TO EMBRACE OUR RESISTANCE IS TO RESIST NOT

Embrace the present moment as an ever-flowing source of holiness. —Jean Pierre de Caussade

Ah, here's the life lesson...we must embrace the present moment when (not if) we are gifted with feelings of pain, shame, anger, and/or hurt. 

To embrace our resistance is to know transcendence...I'm afraid that sounds like I'm putting on airs. My proof of "knowing transcendence" comes from my recent experience of being chewed a new one, in public!, and, although I was numbed by shock as it was happening, since then, I've known sincere compassion for the chewer. Even better (and so far) I've had no poor, pitiful, put-upon-me feelings. There...that is true transcendence for me.

Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at the moment. —Eckhart Tolle

Sidebar: The following is from my journal of a few years back. I note it today because our moments of "knowing transcendence" are not something that stay with us. Unless we consciously embrace and remember them, they are lost to us:

Blinding flash of the obvious: Black (evil) overcomes White (good) with one swipe. That is the glory of Good...we must needs live in the Good if we are to overcome just one swipe of Evil.

I wrote the above yesterday and today Rohr wrote the following:

Dan O'Grady, a psychologist and Living School student, told me recently that our negative and critical thoughts are like Velcro, they stick and hold; whereas our positive and joyful thoughts are like Teflon, they slide away. We have to deliberately choose to hold onto positive thoughts before they 'imprint.'

Thank you.

UPSIDE-DOWN WORLD...LOVE IT AND LAUGH!

...we are actually announcing our commitment to Jesus’ upside-down world where 'the last are first and the first are last' (Matthew 20:16) over any other power system or frame of reference.-- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," January 26, 2018

I love that quote because I had thought of my path of spiritual growth as "mirror imaging" God's world, which I still like, but "upside-down world" fits, too. Face it: What is more upside-down to our reasoning mind than the Sermon on the Mount's agree with your adversary quickly, resist not evil or turn the other cheek?

I feel blessed that when I finally realized the exactitude of the Sermon, I knew it for mine, and I've tried to walk it ever since...key word, "tried."

As I look back, I can see that it was in my trying that I got the great gift of love and laughter. Trying to go against our reasoning mind...about all that we can do with that is love and laugh. Love the fact that we'd even try and laugh that we keep trying! Ah, I'm guessing that may be how we tumble into God's hidey-hole within, and we find peace.

Just this morning I read darkness, failure, and loss can be our truest teachers. The path of descent is the path of transformation. There. Upon reading that, I was filled with a sense of glee. I again felt affirmed knowing that I'm on the right path, heading in the right direction...or that's how it translated to me. I loved it and laughed.

Thank you.

SURRENDER IS NOT EASY

There is no advantage, no profit, no growth, in deceiving myself merely to escape the consequences of my own mistakes. - Anonymous

There it is. The entire All You Need To Know for why we should not lie...or cheat...or steal. I loved that quote the minute I first read it. 

I did not begin to fully comprehend its depth until I realized it as applying to me and me alone. I do not lie (exaggerate a little here and there, but not lie); I for sure do not cheat (knowingly at any rate), and I haven't stolen anything in years (uh-oh...does another's peace of mind count?).

It was a shock to my innards when I quit seeing only how the many and varied Gertrudes in my life would benefit from knowing and showing that in her/his life. That's when I realized that escaping the consequences of my own mistakes encompassed my continuing to live in fear of being wholly loved by my own self...to accept my own frog-self as princess.  

Equally important, when I realized that deceiving myself to escape the consequence of my own mistakes meant owning my withheld love...love for the person(s) who hurt me, attacked me, called me less-than,  my enemy if you will. For, truth to tell, my own mother could fit in that place at more than a few times in our lives...and I know that my mother loved me and would never knowingly do anything to hurt me, and I toward her.

I wonder today if my own mistakes aren't simply my fear...fear of letting myself be wholly known, wholly loved actually. By My Father within. From my eyebrows up, I know that is and as all...and certainly the most daunting thing I've ever tried for...wanted...and held myself back from consciously receiving. Ah, but it's in my trying that I fail. 

Trying to surrender is to continue the struggle. Sigh.

Thank you.

