AGAIN, WE IS THE WINNER

Mercy. I do get righteously indignant at those who change the word "bread" in the Lord's Prayer to "strength." Not to mention their trying to update literature so there is no masculine...it's all neutral.

My head lectures, "'We have ceased fighting anything or anyone.' How hard is that to remember?" All the while forgetting it as I ignore the fact that I am fighting them!

Which leads me to my new puzzler: Reconcile "Resist not evil" with "All it takes for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing."

I'm taken back to Lennon's "Imagine." What if each of the peoples of the world  imagined peace? Just imagine peace. Then imagine doing it. Then each of us actually do it...initiate and respond in peace. All the world could only be at peace...safe.

If all the world caught (and bought) the golden gift in resist not evil, then there would be no evil for good men to do anything about.

That can only start with ego deflation at depth. Richard Rohr maintains that ego leads with “no” whereas soul leads with “yes,” that "the putting together of the human and the divine is clearly our task and our supreme vocation."

So it begins with each individual realizing the Father within...each one's only goal being the realization of God within each of us, individually and as the whole universe.

For that I am responsible (...as are you). We know God's hand is in it because, again, we is the winner.

Thank you.

THE WHY FOR MEDITATION

I believe that the goal of life on the material plane needs be attaining conscious realization of God's presence. And that It must be released individually from within. That's the only place God is for us to individually realize It...in order, actually, for us to realize that It is everywhere. That is the why for meditation.

To prepare ourselves in hopes of communicating with God, we must still our thoughts, open ourselves to nothingness and let our senses be filled from within. That's just not doable as we walk the dog, chat on the phone, read the newspaper. No. We're pretty much required to sit down, shut up, breathe deeply and focus on, say, eternity on a pinpoint.

Since I do believe all things are possible to God, I say we "pretty much" are required to do these things...because if there is a need for God to get in touch with us, God can and will with or without our prepping for him.

For which I am seriously grateful.

Thank you.

GOD'S GARDEN WITHIN

There is something in you that is not touched by coming and going, by up and down, by for or against, by the raucous team of totally right or totally wrong. There is a part of you that is patient with both goodness and evil, exactly as God is. There is a part of you that does not rush to judgment or demand closure now. Rather, it stands vigilant and patient in the tragic gap that almost every moment offers. -- Fr. Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditations," June 12, 2014

I believe there is a place within me unreachable by my reasoning mind. That is God's place...my personal garden where I get to go to smell the lilies of the valley, to hug the pandas, to lie down with the lambs and the lions. 

If I take a problem there, the garden disappears. It becomes my ego-cave where I go to feel rigid, righteous and right, to set "them" straight, to feel unloved, unneeded, unwanted and unappreciated.

The question is why is the ego-cave so magnetic and God's place so easily passed by? 

The answer, of course, is with our reasoning mind which tells us if we can't see it, touch it, taste it, then it is not, cannot be, real. 

We must go beyond reason to love for love is the only safety. Love is the name of God's garden within. We must get out of our head, our ego-cave, and go into God's garden.

All we need do is love our enemy, do right by those who spitefully use us, look for a leper to hug.

Thank you.

KNOW IT OR NOT, GOD LIVES WITHIN

I love that, know it or not, God lives within me.

The trouble with running our attack minds over and over, setting another straight, is that we can think of such great put-downs. No mater how "good" we act then, those put-downs never leave...we just keep building on that first one, going for better, meaner, more cutting ones. We get ourselves stuck and curse our own darkness, calling it by that other one's name.

The good news/bad news is there is relief...only it is in inviting the slings and arrows of the other...welcoming those just as we welcome praise for they are all the same. Meaning, of no significance whatsoever. It's just that the ugly stays longer...like an oyster building its pearl, we give it 100% of our attention, tending it as if it were our child. Its name is resentment.

Without sincerely seeking help from our higher power, we can expect no release. And sincerely seeking help does not mean just asking God to relieve us of the bondage of self. It means seeking first to realize our Source, our Soul, the Father within us. For, according to Joel Goldsmith, 'The Spirit of God realized in consciousness has a way of searching out just the right place, the right person, the right way, or the right activity and of bringing it into our experience."  ("The Heart of Mysticism" at p. 958)

There is the secret of the Sermon on the Mount: By God's grace, turning from self for the benefit of others. Do that and live resentment free...I am told.

Know it or not, God lives within.

Thank you.

THANK YOU...REPEATEDLY AND FOREVER

Somewhere, probably in the Bible, it says that if we acknowledge God in all our goings and comings, he'll bless us richly.

I awoke this past weekend feeling all but crippled. I had a right knee replacement a couple years ago, and it's never been 100% since, on top of which I've now got a bum left knee. So it's no stretch for me to feel all but crippled, but this was can't-walk-unaided crippled.

So I got out my cane, shot a fairly wary "thank you," and, if I moved at all, I limped with cane in hand for the next few days. Yesterday morning I wasn't feeling any better...in fact, I was feeling pains up my neck...so I wrote in my journal: "God, my knee is your problem, lead the way. Whatever needs be done, you can and will work through me to achieve it in the best possible way for me. Thank you. Amen."

Having adverse reactions to most medications, I take none if I can at all help it, but in an emergency I will take aspirin. Yesterday noon, I found an unopened bottle of same in my medicine chest and I took two...I was tap dancing before nightfall. Possibly not tap dancing, but walking unaided for sure. And am feeling fine as frog's hair this morning.

Here's where "acknowledging God" in all we do comes in. My knee feels healed, our reasoning mind will not only give all credit to the aspirin, but get pretty sarcastic about giving any credit to God. But look back at what I journaled..."Whatever needs be done, you can and will work through me to achieve it in the best possible way for me."

"Take two aspirin, and thank me in the morning," is what I'm believing I got from God. And I do thank you...repeatedly and forever.

Thank you.

LOVE SEEKS US

A friend and I were talking recently about the power of love. I mentioned how important John Lennon's "Imagine" is to me and remembered a column of Bill Buckley's in which he was just raging against the song.

My memory (faulty at its best) is that Buckley's main contention was that if all America followed Lennon's suggestion that we imagine "nothing to kill or die for" that America would be overtaken by liars, cheats, thieves and terrorists in a heartbeat. Which, to my mind, is preposterous because the entire theme of the song is for the universe, not just America, to  "imagine all the people sharing all the world."

My beloved friend then gave the best ever example of the end-result of seeking love versus anger, peace versus war. He casually observed that people today are still leaving flowers in front of the Dakota in New York City on the spot where John Lennon died, but nobody goes out of his way to find Buckley's grave much less leave flowers there.

I choose to believe that's an indication that love seeks us.

Thank you.

CONSCIOUSNESS IS WHAT I AM

Spiritual power is always hidden inside of powerlessness. -- Fr. Richard Rohr

My morning's blinding flash of the obvious: A bomb can fall on me, it cannot destroy or touch my consciousness. Consciousness is what I am.

This manifestation that I appear as will disappear and still I will be reforming to appear in a new form for God 's use.

Thank you.