming pain, and I headed to Urgent Care.

It has been a week now since the first inkling. It seems like a month at least. The pain has gotten worse.

As I have written, I long ago committed to every happening in my life being a part of my initiation into the spiritual realm of life...there being mental and spiritual. (I've read of way higher yet, but I'm a rank beginner, so I leave higher to my next lives.)   

With my commitment in place, stiff knotted back, headache, etc., are all God things...they are God's early warning signals that I need to do something about something...turn to God, seek his help, TRUST and be led. Which is not to say that I am not getting physical therapy, I am...and God smiles. 

Here's my life's how-to: Trust God, do something about something, seek God's will, God's way, and be led. When wrong, promptly admit it, and carry on. 

Thank you. 

SEND UP A THANK YOU AND WALK FREE

The spiritual way of life is a reversal of the human way of life. -- Joel Goldsmith, "The Heart of Mysticism" at p. 836

There. That is my belief based on my life experience...God's will, God's way is the opposite of my will, my way, only better.

I have an incurable, progressive disease. I prayed...really, really hard...to have this disease lessened so I could live with it comfortably. When that got a resounding No, I finally prayed that it be lifted out of me, and that would be all. 

God's will, God's way came to my rescue: I got another No, I gave up all hope, I crashed and burned without a prayer in my heart. 

From those ashes of mine, God re-formed me, my life reversed from sad to glad, and I've been as happy as if I have good sense.

The wonderful news is when self-will is doing my thinking for me, I turn to God. I often say that nothing turns me to God faster than fear, but in truth nothing turns me to God faster than my own resistance to anything. But then, blinding flash, what is resistance but fear?

Here's the secret: Thank you does not change that which we are resisting, it transmutes our resistance which deepens our faith, leaving us fret-free. We now know from within that God has us in his capable hands. 

Send up a thank you, walk free.  

Thank you.

GOD IS IN EVERYTHING...FIND GOD, LIVE HAPPY

In The Book of Joy, Archbishop Desmond Tutu offers this: Dear Child of God, you are loved with a love that nothing can shake, a love that loved you long before you were created, a love that will be there long after everything has disappeared. You are precious, with a preciousness that is totally quite immeasurable. And God wants you to be like God. Filled with life and goodness and laughter—and joy.

Oh mercy...my blinding flash of the obvious: Immediately upon reading that, I intuited that I could have said every word that the Reverend Tutu said...and many times have in my own way and to my bathroom mirror. Really, though, who amongst us hasn't? 

Yet, my blinding flash of the obvious is that I realize this not today. I know it from my eyebrows up. I quote it, teach it, preach it if I'm not silenced...and yet my Soul right now is begging. Seeking comfort. Settling for comfort in knowledge.

Knowledge will never bring holy comfort; it can only bring mental comfort. Not necessarily superior to others...ah, but equal to God, I'm guessing.

Faith in God is said to bring inner comfort that we are protected no matter what comes or appears to come. Slowly I am realizing that faith is our acceptance of our reasoning mind's interpretation of God's will as we walk through it (hard, ain't it hard, Lord, loving you) vs. constantly praying that this be lifted...let this cup pass us by, etc. 

We walk through our material-world interpretation and, when God has us ready, we know joy at a whole new level. It takes some getting settled into...and that, too, is when we're doing it right.

I feel it, just not 100 percent...and the percentage bounces like a red rubber ball. Oh, joy comes with the upward bounce. We can make it joy on the downward bounce, too, as we are readied for the upward bounce! God is in everything...find him and live happy!

Thank you.

TO INTUITIVELY KNOW...TRUST, I

[The following is a reprint of my post of November 18, 2020.]

We must all overcome the illusion of separateness. It is the primary task of religion to communicate not worthiness but union, to reconnect people to their original identity....God’s job description is to draw us back into primal and intimate relationship. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," November 13, 2020

As I read Rohr's quote above, I wondered...do I believe that? Do I believe "the illusion of separateness?" From my eyebrows up, yes...or, is it that I just don't question it?

I remember a class in philosophy back in my college days. As I recall, and my recollection is subject to question these many years later, but it's mine now: The concept being taught that day was that nothing is material...it, we, everything is whirling, whizzing altogether whajamacallits. It made not a lick of sense to me but I never forgot it.

Years later, when I began seeking spiritual answers, Golas's "Lazy Man's Guide to Enlightenment" fell into my hands, and the first few pages backed that up. I intuitively knew that to be true and did not try to figure it out. Interestingly, it was in that first reading of the "Guide" that I learned "we must go beyond reason to love."

I doubt not that background gave me the key to opening so readily to the Sermon on the Mount. In my experience, spiritual truth comes to us almost in reverse of rational thought, and the Sermon in its entirety proves that point...in particular resist not evil.

I have ever been grateful for my intuitive nature which, I believe, eased me into going beyond reason deeper to the higher meaning of life. The Sermon has been...and is...my how-to manual.

Yes, I do believe in the "illusion of separateness," and no, I cannot reason it out.

Thank you.

LOVE IS TO BOUND ACROSS HEAVEN SELFLESSLY

True growth in holiness is a growth in willingness to be loved and to love. 

