ON DISCOVERING THE TRUE SELF

Seasoned contemplatives like Thomas Merton describe letting go, letting be, letting come, and setting free as discovering the true self. -- McLaren, "Daily Meditations," August 20, 2025

There...letting go, letting be, letting come, and setting free...that may tell the tale of our seemingly unending search to live not from our head but from the Power within, the Power within each of us. The more we search out there for the Power, the farther away we take us from its discovery.

Our search is another self-determined objective, or our block. It is akin to searching for breath even as we breathe...we stop breathing, looking for our breath. Uh-oh.

We do not obtain the most precious gifts by going in search of them but by waiting for them. -- French philosopher and mystic Simone Weil

Thank you.

GOD, GRACE AND GRATITUDE

Brother Lawrence’s guidance, 'Live constantly in the experience of that sacred presence, the ground of all being.'

I gotta wonder, does the Brother's guidance include living with and within incurable illness? Incurable, as in dementia, my ongoing fear that looks like is no longer a fear but a fact. 

Let it be....

If only.

I return again to my perfect panacea, i.e., the worst thing that could ever happen to me, did happen...and turned out to be the best thing that has or can ever happen to me. 

That being true, then so can this be...another best thing. 

All it takes to turn a worst to a first is God, grace and gratitude. I have all three...now they get to earn their keep, with me remembering that their keep is mine to walk. 

I walk not alone...I walk with God, he holds my hand.

Thank you.

THE ROUGH AND RUGGED ROAD...GOD'S GIFT

Persist at that deeper place in yourself where the “both-and” is located. This is the place of the soul and the place of wisdom toward which we have to move. -- Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, August 8, 2025 

According to me, most desires for other than still more spiritual growth are the reasoning mind want dressed up as a spiritual need. 

God's will, God's way is for our benefit always and all ways...the rockier it feels, the surer our Way. It is the rough and rugged that plows our field of resistance, i.e., self-will. 

When I was blessed with the realization that the seed of spiritual growth is in detachment...specifically, detaching from reasoning mind wants...I realized that does not negate wants, for they, too, are God given. Ah, but their place is never first in line. 

Our spiritual growth thus begins when we make a decision to turn unborn wants over to the care of a Higher Power. As they are born daily, we resist them not as we remember what we resist, persists...we leave them to God's care. 

There...that is the rough and rugged self-will plowing our field of resistance...unbeknownst to us, with God at the helm.

The good news, a.k.a., the God news: The more we detach from self's wants, the deeper our spiritual comfort grows so the more we detach.

God loves us so much.

Thank you.

RESIST NOT...MOVE IN WITH

Pure consciousness is never just me, trapped inside myself. Rather, it is an observing of “me” from a distance—from the viewing platform kindly offered by God (see Romans 8:16), which we call the Indwelling Spirit. -- Fr Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation, August 17, 2025

My morning blinding flash of the obvious: Resistance is acceptance in a hair shirt. 

Ah, it is the hair shirt that we resist. We must needs resist not but move in with, i.e., seek deeper, welcome...resist not.

To move in with is found in our still more spiritual growth...spiritually we cannot move in with as it appears to our reasoning mind eyes in the moment. Our gift is in our raised consciousness...the realization that nothing is personal to us. 

All is of God...the gold in our dreams, the worms in our fears...all in, around, between, above and below are of God and for our spiritual benefit.

Resist not evil. -- Matthew 5:39

Thank you.

IT'S ALL IN AN EXCHANGED MIND, I

[The following is a reprint of my post of August 3, 2021.]

Simone Biles is still teaching us. She competed again for the first time since she hit the wall with the Twisties, which I take to be a gymnast term for pea-green-purple petrified in the midst of a required upside-down contortion.

This being the last women's gymnastics event for this Olympics, the apparatus she got to compete on was the balance beam, known to be the hardest of all.

She won the Bronze.

I can't think any Olympic contender ever prayed to win the Bronze; yet, according to me, for Simone Biles today, her Bronze can forever be her most cherished medal.

By bowing out, simply letting go, she hung on, hung in, and hung tough, and won an Olympic medal first time back. There, that is showing the world how it's done...with God, grace and guts, the not-just-for-Sunday Trinity.

Don't tell me God's will isn't perfection wrapped in toilet paper. All we need do is change our mind, and lo! it's now toilet tissue. Love and laugh.

Thank you.

ON 'THINKING BACKWARDS' OR GOD'S WILL

Paul is dictating a letter to some people he loves on a subject he loves, expressing the honest, unedited, natural flow of his thoughts and feelings…. If we read Romans keeping these realities in mind, I think we will become more sensitive than ever to the wonderful dace of the Spirit of God and the mind of a man in the context of a community in crisis. -- "Richard Rohr's Daily Meditations," August 15, 2025

To me, this explains the gift to me of "thinking backwards" being the Way to God consciousness, i.e. the wonderful dance of the Spirit of God and the mind of a man....

My "thinking backwards" floated into my consciousness many years ago...I did not question it, nor have I over-talked the concept. To the best of my inner knowledge, I have lived it without questioning.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but my "thinking backwards" is putting the reasoning mind in its rightful place...behind my spiritual insights while ever letting it have a say in my life. God allowed our reasoning mind, too, so our job is to keep it finely tuned...ready for God to use when, if or as the need arises.

In short, this is our life today: God's will, God's way.

Thank you.

 

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@8/15/25 Brian McLaren: Paul is dictating a letter to some people he loves on a subject he loves, expressing the honest, unedited, natural flow of his thoughts and feelings…. If we read Romans keeping these realities in mind, I think we will become more sensitive than ever to the wonderful dance of the Spirit of God and the mind of a man in the context of a community in crisis. [To me, this explains the gift to me of "thinking backwards" being the Way to God consciousness, i.e.  the wonderful dance of the Spirit of God and the mind of a man....] 

RELEASE TO RECEIVE, I

[The following is a reprint of my post of August 13, 2012.]

If we are to have any lasting spiritual growth, we must learn to get closer to those who irritate us.

There is the place, that is the way we learn to live patience, forgiveness, freedom from personal wants...the either/ors, the likes/dislikes of life...freedom to love...unconditionally.

It is in letting go of protection of self...which is different from self-protection...that one finds the freedom to love...unconditionally. Until we realize unconditional love is within us right now, we will ever seek and not find unconditional love.

We must release it to receive it.

Thank you.

THANK YOU...REPEATEDLY, I

[The following is a reprint of my post of August 23, 2017.]

If I would remember any one of the following blinding flashes of the obvious, I'd never suffer another resentment:

Just because s/he is wrong doesn't mean I am right.

God has to go slow in order for me to keep up.

Acceptance is simply giving God the courtesy of letting him go first.

Thank you.

FOR THE BENEFIT OF OTHERS

A participatory theology says, 'I am being chosen, I am being led, I am being used.' After conversion, you know that your life is not about you; you are about life! You are about God. You’re an instance of both the agony and the ecstasy of God that is already happening inside of you, and all you can do is say yes to it. That’s conversion and it changes everything. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditations," August 12, 2025

Apparently, my spiritual growth now is in my more fully realizing that I am changed. Interesting that it seems like my change is taking me back to the untalking one I once was. 

Of course! What was our path is our path. God's will is ever guiding us as our freewill walks with us. 

It is continuing spiritual growth that lifts us up and over freewill (a.k.a., self will), only now it is to get us fret-free to the new place of God's will, God's way for the benefit of others.

Thank you.

OF GRATITUDE AND GRACE...STILL, YET, AGAIN

Father Richard teaches to become wise, we must move into life itself, encountering people and places that challenge our ways of thinking.

I sense a change in me all but fighting to get out...is the change in my active participation in my still more spiritual growth? I am not sure, but not knowing can be a cop out. I wonder if mine is not wanting to know so I can sit and wait on the Lord to do it for me.

Ah, blinding flash: He is already doing it for me...I just don't real-time realize it. 

Acceptance time again...I get to accept that I will sit and wait on the Lord because that is how I learned to live spiritual growth. And He does...lead me to the place I need to be to do the work I need to do. 

Proof of the pudding: My experience with the IRS when all my business partners split, and I got the gift of paying off the bankruptcy. That is not an exaggeration, and I am still grateful.

My younger years' fear was of being bored; my elder years' fact is that bored does not enter still more spiritual growth...another gift of gratitude.

Thank you.

I AM THE BEING OF ALL SAINTS, ALL SINNERS, I

[The following is a reprint of my post of August 9, 2020.]

Blinding flash of the obvious: I am the wolf stalking the night...I am the skunk stinking up the place.

Thoughts flow:  I am the wolf stalking the night...I am the skunk stinking up the place. I am the lion whose roar reverberates across the Serengeti...I am the jackal doing the dirt, carrying the water.
I am the soul of my most revered saint, I am the conscience of my most resented enemy...I am the Being of all the saints and sinners in between.

Parents, siblings, friends, enemies, The Church, the employer, lost loves...none get the credit, none get the blame...for each is the wolf stalking the night, the skunk stinking up the place...just as I am.

