I have read that we must defeat our tendency to try to be holy without being human first, and I know that to be my early-on (up until the next time) stumbling block.
It is hard enough to learn that we must go beyond reason to love (or love your enemy as yourself...whoa!). If, though, we are sincere about our search for still more spiritual growth, we do come to the necessary understanding of their inner meaning. Most often our understanding translates to coming to agree with it as it applies to you. That, too, we can get grateful for since it is that thorn that births our thank you that turns us away from self toward God.
Our reliance on our reasoning mind is our tripwire. Our reasoning mind is a necessary tool in our day-to-day life but we must remember that it legislates for self...ever and always. Common sense is ego's nest, or launching pad, depending on our reaction to whomever/whatever we are perceiving at the moment.
In trying to be holy, we quote turn it over at the drop of another's problem...in being human, we beat our self up because we're flunking our own rigid, righteous and right rule. We come to agree again and again and yet again that self is our only enemy.
We want to let it go...to cling to nothing, to fly. We can't. In that gut-bucket, toenails-up realization we are free. Free to be wholly human. We love it and laugh.
There. That is the fruit of our labor to sincerely turn our will and our life over to the care of our God...ah, now that is holy.
Thank you.
Monday, May 28, 2018
Sunday, May 27, 2018
OUR LIFETIME DISCIPLINE
I lined up the loftiest ideals I could find and set out to achieve them. The results were rarely admirable, often laughable, and sometimes grotesque. But always they were unreal, a distortion of my true self—as must be the case when one lives from the outside in, not the inside out. I had simply found a 'noble' way to live a life that was not my own, a life spent imitating heroes instead of listening to my heart. -- from today's "Daily Meditation" of Fr Richard Rohr's quoting Parker Palmer, a Quaker teacher and activist
There. That to me is the perfect description of a self-determined objective and its almost always consequences...rarely admirable, often laughable and sometimes grotesque. Palmer was speaking of his life's journey, but all one need do is minimize the goal...one's life's journey into what one wants right now. That want way too often justifies itself as a need, and we're heading down that wrong road again.
Our wants usually do distort our true self for by their very nature they are for our own benefit...even our want to do good for another. Follow that to its end, and isn't the result that we feel good about our self? Who would want to do good for another if we knew we'd feel just terrible about our self in the end?
The discipline, the risk if you will, comes in learning to listen to and to trust our very own heart, the hidey hole of our Father. Or, as Palmer described it, living not from the outside in but the inside out.
This is the discipline known as seek ye first the kingdom of Heaven. Ah, but no, the discipline comes in forgetting the rest of that sentence, the part about and all these things shall be added unto you. That is where our self-determined objectives live.
No wonder it's a lifetime discipline...and aren't we grateful that it is?
Thank you.
There. That to me is the perfect description of a self-determined objective and its almost always consequences...rarely admirable, often laughable and sometimes grotesque. Palmer was speaking of his life's journey, but all one need do is minimize the goal...one's life's journey into what one wants right now. That want way too often justifies itself as a need, and we're heading down that wrong road again.
Our wants usually do distort our true self for by their very nature they are for our own benefit...even our want to do good for another. Follow that to its end, and isn't the result that we feel good about our self? Who would want to do good for another if we knew we'd feel just terrible about our self in the end?
The discipline, the risk if you will, comes in learning to listen to and to trust our very own heart, the hidey hole of our Father. Or, as Palmer described it, living not from the outside in but the inside out.
This is the discipline known as seek ye first the kingdom of Heaven. Ah, but no, the discipline comes in forgetting the rest of that sentence, the part about and all these things shall be added unto you. That is where our self-determined objectives live.
No wonder it's a lifetime discipline...and aren't we grateful that it is?
Thank you.
Saturday, May 26, 2018
TO MEET AGAIN
I think it not improbable that man,
like the grub that prepares a chamber
for the winged thing it never has seen
but is to be –
that man may have cosmic destinies
that he does not understand.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
(1841-1935)
That gives me comfort...that Oliver Wendell Holmes thought it not improbable that humans may have cosmic destinies. He wasn't at all certain sure, was he? That's my comfort.
Most of the time I think I'm certain sure...then I hold my little guy (who was human in disguise) as he leaves this plane, and I can only hope there really is a cosmos where he will know peace, love and joy...where he can bound across Heaven, meetin' and greetin' and having one fine time...again. Or still.
Thank you.
Friday, May 25, 2018
FORGIVENESS BEGINS WITH OUR THOUGHTS
Those dark nights of the soul...those, too, we come to love.
It is in those dark hours, when we are begging God's forgiveness, that we first awaken to the need within us to be released of our self-protective wrap, to forgive in a word. I contend that it is the need to upgrade (forgive?) our thoughts that forms the path to forgiveness...of self and others.
