SPIRITUAL GROWTH FROM THE INSIDE OUT

While Scripture, priests, pastors, and the pope may be necessary, [Carl] Jung recognized that they are all external to the self, and offer us a religion from the outside in. Jung wanted to teach us to honor those same symbols, but from the inside out, to recognize that there are already numinous voices in our deepest depths. If we do not have deep contact with our in-depth self, he believed we could not know God. -- Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, February 28, 2025

In short, Fr Richard's teachings of Jung's are precisely what my original gift from God told me as truth, my truth, and I still stand on it. 

It describes my spiritual base and life today, born when I realized and accepted that much of the spiritual peace that I have today first entered my life looking like the worst thing that could ever happen to me. Yet when it met the Father within, it was transmuted and became the light that shines for me today.

That is my proof that the reasoning mind is a useful friend, just not to be relied on in spiritual matters, yet, best to face it, life is a spiritual matter. We make peace with that for it is life in our walking-around world.

My simplified mantra combines the words of Thaddeus Golas and the Bible: Go beyond reason to love and resist not evil. 

Admittedly, it took some time for me to make those my own...which at any given time can still trip me up...i.e., cause me to resist. These times, too, are of God for I've learned to sit and wait on the Lord until I am cleared. 

Honesty being required, today I am seriously working on my resistance to President Trump. I pray a lot...for my consciousness to be raised regarding him for America.

My pearl beyond price is the gift of belief that there are already numinous voices in our deepest depths. If we do not have deep contact with our in-depth self, we cannot know God

Thank you.

BE IT DONE TO ME ACCORDING TO THY WILL

Be it done to me, oh Lord, according to Thy will. -- Mary's Obligate

That came to me this morning...I cannot find anything that I was reading at the time this would have come from. ..including "Mary's Obligate," and I have no knowledge or memory of those words. But I did see it with my mind's eye along with the quote.

I had been sitting in silence with my thoughts trained on accepting dementia, if that be God's will, God's way.

Mary, when she accepted God's word, must have passed my mind for then came, be it done to me, oh Lord, according to Thy will. -- Mary's Obligate.

I felt nothing, got neither warm nor scared feeling...did not even write it down at the time. Later, I think it was when I recalled the words "Mary's Obligate," and I had to google it...I felt poleaxed.

So, here's me now trying to get my marching orders from the message. I love it. Figure out nothing, let what is coming, come, pray thank You, and fret no more...or less at any rate.

God is so good to me...patient. too.

Thank you.

THERE IS A GOD-SEED WITHIN

We need to move from the superficial or 'outer self' to the true self or 'inner self.'  *** Our spiritual journey consists in nourishing and watering and caring for this God-seed that is in all of us. -- Meister Eckhart

That is the gift I was given many years ago...realizing the God-seed already within me. The rest of my life to date has been uncovering it...thank You.  

Having been given such a gift, it is hard to accept that fear would...or could...enter our life. Well, it can, it will, it does...what I have come to believe is that, too, is God's will, God's way. By the very fact of the blinding flash, nothing turns us to God faster than fear, we can accept that God's hand is in it, too. 

This, then, is our calming rite: When, not if, we feel fear, of course we resist! Until we recall that we meet fear by nonresistance. To repeat...to emphasize...it is when, not if, we feel fear. To expend our energy trying to not feel fear is a self-determined objective whose egoic goal is to deny God's will, God's way.  

We cannot deny human nature...which is to avoid fear, period, and that, too, has God's hand in it. Trying to avoid fear is the impossible objective that turns us to God...pray thank You.

All of this brings us to acceptance. I am convinced that acceptance is the seed of the God seed...impossible to "get," but by grace and by God. ours to "receive."  Be ready.

Thank you.

FREEDOM FROM THE BONDAGE OF SELF, I

[The following is a reprint of my post of December 24, 2021]

I am a believer that the greatest change we will ever experience is when our mind is exchanged from self to Self. That is when we become willing to Suffer little children to come unto Me. The exchange is our change in consciousness...when we realize Me is the God of our own understanding.

Our thinking is upgraded from reliance on self to trust in God, and we realize that it is only and ever our trust that needs improvement.

We cannot come to believe utterly until we can come to trust utterly the God of our own understanding. To trust that very God can, will and does intervene in our life in our behalf.