I Am that I am.

Thank you.

OUR JOURNEY AWAY FROM SELF BEGINS, I

[The following is a reprint of my post of December 4, 2021.]

Matthew 5:38 Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: 39 But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. 40 And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also.

Matthew 5:38, 39, 40 are my "forever" verses that I love, but oh the doing of them...there's my mare's nest.

We are told that God loves a seeker, so we can know we are loved; but, face it, God loves a non-seeker too. Wait...what's the "but" about that? God loves. We just need to accept that without any "buts."

The wonder is that it is easier to accept God's love by doing God's will, as in, resist not evil, turn the other cheek, etc., than by staying with the reasoning mind birthing our analytical mind trips.

Blinding flash of the obvious: It is our not doing that which God wills, specifically, resist not evil, turn the other cheek, etc., that keeps us from accepting (trusting!) God's love.

This acceptance is our turning point. This is where our transcendent journey, our journey away from self, begins.

Thank you.

WISDOM IS WITHIN

Father Richard teaches that to become wise, we must move into life itself, encountering people and places that challenge our ways of thinking. *** Persist at that deeper place in yourself where the both-and' is located. This is the place of the soul and the place of wisdom toward which we have to move.

I wonder if all desire for other than still more spiritual growth isn't a desire for a self-determined objective no matter how prettied-up the "other" seems to us.

I heard me say today, I wish I were in love again, and I realized that underneath what I really wish is that I knew love...I really don't have a clue. Blinding flash: I wonder if anybody truly does...know love. Well, there I go down that wrong road again...overanalyzing. 

Our lesson for today: God's will, God's way is for our benefit always and all ways...the rockier it feels, the smoother our Way...it is rough and rugged that plows our field of resistance, i.e., self-will. 

We need to recognize that, among other things, the real purpose of self is to move into life itself to encounter people and places that challenge our ways of thinking. Ah...still more spiritual growth.

Thank you.

THE GRACE OF GOD, I

[The following is a reprint of my post of February 24, 2013.]

The grace of God is a wind which is always blowing. -- Sri Ramakrishna

We cannot get the grace of God...we can only give in to the grace of God.

Thank you.

SCRUPULOSITY...WHAT A HOOT!, I

[The following is a reprint of my post of August 23, 2016.]

The literal level is one of the least fruitful levels of meaning....A heart open to the power of metaphor ("that which carries you across"), a heart open to the feminine and open to intimacy, will leap every time. A heart trapped in historical literalism, or closed to the power of poetry, will remain bored, reactive, and trapped in critique. -- Fr. Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," September 28, 2015

That, I believe, defines those of us who talk in exaggeration. We are poets, weaving fun in and out of the daily-ness of life. Which reminds me of the point made in The Cloud of Unknowing by an unknown 14th century monk to "be wary of the overly scrupulous."

The overly scrupulous use a one-inch yardstick to measure us by...and our saving grace is we let them because that's the stuff we use to weave our fun when telling of it.

God loves you and me so much...and the overly scrupulous, too.

Thank you.

BLESSED BEYOND HUMAN MEANS

The following is from CAC faculty emerita Cynthia Bourgeault and speaks to me of raised consciousness...raised without our personal thoughts or actions...raised through higher consciousness itself:

 

 ...he stayed close to the ground of wisdom: the transformation of human consciousness. He asked those timeless and deeply personal questions: What does it mean to die before you die? How do you go about losing your little life to find the bigger one? Is it possible to live on this planet with a generosity, abundance, fearlessness, and beauty that mirror Divine Being itself? These are the wisdom questions....

There it is...the ground of wisdom: the transformation of human consciousness. That is the pearl I have been seeking, chasing in fact, since I began my spiritual journey August 24, 1971. 

Gratefully, I seek still, and I expect that to be so until three days after I am dead if...no, since...I am blessed beyond human means.

Thank you.

DOUBTS AND FEARS ARE GOD'S WILL, GOD'S WAY

The following is from my journal...I believe that I need to realize this as more implicit directions, i.e., God's will, God's way:

From July 10th entry: Quoting Rabbi Dr. Shmuly Yanklowitz: The prophet is neither cool nor popular; the prophet is not the life of the party. The prophet is an anxious personality juggling the demands of God with the needs of humans. Constantly risking alienation or even death, the prophet is isolated and lonely. But we are not allowed to turn away. 

From my entry today, 8/3/25: What if I am the prophet? Ah, blinding flash of the obvious: I am MY prophet...I am neither cool nor popular; I am not the life of the party. I am an anxious personality juggling the demands of God with the needs of humans. Constantly risking alienation or even death, I am isolated and lonely. But I am not allowed to turn away. 

That for sure describes my upside down, inside out feelings since 3:00 AM, April 30th. Still, I move forward...forward with doubts, fears, what-ifs ringing in my head.

I take comfort in a long-ago blinding flash: I cannot know God's will, God's way before it is time for me to know, and my trust must come in living that...ah, with doubts, fears, what-ifs ringing in my head. Apparently.

Thank you.

T0 SPARK OUR CONSCIOUSNESS

The study of truth is the smallest part of our life's demonstration. Far too many students study too much. It takes a very small statement of truth to spark our consciousness into action, and it is that action that brings about the development of our spiritual consciousness. It is not what we read that does it,; it is what we do with what we read that does it. -- Joel Goldsmith, "Consciousness Is What I Am," pp 67-68

Thank you.

LORD, HEAR MY PRAYER

I am feeling...nada. Nothingness. An off-and-on headache. A free-floating fear underlying me. Sleepy...uh-oh.

Comes now my secret mantra...we must try with a will or fall by the wayside. 

I feel like I'm running on empty...a feeling is not a fact, thank you very much. 

Geez, I am deep in this blah, so much so that I'm starting to consider getting a cat...two cats. Seriously. Even mentioned it to another person recently but only conversationally, I thought. Which...if God loves me...will be as far as I get with that. 

Face it...this is fear of dementia...might as well spit it out, let it strut its stuff. If this is dementia, it'll strut its stuff without a by-your-leave from me. I note I'm still "if'ing" it. And I will until I get to where I need be...God's will, God's way.

Whether I feel it or not, whether I know it or not, I am held up by His everlasting love...we all are. If Since that be true, use it, rely on it, Let It Be. 

Try with a will or ball by the wayside.

Thank you.

ACCEPT THE DIRT, LOVE THE GOLD, I

[The following is a reprint of my post of July 12, 2017.]

We must seek to know our own self until we accept that the dirt we find is our gold. By accept, I mean love. Love the dirt, love the gold for they are one...not two sides of the same coin, but one through and through.

With that love, we are turned away from our constant naval gazing, our ego search to find (and correct) our self, and we know. That is God's gift...we know that in our whole and complete trust in the God of our own understanding, our search is over.

We seek no more in our bellybutton or in our brain. We are now living wholly by spiritual standards. We will know spiritual standards for they seek us out.

Thank you.

RESIST NOT DARKNESS AND CONFUSION

...periods of darkness, confusion, and struggle are necessary for our transformation and growth. -- Richrd Rohr Daily Meditation, July 14, 2025

Long ago I was gifted with the realization that my Way needed to be the reverse of the universally accepted idea of Good, of Religious, of Holy, of Right. All of which spoke of sweet, kind, considerate. and overly generous...happily, over my head like a hairnet.

For some time, I'd been comforted with the realization that going backward for me was going forward to the God of my understanding. I told no one...face it, that makes no reasoning mind sense at all. It is, however, quite literally my God-given truth. 

From the moment of realization, I accepted it unto inviting that truth to speak to me...louder, daily, always and all ways. That has been the case only on God's timetable...meaning, slowly, slowly, slowly. But always right on time for my spiritual understanding.

Reading now of periods of darkness, confusion, and struggle being a spiritual-growth necessity, I am comforted and reconfirmed in the reality that spiritually I've been brought home.

Thank you.

OUR NEMESIS IS OUR ANGEL, 1

[The following is a reprint of my post of December 28, 2018.]

The forever lesson to learn: To our reasoning mind, the one arousing our negative side is our nemesis...ah, but spiritually, that one is our angel.

There it is...the key to changing our mind. Then we must needs stay our focus on the power within which is ever on hand to further the opening, as needed.

This is an ongoing spiritual process...an opened mind releases the power for good within. Our detachment frees our thoughts from building self-determined results. That which we are resisting is freely transmuted in our mind...and we are graced with another angel in our midst.

Thank you.

THE HAPPY DANCE AND GOD'S LOVE, I

[The following is a reprint of my post of October 18, 2023.]

The holy gift of thank you is with me this morning.

I'm convinced that thank you opens our mind and our heart simultaneously allowing us to see from the other person's perspective...or to seek to understand their view and stop doubling down on our own hurt and anger, our self-absorbed negativity.

The holy gift of thank you is nonresistance, transmuting the perceived difficulty into our angel. There...the sliver of gold that turns us within to God where there is peace of mind.

Peace of mind, no matter our perception of life's difficulties and troubles, is to love and laugh. Maybe do a little happy dance. Ah, the happy dance...warm and wonderful evidence that God is just crazy about us.

