GOD WHISPERING IN MY EAR

Per Fr Richard Rohr, how we do anything is how we do everything. I've read that in several different books of his and have heard him say it in lectures. I accept it as true, but I had to really work to wrap my brain around it.

Then I recalled some 40 years ago, a friend and I were talking, realizing how opposite we were in dealing with life. She was extremely intelligent, strong-willed and very accomplished...she got things done. I knew mine was an intuitive nature and that I relied...a lot...on inner direction (which I did not yet recognize as God). 

She saw a problem? She righted it...or gave it her best shot. She dug in at any rate. I saw a problem? I felt overwhelmed, figured I could do nothing about it and learned to either live with it or avoid it. And bitched a lot.

All these years later as I look back, I see how her way has worked extremely well for her. And my way has worked equally well for me. 

I have no way of knowing how she mellowed with her way (in general we all do mellow, with age), but I look at my way, and I am filled with gratitude...with awe and gratitude. For what I see is that which I thought of way back then as my gutless wonder approach to life was actually me learning early the road to acceptance. It's what Rohr calls "a daily merging with the problem and finding its full resolution." 

I know the one constant that has helped me immeasurably over the years in merging with my problem(s). I just mentally repeat, “When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me, speaking words of wisdom, 'Let it be, oh, let it be.'" There. The Beatles to my rescue with their song, Let It Be.

For all I know, my friend may use Einstein's Theory of Relativity, but "Let it be" is God whispering in my ear.

Thank you.

TRUDGING THE HAPPY ROAD

It takes serious discipline, I'm finding, to cut myself off from my own fantasies of setting others straight and substituting fantasies where we all come out winners. 

I am blessed with an acquaintance whose one goal in life, it seems, is to needle me. Not returning needle for needle is a great quality, but my ego-victory mind has a hard time actually doing that. 

I was mentally setting the attack lady straight recently, and I couldn't quite get the knife in deep enough...I kept going back and improving my putdown. Which did nothing positive for my mind's general state of being…the darker my thoughts, the more attacked I felt, the more mired I became in my own spite.

The thought occurred that the next time she needles, I can take a minute or two to chat with her. What I suspect that I do is cop an attitude of superior silence...I don't want to spend one more minute with her than I absolutely have to. Who would when all that's coming is needles and nails? 

I'm reminded of the advice I once read in "Lazy Man's Guide to Enlightenment." Something like, when all that's coming at you is ugly, invite more ugly in. You can't get to the other side of it by hiding from it, avoiding it, pretending it is not there.

I don't know that chatting with her will change anything with her, but it will keep my mind focused on more pleasant things, and that is the source of my misery...my reactive thoughts, my own attack mind.

We know we’re heading in the right direction when we're content just trudging the road of happy destiny.

Thank you.

BLESSED BY MY ENEMIES

[The following is a reprint from my blog of February 25, 2011.]

 “Thou prepareth a table before me in the presence of mine enemies….”  - from The 23rd Psalm

I see myself, alone in a pasture, sitting in the middle of a red and white checked tablecloth, enjoying a picnic lunch.

Encircling me, at the far edges of the pasture, are all my enemies. I cannot quite see their shapes or faces, but I know they are my enemies, and I fear they are ravenous beasts, razor-clawed birds of prey, all with the intent of tearing me apart.

They are closing in, coming closer, seeming as on a wave, nearer ever nearer, almost to the hem of my tablecloth…I begin to discern their features, their identities. They are people, events, times of my life…all representing my rues, my regrets, my remorses.

As I recognize each one, I realize I fear no evil for Thou art with me, and the oncoming wave becomes golden, and turns on my enemies, washing them clean. They now see themselves in my rues, regrets and remorses, and I see their nothingness in the absence of my fear/the presence of my God…I smile, and they gently fade away.

Thank you.

WE MUST BE UTTERLY BROKEN

I got up this morning and was almost immediately hit with a blinding flash of the obvious: It is my resistance to Lars being Lars that must be broken, and it cannot be broken by my self-determined objective. It must be broken by God’s grace when, if and as God chooses.

When I got around to my morning readings, I found each of them was all about exactly that.

Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditations:  “What the saints and mystics say is that some event, struggle, relationship, or suffering in your life has to lead you to the edge of your own resources. There has to be something that you by yourself cannot understand, fix, control, change, or even begin to deal with. It is the raw experience of ‘I cannot do this.’ All you can do at this point is wait and ask and trust.”

