LIVE IN ACCEPTANCE AND KNOW PEACE

People are so easy to read if we don't take their stuff seriously (meaning, of course, personally). On any given day, there will be someone who slights us, snubs us, overly praises us...all indications of their dis-ease with us. It says nothing, nada, zilch, zip, zero about us.

And yet....

Letting his dis-ease stay with him, not attaching our self to it, is our job...we cannot shut her up, and we are not supposed to! That is her job, to shut herself up.

Here's the news that we must needs keep learning and relearning: Neither s/he nor I will ever be free if we simply grit our teeth, or tape our mouth, in order to say nothing. Our mind will run...not free, but amok! There it is...the source of all our woes. Our very own mind...undisciplined...is our worst enemy.

And yet....

Invariably, we waste our energy and God's time trying to fix her, to set him straight, to stop the irritation to Me! And we can't even claim ignorance. We know that we know (because the problem is so easy to spot in someone else).

The balm to our irritation lies within our own self. How quickly it soothes us is entirely dependent upon our desire to be soothed. All that holds us back is our decision to stay up in our head fighting him (pretending that we are resisting our ego), rather than simply letting go of our pique at her.

All of the love that is is within us right this very red-hot minute, yet here we come to learn again that neither God nor love is available on demand. We must prepare our heart, by which I mean: Give over. Let go. Cease fighting. Crash and burn. Surrender.

Finally we hit the bull's eye...acceptance. Acceptance is simply giving God the courtesy of letting him go first. Ah. All our troubles, Lord, soon be over.

Thank you.

TO NEVER FORGET: I ALONE IS WE

When our heart is torn asunder, when our brain is mixed-mashed-mush, when common sense says, "Well, the hell with it...there is no hope anyway," that's when changing our mind becomes our only hope. And...uh-oh...that's when we remember that, on our own, we cannot  change our mind.

We look back in longing for the freedom of our chains...back when we didn't know that our favorite poison was not the solution but simply poison. And all our sitting and waiting on the Lord seems  mocking.

My eyes look at the carnage of Charlottesville, the thinking that produced Charlottesville, and I could weep. That's when I  realize, deep down and piercingly, that I alone can fix it. Which quite honestly gave me my first grin of the day...at the misguided one who claimed, "I alone can fix it."

I alone is WE...that is our never-forget button. I alone is WE. 

This is crash and burn...we know because we have experienced it: Our Father looks at the carnage of Charlottesville, understands that thinking, and rejoices at the need that is guiding so many to him for healing. That is the mirror image of God.

We know that to be true, and on days like this, we know that just knowing is a bare first step. We must work together to bring the change that Our Father rejoices over. We must remember that all of us, as One, pulling together toward the God Of Our Own Understanding may look hopeless to the reasoning mind's eye...like a billion people all  pulling in a different direction...but there's the paradox. All pulling each one's own spiritual way, the singular goal being God, can and will bring us to the highest depth of our Soul...as One.

We can no longer quibble about the way the all-inclusive you personally see, think, feel, believe, claiming our way is the better. No. When the goal is to reach a power greater than our self, all roads lead to God, the impersonal love of God.

An exercise I use to help God change my mind: I look at the statue of General Robert E. Lee, and I think that there was a great general...his side lost. I look at the Confederate flag, and I think there is nothing wrong with that flag, but it represents the losing side. I hear "Dixie," and I know it as the theme song of the side that did not win. I do not need hide any of them or hide from any of them. They quite simply represent the losing side in a war, and who's kidding whom?...it is just egoistic to want to glorify the losing side...as in when wrong, never admit it.

They are, however, a part of our American history. They represent the side that lost, so we can look benignly on them and fear them not. It is fear, only fear, that gives them power today.

Fearing them is to attempt to destroy the eyeball evidence of them...which, according to me, is akin to burning books, another harmful albeit useless action. Just like our worst character defect that we cannot kill off, we mentally hug it and kiss it and send it on  to God.

 God alone can and will transmute it, transmute us. Humble us, if you will...turn us away from self, toward the Light.

Thank you.

GOD REALLY IS ON THE FIELD

One of my favorite Bible statements is, Lord, I believe...help me my unbelief. I do not know where it is in the Bible, but I know (or think!) it is there.

I do believe. I have experienced honest miracles that prove to my doubting mind that God is alive and well in my heart and soul.

Yet, if an ego-dreaded something-something popped into my mind right this instant, my first thought would not be of peace, love and joy. It would be akin to the old, "Oh no, Mr. Bill!" Here's the good news: I no longer mentally slap me upside the head for doubting for it is that fearful thought that will turn me, with relief, to the Father within.

