REGRET NAUGHT, LOVE ALL, I

[The following is a reprint of my post of May 29, 2016.]

Regrets are just resentments in fancy dress. - Blinding flash of the obvious

Thank you.

LOVE...GIVE OVER, GIVE UP, GIVE IN

Love and love alone is the substance of reality. -- James Finley 

It seems that it has been fairly recently (last ten years or so) that I fully realized that I know naught about love...specifically, how to love. Love not as written about in the Song of Songs but love of the un...the unlovable, the unpretty, the un. 

I know family love, I know friend and pet love, I know love of country...but none of those move me inwardly. I know fear of not loving God...or of thinking that I love God.

I wonder...have I ever thought what love would feel like...impersonal love, that is. Not a crush on a guy, nor a best friend to talk with about the guy, etc. 

Impersonal love seems like the ultimate contradiction in terms. How can love be impersonal? But it seems to me that personal love is all about me...where's God in that? For that matter, where's God in impersonal love?

Maybe God is love, personal, impersonal and all feelings in between Maybe there's no maybe in that.

It appears that I have my new study...what love means to/for me. I'm guessing kill self now is the starting point...ah, but not by self-will, but by grace and by God...which right now I know primarily from my eyebrows up. 

My study most likely is about giving over, giving up and giving in to God to do whatever inner moving happens.

Let it be...more will be revealed from within.

Thank you.

ON LIVING A TURNED-OVER LIFE, 1

[The following is a reprint of my post of December 29, 2018.]

Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it. -- Psalm 127

So the difference between 'the boys and the men' is the difference between striving for a self-determined objective and for the perfect objective which is of God. -- Anonymous

So the difference between relying on the reasoning mind and relying on spiritual consciousness is the difference between striving to build our inner house by our own devices and not striving but trusting our Father within to perfectly lead us through the building and then our living therein.

According to me.

Thank you.

GOD INDWELLING IS...., I

[The following is a reprint of my post of May 31, 2015.]

Jesus became a highly contrived problem-solver for our own guilt and fear (a problem that was inevitable if God was not indwelling) instead of the Archetypal Blueprint for what God has been doing all the time and everywhere. -- Fr. Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditations"

 
There. That parenthetical phrase, (a problem that was inevitable if God was not indwelling), explains everything...according to me.

God indwelling is the driver, producer, agent of our soul, always using our own chosen tools, i.e., defects of character or personal assets, to get us where we need to be for our still more spiritual growth...no matter how ego-shattering it looks and feels to us and/or our world.

I am the source of all my woes, I am the good I seek.

Thank you.

FEAR...LOVE IT AND LEAVE IT

I have not been doctor-diagnosed, but I fear that I may have dementia.

I know I am afraid of dementia which may be the cross I bear right now. Fear cares not what we choose to believe, it just rules...rules our thinking, feeling, doing and being. Us, in a word.

I shared at a meeting yesterday that I am scared...didn't go into the whys and wherefores, just "I am scared."

 
There! Proof of God in my life, as my voice. That I am in fear is no longer a secret, secrets having once been my way of life without my knowing they were the bane of my life.

I have learned, when I am feeling afraid, to invite my fear to come in, sit down, get comfy. God is here to hug us as we welcome our fear...all is well.

There...I'm not shaking now. I'm not ready to lead a parade, but I'm open to feeling my fear and doing the next thing...right or wrong, God's got us.

Hallelujah, God loves me so...you, too!

Thank you.

GRATITUDE AND GRACE, I

[The following is a reprint of my post of December 14, 2014.]

Gratitude is the handmaiden of grace. Grace leaves us with our facts unchanged, but our feelings about our facts upgraded, uplifted, enlightened.

We know peace by developing and maintaining an attitude of gratitude. Then, no matter the appearance to our reasoning mind's eye, grace through our own gratitude lets us realize...again and again and, yes, again...that this, too, is God's will. All is well.

Thank you.

NOT TO DISCOVER BUT TO RETRIEVE, I

[The following is a reprint of my post of December 30, 2013.]

It is such a comfort to me, when a problem looms, to remind myself that that problem has already been solved.

I usually want to get in the midst of it, figure it out (to my advantage), get all concerned to agree with me, but I need to quiet my mind, to listen. To listen...not for the answer to my perceived problem (for in God's world, there is no problem), but for the discipline of simply sitting quietly and listening.

Fr. Richard Rohr writes, ...spiritual knowledge is more like retrieving than discovering.

Whatever answer we need (which likely has not an iota to do with what we're thinking we need) will come to us. That answer may look less than wonderful and a butt-biter into the bargain, but it is, in truth, our gold mine.

We remember the promise: Be not afraid...it is I.

Thank you.

GRACE WILL LEAD US INTO AND OUT OF

Grace will lead us into such fears and emptiness, and grace alone can fill them, if we are willing to stay in the void. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," May 1, 2026

Ah, there's the dreaded gift that births peace of mind, the willingness to stay in the void. 

It's hard to remember that our peace of mind is the last thing we receive...but, of course. That's why we must walk through the void! That becomes our truth with still more spiritual growth. 

I am living in fear of dementia, but it is a different feeling of fear...apprehension comes closest, I guess. 

Curious may fit because I am curious as to how God is going to walk me through. It is an accepting curiosity which is spiritually based...or must be because fear is absent.

I do know I am in a higher mindset...try with a will no longer applies. Let go and let God is my watchword now.

The rest of let go and let God is born here...let go and let God while we do God's will, God's way fits now.

Thank you.

    

EYES ON THE PRIZE...A PEACED MIND

I said to the Lord, I’m going to hold steady on to you, and I know you will see me through. —Harriet Tubman, "Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman" 

That is akin to what I said to the Lord just yesterday...thank You.

I can't help but wonder just how dementia became epidemical in the last few months. Dementia! Dementia which, in general, was rarely mentioned until recently. 

