NOT TAUGHT BUT CAUGHT

Live simply, forgive deeply, and love fearlessly. --  David W., "Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation," February 19, 2026

I am experiencing a deeper understanding of what I have been learning these past many years. David W.'s quote fairly well describes the Word I hear. 

To be very clear, the It that I seek, that I am beginning to experience, is as Trappist monk Thomas Merton taught: The way of simplicity, to recapture some of the way of the desert fathers. By grace and by God, I know I am a rank beginner, and I rejoice in that.

That is to say that my heart, my Soul, my body and my brain all know that I go to God for God and that is All. That is The Way, and I am living it...less than one hundred percent but heading in the right direction. 

The essence of the spirituality of the desert is that it was not taught but caught; it was a whole way of life...the Desert Fathers did not have a systematic way; they had the hard work and experience of a lifetime of striving to re-direct every aspect of body, mind, and soul to God. -- Benedicta Ward

Thank you.

THE SEEK

Seek and ye shall find.... Matthew 7:7

I realize this morning that I am on my own Seek...my own journey into my inner unrealized self...where My Self lives.

I am not a Bible reader as such, but, surprising to me, I do quote the Bible more than most anything else. So, thus, apparently, and by grace and by God, I rely on the Word of the Bible more than I ever realized. I am not even going to attempt to analyze that...it speaks for itself.

My reading this morning opened my eyes and my mind. I read of the vision quest, i.e., a path of descent, or journey into fierce landscapes.

I identified completely with the described journey and suspect, hope, know that is where I am, the path I am on, the path I have been on for the last 50 years...the reason the cop-out line looking back and longing for the freedom of my chains sings so loudly in my head when I am nearing another unknown breakthrough.

The reason of course is the path of descent is a journey into fierce landscapes. We were promised sunshine and roses! As we heard the rest of the story...being about fierce landscapes and hard traveling...we learned but ignored that that applied to us personally. Our egoic self clung to sunshine and roses.

Still more spiritual growth brought the dawn...the dawn of a new day, new way...God's will, God's way. All of a sudden, 50 years in, we awoke! The path of descent is God's will, God's way. All that is required of us is that we give over, give up, give in.

Once we try it all the way through to success through failure, we are freed...we know it and we show it. We know this is not a one-shot deal...this is for us now to practice every day. Period.

We detach from self to attach to Self in order to freely live by grace and by God.

Thank you.

NOW JUST DO IT

I wrote yesterday of my rues, regrets and remorses over my fear of doing...of doing anything, ergo doing nothing. 

God is so good to me...after I wrote yesterday of my judgment on me, I was gifted with the facts around my life in the past four to six weeks: Memory problems? or my anxiety disorder again?, my sister's death, the suicide of a friend's husband, the serious illness of a dear friend, the possibility of needing to move to assisted living, and more...the list seems endless. 

Of course, I know The Right Answer to each and all items on my list...let go and let God. 

I realize once again: The answer is not the solution; the solution is doing what it takes to get us to the place in our heart and soul of letting go to let God. 

In short, surrender. That hated/feared act: surrender. 

Surrender may be the most feared word in my world...yet it is the actual act of surrender that brings us to peace, to the peace of mind we've so longed for. We surrender by doing that which we fear to do. We walk through It. There is the proof of God in our life...our fear has become our peace.

All of these are pretty words...true words, but, until action is taken, just words. 

Now, today, I make the appointment for a neurological test to learn that I have my well-known anxiety on parade or the dreaded dementia. 

Even as I write, I realize I have taken over God's job. I have two diagnoses in mind...God may have a half-dozen or even more! Let go and let God is not just good advice, it is the only useful answer.

This I know...from my own personal experience, this I know: Whatever comes to me, comes for my benefit. 

Now, to just do it.

Thank you.

ON BEING FEAR-FROZEN IN PLACE

Blinding flash of the obvious: Whatever I am doing or not doing right this minute is what I am supposed to be doing. I am living God's will, God's way whether I am conscious of it or not. I am grateful; I pray thank You.

That BFO came to me just as I was about to go full-out panicking, as in, what to do, what to do?

I have been feeling stuck, knowing what I need to do but not doing it...like frozen in place. 

Not to put too fine a point on it, but I need to take the test for mental cognition. I was given a neurologist's name and phone number back in April or May...I have done nothing with that information.

My hold-back (excuse)? Do I go with meds or do I continue to trust God? 

I am aware the answer is fairly elementary...trust God and take the mental cognition test. 

On the surface, that is easy to know, easy to say, easy to judge, easy to regret. But I have learned to trust the inner voice, and It has a hold on me. It is the hold that I trust...when It says sit and wait on the Lord, I've learned to sit and wait on the Lord. 