My definition of love is no resistance...which I got from resist not evil (Matthew 5:39) and resisted until I was able to go deeper into the spiritual meaning. Face it, if it's in the Bible, it's spiritual whether we know it or not.

I believe a willingness to be loved and to love is a willingness to feel fear and to trust God's will in the midst of it. Which pretty much describes surrender...who has that for their life's goal? Certainly not those of us as we started our spiritual journey. Which proves the truth of we must go beyond reason to love.

Love is of God...love is God. If we think we can figure either out, we need to go back, start again, and surrender our self...again. We cannot get there by reasoning.

In learning to love, my best result came when I gave up looking for the perfect man, got me a seven-pound Maltese, and fell madly, hopelessly in love with Ari of Aslan...may he bound across Heaven at will.

Thank you.

FEAR...HUG IT AND KISS IT AND LET IT BE

If our only goal is to love, there is no such thing as failure. ***** After his conversion, Francis lived the rest of his life in an entirely different economy—the nonsensical economy of grace, where two plus two equals a hundred and deficits are somehow an advantage. -- Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, September 29, 2024

 
Not to put on airs, but I identify with that. My conversion came when I realized nothing turns me to God faster than fear...ergo, welcome fear...hug it and kiss it and let it be with a thank you.

I know this as my conversion since fear had ever been my dreaded go-to...against my wants and my will. Fear has been with me since approximately age two...fear of being left alone, fear of getting lost, fear of etc.

When I read Meister Eckhart's if the only prayer you ever pray is 'thank you', that would suffice, that changed me. Changed my consciousness to be precise. I envisioned any "worst case scenario" coming to me and knowing thank you would lift my resistance...the source of all fear.

That has proved true...when I remember. I no longer beat me up for not remembering instantly...which helps me get to God if not quicker at least less fraught. Which is priceless in its own right.

It is thank you that goes before me to make my crooked places straight.

Thank you.

FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS' SAKE...OF GOD

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. —Matthew 5:10

It seems I keep getting drawn back to this verse probably to stay my focus on for righteousness' sake. I recall being fairly gobsmacked when I realized for righteousness' sake is the core of the message. That led to my discovery that I needed to find within myself what righteousness means to me. 

The dictionary definition is all about being morally good, honest and pure. Morally being the key word which truth to tell is a turn-off to me. 

I've finally satisfied myself on the meaning of righteousness, i.e., to choose to live by my own Golden  Rule; i.e., try not to be as nasty as you want to be. That is righteous to me. Nothing else has stayed my mouth when it was all set to go off, all rigid, righteous and right, a tendency I judge harshly in others.

This I know from experience...I cannot do that by self-will...I need God's help even with my best intentions.

I believe this is the road to higher consciousness...which cannot be adequately described, planned for, or faked. It is of God, visited upon us...or not...God's will, God's way.

Thank you.

WITHOUT THOUGHT, BEHOLD THE HOLY

Set your intention to uncover the jewels buried in the heart of what already is. Choose to see the face of God in the face of the bus driver... Mirabai Starr, Fr Richard Rohr's Daily Meditations, September 25, 2024

When I turned 80, I committed to finding the fun in being 80...for sure I had not previously heard a lot of fun-talk about that. This might have put to the test my decision in the early '70s to find a sliver of gold in every good, bad or indifferent life-happening. That decision has set the direction for my life...upward by the downward path. Holy, in a word.

Realization comes neither quickly nor easily...and never by self-will. It can come on tiptoe with the evening breeze or as we are rubbing our tummy on awakening...or whenever the Spirit moves us. 

At first we put these pearls down to wishful thinking, but as they become more quietly insistent, our ego begins to take credit. This, too, is part of the process, and we learn to hug it and kiss it and send it on its way. 

Today, there is no deep thought involved when a less-than happens in my life...as for instance me scraping the side of my one-week-old car recently. After I said, "What the....?!?!" I said my thank you and was peaced. 

I do not need to know God's reasoning, but for the up-lift of it, I like to imagine my payment helping the person who fixes my car...s/he may be financially strapped at the moment, and the payment will come right on time. 

The universe responds to your willingness to behold the holy by revealing almost everything as holy. -- Ibid.  

Thank you.

BE THE FIRST TO GIVE OVER, I

[The following is a reprint of my post of December 30, 2016.]

Be the first to give over. That was a long-ago blinding flash of the obvious, and I've never forgotten it. Which is not to say that I always remember it...it just means I come back to it, sometimes p.d.q. sometimes a day late when my hair's on fire. But come back I must, and there's the pearl.

I had lunch with a friend yesterday, and in our chatting we came to the conclusion that the answer to most hurts and/or peeves is laughter, which almost always needs must be at our own self. I have become convinced, and this is from my own perspective so you won't find a lot of followers, that the most important spiritual direction ever given is: We have ceased fighting everything and everybody.

The importance probably is in the fact that it does not make reasoning mind sense. Reasoning mind sense lives in the belief that there is ever a reason to fight...to stand against wrong is right, dim-dam it. But, again and again and yet again: We must go beyond reason to love.

