FOR AMERICA...BY GOD'S GRACE

Blinding flash of the obvious: For America. This seemingly bedeviled time that we are living through is for America...by grace and by God for the melting pot of America.

We honor the inner self which is for good forever, and in today's consciousness, specifically, for the good of America. Grateful we are to God as God pulls us through the muck and mire of the current consciousness of monied self-interest that greed has produced. 

Many of us have committed to dedicate three minutes of silent time each morning toward God's perfect healing of America. All are invited to join us as we silently say For America, and whatever flows from our consciousness then is from God for our country.

Whether we know it or not, God has already healed the perceived problem...we are in the process of realizing unto doing our part for our country. The consciousness of each of us is being raised with our only concern now being to know it and show it...silently we step out in faith for our country.

Our self-protective shield has been stripped away as we embrace God's will, God's way with grace and gratitude for America.

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 they will still 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.

OLD MADE NEW...PEACE AS SPIRITUAL REALITY

This [so-called negative] faith ... is not a moral code or an ideology or a quarrel. It is rather a performance of transformation, of old made new, of lost found, of dead made alive. -- Biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann 

Walking this "negative faith" that I'm now experiencing is the test...here's me thinking that coming to believe in it was the hard part. It wasn't easy, but it was a cakewalk compared to living it. The last two days of my walking it is my confirmation...meaning that nothing was "going my way." 

The good news is I pray my thank you with every less-than breath I take...the equally good news is I smile at my disgruntled feeling as I pray thank you.

What we tend to forget or discount is the material mind...it is always with us, is always ready to forge ahead with or without our consent. Not resisting it is the spiritual stumper-lesson. 

Yesterday, I had the equivalent of a Bad Day at Black Rock, the events of which I shared with a friend, and touched it no more. Went to bed, slept very well, awoke this morning feeling fine. Got up, and every step I took, every move I made seemed to be a foreordained misstep. 

Never forgetting my thank you, I did take a timeout to ponder if I might be into self-will, or if this is the higher level of consciousness that I recently realized. 

I recalled Fr Richard saying, We don't get to God by doing it right, we get to God by doing it wrong, and I was peaced...primarily because I saw all my so-called wrongs were gifts. Gifts for my spiritual growth...just another necessary lesson learned.

New adage: We don't get lessons learned all sugar-coated and wrapped in rainbows. That comes later...wrapped in spiritual reality when we're doing it right.

God's will, God's way needs no sugarcoat...peace as reality comes with a smile.

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 eyes and shine.

Thank you.

GOD IS WITH US, WITHIN US, FOR OUR BENEFIT

When a good therapist, a wise and holy (meaning whole or healed) person, or a totally accepting friend becomes our chosen mirror, we are, in fact, being healed! -- Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, January 27, 2025

Today's Daily Meditation is a direct answer to the anxiety I awoke this morning feeling...fear filled, actually. 

While my belly hung fire, my head knew it for not only today's political atmosphere, which is affecting all of us whether we know it or not, but the various personal to me non-answered to-dos hanging over my head, i.e., taxes/correction and need to get a tax preparer, plus the car which is in the middle of being cleaned up, plus the dailies of 80s. 

In re feelings, belly on fire takes the lead over head knowledge every time. There's my thank you: That is what faith is for, to bring us back to the peace that passes understanding.

Faith it is that recognizes reality: I truly am on the cusp of egoic mind/higher consciousness. Reasoning mind is the ego's home and sometimes right on target, i.e., giving a feeling of safety; but I am, and have been since I began seeking still more spiritual growth, being raised higher than reasoning...up to spiritual, to God-sense. Without reason's safety-net answer up to spiritual's faith on the hoof is God's will, God's way. 

It does feel scary, that's why what I read each day seems to be a direct answer to my fear-filled thoughts...wait! It's not seems to be, it is a direct answer. God does know before it happens on the material plane exactly what we need...our peace is already waiting for us to hold our nose and take the leap of faith that we learned of so many years ago.

God is with us, within us, on our side and for our benefit always and all ways...thank You.

Thank you.

STAYING IN THE NOW...BY GRACE AND BY GOD

Some time ago, I wrote with our thank you, we accept all that comes our way by letting it pass on by. As mentioned, that was written some time ago...I am still learning how to. 

