Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. - The Beatitudes, Matthew 5:5
It seems to me that that one Beatitude is more resisted than all the others. Or it may just be my voice I hear. But who likes the idea of going for meek? That's just another word for weak, sniveling, coward...you know, all those words we so deeply fear apply to us.
Thank about it, though.
After the Beatitudes comes the rest of the Sermon on the Mount which, to me, is simply a set of instructions on how to surrender. How to give over, give up the fight, get over our own self, be at peace by giving peace.
It is in that surrender that we realize: I am the lamb; We are the flock...rejoice and sing hallelujah!...in our meekness is Our might. He is the Shepherd. The lion Aslan walks amongst us. The angel Ari hovers over us, around us, within us, without us. We need naught, we are One.
Thank you.
Friday, April 29, 2016
Thursday, April 28, 2016
GET GRATEFUL...GET OVER OUR SELF
Some time back I read Deepak Chopra's book, "Jesus." It did very little for me but in the most profound way. I pretty much pooh-poohed every other word even as I read it, but I could not stop reading it.
To me, the punchline of the book is: Judas, Jesus's boyhood friend/antagonist, was God's appointed agent in helping Jesus getting over his own self. Without Judas acting as Jesus's "emery board," so to speak, Jesus may have been just another carpenter.
When I take a pratfall, even with the best instructions in my head and heart, the trick is remembering to be grateful for the fall...specifically, to be grateful to the perceived reason for my fall. My ego, a.k.a., God's fun-friend Lucy, together with my reasoning mind, will be looking for the person to blame before I ever hit the ground.
Gratitude for the warts. That's how we come to love our enemy, why we can willingly turn the other cheek and...the pearl of greatest price...how "resist not evil" leads to peace. There. Thinking on it, that book may well be my most valuable possession.
Thank you.
To me, the punchline of the book is: Judas, Jesus's boyhood friend/antagonist, was God's appointed agent in helping Jesus getting over his own self. Without Judas acting as Jesus's "emery board," so to speak, Jesus may have been just another carpenter.
When I take a pratfall, even with the best instructions in my head and heart, the trick is remembering to be grateful for the fall...specifically, to be grateful to the perceived reason for my fall. My ego, a.k.a., God's fun-friend Lucy, together with my reasoning mind, will be looking for the person to blame before I ever hit the ground.
Gratitude for the warts. That's how we come to love our enemy, why we can willingly turn the other cheek and...the pearl of greatest price...how "resist not evil" leads to peace. There. Thinking on it, that book may well be my most valuable possession.
Thank you.
Wednesday, April 27, 2016
TURN IT OVER...LEAVE IT THERE
"Meditation and other spiritual disciplines are largely meant to give us the toughness required to take hold of our lives," Eknath Easwaran in today's Words to Live By.
This is really important to me because it reinforces another instruction that helped turn me from the idea that my will was to be gotten rid of...period. That instruction: "We must try with a will or fall by the wayside."
Again...paradox. I kept hearing (which is not necessarily what I was being told) that we must have a goal to live toward, but we must let go of goals. Over the years, I have been given to understand that a happy life does indeed have a goal to live toward...a spiritual goal. More money, a better job, more head knowledge is not going to get us the peace we seek.
The toughness required to take hold of our lives and trying with a will are all about aligning our will with the will of the God of our own understanding. We take hold of our life by turning our life over to that God...and trying with a will to leave it there. That two-pronged goal is a goal for the rest of our lifetime if we live to be 200 according to me.
Thank you.
This is really important to me because it reinforces another instruction that helped turn me from the idea that my will was to be gotten rid of...period. That instruction: "We must try with a will or fall by the wayside."
Again...paradox. I kept hearing (which is not necessarily what I was being told) that we must have a goal to live toward, but we must let go of goals. Over the years, I have been given to understand that a happy life does indeed have a goal to live toward...a spiritual goal. More money, a better job, more head knowledge is not going to get us the peace we seek.
The toughness required to take hold of our lives and trying with a will are all about aligning our will with the will of the God of our own understanding. We take hold of our life by turning our life over to that God...and trying with a will to leave it there. That two-pronged goal is a goal for the rest of our lifetime if we live to be 200 according to me.
Thank you.
Tuesday, April 26, 2016
NOT BY WILL BUT BY GOD
It is far better to go to God in gratitude for the opportunity to release my attack thoughts with love than it is to go to God seeking anything...no matter how good, decent and pretty the "anything" I seek sounds to me.
God is always on the field. Especially when we're running scared, forgetting that our life is not our problem. Our life is God's gift to us. Our only job is to bring that life back to God. Not by will, not by thought, not by want-to even...but by God.
Thank you.
God is always on the field. Especially when we're running scared, forgetting that our life is not our problem. Our life is God's gift to us. Our only job is to bring that life back to God. Not by will, not by thought, not by want-to even...but by God.
Thank you.