For this, still more spiritual growth prepares us: Whether we seek him or not, whether we even know it or not, calling it coincidence or luck of the draw, in this life or the one light-years ahead, at some point self will suffer self-will enough, will crash and burn, and our consciousness will be lifted up deeper into God consciousness.

Then, my friends, we will know freedom from the bondage of self

Thank you.

THANK YOU...SIMPLY, THANK YOU

It is a cosmic truth that to fight our ego is to nurture our ego. Resist not. Go to God a-running, breathing our thank you that with God all things are possible. -- February 29, 2016, Ari of Aslan I  

Today I believe that it is a truth that to fight anything is to nurture our ego. Resist not. Turn to God, breathing thank you, and that is all. 

That is probably the most difficult action spiritually required of us...to resist not. To welcome.

Welcome the snake and the snail, the friend and the foe, winning the big-bucks lottery then losing it all inadvertently. 

Welcome is the how-to word for trust. When first we're told to trust, our one-word response is how? 

One of our first lessons in spiritual growth was resist not evil (Matthew 5:39). The lesson was underneath the words...the upside-down, inside-out lesson of spiritual growth is not of the reasoning mind. 

According to me, the Quiet Word is and always will be: We must go beyond reason...to love, to still more spiritual growth, to God. 

Spiritual growth simply put: Worst fear a-coming, pray thank you. There...we are One'd.

Thank you.

FEAR IS GOD'S TO PEACE

Our great paradox: 

Fear is our egoic self in control, there is no God there...yet nothing turns us to God faster than fear. 

Feel fear...pray thank You.

Thank you.

A CALMED MIND IS OUR FIRST PRIORITY

The first thing I journaled this morning was, I'm feeling fuzzy headed...that's what it is and has been for a while now. 

I sat with that until I got:  It's in the air...it's noticeable...it's kind of the feeling of something ain't right, or 'something wicked this way comes.'  

Consciously, I give over, give up, give in...I resist not and get a sense of peace from a sentence in my first reading, ...remember that we are not separate from nature. 

Ah, the wild weather we have been experiencing all across the land...floods, fires, freakish winds, driving rain, and cold, frigid cold, air. Our goal, lest we forget, is to still our negative responses with our prayer, thank You.

Not to let denial do our thinking for us, in truth, the right-here-at-home, domestic political situation is the mental culprit we're allowing occasional entry. Uh-oh...fear on the hoof, no matter how "occasional," is fear on the hoof.

I am reminded that nothing turns me to God faster than fear, and words of peace flow: We do not resist our thoughts, we let them exist with neither fear nor favor...our mind, calmed, is of God and our first priority. 

Thank you.

WITH GOD ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE, I

[The following is a reprint of my post of February 29, 2016.]

I pray that my faith may be based on my own experience of the power of God in my life. I pray that I may know this one thing above all else in the universe. --  Anonymous

I know that I am blessed. I know this to be true because my faith is based on my own experience of the power of God in my life.

The trick to living that which I know is detaching from all the rest...that which I think I know. That part lives in my I See Me and ego, an almost unbreachable combo.

It is a cosmic truth that to fight our ego is to nurture our ego. Resist not. Go to God a-running, breathing our thank you that with God all things are possible. 

I know I am blessed; I know you are, too. We are one through love...and laughter.

Thank you.

WE FIND GOD WHERE WE NEED HIM, I

[The following is a reprint of my post of December 6, 2017.]

Here's a wonderment...it is those times when things seem at sixes and sevens in my life, and fear whispers maybe I've been wrong all along, there really is no Jesus-power protecting me, no God at my back, that an ever-so-small something happens that shines a light on my bleak...and I am returned to peace.

Just this morning, for instance, I was gifted with a miracle, ever so small...teeny...in appearance, which I hope will be my guide from today.

I've been caught up in I See Me (that's knowing better, doing it anyhow), and this morning my mind hopped on its what-to-do-what-to-do tricycle, and just as it was nearing top speed, I brushed by a shelf, and my main credit card fell out of I know not where. I had no idea I'd misplaced it. I do know I would have been half crazed if it hadn't found me first. Most important: God knew all that before I did.

I was lifted out of my own self-absorbed cycle by a fulfilled need I wasn't even aware of yet. It wasn't a reasoning-mind answered prayer, it was my unknown need that God answered.