TO KEEP IN SILENCE AND GOOD PEACE

It is no little wisdom for a man to keep himself in silence and in good peace when evil words are spoken to him, and to turn his heart to God and not to be troubled with man's judgment. -- Thomas A Kempis [from Eknath Easwaran's "Words to Live By," March 4]

The secret to true happiness is to lower my standards for others and to lift higher my standards for myself. -- recent blinding flash of the obvious

Your best chance, as I see it, is to try not to be as mean as you feel like being, and not to give yourself airs, and to hope for the best. -- Henry Mitchell [from his column in "The Washington Post," March 8, 1988] 

I just try not to be as nasty as I want to be. -- My personal Golden Rule which I copped from Mitchell's column for which I can never be grateful enough.

Thank you.

GOD IS NEVER NOT WITH US, WITHIN US

God’s great love story with us calls us into discomfort—the gateway to evolution. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," March 3, 2018

Is it just me or does everything point toward our need to suffer? Or feel discomfort anyway. And there it is...I read "discomfort" and translated it into "need to suffer." 

Suffering/discomfort is what my evolving mind seems to be inviting today. Some ugly-on-their-face haps have come to me, and together with the appearance of our chaotic world today, I've felt less anchored, more iffy within. 

In order to deal with this, my daily world, I think my "thank you" repeatedly. I am grateful to find...again and deeper every time...that staying with thank you does work...insofar as turning my thoughts away from "OMG, this is awful," toward "I can't wait to see what God has for us here!"

I'm leaning into what I've come to believe: What is is what is supposed to be. The Father knows our needs. Resist not. Go with what is and learn why the Father knows this for our need. Then share that instead of staying stuck in the mud of my own mind where there is no hope because I can't think of a quick solution.

The harder the hit, the deeper my God.

Thank you.

ACCEPTANCE, THE MOTHER OF GRATITUDE

Hatred does not cease through hatred at any time. Hatred ceases through love. This is an unalterable law. -- The Buddha

Gracious behavior is more important than right belief. -- Fr Richard Rohr

I am convinced gracious behavior is the righteous healer of discord. It is the seed from which love grows, the love that is the cessation of hate.

I have, I must say, experienced gracious behavior not making a pup's piddle to a person determined to act from a self-determined resentment. That one is akin to a runaway train...after we get out of the way and praise God it is not us, we search for the good in that.

I'm convinced the sliver of gold in being that one's target is in our realization that this is the raw material we receive in order to experience how well we walk what we talk. Most especially, how well do we not react in kind in our own mind later as we think about it.

We can behave graciously, walk away with clean hands, and awake at 3:00 AM cursing, plotting and planning how we coulda, woulda, shoulda...and will next time chew her a new one. That, even when we are satisfied with our actions and, from our eyebrows up, know we would not behave differently if the occasion arose.

It is the Father within which transmutes our resistance to those ego-victory thoughts to the acceptance of them as ever with us. Our acceptance lifts us to love and laughter...very possibly our first breath of honest humility of which we will never have enough.

There is our proof that still more spiritual growth is leading us to where we need to be...to acceptance, our guarantee of gratitude following.

Thank you.

THE ACCEPTANCE OF WHAT IS...NOW

The fourth dimension of consciousness continues to fascinate me.

We are lifted by grace into the fourth dimension if, as and when we are utterly broken...or utterly healed...or utterly unselfed...or fill in the blank. Either utterly ready or utterly unready probably fits. That's why it's so fascinating. 

The hard truth is many people on this earth may never know the fourth dimension of consciousness. Some have been rocketed into the fourth dimension of consciousness but that certainly was never the aim. And few there be who are gifted (or lifted) there more than that once. 

The hard lesson a-learning is that trying to get the fourth dimension of consciousness is to stay in the reasoning mind. 

Ah, but we must needs learn the art of spiritual self-discipline in order to prepare our self for if, as and when. That is one more reason I choose to believe in reincarnation...prepping now for six (or sixty) lifetimes from now keeps this life (and all the lifetimes to come) interesting...mainly because ego cannot be involved. Now there is a lifetime goal...learning to detach from our own ego-victory wants for sure qualifies.

Doesn't it all boil down to seek ye first the kingdom of Heaven? All these things that will be added unto us, then, are One...God. God consciousness...acceptance.

Thank you.