THE GIFT OF PEACE

I see me, once again, doing the same old, same old (i.e., trying to fix my current me by thinking), and I have to laugh. I've started giving a nod and a bow to my ego Lucy for her football is always in a different guise. I can laugh when I recognize that for that very reason...I recognize it.

It's so simple really...that choose you this day whom ye shall serve sounds so ponderous but really it's just choosing to laugh at our self as opposed to weep over our self.

Again I realize that when we learn unto acceptance that our choice only need be to trust God and do something about something we receive the gift of peace.

Thank you.

GOD FORGIVES FROM WITHIN

I awoke at 3:40 this morning with the thought God forgives from within. I guess that's why I call that "a blinding flash of the obvious." I mean, how obvious is that? Yet, it felt brand new...earthshaking in its importance to me in the moment.

This morning as I reread what I wrote at 3:40, I'm like well that's just the same as all love flows from within.

I remember when that was a new thought, that we have all the love we're ever going to need within us right this minute. If we find that hard to accept, test it. Give some away...there'll be more where that came from. We all know that really.Yet, doesn't it seems fanciful in the thinking? The thinking being our reasoning mind at its finest.

The spiritually obvious is the reasoning mind's whaaa? (I wonder if it doesn't follow that the reasoning mind's obvious isn't God's whaaa?)

God forgives from within. Picture it: All our rues, regrets and remorses, being within, are right smack up against forgiveness...melding, fading into each other, becoming one...with forgiveness, being of God, the One that lives within us now. 

God loves us so much.

Thank you.

ON USING GOD'S TOOLS, NOT LUCY'S

Our Father which art in Heaven.

It seems many people today are getting all hung up on the word "Father" apparently because of the gender. According to me that's the least important word of the sentence...no matter the gender.  I believe that the most important word is "Heaven." That tells us specifically where God is to be found...in Heaven which is in a higher dimension within us/without us. 

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven translates to me to be "Thy will be done in the material world (or the reasoning mind) as it is in the Fourth Dimension (or the raised consciousness)." Which keeps individual you and individual me in the picture at all times, but as God's hands and feet, eyes and ears...his tools to use to accomplish his perfect plan for individual you and individual me.

All of that was brought about as I silently prayed the 23rd Psalm this morning. At the words, "Thou prepares a place for me in the presence of mine enemies," I realized that is what my "oh-no's" are...the place God has prepared for me in the presence of my enemies. Love your enemies as yourself spoke, and I knew them for God's tools for my individual growth today.

So, I continue dealing just as before only now I'm doing God's footwork, not my ego Lucy's disgruntled hassles...and I feel freer already. I now know that I have a happy ending...just because I don't know when makes no never mind to me. (My job is to keep Lucy reined in because it will make a big never mind to her.)

God is so good to me.

Thank you.

ON DIGGING A BETTER DITCH

I dig the ditch that allows God free passage. -- Blinding flash of the obvious, 6/1/13

That sure brings the source of all my woes home to me...which I'm only fully realizing for the first time this morning. Clearly, if God isn't flowing freely in my life, it's because I've done a less than wonderful job of digging the ditch for him.

There have been a boatload of continuing oh-no's going on in my life lately. There's That Hospital and then Sheehy Honda and then the aches and pains...and I've been dealing, or close enough anyhow. I've been doing my "thank you's" and "welcomes," and not doing an inordinate amount of mind-altering curses.

This morning, however, would absolutely have sent me over the edge if I hadn't read my BFO of three years ago. This morning my boy Ruckus does not seem to be 100%...if my boy is not 100%, I'm missing in action.

I've checked him out thoroughly, and the thought occurs...he might just be showing his age. Because he ate everything and, as usual, tried to lick the chrome off the bottom of the bowl, our walk was productive, he sniffed and got sniffed, his tail was wagging...I think he's healthy. But showing his age...if that's not the good and the bad news both together, what is? He's not ill, thank you, Jesus, but he is 12 years old...enough said, roll it back, rope it in.

He is healthy, he will be with me as long as he is meant to be with me, to outstay God's plan for him on my prayers is a certain sin...I'm digging a better ditch here, God. Thank you for showing me the need.

Thank you.

GOD CAN AND WILL IF NEEDED

So I had a blinding flash of the obvious sometime last March which told me that the first step we take in faith is a complete journey. I have pondered that off and on ever since.

I wonder if that which we fear, that we pray passes us by, doesn't become that first step...that involuntary step...the one that comes as we lie hopeless in our smoldering ashes having just crashed and burned. For that is grace. Over which we have no control, no say-so, no input.  

That which we fear (or want) so completely that we crash and burn trying to keep it away (or get it) is our ego in control. It takes the crash-and-burn to eliminate the bondage of self-will...to leave us without a thought. And there it is. The almighty grace of God...or the grace of almighty God. Either way, our reasoning mind is not participating...it is in awe. And the first step in faith is completed.

The second step is to remain in that faith...the paradox being, trying to remain as faithful as we were in our moment of grace is just another self-determined objective. We're trying to keep God in a box on call for our security, our wants. We're still focused out there when he is here, within us, ready to fulfill our needs.

Living our belief starts with that singular realization that God is in everything or God is in nothing...God is or God is not. We hear people say that God doesn't wash windows...I say that he may not, but I believe that he can if needed. It's our need, not our want, that invites God's perfect work.

That's our second step in remaining as faithful as we were at our moment of grace. We believe that God can and will if needed; then we do our part and...blink...we're freed usually in a way we could never have considered.

Thank you.

ON MATURE SPIRITUAL GROWTH

The ego gets what it wants with words. The soul finds what it needs in silence. -- Fr. Richard Rohr

There it is: The essence of our reasoning mind's resistance to powerlessness. Our ego's path out is through our reasoning mind; our soul has no path...in its transparence, it flows freely, cannot be cornered or captured...it is. It simply is.

We often hear that mature spiritual growth is all about detaching. Letting go of our self-perceived needs...embracing our self-perceived lack. When we are no longer talking that but are, in fact and without thought, doing that...we will know mature spiritual growth. And heading in the right direction counts.

Thank you.

REGRET NAUGHT, LOVE ALL

Regrets are just resentments in fancy dress. - Blinding flash of  the obvious

Thank you.