The big surprise to me is that is good...the spiritual lesson is that slowly is how we learn God's will, God's way. Then when we get it, it feels like a blinding flash of the obvious. 

Looking back, I get that this is an example of head-truth versus living-it truth. From my eyebrows up, I wrote Truth, but my feet hesitated to head in that direction...it's as though my toes were tacked to the floor.

I'm slowly accepting that all the "betterment" I pray for is already bettered. I am as good as I am going to get right now. Ah, the secret of a happy life probably lives in now. 

To live in the now is close to perfection. The big lesson we're learning is that perfection is of God thus a whole different way of life than we know. 

My incurable, progressive disease was the bane of my life until God took it up...and now it is my pearl beyond price, the gold standard of my heart and soul.

I think of today's political situation, and I know the first thing I need is to stay my head and heart in the now by praying thank you. Then I can do the next thing and, by grace and by God, accept all that comes by letting it pass on by.

Thank you.

FINDING SPIRITUALITY THROUGH THE NEGATIVE

Entering the spiritual search for truth and for ourselves through the so-called negative, dealing squarely with what is—in ourselves, in others, or in the world around us—takes all elitism out of spirituality. —Richard Rohr

The following (an entry by Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis in Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation today) describes a spiritual want-to/need of mine:

What is a starting place to look at the world through someone else’s eyes and have empathy for them?… Who’s the one person that you want to understand better and want to learn from and perhaps also teach? Pick a person to start with. I’m not saying go to the person that will make you feel in danger or in harm, but somebody who can be a conversation partner about what love needs to be now for all of us. Will you consider that one person and then maybe another who can increase your tribe, help you to see things differently, help you to love more profoundly? A neighbor, not exactly like you, but a neighbor, nonetheless. Let’s try that, won’t you? ...Dare we? Dare I?

Thank you.

NOT TO DISCOVER BUT TO RETRIEVE, I

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

It is such a comfort to me, when a problem looms, to remind myself that that problem has already been solved.   
 
Usually, I want to get in the midst of it, figure it out (to my advantage), get all concerned to agree with me, but I need to quiet my mind, to listen. To listen...not for the answer to my perceived problem (for in God's world, there is no problem), but for the discipline of simply sitting quietly and listening.

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

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

All we need remember is the promise: Be not afraid...it is I. -- John 6:20

Thank you.

LIFE IS GOD'S WILL, GOD'S WAY...WITH DETOURS

I journaled this morning that I am "going along with" I know not what...all my morning rituals are upended... I am hovering over the raised consciousness/material-mind fantasy line...I believe? hope? fear?

Important: This morning I sensed not is my sacred word right now. I know not how or why, I let it be, preparing to receive.

I then read in my God Calling: Learn to shut yourself away in My Presence--and then, without speaking, you have those things you desire of Me. Strength -- Power -- Joy -- Riches.

My sense is that I am on the cusp...on the cusp of spiritual/material breakthrough...feeling what I feel and questioning nothing. I picture "x -" i.e., question not which I take as my now mantra...maybe just for today, maybe not...x -😊

Flashing, near forgotten, light: I do have American Indian blood in me...it is my sacred bloodline, the ribbon running through my life. I know nothing further for certain sure, but I do have much family lore which I treasure. 

This, too, is God's will, God's way...turning me to Him always and all ways.

 Thank you. 

THE UPSIDE-DOWN WISDOM OF SPIRITUALITY

I awoke this morning with a strong sense of something ain't right...as in, Trump consciousness is all around me.

Yesterday I zoomed to a 10:30 AM meeting, and I did very little else all day which means God consciousness was working with me whether I knew it or not. For example, in the afternoon I began "The Barn," the story of Emmitt Till and the horror of grown men murdering through torture a 14-year-old boy...which led in the civil rights movement. 

This caused me pause to consider and confirm my long-held belief that the bad we bring into our world is transmuted by God into good for the world. (Not to put too fine a point on it, but I perceive U.S./us in the Trump era now.)

Thank you, that I am feeling askew...off...for it is my sense of something ain't right that is my golden goose. I do not know my new, i.e., right, answer in this Trump-bedeviled state we are in, but there is the grace of gratitude opening me to God's will, God's way. 

