FINDING GOD IN DISORDER, IN IMPERFECTION....

My keeping power is never at fault, but only your realization of it. -- God Calling, August 7

One reason why I am so attracted to Jesus and then to Francis is that they found God in disorder, in imperfection, in the ordinary, and in the real world—not in any idealized concepts. -- Fr. Richard Rohr

The first quote explains how the second quote is true.

When something appears to go wrong in our life, we immediately either find someone to blame or sink into self-hate. In fact, this is the very place we can find God, i.e., "in imperfection, in the real world." This is our basis for "thank You" to the unwanted that shows up in our life...whether it was due to our own faulty thinking, thus behavior, or to ten other people's.

The basis for "thank You" when good shows up needs no explanation. It's when the good goes south that we need to double up on our welcoming.

Thank You.

RESTRAINT OF REACTION

Restraint of tongue and pen begins with detaching. Detachment is the basis for restraint in all our reactions. It begins with a willingness to change our minds, to divorce ourselves from our own opinions.

Restraint of reaction requires more than just keeping our mouths shut while letting our attack thoughts race, gathering steam. Too often we give ourselves credit for saying nothing when we've, in effect, simply stapled our lips together. There is no spiritual growth in that for that steam will continue to gather until we simply blow up...hurting ourselves and/or those around us, but not necessarily our perceived offender. 

It is during that time of restraint that we call to mind the spiritual directions we have been given; i.e.,  find where and when we  made that decision based on self that later placed us in the position to be hurt, angered, afraid...the place where we find ourselves here and now.

This, of course,  needs some quiet time. We say nothing now but as soon as possible, we sit down, invite God in to do our thinking with us, and ponder until we find that decision...that decision we made and the action we took based on that decision that got us going down that wrong road again.

Restraint of reaction...a learned art, also known as detachment.

Thank You.

FOLLOW DIRECTIONS

What if every little hateful thought we have is non-existent to God? If that be true, we'd best not waste time and breath seeking His aid there. He gave us the Sermon for this very reason. Ours to walk it, breathe it, become it...but not to pray for it to be removed. How to remove it is already our gift, the directions already given to us to follow, to use.

If that be true, too, then it must follow that every rue, regret, and remorse is non-existent to God for each started with a not-of-God thought. Not necessarily hateful, but full of self...therefore, leaving no room for God.

Look to yourself this day to do, to behave, as you want God to do for you. He already has. Again, it comes back to the fact that all our thinking has been done for us...just follow the directions.

Thank You.

THE DISCIPLINE OF SPONTANEITY

[This is a reprint of my blog of November 1, 2011.]

…true spontaneity is not simply doing what we feel like doing and not doing what we don’t feel like doing. That is simply reacting…. - Eknath Easwaran, “Words to Live By”

Spontaneity is living in the now which requires training, the self-training of bringing the thoughts back to God, over and over and over again. It may be that that is the only acceptable self-determined object, giving our thoughts over to God until it is no longer a self-determined objective but a way of living.

We can be truly spontaneous by the God thoughts that occur for the benefit of others…or at least not solely for the benefit of ourselves. The trouble with writing or speaking this is the reasoning mind rolls its eyes and calls it sanctimonious or some such. The reasoning mind does not automatically do “for the benefit of others.”  The reasoning mind is all about “what’s in it for me?”

The reasoning mind legislates for itself…that’s why therapy is so sought after. Therapy lets us do what we want to do to begin with (talk about self), charges us money which we can ill afford to pay...which relieves us of the guilt of being self-absorbed.

Therapy, however, does not bring us true spontaneity. According to Easwaran, “We are being truly spontaneous when we can respond calmly, constructively, and compassionately to a difficult situation.” Also known as, living in the now.

Thank You.

LEARN TO LAUGH ABOUT IT

I'm reminded again that every situation has two interpretations...mine and God's. I am feeling resistance  to a situation that my ego-victory mind wants to set straight...i.e., shame the offender in front of her world (which just happens to be my worst fear for me...being called to account (shamed, to me)  in front of others).

Knowing that, I also know I will not do that...because that want-to is really the unimportant part. It is the home in my own mind that want-to has made that needs correcting, or healing.

I go back to: "I stand at the door and knock." I remind myself I, the Father within, is knocking at the door of my consciousness to be let out, not to be let in...It is already in, already within. It needs to be let out to go before me to make the crooked places straight.

I remember that all I need do is change my mind. Consciously remind myself that I can look at this in a different way...I can interpret the situation in my best lights. My conscious "thank You" opens the door to my remembrance that my Father within has already interpreted this rightly, i.e., as a blessing to me.

This is where discipline starts...expect not to immediately be there, i.e., free of resistance, full of forgiveness. It is to turn again, turn again, turn again to the conscious remembrance that my Father within has already rightly interpreted, for my benefit, the situation that I am resisting...then praise that fact with a simple thank you.

Nothing is a one-shot deal. Even that moment of surrender when we are rocketed into the fourth dimension must be revisited...maybe daily for the rest of our lives, maybe until three days after we're dead, and maybe just once. That's none of our concern. We just do, praise, and learn to laugh about it.

Thank You.

THE TOUGHEST TEST

Going against the reasoning mind. That is the toughest test…going against what my best thinking tells me…actually, going above my best thinking, deeper. I think it is the toughest because it feels like the riskiest…when, in fact, there is no risk (we find, after we’ve learned the how of it).

As Thaddeus Golas wrote, “We must go beyond reason to love.”

Pema Chodron has written: “When things fall apart and we’re on the verge of we know not what, the test of each of us is to stay on that brink and not concretize.”

Fr. Richard Rohr calls it “holding the tension.”

It’s all about learning to trust the Spirit within. Holding the tension between thinking, which too often is simply worrying, and intuiting…waiting to hear, to know the still, small voice.

The resistant mind will usually throw up any number of awful possibles so that waiting cannot possibly be an option. But it is…and we learn it through practice, through disciplining the mind, through practicing the art of patience.

Thank You.

INTO THE CLOUD OF UNKNOWING

My morning's blinding flash of the obvious: At the instant we surrender...from knowing to unknowing, from self-control to God-control...we are rocketed into the fourth dimension.

Since the human condition is not in the fourth dimension, we are rocketed out of the human condition for that one nanosecond of utter surrender into the cloud of unknowing. Here we start our journey of  consciousness raising, going deeper into before-conception consciousness, i.e., God consciousness.

It is, in general, not possible to sustain perfect fourth dimension consciousness...we turn again and again to our reasoning mind...the human condition. If we do not grow spiritually, learning to live ego reduction in depth, then ego victory thinking will be our guide.

We must master our ego or indeed we will be mastered by our ego. At which point we start the surrender process all over again...it keeps coming back until we get it right.

Thank You.