Monday, April 25, 2016
CONTINUE LISTENING FOR GOD
There are two sentences that, no matter how often I read them, electrify me. For I know them as pure truth. I know and I know I know, and I knew upon first reading them: The first, Most important is the discovery that all my problems can be solved by spiritual principles; and the second, Love will break down all my difficulties.
The third electrifier, the spiritual life is not a theory...we must live it, explains why the first two are useless if we're just being electrified in thought by them...useless unless we are actually living them.
Loving the unlovable, accepting the unacceptable...there it is. That is my quandary today. I'm half wrestling with my recent descent into pain when I admit my faith was about a quart low. I did not doubt God, nor the existence of God in my life...I doubted myself, my ability (my desire?) to get out of self and into God when all I really wanted was for the pain to stop.
My doctor's instructions are to rest, rest, rest and drink gallons of water. This will give me plenty to go to God with. The hardest part about going to God, of course, is the constant need to pull my own thoughts back...and that, too, is done with love. Hug 'em and kiss 'em and let 'em go crazy, then continue listening for God.
Thank you.
The third electrifier, the spiritual life is not a theory...we must live it, explains why the first two are useless if we're just being electrified in thought by them...useless unless we are actually living them.
Loving the unlovable, accepting the unacceptable...there it is. That is my quandary today. I'm half wrestling with my recent descent into pain when I admit my faith was about a quart low. I did not doubt God, nor the existence of God in my life...I doubted myself, my ability (my desire?) to get out of self and into God when all I really wanted was for the pain to stop.
My doctor's instructions are to rest, rest, rest and drink gallons of water. This will give me plenty to go to God with. The hardest part about going to God, of course, is the constant need to pull my own thoughts back...and that, too, is done with love. Hug 'em and kiss 'em and let 'em go crazy, then continue listening for God.
Thank you.
Sunday, April 24, 2016
RESIST NOT; WANT NOT
[The following is a reworked reprint of my blog of February 13, 2012.]
All my adult life the one thing I knew that I wanted was peace of mind. I wonder why it is so hard to accept that I have, have always had, peace of mind. It is right there within me with two paths to it: 1) quit resisting…anything; 2) quit wanting…anything.
Simple as that...and why does simple so seldom equate to easy?
It is humbling to me to realize that from my eyebrows up I know the secret of life itself…for that matter, so does anybody who chooses to see it. It’s when I catch myself choosing not to use that which I know that is the humbler.
I can still get blinded by my own perceptions of what I need, what I believe to be best for me…even when I’m honestly thinking of how to be of service to another. The fact is my ego dictates its wants whenever it chooses...my freedom is in remembering that God has my back and turning from my ego's wants.
All this is about my seeing just this morning that I took a risk for the benefit of another, put myself out there (for which I am grateful). My problem is that my ego-victory mind has been toying with the result I want from having put myself out there.
All my adult life the one thing I knew that I wanted was peace of mind. I wonder why it is so hard to accept that I have, have always had, peace of mind. It is right there within me with two paths to it: 1) quit resisting…anything; 2) quit wanting…anything.
Simple as that...and why does simple so seldom equate to easy?
It is humbling to me to realize that from my eyebrows up I know the secret of life itself…for that matter, so does anybody who chooses to see it. It’s when I catch myself choosing not to use that which I know that is the humbler.
I can still get blinded by my own perceptions of what I need, what I believe to be best for me…even when I’m honestly thinking of how to be of service to another. The fact is my ego dictates its wants whenever it chooses...my freedom is in remembering that God has my back and turning from my ego's wants.
All this is about my seeing just this morning that I took a risk for the benefit of another, put myself out there (for which I am grateful). My problem is that my ego-victory mind has been toying with the result I want from having put myself out there.
My ah-ha moment: I have already received God's result…and it is nada to my reasoning mind. That is what I get to be grateful for, that is where true gratitude lies.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Saturday, April 23, 2016
GOD AND LAUGHTER...LOVE AND LAUGHTER
I had such an important blinding flash of the obvious in the middle of the night that I had to write about it at length in my journal. It was in relation to Saint Augustine's prayer, Grant what thou commandest and then command what thou wilt.
I understood my recent experience with excruciating pain, and I knew that the agony that Christ felt on the cross was necessary...which I'd always wondered about.
The answer to all my problems was given to me, and I was in awe.
I continued to write, but the more I wrote the more I seemed pretty much like a fundamentalist...born again and breathing fire. Scared me silly.
With which another blinding flash of the obvious wrote itself out in my journal: The answer to all your problems is to quit taking yourself so seriously.
God is so good to me.
Thank you.
I understood my recent experience with excruciating pain, and I knew that the agony that Christ felt on the cross was necessary...which I'd always wondered about.
The answer to all my problems was given to me, and I was in awe.
I continued to write, but the more I wrote the more I seemed pretty much like a fundamentalist...born again and breathing fire. Scared me silly.
With which another blinding flash of the obvious wrote itself out in my journal: The answer to all your problems is to quit taking yourself so seriously.
God is so good to me.
Thank you.
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