Ego will always dictate...sometimes just a tish, sometimes entirely...that others are the real reason we did less-than-wonderful in the first place. That's ego's job. Ah, but our job is to turn from ego to God.
As we seek God's forgiveness, our very desire extends, embracing our remembrances, our memories of others, those people and events that we have been regretting...and blaming.
That dark night of the soul has become the channel we pass through to become forgiving...of self and of others.
It is in forgiving that we are forgiven.
Thank you.
It is in those dark hours, when we are begging God's forgiveness, that we first awaken to the need within us to be released of our self-protective wrap, to forgive in a word. I contend that it is the need to upgrade (forgive?) our thoughts that forms the path to forgiveness...of self and others.
Ego will always dictate...sometimes just a tish, sometimes entirely...that others are the real reason we did less-than-wonderful in the first place. That's ego's job. Ah, but our job is to turn from ego to God.
As we seek God's forgiveness, our very desire extends, embracing our remembrances, our memories of others, those people and events that we have been regretting...and blaming.
That dark night of the soul has become the channel we pass through to become forgiving...of self and of others.
It is in forgiving that we are forgiven.
Thank you.
Thursday, May 24, 2018
CLOSER THAN THE AIR WE BREATHE
For it is in self forgetting that one finds.... (from the Prayer of St. Francis)
That is it...the hidden-in-the-open clue to a still more spiritual life. Self forgetting. Which, of course, cannot be done by our trying to forget self...that just keeps self in the forefront, playing blame and shame louder and louder.
A line I read just this morning fits this situation to a T: From Fr. Richard Rohr quoting Barbara Holmes’ book Joy Unspeakable: Contemplative Practices of the Black Church: "When you know that you are 'between a rock and a hard place,' then you must respond creatively to the situation."
My questions: Is to respond creatively, to rely on our free will? Does God work thru our free will to lead us out from our own self? Is that the divine purpose of free will? Is that why he gifted us with free will?
It is in self forgetting that one finds, so we will our self to sit in the silence...to sit and wait on the Lord. Originally, it is our will that keeps us there...and it takes as long as it takes. For me, this is when I learned to use my will to think of anything but trying to forget self, and I found my go-to: Lilies of the valley. And trying to catch their scent. Trust me...it requires all my will to hold that focus.
Since what it is we are to find is not defined, we often start with peace of mind. We get there (or as close as we're going to get) when we hit whatever. It is in our preoccupation with discovering to our satisfaction what it is we are to find that we learn that is what we need to release! How convoluted is that?
According to me, that is the very nature of God Itself...convoluted, mysterious, undefinable, invisible and closer than the air we breathe.
There. That is what our will freely bows to...over and over and over again...with love and laughter.
Thank you.
That is it...the hidden-in-the-open clue to a still more spiritual life. Self forgetting. Which, of course, cannot be done by our trying to forget self...that just keeps self in the forefront, playing blame and shame louder and louder.
A line I read just this morning fits this situation to a T: From Fr. Richard Rohr quoting Barbara Holmes’ book Joy Unspeakable: Contemplative Practices of the Black Church: "When you know that you are 'between a rock and a hard place,' then you must respond creatively to the situation."
My questions: Is to respond creatively, to rely on our free will? Does God work thru our free will to lead us out from our own self? Is that the divine purpose of free will? Is that why he gifted us with free will?
It is in self forgetting that one finds, so we will our self to sit in the silence...to sit and wait on the Lord. Originally, it is our will that keeps us there...and it takes as long as it takes. For me, this is when I learned to use my will to think of anything but trying to forget self, and I found my go-to: Lilies of the valley. And trying to catch their scent. Trust me...it requires all my will to hold that focus.
Since what it is we are to find is not defined, we often start with peace of mind. We get there (or as close as we're going to get) when we hit whatever. It is in our preoccupation with discovering to our satisfaction what it is we are to find that we learn that is what we need to release! How convoluted is that?
According to me, that is the very nature of God Itself...convoluted, mysterious, undefinable, invisible and closer than the air we breathe.
There. That is what our will freely bows to...over and over and over again...with love and laughter.
Thank you.
Wednesday, May 23, 2018
OUR CONCEIT IS OUR GOLDEN GOOSE
Blinding flash of the obvious: Take away my difficulties that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Your love, Your power, Your way of life. -- To take away my difficulties is for me to realize God within the difficulties...that they are for my benefit. Our difficulties are not withdrawn, our concept of them is transmuted.
Our new way of perceiving changes our lives immeasurably. Ah, but isn't it that change that is so challenging to hold to? I'm guessing because its benefits are the "joy unspeakable" that our reasoning mind cannot analyze. Forest/trees...we disregard the "joy unspeakable" in our constant search for something to speak about...in short, for something to take credit for. Which we then call spiritual growth.
