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.