Today, I do something about something, i.e., clean my own lighthouse; be more religious about giving my three minutes daily For America; contact someone about something for the benefit of both of us in mind. Most important, practice gratitude for God's unlimited gifts. 

I caught a glimpse of this yesterday and just now realized the more complete message: Thy will, Thy way always and all ways. 

Thank you. 

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

I went to bed last night feeling swamped by Trump's presidency by his first actions, specifically, pardoning all of the January 6th offenders of America, setting them all free.

I awoke this morning recalling resist not evil, a favorite line from the Bible. My job is to not resist Trump and Trump's ways. 

Since it did happen, and by President Trump's actions, we get to accept it as God's will, God's way. Clearly this is not right to our thinking which is the tell: It is our beacon-call to go deeper to be lifted higher, to know, to realize, God's will, no matter Trump's egoic actions.

Just as Hitler's actions brought Germany down for it to be lifted up (out of Hitler's control), I believe that we, through Trump's egoic, money-honey mindset, are being brought up to God consciousness deeper.

What we need to resist not, to welcome in truth, is that this inner journey will be as long and as painful as our resistance makes it. We resist not feeling like we are getting the bejesus beat out of us (thank you, John Lewis) with God's will, God's way in our head and in our heart.

Our need now is to realize that we are open to God's new way of being for us. Our thinking, feelings, actions are changed, and we choose to live anew for we have been spiritually changed.

Thank You for helping me DO as You lead me...I do not want to 'select,' I want to follow and when, not if, wrong promptly admit it, and turn again to welcoming God's will, God's way. 

Thank you.

RIGHT ROAD, RIGHT DIRECTION...LED BY LOVE

Fr Richard describes how loving our enemies is a practice of 'integrating the negative,' accepting what we find unacceptable within ourselves.... The lesson: Be all inclusive as our God is all inclusive and all merciful. -- Richard Rohr Daily Meditation, January 20, 2025

For some time now, I have been saying, repeatedly and fearlessly, I am alone, I am all alone.

This morning came the realization, I am alone to be with Jesus for I shall never have a feeling for Jesus, the inner knowing of the miracle of Jesus as promised to us, by simply eyebrows up knowing of Jesus. I have learned...grown into...the reality of his counterintuitive words as my comfort, and I rely on them...most especially resist not evil. 

I am getting closer to loving my enemy...I am nearing active loving (which to me is not resisting) as opposed to passive, i.e., thinking it, talking it. I can accept that the word "enemy" no longer fits my thinking...but it is an apt descriptor, so I use it. 

Trust became my conscious watchword a while back, and I see it walking with me every day in every way now. I see it when I look back and am gobsmacked by my new view. As it is happening, that is me living...who makes note as live is happening?

My consciousness has become all inclusive...my material mind does the processing for my daily use.

Oh, an image: Joseph doing the necessary carpentry, fitting me to the Word of the Lord. Thank You.

I am on the right road heading in the right direction...I am following the Christ with others following me following the Christ...whether any of us consciously know it or not. 

God loves us so much.

Thank you.

GOOD NEWS: 'INTEGRATION OF THE NEGATIVE'

For whatever reason, I am moved to give props now to the book that began the raising of my consciousness. Originally published in 1972, The Lazy Man's Guide to Enlightenment by Thaddeus Golas (now out of print) just fell into my hands one day in 1980 when I was looking for "something" to read. 

It is 80 pages of Truth, and it changed my way of thinking...of living...of being.

One of the truths that spoke to me immediately is: What did you think it was that needed to be loved? 

This question asked itself of me as I was mentally hating on my boss at the time. Here was a book that taught about loving (accepting) instead of hating (resisting)...loving not just as feeling good about something or someone but as spiritually thinking, feeling, doing, being love as we breathe and without our ego looking for its piece of the action. 

I "saw" my hated boss and me as persons in need of a love we knew naught of...my consciousness took a turn upward in that instant, and my life continues to change. Which I am still learning by doing. 

One more, this one unexplainable until it becomes self-explanatory: It is our resistance to negative thought that births negative thought. Also known as: Resist not evil. (Matthew 5:39)

Thank you.

ON DOING vs THINKING ON IT

Action without contemplation is the work of hamsters and gerbils. It gets us though the day, it gives us a temporary sense of movement, but the world is not made new by spinning wheels going nowhere. -- Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, October 15, 2023 

To me, this is the definition of a self-determined objective.

