TO PROVE IT, DO IT

Truth must be proved. That is the foundation we get to build on...truth must be proved by each of us personally for our own personal good.

Whatever WOW words we hear coming from another's lips, to memorize them and repeat them by rote is to never have them for our own. To commit the guiding words of an angel to memory and not put them to use (to let them lie fallow) is to live a fear- (and self-) filled life.

He goes before me to make the crooked places straight. Those are just so many words if we don't set out on the path we're dreading that made us remember and repeat those words to begin with. He can't make a crooked place straight for us if we refuse to use our own efforts to walk that path.  Mainly...and here's the point...the crooked place is already straight.

We can't discover that without moving our own self forward through it. In our moving forward we realize it is God's feet doing the walking, God's eyes doing the seeing, God using our best efforts to bring us to the place we need to be. We prove it by doing it.

Truth must be proved.  It's akin to holding your nose and taking a leap of faith.

Thank you.

STAR-SKIPPERS ARE OF GOD, TOO

When I was four or five years into my journey of seeking still more spiritual growth, I belonged to a group that gathered every Sunday evening at 7:00 to share spiritually.

Every Sunday I would say the exact same thing, that being, "I just want the feeling of God in my life." Every Sunday. Same thing.

Came the Sunday when one of the guys, who had a mental history of playing out there amongst the stars, apparently had heard enough of my want. At his turn he shared: "I have had the feeling of God in my life. I have talked with God. I have met God face-to-face...and every time it's happened, I've been in a straightjacket on my way to a mental hospital." Which, of course, cracked everybody up including me.

I still call his name blessed for without that flat-out reality check, I could very well still be going around thinking, if not saying, "I just want the feeling of God in my life."

And guess what? On occasion I can still have that feeling, that I'm-missing-a-God-something feeling.

I have learned to consider that just another crack in my life...the cracks being the defects in me that neither time nor trial have dealt with. These defects have been called the cracks that let in God's light which description I love, so I welcome them by knowing them as my blessings.

That also brings my star-skipping friend to mind, and I ease myself back from the ether.

Thank you.

ON LEAVING FEAR HOMELESS

It has been said that fear is simply a lack of love. Saying the same thing, but...well, differently...I choose to think of fear as a need for love.

Realizing fear as a need brings it home.  Makes it fixable. It doesn't take a world of worry and wonder to figure out that the only thing that can fix fear is no fear. Where can we go to find no fear? To God. Where is God?  Within. We go to God.

Sidebar: Here's how I go to God: I sit in my silence, relax, mentally wrap myself in a big old lush velvet blanket and think, "Here's me, Lord...you got the power, I don't...knock yourself out. Thank you."

With our focus on God, fear is not present...until we realize fear is not present. Then we repeat and repeat until we just have to smile at our self. And BINGO...here comes laughter to save the day. We're home free.

Letting fear be a lack is to let it be. To let it be present. Nothing-to-be-done-about-it present. So that when fear slithers into our consciousness, our race-race, run-run reasoning mind is caught unaware and runs screaming that fear is here and we're helpless before it. Which invites fear to grow larger, blacker...Real. Fear is home free.

Here's the cosmic gift when we're home free: At some point later, maybe not for a day or two or even a week or two, but fairly soon, that which had us fearful will be vanquished. Either fixed in some "it's a miracle!" way or turned to our advantage or simply forgotten about. But fixed and not by human hands.

It really is imperative that we make conscious note each time that happens...which, hard to believe, we seldom do. God is with us 24/7 but so is ego, and ego is fighting God...always. God is not fighting...ever. So take notes.

Thank you.

LOVE, IN SPITE OF OUR SELF, LOVE

Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. -- Matthew 22:37-40

I read that, actually I had it read to me the first time it came to me...in Sunday school class. Went over my head like a hairnet, but at six or seven most things of depth do.  But over the years, I heard it, I read it, I thought it right pretty.

When I started to live my life, religion had no part in it...nor did God nor Jesus nor fancy sounding love.

Then I found proof of God's love...he let me hit myself over the head with a two by four until I came to my senses and sought his help. To stop hitting myself over the head. With a two by four. There. That's the story of my great suffering and how I found God and Jesus and fancy sounding love.

Which to Lucy, my ego, was rarely enough. So I sought the Buddha, I discovered Joel Goldsmith, I thrilled to Thích Nhất Hạnh and oh my goodness Pema Chodran! Not to mention Eknath Easwaran, and...and...and.