It might be more wonderful if I could shortcut my route and go directly to God, but since I have not yet perfected that, I'm glad I know to turn away from self as soon as I do. Here's a discovery: Giving myself permission to not be perfect cuts the lag time to getting it right...not perfect, just right.

I think I started out here wondering why I can and do believe, yet don't live that without fail...or at least without hesitation. I think I answered my question. Ha! Who's kidding whom? Once again, God leads the way.

Lord, I believe...help me my unbelief.

Thank you.

UNCONSCIOUS CHOICES...AND DISCIPLINE

We can be acting as if in order to look good, snow others, be thought wonderful, or we can be acting as if in order to discipline our self, to get to the place within where we are graced with gratitude.

I had a thought this morning that if I had two days straight wherein I actually walked and breathed the Sermon, the prayer of St. Francis, I would feel like a million bucks. With that thought, I realized the instant that I felt like a million bucks, I would lose the gift. Talk about your slow learners. Apparently, I'm just realizing, it is to walk/breathe the Sermon without conscious choice that we hold the gift.

Being thought wonderful is so very ego-enticing...compared with graced with gratitude which nobody gets but our own self unless we tell it...and then we lose it. More proof that God, too, is cunning, baffling and powerful, and even more so.

We don't feel good about our self for having walked God's way, we only feel not good about our self for walking ego's way. 

Choose you this day whom ye will serve. -- Joshua 24:15  

Thank you.

AWAY FROM SELF TOWARD GOD

 And so long as you do not know that to die is to become, you are just a wretched visitor on this dark earth. —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Grace leads us to a state of emptiness, to that momentary sense of meaninglessness in which we ask, 'What is it all for?'  -- Fr. Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," August 1, 2017

There it is. The unacceptable answer to ego's demand for the continuous, uninterrupted and forever feeling of peace, love and joy. Not to mention right...or never wrong. But then, to our ego, what else is peace, love and joy but right, or never wrong?

Picture it: A suicide wailing "What is it all for?" and leaping off the Empire State Building. But who's kidding whom? We've all made that leap mentally more than twice, never realizing that is it. That is the only place to be to receive the grace that leads us free. Free of me...which is true freedom. Free of me.

The problem with "free of me" is it requires something else to fill the vacant space...there's where free-will can trip us. That space is God's hidey hole which we are free to fill as we choose. It takes most of us a long time to give over to whatever God wills for us...we chose our favorite poison repeatedly until we come again and finally to that unacceptable Jeopardy-type answer, "What's it all for?"

What a surprise to find the correct answer is, "I do not know." We usually must needs crash and burn before we can spit those words out...and that, too, is the best way.

To quote my beloved Kris Kristofferson, "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose." Who knew when first we heard those words they'd be back...and heading us in the right direction? Which is to say, away from self toward God.

Thank you.

ON TURNING THE GIFT TO GOLD

The thought occurred to me this morning that as long as I find something to resist, I'll never know peace of mind.

I thought that was a blinding flash of the obvious, but I'm not so sure now. I suspect it is my ego Lucy's fine thinking...she tends toward scrupulosity. If it is not one hundred percent right, it is one hundred percent wrong to old Lucy.

Interestingly, I found an old BFO, resisting resistance is a self-determined objective. I remember writing that down but then I promptly forgot it because I wasn't too sure what it meant. 

But I think I'm closing in on it...and taking my morning's thought a step further is the key. In this world, we will ever find things to resist. It is in realizing in the midst of our resistance that we can welcome this that lifts our mind higher to a deeper place.  

My beloved Gertrude the Witch is, as ever, the trigger here. She's doing it wrong again, and I've been all up in my head, setting her straight.  

I finally asked God his opinion and he reminded me that in these situations, being the first to give over is always the better way. (And I said,  "Well, shoot.")

The gift, though, is in the fact that I know that is the right answer. But who's kidding whom? Doing it is the gold.

Thank you.

THE KEY IS OTHERS...ALWAYS OTHERS

Happily heavy on my mind this morning is the awareness that my mental foes are my pearls...that which I am mentally resisting is my angel unaware.

Where I make my mistake is in trying to lift me up out of foe country...nattering at myself to not judge, to not take inventories, to not dislike...all of which hold each negative action closer, nurturing it in effect.

Just because, from my eyebrows up, I know better doesn't mean I'm wrong to not burst free on the power of that thought.

We must needs rely on the instruction to sit and wait on the Lord...to sit and wait on the Lord isn't to sit idly doing nothing. To sit and wait on the Lord is to sit and meditate...to let the mind turn within. To find our center, we follow the mind, not lead it.

Maybe that's the difference between seeking still more spiritual growth and not being as nasty as I want to be. Spiritually seeking requires a quiet mind turned inward; behaving myself requires conscious thought turned outward...with the benefit of others as my goal. Ah, there's the key...others.

Thank you.