There are mind-healers advertised up the gump stump, and they never before had a piece of the pie...again, until recently.   

Or is this just me...my now concern with my own mind that has sharpened my awareness...opened my mind to the rapidly expanding word about dementia...or, more to the point, the rapidly expanding word about cures and meds for dementia. The ads are legion...I have not studied them carefully, but a quick scan tells me none promise full cure, only a tish above a 50 percent cure. 

It is clear to me that my mind has taken a downturn. I plan to stay as calm as I am capable without self-driving, ever reminding me that God can and will if sought. I will take the four-hour test next week, take whatever the doctor prescribes, keep my eye on the prize, God, and pray for a peaced mind.

I wish I could have a dog.

Thank you.

GOD CALLING! LOVE IT AND LAUGH

Being raised from the deadened weight of fear to love. Perhaps that’s what is meant by resurrection. -- Author Diana Butler Bass, "Fr Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation," April 28, 2026

For some time now, I have practiced embracing the deadened weight of fear...anxiety being my first (and lasting) fear. Anxiety attacks were my personal stalkers. Since they seemed to be ever with me, I was given the gift of acceptance...I learned to love and laugh thus not resist fear.

I am not church people, but from my own personal experience, I became a believer. I came to believe that still more spiritual growth is the answer to the dailies of life. 

The main path? Whatever comes, love it and laugh; and there it is: God's secret handshake.

It seems there will always be something that comes that is truly unacceptable to our human eye. I have found that to be God's greatest gift to us...we have no choice but to go to God for God.

That dreaded feeling of being unloved, unneeded, unwanted, and unappreciated? God calling! Love it and laugh.

Thank you.

THE GRACE OF GRATITUDE

The storm rages on. But if you want to know how to walk through a storm? Keep your eyes on the prize. -- the Rt. Rev. Michael Curry

Lord, hear my prayer: Thank You.

My fear of dementia is for me to walk through (or with) today. With fear, without fear, we walk through that which we perceive as before us.

Blinding flash of the obvious: My perception is the storm...the grace of gratitude, the prize.

Thank you.

OUR WORST FEAR IS GOD'S GIFT

Fr. Richard Rohr writes, ...spiritual knowledge is more like retrieving than discovering.

Every time I read that statement, I get an ah-ha feeling...like I just got new information that is going to open a hidden spiritual reserve.

I am reminded that what we are retrieving is the gold, that we retrieve what we already have. Being unaware contains the spiritual invitation to be awakened repeatedly...each time at a deeper level. Whether we consciously know it or not.

I ponder that Fr Richard's spiritual knowledge is more like retrieving than discovering, and I feel hope anew...hope that what I already have is what I already have, i.e., our worst fear is our best gift.

We are opened to the inner truth: Our worst fear is God's gift...embrace it and be peaced.

Thank you.

NOTHING TURNS ME TO GOD FASTER THAN FEAR

Fear can keep us from hearing what is really being said. Mary’s spirituality is focused on trusting....She just says, 'I trust you, God. Do with me what you will. Let it be.' -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," April 26, 2026

I want to remember that...spirituality focused on trusting. I want to gratefully remember that until I live it without thought. 

Being human, likely I can remember it with a tish of fear, but then, that's my gig. It is with God's blessing that I know nothing turns me to God faster than fear, so I don't resist fear, I let it be and find my comfort there.

That was my blinding flash of the obvious many years ago. I was oh so comforted when I got it then, and it still washes over me in the peace that passes understanding.

God is so good to me...God is so good.

Thank you.

SIMPLE PRESENCE...THY WILL, THY WAY

This spirituality....almost entirely depends on our capacity for simple presence. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," April 23, 2026

I felt betrayed recently and big time. Before our noon meeting, I asked a friend, who had previously announced his dementia, if I could talk with him about my fear of possible dementia to which he agreed.

After the meeting while most everyone was still there mingling, my friend announced, for all to hear,  "Stacey's got to deal with her Alzheimer's."  I just smiled, like "what a joker" and nothing further was said. 

For me to remember: That is not the important personal part. That part is for me to follow Friend 2's openness about her dementia...but on my timetable. The announcement felt like a betrayal just an hour after I first mentioned my "fear of possible dementia" to him. 

That is what I need to detach from...detach my resentful thinking by welcoming a higher interpretation to dwell on, i.e., God's will, God's way.  Remembering all the while that my "betrayer" is not bad, not even a "betrayer," he's just not the right confidant for me. 

There...I've got my inside work cut out for me. God loves me us so much.

Thy will, not mine, be done.

Thank you. 

FEAR...LOVE IT TO LET IT BE

Today, fear of dementia is sneaking into my thinking. 

I remind me to love it and laugh...if love and laugh are, as I believe, life's best answer whatever the problem, then dementia, too, can be met there.

Love and laughter will not cancel it, heal it, stop it...it simply will not determine my daily me. I can and do have another incurable disease which I meet daily with God and grace, love and laughter. Dementia, too, can be met there.

Also, my friend Bob may have a mean streak which I experienced recently in the form of a cheap shot he delivered to me before several of our friends.

Ah, it is fear, of course. I need to seek to change me, my gossipy reaction, not Bob...my want to rat him out to others.

Love that and let it perc. Personally, my feet are not there yet...my head has it but that is a far cry from walking it. 

Please and thank You, 

Thank you.

NEW ORDERS ...A CHANGE IS GONNA COME

Everything visible, without exception, is the outpouring of God.....go forward on this inward migration toward sovereignty of mind. -- "Richard Rohr Daily Meditation," April 19, 2026

Whoa!...go forward on this inward migration toward sovereignty of mind.

To go forward inwardly is a stretch...for me anyway. By a stretch I mean I need to stop right there...stop and ponder that until it explains itself to me. It reads so pretty that we feel invited to believe we agree or even know what we're agreeing with.

