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.

RESIST NOT...LOVE AND LAUGH

There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in. -- Leonard Cohen

That is one of my favorite lines...I recall when first I heard it, I felt flabbergasted. I had thought...really believed...that was a secret known to me alone. Wishful thinking, I reckoned, so keep it secret...don't risk being thought a fool or, worse, getting laughed at.

To be clear, or more honest anyway, my thinking was not as polished as Cohen's...but I had the same line of thinking. That is how I so quickly caught Cohen's words, his meaning behind the words....they were mine, too!

I came to realize I was lifted to that truth through my beloved Fellowship where, in effect, we are taught to live peace, love and joy and to pass it on. 

It takes time...a lot of time...to live our end goal: To cease fighting everything and everybody. 

To the human mind, that is not smart, not practical, not realistic...NOT. 

To the spiritually attuned mind, that is God's will, God's way...and our very hope of Heaven.

It has taken me over fifty years to live that, and to stumble ever so often...ah, but to love the stumble and laugh. That's when I hear, She's got it, by George, I think she'd got it! Then I know love.

I know of no way for hearts to be softened other than by a combination of love and suffering. -- Rev. Dr. Ruth Patterson, February 11, 2026

Thank you.

THE HOLY PLACE OF UNKNOWING, I

[The following is a reprint of my post of February 11, 2023.]

Still more spiritual growth begins with our seeking spiritual answers...to learn, to find out, to get a spiritual mindset.

The longer we are on this journey, heading in the right direction by doing it wrong a lot, we are heading for the place of unknowing...of which we are unconscious. There...the essence of spiritual growth.

The difference between unknowing and not knowing is unknowing shucks our shields, keeps an active letting go of what we think we know. The place of not knowing holds little to no curiosity...we don't know, whatever, end of the discussion.

To be in the place of not knowing is stayed in the material mind.

To get to the place of unknowing is Oned with God. Only we don't know it. We are unknowing. But our consciousness is raised.

According to me.

Thank you.

TO BE HAPPY, LIVE GRATEFULLY. I

[The following is a reprint of my post of February 27, 2015.]

Thank you, dear God, almighty force for good, that you work through me as you worked through Mohammad, through the Buddha, through Christ Jesus. Amen

Thank you that I do thy will always whether or not I know it...that my reasoning-mind mistakes are your right-road-to-Heaven for me. For it is in my mistakes that my rues, regrets and remorses are born, those very rues, regrets and remorses that you have shown me are, transmuted, my good, my gold.

Those very mistakes are my Teacher's tools, designed for me personally that I may grow from them by learning your will, your way. ..and thereby find my happiness.

Thank you.

THE NEW COLOSSUS GONE BEGGING. I

[The following is a reprint of my post of December 29, 2023]

'The New Colossus' by Emma Lazarus

Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:

I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

We come again to our need to recall the promise of America to the 'wretched refuse' of other teeming shores.

Again, and yet again, we trample that promise without so much as a backward glance as we roll on...and who cares if we're going in the right direction? We're strutting our stuff, showing 'em how it's done...and who cares if we do not have a clue our own self? Throw another log on the fire.

I miss Kate Smith singing 'God Bless America,' and America standing with its hand over its heart and tears of gratitude in its eyes.

Father, Forgive us for we know not what we do.

Thank you.

ON BEING SET FREE

....as Desmond Tutu says, those who have been oppressed are free from oppression, and those who have done the oppressing are free from being the oppressor, everyone is set free.  -- "Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation," February 6, 2026

Over the years, it has been my occasional challenge to mentally compare Tutu's actual state of oppression with my self-perceived state of oppression.

I suspect that helped me gain an ability to laugh at and with myself in my self-diagnosed "oppression," or, more honestly, in my rues, regrets and remorses.

Better than that, it helped me develop a sense of empathy for others...others who had less than...and best of all (so far) it has been the key that opened the compassion so well-hidden within me. Not just the feeling of compassion, but the ability for me, with God's grace, to compassionately do for others in need.  

In my eighties now, I do less actively but my thoughts are more consistently prayerful...less self-centered (not wholly just less, which is proof of God's will, God's way in my life). 

Thank you.

LOOKING BACK AND LONGING

Snow and frigid temps kept me house-bound for over a week, but I got out yesterday for an hour or two and still feel remarkably better...clearer...for it. Which reminds me of a long-ago blinding flash of the obvious: mental resistance is the only block. 

Apparently, I needed to find that reminder this morning. What other kind of block could there be to the personal experience of a loving God in our life?

A favorite line from a song from yesteryear...Looking back and longing for the freedom of my chains.... comes to mind.

That is a well-nigh perfect description of rues, regrets and remorses...looking back and longing for the freedom of my chains.... 

It doesn't get any clearer than that...to me at any rate.

My long-ago flash, mental resistance is the only block, when followed by thank You, is the mind's golden door. It opens us to the grace of gratitude, the most comforting answer to our reasoning mind's questions. 

Ah, a rush of gratitude just visited me...God is so good to me, and I am so grateful.

Thank you.