PROOF OF GOD'S LOVE

Here's proof that my God lives in me, for me, ever vigilant to bring to bear my own good out of my own missteps.

My yesterday's post told of a misstep of mine and the long haul I'd need to take to get free of me. The following three sentences (God-directions, actually) came to me after that post.

Forgiveness is giving up your investment in and identification with your own painful story. - Fr. Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," June 13, 2015

The other two are quotes of Francis of Assisi from Rohr's post of today, June 14th:

You can show your love to others by not wishing that they should be better Christians. 

We must bear patiently not being good . . . and not being thought good.

To me, those sentences are the How To guide for ego reduction in depth. I also believe that all three are applicable in all our lives at any minute of any day up to and including right this very instant.

Now, how do we apply them?

Love and laughter. Love of our self and others; laughter at our self, with others.

Thank you.

GOD'S HAND IS IN IT...ALWAYS AND ALL WAYS

It has been given me to see that whenever a really ugly, not my fault, undeserved, betrayal to the max, comes into my life, I need to accept, immediately if not sooner, that God's hand is in it. I mean, that must be true if I accept that God's hand is in everything, always and all ways...and I do.

For instance, something happened in my life nearly thirty years ago that was so overwhelmingly big and ugly, not to mention unearned, that I just accepted that God's hand had to be in it.

There was one person, Gertrude, at the center of the ugly who became a sort of tar baby to me. Every time I mentioned her name in any context at all, it seemed tar and feathers would descend upon me. Not being entirely stupid, I quit mentioning her name. But the situation, dripping venom, would come in and out of my life over the years, and I would vocally respond not at all. I would thank God that I knew his hand had to be in this, for what reason I could not imagine, and then usually I would mentally curse Gertrude.

There was another person, Sylvia, who had started the ball rolling in this situation who came to me at that time and told me (and me only) that she bet I was angry at her for starting this...then she simply moved to another state. Literally. I never thought of her again.

Stuff around this situation has happened recently, and this very morning I realized that Gertrude is my angel...I saw that I could never have "not responded in kind" without her as my angel. Any animosity I had felt, any negative feelings toward her, were simply lifted from me.

End of God's story.

But, bet your bottom, Baby, ego lives! I almost immediately, and for the first time, thought of Sylvia...that betraying, low-life! She was the initiator, the source of all my woes. What was wrong with me that I hadn't walked all over her mud-slinging, back-stabbing body, and rat-a-tat-tat and blah, blah, blah.

God loves me so much that he sent me a fit of giggles. Clearly, no freedom from Sylvia yet, but giggles heads me in the right direction.

And there it is. There's Love and Laughter on the hoof! Don't tell me God doesn't know funny when we hand it to him.

Thank you.

LIFE'S JOY...PURE AND SIMPLE

The Crucified revealed to the world that the real power that changes people and the world is an inner authority that comes from people who have lost, let go, and are re-found on a new level. Twelve-step programs have come to the same conclusion in our time. -- Fr. Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," June 11, 2015

That is the lesson to learn. Personal peace is all about our willingness to release, detach, let go...not store up, gather to, attach. The power of peace is in no personal power.

Real freedom is freedom from self, from our wants, petty piques, random ego victories. Even our perceived successes. Now that is joy...pure and simple.

And it does not matter if we pray the Lord’s Prayer, repeat the Buddha's wisdom or the Lama's Lament...modified, changed and or mutilated. It only matters that we pray in gratitude acknowledging a power greater than ourselves...and believe in that power.

Thank you.

SHOWING FORTH MY GOOD

[The following is a reprint of my blog of July 30, 2010.]

I am the good I seek. In order to benefit from that fact, my focus must be inside, within me, inner directed. It is not enough to know (because I read it somewhere and it rang true and I get it) that I am the good I seek. That’s just knowing from my eyebrows up…which is essential as a first step.

It is after I get it, then begins the work…and the work is to not work. It’s all about sitting in the silence, relaxing into Myself, not striving to attain…anything. Detach, detach, detach.

It is the unseen, the unformable that is the gold I seek. I already know that I contain within myself all the patience that I will ever need, all the love, all the happy, all the forgiveness, all the unseens as it were. For if it is not within me, where do I go to get it? Knowing that, however, serves me no good if, for instance, the clerk at the store takes his own sweet time and holds me up from my ego-driven things to do, places to go, people to see, and I shoot him a nasty (not even a nasty word, but a nasty thought!)…then, the cosmic rule “what goes around comes around” goes into full force and effect. And I will rue my thought-response.

It is in letting go of those ego-driven thoughts and words that brings the change within me/without me. No matter how egregious the action I perceive, to react in kind is more egregious to my inner being…and thus to my outer.

