THE ROCKY ROAD TO REAL PEACE

I am reminded again that if we do not transform our pain we will transmit it. The most important part to remember is that the transformation is of God and grace.

We cannot transform our pain, we can only do the footwork of bringing our ego-victory thoughts back to God (repeatedly and then again) to build with and do with as God chooses.

Our reward comes when we are released which release sets the other person free. It is in our transformed pain, the release of our ego-victory's need to be right, that the other person is released from her need to be right. There is always another person. She is the one our ego feels is attacking us when, in fact, he is our angel.

This is the rocky road to real peace. And the road is only as rocky as our ego chooses it to be.

Thank You.

JUST DON'T RESPOND IN KIND

It is said that that which we fear we cause to happen. I think it's more that we invite it to happen, and the distinction is majorly important in how we respond to others. 

Say, when Gertrude for whatever reason feels threatened, she invites her worst fear (rejection) to happen. She begins to act mean, disrespectful and rude to her perceived threatener. (She can't be rejected if she gets rid of her rejecter first.) 

Remember, the base here is her perception, her interpretation, that rejection is either imminent or has happened, and it does not matter that the perceived threatener is her dearest friend, partner, spouse. It only matters what her fear is whispering in her mind.

When the other person is met by that rejection, the reasoning mind says s/he needs to react in kind...because most of us have that same fear, rejection. What does mean, disrespectful and rude shout but rejection?

As Ken Keyes said, "More suffering comes into the world by people taking offense than by people intending to give offense." Gertrude, having perceived rejection, took offense, and her fear attacked. The answer, of course, is to not respond in kind. And that's where we meet, yet again, the power of the ego. We, living in the ego-victory mind, cannot not respond in kind...or by not responding at all, simply drawing a big red line through Gertrude's name, and the friendship is nevermore.  

If we are ever to have long-lasting friendships, peaceful relationships, we need to learn the art of detachment...i.e., to divorce ourselves from our own opinions. 

Since we are indeed powerless over our own ego, we'd best accept that God, and only God, is not. We need to learn and turn...away from self to God. It is in the turning, the willingness to divorce ourselves from ourselves, that the battle is won...and both sides come out the winner. 

A clue: 70 x 7.

Thank You.

GRATITUDE IS ALWAYS OUTWARD BOUND

The mental contortions of everyday life between ego and spirituality, according to me:

Your resistance is a magnet to my ego...which resists your resistance. Thus starts an ego fight: Egos on parade, hoofing it down our own Broadway with our own banners flying, each knowing what the other "needs" to do to get over self.

It may be that our entire problem when going for spiritual growth is that our ego wraps up in spiritual miasma and rides herd, calling it spiritual growth. We name our problems "you" and instruct our ego to pray, preach, litigate for you...which is just "Satan quoting scripture."

The test is whether we are able to realize the peace that true concern for another brings. After 24 hours, if we're still begging the Palace Guards at the door of our ego to "bless her, change me," and cursing God for not listening, we'd best own up that we're stuck in our own self. We simply don't want to change.

Maybe life is simply a test of how to live a life of gratitude...and every niggling bit of resistance is simply a call for gratitude. Since gratitude is always outward bound, it is the quickest way there is to get out of self...or quite possibly the only way?

Thank You.

GO TO GOD FOR GOD...THAT IS ALL

There are so many good tools to use in getting over oneself...the hard part is accepting that these tools require us to rely on a higher intelligence than humans possess. It's God to me and it's thinking in the fourth-dimension, neither of which are accessible through our will or our want for they are "inherently self-advancing and therefore self-defeating." [Fr. Richard Rohr, Daily Meditations, August 4, 2013]

"The reasoning mind is the instrument through which God works...we go into the quiet and let God be released through us so that It will act to make the inadequate intelligence, adequate; It will make the unloving, loving; the ungrateful, grateful...." [Joel Goldsmith, The Heart of Mysticism, pp 702-703]

Our answer remains ever the same: Go to God for God...It can and will supply our every need.

Thank You.

ON THE VALUE OF UPGRADING MY ATTITUDE

[The following is a reprint of my blog of January 26, 2012.]

Since God is love and cannot punish, I have to remind myself that life changes are always for the better. It helps to remind myself that God cannot punish so I will take responsibility for that which has been visited upon me that does not look wonderful…and it’s not my fault, my ego cries.

That life changes are always for the better is obvious only when I look back…those dreaded events that came to me, if they were life changing, they have been for my good. Which is not to say that I haven’t had to do a lot of upgrading my attitude…but that’s never hurt me, either. The ugly events were usually just self-will-powered rues, regrets and remorses…the pretties were singular glories that signified nothing (but nice nonetheless).

I need to lean on that fact, that life changes are always for the better…a fact that is true to me when I stay out of self-determined objectives and into “They will, not mine, be done.”

Thank You.

THE MINUTE BLAME FALLS AWAY....

There is a story about St. Francis being asked how can we find perfect joy. Francis's answer was that even if we were perfect in our holiness and could work all kinds of miracles we would not have perfect joy. This goes on with the questioner continuing to question, "Then how?" and Francis continuing to give variations on the same answer.

Finally, Francis says, "Suppose we go to a monastery and tell the gatekeeper how weary and cold we are, and he calls us tramps and beats us and throws us out into the winter night. Then, if we can say with love in our hearts, 'Bless you in God's name,' then we shall have found perfect joy."

I love this story. I love it because it gives me something to aim for with my petty (even to my own self) peeves...my ego-victory resistance to the slights and snubs of daily life, real and imagined. For I know it to be true from my own very limited experience.

When my mind is freed of my own hurt, anger, righteous indignation at the treatment I received five minutes ago or fifty-five years ago, blame falls away. I am gifted with the feeling of inner joy unlike any other feeling. The minute my mind is freed from blame, my heart and my soul lighten up...shout...sing...turn cartwheels...skip...dance.

All in the name of God...without conscious thought.

Thank You.

ON DETACHING FROM OUR OWN VICTIM

To ponder: What if the Sermon is all about I?...i see you slap my face; i see you steal my coat; i see you sue me. We go to our center, knowing that what we see is always ourselves, and find it is I who translates, it is I who transmutes, it is I who transforms that which is appearing.

We can only transform through a new and higher consciousness of what we are seeing, how we are translating it, how it transmutes into understanding, acceptance, ownership.

I'm guessing this is all about releasing our own pain...detaching from our ego's victim.

As Fr. Richard Rohr says, "If you do not transform your pain, you will always transmit it."

Thank You.