THE ELUSIVE SLIVER OF GOLD

Francis directly said to the first friars, 'You only know as much as you do!'

Well, there it is...again. Knowing that our unity must come first, that we must keep principles above personalities, is just so many words until they live within us/without us.

Those interesting facts (that we learn at our mentor's knee) I'm learning at a so-much-deeper level today. Honest...I'm just walking along, minding my own business, and Whoa! Another person has taken offense.  And my ego Lucy With The Football has already given me a couple solutions to the other one's problem.

God loves me so much that I have done nothing but appear unaware...smiling through. Which is a good start but its lasting power is dicey at best.

Here's the paradox...I know I can and more than likely will remain silent. Ah, but it was one hundred percent silence that lit the fuse of my recent contretemps (which sounds better than s**t storm, but s**t storm was what it was).

My lesson, then, is learning, first, that there are various levels to silence, and, second, it is spiritual work that is needed in learning those levels and the maintenance thereof.

I believe the deeper level of silence (maybe the deepest but that is not yet mine to know) is as Fr Richard Rohr wrote in his "Daily Meditation" of January 7 2020: I believe the only way through this polarization is a re-appreciation for silence....Silence is at the very foundation of all reality—naked being, if you will.

Keeping it simple (for my own self), Rohr's silence is of God and is gained through daily meditation, ceaseless prayer and dedication to ego deflation. I'd say we get there through aiming for that and oftimes failing...when (not if) wrong.

Keeping it simpler, silence in our walking-around world is tempered by the use of our words, tone being of first importance. Face it, relationships require words...learning to modulate our voice is our test. Ah, but our soul-self grows intuitively with our necessary mistakes turning us to God, repeatedly.

The older I get, the less I know for certain sure. Talk about the sliver of gold.

Thank you.