I'm fairly well convinced that the way to a fret-free life is the way of depersonalizing...taking nothing personally. Feel a nip of resistance? Say "thank you," find the sliver of gold in it...then build on that.
Depersonalize, detach, loosen, release, let go. In the long-ago words of my beloved mentor, Cling to nothing, fly!
I'm becoming more convinced than ever that to get a contented life we must live a turned over life...our free will turned back to God. When we turn our will over to God, we are graced with the spiritual care and concern of and for others. Meaning, our thoughts are for them, their well-being...especially those we don't have a natural affinity for. You know, those we once called dirt bag.
And why not? We are secure knowing we are God's care and concern which, in order to live it, we must pass it on.
Isn't it amazing? All we need do to have a contented life is to develop an attitude of gratitude...and live in it.
Thank you.
Monday, June 4, 2018
Sunday, June 3, 2018
ON BEING AT ONE
[The is a slightly reworked reprint of my post of January 27, 2016.]
Everybody's scandalous flaw is mine. -- Rumi
This to me is the exemplar of Oneness.
We talk being at one, we seldom walk it. We walk it when we least know that is what we're doing. We're looking to become the Lily of the Valley when we already are...and also the Thorn of the Rose.
If it is true, "everybody's scandalous flaw is mine," then everybody's pearl of great price is mine, too. We are the flaw and the pearl...there is no scandalous flaw apart from me, nor pearl of great price separate.
According to me.
Thank you.
Everybody's scandalous flaw is mine. -- Rumi
This to me is the exemplar of Oneness.
We talk being at one, we seldom walk it. We walk it when we least know that is what we're doing. We're looking to become the Lily of the Valley when we already are...and also the Thorn of the Rose.
If it is true, "everybody's scandalous flaw is mine," then everybody's pearl of great price is mine, too. We are the flaw and the pearl...there is no scandalous flaw apart from me, nor pearl of great price separate.
According to me.
Thank you.
Saturday, June 2, 2018
GIFTED BY GRACE THROUGH DAILY DISCIPLINE
I find the difference between resignation and acceptance fascinating. I know it as the difference between relying on self-determined objectives (ego) and relying on spiritual principles (God).
To me, resignation is driven by self-will and acceptance is graced through God's will. We can know to the last dotted i what resignation brings. We can never know with any certainty what God's will may bring...plus it can take years for us to get a clue that God's will is always for the best for us personally. It's just rare that on its face it looks like it.
In short, resignation keeps one in self-will...we resign our self to what we perceive, even though what we perceive is not what we want. We usually identify it as "our rotten luck," which belief keeps us stuck right there, looking no further because we do believe in "our rotten luck."
Acceptance usually comes from the same place of pain; however, it is only in our crash-and-burn that we accept our powerlessness. It is in not resigning but accepting that we turn in despair from self to Self.
The help we seek is often the mirror image of God's will for us. We're hooked on cigarettes, booze, a love, sugar, gambling...broccoli! The help we seek is to be able to keep smoking, drinking, etc., but to suffer no adverse consequences. God's will is that we cut that crap out and start living by spiritual principles. To the enlightened mind, there are no adverse consequences in living by spiritual principles. Ah, but getting that enlightened mind is our work for the rest of this life and the next if we're doing it right.
The paradox: We must make our self available for it on a daily basis...it is a gift of grace; it opens in a heartbeat.
Thank you.
To me, resignation is driven by self-will and acceptance is graced through God's will. We can know to the last dotted i what resignation brings. We can never know with any certainty what God's will may bring...plus it can take years for us to get a clue that God's will is always for the best for us personally. It's just rare that on its face it looks like it.
In short, resignation keeps one in self-will...we resign our self to what we perceive, even though what we perceive is not what we want. We usually identify it as "our rotten luck," which belief keeps us stuck right there, looking no further because we do believe in "our rotten luck."
Acceptance usually comes from the same place of pain; however, it is only in our crash-and-burn that we accept our powerlessness. It is in not resigning but accepting that we turn in despair from self to Self.
