LOST IN THE BUSY-NESS OF EGO, I

[The following is a reprint of my post of January 28, 2015.]

We must ever be aware that what we speak, what we share as ours, is indeed ours by the living of it. It comes to us, we live it, then it passes on. Skip the living of it and we miss "making it ours" which is our only chance at realizing it as our own truth.

Some of the best lessons I've ever received have come from my own mouth, and no one has been more surprised than me. But that's just surface stuff for then the task begins...we must learn to live that "best lesson" and not just talk it.

Again, it comes to us, we live it, then it passes itself on. Miss that second part, and we just continue to live in the busy-ness of ego.

Then, too, if we are just quoting others and calling it ours, we are not growing in our own consciousness. That is what Joel Goldsmith calls, "...mentally perceived, and not spiritually discerned..." [The Heart of the Mystic, at p. 1135], and Fr. Richard Rohr in his Daily Meditation of January 21, 2015, describes as "an idolatry of words."

Thank you.

ON GIVING GOD A GRIN

I just read a recent post of mine, and this sentence sang to me: ...living doubt-free is a given when we live by grace and by God.

I had to ponder that again...to ponder living doubt-free, which led to a mind-trip. 

I wondered if it is possible to live entirely doubt-free...the operative words being to live. I'm reasonably certain we can exist...there are hermits, singletons, loners and others who are as happy as they choose to be all alone, relatively stress free. 

It seems to me that living without people-contact, as in service to other than oneself, is virtually being the God of one's own understanding. In other words...God-less. To me, that is a life lived in unacknowledged fear.

I doubt not that allowing life to say us nay or to give us our atta girl is essential to our spiritual growth.

As an aside, it's a wonderful way to develop a sense of humor...the one God sends to guide us seems more often than not to be a less-than for Heaven's sake. Ah, lessons learned.

Don't tell me God doesn't enjoy a good grin.

Thank you.

GOD IS ALWAYS RIGHT, I

{The following is a reprint of my post of January 22, 2013.]

Truth is within ourselves and we must open out a way for the imprisoned splendour to escape. -- Robert Browning

Consider this: What if truth is just another word for kindness, patience, love, understanding, forbearance, consideration, empathy? Each is inside of us right this very minute. If not, where would we go to get them? To pray for any one or all is our ego's prayer, in effect.

The minute we recognize a need to be kind, be kind...a need to be understanding, be understanding...a need to be patient, be patient. Loose it and let it go forth from you.

I'm told that we cannot even utter the highest form of prayer...we can only receive it from within. It comes in the form of realization of that which is is perfect just as it is. Our job then is to accept that, and then learn the how of it, the why of it...in other words, we are simply looking at it from the wrong perspective (i.e., our own).

We are not always wrong, but God is always right.

Thank you.

ON WALKING INTO THE UNKNOWN

Faith is stepping off the map of what’s known and making a new road by walking into the unknown. -- Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditations," January 19, 2026

I like that quote, but I find I need remind me that making a new road begins with patience. My patience is born and bred through the need to sit and wait on the Lord.

Blinding flash...patience requires patience. 

Our need is to use it...we already have it; we just rarely use it. Our m.o. is to rush to fix a perceived problem without a thought for God's will, God's way.

There...why still more spiritual growth is our first (maybe only) requirement in life. We will be in need of still more spiritual growth three days after we are dead. Ponder that.

Blinding flash: Life is walking into the unknown...every morning as we open our eyes, we begin our daily walk into the unknown whether we realize it or not.

Faith is stepping off the map of what’s known and making a new road by walking into the unknown.

Thank you.

FREE AT LAST, I

[The following is a reprint of my post of January 26, 2014.]

[W]isdom is hidden by selfish desires.-- "Bhagavad Gita" 

If we change that ever so slightly to God's will is hidden by self-determined objectives, we have the map for our path to peace; namely, detach from our wants, open to our needs, walk free.