The Father knows our needs...and there are no teeny miracles.

Thank you.

FEAR LEADS, FAITH SMILES, GOD WINS

We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes.... -- “Ella’s Song,” a '60s Civil Rights anthem 

My morning's passing thought: God does not remove our fears...by our own faith, God walks us through them. 

Interesting to me, a morning reading was Psalm 46:  God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. I love when God affirms a thought.

Not surprising, but next “Ella’s Song” came to me, and I felt enfolded into my morning meditation for America. 

I pray only those two words, For America, then I sit in silence for three minutes and let God's will, God's way stand for America. I keep the three-minute limit lest I get lost in time and start issuing orders to God for what He needs do for America.

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

Thank you.

FIRST, LOVE AND LAUGH...THEN, JUST DO IT

Blinding flash of the obvious:  Our insecurities limit us...limit our ability to deal aright with our perceived needs. We tend to forget that a need is of God, a want is of self. Needs are always met aright if not to our liking.

No doubt that is how I learned ever so slowly to first love and laugh...all else rights itself with that.

For the past few weeks, I've been all up in my head at 6s/7s. Not stricken with fear, but...oh, let's call it "perturbed." 

I have a boatload of life's to-dos facing me...a couple of which I have never done before, don't know how, and what if is trying to run the show. 

I was gifted with the memory of one fact that improves our life without fail, upgrade your attitude, you upgrade your problem.

Clearly, unsettled thoughts are flowing because of the things I must do, am unsure of...of my ability to do them. 

I will, though, I know I will. I also know this is me, doing life as I do life. Ah, acceptance, why must you sting?

I love God...the God of my understanding has a dry sense of humor. He loves and laughs which tells me I can love and laugh, which is how the perceived "problem" gets behind me.

Thank you.

ON BECOMING THE I THAT I AM

Blinding flash of the obvious: When feeling pulled apart, know that we are being turned around by God...away from the me we have always lived, becoming the I that I Am.

We are being led higher, or our consciousness is being lifted higher. Maybe this is the road to enlightenment...the slow road for plebes like us. 

The slow road is all about letting go, with our claw marks all over it. Not to fret...that's apparently when (not if) we're doing it right.

There is a line in a Kristofferson song that at one time described me perfectly: Looking back and longing for the freedom of my chains. I gotta smile as I remember that...it clarifies the "claw marks" and hugs the guilt away. 

It is memories such as this that birth my deeper peace. They refresh my once-was and give me a smile today...a smile over God's will, God's way which is and has ever been leading the parade of my life.

God loves me so much...us, God loves us so much.

Thank you.

LIFE'S GREATEST RISK IS BEING OPEN TO LOVE

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

We do not get to choose to whom we give love. Of spiritual necessity often we will be given the less-than, the least, the Oh No people, places and things...and we will resist. That's how we learn that resistance is egoic pride...which is not for praying away but loving anyway. 

To love is to welcome life just as it shows up for us. My inner awakening to love was my realizing the gift is to resist not, to welcome when life shows up appearing dirty, smelly and needy. 

Realization that we are on the right road, heading in the right direction begins as everything in our life appears to be turning upside-down and heading backwards. That is when realization awakens within and we know it is our angel who slaps us upside the head or kisses us on the lips...and realization seeps ever deeper within us. Our lesson is aborning again, deeper.

We do not need to know what awaits us. We know whatever comes is of God, is for our benefit, and  even as it passes on, is also beneficial for others...of whom we know naught and may never know. 

Passing thought: Good needs no glory...it is its own.

Thank you.

RUNNING ON EMPTY...THANK YOU!

Blinding flash of the obvious: When I feel like I am 'running on empty,' in truth I am being opened for God's will, God's way to fill me back up. 

God, grace and gratitude are our spiritual fuel...get grateful and grace will shower God's love all over us. 

For my today's world, I commit three minutes each morning For America...which is my entire prayer. I send my prayer to God on angel's wings, and He does with it what He does...which is always beneficial whether we know it or not.  

Thank you.

GOD MEETS US WHERE WE ARE...BE READY

We think when we hit a rough patch that we're doing it wrong. No! That's when we're doing it right...by being turned around, away from our self-determined objective (that to us seems/sounds so spiritual) to God's will, God's way.