Thank you.

COSMIC...KARMIC...WHATEVER, I

[The following is a reprint of my post of July 26, 2013.]

According to me, there is no surer way to reach understanding of another than to sit in judgment of that other. Seems like within a blink we'll find ourselves doing the exact thing we were sitting in judgment of in the other.

It is cosmic.

Thank you.

GET OVER YOURSELF...BE, I

[The following is a very slightly reworked reprint of my post of July 20, 2020.]

I just reread a sentence of mine from a recent post: Our problem is us...whether we are living from self-will, trying to give love to get love...or from spiritual will, to give love. I need to change that a tish...living from spiritual will is to be love, not to give love.

To presume to give love is...presumptuous. 

Love is not ours to give...love is God and all that God touches...All. Choosing to give love invites self to get involved. No. Love is God in action with, within, with out...in which we seek to be a conscious participant.

The hard work is in being...because it requires we not work, we be. That we not think on it, ponder it, understand it even. We Be. We be the love we already are...love that we were born into. By loving our Father within, we cannot not be the love we seek and already are.

 Actually, get over yourself says it all, doesn't it?

Thank you.

TRUTHS WE TRY TO LIVE BY

The following are a few of the phrases, words and sentences that originally spoke to me. I hope they speak to you, too: 

Be not afraid...it is I. -- John 6:20

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The final word on nonresistance:  You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,' But I say to you, Do not resist one who is evil. -- Matt 5:38-42

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If the only prayer you pray in your life is thank you, that would suffice.  

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The eye with which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me; my eye and God’s eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowing and one love. —Meister Eckhart, Sermon on Sirach 24:30 

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If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend who you hate. -- Nikka, age 6 

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The Dalai Lama said little beyond, My religion is kindness.

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Philosopher Hannah Arendt wrote that isolation breeds radicalization. 

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Before you speak of peace, you must first have it in your heart.  — St. Francis of Assisi 

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God’s message of love is sent into the world in human envelopes.

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Blinding flash of the obvious: Our problem is never the named thing; it is fear of the named thing.

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We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope. Only in this way shall we live without the fatigue of bitterness and the drain of resentment.   —Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Carl Jung: Life, so-called, is a short episode between two great mysteries, which yet are one.

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Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth (Matthew 5:5)

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 Some years ago, E. F. Schumacher said, Small is beautiful.

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Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Blinding flash of the obvious, thy rod and thy staff are love and laughter.

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

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According to the Talmud, every blade of grass has its own angel bending over it, whispering, Grow, grow.

That last quote is very likely my favorite. 

Thank you.

THE GIFT IN FAILING AND FALLING SHORT

Failure and falling short are the best teachers; success has virtually nothing to teach us on the spiritual path. -- Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, February 26, 2021

I suspect that self-determined objectives in spiritual growth are the devil's own handiwork. 

As I read again Fr Richard's quote, I remembered my original response to learning that failure is our best teacher...I thought of deliberately failing so as to hurry up my spiritual growth. There it is, self-determinedly heading down that wrong road again. 

A self-determined objective is nearly always the wrong way to go...face it, "self-determined" tells the tale. If we need think about it, we're already on the less-than right road.

Self-will is just another bump in the road...to fear it or fight it is to crown it the winner for we are relying on self-will to erase self-will. 

Finding the gold in failure and falling short is the gift. It is in the failure, the falling short that the gold is hidden. We think about it, worry, fret and stew until we come to intellectual agreement...and then find that doesn't work either. 

We must fail and fall short not to personally get but to be spiritually lifted. It's akin to the luck of God's draw. 

It is so simple, and the hardest thing I've ever attempted. The paradox is that success comes by way of failing although I never deliberately tried to fail. 

Ah, God's will, God's way just realized...unexplainable by the material mind.

Thank you.

GIVING GOD GRINS, I

[The following is a reprint of my post of  September 17, 2018.]

This morning's blinding flash of the obvious: I can't make a fool of myself with only me seeing it...I be the fool for the benefit of others for however it comes to them to be benefitted.

After that daunting BFO, I read this interesting anecdote about Thomas Merton: When, at his monastery, a complaint was voiced to him, Merton would say, We don’t come to the monastery to get away from suffering; we come to hold the suffering of all the world.

What's fancifully wonderful is that I can equate my making a fool of myself to holding the suffering of all the world.

I say again, if it weren't for us, God wouldn't have any laughs at all.

Thank you.

ACCEPT THE DIRT, LOVE THE GOLD, I

[The following is a reprint of my post of July 12, 2017.]

We must seek to know our own self until we accept that the dirt we find is our gold. By accept, I mean love. Love the dirt, love the gold for they are one...not two sides of the same coin, but one through and through.

With that love, we are turned away from our constant naval gazing, our ego search to find (and correct) our self, and we know: That is God's gift...we know that in our whole and complete trust in the God of our own understanding, our search is over.

We seek no more in our bellybutton or in our brain. We are now living wholly by spiritual standards. We will know spiritual standards for they seek us out.

Thank you.

WHEN WE ARE READY, ALL WILL BE LOVE

Go beyond reason to love - it is safe. It is the only safety. Love all you can, and when you are ready all will be shown to you. -- Thaddeus Golas, "The Lazy Man's Guide to Enlightenment"

There. Short, sweet, and true direction for living a spiritually based life: Go beyond reason to love. 

To go beyond reason is to walk on the dark side...which is righteous even as it sounds wrong. It sounds wrong to our reasoning mind since we were born and raised primarily by the dictates of reason. 

Most of us never make peace with the dark side, never allowing that to be a welcoming to our spiritual growth. The truth, however, just as light is of God so is dark...everything is of God.

Opening our mind to the dark side, albeit scary, is a spiritual act that cannot be experienced through self-will. It requires faith, pure and simple...there is no act as if. 

That faith is already inside of us...it is the capstone that blends the dark and the light with reason left behind. We are connected with the Almighty, and in the peace that passes understanding, we are immersed in love.  

Thank you.  

WE MUST GO BEYOND REASON TO GOD

Each of us must strive for the internal spiritual balancing act between knowing and not-knowing. .... these two spiritual traditions is light and darkness...Together, they create a magnificent form of higher consciousness called biblical faith. -- Father Richard's Daily Meditation 

Learning to walk our own rough and rugged road is our true life lesson...that may be a blinding flash of the obvious. We'll only be certain of it when, not if, we realize its truth...its truth to us personally, to nail it to our Cross.

My current walk along the rough and rugged road is particularly mind-bending because there is no physical pain, no rues, regrets, remorses...only unknown. Living through the unknown gives preference to physical pain. According to me in my moments of self. 

That is when I am still looking back and longing for the freedom of my chains (with thanks to the great Kris Kristofferson). The wholly holy news there is I look back without regrets...I look back in awesome wonder of the Great Spirit that inhabits me...and you and all the world.

Feeling all at sea, not knowing, wondering as I wander...all my yesteryear's deep fears today form my Lantern lighting the way as I stumble, amble, ramble...or just get on down the road. Getting off track to get back on.

BFO...Getting off track is doing it right! 

Nothing turns us to God like realizing we are off-track. Period. We must get off our own track to accept that we are now solidly in need of God's tracks.

We must go beyond reason to God.

Thank you.

ON GIVING GOD A GRIN

Stop trying to figure it out....Your only task now is to set your soul free. -- Saint John of the Cross --
Fr Richard Rohr's Daily Bulletin, July 16, 2025

I am feeling so...empty? un?...un what I do not know. Simply, un.

Unknowing is scary to the reasoning mind which believes it knows, or scarier, should know...and does not.

I choose to believe I am in the grace of unknowing and my need is to welcome that...go beyond reason to love.

We know we cannot will going beyond reason...because it is reason that is determining our need.

I have been in this state of unknowing since 3:00 AM, April 30th. No...that was the blinding flash...all the rest has been me virtually arm wrestling with God about the flash. What to do? How? With what? I stymie myself that way, then pray the Lord come to my rescue.

There it is: Stop trying to figure it out....Your only task now is to set your soul free. [Uh-oh...how?, etc. This is also known by me as giving God a grin.]

Thank you.

TO REALIZE OUR AWAITING FATHER WITHIN

Our brain is the housing for our mind...our brain is our safehouse, our mind is the tenant. 

As the tenant, our mind needs a constant infusion of love and that is all. Worry, fret, and frustration give breath to fear which blocks love. 

Self-will cannot deny fear's voice; it does, however, feed it. Again, and yet again: We must go beyond reason to love. 

The paradox is reason cannot get us there, but reason, made welcome, is our within guide to where we must needs go...to our awaiting Father. 

God is now, ever has been, ever will be within on our behalf.

Thank you.

PASS IT ON...AND PRAY THANK YOU

Only the experience of our own darkness gives us the light we need to be of help to others.... -- Sister Joan Chittister

There. That is the well-disguised gift to those in recovery...in the midst of our darkest times, helping others is nowhere near our reasoning mind. 

Unbeknownst to us, God holds it for us in our heart. 