That is another one of those "easy to say" things...the fact is that our reasoning mind will nearly always oppose our God-determined needs, and our self-determined needs are nearly always wants that serve us...who cares if anyone else is served?

To our reasoning mind, it's a bummer that the only way to be served properly and completely is by first serving others...consciously, unconsciously, subconsciously. That's the first, last and always cause that requires us to go beyond reason...to love.

"Others" is the skeleton key that opens all our resisting doors. Because, of course, if serving others first is our conscious desire, we are not, cannot be, thinking of self.

The paradox: The ego cries, "But what about me? When will I get?" And our Soul murmurs, "Finally. I am free...I know it and I show it."

Thank you.

OUR LACK OF OPENNESS IS OUR OPENING, I

[The following is a reprint of my post of December 28, 2022.]

I have felt for a time now that I am on the verge of a breakthrough. Of what, to what, I know not, so I may well be...or not...on the verge of a breakthrough. Of a major change, I'm guessing.

Recently, I've been reading about the need for communion, for connection, for unity...and agreeing by not thinking about it.

Then I read in Fr Richard's Daily Meditation this morning: Jesus’ radical unity with the Holy One defined his life, and his prayer indicates that he wants that same radical unity to define those who follow. . . .Our lack of openness to all may very well mean our demise.

I immediately flashed that I talk Oneness but the idea of having a full-time other in my life is anathema to me...which I am very well aware of, even joke about it.

It was that closer, Our lack of openness to all may very well mean our demise, that got my attention. And not the idea of our demise in the usual sense of personal death, but in the sense of that change I have been sensing...an idea, a way of being, changing my mind without knowing my mind has been changed? Just slowing becoming aware that I'm living in a different place?

I suspect that has already happened, and I'm just getting the word.

Old saying, still true: More will be revealed.

Thank you.

MAJOR SNOWSTORM...THIS, TOO, IS GOD'S GIFT

Here's me...Saturday morning, pondering the oncoming huge, gigantic, unbelievable snowstorm with temperatures to be way below zero. 

Mentally, I was half-way dressed, preparing to go to the grocer to buy a bunch more of what I don't need when I heard the temperature...seven degrees at 4:30 AM. That changed my thinking quick, fast and in a hurry. After all, I did my panic-shopping yesterday, my thoughts can drum up "forgotten possibles" all it wants...we're going nowhere. Plus, it is said to be getting colder by the minute. 

I believe I've got everything I need...if I don't, then I don't need it. I'm going nowhere in seven-degree weather.   

I'm calling it "trusting God" with God grinning because He knows lily-livered when it shows up in his beloveds. Which gives me a grin, too. 

Facing oneself by admitting our "me" is a freedom beyond head-knowledge. It's another inside job when we are embarrassed to admit our less-than choices with no actual penalty involved. Who's to say me "nay?"

I'm missing my sister who passed away this week, and I'm feeling inordinately grateful that she got out before this frigid spell hit. Finding the good in a less-than situation...another God gift. 

Thank you.

TRUST...WE MUST GO BEYOND REASON

.... the mind of Christ still inhabits the world. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditations," January 23, 2026

Well, here's a comfort: I don't know, and I don't know what I don't know. 

That is the best I can do in trying to figure out where I am in my own still more spiritual growth. Ah, but the best I can do turns me to the mind of Christ, God's mind, my realized sufficiency.

I rather suspect (hope?) that's pretty much where all seekers stand. Face it, we wouldn't be seekers if we already knew The Answer. Not to get too deep into the weeds.

I take comfort in looking back where the answer to my yesterday's puzzlement is found...i.e., released. Released is when we find no self-enlightening answer, so we stop trying to "figure it out." We accept and voila it is now God's gift.

Blinding flash of the obvious: God's gift rarely comes looking like our answered prayer. 

To the reasoning mind, it's more like an unanswered prayer.

Yet, how else do we build trust? Trust, that which we have been building...or attempting to be building...all along.

