SO SEEK

Supply is the realization of God. -- Joel Goldsmith, "Letters," p. 631

Realization. That is the goal that is unattainable by our own efforts. In general, we must needs make our self available for it, but not always...Saul, a real reprobate, on the road to Damascus was knocked off his horse by a bolt of Realization and, from that, grew into being Saint Paul. (Take that as my short-form of a saint's transformation..."my" being the key.)

Realization is not just believing or wanting to believe, knowing or wanting to know. Realization is a gift from within...we realize from our toes to our nose to the roots of our hair to the broken ends of each strand of that hair. And that realization changes us...that is the proof of an authentic spiritual experience. We are changed. Not by our thinking, reading, studying, talking; we are changed spiritually by the cosmic hand of God...according to me.

That's when our work begins. The work of remembering. Remembering that our life is not ours to fix or even improve. We learn just what Goldsmith meant when he wrote, "Supply is the realization of God." We never again need to worry about...anything.

Supply includes health, wealth, wisdom...soul. Our "work" is in living that. A start is when we accept that there are two things with us 24/7...first, the God of our own understanding, and second Lucy, our ego, both of whom will be with us three days after we're dead.

Lucy will be there holding that football and God will be there assuring us "It is I, be not afraid" (or, for simple folk like me, "kissing the boo-boo") when we take her bait once again.

The change that realization brings isn't into a fear-free, worry-free, stress-free life. The change is that we are free to fear, worry, be stressed...but why? And we grow into our own spiritual peace through proving to our self the un-necessity of fear, worry and stress. Through proving to our self that God has our back.

Seek ye first the kingdom of Heaven....

Thank you.

ALL THINGS WORK TOGETHER FOR OUR GOOD

I may be seeing light with this ongoing pain...they may have found the cause, and I may be through with having yet another EKG which they gave me repeatedly...for the sole purpose, I'm convinced, of proving that I did not need an EKG.

Remembering God in the midst of this has been dicey. I'm saying for a fact that my faith was about a quart low.

And then he abracadabra's right before my eyes...in the person of the emergency room doctor who heard me...possibly the first doctor who actually heard me. He called the doctor I was trying to get in to see, arranged for an appointment, I saw that doctor yesterday, and I believe I'm breaking free.

Plus I've lost six pounds. Don't tell me all things don't work together for my good.

Thank you.

THERE IS NO ENOUGH

So, here's my blinding flash that this illness is my sliver of gold. I was in the ER Monday at 10:00 or 11:00 AM, and I remembered that it is said we only get to God through great love or great suffering. I had just experienced the greatest pain of my life, screaming into a pillow at 3:00 AM with Ruckus licking my tears, and my not even noticing him...just remembered it in the ER.

Apparently, without consciously knowing it, my subconscious had figured that my test was to be in learning to give and to accept love which does not come easy to me; that my great suffering had been taken care of more than sufficiently in the '60s and '70s.

I realized that which I already knew: Suffering works just like love works...it does not stop, is never marked "Enough" and put aside...there will always be another chance to experience great suffering and/or great love...that IS how our realization and our experience of God grows. We cannot keep God in a box just as we first realized him...not if we are growing. And we are growing whether we know it or not.

So I could sincerely say to God this morning, if more suffering is what I need, more suffering is what I want...for you, for you.

[Sidebar: My ego, a.k.a., Lucy, quickly added, "Just don't make me suffer at that first hospital I went to, OK?" Here's why we all need a God of our own understanding...my God loves Lucy and just grins when she's on parade.]

Thank you.

TRUST...AND KEEP ON TRUSTING

God does indeed work in wondrous ways his mysteries to perform.

I spent my entire yesterday in the ER, and it was there I got my blinding flash of the obvious that this illness is my sliver of gold.

Now the learning begins.

Thank you.

MY NEW TRUTH

OK, I'm going with the "there must be a pony in here" theory. I'm feeling like this pain is a continuing barn full of horse manure, and I'm mucking it out as fast as I can. And I'm here to say that there ain't a pony in here...there's a Palomino at least. Maybe two.

The problem(s) being: physical illness is hard to love; six weeks of steady pain is even harder making an attitude of gratitude a distant hope...and may I say (not too harshly I dare hope, she noted sarcastically) especially with self-centered friends who want to teach me a lesson by quoting their own self-sanctified ways of dealing with pain: "Just think of all the poor souls who lost limbs to LEDs and feel shame for whining about this little problem." No, it did not elevate my gratitude level, but that may well be because I do have an affinity for the whine...who's kidding whom?

So if you're looking to find God or even evidence of God here today...tough. Unless you're willing to suspend belief and accept that this is God just airing his personal peeves through me. Meaning, of course, that he agrees with me that it would be nice if Gertrude kept her self-sanctified ways of dealing with pain to herself..

I like that...I do  believe it's my new truth.

Thank you.

I SEEK ANEW...WITH HOPE

"Berenbaum said that God is to be found in the rubble." A friend sent me a writing of his that had that quote in it. It was exactly what I needed for my own self this morning.

Finding God in the less than wonderful...we are told that in so many places. That's one of the things that first drew me to the Sermon. When I understood the sentence, "He prepares a place for me in the presence of my enemies," I felt it personally and universally, and I knew hope.

I seek there now.

Thank you.

THE ENEMY WHO MUST BE LOVED, II

That I feed the beggar,

That I forgive an insult,

That I love my enemy,

These are undoubtedly great virtues.

But what if I should discover

That the least among them all,

The poorest of all beggars,

The most impudent of all offenders,

Yea, the very fiend himself,

That these are within me,

And that I, myself, stand in need

Of the alms of my own kindness,

That I, myself, am the enemy who must be loved.

What then?

 -- C. B. Jung