For others...always and forever for others.

How could it be otherwise? 

We have all we need in the God of our own understanding, and that knowing lives in the spiritual urge to Pass It On.

Thank you.

MY NEMESIS, MY FRIEND,1

[The following is a reprint of my post of July 1, 2016.]

We must needs come to believe unto knowing unto living the truth that hides within us...that our worst fear is our best friend. We hate yet hold to this truth as we realize that nothing else could or would, can or will, goose us to God more consistently...or imperatively.

There...the pain and the peace of God's perfect will.

Thank you.

RIGHT ROAD, RIGHT DIRECTION...LOVE & LAUGH

I am beginning to recognize all...or many...of the truths I intuited over the years are alive and dictating my life right now. 

Hard truths that I have come to realize and accept...in my head...are now marching me around, speaking loud and clear in my ear. Usually after the fact...meaning, I find myself humbled by my unwitting thought, word or action, and when I inventory me later, I can see with a forgiving eye.

There it is...God calling.

Just yesterday I realized that being isolated by the pandemic put me back in my unhealthy comfort zone. I am a loner, and I have a self-enclosed need to stay alone...even as I realize my need for others in my life, I struggle against my inner resistance.

Today, I know God knows my needs...self-determined objectives need not apply. God can and will set my feet on the right road, heading in the right direction...loving and laughing.

Lord, hear my prayer: Thank You.

Thank you.

ON KNOWING BUT KNOWING NOT WHAT

In rites of initiation we teach people that they have to go down before they can possibly go up.*** We have to be swallowed by something bigger than ourselves. *** We have to go into a place where we are not in control, where we can’t fix it, explain it, understand it, or even like it. -- Paraphrased from Fr Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation, July 11, 2025

That I believe, and I believe with as much humility as I have been gifted.

Beginning at 3:00 AM, Wednesday, April 30th, either my rites of initiation began, or I experienced an awake nightmare. Common sense is betting on the nightmare, but spiritual growth is smiling so I'm leaning toward her.

The active experience lasted from April 30 until approximately May 7. Since then, I have felt rock steady, rocketed into orbit, upside-down and backward...yet I have never considered backing off. I felt my feelings without judging, labeling, denying, exaggerating...we're talking grace, pure grace, and I am grateful from my toes to my nose. 

Through it all, I have experienced fear but never doubt. I have been pushed, pulled, directed and misdirected, but I figured if I was in the process of transitioning, I'd best let it...whatever was to come, let it...and pray thank You...which I did and do.

Knowing but knowing not what...is the best I can describe my experience. 

It may be that we will ever be in transition, that there is no set place we get to except a mind at peace. A peaced mind in the midst of our world at war with itself is spiritual growth perfected.

Thank you.

OPENED BY GOD REALIZATION

 My oft-times repeated blinding flash of the obvious is back again; namely, our problem is never the named thing, it is our fear of the named thing. 

The named thing changes with our inner response to outer circumstances...or our self-centered fear (and isn't all fear self-centered?).  Reminds me of the saying everything old is new again for it is a denied fact that fear is always the instigator of our perceived problems. 

How long ago it was that we realized there are only two human emotions. i.e., love and fear. All other feelings, emotions, etc., are just cover, masquerading as real. Continuing spiritual growth can, will and does eradicate them...as we turn within to our spiritual center.  

The only holdback is our want to...do we truly want to be free? 

We must determine within our own self what free mean to us, personally. My free is not necessarily another's free...when we realize that our personal dig begins. 

Begins within...deeper. Ah, there be the rub. 

We cannot find our free-of-self in a book even if it is the Bible we're reading. Our free is already within us, and its true name is God.

We recognize that seek ye first the kingdom of heaven and all these things shall be added unto you are just so many words unless and until we are opened by God-realization.

Thank you.

FORWARD TOWARD THE RED SEA, I

[The following is a reprint of my post of July 15, 2018.]

As I picked up my pen to journal this morning, my guardian angel Aslan wrote, If the path you are walking is fear filled and you're meeting a lot of your own 'No, Never' and they're now 'Well, OK' and your stomach seems constantly atremble and your hands, too, and it seems you're ever doubting your own self...welcome, Beloved, you are on the right path.

To which I say, Who knew? This is the way to hold-your-nose-and-take-a-leap-of-faith that is required for still more spiritual growth? Well, OK.

Thank you.

ALL THE WHILE PRAY THANK YOU...AND MEAN IT

When we can face our own painful situation, we will discover that hidden in the pain is the treasure—a joy that is there for us to experience here and now. -- Catholic priest Henri Nouwen

I am living in my own painful situation right now...is it dementia or is it intense anxiety disorder? My fear says dementia, my life experience says anxiety. 

There it is, the nature of my own personal beast...believing my most feared, then sitting (wallowing?) in fearful favor of that, all the while praying thank You. Thank you. 

Even with a lifetime experience of diagnosed anxiety (which, I grin to remember, once was my worst fear) today I most fear dementia. So, I welcome dementia and trust the God of my understanding to push-pull...love...me through to that result if that be God's will, God's way for me. 

God always has been there for me, cannot not be there for me, and all I need do is Let It Be So. And keep my doctor's appointment today. 

Love and laugh.

Thank you.

ON LEARNING TO TRUST GOD'S GRACE

Trust God, trust Holy Spirit to lead you into all truth. Make your intention clear that you will follow as called, without exception. Make your intention known to God and wait for the Holy Spirit to lead you into the fulfillment of your vocation. -- Dr. Barbara Holmes, Fr Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation

This is the answer to my silent question of God's will, God's way for me...for me now and as I go on with my life experiencing God’s unfathomable grace.

Right now I feel that I am getting back-handed and short-sheeted by my newbie friend. I get to trust that that, too, is God's will, God's way for me today. To accept whatever comes to me from this friendship, which for sure is looking less-than, is for the benefit of both of us and anyone in our circle of consciousness. Again, possibly just words to me now, but doesn't all learning begin with just words?

This is me working on the basics of trust...learning to trust that all the less-than feelings are for the spiritual benefit of each and all.

Walking the rough and rugged road toward still more spiritual growth cannot be self-willed. It is by God's grace that we give over, give up and give in...with reasoning mind questioning and spiritual mind loving and laughing. Please and thank you.

Thank you.

CLAIM OUR OWN AND REAP GOD'S WILL

Effective light does not call attention to itself; rather, it lights up the world…. Any faith that does not manifest itself in works is not faith; it is complacency and self-satisfaction. -- Amy-Jill Levine, Daily Meditation, January 2, 2025  

I am reminded of a long-ago friend's belief; namely, faith without works is fantasy.

That saying has been visiting my thoughts off-and-on recently. I finally stopped long enough to let it speak fully to me, and I realized that it is my self-described "80s" that is doing the nattering. As I have mentioned, when I turned 80, I experienced an entire change in my thinking, feeling, doing...being. 

The gift of change is the choice I was given...love and laugh with hitting 80 or roll around in the self-pity of being 80, i.e., old, used up, no good, etc., ad nauseum. I chose then and continue to choose love and laugh.  

So I love and laugh and learn even more. For instance, I learned the word "works" flips on my guilt switch. My egoic guilt lives to shower shame and thus gets its reward with more guilt. (Just for giggles, I call it gilted guilt.)

Here's God's way for me...since I now know the gift of spiritual communication, I am freely available to listen to anyone in need who reaches out to me. I silently acknowledge God's will so my feedback is (mostly) egoless, and the majority of the time the listener's thinking is upgraded.

We each are given God-gifts. All we need do is claim our own...with thank You.

God is so good to us.

Thank you.

ON BEING SHOWN...WITH LOVE AND LAUGHTER

 In re my April 30, 2025, 3:00 AM bolt to my belly, the thought has occurred to me, and is growing. that that was my Awakening.

I went for physical fix first and got turned around by repeatedly hitting a blank wall with doctors. It probably is too soon to make a solid reckoning, but I am becoming aware of my Journey in this. 

I was push-pulled from doctor to doctor, and I got nada. Then on May 28th I saw a shrink for 2-1/2 hours. He diagnosed me as having my already known Intense Anxiety Disorder, but definitely not dementia, my inner fear. I was not wholly freed, still have anxiety attacks but that confirmed the IAD. 

All of which has firmed up my sense of this as my Initiation deepening...possibly shedding the need for more in-depth material-mind work. I will be led...am being led...am comfortable with letting this be the likely leg of my Journey that I am to walk now.  

If I am off, I will be shown...with love and laughter.

[We are called to] a deeper, bigger, and scarier level of freedom: inner, outer, personal, economic, structural, and spiritual. Surely this is the task of our entire lifetime. -- Fr Richard Rohr

Thank you.

THE GIFT OF UPGRADED BELIEFS

[It is] prophesied what will happen at the last judgment: we shall be judged according to the way we have treated Him in the persons of the poor, the oppressed, the downtrodden. -- Brazilian Archbishop Dom Hélder Câmara, from Fr Richard's Daily Meditation, July 3, 2025

There...the promise: At the last judgment we shall be judged according to the way we have treated all others in the persons of the poor, the oppressed, the downtrodden.