We go beyond reason to God.

Thank you.

OUR NEMESIS IS OUR ANGEL, I

[The following is a reprint of my post of December 28, 2018.]

The forever lesson to learn:  To our reasoning mind, the one arousing our negative side is our nemesis...ah, but spiritually, that one is our angel.

There it is...the key to changing our mind. Then we must stay our focus on the power within which is ever on hand to further the opening, as needed.

This is an ongoing spiritual process...an opened mind releases the power for good within. Our detachment frees our thoughts from building self-determined results. That which we are resisting is freely transmuted in our mind...and we are graced with another angel in our midst.

Thank you.

PAIN TRANSFORMED...AH, PEACE

As I wrote yesterday, I'm at the place I lived in dread of in my younger years...i.e., being left all alone. With my sister's passing, I am being returned to that long-ago fear...now fact.

It is too soon to experience my unarmed feelings...I am still self-protected, and it is too soon to try for deeper. I am comforted by my long-ago decision to invite God to lead me through my life...the good, the bad and the uh-oh. 

As I write, I am realizing that pretty much everything I'm writing is from my eyebrows up. I am too deep in the sorrow of loss to begin to get cleared and/or clarified.  Ah, and that is how it needs be.

Rushing to get one's unwonderful feelings behind oneself is a self-determined objective at its strongest. We must feel our feelings at their core, or they can and will live in our core...making our decisions without our knowledge or informed consent.

To know those words is not to live them. We want to get passed the pain, but that just masks it...to rise again we know not when. 

We must feel the pain...it will transform us, peaced by grace and by God.

Thank you.

THE GRACE OF GRATITUDE

For many...women today, 'wilderness' or 'wilderness-experience'...meant standing utterly alone, in the midst of serious trouble, with only God’s support to rely upon. -- Womanist theologian Delores Williams, "Fr Richard Rohr's Daily Meditations," January20, 2026

That quote describes to a T how I am feeling today and have felt for the past days, weeks...month? I've lost count.

The welcome news to me is that I am not feeling panicked...not knowing what is to come when feeling utterly alone is a God-gift for certain-sure. I choose to believe that is the pearl we get in old age...when utterly alone is not a feeling, it is a fact!

I am the last one in my group of women still in "our" neighborhood...all the others have either moved into assisted living here on earth or in Heaven. God bless and keep them, and, not to put too fine a point on it, but God bless me, too!

I think that with a smile on my face...there's the fruit of my "still more spiritual growth." I'm at the place I lived in dread of in my younger years...i.e., being left all alone...and feeling gentle with it.

My sister, my best friend in our growing-up years...whom I depended on more than either of us knew at the time...is short breaths away from dying. We have not been close in years, but I'm living our early years memories now, and my heart is filled with painful gratitude. I "know" my sister is leaving with peace in her heart...as good as can be expected according to me.

To go with God in our heart, our soul, our body and our brain is the pearl beyond price...and that is my grateful prayer for my sister.

Thank you.

P.S. I just learned that my sister passed at 2:30 this morning. My heart is graced with gratitude for having had her in my life, and my thoughts are weeping salty tears for not having her here anymore. You were my anchor, Jane. Rest in peace knowing you were...and are...loved. 

TRUE FAITH...OUR IMPOSSIBLE DREAM

Faith is stepping off the map of what’s known and making a new road by walking into the unknown. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditations," January 19, 2026

I connected with the quote of Fr Richard's, but the rest of his quote, i.e., true faith is seeing a bigger circle in which we are all connected, all included, all loved, all blessed, is the equivalent of my impossible dream.

My life to date...looking back and remembering...feels perilously close to a revelation.

I do not recall ever determining that I was going to take an action whereby I would "walk into the unknown." As I look back, I can see my self-determined objective was simply to get what I wanted which I chose to believe was a need.