God Calling: “When human support or material help of any kind is removed, then My power can become operative.”

Eknath Easwaran, Words to Live By: “Violence, war, and insensitivity to our fellow creatures are external manifestations of the disunity seething in our consciousness.” [My emphasis added.]

I asked God to break my ego’s hold on my resistance to Lars being Lars. It cannot happen by my self-determined objective for then I am still in control. It is I who must be broken. As long as I feel a smidgen of want to explain, justify, clarify, etc., then ego is sailing my ship.

It is ego (a.k.a. fear) that blocks us. The want to be right, feel the victim, set another straight, get another’s understanding, comfort, love…as long as any one of those feelings is operative, that is the God of our understanding.

It is the complete despair of ever getting any of our perceived needs met that cracks the iron shell of ego-resistance and invites God through. We may never get that which we were so desperately seeking, and we will know this which we have been given is beyond reasoning better.

Thank you.

NEED LOVE? BE LOVING

It came to me once that we keep trying to get what we’ve already got…by trying to get it, we deny that we’ve got it…which keeps us trying to get it. 

Take, for instance, patience...or any of the loving kindnesses we find ourselves asking God for whenever we're feeling mean, ugly and put-upon. To show patience, be patient. To show courtesy, be courteous. We already have all the loving kindness there is, and it is within us right this minute...else where do we go to get it?  

This is another one of those the concept of which is easy to grasp. But doing it? Doing it as we breathe? Here comes ego on a gallop...breathing fire. 

It is our ego-victory thinking, hidden just beneath the surface of our mind, that is ever ready to trample any idea, any will, but its own. Our ego is fueled by our refusal to accept that our thinking is faulty. We may freely admit that it is...even brag about it just to show how self-aware we are. But let go of our reasoning mind?  "That's insanity," whispers our ego.

Actually, we don't need to "loose it and let it go." We just need to be sure it's in second place...third or fourth place, even better. First, behind God. Second, behind our mentor. Third, behind our friend. Fourth, behind our enemy. 

We'll know we're heading for Home when we realize they are all one and the same...and ego is no part of it.

Thank you.

FEAR OF TRUSTING GOD

I dreamed last night:

I am living in poverty. I am gifted with the Hope Diamond. I am ecstatic…all my worries are over. I’m told its value which is more money than I ever dreamed of having. I’m also told that the value may double or even triple within a day or two. Of course I hold onto it because if a million is good, etc. Weeks pass. I do nothing but worry and check on the value…has it gone up yet? How bout now? Any movement today? I do not have a buck to buy a dollar meal with. I am starving as I clutch my Hope to my heart. I think of how much more money I will get if I just hold on to my fortune another day or two. As I lay dying, I realize my death is not from starvation but from fear. Fear of trusting God. I hear again, "God can and will intervene in your life in your behalf." And I realize that before God can and will...anything, I must needs let go. God will not force me...I have free will to choose.

Choose ye this day....

Thank you.

WE GOTTA GO TO GOD

Every spiritual truth we learn, we need to put into practice by living it. The overwhelming majority of us learn it just to quote it to others when we see how badly they need it, but too rarely do we live it ourselves.

I have a friend who is right and her employer is wrong. She may wind up quitting her job over it. I do not tell her that what we see is always ourselves. I do not tell her for she already knows it...she has had to remind me often enough. 

The trouble with being right, and being righteous about it, is it gives us no comfort. Yet we live our lives fearing ever being wrong...or getting caught being wrong. 

When we are married to our rightness, it covers us like a comforter, but it's a comforter of needles and pins. Our every thought is filtered through how right we are. The nail in the needles is that being right means there is somebody walking around wrong, somebody our right is resisting. And that one either doesn't have sense enough to realize his wrongness or, worse, she believes we are the wrong one.

And all the time all we have to do to find peace is to change our mind.

What? Give in? Let him win? Be a loser? 

Here's the paradox...giving in, letting her win, being a loser is the basis for peace in our hearts and minds. Then there's the reality...we cannot do any of those things through self-will. We must needs go to a power greater than our reasoning mind, and our reasoning mind cannot conjure up a power greater than itself. It can only accept that there is such a thing. Another paradox: It can only accept that through giving in, etc. 

I'm convinced it's proof of God's sense of humor that all we need do to be free of any perceived problem is to change our mind...and we cannot do that on our own. We gotta go to God. Yet. Again. Always.

Thank you.