...once I have shown the way, it is against the tide you must direct all your effort. And even when difficulties come, it is by your effort that they will be surmounted. But always strength and the Joy in the doing you can have through Me. -- "God Calling," May 7
When first I read that quote, I could never have imagined that the most important part to me would come to be, But always strength and the Joy in the doing you can have through Me.
I was not enchanted with the promised fact that it is by my efforts that the digging and the climbing will get done. I simply skated right by that Joy in the doing part...there was probably an unconscious "Yeah, right" bubble in my mind, if that. I mean, whatever happened to Ask and ye shall receive?
It was when I was blessed with an attitude of gratitude, which was a pure gift from God scavenged from the ashes of my crashing and burning, repeatedly, that I realized the digging and climbing are my pearls beyond price. There it is. The evidence to my own ego Lucy that I can and will seek and do the will of a power higher than self, than her, and it, like ego, is forever and always instantly available to me.
Its text message is Love and Laugh...and keep on digging.
God is so good to me.
Thank you.
Monday, May 7, 2018
Sunday, May 6, 2018
OUR IMAGE OF GOD IS OUR PROBLEM
The thought crossed my mind as I brushed my teeth this morning...I wondered if it is that unbelievers do not not believe in God, it is that they don't believe in their own idea of God.
Which led to the obvious suspicion that it is our own idea of God that is the only block to God. And then to the question, what if there is never a block to God? Just a personal inability...or personal refusal...to accept the reality of God.
For those of us who do desire to know God aright, I suspect it is our desire, linked with our inability, to completely turn our self over to God that keeps us in self will...trying to do God's will through our will, or our idea of God's will...with the end result being we seem wishy-washy at best, deluded at worst.
Since, however, all paths do lead to God, our end result is our sliver of gold...it is that feeling of wrong-again-naturally that is our real angel in disguise, or our golden goose pushing/leading us ever forward...or higher to a deeper place.
It's basically the same realization that it is the pain we pray to be relieved of that leads us to God...so praise the pain. It is the praise, the gratitude, that transmutes our resistance into acceptance. And we know peace.
Thank you.
Which led to the obvious suspicion that it is our own idea of God that is the only block to God. And then to the question, what if there is never a block to God? Just a personal inability...or personal refusal...to accept the reality of God.
For those of us who do desire to know God aright, I suspect it is our desire, linked with our inability, to completely turn our self over to God that keeps us in self will...trying to do God's will through our will, or our idea of God's will...with the end result being we seem wishy-washy at best, deluded at worst.
Since, however, all paths do lead to God, our end result is our sliver of gold...it is that feeling of wrong-again-naturally that is our real angel in disguise, or our golden goose pushing/leading us ever forward...or higher to a deeper place.
It's basically the same realization that it is the pain we pray to be relieved of that leads us to God...so praise the pain. It is the praise, the gratitude, that transmutes our resistance into acceptance. And we know peace.
Thank you.
Saturday, May 5, 2018
MAGIC vs. MINDFUL
Where does the split come between magic thinking and mindful living? According to me, magic thinking is the trap of the reasoning mind...mindful living is our spiritual quest.
"God Calling" today gives permission to believe that all things are yours -- that what is lovely I delight to give you. Further, empty your mind of all that limits. Whatever is beautiful you can have. Leave more and more the choice to Me. You will have no regrets. In the first paragraph, however, we find a deeper instruction: With the heart, not the head, men should think of Me. Then further on, keep the eye of your spirit ever upon Me, the window of your soul open towards Me.
When presented with the promise that all things are ours for the thinking, our material mind will ever think...materially. As in, financial security for life...money, Honey...or excellent health until we die peacefully in our sleep after most but not all of our loved ones are gone.
If we've been paying any attention at all, however, we know spiritual growth is all about ask for the moon but let heart, soul, body and brains realize that the moon we seek is a higher, ever higher, consciousness...Christ consciousness...God consciousness. Leave more and more the choice to Me.
I'm guessing there is no lack to a beggar on the street who lives in God consciousness...poverty is the beggar's choice in order better to be free to Be in God Consciousness.
Can we really believe God's choice for us is going to be big bucks? Or for that matter, anything other than a higher consciousness of Him deeper within? If so, why?
Choose you this day whom ye will serve. -- Joshua 24:15
Thank you.
When presented with the promise that all things are ours for the thinking, our material mind will ever think...materially. As in, financial security for life...money, Honey...or excellent health until we die peacefully in our sleep after most but not all of our loved ones are gone.
If we've been paying any attention at all, however, we know spiritual growth is all about ask for the moon but let heart, soul, body and brains realize that the moon we seek is a higher, ever higher, consciousness...Christ consciousness...God consciousness. Leave more and more the choice to Me.
I'm guessing there is no lack to a beggar on the street who lives in God consciousness...poverty is the beggar's choice in order better to be free to Be in God Consciousness.
Can we really believe God's choice for us is going to be big bucks? Or for that matter, anything other than a higher consciousness of Him deeper within? If so, why?
Choose you this day whom ye will serve. -- Joshua 24:15
Thank you.