This is the promise that we begin to realize by our changing thoughts, feelings, behavior.

We realize an upgrade to our own beliefs...we begin to believe in the last judgment. 

We find our self wondering, why not believe? We say that it cannot be proven, but if we believe, it is proven...daily in our walking around change of attitude and behavior. 

Without personal effort, we have become a walking-around joystick...we shed contentment for others to absorb. 

The best part, of course, is that the contentment is not personal, it is of God. Ah, but it is our very own.

Thank you.

WITH AN OPEN, HUMBLE HEART

The following, a reprinted note from Kathy Jo W. to Fr Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation, July 2, 2025, is my post for today.

In the note, she nearly perfectly describes how I feel today, who I know today myself to be within and without. All of which is subject to change...upwardly, we dare to believe. 

With sincere appreciation and thanks to Kathy Jo W.:

Where do I belong? Not with the rich and privileged, not with the very poor, not with the liberals and not with the conservatives, not with the intellectuals and successful, not with organized religion and social organizations—not even with some family members. I belong in Christ’s arms, in the space of paradoxes, the space of unknowing, and in the cracks of suffering. That is where I am free to feel God’s loving touch with an open, humble heart. -- Kathy Jo W. 

Thank you.

ALL EVIL STARTS WITH A SINGLE THOUGHT, 1

[The following is a reprint of my post of July 20, 2013.]

My morning blinding flash of the obvious: My only real freedom is the ability to walk free in my own head.

To walk free in my own head is...free of judgment, free of want, free of self. The responsibility for walking free in my own head is mine. I turn to God with the spiritual principles I have been given as my guide and go forward doing those spiritual principles in believing trust that God has my back.

The admonition in the Bible that lusting in one's mind qualifies as adultery may be the real nut of life itself...all evil must start with a single thought.

Thank you.

PONDER, PRAISE AND GO FORWARD, I

[The following is a reprint of my post of June 24, 2020.]

The thought flits by whenever it wants to that I need...something. "Fixing" seems to be the filler there with which I chat God up with little hints like: You've got the power, Lord...use it! Fix me already.

God always answers, You are fixed. This is you at your best. Pray your thank you.

Many years ago I had a blinding flash of the obvious that I was not a leader, would never be a leader, and, except from my egoic mind, had never wanted to be a leader. The relief I felt was unbound freedom.

I saw again this morning that mine is to realize my right size...teeny, wee, smaller than small. I can rest in that knowing that my inner Self is doing for me. 

Another thought flies by: Study the Saints Francis and Clare.

I am freed to ponder, praise, and walk toward the inner edge.

Thank you.

I SHALL NOT WANT, I

[The following is a reprint of my post of June 30, 2020.]

A worldview of enoughness will predictably emerge in us as we realize our naked being in God instead of thinking that more of anything or more frenetic doing can fill up our infinite longing and restlessness. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," June 30, 2020

Meditating on the 23rd Psalm is an ever-changing lifting up within me. I suspect I knew from my eyebrows up when I started my journey taking care of the IRS that the phrase I shall not want would be my base for a peaceful mind. Ah, but it is by looking back that I realize its truth.

Now that I am able to see the whole pattern, I realize how I got through that so basically unruffled...it being a given that anxiety has ever been my go-to tool. (I call it my BFF for it is anxiety that sends me to God quick, fast and in a hurry, so how can I hate it?)

The fact that after the opening words, The Lord is my Shepherd, comes I shall not want tells me now how important those words were then, are now. I shall not want means I have enough...I shall never not have enough as long as I know and show by my living, the Lord is my Shepherd.

Follow the Lord, kill self now...all those words and phrases that we often read just to get beyond them...then learn by rote just to quote...are truth and must be lived. The more we just quote them the less they mean to us personally.

We must live them and be quiet about it for it is in our living...not talking, not thinking...that we realize our naked being in God.

Thank you.

BY FAITH...OR BY GRACE AND BY GOD

 Morning blinding flash of the obvious: Every step forward I take the waters open...

The Red Sea did not open all at once...it opened one step forward at a time...faith is what made that one step forward possible...and thus the opening of the Sea.

Our personal Red Sea does not open all at once...it opens as we take one Step at a time...faith is what makes possible our using the Steps...and thus the opening of the Sea...slowly but inevitably, by faith or by grace and by God.

Thank you.

BE FAITHFUL...GO TO THE EDGE...BELIEVE!

So be faithful! Go to the edge, find the beloved community, build the alternative, the parallel culture, in small communities. -- Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, June 26, 2025

It seems I learn pearls of wisdom and immediately I know of another person who needs to hear that wisdom...rarely at first does it apply to me. Until I sit and wait on the Lord.

In today's world, to sit and wait on the Lord is considered by some as meditation. That's all well and good but it misses my interpretation of meditation. Meditation to me is that which I haven't gotten right yet. 

Ah, but I can...and do...have my daily (often hourly) chats with the Lord. I chat; He listens. Then, for unknown to me reasons, on occasion, the Spirit speaks, and I hear. Those are my High Holy Days.

I admit my unsettled feeling is still with me. I'm calling this God's holding room. I do not get to decide How Long, Oh Lord, I just get to believe. And there it is...my personal logjam: Coming to believe...to Believe...honestly, no holds barred...Believe.

No doubt we've all been there more than a few times...maybe that is the end of the story. Coming to Believe is the rest of our life...for there will always be more we do not know until we know. Then, there's more. 

So be faithful! Go to the edge, find the beloved community, build the alternative, the parallel culture, in small communities.

Thank you.

JOY...A NONVIOLENT WITNESS OF LOVE

Once you experience joy, once you find those inner pathways, it leaves markers toward those inner resources so that you never lose sight of them again…. Dr. Barbara Holmes, "Fr Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation," June 20, 2025

The joy Dr. Holmes refers to is a joy beyond the reasoning mind, beyond the human ability to manufacture it...or birth it.

The human mind usually does not think of joy as anything but feels good, gives me pleasure...until joy in the form of crash-and-burn lifts us from self and opens us to Self.

The spiritual discovery...the pearl beyond price...is our awakening to that which we have never not had! Just as we were born with the potential ability to walk and talk, we had to grow into our capability to use them.

Never discounting the miracle-work of God, we discover our capability is up to us...want-to and belief are the determiners. Enough to just get by? To seek a deeper path? To dare take that path? Still more spiritual growth makes itself known.

It is another God-gift when we discover within our own self that the dark night of the soul is God calling...resist not evil comes of age. This is the first step in loosening our dependence on our own reason. It is a very slow process when, not if, we're doing it right.

Try with a will or fall by the wayside rings true...we are lifted into God-consciousness where God's will, God's way is answered prayer, and all our striving earns its keep.

In the end, all we have is our integrity. So let us stand in it, grounded in the One who renews us each moment and calls us to a nonviolent witness of love. -- Episcopal priest Adam Bucko

Thank you.

THE GIFT OF GRATITUDE, I

[The following is a reprint of my post of June 29, 2017.]

Today my plan is to take a risk...a personal, inside, no-big-deal-to-you-but-huge-to-me risk.

As I opened my "God Calling," the words with God all things are possible were there before me. It just so happens that seemingly every time I have a challenge to meet, those words are given to me, and sometimes from the most unlikely places.

It's not surprising I'd find them in "God Calling" but on this particular day with no preplan or thought? When in doubt, assume the best is my mantra...my risk just transmuted into God's will which makes it feel less risky. Thank you, Lord.

Now, even if my action turns out less than wonderful to my ego's eyes, I can know God's hand was in it...meaning, there will be bennies. I get to sit and wait on the Lord.

If the results are close enough to wonderful, I'll have the gift of gratitude to wrap me in...no better feeling.

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

Thank you.

SPIRIT-INSPIRED REIMAGINATION

...as the wealth gap is only increasing in our world—because those in power want to make it so—we need a radically new way of belonging to one another -- from Fr Richard's Daily Meditation

To use Fr Richard's words, we need spirit-inspired reimagination. I sincerely believe that is what we each need to lean into...to invite the God of our own understanding to inspire our imagination. 

Every morning I pray a prayer For America.... That's the entire prayer. That is inviting the Spirit to flow forth...for America. It being a given, for America is for the world. 

According to me, until we let money do our thinking for us, that's how America rolled. Not to put too fine a point on it, that is it...until we moved money into first place before God, country, family and friends, we were better...people.

Trust God, use your common sense, and quit your bitchin' is my new watchword.

Thank you.

EGO ALWAYS LEGISLATES FOR ITSELF, I

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

Things we learn, love and forget in a heartbeat [and both are from God Calling]:

"It is not necessary that you see Me as others see Me...it is necessary that you see Me, each of you, as supplying all that you personally need."

"It is not circumstances that need altering first, but yourselves, and then the conditions will naturally alter."   

I suspect that the truth in those quotes is so easily forgotten because it is filtered through our reasoning mind...our ego-based reasoning mind, with our free will as its advocate. 