The first maybe half of my life "what I wanted" was what determined my actions. It was, however, "the worst thing that could ever happen to me" that lifted me...introduced me to the God of my own understanding, set me, my own mind, away from self toward Self, God...God's will, God's way.

In short, my inner self was opened to and welcomed by the God of my own understanding.

Looking back, I can appreciate my many stumbles, bumbles and feelings of unloved, unneeded, unwanted and unappreciated as determined by God for my benefit.

Today, I accept each stumble, bumble, mistake, or misstep that we make as caught by God and turned into a pearl beyond price. Our realization of that truth begins our still more spiritual growth. And repeatedly.

We are now and have ever been in God's loving care whether we know it or not.

Thank you.

UTTER POWERLESSNESS...AH, PERFECT PEACE

Our utter powerlessness in the face of our own self-will opens us to our path to God, i.e., still more spiritual growth. We seek within at an ever-deeper level in order to realize our Higher Power.

There it is, our path to peace...our utter powerlessness.

It is utter powerlessness that we resist...that we try with a will to overcome...that is our unrealized savior. It is our thinking, trying, manipulating that keeps God's will, God's way at bay. 

Face it, we can't get to God, to the Father within, by thinking. The Father within appears to us freely...unplanned, usually unrecognized and thus, from our eyebrows up, unwelcomed. 

It is that path, however, that opens us to our Father...unthinking, we experience. We experience God's will, God's way, in God's time,

We experience utter powerlessness and realize perfect peace.

Thank you.

FEAR...ON REALIZING ITS GIFT...THANK YOU

In theological terms, the story tells us that everything is grace, everything is a gift, and everything comes from God....It’s all meant to be enjoyed, if we can accept it as the gift it is. -- Father Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditations," January 15, 2026

Upon reading Fr Richard, I realize the most important part to me today is if we can accept it as the gift it is...or, not to put too fine a point on it, the most important word to me today is if.

Rearing its ugly head is dementia...again, still, oh my.

It is fairly interesting to me that I do not feel as scared as my writing indicates. Ah, but is that our dear friend denial doing my un-feeling for me?

Questions, I've got questions. 

The funny/sad part: I've got answers; I've got the right answers...all I need do is use them, live them, put them to work, daily.

Blinding flash of the obvious: This is how I put them to work daily. By wrestling with my egoic thoughts...fear dressed as real...with doubt push-pulling me all the way through to the other side.

The other side being God's will, God's way. 

Admitting unto acceptance that this way, from start unto this minute, is God's will, God's way. Comes the dawn (again): God is leading us through. 

As we walk God's will, God's way, we are unknowingly blessed to be feeling unloved, unwanted, unneeded, unappreciated. What else would press us on...push us upward into the ever-present arms of God?

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

Thank you.

FEEL THE FEAR AND DO IT ANYWAY!

The following thank you prayer is from a post of mine of December 30, 2014: Thank you, God, that I want your will done in my life more than I want my own will done in my life no matter what. Open-ended. Knock yourself out, God. Do your thing. You got the power, use it....Amen

That fairly well describes me this morning...or how I'm feeling, like I've hit a brick wall and have not a clue what to do or how to do it. Not to put too fine a point on it, but I need the use of God's divine mind...now.

I am grateful that I know that is a feeling, and that whatever we are feeling, at the time is our eyebrows-up reality.

My reality this morning, then, is: Lost, alone, helpless, hopeless...wanting I know not what. Relief? Release? 

Many of my gifted truths flow to...and from...my mind. They touch me not. 

The picture blooms in my mind: Me, like a bear at hibernation time...with a want/need to find my own hidey-hole where I can curl up into a dreamless sleep and let my world pass.

To name my known cares fears: Me, with possible dementia hovering ever closer; the United States with the rigid, righteous and Right hovering ever closer; my sister at 91 with her death hovering ever closer; me left all alone...not wanting to die but afraid of living in today's world all alone.

Feel the fear and do it anyway...live! 

Thank you.