Friday, May 4, 2018
GOD IS LOVE...TRUST IT
Learning to be a loving person is almost all about letting go of our own idea about love...how to give, but more about how to receive love. Until we let go of our idea of what love is, we'll never be open to experiencing the inborn love awaiting to be released...to and from others.
I suspect our desire and yet fear of love keeps us stuck in our reasoning mind's idea of what love should look like. It's a difficult thing when we interpret that another is in need to untwist our self from our own idea of just what the need is...then rushing to give what may not be needed.
In the early '90s I attended an Elizabeth Kubler-Ross "Life, Death and Transition" retreat/workshop. (In short, it's purpose was for those who had experienced a trauma in life that they were unable to get shut of.) Each attendee had the opportunity to share their traumatic experience with the group. The sharer would often cry, and it was revolutionary to me to learn that we must not, NOT, hand the crier a tissue as a sop for their tears.
As Kubler-Ross explained, the one sharing has held the hurt for way too long, it is just beginning to seep out, tears are appropriate, let them come.
What happens to those of us observing is that we become uncomfortable if there are free-flowing tears because, who's kidding whom, that means free-flowing snot, too. We quit listening to the cry for help...our compassion and willingness to listen...and became absorbed with our idea of what we think must be the other's embarrassment at all the...umm...nasal mucus. We are repulsed, which is not nice, so we interpret our discomfort as needing to come to the other's aid in the form of a tissue.
Here, according to Kubler-Ross, is the crux: The crier may well be right at the point of breakthrough. He has been stuck in his pain maybe for years, has only begun to loose it and let it go, and here comes a hand waving a tissue in his face. Of course, that interrupts his line of thought, and his stuck pain goes back into hiding.
The lesson about love on the material plane is until we are asked specifically for help...here, for a tissue...we give our full loving attention without judgment and that is all. On a spiritual plane, we remember unto breathing that God is love. Trust that and His guidance is assured.
Thank you.
I suspect our desire and yet fear of love keeps us stuck in our reasoning mind's idea of what love should look like. It's a difficult thing when we interpret that another is in need to untwist our self from our own idea of just what the need is...then rushing to give what may not be needed.
In the early '90s I attended an Elizabeth Kubler-Ross "Life, Death and Transition" retreat/workshop. (In short, it's purpose was for those who had experienced a trauma in life that they were unable to get shut of.) Each attendee had the opportunity to share their traumatic experience with the group. The sharer would often cry, and it was revolutionary to me to learn that we must not, NOT, hand the crier a tissue as a sop for their tears.
As Kubler-Ross explained, the one sharing has held the hurt for way too long, it is just beginning to seep out, tears are appropriate, let them come.
What happens to those of us observing is that we become uncomfortable if there are free-flowing tears because, who's kidding whom, that means free-flowing snot, too. We quit listening to the cry for help...our compassion and willingness to listen...and became absorbed with our idea of what we think must be the other's embarrassment at all the...umm...nasal mucus. We are repulsed, which is not nice, so we interpret our discomfort as needing to come to the other's aid in the form of a tissue.
Here, according to Kubler-Ross, is the crux: The crier may well be right at the point of breakthrough. He has been stuck in his pain maybe for years, has only begun to loose it and let it go, and here comes a hand waving a tissue in his face. Of course, that interrupts his line of thought, and his stuck pain goes back into hiding.
The lesson about love on the material plane is until we are asked specifically for help...here, for a tissue...we give our full loving attention without judgment and that is all. On a spiritual plane, we remember unto breathing that God is love. Trust that and His guidance is assured.
Thank you.
Thursday, May 3, 2018
FEAR FEELINGS AND HOW TO LOVE THEM
[The following is a reworked reprint of my post of May 6, 2017.]
My followers must be prepared not to sit on My right hand and on My left, but to drink of the cup that I drink of. Poor world -- teach it that there is only one cure for all its ills -- Union with Me. Dare to suffer, dare to conquer, be filled with My sublime audacity. Remember that. Claim the unclaimable -- "God Calling," May 6
When, not if, we're feeling put upon, betrayed (fascinating that "betrayed" comes up, I'd venture to bet, more often than any other fear feeling), for sure our first response is to analyze ways to prove our accuser wrong...either by pay back or by justifying our resistance.
Claim the unclaimable.
That means, in short, to claim the ability to say not a word, nay, think not a thought in resistance, i.e., in order to talk them over to our way of thinking. To just do that from our place of nonresistance, a.k.a., love, is our goal...and it doesn't count if we self-will our way. That's the whole purpose of being "prepared not to sit on My right...but to drink of the cup that I drink of."
Our lesson only just begins when we can do that without feeling self-righteous about it.
Thank you.
Wednesday, May 2, 2018
ON DOUBT AND REALIZATION
The desire to go against selfish desires is the surest sign of grace. -- Eknath Easwaran, "Words to Live By," May 2
It fills me with awe (a.k.a., love and laughter) how I can doubt good news before conscious thought ever takes hold. For instance, I consider Easwaran's statement to be really good news, but I read that and the first words out of my mouth? "Oh, I doubt that."
