The Saints Francis and Clare of Assisi lived a life committed to poverty and, yes, lived happily in poverty for the glory of God and for the sake of others.
It simplifies matters to give to others when we have nothing to guard...there is no ego involved. What I am learning is that is true whether it be money or pride we're protecting. Either one, left to our ego-centric reasoning mind, requires constant bolstering...more, in a word.
A memory comes to mind of my L.A. days in the '60s when I lived from payday to payday as did my friends. One day my friend Pam had no money for lunch, and I had a dollar. So I gave her half, and we had lunch...a hot dog and a coke a piece. She was knocked out that I'd split my last dollar with her, and I remember saying it was no great shakes...what else could I possibly buy with a dollar except two hotdogs and cokes and I only needed one.
I suspect had I had ten dollars, I would never have given her half of it. And there it is: The perfect example of an act utterly open and unselfish and an act utterly closed by self-protection, both dictated entirely by the amount of money involved.
I wonder if Francis and Clare had won the proverbial million dollar lottery back in their day if they'd have quick given it away and continued their life happy, pious and poor? Or if they would have felt it prudent to hold a half million bucks (at least) back...rainy day money, don'cha know? They would have given it away...their destiny was to be saints. The eye of the needle and a rich man comes to mind.
I'm almost embarrassed to mention that from my eyebrows up, I truly think I'd give away the major portion of a million dollar win. Lucy is positive I would. God...not so much. But he loves that we give him a laugh.
Thank you.
Friday, October 7, 2016
Thursday, October 6, 2016
ASK FOR NOTHING, WELCOME EVERYTHING
It is not to pray to know God better, deeper, higher...that is still a self-determined objective. It is to go within and wait...in love and expectation, listening, listening.
The Father is (t)here, now. He is within us, without us. Be still and know I am God.
The Father is (t)here, now. He is within us, without us. Be still and know I am God.
Thank you.
Wednesday, October 5, 2016
GET THEE BEHIND ME, SELF
We can know rues, regrets, remorses are one but resentments usually stand alone in our mental world. In truth, they are all one. Rues, regrets, remorses, resentments...feel any one of the first three, and without a doubt resentment is the ghost rider.
We get so buckled down ruing and regretting that we don't recognize the teensy-tiny pin prick that has someone else's name on it...Gertrude/Rudy, the real cause of our unease. If she hadn't...if he'd just...the trouble with them is...and the list goes on.
All our rues, regrets, remorses and resentments are selected by us, invited into our head and heart by us and held close there by us...on purpose. We can know that all of our emotions, in fact, come to us by invitation only, but do we own that? Knowing it resides in our brain, owning it resides in our soul.
As long as we try to figure out how to love Gertrude in her mistaken ways, we're up in our head. We may even find the right answer, i.e., cease fighting her, but if we don't go for higher help in doing that, we risk really getting her ire up when we set about doing our self-determined objective all on our own. Attitude speaks louder than words, and an attitude of righteousness masquerading as love is insufferable.
The answer we need is to turn in silence to the Father within...just remembering to do that as our only need is enough. That opens the door. Love flows. How that love is received is of no consequence and concerns us not...for still our only response is love. Always and all ways.
Thank you.
We get so buckled down ruing and regretting that we don't recognize the teensy-tiny pin prick that has someone else's name on it...Gertrude/Rudy, the real cause of our unease. If she hadn't...if he'd just...the trouble with them is...and the list goes on.
All our rues, regrets, remorses and resentments are selected by us, invited into our head and heart by us and held close there by us...on purpose. We can know that all of our emotions, in fact, come to us by invitation only, but do we own that? Knowing it resides in our brain, owning it resides in our soul.
As long as we try to figure out how to love Gertrude in her mistaken ways, we're up in our head. We may even find the right answer, i.e., cease fighting her, but if we don't go for higher help in doing that, we risk really getting her ire up when we set about doing our self-determined objective all on our own. Attitude speaks louder than words, and an attitude of righteousness masquerading as love is insufferable.
The answer we need is to turn in silence to the Father within...just remembering to do that as our only need is enough. That opens the door. Love flows. How that love is received is of no consequence and concerns us not...for still our only response is love. Always and all ways.
Thank you.
Tuesday, October 4, 2016
JUST GET OUT OF THE WAY
Denial of self is the answer...or so I wrote in my "God Calling" on this date in 1988. I read that today and cannot disagree...proving that has me a tish puzzled.
I have two recent missteps in my life that have furnished a home in my brain and Lucy is their decorator. I have welcomed, laughed, pretended to love...taken all my known steps to loose them and let them go. They are still with me.
As I read my 1988 BFO this morning, I wondered...how? In this regard, how do I deny self?
And it occurs to me even as I type that God knows about these missteps, knew about them before they happened, thus has already fixed them. Denial of self is to keep turning my thoughts away from my missteps, but not to the fix...that way just leads to obsessing about what that fix is going to look like.
No. I turn my thoughts to the assurance that there are no missteps in God's world to fix. I have been taught and I have experienced everything works together for good. I get out of the way of God's mind sweeper, and I feel the grace of gratitude.
Thank you.
I have two recent missteps in my life that have furnished a home in my brain and Lucy is their decorator. I have welcomed, laughed, pretended to love...taken all my known steps to loose them and let them go. They are still with me.
As I read my 1988 BFO this morning, I wondered...how? In this regard, how do I deny self?
And it occurs to me even as I type that God knows about these missteps, knew about them before they happened, thus has already fixed them. Denial of self is to keep turning my thoughts away from my missteps, but not to the fix...that way just leads to obsessing about what that fix is going to look like.
No. I turn my thoughts to the assurance that there are no missteps in God's world to fix. I have been taught and I have experienced everything works together for good. I get out of the way of God's mind sweeper, and I feel the grace of gratitude.