ON HEARING, OBEY...AH, A PEACED MIND

I'm feeling off this morning...off my inner sense of peace. 

I'm feeling off because my life is calling for a serious upgrade...fear of dementia is running my nervous-Nelly imagination. 

I am grateful that I know my lesson well...quite simply: Pray thank You and keep on truckin'.

This I know from my own God-led experience: Whatever comes to us, comes by way of God...as we wave ego's flag of surrender. That cannot happen without our feeling, knowing, admitting complete defeat of our own wants, hopes, ideas.

The God of my understanding whispers: Give over, give up, give in...and we are peaced. 

Ever since I heard The Word, the majority of the time...that is 51percent...I have aimed myself in that direction.

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

Thank you.

LIFE IS ALWAYS FOR OUR BENEFIT...ONLY BELIEVE

God is the one through whom we are related and connected to everything. -- Brian McLaren

Here's me this morning...feeling unloved, unneeded, unwanted, unappreciated.

Lucky me...this morning I know that un feeling is just a feeling, not a fact.

I know it from feeling it long ago when I then believed it for truth. It never was, but when we're believing it, to us it is! That is the paradox of belief.

Wars are started on one's belief...which is precisely why it is imperative that we upgrade our belief. We might call it the power of positive believing.

Too often we mouth the words of belief...with our mind cowering in the corner in fear of believing.

To repeat: Lucky me for I know, from my blessedly hard-earned experience, my life is and was always for my benefit for which I thank You, Father.

Thank you.

WE MUST GO BEYOND REASON TO GOD

Per Father Richard: We have to stand in an inconspicuous, mysterious place, a place where we’re not sure that we’re sure, where we are comfortable knowing that we do not know very much at all.

I read that and an uneasy feeling crept along my spine, whispering: Isn't this where I came it? Came into my search for still more spiritual growth? When I knew naught and knowing I knew naught...almost against my own will...began to seek still more spiritual growth?

God is so good to me. I realize that had this understanding come to me earlier (which it might have), I would have missed it entirely, missed it because it does not make sense to my reasoning mind.

There's the blessing! 

That is what led me to realize the truth...we must go beyond reason to love...to God.

Feeling a tish unsettled, my heart sings: I'm on the right path, heading in the right direction. Thank You, Father.

Thank you.

LIVING BY GRACE AND BY GOD

Occasionally the opposite meaning of two well-known sayings floats through my mind...for instance, recently we must try with a will or fall by the wayside and let go and let God have been present.

In my early spiritual education, I married myself to "try with a will," but over the years and the opening of my mind, I've come to prefer "let go and let God." I suspect I prefer that one because it requires my honest effort...it's not a say it and sound good, it's a just do it.

"My honest effort" is primarily all about freeing my mind...erasing the natter-chatter. That, I'm here to shout, takes a whole lot of effort.

The effort being in not trying.

Apparently, our spiritual growth is getting free of the reasoning mind's hold on us. We don't want to lose our reasoning mind's guidance, but we can no longer rely on it. Face it, that's pretty much all we had for years...or all we knew we had.

More and more I'm feeling the assurance of guidance living within me. When that uneasy "what to do?" enters my mind, almost automatically calm enters...not the "right" answer...I don't even know the question! I am calmed by...oh, by grace and by God, of course.

There...living doubt-free is a given when we live by grace and by God.

Thank you.

THE TRANSCENDENTAL PRESENCE WITHIN, I

[The following is a reprint of my post of March 19, 2020.]

Whether we realize it (believe it, accept it, want it) or not, God is right now operating in our life...has already solved what we perceive as a problem. All our machinations to solve that problem...mentally or physically or even spiritually...are what keeps God seemingly slow on the uptake. God is never late, nor is he too slow. 

It is our wanting God to be true that is our jailhouse. Our very want is denial.