That could explain why spiritual growth appears to take so long to become our first nature...we keep going back to our own idea of God's will, God's way.

When we are finally brought to admit that we don't know, fear stops us cold, but in truth that is our starter. To out loud admit I do not know is scary, but it is also taking the first rung of our ladder up. 

That's how we discover the second rung holds the prize, Hope. Face it, we would not go further if we had no hope. 

Too often we stay on the broken first rung, wishing and wanting. Actually, that's how we slowly learn the art of acceptance when, by grace and by God and without conscious effort, we hug it and kiss it and let it go.  

The unrealized blessing is where we are is where God meets us...as we are becoming ready and willing to be turned over to His will, His way, His time. 

Thank you.

GOD LOVES AND LAUGHS...LET'S!

The claim of the mystic is, at last, that you don’t need anything to bring you to God....I can ascend my own altar stairs wherever I am, under any circumstances, and the key to the understanding of the experience, and to the experience itself, is never in the hands of any other human being.-- Mystic theologian Howard Thurman

My hard lesson to learn is I am the source of all of my good, of all of my less-than-good, of all of my life's breath. 

My harder lesson to live is I in the I am is me, is you, is her, is him, is they and them...is the God of our own understanding. 

My hardest lesson to walk is acceptance...accepting I am the fear I fear, the source of all my fears, I am the failures I curse, I am the source of all the unfulfilled dreams of my yesterdays...and tomorrows. 

Comes now Truth to knock out ego: There is the proof...we are blessed beyond imagining.

I know and I know I know that Jesus, Mary and Joseph along with all my angels led me to this long-ago blinding flash of the obvious: Nothing turns me to God faster than fear. 

Reasoning mind, earning its keep, welcome fear to walk free.

Thank you.

Just for the record and my memory's sake, I need to note my journal entry this morning: The sense came upon me, 'Finally, the deal is done.'  And I realized that this is It....that which I have sought for so long, from now on I will hold in trust knowing this is the assurance that God's promise fulfills me now...each moment from now on...It is no longer 'God can and will if sought'...it is 'thank You, Father, that I Am...whatever is before me.' [I need not get all mental about walking through fire or snake pits...being kind, being accepting to someone my ego resists, is a hard enough starter.] For sure, I will stumble, I will fall, and God has already loved and laughed, showing me how it's done. Thank You.

ON TAKING ONESELF TOO SERIOUSLY

For some time now, I have felt as if I am estranged from my soul. 

I just realized...that is scared in a word.

I've written about it, journaled, blogged, hinted about it to friends. Yesterday, I flat out named the problem to a friend, admitting I fear that my memory will not let me do my own taxes this year.

I fear that my memory is fading...fear of dementia, plain and simple.

For the first time, I spelled it all out to a friend who promptly assured me that she has a tax-preparer who'll do mine, no prob. The blessed relief! The pimple on the source was popped. When I've delivered all my papers to him and signed off on it, I can be free of that one source of fear.

I now need to do what I have known I need to do...get tested so that I may make peace with whatever the result is. Upfront and honest: My fear of dementia may prove to be a fact, although it may prove to be my anxiety disorder which was diagnosed over 50 years ago, and I accept comfortably today.

Again, I face the true source of my discontent...I take myself too seriously.

I love it and laugh. Fear is on the backbench right now, and that's close enough to perfect for me right now. 

More will be revealed but, in the meantime, I am at peace knowing that God loves me personally, I am safe in his love...and so are you. Even if your name is "Donald J. Trump," so are you.

Thank you. 

THE TRACKS OF OUR TEARS

We access momentary nondual states, especially in silence. '....the prophets are inconsolable.' The prophets, like the mystics, responded from the holy ground of the broken heart. -- Mirabai Starr 

This is an anxiety-producing time for me. No...this is an anxiety-producing time. Unlimited. It seems that the consciousness of the world is based in anxiety right now. Reining it in, I'll stick with me and my world.

Mentally, I have broken or scattered need to do items hanging fire. I know from past experience exactly what needs be done...however, I have committed to trust the new mind within me. To be guided and guarded by Thy Will, Thy Way. 

I was reminded of that just after I thought I need to do something about something, and yet I have done naught.