The first half of that quote, from Everything visible to outpouring of God I get, agree with, and if I stopped there, it would not enter my thinking again.

Ah, but the last half of that, go forward on this inward migration, etc.. causes me pause...a long pause. I suspect toward sovereignty of mind is my Full Stop. When. and/or how, did sovereignty of mind become a goal?

I've been living for, working toward, thinking of, turning my will and my life, i.e., my thinking, over to the care of God...to be a follower of God's will, God's way. Going toward sovereignty of mind is going to require...ah-ha!...is going to require that I change my mind. Reminder to me: That I change my mind has been my meditative goal for a long time now.

Well. I make no rash self-promises, but I suspect and hope I have just received my new marching orders, Or, not new...just newly clarified.

God loves me so much...us...loves us so much. And I am grateful.

Thank you.

DEEP HEALING IS OF GOD

Both the Christian religion and the American psyche need deep healing, and I do not say that lightly.  -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditations," March 24, 2026

Today I know, and I know I know, and I finally and freely admit that I am in need of deep healing, and I do not say that lightly.

It is dementia I fear...loss of my reasoning mind...and it seems I am forgetting more each day. I note I particularly say it seems, etc., and I thank You.

From my own experience, I know that fear can and will do our thinking, feeling, doing for us whether we realize it or not. I remind myself of that fact a lot these days. If or when the fear of dementia takes over, it is that fear not dementia itself, that does our thinking for us. 

There is the truth about fear itself...when fear takes over, fear does our thinking for us...does our thinking, feeling, doing, being for us. 

I have long held that humans have two primary emotions from which all feelings are birthed...namely, love or fear. Love is harder to hold onto than fear...probably because God is love, not ours to hold onto but to live...fear is on its own which is scary in its own right...there is no God in fear. 

God is walking me through my personal way of dealing with a "what if"...think it through, repeatedly; when I am ready, God can and will lead me free. Then, if wrong, promptly admit it. Apologize to God for thinking I got ahead of him and go for it again. 

All the while loving and laughing...my new-found inner peace tools, and I thank You.

Dementia, shake hands with God...now you can get in line behind...God's got the wheel.

Thank you.

OUR NEMESIS AND AN UNSELFED LIFE. I

[The following is a reprint of my post of April 30, 2017.]

I've been contemplating nemesis and my belief that we all have our own. I equate nemesis with undeserved suffering...kinda like it is our cross to bear.

I tend to believe our acceptance of it comes with the realization that it became ours by our own unknowing choice before conception...maybe as an act of solidarity with all the pain of our chosen people.

I compare my "unknowing choice," to the line from an old novelty song (a favorite of mine): When they were passing out noses, I thought they said roses, and I said, 'I'll have a big red one.'

Having learned who I am and what I'm all about, that makes sense to me...it is neither logical nor believable that I would choose suffering purely for the benefit of others. I mean, it's comforting having Jesus as a role model, I just don't want to have to do as he did; i.e., suffer for others.

I'm guessing the key to our nemesis is the acceptance of it, resistance and all, and to welcome it as it comes to us. Why do I say I'm guessing that? That's the key to an unselfed life...which, after all, is our spiritual goal.

Thank you.

ON MATURE SPIRITUAL GROWTH, I

[The following is a reprint of my post of May 30, 2016.]

The ego gets what it wants with words. The soul finds what it needs in silence. -- Fr. Richard Rohr

There it is: The essence of our reasoning mind's resistance to powerlessness. Our ego's path out is through our reasoning mind; our soul has no path...in its transparence, it flows freely, cannot be cornered or captured...it is. It simply is.

We often hear that mature spiritual growth is all about detaching. Letting go of our self-perceived needs...embracing our self-perceived lack. When we are no longer talking that but are, in fact and without thought, doing that...we will know mature spiritual growth. And heading in the right direction counts.

Thank you.

ON SEEKING ANSWERS OF MY OWN SELF

The journey to sovereignty of mind requires an inward migration, where we in a sense become refugees from our external nation, culture, economy, and civilization, even though we still live within its borders. We withdraw inwardly. -- Alexis Wright, an Aboriginal writer from Australia

I have found myself being led (fed?) by a self-demanding search within.

I started following the feeling of demand, and faster than I realized that it was happening, I found myself seeking, questioning, demanding answers of my own self.

No, it does not make sense...reasoning-mind sense...but the answer popped almost immediately: Follow Me...where and for what, I know not. Follow that.

When I read the Alexis Wright quote above, I knew I am on the right track, going in the right direction, and though I know not my destination, I know it is God's will, God's way.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but there just is no getting better than that! 

I am peaced.

God is so good to me...God is so good.

Thank you.

WITHOUT CEASING, I

[The following is a reprint of my post of April 8, 2015.]

I offered my ego to God to tame, to do with as he willed...the answer came back that the ego is mine to tame, to do with as I will...that’s the “free will” we are given before conception, at birth, throughout our life.

Our heart and soul we can give to God, but our ego is ours TO DISCIPLINE...that’s why we must needs seek still more spiritual growth daily, twice, thrice daily...”without ceasing.”

Thank you.

WE GO TO GOD FOR GOD...AND THAT IS ALL

Fear of dementia is with me. 

This I have learned: To deny our fear is to grow it ever deeper, ever darker...to welcome it is to be peaced...or to deny our fear is to grow ego-panic; to welcome it is to be lifted into God consciousness.

I am in the process of facing my fear this morning...my fear that dementia is with me. I have journaled about it, but now, for the first time, I have shared my fear with a friend. 

How I go forward determines whether I have peace of mind (God with me) or lack of peace (egoic fear driving me). 

An idea came to me a week or so back: I may start a spiritually based Happily Living With Dementia group. Our goal: To share our fears and its recovery with others who have dementia or the fear of dementia who seek the peace that passes understanding...God's will, God's way.

