TO KNOW LOVE, SOW LOVE

An invaluable living-tool which I have earned is the gift of welcoming...looking back with my mind full of love and laughter...no regrets.

There's a line in the song "Loving Arms" which describes too well my once-lived attitude about life in general, i.e., looking back and longing for the freedom of my chains....

I doubt not I have written about this...probably recently...but that attitude has been upgraded by God, and I live with a new perspective on life...a happy perspective.

Now, it's looking back and laughing in freedom from my chains...or my rues, regrets and remorses. Those three r's once ruled my thoughts, my feelings, my life.

My upgraded attitude has grown slowly but ever upward on the winding road of still more spiritual growth. Awakening to the fact that my life is not about me, it's about letting go and letting God...for the benefit of others.

The great and glorious discovery has been that when we live our life for the benefit of others, we know peace, love and joy. Which, in order to keep, we freely give away.

God loves us sooo much.

Thank you.

IN TRUST, DO...THEN JUDGE NOT

I am still heading in the right direction whether I know remember it or not!

My memory is in God's care, too...trust and judge not.

There...henceforth, mine to do daily: trust and judge not. 

Like most directions, easy words to say, but the doing is the hidden gift. To do is mine to give my thank You for as I do the next thing. And if the next thing I choose to do is not the right thing, we've got that covered, too.   

If it's not the right thing, promptly admit it. 

We can now do the next thing that appears to us...right or wrong, we are aiming in trust in a new direction. 

Trust God, and move out of self. It is to trust...ah, we are to trust.

Thank you. 

WE GO TO GOD FOR GOD AND THAT IS ALL

Taking responsibility for the common good is the more important moral mandate..-- "Fr Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation," March 2, 2026

Further, per Fr Richard: When the common good is the focus, preaching is not about imposing guilt and shame on individuals, but about giving vision and encouragement to society.

There. That is the center of my seeking still more spiritual growth...to live for the benefit of others is to live self-centered-fear free. Living for the benefit of others lifts our egoic nature...kisses it on the lips and sets us free.

Be prepared: This is a lifetime of crawling, to stumbling, to walking, to running, to Free At Last with stumbles and bumbles guaranteed...why else would we joy just knowing we have God at our back?

I have needed every second of every hour to God-honest-want to walk this truth. I have not been walking blind, just instinctively the majority of the time...led to go for the spiritual, away from the self-determined.

Release self-will and open to God's will, God's way...ah, greener pastures...living in the love of God again. 

Thank you. 

GETTING IT WRONG TO GET IT RIGHT

We are invited to] take a journey of faith. It may be plagued by uncertainty, but we can trust in God’s presence along the way....The way of faith is not a way of certitude. -- "Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation," February 27, 2026

I have long felt that self-confidence needs to be a building block to Self confidence; i.e., faith in a word. Fr Richard's quote nails it...the way of faith is not a way of certitude.

That's how I (finally) awoke to getting it wrong to the reasoning mind is often getting it right spiritually.

I often quote the Thaddeus Golas line, We must go beyond reason to love...only I like the last word to be "God"...we must go beyond reason to God.

We must come to total dependence on God...we cannot get there by relying on our reasoning mind alone...or. quite often, at all. Our reasoning mind is self on the hoof, and its singular purpose is to protect self, which is according to our own idea of protection. 

There is no God in self-protection...or more truthfully, there is no God awareness in self-protection. God is there, our awareness of God is missing. There is only the feeling of fear and reliance on self to protect us.

To reiterate, we must ever build our trust in God being present along the way, knowing that the way of faith is not a way of certitude.

Thank you.

TO STAY DETACHED FROM THE TEMPTATION, I

[The following is a reprint of my post of February 24, 2018.]

The grace of God is a wind which is always blowing. -- Sri Ramakrishna [from Eknath Easwaran, "Words to Live By," today]

Isn't that a comforting thought? That the grace of God is an ever-present wind blowing in, around, through us. All we need do is stay our mind on Thee, and the grace of God walks us free.

The block to the grace of God is our self in the form of our self-determined wants that we choose to believe are needs. Those wants, depending entirely on our attachment to them, become the God of our understanding in the moment. No matter how insignificant they appear (running late? the green light is our God right then) or how significant they appear (unexpected and steep medical expenses turn the dollar into our higher power without another thought).

According to me, any perceived lack that we consider essential to our life becomes our entire focus, our God, and grace blows by unrealized, unaccepted, unfulfilled.

"God Calling" note dated 2/24/12: BFO - realized 'the kingdom of heaven' as our worst fear/greatest glory signifying nothing - Jesus in the wilderness being tempted and staying detached from the temptation.

Thank you.

WE, OF OUR OWN SELVES, CANNOT, I

[The following is a reprint of my post of February 28, 2014.]

Acceptance. The very word is inviting. It has that huggable sound...that “Oh I want one!” sound. Well, get ready for a shock to the old hemorrhoids. Acceptance is just surrender wrapped in pretty paper.

And, who’s kidding whom, we know what surrender means. Not to put too mean a point on it, it means You Lose. Stop Fighting. The war is over, and you lost.

Until we surrender to the very fact that we've been resisting, the fact with all the hair on it, we will never reach the tra-la-la pretty. The paradox is that we have to kiss it on the lips in order to reach that part. We have to kiss it on the lips while it still looks like the frog it is...and feel in the doing totally alone, bereft, hopeless. And kiss it anyway. Because we have no hope. And here comes another paradox! As Walter Brueggeman says, "The home of hope is hurt.”

It is in that very hopelessness that we find God…who has been trying to get our attention all along. Fr. Richard Rohr says, "Divine love is received by surrender instead of performance or perfection."

The perfection of acceptance is that it does not change the fact that we've been resisting...it changes our perception of that fact. From worst thing ever to God is so good to me. The essential ingredient? Our realization that we of our own selves cannot make that change. We go to God for God.

Thank you.

GOD'S WILL, GOD'S WAY...BRING IT ON!

We have to turn to God and allow ourselves to be led on this faith journey. -- "Richard Rohr Daily Meditations," February 22, 2026

Fr Richard's lesson continues: We have to be willing to experience the Exodus in our own lives and enter into our own desert wanderings. We have to let God liberate us from captivity to freedom, from Egypt to Canaan, not fully knowing how to cross the desert between the two.

I suspect I am experiencing the Exodus in my own life, and trepidation hangs heavy within me... on the horns of a dilemma fits me this morning. Am I willing?...ready?...able? to walk my own desert wanderings.

When I committed to still more spiritual growth some fifty years ago (versus every new wonder drug the medical profession could and would offer), I was blessedly young(er) and "knew" considerably more about God than I do now. The untested always know more it seems. 

But there it is...there's the proof of my puddin'...I do not know as I once knew, but I believe from my toes to my nose, and I believe based on faith and experience...God has never failed me. His journey for me has just been lengthier...unknowable in a word. 

We come to believe we are on God's journey when we find our self whispering, Are You sure this is the Way? 

The answer does not come until after we have felt every rock on our road, felt every thorn, lived through every doubt all while believing (or wanting to) that this, too, is God's will, God's way. 

I'm there again. I'm grateful still. Thy will, Thy way, Lord...bring it on!

Thank you.