Do something about something is the solution to the self-determined objective.

It's not that hard, thinking about it. But doing? Ah, comes the crossbow...or God. Our choice. 

Chose you this day whom ye shall serve. --  Joshua 24:15

Thank you.

HOPE...WITH GRACE AND GRATITUDE

When we decide to embrace hope—when we choose to make that our goal and our message—we release a flow of energy that cannot be overcome. Hope is a light that darkness can never contain. -- Episcopalian bishop and Choctaw citizen Steven Charleston

Today is Friday, January 17, 2025, the last weekday of President Biden's administration. Monday, January 20th, begins the administration of President-elect Donald Trump.

I experienced a self-fraught day or two this week, dreading the next four years of a president and his  mega-billionaire friends and their more-money mentality draining America...period. 

All the while, mind you, continuing with my morning quiet-time meditation on love and learning about love as all. 

I wondered why I felt and feared I was sliding into dementia when I know full well, but forget too easily, that unquiet thoughts breed unquiet lives. Unquiet is quieted by love alone, dressed as acceptance. Our fine intellect brings us another self-determined objective which cannot get us there...that just leads to feelings of guilt for our unquiet thoughts. 

We have but one need...to turn to God, ever with us, or, in truth, to not turn from God.

So here we are with grace, gratitude and hope, living this day one-day-at-a-tune with God at the wheel and in our wheelhouse.

Thank you.

ON BEING A LIVING EXAMPLE

 A recent thought-question I came across: Are we now a living example others can follow in faith? 

Almost immediately after I read that, I read Fr Richard's Daily Meditation in which Archbishop Óscar Romero is quoted: [We] shed the light of [our] faith as an example for others. ***[A]ll who believe must become microphones, radio stations, and loudspeakers—not by talking but by living the faith.

Ah, it is not just a matter of our doing more, better, best...our belief sheds the light of our faith as an example for others. 

Yes, but...how deep is our faith? Is it true enough? How completely do we live our faith?

No matter how deeply or how completely we live our faith, that we honestly want to is what matters. Our faith which we return to when, not if, we misstep, misspeak, miss our God-mark if you will.

To me, this is our stumbling block and the rock upon which we step up: Our egoic mindset is to live human-free...saintlike and humbly. Our spiritual mindset welcomes our human condition especially our bugaboo, fear. We now live the fact that nothing turns us to God faster than fear, and we grin...in gratitude.

The answer to my question this morning, are we now a living example others can follow in faith: We are whether we know it or not. It is our inner comfort that is our tell.

According to me, all seekers of God's will, God's way meet humble on the road...repeatedly. That is the source of our becoming a living example. 

We pray thank you and keep trudging the rocky road of grace...with love and laughter.

Thank you.  

THIS, TOO, IS OF GOD...LET IT BE

This BFO of mine of August 24, 2024, has my attention this morning:  Our problem is never the named thing; it is fear of the named thing. 

Looking back to January 9th, just days ago, I feel like I have been cyber-delivered to another universe...then bounced back to here-and-now in a suspended state of consciousness. My old favorite, what to do?, what to do?, no longer fits.

So much has happened: The California fires had already started but the Palisades fire was my first awareness from the news that flashed that morning as I watched President Carter's memorial services. In an instant I felt my own emotions go from melancholy memories of President Jimmy to frantic fear for the folks in the fire zone, my back-in-the-day stomping grounds.

I felt mesmerized watching, torn between sadness and horror until another newsbreak announced the sentencing of president-elect Donald Trump which was scheduled for the next day or two. And then came news of an incoming snow storm...two inches is equivalent to two feet to the people in this area, and the prediction was for up to nine inches.

All of these are now history. Ah, but what about the consciousness, not only of me, but of all of us who are living what feels-like a whirligig of life. Living the injustice of justice whether we know the details or not, the consciousness of each of us along with the country's is affected. 

Again, God fills me, and I remember we need only welcome all less-than appearing for it can and will turn us to you...to peace of mind in the midst of what is appearing...and inner knowing this, too, is of God...let it be.

There it is...our consciousness is in God's care and protection...our job is to see it stays there.