We must still first our mouth, then our thoughts...or I do. There are mornings I get out of bed with my mouth flapping, long before my brain has attached enough to even sort out my thoughts. Knowing that usually silences me, and that's the fruit from the tree of discipline.
Here's my definition of discipline: Try, fail, try again, fail, try, try again, fall back a step, make self available, feel a slight upward movement, realize we're heading in the right direction, continue making self available, and lo! One fine day our center has moved a centimeter. Then repeat daily till three days after we're dead.
To put our discipline to best use, we must first make a decision, as in we must name our single goal for all that discipline. For starters, that could be Easwaran's desire to go against selfish desires.
My goal to divorce myself from my own opinions came with the blinding flash of the obvious: It is not by my thoughts or my words that my uglies are set straight, but by Your thought/words...but it is mine to speak Your words...in Your time as You flow through me into fruition.
Thank you.
It fills me with awe (a.k.a., love and laughter) how I can doubt good news before conscious thought ever takes hold. For instance, I consider Easwaran's statement to be really good news, but I read that and the first words out of my mouth? "Oh, I doubt that."
We must still first our mouth, then our thoughts...or I do. There are mornings I get out of bed with my mouth flapping, long before my brain has attached enough to even sort out my thoughts. Knowing that usually silences me, and that's the fruit from the tree of discipline.
Here's my definition of discipline: Try, fail, try again, fail, try, try again, fall back a step, make self available, feel a slight upward movement, realize we're heading in the right direction, continue making self available, and lo! One fine day our center has moved a centimeter. Then repeat daily till three days after we're dead.
To put our discipline to best use, we must first make a decision, as in we must name our single goal for all that discipline. For starters, that could be Easwaran's desire to go against selfish desires.
My goal to divorce myself from my own opinions came with the blinding flash of the obvious: It is not by my thoughts or my words that my uglies are set straight, but by Your thought/words...but it is mine to speak Your words...in Your time as You flow through me into fruition.
Thank you.
Tuesday, May 1, 2018
GOD INTERVENES ON OUR BEHALF
To heal our relationships, we have to move closer to people we do not like, learn to work with them without friction. - Eknath Easwaran, "Words to Live By," May 1
I love that sentence because its meanings have deepened for me. Today, its most important words to me are, learn to work with them without friction. At first, the only words I read were, we have to move closer to people we do not like.
To move closer to people we do not like, or are just in mental disagreement with, I find we best start with our own thoughts...to move closer before we have made peace in our own head and heart is still a self-determined objective with little or no spiritual guidance.
Same goes with trying to make someone who is angry with me not angry with me. That is akin to trying to make a person love me...it's all about me, and it doesn't work. A self-determined objective is for self, not for the other.
More and more I'm understanding that spiritual movement upward to a place deeper begins in silence. I am being led to believe that more unspoken and unrealized prayers are answered for our benefit than we can imagine. It is in the Silence, when we are asking for nothing, feeling the grace of gratitude, that all things begin their work together for our good.
I have a wonderful example: Since Ruckus went back to Heaven on April 18th, I have felt like I'm living in a deflated balloon. There is no energy in my condo...a dead zone plain and simple. Out of nowhere, I now have a May-full of people coming to visit...one for a weekend, another for three days, another for a day and a half, another for a day, two for lunch and shopping. I would never have thought to fill my home with people because I would never have thought I wanted that!
And there it is...it is God alone that knows my needs. Apparently I don't even know my wants because I am happy beyond imagining to have so many friends come visit...or to have so many friends period.
Came to believe that God could and would intervene in our lives on our half.
Thank you.
I love that sentence because its meanings have deepened for me. Today, its most important words to me are, learn to work with them without friction. At first, the only words I read were, we have to move closer to people we do not like.
To move closer to people we do not like, or are just in mental disagreement with, I find we best start with our own thoughts...to move closer before we have made peace in our own head and heart is still a self-determined objective with little or no spiritual guidance.
Same goes with trying to make someone who is angry with me not angry with me. That is akin to trying to make a person love me...it's all about me, and it doesn't work. A self-determined objective is for self, not for the other.
More and more I'm understanding that spiritual movement upward to a place deeper begins in silence. I am being led to believe that more unspoken and unrealized prayers are answered for our benefit than we can imagine. It is in the Silence, when we are asking for nothing, feeling the grace of gratitude, that all things begin their work together for our good.
I have a wonderful example: Since Ruckus went back to Heaven on April 18th, I have felt like I'm living in a deflated balloon. There is no energy in my condo...a dead zone plain and simple. Out of nowhere, I now have a May-full of people coming to visit...one for a weekend, another for three days, another for a day and a half, another for a day, two for lunch and shopping. I would never have thought to fill my home with people because I would never have thought I wanted that!
And there it is...it is God alone that knows my needs. Apparently I don't even know my wants because I am happy beyond imagining to have so many friends come visit...or to have so many friends period.
Came to believe that God could and would intervene in our lives on our half.
Thank you.
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