Our overriding defect of character is self which is the single thing that needs changing in this moment.  Therein lies our problem...we cannot change our own self...yet also our solution, a mystical, transcendental Presence within us that has already provided our infinite supply unto eternity.... (Joel Goldsmith, "A Parenthesis in Eternity," p 269)

Our Father made us perfect before conception. And to that we return. We have made the U-bie, we are on the journey Home, being resurrected even as we trudge the road of happy destiny.  

Let us each be the chicken soup for the soul for each other today...just for today. 

Thank you.

AWE...THE EGOIC SELF'S BYPASS

Knowledge is fostered by curiosity; wisdom is fostered by awe. Awe precedes faith; it is the root of faith. We must be guided by awe to be worthy of faith.  -- Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, "Richard Rohr's Daily Meditations," December 19, 2025

I nearly let this quote pass on by...but I got hooked by the last sentence, We must be guided by awe to be worthy of faith. 

I'm discovering this morning that I have viewed "awe" as fitting only Disney-like stories...fun, fantabulous but fantasy pure and simple.

Interestingly, I found myself accepting Rabbi Heschel's statement without really understanding its message...until the last few words. Now I look forward to pondering the entire message. It is growing wings within me.

More, I'm getting a glimmer that this is the real nature of still more spiritual growth. If it makes no reasoning mind sense yet speaks from our soul to us...ah, there it is, the egoic self's bypass.

Thank you.

SUFFERING...GOD'S WILL, GOD'S WAY

..... it’s only through seeing God in our suffering that we can truly be free from the fear that causes us to choose ways of being that are not loving. -- Brian McLaren, "Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation," January 5, 2026

Well, there it is...the good news and the bad news as one. Suffering is not to be avoided, but it can't be self-invited either. 

Suffering needs a book all to itself. Oh, maybe that's what the Bible is...not being a Bible reader, I'm on shaky ground there. 

I quote passages from the Bible that speak to me, and there are many that do. I only inner trust the King James version, however, and truth to tell, it is virtually unreadable by me. Over the years, I've made my peace with that.

As to McLaren's quote, that is a good example of Truth speaking to my brain, my heart and my soul...all the while my egoic self is backing away from it. Face it, suffering does not come on a welcome mat.

There's the gift of sticking with still more spiritual growth...the longer we seek it, the harder the reasoning mind works to block our understanding it.... according to me.

In our material world we must trust our reasoning mind, but in our raised consciousness, we must go beyond reason to love. 

Thank you. 

SPIRITUAL GROWTH...LOVE AND LAUGH A LOT

Lest I forget: For 2026: Father Richard encourages us to find the wisdom revealed in the paradoxical nature of reality.

I'm taken by the deep meaning of Father Richard's encouraging words, to find the wisdom in the paradoxical nature of reality.

In general, I "find the wisdom" as I come to it...the wisdom finds me, in effect. There have been more than a few times when I've had to ponder, seriously study, some wisdom that I've read or heard of. But that just proves that the wisdom finds me...my way opens me as I come to Truth.

Today, I usually know where it is leading me, but back in the day, like other spiritually seeking beginners. I had to ponder hard just to let go of my own ideas of Truth, of God's will, God's way.

That tells the story of my still more spiritual growth. I started out wanting to believe...which was God's gift, not a self-determined objective. As my spiritual growth deepened, my want-to increased...again, God's will, God's way.

I am oh so grateful that I do seek the wisdom revealed in the paradoxical nature of reality. Honestly, it never would have occurred to me to see it that way. yet that puts a purer dimension to it.

My way is simply knowing that I seek still more spiritual growth...which requires getting over myself fairly regularly.

There it is another pearl beyond price: Today I love and laugh a lot.

God is so good to us...for us.

Thank you.

UNPROTECTED...SUSTAINED...LOVED

God sustains us in all things while protecting us from nothing. -- James Finley 

One of the surprising blessings in my life is turning 80 and finding a higher level of joy here. 

Few people I know...certainly not I...look forward to old age, and face it, when one reaches 80, one reaches old age. Like most of God's will for us, acceptance of life as it lands on us is the path to peace.