We stay our thoughts on Thee, oh Lord, we stay our grateful thoughts on Thee. 

Thank you.

FEAR FED, LOVE LED...THANK YOU

Resist not evil. - Matthew 5:39

The enormous atmospheric changes caused by the LA fires are affecting each of us whether we know it or not. 

Our inner lives, too? Yes, of course...our inner lives rise up to meet whatever comes to us through our material mind. Ah, it is there the sixes/sevens change takes place...from sixes, reasoning, to sevens, spiritual. 

The whole world, each of us individual by individual, is being affected by this atmospheric disaster. (Truth to tell, we are being affected always by our atmosphere but that's another branch of the story.) 

Unbeknownst, the majority of the majority are not aware, fully or even a little bit. Blinding flash of the obvious: Being unaware does not keep it from us; that is the invitation of resistance. 

We "are not aware" due to fear of the unknown that is nudging us and eventually breaking through...which we fear is a mental breakdown and spiritually come to realize is a mental breakthrough.

We must go beyond the material mind, which lives in fear of disease, poverty, and I-don't-know to the spiritual mind, which welcomes non-answers...where less-than opens us to the new way of thinking, feeling, doing, being...love fed, God-led. 

Resist not evil...God's will, God's way.

Thank you.

ON BECOMING ONED, 1

[The following is a reprint of my post of November 13, 2016]

To walk free in my own head. That is my one, my only, my unifying goal.

If I am not free in my own head, all the spiritual education I have or think I have...all the sacred tomes ever written, read or to be read...will, to quote the late and beloved Sen. Everett Dirksen, "have all the force and effect of a snowflake on the bosom of the Potomac."

To walk free in my own head is the Father within flowing freely from me to and through Thee...ever flowing like the sea.

And we are Oned, unified.

Thank you.

SELF-ACCEPTANCE...MORE IS LESS, DEEPER

Stir up those gifts, reach out again for your destiny without fear and with full assurance of faith, knowing that God’s Spirit will grant the power, love, and self-discipline to accomplish it. You cannot stand off from a fire that has died down and command it to flame up....stir it up. -- Rev. Yvette Flunder, Daily Meditation, January 11, 2025

Hmmm...what active participation do I plan for me to do today? I'll Zoom into my 11:00 AM meeting, but how "active" is that? "Zoom" answers that. 

I am realizing yet again the depth of the gift of learning to know myself, who I am and what I am all about. Self-acceptance is one of the many pearls beyond price that we earn yet find so hard to use.

My question to me was what active participation I plan for me today, and my thoughts immediately went to what I haven't done, don't do, should do, could do...with nary a glimmer of acceptance of me just as I am. 

Well, here's me today: I give prayer time to California in their time of need, to the United States in our time of need; to the world in its time of need. I am available...when asked, I help others find the good they seek. I am blessed with the acceptance of the God of my understanding alive in my life. I do not think of that...no more than I think of the fact that I breathe...it is mine same as my breath.

As to my plan of action for today...I plan to call and congratulate my friend again on her 51st anniversary after which I'll throw a load of clothes in the wash, then watch football on TV. Hopefully, it'll be the Washington Commanders (is that their name now?), and they'll win their game. 

Throughout my day, with and/or without conscious thought, I will invite news and views from friends and neighbors...phone, email, text. In a word, I'll make contact with other(s) as the spirit moves us.

See? Just as I was feeling less than wonderful about me and my day, I find I have a full day just being me. That's close enough to perfect for me and the God of my understanding. 

Thank you.

WE PROCEED WITH BROKEN-OPEN HEARTS

Dare [to] believe that this contemplative work and exploration and study that we’re engaged with is not to just make us happier people, but rather to help us be partners together in loving action. -- Brian McLaren. [There...my just-recognized deepest desire.]

How of-God is this: I wrote the above and in a flash the following came marching across my eyes: .... Let’s proceed with broken-open hearts, seeking truth, summoning courage, and focused on solutions. -- Marine biologist Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and climate activist Katharine K. Wilkinson 

I know God's hand is in it when my thoughts and my feelings are at sixes and sevens, trying to "figure it out" and "let go and let God," both at the same time...which is where I feel that I am this morning. 

My morning began with For America speaking loud to me, translating even as it spoke to For God and America...and I remembered yesterday.