A God-guided memory floated through, and wait was regifted me by today's God Calling: There is no work in life so hard as waiting, and yet I say wait. Wait until I show you My Will.

Don't tell me that Mirabai Starr's the holy ground of the broken heart, wasn't God-guided for me. Unknowing, unsure, scared and saying so, this is My Will, My Way answering my fear and trembling, my holy ground of the broken heart.

In trembling gratitude, I wait.

Thank you. 

 

ON SPIRITUAL INITIATION...HARD, AIN'T IT HARD

According to me, we are all on the path of spiritual initiation...it's akin to hold your nose and take a leap of faith. 

When we're out there in the ether, thank you are the only words we have...or need.

Thank you.

THE TEST...TO SHOW UP FOR WHAT IS

The key to living as a prophet-mystic is showing up for what is, no matter how heartbreaking or laborious, how fraught with seemingly intractable conflict and how tempting it might be to meditate or pray our way out of the pain. —Mirabai Starr, Richard Rohr's Daily Meditations, February 8, 2025

We need to practice what Starr says...the key to living a "turned over" life is showing up for what is.

We have all experienced our own "dark nights of the soul."  We are too well aware that those dark nights are fear, plain and simple, seemingly all encompassing, personal and without end, and, lest we forget God's bottom line: necessary. 

It is highly improbable that we will feel an inner God-connection when we are in that dark night...the beatific reality is God can move us. There...the birth of nothing turns us to God faster than fear, which opens our consciousness to wonders beyond self-knowledge by the grace of gratitude.

It is all very simple when we look back on it...the sad part is how few of us stay the dark course in order to look back in awe. 

It is only in staying the dark course that we get to the other side...enlightenment. No amount of thinking, feeling, writing, wishing or praying will get us to the other side, but necessarily we must feel and/or do each of those things to reach that unknown goal, hopelessness. 

Without a prayer, we are brought home. Without a hope, we are lifted from self to Self...God's will, God's way.

We must go beyond reason to love. - Thaddeus Golas

Thank you. 

FAITH IN GOD IS RELIANCE ON LOVE, I

[The following is a reprint of my post of December 30, 2017,]

Live to bring others to Me, the only Source of Happiness and Heart-Peace. -- "God Calling," December 30

I've underlined and highlighted that sentence so many times that it is all but unreadable now...and the word "others" I have circled repeatedly with exclamation points behind it.

One year (which is now too faded to decipher) I even wrote out to the side, "I understand this more deeply now." In fact, I had barely begun to understand because I was still thinking in terms of "getting" the words as opposed to doing them.

Doing them starts with living, from our mind unto our heart, to bring others (i.e., our Gertrude or Joe Doaks of the moment) to the Source of all that is happy, joyous and free. That cannot be done with resentment, fear or just minor distaste doing our thinking for us.

Faith in God is not just faith to believe in spiritual ideas. It’s to have confidence in Love itself. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," December 30, 2017.

Thank you.

HOPELESS IS OUR BEST HOPE

God is at home. It is we who have gone out for a walk. -- Meister Eckhart

Yesterday I received my golden goose...I felt hopeless, and I said so to some friends, expecting sympathy at least. I got  nothing...not even "too bad." That sent me down...poor, pitiful, put-upon-me down. 

This morning I knew I had been called again by my long-ago BFO: Hopeless is our best hope for we have nowhere to go but to God.

I often use that thought to help me accept the current political situation, namely, Trump/Musk, and I feel.... Hmm, I'm trying to think of a "spiritual" word for "pissed off," but I only come up with angrier words. 

At least I am aware that anger is loud-mouthed fear, and I am lifted into my go-to thought-prayer. I feel fear, God is near.

Albeit unconsciously, our primary fear is nearly always for our egoic self. Our secondary, or current, fears get our right-now attention, and right now I am feeling fear for America. Fear for the harm that is being done to the consciousness of all of us...U.S.

Thomas Merton wrote that in order to know or understand the will of the Divine, 'we have to participate, in some manner, in the vision of the prophets....' Their wisdom frequently comes from their lived experience on the margins, and, time and time again, they are misunderstood. (From today's Richard Rohr's Daily Meditations.)

There it is...the wisdom of the prophets comes from their less-than experiences...that which we welcome today for it is the road we are walking toward God's will, God's way. 