Our ego will ever legislate for itself; God's promises be damned.

Thank you.

CEASE FIGHTING, SUBDUE THE ENEMY WITHIN, I

[The following is a reprint of my post of June 26, 2020.]

We have ceased fighting anything and anybody. -- Anonymous

When first we read or hear that statement, if we're doing it right, we think it is a misprint. It is not. It is truth, and one how-to is in the following statement of Saint John of the Cross: It is great wisdom to know how to be silent and to look at neither the remarks, nor the deeds, nor the lives of others.

Face it, all disagreements, arguments, fights, wars begin with a simple difference of opinion. One judging the other as wrong, the other judging the one as wrong. Fight!

It is fear, of course, that holds judging close. We find we must seek the cause of the fear within us, then seek to understand the thing about the person we are judging...for that, not the person, is the cause of the fear. The thing we fear is within us...what we see is always ourself.

Our help comes in seeking (whether we find it or not) to understand that which we are judging. The seeking is the changeup. Seeking to understand changes our mind...from self, deeper to a higher level within.

When we are perceiving a problem, count on it, it is our interpretation of what we are seeing that is the source of our upset. Upgrade our attitude, upgrade our problem.

To win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill. -- Sun Tzu

Thank you.

RIGHT OR WRONG, DO SOMETHING AND TRUST

I am inordinately glad this morning that I learned long ago that feelings are not facts. I feel like I am running on empty, a long-ago saying that I once lived.

This morning, I am realizing that the downer feeling is not the problem. It is the return of sciatica to my right side that is doing my hurting, thus my thinking. 

Since sciatica is doing its thing again, I make it welcome by not resisting...proving for myself all over again that resist not is my spiritual cure-all. 

Why would I continue to go to doctors for heavy duty drugs? I don't, but I almost always think of that first. I'm just going to call that having an open mind as opposed to stupid.

When you're feeling a quart low, lift up your head and sing. Such good advice. Like most good advice, easier to say, etc. 

Here's me...mentally walking atop a barbed-wire fence, giving good advice, and breathing fear.

Feel the fear and do the next thing...right or wrong, it's the doing that sets us free.

There...God calling.

Thank you.

REVOLUTIONARY GOOD NEWS

I suppose there is no more counterintuitive spiritual idea than the possibility that God might actually use and find necessary what we fear, avoid, deny, and deem unworthy. This is what I mean by the “integration of the negative.” Yet I believe this is the core of Jesus’ revolutionary good news. --Fr Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation, January 19, 2025

I remember when I first read that...it was akin to an unseen hand, righting me, lifting me. There it was spelled out...that which it had taken me years to fully accept about myself; namely, that I get my spiritual growth from the negative view of life events 

My spiritual mantra has long been: If my incurable disease can be a good thing, and it is to me today, then so can this be. "This" of course being whatever I am fearing and trying to pretty up.

That Fr Richard told us its name, the “integration of the negative,” filled me not only with hope but with courage...the courage to accept that if my "negative" way was acceptable to Fr Richard, it must be good enough...period.  The pearl beyond price was his affirming that this is the core of Jesus’ revolutionary good news.

If my ancient legs would allow it, I'd be jumping up and down while singing Hallelujah...but writing it out, owning it, is close enough to perfect for me.

God is so good to us.

Thank you.

GOD'S MYSTERIOUS WAYS...OUR WONDROUS, I

[The following is a reprint of my post of November 22, 2021.]

When you've stumbled--and the guilt, loneliness, and fear come to assault you--if you don't have at least one good friend, or if you have not developed a prayer life where you know how to find yourself in God instead of in your own feelings, you will simply retrench and reassert your correctness. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," June 13, 2016

I love to note and note again: "When you've stumbled...." When, not if.

We only parade our victim-self when we stumble and call ourself all manner of ugly...or find someone to blame and shame for our ugly. There is no God there. There is only self, glorified in our own feelings of less-than...unloved, unwanted, unneeded, unappreciated...and loving our hurt of it. Why would we ever let that go?

I'm a believer that it is the stumbling that is the root of thank you.

When, not if, we stumble, trip, fall, make a blithering fool of our self, thank you is the Velveteen Rabbit that hugs us, kisses us, calls us Beloved. Ah, and opens us to God's love and laughter...now ours.

God works in mysterious ways to ensure our life is wondrous.

Thank you.

IT IS FEAR THAT AWAKENS US TO GOD

Consider it pure joy whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. -- Dr. Barbara Holmes from James 1:2–3

This resonates with me today because I am just coming out of one of my dark nights of the soul.

On reading that, my heart jumped (or pumped) for joy...because I realized as I went through this nearly month-long dark night that it was for my spiritual growth. Realizing that even while living through it does not give peace to our fearful mind...face it, fear is fear and knowing it is for our benefit is a plus but does not negate the feelings of gutbucket panic. And why would it?

It is the fear that we must walk through that brings God inro our heart, our soul, our body and our brains. It is our assurance that God has us in the palm of his hand...no deeper gift is needed.

I'm well on the road to peace of mind, but I invite fear to hang in there with me...I'm living proof that nothing turns us to God faster than fear. Who can hate that?

Thank you.

LOVE AND LAUGH WITH GRATITUDE

 Now we're reading that AI is about to wipe out human life...humanity as we know it will be gone.

Artificial Intelligence...according to me, its name rebuts the current contention...was born in the human mind...human intelligence is of God. 

Which isn't to say that AI won't wipe out human life as we know it. It might be the next step up in human life...just like when we feel at sixes and sevens, upside-down and backwards, and we get to the other side and realize we were heading in the right direction all the time.

We need to go through the maze of what we know to find the unknown before us...to continue to walk through to the far side, the unknown, or need to know, side.

There is no peace without surrender and surrender is the scare tactic that keeps us striving to stay in place...lost in self-will as it were.

AI's ways are as mysterious as God's ways only God's ways are always for our good, and AI's ways are dicey at best. According to me.

These are the ramblings of a person just coming into AI consciousness...reminds me of my go-to line when I'm in over my head: Knowing nothing, I speak freely. 

God is so good to us...face it, without God's grace. we'd never know to first laugh at our own self.

Thank you.

LEFT WITHOUT A HOPE...GOD FILLS THE VOID

The biblical revelation is about awakening. It’s about realization, not performance principles. We cannot get there, we can only be there....  [Fr Richard's Daily Meditation, June 8, 2025]

This tells us we are already there...when we wake up to it which often feels like three days after we are dead.

To come to believe this as our own truth is to live in elevated consciousness...I wonder if living in elevated consciousness means we still have worries, frets, self-centered fears, only with a sense of spirituality...fancy words for a more-or-less peaced mind.

We pray for perfect peace but in this world...in the material world...I doubt that perfect peace is what we really want...mainly because we would not recognize it if we got it. We'd probably start taking our temperature p.d.q. for fear of covid or worse.

According to me, perfect peace is living in this world with less self-centered fears, but those we still have are for our benefit...they head us toward God. 

Their only purpose, self-centered fear's only purpose, is for our still more spiritual growth. Without its push-pull, we'd no doubt wind up robbing banks or shooting our own self in the back of the head. Because, why not? Where's the double-edged sword when we have our own idea of perfect peace, and it comes up boring?

Going for God's will, God's way is our ever-opening mind to Uh-Oh, Look Out!, Detour! and on the other side, finding this, too, is for our benefit. Ah, but we must walk through the danger-zone to get to the other side, and we cannot walk through it alone...it only feels like that. 

There...the basic source of our fear: Left all alone without even a hope left for us.

There, too, is God's will, God' way...left without a hope, God fills the void, and we are Home. 

Thank you.

THE WAY WE WERE...WHAT A HOOT!, I

[The following is a very slightly altered reprint of my post of June 14, 2012.]

An Englishman thinks he is moral when he is only uncomfortable. -- George Bernard Shaw

Every time I read that, I crack up, and since it is in one of my daily readers, I read it once a year. Of course, the reason it tickles me is I can see the truth of it...about Englishmen. Really all I need do is change the "moral" to "spiritual" and put my name at the top of that, and there's me.

There's the gift...because I do know that is me and that is funny, and I wouldn't have always known that. Given that one of my greatest fears was being thought a fool and laughed at for it, I can now know relief that I see me there and giggle.

I guarantee that is nothing I ever prayed for...or knew that I was praying for. Just another of God's mysteries...if we will turn our will and life over to the care of God, He will clean us up. Ah, we are now free to crack our own selves up laughing at the way we were!

Thank you.

REALITY IS OF GOD WITH US, WITHIN US, I

[The following is a reprint of my post of February 11, 2024.]

Blinding flash of the obvious: It is not positive thoughts that determine our fate, it is the reality of God in those thoughts that is the determiner...God, with us, within us, that we are dependent on whether we know it or not.

What about our negative thoughts? They, too, determine our fate. Ah, but they are egoically directed downward into the stagnant pool of self-interest. There is no love there.

Positive thoughts are directed, led and guided, by God...for the benefit of all.

Thank you.