Imagine my joy when I realized that of myself, I am utterly incapable of making any ego change. That is precisely why I must go into the silence, relax and thank God Almighty that He’s got my back, that I have no pony in this race, no dog in this fight…it is my life, and God lives it through me.

Thank you.

BEGINNING TO SAVE THE WORLD

Without suffering, "love" is mere sentimentality and not nearly enough to save the world--or anybody. -- Fr. Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," June 10, 2015

In Rohr's meditation, he uses physical pain (i.e., St. Francis's stigmata) as his example of suffering.

In today's world with all the (according to me, too many) drugs and meds available for the relief of pain, I had to see Rohr's statement as referring also to mental pain, in particular, the ego-deflating kind we must suffer that comes from snubs, slights, our rues, regrets and remorses, i.e., our self absorption.

Fortunately, there is no permanent relief for that kind of pain...only the daily reprieve that comes by seeking still more spiritual growth.

We begin by inviting our ego-piercing pain out into the open. And, may I say, that is suffering. The suffering of making the decision to go against our reasoning mind which for sure is doubting the wisdom of that action. But that is the way the love of God, and only the love of God, can bring us relief...by our looking that very pain in the eyeball thereby transmuting that pain to love.

And that's it...our invitation is issued when we become willing to flow with the ego pain rather than stop it...flow through to utter acceptance of it as our gold...not trying to justify or condemn our or another's actions in relation to those slights and snubs, or to explain them away, or to guilt ourselves over them. 

We find that transmuted love within our own self. That is the love of God within us. There. That is the beginning of the way to save the world.

According to me.

Thank you.

ON DOUBTING THE FACT OF GOD

I'm convinced that the reason so many of us doubt the fact of God is that God doesn’t deliver his goodness as a one-shot deal or in the form we're seeking.

Say we’re facing bankruptcy...we pray for the one-shot solution of money, of course. And God gives us peace! Because we don’t get the money, we freak, miss his gift of peace, and deny there is a God. Thus, we never learn that in a peaceful place, we worry not, and ways open to us that walk us through the bankruptcy...in peace.

Or we pray for love...to be a loving person, not just to get love, but to be a loving person. We ignore or never accepted the fact that we have all the love there is to have within us right now, there from birth. The only way to prove it is there, however, is to use it...by giving it away. The tricky part is we can't give it only to those or that which we already approve of...that's not love, that's self-satisfaction. No. We think of the (way too many) people we don't approve of and decide to upgrade our opinion. Of one. Leaning on the Lord and risking being wrong, we change our minds...we let the braggart, the blowhard, the self-centered jerk be. Just be. And holy moley...that very jerk is now a friend, a compassionate and caring friend.

There. That is my goal today...when (not if) there is someone who irritates me to the point that my palm itches to slap her, I lean on the Lord, etc. We're working on one right now...it takes time, but as long as I know my goal, I'm heading in the right direction. As my friend Sandy used to say, "Changing my mind is like turning the Queen Mary....slow, oh so slow."

This is my experience. It's not a truth I read in a book, but my very own experience. With that as my experience, you'd think I'd do it a lot more, but one or two to start with is a bona fide miracle, according to me. And I am beyond grateful.

Thank you.

A CROCK OF GOLD

According to me, we have but one rock-bottom need and that is to live opposite of the way our reasoning mind runs. There is the Divine Paradox. That is the secret of a mind at peace.

It also describes the Sermon on the Mount. The Sermon basically goes against our reasoning mind's dictates: If someone steals your coat, run after them and give them your cloak; if someone slaps you upside your head, turn the other cheek; agree with your adversary quickly; resist not evil...whose reasoning mind even agrees with that when first it's heard, much less would originate such? Clearly a person who had found the Source within and lived there.

The great gettin' up, sing hallelujah news is when we realize that if one has done it, it is possible for another...for us even! It all starts with that reasoning mind...training, disciplining our own thoughts, taming our attack mind...accepting that we have to lose in order to win. In short, we change our mind.

Even with a changed mind, we cannot get there on our own...for our own will return us to our reasoning mind every time. It all starts with the realization of that Source within us...that we can and must trust that Source to do right by us, not by our lights but by Its. This is called "Hold your nose and take a leap of faith." This is our first proof of trust in other than our reasoning mind.

Here's what I'm learning right this very minute: When, not if, the Shineola comes to us, trust that it is only Shineola, and that is all. That is also hard. The hardest part being simply our ability to trust our Source, and not our reasoning mind.

Once we accept that our Source is pure goodness thus can only bring good, the Shineola becomes our gold. Ah...there's our pearl beyond price.

Thank you.