THE FATHER WITHIN

It matters not, child, parent or pet, when he is not well, when she is dying, when he is simply misbehaving, that is our god in that moment...sometimes our god of tender mercies, sometimes our god of painful recognition, sometimes our god of frustration...but always our total focus.

Why can't we focus like that on the "Father within who doeth the works?"

Thank You.

RELEASING THE IMPRISONED SPLENDOUR

That which we are seeking  is within us right now. We cannot of ourselves release it...only God can, and then only when He knows we are ready.

Our job is to make ourselves available to God every day without fail  for we never know when the release will come. When we are ready, we are given the free gift of grace, and we are free.

As Browning said, we make ourselves available in order that "the imprisoned splendour may escape."

Thank You.

KNOW PEACE AND WALK FREE IN OUR OWN HEAD

Acceptance, most everybody agrees, is the answer to life's unwanted happenings. Too often we believe just be knowing that, that we have done it...that we've accepted this thing that seemed unacceptable just five minutes before. Does that seem likely?

The path to acceptance is made clearer once we realize that acceptance is essentially surrender. The difference between the two is that acceptance sounds prettier, sounds softer, more palatable...surrender, by its very nature, i.e., giving over, will never sound pretty, soft or palatable to the reasoning mind's standards.

One way to acceptance starts by standing before the bathroom mirror, and saying, out loud: "I have given up fighting anything and anybody. Thank you, Lord," and "I will fight no more forever. Thank you, Chief Joseph." We note that both quotes are all about fighting. That is what we are giving up...fighting. So surrender, looked at from a different angle, comes to mean "make peace."

Say I have a problem with Gertrude, with John. I need to set her/him straight, and everybody agrees I am right (because they have heard my side of the story...repeatedly).

I choose to fight her in my head or him in the home or them in the work place no more. I of myself cannot do that...I know from having tried enough time for the definition of insanity to ring in my mind every time I go there. I know God can, and I know that from my experience and from the experience of my friends.

I turn to God and make my surrender to It: "Take me and all my troubles and do anything you want with me." Then, when his name comes to mind or her actions start thinking for me...and they will...change my mind. I remind me that God owns me and all my troubles, and I think of lilies of the valley, Ruckus, the Life of Pi...all things of beauty that give me peace.

The hardest part of all is learning, yet again, that there are no one-shot deals. But the time will come (fairly quickly if we stay on the surrender side) when the thought of Gertrude or John or whomever will bring a grin, and we will see how seriously we had been taking ourselves in the first place.

We know peace, and we walk free in our own head.

Thank You.

THE GOLDEN RULE...DOING IT

[The is a reprint of my blog of September 25, 2009.]

If “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you” doesn’t speak to you, what about “noblesse oblige,” the almost forgotten act of those who have, seeing to the welfare of those who have not. It’s associated with the nobility, but at one time so was money. Today, those who have the most money seem to be the least noble.

“I heard the news today…oh boy.”

It only gets grimmer, it seems. The incredible, the obscene amounts of money a teeny percentage of the people of the world have and control.  Many of those same people living in fear they won’t get more or will lose what they have…some are lying, cheating, stealing to hold onto what they have AND get still more.

Clearly, the hard part for me is to sit not in judgment of those rich folk, to waste not my hard-earned peace on righteous indignation…which only leads to a feeling of moral superiority, the camouflage of the dishonest wannabe. And it doesn't matter what it is I wannabe…rich, so I can show “them” how they should act; Mother Teresa-like, so people will see how poor, done right, is enviable…makes no never mind, it is dishonest…which is of course what I’m looking down my nose at in the first place, dishonest other people.

Peace, be still.

Thank You.

TO GRIEVE IS TO PRAY

One night a man was crying, Allah! Allah!

His lips grew sweet with the praising,

until a cynic said,

"So! I have heard you

calling out, but have you ever 

gotten any response?"

The man had no answer to that.

He quit praying and fell into a confused sleep.

He dreamed he saw Khidr, the guide of souls,

in a thick green foliage.

"Why did you stop 

praising?"

"Because I've never heard anything back."

"This longing 

you express is the return message."

The grief you cry out from 

draws you toward union.

Your pure sadness that wants help 

is the secret cup.

Listen to the moan of a dog

for its master.

That whining is the connection.

There are love-dogs

no one knows the names of.

Give your life

to be one of them.

-- The Illuminated Rumi

I'M GLAD I BELIEVE IT WAS GOD

I was walking Ruckus this morning, and all the sudden he came up lame. His right front paw was just hanging there as he limped along. So I took him inside where I could see his paw and there was a big splinter. I gingerly pulled on it, but it was stuck...I pulled harder, it stayed stuck, and my boy started whimpering.

I was taken back in memory to a time 30 some years ago. Was a beautiful spring day, and I had all my windows open with a wonderful cross-breeze. I heard a loud, ugly buzzing, looked over to my front window, and there was a huge bug caught outside between the screen and the sill. I got a wire and went over to try to push/pry it loose. Did not move, it was stuck. I tried harder, and it became apparent I was going to kill the bug trying to save it.

So, I said to it, "Sweetie, you have the same God I do, and you're going to have to trust it to free you because I can't." I turned and walked away. The loud, ugly buzzing became a soft whirring, I looked over my shoulder, and the bug was free, flying away. I have never forgotten that, and I thought of it when my boy whimpered.

So I said to him, "Ruckus, darlin', you've got the same God I do, and we're going to let him do his thing because I'm not helping." Just as I was putting Ruckus down, the splinter fell out into my hand.

As my friend Jackie says, "Is it odd, or is it God?" There are those who would say that I had loosened it, and it just fell out then. I say it was God, both times,  and I love that I believe that.

Thank You.

FORGIVENESS...GETTING AND GIVING

[This is a reprint of my blog of October 27, 2008.]

Recently, I saw on TV a man who had financed a seriously dirty campaign against another person. He was asked his feelings now about his actions which are still being talked about some years later. He said he regretted nothing, that he’d made his peace with God.

It occurred to me that God wasn't the one he needed to make his peace with…it was the person who was attacked. In effect, he picked up mud, threw it at another, and it wound up on his own face…after which he asked God’s pardon.  

It makes no difference if the other party has long since forgiven and/or forgotten me. As long as I have made no attempt to right my wrong with the person affected, my wrong stays with me…the mud clings to my face for all my world to see. 

And giving a hundred…a million!…bucks to charity in the wronged person’s name is not going to clean that mud off my face.

Praying to God about it, telling God how wrong I know I was, nada…a good start, but no cigar. For God has already forgiven me, God saw no wrong in me to begin with. That’s God’s job. It’s mine to bring myself in alignment with His standards. Meaning, I will get the mud off my face only in proportion to my direct, sincere atonement…with God’s perfect will as my guide.

For God alone knows all there is to know about the situation. It may be that to speak to the person wronged would cause more pain…God knows that. So, to get the mud off, I need to truly open myself to God’s perfect will…usually by asking a trusted person’s advice, then following it.

God’s hand is in it when all sides come out the winner…when all concerned are healed…wiped clean as it were.

Thank You.