UN...NOT BY SELF-WILL BUT BY GRACE

God's will is not about protecting us from parading our arrogance, God's will is about learning humility when we get caught parading our arrogance. 

There's an excellent example of why God's will is not something without thought we pray for...to get caught parading our arrogance is a natural fear. To seek to parade our arrogance in order to get still more spiritual growth is a corruption of spiritual and natural instincts. 

To show our ignorance (which is arrogance stripped bare)...inadvertently, from neither fear nor favor...is to live naturally, humbly if you will...not by pondering nor by self-deducing...the bottom line of which is usually what's in it for me?...but by grace.

Grace...undefinable, unself-willable, un...that may be my new definition of God's will, God's way...simply un. Ah, therein perfect.

Thank you.

ON THIS NOTHING WE NOW LIVE

You have come to that point in consciousness where you are seeking for what the world calls the intangible. When you came to a spiritual teaching, you knew in advance, or soon learned, that you were going to obtain nothing in the external realm. What you were seeking was the Invisible, that which cannot be seen, heard, or known. And yet you were seeking to be able to see, hear, and know just that. Through that seeking, you are coming to know that which is unknowable, see that which is invisible, hear that which is inaudible. And on this Nothing you now live. -- Joel Goldsmith, "Leave Your Nets"

It seems that Joel Goldsmith quote calls to me on a fairly regular basis. 

I have posted it more than a couple of time, and here it is again...speaking clearer, sinking deeper, enveloping my Soul. 

All of that feels as scary to my reasoning mind as it did the first time I experienced it. The difference being, today I inner-hear it for what it is...the clarion call acknowledging this less-than life experience I am growing through is God's will, God's way.

Ego needs question: If this is God's will, God's way, when does the sense of peace, love and more peace step up and out?

The spiritual answer: This is it...that is why it is known as 'the old rugged cross.'  

There...enough said.

Thank you.

THE WELCOMING PRAYER

The following, today's post, was shared with me by a friend...thank you, so much, Pastor Mac!

The Welcoming Prayer

—Mary Mrozowski

Welcome, welcome, welcome.

Welcome everything that comes to me in this moment

Because I know it for my healing.

I welcome all thoughts, feelings, emotions, persons, situations and conditions.

I let go of my desire for security.

I let go of my desire for approval.

I let go of my desire for control.

I let go of my desire to change any situation, condition, person, or myself.

I open to the love and presence of God and

The healing action and grace within.

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

I feel I have made a breakthrough in consciousness. The tell is how light I feel when I speak of that dark three weeks, as opposed to how bleak and dreary...not to mention scared...I felt as I lived through it. 

I now am freed to let God's will, God's way come to fruition just as it would have anyway...but my mind is not cluttered with fear...as in, the fear of moving...where?...when?...stay in this area?...or?...etc., ad nauseum. 

The outcome of my freed-up mind is the re-realization that the Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.

That was the quiet word that came to me so many years ago and has carried me since. Let me be clear...that realization did not leave me; it enwrapped me even as fear shouted in my ears. 

I suspected then, I do not doubt now, that this was part of the initiation process we are advised of even as we start on our still more spiritual growth journey.

The material-mind gift is the realization that I need to buckle down with my newly realized need for people in my life...as in, moving my body out, inviting others in.

God, You are so good to me.

Thank you.

LIVING WITH TRUST AMID LIFE'S UNKNOWNS

In 2025, we invite you to reimagine Jesus’ timeless metaphors, exploring how to live deeply and with trust amid life’s unknowns — Richard Rohr's Daily Meditations, June 7, 2025

There...sanity described: exploring how to live deeply and with trust amid life’s unknowns. That describes my life since coming to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. 

This may well be what I've been living through since the sharp pain in my belly at 3:00 AM on April 30th. "This" being the process of being restored to the sanity of the God of my understanding. 

At one time, my idea of sanity was to never have a worry, fret, doubt or fear...I suspect that is fairly opposite to God's idea of sanity, else why would we need God?

My blinding flash of the obvious, nothing turns me to God faster than fear, speaks true.

We don't welcome fear for that's a fool's prayer, nor do we deny fear with affirmations, bells and whistles. We feel the fear even as we are enwrapped in God's love...physically fearful, mentally safe in the arms of the Lord.

According to me.

Thank you.

GOD'S WILL ALWAYS PREVAILS...IN TIME, I

[The following is a reprint of my post of June 29, 2012.]

When our free will counters God's will, our free will always wins...but God's will always prevails in time.

Since God's will is going to prevail, why not accept it first thing? Probably because the ego, where our free will lives, always needs something to go up against...to get over on.

That's the bottom-line reason for discipline, discipline, and still more discipline. Why we consciously try to put the other person first, why we try to admit our errors asap, why we want to want God's will, rather than our own will, to be done in our life.

We have learned that our will is not our friend, that God's will is. We rein in our ego wants so that God can "go before us to make the crooked places straight."

We have to start somewhere, and we will seldom start when we're faced with a real ego-reducing crisis.

Thank you.

ON UNKNOWINGLY KNOWING...PRAY THANK YOU

 At the table that Jesus prepares, all may assemble: In his body we are made anew, a community of faith—the living and the dead. In our presence, the Son of Man gathers up the remnants of our memories, the broken fragments of our histories, [and] judges, blesses, and transforms them. His Eucharistic banquet re-orders us, re-members us, restores us, and makes us one. -- Theologian M. Shawn Copeland, Richard Rohr's Daily Meditations, June 5, 2025

For whatever reason...for whatever reason unknown to me...as I read that paragraph, I knew, and I knew I knew, its meaning...its inner, true, meaning.

I very much doubt I'll be able to express that insight...to write it out...to make it clearer than it already is to those it speaks to. 

It spoke to me...deeply and truly...and I cannot even think of the first word to write to explain it for another to understand. Face it, it explains itself to whomever it explains itself to, all others get in line...it will come when, not if, we are ready.

I am not church people nor am I a so-called religious person, but I do believe. I believe what I believe by the-God-of-my-own-understanding...which, the older I get and the deeper my inner-person consciousness is raised, is what Jesus taught. I'm good with that, so be it. 

The inner person is the soil in which God has sown the divine likeness and image and in which God sows the good seed, the roots of all wisdom, all skills, all virtues, all goodness—the seed of the divine nature. -Meister Eckhart

Thank you.

TO HAVE AN ACTUAL CHANGE OF HEART

What we need is a requirement that those who wish to enter actually have a change of heart—that they don’t sneak in to accomplish their own agenda, but rather that they genuinely want to learn a new way of thinking, feeling, living, and being in 'the pastures of God.' -- Brian McLaren, Fr Richard's Daily Meditations, June 4, 2025

Awareness of this "change of heart" is what I believe I have been living since 3:00 AM, April 30th, when I was awakened by a sharp jab in my stomach. Unknowingly, my change began.

As I have been writing, this is and has been a scary journey. But I have not turned back...on I walk with doubt, without doubt, scared, peaced...up until this past week when a sureness settled on me (with shaking hands remaining).

I am not wholly peaced, I am settling. Settling in the new mindset that has been given me...I do not have the words yet to adequately tell my feelings...scared while sensing peace underneath? 

This I believe: Peace underneath is the Christ within.

Thank you. 

REASON JUDGES; SPIRITUAL LAUGHS AND LOVES

Unbeknownst to me, my silent prayer has been "Let me blossom."

The silent answer this morning, "This is me blossomping."

I only love it...I am blossomping. God's will, God's way!

I'm just going to see blossomping as me, as mine as I blossom, bloom and flower. With all the manure necessary to get me to full blossom, sans ping. Or with ping leading the way...what do I know?

My reasoning mind just kicked in...to let me know this is nonsensical, "don't publish!"

Pish-tosh...God's will, God's way seldom makes sense aborning. I mean, give over, give up, give in? There...blossoming full grown.

We get God's answer by doing God's will, God's way.

Thank you.

BE WILLING TO SEE DOWN AS UP, I

[The following is a reprint of my post of May 29, 2019.]

Say we make a decision to turn our will and our life over to the care of God as we understand Him...the hard lesson we learn is that leaves all to God. Every jot and tittle, every breath we take is left to the care of God.

God will ensure a happy return to all of our endeavors...ah, but it, that happy return, will not be all in our singular favor. It will be in the favor of all, which, to our reasoning mind, does not look like we've come out the "winner." It may well appear that we've finished at the end of the line.

That's how we learn if we're asking God to help us "win," meaning to fulfill a want or to come out ahead, we are ego-talking and only our self can hear.

God's will for each of us benefits each of us...the pearl beyond price is when we realize our happiness lies in the fact that God favors not one but all to our individual need.

In losing, we win...and the meek shall inherit the earth.

Thank you.

FEEL FEAR...LOVE AND LAUGH...AND FEEL FEAR

'Where can my negative energy go?' is the enduring human question; it must be exported somewhere. Sadly, it never occurs to us that we are the negative energy, which then sees and contributes to that negative energy in others. The ego refuses to see this in itself. -- Fr Richard's Daily Meditations, June 1, 2025

As I have written recently, I have been experiencing a time of trial in the extreme...as in feeling pea green purple petrified most of the time with the possibility of more hanging fire. I know this has been my well-earned experience, necessary for my growth...spiritual and mental.