We could meet weekly to share our current personal fears and facts of living with and adjusting spiritually to dementia. And/or of our recovery...free of fret, worry and self-centered fear.  

Just as an aside, I am amazed at how many folks I know or know of who are dealing with dementia...nine or ten years ago I knew no one dealing with dementia or the fear of it.

Reminder: We go to God for God, and that is all...for that is All.

Thank you. 

LET GOD TAKE OVER, I

[The following is a reprint of my post of July 25, 2016.]

But I say unto you, * * * whosoever shall smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.... == Matthew 5:39

I know of no one, most especially myself, who hasn't (using good common sense) resisted that line upon hearing it...and not just hearing it for the first time, but every single time. Until we take God's time to ponder it; i.e., go into our quiet and open our self to a higher understanding.

My common sense led me to the realization that no one I know, friend or unfriend, would slap me upside the head. Talk about me behind my back, maybe...or, more likely, chew me a new one to my eyeballs...but not slap my face. Therefore, if someone did slap my face, I could reckon that this person was not dealing from a full deck...best to smile and turn the other cheek as I quietly walk away. In other words, resist not and high tail it.

There. Common sense can lead us to the fourth dimension, and we can let God take over from there.

Thank you.

PEACE IN THE MIDST OF A STORM

The occasions may only be momentary and we quickly move back into the harsh reality of the everyday, but their effects linger, suggesting that new creation is possible and that transformation can happen. --"Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation," April 9, 2026

"The occasions" are my so-called "blinding flashes of the obvious" which come when they come...not often and then a bunch at a time. We can take that as God's timing, not mine.

Those occasions do peace my jangled mind...my fear thoughts,

There is so much less-than going on in the world today...less-than the serenity available at any and all times. But how often do I avail myself of it, of a serene mind? Yet, an unpeaced mind is where all restlessness, unease. dis-ease begins.     

To be at peace in the midst of a storm, be it mental, physical, or spiritual, is to live God's will, God's way.

We can aim for that...God's will, God's way...but to hold out for that and only that is to hold our self out from God, it seems to me. Aiming for perfection is using our own mind to define perfection, and what is less able to do just that? Nada.

We each live God's will, God's way according to our own inner God-connection. There's our journey...to seek our own God connection. 

According to me, three days after we're dead, we'll still be seeking, and that's if we're doing it right,

Thank you.

WITH GRATITUDE AND GRACE, WE FEAR NOT

Today I know to face my fears since they are with me; but how I receive fear determines my peace of mind (God with me) or lack of peace (ego driving me).  Only a peaced mind can receive the inner truth. 

I need to welcome my fear. To deny it is to give it fear-growth...to welcome it is to give it peace-growth.

I seek the peace that passes understanding...God's will, God's way which seldom offers reason to the material mind. 

To reason is to make commonsense out of a problem. There is no commonsense in God's will, God's way...there is only God's will, God's way. 

Blinding flash of the obvious: We cannot bring God's will and way down to us, we must offer us up. 

Our very offer is evidence of the spiritual love we seek...then we experience the love flow to/from us.

Thank you.

BY GRACE AND BY GOD

It seems that everything that my material mind's eyes see and judge as 'good' or 'not good' are in the spiritual world's view the opposite of what I see and how I judge what I see.  

My very first lesson is my go-to always: To my mind back then, alcoholism was bad so I knew not to admit to it. Today, to my raised consciousness, alcoholism in God's care is my blessing and became my ticket to ride...as in, still more spiritual growth always.

We leave the alcohol behind, go to God in grace and gratitude and live happy/unhappy as God wills and self aligns...yet ever free.

This morning I am fearing dementia...Mom died with it, as did my sister, and I may be experiencing hints of it. I also have intense anxiety disorder which may be doing my fear-thinking for me.

Blinding flash of the obvious:  If dementia be Thy will for me, then dementia is my will for me.

If alcoholism can be a good thing, and it is to me today, then so can dementia be...by grace and by God, Thy will, Thy way.

Thank you.

GOD GIVES, WE RECEIVE...TO PASS IT ON

....dream a new way out of no way. -- Mark Longhurst, "Fr Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation," April 6, 2026

Those words speak for me this morning...I need to continue to dream, I just need to dream a new way.

Ah, there be my stranglehold...I have not a clue where or how to start as I know not in what direction to aim...what with the fear of dementia heavy over my head.

Yesterday, Easter Sunday, I spent doing absolutely nothing. I suspect I was paralyzed with the fear of dementia, but I felt nothing.

I wonder if dementia isn't just another direction for God to lead me. I can always give it a go, and if it works, great, if it doesn't, great. Another direction will open for me, God's will, God's way.

There's my comfort...God's will, God's way. We are all living God's will, God's way whether we know it or not.

Hallelujah! Once again, I am freed from egoic fear by God's will, God's way. 

God gives; we receive...to pass it on.

Thank you.

THY WILL, THY WAY

In my mind, I seek to seek the peace that passes understanding...God's will, God's way. However, this morning my fear of dementia is with me. I know that to deny it is to give it fear-growth...to welcome it is to give it peace-growth. 

Knowing that and growing that is the equivalent of self-will vs. God's will...with self-will rigid, righteous and right and God's will giving over, giving up, giving in...thus, winning. 

Ah, words...all just words. But not useless! Necessary steppingstones up, There's my blinding flash of the obvious, and I thank You.

I need to face the fear with me...how I receive it determines my peace of mind (God with me) or lack of peace (ego driving me).

Simply acknowledging my fear of dementia has brought to mind my friend who lives with dementia alone in her home...openly and comfortably, sans fear, shame or blame. 

Blinding flash...I need to let love be in/from/to me. There is life's never-ending lesson, the singular need of all of us...to let love win Thy will, Thy way.