Thank you.
Monday, October 3, 2016
GRACE...AMAZING
It is not self confidence, it is Christ confidence that brings peace of mind.
In regard to that statement, the heart-hurting fact is too often we will immediately resist the "Christ" word, mentally insert "Jesus," and miss the entire meaning.
We weep for our own misbegotten childhood church learning yet, by our very resistance, cling to it as if it were diamonds. The nuns, the Sunday school teachers, the pastor, rector, priest...they shoved Jesus down our throat, and we will nevernevernever forgive Him.
I choose to be open to those I meet who are talking down Jesus while talking up the goodness of Buddha, Allah, Jehovah, Aimee Semple McPherson, whomever.
The underlying spiritual message is love...how it is preached is as nothing, it is how we hear the message that must improve. And that is entirely our own personal responsibility...our ears, our responsibility. Which starts by turning within to the Father.
Love in whatever manner or means we chose to let it flow from us (for it is already within us), let it flow. What does it matter whose name is on it when "first we do believe?"
Thank you.
In regard to that statement, the heart-hurting fact is too often we will immediately resist the "Christ" word, mentally insert "Jesus," and miss the entire meaning.
We weep for our own misbegotten childhood church learning yet, by our very resistance, cling to it as if it were diamonds. The nuns, the Sunday school teachers, the pastor, rector, priest...they shoved Jesus down our throat, and we will nevernevernever forgive Him.
I choose to be open to those I meet who are talking down Jesus while talking up the goodness of Buddha, Allah, Jehovah, Aimee Semple McPherson, whomever.
The underlying spiritual message is love...how it is preached is as nothing, it is how we hear the message that must improve. And that is entirely our own personal responsibility...our ears, our responsibility. Which starts by turning within to the Father.
Love in whatever manner or means we chose to let it flow from us (for it is already within us), let it flow. What does it matter whose name is on it when "first we do believe?"
Thank you.
Sunday, October 2, 2016
WAIT WITH A LISTENING EAR
Yet the fact remains that we are invited to forget ourselves on purpose, cast our awful solemnity to the winds and join in the general dance.-- Thomas Merton, "New Seeds of Contemplation"
Everywhere...everywhere!...the message, the same message, comes to me: Love and Laugh.
And here's our blinding flash of the obvious: If we take that literally, we will be going down that wrong road again.
Nothing sacred is on the literal level. We must go beyond reason...to love.
As Rohr writes so often, literalism is the lowest and least fruitful level. To love and laugh is to find the gold in the tar and feathers. There will be times (note, timeS) when we will feel, say, as if we're about to be tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail.
We have learned to welcome (i.e., not resist) those times by seeing them for what they are, our "get thee within to the Father." That is how we begin to divorce our self from our own opinion/fear...by sitting in the silence and inviting a higher view of being tarred and feathered.
We are looking for the gold...listening for the Word.
This is when we use our reasoning mind aright...to remind us that our opinion of being tarred and feathered needs an update. In that regard, our own thinking will never get us there for even when it is right, it is wrong...our reasoning mind will only ever get us a self-determined objective.
There. We are now facing the proverbial East: Each time we go back to pondering how to avoid being tarred and feathered, we halt, say our welcome, settle our self again, and listen for the still small voice. Be not dismayed when the still small voice takes its own sweet time speaking or speaks of sunshine and moonbeams...feel instead the grace of gratitude that we have learned to sit and wait on the Lord. Then wait. With a listening ear.
Thank you.
Everywhere...everywhere!...the message, the same message, comes to me: Love and Laugh.
And here's our blinding flash of the obvious: If we take that literally, we will be going down that wrong road again.
Nothing sacred is on the literal level. We must go beyond reason...to love.
As Rohr writes so often, literalism is the lowest and least fruitful level. To love and laugh is to find the gold in the tar and feathers. There will be times (note, timeS) when we will feel, say, as if we're about to be tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail.
We have learned to welcome (i.e., not resist) those times by seeing them for what they are, our "get thee within to the Father." That is how we begin to divorce our self from our own opinion/fear...by sitting in the silence and inviting a higher view of being tarred and feathered.
We are looking for the gold...listening for the Word.
This is when we use our reasoning mind aright...to remind us that our opinion of being tarred and feathered needs an update. In that regard, our own thinking will never get us there for even when it is right, it is wrong...our reasoning mind will only ever get us a self-determined objective.
There. We are now facing the proverbial East: Each time we go back to pondering how to avoid being tarred and feathered, we halt, say our welcome, settle our self again, and listen for the still small voice. Be not dismayed when the still small voice takes its own sweet time speaking or speaks of sunshine and moonbeams...feel instead the grace of gratitude that we have learned to sit and wait on the Lord. Then wait. With a listening ear.
Thank you.
Saturday, October 1, 2016
NO LONGER ENEMIES, MY FRIENDS
I have been given the most comforting change in my meditation on The 23rd Psalm.
With my fairly recent blinding flash of the obvious of Mary as my shepherdess, at "she prepares a place before me in the presence of my enemies," I see her serving us...me and my enemies...as if we were all friends.
"She anoints our heads with oil, our cups run over, surely goodness and mercy shall follow us all the days of our lives, and we shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever" changes my one-time enemies and me to a circle of friends, breaking bread with love and laughter.
Thank you.
With my fairly recent blinding flash of the obvious of Mary as my shepherdess, at "she prepares a place before me in the presence of my enemies," I see her serving us...me and my enemies...as if we were all friends.
"She anoints our heads with oil, our cups run over, surely goodness and mercy shall follow us all the days of our lives, and we shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever" changes my one-time enemies and me to a circle of friends, breaking bread with love and laughter.
Thank you.
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