On the surface, it was all fear of dementia. A blinding flash of the obvious has hinted that there is a deeper cause...my job, before I ever start, is to quit digging. 

There's the gift...the feeling of fear is not removed; realizing the presence of God is strengthened.   

Not knowing, not seeking the answer, just letting whatever comes be from God for my benefit is accepting that I shall feel fear. The long-ago gift of I feel fear, God is here bears fruit...still, yet, again.

Trust. I get to put to use the trust I have, that I have earned through hard work, through harder earned faith, and grace. Probably in the reverse order. 

Count on it...more will be revealed. Meaning more love and laughter are already in line, ready for my need. 

Thank you.

ON MATURE SPIRITUAL GROWTH, 1

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

The ego gets what it wants with words. The soul finds what it needs in silence. -- Fr. Richard Rohr

There it is: The essence of our reasoning mind's resistance to powerlessness. Our ego's path out is through our reasoning mind; our soul has no path...in its transparence, it flows freely, cannot be cornered or captured...it is. It simply is.

We often hear that mature spiritual growth is all about detaching. Letting go of our self-perceived needs...embracing our self-perceived lack. When we are no longer talking that but are, in fact and without thought, doing that...we will know mature spiritual growth. And heading in the right direction counts.

Thank you.

LET THE DEVIL TAKE THE HINDMOST

One of the great surprises on the human journey is that we come to full consciousness precisely by shadowboxing, facing our own contradictions, and making friends with our own mistakes and failings - Fr Richard's Daily Meditations, May 30, 2025

Since April 30th at 3:00 AM, my journey has felt rugged, rocky, scary, with the question is this self-will or God's will playing constantly in my thoughts. 

Not knowing, and knowing I do not know, and becoming open to that as my new way of life has been really scary...and yet, thank You, God, I have continued walking forward...toward that which has been my Light for some 50 years

By that Light, I am assured that I am on good ground...hunkered down with the God of my own understanding and Jesus, Mary and Joseph (emphasis on Joseph). 

I accept that I'm not fear-free and likely never will be, but this is the new Way I get to walk which I've suspected, and even talked about, since I turned 80.

I'm good to go...all the while my reasoning mind is nattering, wait, this may be X, Y and/or Z, none right, all scary. I let it natter. Shaking like a leaf in a high wind, I move forward...toward God, with God.

 

Let the devil take the hindmost...as my grandma used to say. 

Thank you.

UNKNOWINGLY LIVING GOD'S WILL, GOD'S WAY

Blinding flash of the obvious: I am living today my still more spiritual growth by the fear I am experiencing...neither attempting to avoid the fear, nor praying for it to just go away.

A therapist was recommended to me, and I had my appointment with him yesterday. In my mind, we were to discuss the possibility of the onset of dementia...or my fear of that. He did not get that message, and we discussed my past and how I got where I am today which he diagnosed as just fine and canceled the scheduled next three appointments. 

BUT...we only got to my fear of dementia in the last 30 minutes. I told him of my two examples of total mind blanks which happened months apart. He flat out named those as old-age forgetfulness but recommended a medicine for sharpening the brain in old age. I intend to get it and use it.

Since I consciously did not direct that session, I accept that I am being led by God's will, God's way. I am experiencing the difference between God's will being done through me and my self-determined objectives being done by me. I am not self-determining, maybe holding back in fear of that...with that, too, being God's will, God's way.

In living in this newer consciousness today, I realize I have been here far longer than I have allowed me to believe...again, God's will, God's way and for my benefit.

Thank you.

'TWAS GRACE THAT TAUGHT MY HEART TO FEAR

[The following is a reprint of my post of May 27, 2017}

Morning blinding flash of the obvious: We must become un-selfed. We cannot un-self our self. We are un-selfed by grace.

Hmmm. I wonder if inadvertently un-selfing our self, i.e., those moments when we show our butt in public, count Up There in the great beyond...or if they are just ego-worms for our always a-quart-low humility.

If that is all they are, ego-worms, then that, too, is our gold for who's kidding whom?...if we think we can say about humility, "I have enough, thank you," then we're lying blind. Clueless in a word.

I was reminded recently of a time nearly 35 years ago when I was publicly picking up a small medal for eleven years of service with my fellowship. I was talking with a lady who was very new to the fellowship, and she noted as I held the medal that my hands were shaking. I was less than happy because to my mind shaking hands detracted from my looking good for eleven years of service.

As mentioned, I was reminded of that recently, and I was reminded of it by that very same lady who has been around now for 35 years. We realized together that my shaking hands...showing scared...at eleven years gave her permission to be as scared as she was at one year, and we were both warmed and awed by that.

My fear was precisely the gift she needed, that very fear that I would have traded in a heartbeat in order to look hip, slick and cool, i.e., phony. There. I was un-selfed by grace; my friend was reassured by grace, and that grace was made manifest by fear...hers and mine.

We have laughed about the incident over the years, but it took all of the 35 years for us to tie the bow on it. It's a wonderful thing that the bow will continue to be tied as we open our mind and memory to other ego-worms in order for the gold to show forth there.

Thank you.

FEAR...ANOTHER OF GOD'S PRICELESS GIFTS

I am living through reasoning mind's scary time right now...a personally scary time. I believe I have already made the turn, heading up now be it ever so slowly...thank You.

It's all about living and breathing God's will, God's way which is to say moving behind reason to attain spiritual. And re-re-realizing...our thinking cannot get us there. 

And still we ponder. 

Blinding flash of the obvious: Spiritual growth is so slow, such tiny steps, that it is nigh impossible to realize it until long after we got it. 

All my efforts were useless yet priceless...without effort we stay stuck, with effort we get stuck deeper. 

Being stuck in hopeless, helpless and pea-green purple petrified brought the dawn of realization: Doing it wrong materially headed us in the right direction spiritually...to enable us to hear God calling.

Feel the fear and do it anyway. - Anonymous (and priceless)

Thank you.

GOD WILL FLOW FORTH, I

{The following is a reprint of my post of December 18, 2014.]

Trying too hard to "get it" is as detrimental to spiritual growth as dismissing it all as happy talk. Mainly because we can't "get" spiritual growth. Seeking to get is the ego-victory mind determining and dictating. 

As long as that is the case, we will be seeking our wants...dressed up pretty with a lot of spiritual-sounding words, but still, they will be wants.

Wants are of the ego, needs are of God.

We have within, at our core, the Spirit...God. If we are seeking still more spiritual growth, our need is to detach from our reasoning mind, go to our center, and open our heart, our mind, our Soul. God will flow forth...in Its own good time.

According to me.

Thank you.

GRATITUDE IS SPIRITUAL GROWTH

We have ceased fighting everything and everybody. -- Anonymous

Previous paradoxical lesson, which I am relearning today: Our worst fear is our greatest friend...when we fight it, we lose. 

It is in losing that God-power is opened to us...powerless and defeated, we are unknowingly already on the rise by grace and by God. 

In the rising, gratitude, thank You, is released and becomes our forever go-to.

Thank you.

GOD'S WILL, GOD'S WAY OR JUST DO IT

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

My beyond reason blinding flash of the obvious: My fate may be to be as un as I fear. 

There are many uns, mine being unloved, unwanted, unneeded and unappreciated...and that may be my gold ring. To make peace with that possibility is the resisting goal in my reasoning mind. 

I suspect that is the invited goal of the God of my understanding, and I doubt that I can. The always solution, pray thank You and keep on trucking.

With my favorite, resist not evil, ever present and now whispering loudly, I re-realize my need to actively love the unlovable. There...my now-time is to love, and that is all. 

Again...Thy will, Thy way, please and thank You.

Thank you.

THE HIDDEN JOY OF FEAR...GOD'S PEARL

Blinding flash of the obvious: For all the recent feelings of terror I have experienced, with yet the possibility of a need to go through more, thank You. They have brought me...will ever bring me...closer to You...to the higher consciousness untapped within me.

Passing thought: Today I feel the inner joy of fear. Whaa?  Yes! Apparently, I am living the fact that Nothing Turns Me To God Faster Than Fear.

I have said, repeatedly, that very truth, that nothing turns me to God faster than fear, and I lived it...until now when I realize that "living it" has grown in a new direction.

They are useless words, "fear not," for fear lives on its own. But God, a power, or The Power, is greater than any feelings, facts or fantasies that fear uses, but does not own.

Since April 30th at 3:00 AM, I have experienced every scare tactic that I See Me has to throw...and God has never left me. I admit that it felt like it, but I inner knew that this, too, was God's will, God's way, and I don't even doubt that there is more to come. 

I will shake like an Aspen and cry like a wounded robin., but this I know: I will survive on the good side of God's will, God's way. The actual experience of God in our life counts.

There...that is close enough to perfect for me if not to my reasoning mind, which is firmly wedded to easy, effortless and rewarding...which is another gift of love and laugh.

Thank you.