Thank you. 

TO LOVE IN A LOVELESS PLACE...PEACED

Fail not in your function

of loving in a loveless place

made out of darkness and deceit,

for thus are darkness and deceit undone.

from The Gift of Peace by Bernardin, Cardinal Joseph at p.95

SPIRITUAL GROWTH...THE FOREVER PARADOX

I am beginning to see that I, in my own body, am an image of what is happening everywhere.... Fr Richard Rohr, quoting an unknown other, "Daily Meditation," April 3, 2026

Whoa...I had that very thought just yesterday which I shared with a friend. The good news is that describes how I continue to feel this morning.

Good fortune and still more spiritual growth have taught us to share these blinding flashes of the obvious with trusted friends before airing them in public. Face it, often we cannot be certain sure we're not entertaining spiritual wants as done facts.

There are no free rides to still more spiritual growth...ah, but there are only free rides for still more spiritual growth.

Spiritual growth is the forever paradox...another reason to live in gratitude.

Thank you.

UNLOVE...WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR?

Only a contemplative mind can hold our fear, confusion, vulnerability, and anger and guide us toward love. Those who allow themselves to be challenged and changed will be the new cultural creative voices of the next period of history after this purifying exile. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditations," March 24, 2026

I'm hearing the hymn Were You There? in my head this morning...repeatedly. Namely, I'm hearing the rest of that sentence: when they crucified my Lord.  

For those five words I am substituting when I lied, or I cheated, or I stole

What an exercise in arm-wrestling with my own self...everything I name, I promptly knock down for good cause. There's my ego on parade; as in, it was never my fault, never that much, never counted really.

Who is kidding whom? Clearly, it never counted that much to me...and apparently must struggle to matter yet. 

To reiterate: Only a contemplative mind can hold our fear, confusion, vulnerability, and anger and guide us toward love. 

Chilling fact: It is the last four words that cause me pause...it is the last word that causes my panic. Love. 

I have a fear of love...no, I fear love. Uh-oh...there's a whole new chapter in my book of self Unto Self. 

That is way too deep to go any further with now, or yet, but it is God's grace that I've owned it in writing this morning. 

God is so good to me...I repeat with fingers crossed.

Thank you.

THERE IS NO WRONG DIRECTION TO GOD

It doesn’t matter if we are right or wrong about what 'is.' As long as we hold on to our certainty, there is no room for faith. The discovery that 'the opposite of faith is not doubt but certainty' is one of the most freeing discoveries of my life.—Barry H., "Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation," April 1, 2026

I, too, was gifted with that well-hidden spiritual realization that 'the opposite of faith is not doubt but certainty.'  

I had no certainty about spirituality itself, but I wanted it...in truth, I wanted to be worry-free according to my lights. There...that is the cornerstone of my still more spiritual growth, i.e., going in the wrong direction and getting to God against my best thinking.

I no longer seek for my idea of God in my life...whatever questionable comes to me, looking good, bad or indifferent, I let this, too, is of God guide me, and it is no longer questionable, it just is. Kinda like breathing.

Let me be clear for my own self...this is not a one-thought deal. It takes as long as it takes for me to find my peace...one second, one day, whatever. I know God is driving this bus, and...eventually...I let Him.

God is so good to me...God is so good.

Thank you.

GETTING TO GOD IN REVERSE...PERFECT PEACE

The reversal of powers, this movement from being a community that scapegoats to a community that liberates, is how we can participate fully in remaking the world. -- "Daily Meditation," March 31, 2026

NOW...now is the time for me to fully accept through realization that my fears have come true and are my gift of gold...not to overcome but to come over to!

If dementia be my gift today, I embrace it and invite it to get comfy with my primary disease which has turned out to be God's gift to me.

Acceptance of the unacceptable...God's path to peace, i.e., resist not evil.

God is so good to me...to us. God is so good.

Thank you.

ON WORKING TOGETHER FOR OUR GOOD

History has shown us that authority itself is not a good guide. Yet for many people, authority figures soothe their anxiety and relieve their own responsibility to form a mature conscience. We love to follow someone else and let them take the responsibility. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditations." March 30, 2026

That surely speaks to my maturing process...I grew up willfully following my sister's guidance...I made no decisions for myself. 

It took me years to fully change after I first came to realize that...or to begin to realize that.

Yet, I had the full-throated opinions, the tone of my voice was commanding (I was told, and not in a complimentary way). As I grew deeper into my spiritual growth, I recognized much about my fears that I hid behind my sister, which I now see comforted both my sister and me. 

The personally good news is I have no rues, regrets or resentments...we worked together for our mutual good. Don't tell me God wasn't in the midst of that...anonymously. since neither my sister nor I had a clue.

There is great comfort in that realization for me as I live my way through the fear of dementia today. 

God is in place doing His good for each of us however we each need His good which rarely looks individually the same. Face it, my good could hardly peace, say my dentist, and vice versa.

Today I am comforted in what I consider a blessed gift...that which comes to me looking not welcome is a gift to be welcomed; that which I seek, which I self-determine as for my good, seldom is. A self= determined objective is just that...self-determined. God is rarely found there.

But if we would look, we'd doubtless find God there. God is everywhere...preserving our Souls.

Thank you.

ON RELEASING RESENTMENT...DON'T PICK IT UP

Unless scapegoating can be consciously seen and named through concrete rituals, owned mistakes, shadow work, or repentance, the pattern will usually remain unconscious and unchallenged. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," March 29, 2026

Ah. scapegoating. Back in the day (when I was way younger), scapegoating was my thing; but, face it, to young peeps, scapegoating was the smart way to be. Blame was the name of the game. Find someone to blame for our own...um, let's call them errors in judgment...especially if the one we're blaming is not present. Remember?

Moving into today's world, how free from scapegoating are we in our own mind...in our free-floating thoughts?