I watched the services for President Carter yesterday morning with love and deep respect flowing through me. Almost immediately came further news of the horrendous fires in Los Angeles, at that moment the Pacific Palisades going up in flames...with other areas to follow closely. 

Oh, the pain...the prayers...my thank You weeping, feeling alone. I focused on President Carter's spirit and felt loose it and let it go calm me.  

Answered prayer: Let’s proceed with broken-open hearts, seeking truth, summoning courage, and focused on solutions. -- There...God's will, God's word.

Thank you.

GOD'S WILL, GOD'S WAY, GOD'S TIME

Last night surely qualifies as my dark night of the Soul.

In my quiet time this morning, I realized it as a gift to me to break my intellectual reliance on the God of my own understanding...to open me to our Father within as lived by the Lord. 

My dark night became His invitation to me to live differently...to release the marginalized life of the material mind in total reliance on God. 

I am comforted in the fact that my insights were birthed from my daily spiritual readings as they prove Truth in my life. I have read these daily for some 50 years, but it took the dark night of my Soul to open me to this personal Truth Now.

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

  

Thank you.

RAISED CONSCIOUSNESS WITH SKIN ON IT

Overcoming self-determined objectives is a spiritual need, i.e., hard, ain't it hard, Lord, lovin' You.

I have two opportunities today...to stay with self or to move on up. My egoic wants and my spiritual needs are push-pulling me. 

I feel like I am arm-wrestling with God, torn between my ego's want to remain alone, not go out of my hidey-hole home, to only talk to others by phone or text...torn on the other hand by my inner recognition of my higher consciousness need to be with others. 

My want is to stay home alone, hunkered down with my fantasizing thoughts; my need is to go out to dinner and a meeting and mingle...noon, small Step meeting, little required but to show up and chat; or my friend's anniversary meeting...5:30 PM dinner then on to 8:30 speaker's meeting...lots of interaction available...yes but, oh wait, i don't know, i don't wanna, etc. 

I could do noon only. I could do evening only. I could do both.   

I hold my nose and take a leap of faith...God's will, God's way. Trust and ponder no further...I will be contacted.  

Later blinding flash of the obvious: I need to be with my raised consciousness with skin on it...people in the flesh. 

Thank You.

TO CLAIM OUR OWN, PRAY THANK YOU

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 mantra; 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 the change is the choice I was given...love and laugh with 80 or roll around in the self-pity of being 80, old, used up, no good, etc., ad nauseum. I chose and 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.)

Back to faith without works...I am living today the different meanings of "works." I've been beating me up for not doing more physical work...dig ditches or sweep floors kind of work. That kind of work, i.e., physical, went out the door for me at least 25 years ago. 

Here's God's way...I now know the gift of spiritual communication. I am available to listen to anyone in need who reaches out to me. I silently acknowledge God's will so my feedback is 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.

Thank you.

THE UPSIDE-DOWN TRUTH OF GOD'S WILL & WAY

When we can weep, when we can identify with the little ones, when we can make peace, when we can be persecuted and still be joyful—then we are doing it right....As long as some people hold on to the upside-down wisdom of the gospel, it will be enough to flavor the whole meal of life. -- Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, December 30, 2024

I keep coming back to the upside-down wisdom of spirituality, of spiritual growth. That, to me, is the inside truth of God's will, God's way. 

We must let go of any notion that our reasoning mind will get us where we most need to be...which is out of self. Into we know not what! That's the spiritual gift, not knowing. We can say it will get us "into Heaven" but face it, we do not have a clue what that means. 

Oh, but to the reasoning mind, we know! It means looking good, sounding better (or at least better than you), no aches, no pains, at peace with self, i.e., Correct...always. To the reasoning mind, anything less means we aren't doing it right. When less, in God's world, is the Way.

Here's the truth that bucks our want to believe: when we can be persecuted and still be joyful. We know that means unjustly persecuted, like as if there is a "just" persecution. There it is...the upside-down wisdom. 

"Not fair" is never a welcome feeling...until we are blessed with the new-to-us wisdom of spirituality, "Not fair" is now "Welcome! You have much to teach us."

We do need to note that we do not bar the reasoning mind for it serves us well...as long as we do not serve it, we're on the right track going in the right direction. 