The how of it is God's secret...which He shares by our living God's will, God's way.

Thank you.

TRUST GRACE, GOD AND GRATITUDE

The entry ticket to every relationship is vulnerability to hurt, rejection, and loss. A truly rich life requires that we embrace this vulnerability, that we properly manage our desire for control—that we trust life. -- Rabbi Nahum Ward-Lev, Daily Meditation, February 6, 2025

Trust...that is the essence of my consciousness today. That single word came to mind a while back, and it repeats itself as needed...as in, right before I get poleaxed by my own doubts and fears.

In my consciousness of negative as a plus, i.e., nothing turns me to God faster than fear, I do live relatively free of doubts and fears today. I live more in wonder...wonder at the plans of Trump and his believers for their idea for America, for instance.

From my own personal experience, I have come to believe that in the end everything happens for good. Further, that our good is often what we worked and prayed so hard for it not to happen. Best I keep that in mind.

Trust. There it is...the essential ingredient for a fear-free mind...trust what is to be beneficial to our self...eventually, with a probable change of our mind.

According to me, we can build trust by our worst fear coming true...after all our prayers for it not to happen. Then, when it happens, it becomes another pearl beyond price...through grace, God and gratitude.

I am grateful from my toes to my nose that I was led to Meister Eckhart's, If the only prayer you pray in your life is thank you, that would suffice. 

That is not my only prayer today, but it is closing in on it. That and impeachment.

Thank you.

TRUST GOD, WELCOME FEAR, LIVE FREE

Such surrendering of superiority, or even a need for superiority, is central to any authentic enlightenment....Francis and Clare made a loving bow to the very things that defeat, scare, and embitter most of us, such as poverty, powerlessness, and being ridiculed. -- Richard Rohr's Daily Meditations, January 19, 2025

Sometime ago, in a blinding flash of the obvious, I realized nothing turns me to God faster than fear. That realization kept me open to what Fr Richard calls the “integration of the negative.” 

With that opening, I began to think in terms of welcoming fear, of resisting it not...a never-before positive thought, but it is my go-to today.

Using fear and fear of fear as a spiritual yardstick is not reasoning-mind easy...it is, however, priceless for that lifts it out of the mental into spiritual. This is where thinking is replaced by intuiting, and learning to trust our intuition is of God.  

Quite simply...or fancy word, a conundrum...nobody wants to feel fear, yet feeling fear is God Calling. 

Feel fear, kiss it on the lips, love and laugh, be free.

Thank you.

FOR AMERICA...LET'S DO HER PROUD

There was a deep need, then and now, for someone who would call the people to return to God and to justice. Someone who would warn them, critique them, and reveal God’s heart to them. -- Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, February 3, 2025

Again: There was a deep need, then and now, for someone who would call the people to return to God and to justice. 

For someone? For someone to do the deep need?

First thoughts: Why not me? Why not you? Why not each and all of us committing to God and to our own self to return to God and to justice?

Second thoughts: How? And do what? How would we begin? 

We begin with one small step forward...an idea forms: Commit three minutes each morning For America. No biggie...sit down, clear mind, whisper for God's ears, For America...then whatever comes flowing forth is from God for America. 

For America. She needs us now...we are Her conscious connection with God...let's do Her proud. Impeach?

Thank you.

FOR AMERICA...LOOSE HATE, LOVE LIVES

God is love...love is all. 

For America. Loose hate and let it go. We turn our head and our heart inside out for America.

Thank you.

RAINBOWS AND WARTS INTERTWINED...ONE'D

Blinding flash of the obvious: Love. I have always thought love for. No. It is love with. 

Ah, it is not love for Trump and his followers, but love with them...as each is in God eyes? And as you and I are in God's eyes...perfect, just as He made us.

For a while now, I have been seeking to learn what love means to me...how to define love without a lot of words. I think, I hope, I got the key in my morning BFO: It is not to think of love as love for, it is to realize love with. To love for is to keep separate, to love with is one'd.

There...that is the "gates ajar" for God to lead us through to spiritual reality...wrapped in acceptance of its benefit for me, for thee, for Trump, for all...none topping, none slighting...all One.

Please, Lord, make these be not just words but our knowing, experiencing, healing. Like sobriety, we can't define it, just live it, warts and rainbows intertwined. Amen

Thank you.