I used to jokingly say that finding someone to blame was perfect peace. I did not consciously find peace in blaming; it was finding the point/place/person of origin where my peace began. Often, I did not even realize it...it was after spiritual growth came into my consciousness that I began to earn peace by owning, not blaming, my problem.

My peace of mind came by sharing the ownership of any upset with God. Forgiveness then enwrapped me...no fault attaches made a home in me. Best part...I learned to train that belief on whomever I was resenting. I'm talking freedom.

Truth be told, there is no cheap freedom...letting go of a prized resentment requires that we release it before it becomes prized. Hug it and kiss it and let it go...God's will, God's way.

Thank you.

BEING PEACED BY THE THOUGHT OF GOD

We must not imagine that political changes of themselves will ever bring about the goodness, charity, or transformation that the gospel offers the world. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditations", March, 24, 2026

Looking back and longing for the freedom of my chains...." from "Loving Arms" by Tom Jans

I find it strange but interesting the things one reads that speaks to us. The line from "Loving Arms" is a good example...the freedom of my chains. Wow. That says it all.

Just letting that sit in my head, its meaning changed for me more than a few times. Maybe that's why I like the song so much...it changes my mind almost every time I hear it. I like that.

I like that maybe because that's fairly close to my relationship with God. He changes/my mind changes almost every time I think of Him, and I feel peaced in a different, a better, way.

I'm going to ponder that.

Thank you.

GOD LOVES US ALWAYS AND ALL WAYS

That old familiar feeling. the feeling that there is something wrong with me, is with me this morning.

Ah, blinding flash: That is the gift for it turns me to God quick, fast and in a hurry.

That is the feeling that birthed the realization of fear as my friend, Specifically, when I was gifted with the realization that nothing turns me to God faster than fear, I was made whole. 

Fear wearing horns can and will return. and God with His angel wings can and will peace fear, and I am freed again...always and all ways.

God loves us so much. God loves. God is love.

Thank you.

FAITH AND OBEDIENCE...THE KEY, I

[The following is a reprint of my post of March 28, 2019.]

To see our petty problems from a different angle may well be the answer to all our problems. Indeed, if it be true that what we see is always ourselves, then being willing to refocus could be our answer. To see you as right and me as not so much is an enormous step to just consider...in a positive light.

That may be the key to working with God to change our own mind. I'm convinced a mind cannot be changed through self-will alone. We might say it, but...like acceptance, just saying that we're giving up or letting go does not get us there...we must needs work with God.

Yet again, "God Calling" has the answer. Today's entire entry is short, simple and direct: Faith and obedience will remove mountains, mountains of evil, mountains of difficulty. But they must go hand in hand.

That's it.

It doesn't take a mystic to know that the key word there is obedience. Faith, of course, but that goes almost without saying. I mean, who's seeking still more spiritual growth without at least a tish of faith as their golden goose? But obedience? The actual how-to is all about obedience...studying, pondering, striving...to give over, give up, give in. Ah, to not talk back or defend yourself too much against accusations, whether false or true, a.k.a., to agree with your adversary quickly.

That can only come to us through our doing it...actually, through our willingness to give it a start. And failing. Trying again. And failing...but not so totally this time. With a modicum of peace in our heart and our head the next time.

We are building faith and obedience within so we can walk it without. Ah, now we're beginning to know our Father on earth (without) as He is in Heaven (within).

Thank you.

WE GO TO GOD FOR GOD

I suspect that we get the leaders who mirror what we have become as a nation. They are our shadow self for all to see. -- Fr, Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," March 24, 2026

Whoa! There it is, my unacknowledged worst fear walking: we get the leaders who mirror what we have become.

I am the source of all my woes. When that idea flashed through me, I knew it for Truth. I knew in that moment that we each are the source of our living, thinking, doing, being, that a Higher Power lives within each of us to guide our every thought and action when we turn away from self to It.

Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find.... == Matthew 7:7

The hard part for most of us is remembering to ask, to seek...that is the I want what I want when I want it living of the self on parade.

It seems to take a long time to, in truth, come to believe...even when we are sincerely trying to come to believe. It is our surrender that leads us to acceptance...to finally accept that it is our trying that blocks God's will, God's way

To remember. To remember God. To remember and believe from our toenails up that God is with us, within us. That God can and will if sought and has a better way than we do, no matter how much we love our way.

This fairly well describes my still more spiritual growth to this day...try with a will, surrender, which transmutes into acceptance, pray thank You, and know peace. 

Until the next time. 

There is the comfort...there is no cheap spiritual growth, but the price is paid for us by our spiritual growth.

God is so good to us.

Thank you.

GOD'S WILL, THE PEARL BEYOND PRICE, I

[The following is a reprint of my post of March 31, 2019.]

Something in you dies when you bear the unbearable. And it is only in that dark night of the soul that you are prepared to see as God sees and to love as God loves. —Ram Das

I'm betting there are a gazillion unbearables in our life...egoic snags and snarks that we wrestle with, praying God to take them, all the while we are refusing to release them.

If that be so, ponder this: They, our ego's issues, would comprise the steppingstones to the Big Unbearable that eventually leads to life everlasting...i.e., God. Or, our ego is our well-hidden gold.

Coming to that realization unto acceptance is transforming.

There is a promise that holds the key to that transformation. The promise is that God can and will intervene in our life in our behalf. Our transformation is all about our realization that his intervention is not a guarantee that we will get our want, that likely we will not get our want...and we will be the better for it. (This is what Rohr describes as developing the art of losing. I only love that.)

We are transformed when our head and our heart know God's will for the long-sought cosmic pearl beyond price.

Thank you.

ON BECOMING PEACED...HURTS

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 in 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 lifted the above from previous posts of mine...it expresses well where I am in my head and heart today. That is to say, worried...into self...all atremble...scared.