The spiritual slogan of the upside-down world of spiritual growth is I do not know. Followed by the inner thought, God does...thank You.

Thank you. 

NOT TO ANALYZE BUT TO REALIZE

Blinding flash of the obvious: There are changes taking place within me right this very moment that I know naught of...ah, God-consciousness growing within.

Interesting that I was led to research the following this morning after I flashed on the above.

John 3:8 is a verse from the Bible that reads: “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit”. This verse is also translated in the New International Version as: “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”

I doubt not that I was led to research John 3:8 this morning after I had my BFO...it has been sitting here waiting for me. 

The wind blows wherever it pleases is akin to the changes that have been taking place within me even without my knowledge but as they please the Lord. 

My need is to stay open to what I am being told, where I am being led by the Father within...not to analyze but to realize.

Not to analyze but to realize...thank You.

Thank you.

LOVE...ACTIONS OF MERCY AND JUSTICE

We have to find our inner authority through Christ in us; we have to find our purpose in our love of God and neighbor, and actions of mercy and justice. Otherwise, we’re not offering anything that the world doesn’t already have or can’t find in other places. —Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, 1/4/25 

There it is: ...we have to find our purpose in love. Period.

To my mind, this is the essence of our being here, i.e., to find our purpose in love. 

The blinding flash of the obvious for me was the realization that I needed to find out what the meaning of love is to me. No wonder I have been such a drag-foot in learning the deeper/higher meaning of love...I couldn't even say the word back in the day.

When I realized that it mattered not what love means to you, or to Gertrude or to Sam, bur what it deep-meant to me, my realization turned the corner. 

Trying to learn that, I have dug and dithered and dug for years...never realizing that I was doing it right. 

I know now...I have realized (God's gift)...that is how I was meant to learn about love, its meaning, its purpose, its core...by digging, pitching some parts, keeping others. That is how I finally came to the God of my own understanding with legs and feet...no longer five words without a deeper meaning.

My current understanding will grow, but when first I read them, actions of mercy and justice seemed to sing to me. They still hum.

I am on the right road, heading in the right direction...with love surrounding me, and I know what that means to me now. 

God is so good to me. To us.

Thank you.

THE POWER OF POWERLESSNESS

This is how Jesus is the “Savior of the World.” He does it by choosing a minority position, entering Jerusalem on a donkey....his proclamation of the power of powerlessness, is the message that will save the world from self-destruction and for an eternal truth. --  Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, January 1, 2025

From our post of January 1: Our marching orders: Work with the Father within, and let it be so.

To work with the Father within ain't no walk in the park...reasoning mind will ever assert itself. To let it be so is another hidden hook...that may be the harder order actually. Our hands may be idle, but our mind? Oh, mercy. 

This is one of the earliest/hardest lessons of meditation...training our mind to sit in the silence and that is all. The Father within can, will and does do the rest, or so I am told...actually, I have experienced that Light but not enough, never enough. 

I am grateful from my toes to my nose that I have received a gift to be grateful for no matter the weight...the smaller the nugget, the greater the gift I tell me and remember the might of a minority position, love and laughter. Ah, there's our proof, love and laughter.

No matter the appearance of our burden, God's gift, love and laughter, lifts us up by lightening us up. 

Thank you.

2025 ARRIVES AS ON THE WINGS OF A DOVE

Freedom is not the capacity to be what we are not, but the capacity to be fully who we already are.... -- Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, January 1, 2025

The freedom to be who we already are using God's yardstick is my spiritual goal. The old say what you mean and mean what you say still stands the test of time, but it, too, must grow spiritually. 

We can no longer speak from our want-to alone...say what you mean and mean what you say is now filtered through God's will, God's way. This is another "impossible" until we let our self be guided into it...only nonresistance makes it not that difficult. 

Like most spiritual breakthroughs, it seems impossible even as we're doing it, and we don't get the thrill of victory until we've been living it when it's no longer victory, it is a way of life. 

Hmm...ego-reduction in depth realized. A spiritual two-fer. Don't tell me God isn't on our side.

We have a choice about this year, 2025. We can view it with dread as if it is hanging round our neck like an albatross or welcome it as coming in on the wings of a dove. 

Let's go with the dove and get grateful.

Our marching orders: Work with the Father within, and let it be so...Happy New Year.

Thank you.