I have also learned that my self-will can and does do my thinking for me without a by-your-leave...as in I'm often the last to know that was not God's will, God's way, it was wishful thinking plain and simple. 

Good advice I was once given for when I'm stuck: Hold your nose and take a leap of faith.

It is my truth that there are only two basic emotions: One is love and the other, fear. All other emotions are born in one or the other of those two. Ergo. I am afraid. Afraid to take that leap of faith.  

Ah, it is not that I sit and wait on the Lord...it is that I sit and wait in self-centered fear, ignoring the Lord.

Doing nothing is not my problem...doing nothing is hiding my problem. I am afraid to get over myself...the ultimate act of faith. So there. 

Now what? and when? 

Thank you.

GOD IS OUR KEEPER OF THE KEYS

We all walk in the garden whether we know it or not. We came from God and we will return to God. Everything in between is a school of conscious loving. — Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditations," February 14, 2026

I heard me talking to myself this morning. I was repeatedly saying, "I'm a mess. I am a mess." 

When I finally got my own attention, I heard me saying, "And what better place to be? God has my mess, my cluttered-by-self mess, for me to shuck."

I love when God talks to me through me...I can be very clear then.

As an aside, the husband of a friend of mine committed suicide this past week...he had been very ill for a long time with no hope, except death. Ergo...the relief, the blessed relief. Followed by the guilt, the damned guilt. Followed by the relief, etc., etc., etc.  I wonder if all of the conflicted feelings around self-inflicted death aren't God's distraction tool...coulda, woulda, shoulda seems to rule family and friends in suicides. A long-time prayer of mine...to go when my time comes as determined by God alone.

My sister died recently of natural causes three days passed her 91st birthday. I am reminded...re-reminded...that with her passing I am the last member of my family still standing. Being "the baby" of the family, little heavy lifting was ever demanded of me. I am getting the picture...all the leftover lifting is now mine by grace and with God.

God is my keeper of the keys. I accept when, as and if needed, the perfect key will be given to me to unlock whatever gift awaits me. 

Lesson a-learning: Everything needed, opens for our benefit...by grace and by God.

Thank you.

FEAR...RESIST IT NOT FOR IT TOO IS OF GOD

According to me, there are two ways of seeing life even as we live it...materially, from our self-centered fear perspective or from our Soul-sight, i.e., spiritually...God's will, God's way.

We live primarily from self until something happens to us...usually something to our reasoning mind that is awful, terrible, unacceptable...and yet in the end we find it to be the pearl beyond price...that which brought us out of self into Self.

My personal experience moved me deeper: I lived by self-determination until I lost my belief in my own self and was turned within to the Power greater than self, to Self.

Looking back, I realize I was lifted by my decision born of fear...my decision to turn my will and my life over to the care of the God of my own understanding. To let go and let God...to trust.

I am at another turning point in my life. I am in my eighties now. and dementia is running older peoples' lives or trying to at any rate. Or, more honestly, fear of dementia is the culprit...large and in charge, trying to fill that place where God lives.

To the best of my ability, I am letting it...I resist it not. I am learning still, yet, again to welcome any and all appearances in my life...coming to or flowing from me, my thoughts, my fears. They are all under God's protection and for my benefit.

If my incurable, progressive disease can be a good thing, and it is and has been so in my life for over fifty years, than so can dementia be. 

Knock yourself out, dementia! We love ya, Baby...or will soon since love is God's will.

Thank you.

THE FATHER WITHIN...OUR SINGULAR SOURCE

The recovery of paradise takes place for the adult in humility and in spiritual nakedness. In other words not self-consciously but as the small child who just is present and just is vulnerable. - Thomas Merton -- "Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation," February 12, 2026

Before the recovery of paradise, consciousness is of the small self where our want to know all there is to know rules. More to the point, our want is to be lifted into spiritual consciousness where we know it all unselfconsciously...piously in a word. Without effort, by God's will, God's way alone, which describes a self-determined objective.

I believe I just found my Rosetta Stone: Without our effort, by God's will, God's way alone.

Never has that been a conscious thought of mine; but, apparently, I am afraid to trust that God's will, God's way needs our actual efforts to get us where we seek to be. We can liken it to standing at the foot of Mt Everest and praying that we can get to the top...never moving a muscle to get there, just repeating words, praying God will do it.

This is the first lesson we ever learned only it is here now at a deeper level...less intellect, more trust.

God is so good to us. From our eyebrows up, we are not where we seek to be...but from our heart and in all directions, we are exactly where God needs us to be. In order to move deeper inside our own self, to God's will, God's way, we need to trust God and do something about something.

Ah, blinding flash: We need to do something about something, and our trust in God will follow...reminding us the Father is and has ever been our singular Source.

Thank you.