There are reasons aplenty, of course. When...not if...I sit in silence and let thank You flow through me, I am quieted. For that moment in time. 

Ah, but fear rejects quiet...and There It Is! My long-ago realization, my forever answer: Nothing turns me to God faster than fear. 

I will not know peace until after I have walked through my perceived problem. The way there is to resist not. Lean into knowing that this, too, is for my benefit.

I am being peaced. God is so good to me.

Thank you.

LEARNING TO LOVE REQUIRES UNLEARNING

God does not demand that we all agree. God only asks that we love one another well. -- Rachel Held Evans, "Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation," March 21, 2026

Learning to love...dispassionately, with no "giftee" promised...is the most difficult thing I've ever attempted. I realized that when, looking back, I recognized my lack of unselfed love.

I am grateful that I learned and still live with the realization that there are only two emotions: Love and Fear. Apparently, I lived under the assumption that any "feel good" passed for love, and that was close enough to perfect for me. Mentally expanding the two emotions entered and saved me. It has been...admittedly, still is...a less than easy slog. 

"It" being the effort required to change my mind. In truth, to upgrade my mind. To feel repulsed by any mouth-breather...repulsed unto bad-mouthing them if only in my mind...is my turning point. That realization was the origin of my finding the gift of thank You. Resist not, with thank You following, became my inner mantra.

I have been on this journey for over fifty years, and I suspect I've only just begun...but I do believe: If not in this life span, then the next...always moving upward.

Thank you.

BEING PEACED IN THE MIDST OF FEAR

H]ave patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day. -- The German poet, Rainer Maria Rilke

I first posted this Rilke quote on March 29, 2016. 

It is particularly fitting for me today what with my current resistance to my personal fear of dementia...my fear that I may be coming into full-blown dementia. (Personally, I prefer to refer to it as old-age forgetfulness.) 

Words are comforting, we rely on them to sooth our jangled nerves. Ah, but they come into reality when we try to use them to fix our perceived broken place. Soothing is nice, but it doesn't fix. 

Comes the blinding light: Only God can fix, and only God's will, God's way can do that. 

Comes the dire reality, seldom if ever does God's fix arrive looking personally comforting. The lesson we continue to learn: We must needs walk through our pain...or, more aptly, the cause of our pain.

Forever lesson, relearned as needed, sometimes daily: If it is appearing to us, welcome it. The cause of our pain is our resistance to what and how we are perceiving our life's problem.

Again, and yet again: Hug it and kiss it and let it go.

There. There is the proof that words are comforting, but they do not fix. Living through our trauma, be it a broken fingernail or the death of a loved one, is the way of the Lord. 

How else can we build faith if we never have a reason to have faith?

I feel fear...I pray my thank You for the fear for it is truly turning me to God.

Thank you.

ALL ONE IN THE GOODNESS OF GOD'S LOVE

It is such divine extravagance, a philosophy of love them into loving me back, that sets the pattern for all the prophets to follow. -- "Richard Rohr Daily Meditation," March 2, 2026

To me, "a philosophy of love them into loving me back," is the baseline from which all spiritual growth follows. When, without thought, we are living that, we know God's will, God's way as our own...as we breathe. 

Clearly, I forecast that without one hundred percent living experience...but my head hopes, my heart knows, my gut is good with that...so I walk it very nearly as much as I think it today. 

God knows my limitations, and I go to God to learn them which is spiritual growth. I used to seek my answers from whomever stood closest to me at the time. Kinda one-shot-deal spiritual growth. I regret it not...it was a starting point, and to start is ever God's grace.

My comfort today is that I know, and I know that I know, God loves me (and you) personally without qualifiers, and we are One in that goodness.

Thank you.

LESS-THAN AS MORE THAN ENOUGH

Throughout the Gospels, we find numerous teachings promoting downward mobility. The most familiar of these may be, 'The last shall be first, and the first shall be last.' (Matthew 20:16) "Richard Rohr Daily Meditation," March 19, 2026 [ABTW, happy birthday to me.]

Don't tell me God isn't in my thinking, my feeling, my doing, my being...and exchange "my" for "our." 

Looking back, I vaguely remember when it was that I came into my realization that less-than was right for me. I do know that it simply fit so I questioned it not; I built on it, and (gratefully) I still do.

Today, I joyfully accept that was when I gave up the will to win! To the reasoning mind, that has loser written all over it...spiritually ir all but sings "Peace in the Valley." 

For my own self I accept that I have barely begun...but I have begun, and I thank You, Lord. 

Thank you.

DO NOT LOOK FOR THE ANSWERS

[H]ave patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day. -- The German poet, Rainer Maria Rilke

I have put this Rilke quote out before, and I'm fairly certain I will again for there it is, the answer...his,  It is a question of experiencing everything. 

Ah, experiencing. 

We get to...we must...accept and walk through all that our own life offers us. Lest we forget: All that comes to us, comes by our invitation only.

 

End of mind-nattering questions pretending to be discussion.

Thank you.

ON LIVING ABOVE REASONING

My blinding flash this morning:  We are being led...whether we know it or not. 

There is a spiritual reason and a material reason for our being exactly where we are...ours to choose. When, not if, we choose spirituality, we begin to live anew.

Just as The Man needed water from the well, we need material-world aids, too. The underlying reason for the need is spiritual, our own inner treasure:  It is still more spiritual growth that brings one to that essential realization...the reasoning mind resists the idea.

Thy will, Thy way. Our will is of self; Thy will is of Self.

Thank you.

RADICAL UNITY...LOVE, AND THAT IS ALL

Radical unity with God and neighbor is the only way any of us truly heals or improves. -- "Fr Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation," March 2, 2026

We go to God for God and that is all...for that is all.

Thank you.