Going beyond reason is where be the first to give over lives. Neither be the first nor we have ceased can even be considered without the deflation of our ego...ego-deflation in depth, a.k.a., still more spiritual growth.

All that is necessary for us to live free in our own head (meaning, nonresistant) is for us to realize that we will never agree one hundred percent with everybody, but we must come to agree with the person we are in disagreement with right this very minute...even if the disagreement is only in our own head, which, after all, is the origin of all discontent...in our own head.

Interestingly, our own head is also God's hidey-hole. We can get all esoteric and think of God as living in our left elbow or our right earlobe, but who's kidding whom? He's in everything, and, in general, he makes himself known through our thinking. It is our ego, God's roommate in that hidey-hole, that we must be willing to get over in order to free God to do our thinking for us.

Only then do we know the peace, love and joy of giving over in order to cease fighting.

Thank you.

GOD'S WILL, GOD'S WAY IS...PRAY THANK YOU

We cannot really imagine love, much less pass it on, until we have accepted that someone—God, another person, or even an animal—could fully accept us as we are. -- Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, October 4, 2024  

Further, per Fr Richard, my "new way," the downward path, is much more a transmission of authentic life and love than of mere ideas or doctrines.

There's my "new way" in black-and-white: A transmission of authentic life and love is what I sense I am experiencing with my unplanned, but positive, connections with others. This is the impersonal love I have read about, talked about, but am just now realizing full-blown in my life...without my written permission slip, so to speak.

I am receiving positive vibes from many with whom I've never sensed any vibe, good or not. Maybe it is that I have never consciously sent any vibe...or, God's vibe goes before us to transmute our ego's hold. Self-centered to Other-centered? For sure, God's vibe cannot be done by self-will. 

Self-will transmuted to want-to transmuted to cannot do transmuted to surrender transmuted to acceptance. And here's me writing about the inability to think it out and trying to anyhow. 

As Fr Richard Rohr has written, we don't get to God by doing it right, we get to God by doing it wrong...inadvertently counts, I must add.

I suspect the big hold-back for many of us is our desire to walk in the sandals of the pure without the pain of finding a pair of our own...that fits only us. Ah, but God's gift waits for us to use that which he has already given us. 

God's will, God's way is what Is. Love, laugh, deal with it, and pray thank You. 

Thank you.

SCRUPULOSITY...SELF-WILL RUN AMOK

Rejoice. These are your wilderness days. But surely and safely, you are being led to your Canaan of Plenty. ... Whatever danger threatens look unto Me....Claim all from My Storehouse. Claim, claim, claim.-- God Calling, October 1

I have come to accept this as the downward path, and I love that. The downward path to a raised consciousness is making itself known to me ever more deeply. 

Over time, in that regard, I have had many insights and have written about them, but for the past few weeks or months, the downward path has been chasing me...surprisingly, a great comfort.

The downward path likely started for me when upgrade your attitude, downgrade your problem came to me in a flash. 

When I recognized Meister Eckhard's If the only prayer you ever say in your lifetime is 'thank you' that would suffice, I was already on the downward path...and that changed my prayer life. Thank you has become my mantra...I just keep it going without thought now. 

When, not if, ugly, or less-than-wonderful, appears to my eyes, I am already channeling thank you. The ugly does not disappear, but my resistance is abated, and an inner feeling of welcome warms me. 

This is a majority-of-the-time occurrence...all God-changes are l00 percent, it is remembering to rely on them that trip my good intentions. The majority of the time (at least 51 percent), I'm good which is close enough to perfect for me. I have learned to beware of my tendency toward scrupulosity which is self-will in fancy dress.

Thank you.

TIME COUNTS NOT...TRUST AND BE NOT AFRAID

I have just had a memory bubble: One day in the Summer of '49, my sister and I were at the public pool in our  home town. We were in the dressing room; I needed help with a button and went to my sister in the next cubicle. She was not there. I went to the next, and she was not there either. I went back to my cubicle feeling frozen with fear...I became completely hysterical, screaming without let up. Of course, she was in the next cubicle over, it all got smoothed out, and we never talked about it or even mentioned it again. At age 11, fear of being left alone came to me full-blown and left to grow. 

There. Proof of my higher Power leading me to where I need to be. That memory, long forgotten, came just after I had written in my journal: I need to look at the fact of my life, my living situation...all the friends who at one time lived near me have either passed on, moved to Senior Living, or gone back to their hometown. I stand alone in my neighborhood now. 

It was when I realized this, felt this, that I first mentally recognized being left alone as a deep fear...and began to include it in my prayers of welcome. I do not doubt it is my thank you prayer that raised the memory into conscious awareness. 

I was led to the realization way long ago that the reason I live alone is my fear of being left alone...no one can leave if no one is let in. I never doubted that but when I mentioned it to yet another counselor, pastor, shrink or friend, it was pretty much batted down simply because I had no context. And we did a lot of digging.

The Father knows our needs...the what and the when of them. To openly accept that as a fact in my life is spiritually rewarding...it matters not how deep the fear or the ignorance of it. God consciousness has it covered. 

I am at another U-turn; I am being led free. I know not how, when or where, but I know, and I welcome it. 

Thank you.