And that, too, is heading us in the right direction. Even our conceit has a sliver of gold...without it, how would our concepts ever be transmuted? It is our conceit, our me, my, mine, that becomes our thorn from which we seek release.
Loose it and let it go.
Thank you.
Our new way of perceiving changes our lives immeasurably. Ah, but isn't it that change that is so challenging to hold to? I'm guessing because its benefits are the "joy unspeakable" that our reasoning mind cannot analyze. Forest/trees...we disregard the "joy unspeakable" in our constant search for something to speak about...in short, for something to take credit for. Which we then call spiritual growth.
And that, too, is heading us in the right direction. Even our conceit has a sliver of gold...without it, how would our concepts ever be transmuted? It is our conceit, our me, my, mine, that becomes our thorn from which we seek release.
Loose it and let it go.
Thank you.
Tuesday, May 22, 2018
TO FIND A FRIEND
By all means, you must find at least one loving, honest friend to ground you, which might even be the utterly accepting gaze of the Friend. -- Fr. Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," August 10, 2014
It seems to me the older I get the harder it is to make new friends...no, the harder it is for me to want to make new friends. From my eyebrows up, I want to, but putting in the effort...it's the risk isn't it? The risk of getting a ringer...a dud. A drain on my dwindling inner resources. Which, of course, is all ego, and, hard, hard, hard lesson a-learning: Just because we know it for ego, does not mean we can drop it by the wayside and continue on spiritually clean.
God and ego are both with us 24/7 (or 24/7 five days a week as a marvelous twit on "Frasier" once said), and it is our free-will choice which way we lean.
That's an excellent reason for having at least one loving, honest friend. Ego always appears to be the better choice...because, duh, it always legislates for self. The Lord doesn't legislate...the Lord just loves. You, me, them...equally and always. And only the Lord, through love, through the non-resistance of love, can bring about the perfect solution for all concerned.
The training, our discipline, is learning to look at our own life through the eyes of love...nonresistant, accepting, welcoming. With ego, just like a two-year-old, nattering in our ear, "No, no, and no" to any and all things that do not have a guaranteed "Looking Good" tag on it for us.
That's probably one reason why "getting old" has such a rotten rep. Nothing here is new, it's simply harder to apply that inner knowledge we have gained...to stretch, to reach for the gold...when old Lucy is so right at hand. Nobody ever had to stretch to get their ego up and running, I'm betting.
Friends come and go with barely a ripple in our lives as we're growing up...but in old age, they enter a lot slower and leave a lot faster, and the ripple feels like a riptide.
Hey! Here's the good news...this, too, we can love. At this age, my inner resistance to inviting new friends into my life is my daily stretching discipline! It requires courage that I haven't found it necessary to use for years...if ever. The courage to extend my acceptance...love...to an unknown other, and the willingness to stick with her/him. But, wait...there's more: To accept, too...the courage to accept love from an unknown other.
Love...isn't that yet another form of the willingness to know and be known?
Thank you.
It seems to me the older I get the harder it is to make new friends...no, the harder it is for me to want to make new friends. From my eyebrows up, I want to, but putting in the effort...it's the risk isn't it? The risk of getting a ringer...a dud. A drain on my dwindling inner resources. Which, of course, is all ego, and, hard, hard, hard lesson a-learning: Just because we know it for ego, does not mean we can drop it by the wayside and continue on spiritually clean.
God and ego are both with us 24/7 (or 24/7 five days a week as a marvelous twit on "Frasier" once said), and it is our free-will choice which way we lean.
That's an excellent reason for having at least one loving, honest friend. Ego always appears to be the better choice...because, duh, it always legislates for self. The Lord doesn't legislate...the Lord just loves. You, me, them...equally and always. And only the Lord, through love, through the non-resistance of love, can bring about the perfect solution for all concerned.
The training, our discipline, is learning to look at our own life through the eyes of love...nonresistant, accepting, welcoming. With ego, just like a two-year-old, nattering in our ear, "No, no, and no" to any and all things that do not have a guaranteed "Looking Good" tag on it for us.
That's probably one reason why "getting old" has such a rotten rep. Nothing here is new, it's simply harder to apply that inner knowledge we have gained...to stretch, to reach for the gold...when old Lucy is so right at hand. Nobody ever had to stretch to get their ego up and running, I'm betting.
Friends come and go with barely a ripple in our lives as we're growing up...but in old age, they enter a lot slower and leave a lot faster, and the ripple feels like a riptide.
Hey! Here's the good news...this, too, we can love. At this age, my inner resistance to inviting new friends into my life is my daily stretching discipline! It requires courage that I haven't found it necessary to use for years...if ever. The courage to extend my acceptance...love...to an unknown other, and the willingness to stick with her/him. But, wait...there's more: To accept, too...the courage to accept love from an unknown other.
Love...isn't that yet another form of the willingness to know and be known?
Thank you.
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