I used to pray for peace of mind all the while worrying about whatever crossed my unpeaced mind. Then...ah, then...I was gifted with the power of peace in thank You.

Whatever comes to our conscious mind, comes with and in spite of God's will, God's way...in particular the self-determined objectives that more often than not leave us feeling sick, sad and/or sorry. But what better way for miracles to come to be?  

That's my personal knowledge of faith...not knowing what the next minute will bring yet living the peace of welcome in my heart. 

To clarify...that's my personal eyebrows-up knowledge of faith. I achieve it as God wills...not nearly as often as I want because, of course, my will keeps pushing ahead. 

Again, I am reminded: Everything happens by invitation only.

And again: God sustains us in all things while protecting us from nothing. 

Thank you.

HEADING IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION IS SCARY, TOO

Lord, hear my prayer: Thank You.

I want to do nothing...nada...right now because I'm feeling fear.... dread.... unsure... brackish. And where did that word brackish come from? Though I must admit, it fits.

Today is Sunday so, actually, today I need do none of the things I am dreading... most all having to do with my car.

I suspect that my fear is based in the fact that I'm going to need to turn this car in sooner rather than later because of my failing eyesight.

Giving up driving...ah, is giving up my condo right behind? Moving into assisted living? I feel nothing about that, which is a sure indicator that fear is silently riding herd.

I feel dread...and who's kidding whom? Dread is just a cover-up word for fear...it stays the panic straining to get out.

This I know, and it is from personal experience that I know: No matter what I feel, think, do or say, i.e., fear....I am on the right track heading in the right direction...toward still more spiritual growth.

Lord, hear my prayer: Thank You.

Thank you.

ACCEPTING FEAR AS A FRIEND

Blinding flash of the obvious: Nothing turns us to God faster than fear.

Ah, fear then can be a friend to those who believe.

Comes now the understanding that all things work together for good...for those who believe.

Face it, when we're not feeling it, peace, love and joy require that we change our mind. And a whole new block confronts us...we finally accept that we cannot change our mind when we are convinced that we are right. 

There it is... the door to a deeper level of learning opens, and acceptance sweeps in: Acceptance that only God can change our fixed mind. The door to a deeper level of learning opens, and still more spiritual growth is its golden key. 

We are well on the road to freedom from self. Note...it's a long and rugged road, but we never walk it alone. Thank You, Father.

Thank you.

MICROSOFT...OUR NEW TEACHER

The best criticism of the bad is the practice of the good. -- Fr Richard Rohr 

Microsoft has again "improved" their system leaving that which users get to deal with. 

What a crock. 

According to me, all that their "improvements" do is require us to continuously contact them (and no doubt get charged) to question what/how/why we need to be reeducated in the use of the product they sold us originally (less than a few years ago it feels like).

I've decided to give a new way a try: To go with all the changes...to resist not.

Uh-oh! This is not new! 

This is what I've been consciously trying to use in and for my still more spiritual growth for ever so long.

In this new year 2026 I am gifted with a new same-old-same-old. We are not given something new, we are given the original to view and learn from anew...from a different angle so to speak. That's Education 101, subtitled quit your bitchin' and lean into learning.

 

God loves us so much.

Thank you.

SPIRITUAL GROWTH IS A PARADOXICAL GIFT

Father Richard encourages us to find the wisdom revealed in the paradoxical nature of reality. -- "Fr Richard Rohr Daily Meditation"

Paradox - a seemingly absurd or contradictory statement or proposition which when investigated may prove to be well founded or true.

As I look back over the past 50+ years of my life, I am convinced again that paradox is spiritual growth and is precisely how God's word grows us.

If we can explain it by "thinking it over," we're going down that wrong road again.

My life's truth is not explainable...it is an inner knowing. That has ever been the rugged road to faith without borders for me.

A throw-away truism: We can't work for it, but we can't get it without working for it.

Thank you.