ON WELCOMING CRASH-AND-BURN, I

[The following is a reprint of my post of February 21, 2018.]

It is in the devastation of surrender that we are gifted with the sweet taste of impersonal victory. It is that impersonal victory that is a brief glimpse of the 4th dimension, and we know peace.

Never having known true peace, our reasoning mind mistakes it for nuthing' happenin' here so we self-determine various actions based on self that we must take...thus blocking our realization for as long as it takes for us to become entirely ready to give over, give up, give in.

There it is. The golden key to the 4th dimension...surrender of self to Self...give over, give up, give in.

Thank you.

MY ONLY JOB...DETACH, I

[The following is a slightly reworked reprint of my post of February 10, 2015.]

Thank you, Father, for the mini blinding flashes of the obvious that I randomly receive. The flashes are so short and come so quickly that I can't commit them to memory. I rest in Your assurance that they are with me, within me, awaiting the time for my need of them. When I am in need, my perfect BFO can and will flow forth for my benefit.

My only job is to remain detached from my reasoning mind, trying to figure it out which only holds the BFO at bay.

Thank you.

UNFINISHED...STILL GROWING

The ancient path of the desert mystics invites us to disrupt the patterns of ego and empire through the courageous pursuit of inner liberation. —Stephen Copeland 

Inner liberation. I ponder those words. I ponder those words until they become mine...until I realize a transformation within/without me, specifically my Soul. My Soul of which I feel nothing physically, but I realize to be sense is my everything.

Looking back on my spiritual awakening, some fifty years now, I am amazed at my singular effort. For that is not how I knew me to be...I was ever a one-shot deal person. 

In my freshman year at college (where else!), I learned a cynical take on trying: If at first you don't succeed, quit...don't be an ass about it. 

Most folks laughed at that; I took it to heart...one-shot deal.

Today, I am realizing ever more fully my self over the years becoming My Self. I am that I Am. 

There it is...the gift of gold in turning 80 and still growing. 

I am 80+ today and content to be...unfinished in order to stay fresh in God's gift of new growth.

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

Thank you.  

THE BLOSSOMING OF FAITH

The real test of spiritual maturity ... is whether we have been transformed so that our maturity plays out in regular life. -- "Richard Rohr Daily Meditations," February 20, 2026

In short, that is the actual practice of living our life by the grace of God...to know it is to show it. If we are not showing it, we are knowing the words but denying our self the action.

In my spiritual growth, I am a far cry from where I want to be...but nearer, my God, to Thee.

My recent blinding flash of the obvious: Living by a self-imposed standard of one hundred percent right or one hundred percent wrong is self, parading self...there is no Self in it.

Often it seems as though spiritual growth consists of contradictions. Yet it is in the contradictions that we find the proof we seek...by grace and by God

That's how faith blooms and blossoms...by grace and by God. But doesn't everything?

Thank you.

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.