THE WELCOMING LIGHT OF GOD

I do not believe that sin is the enemy we often make it out to be, at least not when we recognize it and name it as such. When we see how we have turned away from God, then and only then do we have what we need to begin turning back. Sin is our only hope, the fire alarm that wakes us up to the possibility of true repentance. -- Author Barbara Brown Taylor, "Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation," March 10, 2026

I suspect that the inner meaning of that quote is the insight with which I was gifted way back when; i.e., "wrong" is not the enemy..."wrong" is what turns us around to do "right."  

Blinding flash...that gift has been growing me ever since and still is...please and thank You.

When we get stuck in the remorses of our self-described "wrong," we seldom find God's way of accepting that which is gifted us. 

My life took me down the dark hole until I gave over, gave up, gave in...surrendered in a word...to come into the anonymous light of God.

My continuing life lesson: Find the good in the bad appearing...there the light of God welcomes.

Thank you.

BLESSED BEYOND THE MIND'S IMAGINING

I do not believe that sin is the enemy we often make it out to be, at least not when we recognize it and name it as such. When we see how we have turned away from God, then and only then do we have what we need to begin turning back. Sin is our only hope, the fire alarm that wakes us up to the possibility of true repentance. -- Author Barbara Brown Taylor, "Daily Meditation," March 10, 2026

The inner meaning of the Taylor quote is the insight I was gifted with way back when, i.e., wrong is not the enemy...wrong is what turns us around to go for right, a.k.a., God.

That blinding flash has been developing within me ever since...and is still developing me.

When we get stuck in the remorses of our self-described "wrong," we rarely find God's will, or acceptance of that which is gifted us. 

My early life took me down the dark hole into the anonymous light of God. There I learned to find the good in the bad appearing...there God awaits.

My life today...now in my 80s...is my pearl beyond price. 

I do not have many of the "things" I prayed for back in the day, i.e., money, a man, money. No, but I do have the pearls beyond price, i.e., peace of mind, love for others, the God of my own understanding. 

I am blessed beyond the mind's imagining.

Thank you. 

PEACE OF MIND BRINGS PEACE ON EARTH

We have ceased fighting everything and everybody. -- Anonymous

Comes the light! 

We realize unto acceptance that the "fight" begins in our head...in our thinking...in our first resistant thought.

The need to cease resisting everything and everybody is but a beginning. Now the thought must be raised up into action. 

Our choice is not to resist but to overcome...to overcome "my way" thoughts, not to ignore for others to deal with but to overcome within using the Sermon as our guide. 

We no longer opt to set others straight. By grace and by God, all sides are lifted into the God space where all are in agreement...God's will, God's way. 

With God's will, God's way leading us out of self, we find peace of mind...thus, peace on earth.

Thank you.

OUR CHANGED LIFE IS GOD'S GIFT

....a whole new set of behaviors and lifestyle will emerge. It is not that if I am righteous, then I will be loved by God; rather, I must first come to experience God’s love and then I will—almost naturally—be righteous. -- paraphrase of "Fr Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation," March 7, 2026

From my own experience, I believe "to experience God's love," we must experience the mess of our own making. We must crash and burn which we have so arduously been attempting to avoid...by denial mostly.

There is no God in denial...there is, however, an invitation to God to come save us from our self.

There it is...God's gift to the down-and-out: Realization unto admission unto acceptance of our utter powerlessness, and Help! is born.

The beginnings of faith is trust. In trust, we go to God for God, that is all...and unknowingly we are healed. Our changed life is our daily proof.

Thank you.

RADICAL UNITY: GIVE...ONLY GIVE

Radical unity with God and neighbor is the only way any of us truly heals or improves. -- Fr Richard Rohr, 'Daily Meditations,'' March 2, 2026   

Give over, give up, give in. There...the blinding flash of the obvious that came to me some years back.

I have been open to learning how to do that (to give, only give) ever since. By open, I do not mean I have actually achieved it. I mean I have been gifted on occasion, and I remain willing to continue to try for it. to receive it.

I know I cannot, of myself, do that, give only give, but that we can. With God as our guide and goal, we can and do practice giving. "All" that is required of us is that we be willing to try. 

God's gift of insight: We are not in it to win it; we are in it to give it. Ah, we can only give what we have earned with God as our teacher, leader, guide and goal.

The underlying wonderment: We have given over, given up, given in on occasion...and not realized it until sometime later. It cannot be a self-determined objective; it is God's gift plain and simple.

We "win" when our reasoning mind is into regrets, and we realize spiritual peace...both at the same time.  There: radical unity.

Thank you.

GOD CONSCIOUSNESS FROM WITHIN

My morning gift of consciousness:

Some of our biggest mistakes come when we are trying really hard to do God's will...only we have self-determined, without asking, what God's will is, and we are not even close to the Truth.

We willingly accept something we don't even want, calling it God's will when in truth God doesn't want/need it either. 

Lessons we learn: Stay open, keep an open mind, invite God's will to flow freely in consciousness--"to do with me and to build of me as Thy will. Thy will, not mine, be done."

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Thank you.

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.

ON LEARNING TO LOVE...TO GIVE OF 0UR SELF

My inner message this morning was that I do not know how to love. I do not and have never realized how to love...only as I feel it and that is dependent on who, how and/or what I am getting. 

I am realizing again...or still...that I do not know how to love.

I do not and have never realized how a feeling of love in general feels. Other than good. 

I'm not even sure that good isn't how a feeling of love in general feels for everybody. 

Blinding flash of the obvious: A feeling of love is a simple need to give of our self for the benefit of another. 

An unknown at the time example of pure love: My sister, age 13-14, sick in bed with the flu, me. age 10-11, doing all I possibly could to bring happy to her. To get a smile, to know I was helping her in whatever way possible. And she smiled. and I knew happy. 

There...God's gift of remembrance to me this morning.

Thank you.

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.

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.

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.