I awoke one less-than-fine day, with that old something's-missing feeling in my head and heart, and I heard, "Love your God, the God of your own understanding, with all your heart, soul, body and brains, and love your neighbor...yes, the neighbor that kicked your dog and you suspect is a pedophile...love that neighbor as yourself." 

I knew my search was over. The answer, no matter the question, is love. Find a way within our own self to go deeper. To love. Continue to read all those great works, follow any and all of those great people, but never forget...they all command but one and the same thing: Love.

All this comes to me this morning because Honda is apparently determined to totally wipe my bank account clean through abuse of my automatic payments. They're working on taking a third payment from my account in one month's time, two for a car I left on their lot in March.

Does this sound like I'm reacting with love? No it does not, I'm not a total fool...but here's as good as I can get right this minute. I want to. I want to find within me the way that I can stay steady, calm and non-vindictive...to not be as nasty as I want to be. That's the juggernaut I'm resisting this morning. And, no, Lucy, I don't get a bye just because Jesus never had to deal with Honda.

Forgive me, Father, for I do know what I do.

Thank you.

RANDOM THOUGHTS

[The following is a reworked reprint of my blog of  December 10, 2012.]

Random thoughts:

There was a time, back in the day, when I worried that I was not humble enough. Then I came to see that I would have to get humble before that could be a problem. After which I realized there is no "humble enough." Every waking moment is a realistic chance of our being humbled...and being humbled by our own design. The best we can hope for is enough sense to see our part in it, to take responsibility for it...that is humility aborning.

And, no, believing that we are nothing but worms in the dust is not humility...it is ego on parade, dressed up as Less Than You Are Thus Worthy of Note.

Fear of financial insecurity, fear of anything, is just another way to stay stuck in the belief that our fear has more pizzazz, thus power, than God.

In the material world, fear is essential for there are only two emotions: Fear and Love. If we're not feeling so good about something/anything, that is fear; is we are feeling good about something/anything, that is love. It is essential that we recognize each so we can upgrade our attitude about whatever we're feeling not so good about else it will grab us by the hair of the head and run away to wherever it chooses to run. Likewise, it is essential to recognize for love the good feeling so we can wallow in it.

Money is not the root of all evil. It is the love of money that is the root of all evil. There is nothing wrong with money or of prestige and power...it is our obsessive search for money, prestige and power that beggars us.

God loves us just exactly as we are right this very minute. On a good day, I can feel that I love you a tish more than I love me...then humility whispers, "Liar, liar, pants on fire."

Thank you.

THE ALWAYS ANSWER: DETACH WITH LOVE

Whether summoned or not, God is here. -- long ago blinding flash of the obvious.

I read again that BFO in my "God Calling" this morning and saw that it is not our fault that we do not realize God at all times...it is our blessing. We can praise that fact for to realize God at every moment would be to have completed our return journey...and we are not ready.

Our journey now is about becoming ready which means we're learning the gift of denying our self in order to give over to the other. Our journey consciously starts when we realize that all that we know, see, feel, invite in, bar at the door...including our own self, our own ego self...all are friends. All are to be loved. All are to be served at their state of consciousness...in other words, to serve each without judgment.

The hardest part for me continues to be learning to love my ego...to my reasoning mind, one step too far, and I'm a braggart, not far enough by an inch and I'm a failure and a fool. Which isn't to say that trying to love Gertrude in all her/his states of consciousness has been apple-pie easy, but resistance to Gertrude always starts with our own ego. Thus the always answer: Detach with love from our own ego.

Clearly we're talking God work. And there it is. All life, every moment of our life, is God work. With God using our hands and feet, our mind and mouth. That's his prep area. We must ever be prepping for God alone knows our individual time and place of ready.

Thank you.

GOD CAN AND WILL, AND WE LET HIM

When (in this lifetime or the next) we make a decision to choose still more spiritual growth, we become willing to crash and burn in order to get free of our own self. Then, lo! and whoa!, we learn that "crash and burn" is simply the need for Lucy, our ego, to bow before a higher power. From that moment until three days after we're dead, that "simply" will be our bane and our gold.

It's our hard lesson a' learning that there is but one choice, one need, and that is to trust God and do something about something...simultaneously and joyfully. (And whistling in the dark is but musical prayer so it counts.)

The glory hallelujah, great God almighty, news is in that instant of choice we receive the gift of grace whether we know it or not. Not knowing is Lucy linking up with our reasoning mind and refusing to give over to God. There is the trap, and it is built solely of fear. Then we recall, based on our own experience, that God can and will intervene in our life on our behalf.

Gratefully, we let him.

Thank you.