DOING THE NEXT RIGHT THING FIRST

Every Saturday morning I get up at 5:00. Almost without fail I get ready to go to my 7:00 meeting even though I decided the night before that I wouldn't go.

I then walk and feed Ruckus and then do a shortened version of my regular quiet time exercises.

It's now 6:30 and since I got ready to go to my meeting at 5:00, I go ahead and go to my meeting. Never having decided I would definitely go.

This is proof that if we will first do the right thing, we will do the next right thing.

Thank You.

ON REALIZING WHAT IS AS GOD'S WILL

I have read that the purpose of prayer is to realize what is, just as it is, as God's will. Which is a hard fact to remember...or to accept...when we have been taught to pray for something...our perceived needs, in particular.

The prayer of "thank you" is ideal for just that purpose. I try to keep a simple thank you going in my head for whatever I'm seeing...I play Spider Solitaire and every time I win or lose, I shoot a "thank you." That's my "pray without ceasing" which I originally believed could only be done by hermits or recluses on mountain tops.

I was talking with a friend recently who was updating me on a situation she'd been dealing with. One she was less than delighted with but she was willing and did keep showing up and working within it...not resisting, not carping, doing her continuous thank you prayer. She finally declared herself finished, done, over it, and said, "Well, here's one where 'thank you' and gratitude didn't work."

I had to smile. She hadn't yet realized that she had been doing her thank you in order to get something...to get the situation to turn out the way she envisioned it rather than to see the situation as necessary for only God knows why. [I will be in that same place before the sun sets tomorrow, count on it. That's how we learn if we're doing it right...a little too far to the right, correct; a little too far to the left, correct; and again....]

It is in our willingness to accept a situation that our reasoning mind finds unacceptable that opens the window for our surrender to enter, bringing the peace of acceptance with it.

Thank You.

GETTING OUR OWN REWARD

I remind others a lot that they need to consciously take credit for every itsy-bitsy good thing they do for others...or just good they do. There have been three or four very minor things I've done this past week for others...put myself out to the least degree. In recalling them, I feel really good about myself.

That conscious awareness is vitally important in building our base enabling us to move to the next level, i.e., not resisting negative situations.

It's akin to when we first hear of the power of positive thinking...I, for one, loved, loved, loved the idea when, in high school, I first heard the concept. I immediately started repeating to myself,  "I am healthy, wealthy, wise and beautiful."  Did not believe a word of it, did not show it forth.

Over the years, I've come to realize that for me the power of positive thinking starts with my thoughts of others...how I interpret what s/he is saying and/or thinking (indeed!) about me. It really is all about us, and it needs to be when we're going for change within ourselves.

Being sweet, kind, considerate, lovable and generous is just an act if our thoughts are suspicious, nasty...even dismissive...of the person we're showing all the pretty to. And if our thoughts are ugly, our reasons for acting the pretty role are equally ugly whether we are aware of that or not. Ugly, as in self-serving, to avoid a projected unpleasantness or to get a self-determined need.

When we're hearing a possibly hurtful remark, learning to interpret that in the best possible light is an art. Assuming the best when our eyes are seeing questionable is vital. That is the path toward non-judgment of others in our minds...when we're just walking down the street, or at 2:00 AM, or when we're talking to our bathroom mirror. That's how we get our own "Atta girl!...Atta boy!," of which there is nothing sweeter.

A conscious realization of a change toward the better in our thoughts, words and/or actions lays the concrete foundation we need to climb the ladder toward a higher consciousness...toward "Resist not evil."

Thank You.

RESIST NOT, NEITHER CURRY FAVOR

"...all negative situations only have power when we ourselves recognize and deepen our awareness of them by concentrating in a battle to overcome them." (Brother Mandus, as quoted by Joel Goldsmith in the "The Heart of Mysticism" at p. 198)

It is never a good idea, when a friendship hits a rough patch, to try to talk it over. Which is heresy on its face only if you don't understand the premise.

"To try to talk it over" implies thinking it over first, and there's the problem. Thinking it over is the reasoning mind's invitation to ride. Thinking it over puts the reasoning mind in control, and the reasoning mind is never going to bring permanent peace. The reasoning mind is at peace when we win and they lose...the very source of impermanence because then they are plotting how to win the next round.

True healing comes to a cracked or even ruptured relationship not through what we say but through the state of consciousness that we are.

Trying to solve our problem involves the reasoning mind, and the reasoning mind always legislates for itself. Trying to solve a problem, then, is resistance which only  nurtures the problem, growing it stronger...but currying the other's favor is also resistance. They are both just different ways for the reasoning mind to try to win.

To see us as one with God, to realize that, is to be set free. We are on the right path when we recognize our various paths, our different ways, all lead to the same place...at One with God, happy, joyous, free.

Thank You.

CLOSE ENOUGH

For years now, when someone asks how I am, I automatically say, "Close enough."

I never particularly realized that until a pridefully positive person I was working with gave me a lecture on how negative that was...that I needed to catch his positive attitude. "The glass is always half full" was his mantra. (He was not overly happy when I told him mine was always full, but I that's another story.)

I got the "close enough" from a country song where the guy sings about his darlin' being always late, a  tish lazy, bad driver, rotten cook, but "She's close enough to perfect for me."

I remember the first time I heard that, I thought that that's the way I could choose to view anybody and everybody, including me, when I'm all set to judge them for not living up to my high standards for them.

That's how and where I get most of my spiritual growth, in fact. Not from reading the Bible (because without an interpreter it still doesn't make a lick of sense to me), not from thinking pure and lovely thoughts...but from country songs, Dear Abby-type advice columns, a victim of a disaster being interviewed on TV who is concerned for his neighbor, from hearing friends in my fellowship share their stories. It comes to me, I don't have to sit for hours trying to ponder original thoughts...for that's a sure sign of stuck in ego when (not if) I do!

God is so good to me...all my thinking's been done for me. Hey, all my thinking is being done for me!

Thank You.

HAPPINESS...CONTAGIOUS HAPPINESS

This wild storm we've experienced...well, the aftermath of it, really...has brought what may well be an answered prayer that I never really wanted to happen, but it is a pretty prayer. The one about being able to put others first...as in, before me.  

Because of the storm, there are electrical outages all over...it's the very lucky few who didn't lose power and some of those who lost it on Friday night are still without it this Monday morning with no sure sign of when it will be returned. I did not lose power, thank you, Jesus, and that isn't even the answered prayer. 

A friend who did, specifically lose her a/c, called yesterday really suffering with the indoor, over 100 degree temperature. I told her I have an extra bed- and bathroom, she could come over and stay until her a/c came back. Those words came out of my mouth without my pondering, hedging, or even praying she'd refuse...and I meant them. There it is. There's the answered prayer...I meant it.

And she came.

And I didn't get claustrophobia from so many people crowding my space.  I'm talking miracle, seriously. It's one thing to pray to be able to put another's needs first, it's a whole 'nother thing to actually do it.

Maybe I've caught Ruckus's spirit...he loves people more than he loves the air he breathes. He was so happy to have company he all but turned cartwheels around the place. Happiness like that is just contagious.

The best part: Her a/c is back on, and she's gone (first best) so we didn't have time to decide this was a bad idea (2nd best), and we're still friends (3rd best). Just my little test to see if I can walk on water...not yet.

Thank You.

THE PROMISE

It seems to me that we need to reread the words at the foot of the Statue of Liberty:

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!

Either those are true, right and good words that we live by, or we retire Lady Liberty.

Thank You.