The help we seek is often the mirror image of God's will for us. We're hooked on cigarettes, booze, a love, sugar, gambling...broccoli! The help we seek is to be able to keep smoking, drinking, etc., but to suffer no adverse consequences. God's will is that we cut that crap out and start living by spiritual principles. To the enlightened mind, there are no adverse consequences in living by spiritual principles. Ah, but getting that enlightened mind is our work for the rest of this life and the next if we're doing it right.
The paradox: We must make our self available for it on a daily basis...it is a gift of grace; it opens in a heartbeat.
Thank you.
Friday, June 1, 2018
MY LORD, WHAT A MORNING!
'13 BFO: I dig the ditches that allows God a cleared road.
Giving my reasoning mind its righteous props was/is a steep climb for me. For ever so long I was taught ...or I thought I was taught...that the reasoning mind is our bane and not to be trusted. Which I still believe is about half right...speaking of my own reasoning mind only. But the half that is right is good, necessary and as righteous as it's ever going to be.
For instance, my blinding flash of the obvious from five years ago, I dig the ditches that allows God a cleared road, speaks of the inside work I must do to begin to be free of me...the necessary ditches to be dug to go through my ego Lucy's tools and toys and tamperings.
That inside work cannot be done alone; it requires another person, a lot of other persons usually, to hold us honest. As has been said, going it alone in spiritual matters is dangerous. And going alone on a dig within is perilous.
We need our reasoning mind not only to choose a reasonably fitting person to do our dig with, but for all the other non-digging times...to decide between ice cream and sugar-free yogurt, for Pete's sake.
It is the melding of our reasoning mind with our still more spiritual growth that needs hands off, or quieted mind, but also...and here's the hook...an open mind. We sit in the silence with our intention and attention focused on...nada. Which lasts a nanosecond. Refocus...bring it back home. Focus on nada.
And then...and THEN...we experience a teeny-tiny shift, and it feels as if the entire Book of Revelation has just been revealed...in a heartbeat. And we know, and we know we know: He goes before me to make the crooked places straight.
My Lord, what a morning...when my sun began to shine.
Thank you.
Giving my reasoning mind its righteous props was/is a steep climb for me. For ever so long I was taught ...or I thought I was taught...that the reasoning mind is our bane and not to be trusted. Which I still believe is about half right...speaking of my own reasoning mind only. But the half that is right is good, necessary and as righteous as it's ever going to be.
For instance, my blinding flash of the obvious from five years ago, I dig the ditches that allows God a cleared road, speaks of the inside work I must do to begin to be free of me...the necessary ditches to be dug to go through my ego Lucy's tools and toys and tamperings.
That inside work cannot be done alone; it requires another person, a lot of other persons usually, to hold us honest. As has been said, going it alone in spiritual matters is dangerous. And going alone on a dig within is perilous.
We need our reasoning mind not only to choose a reasonably fitting person to do our dig with, but for all the other non-digging times...to decide between ice cream and sugar-free yogurt, for Pete's sake.
It is the melding of our reasoning mind with our still more spiritual growth that needs hands off, or quieted mind, but also...and here's the hook...an open mind. We sit in the silence with our intention and attention focused on...nada. Which lasts a nanosecond. Refocus...bring it back home. Focus on nada.
And then...and THEN...we experience a teeny-tiny shift, and it feels as if the entire Book of Revelation has just been revealed...in a heartbeat. And we know, and we know we know: He goes before me to make the crooked places straight.
My Lord, what a morning...when my sun began to shine.
Thank you.
Thursday, May 31, 2018
GIVING GOD A GIGGLE AND A GRIN...AGAIN
I woke up thinking that my material world appears to be less than wonderful, what with people losses and health drains. I took comfort in the thought that for this I seek still more spiritual growth...I am utterly at peace knowing the mirror image of God reflects my life exactly as it need be in this instant. I pray my thank you.
Then I turned on the weather report. It is May 31, we are back-to-face of June 1, and still we're having a preponderance of gray days, chill and rain. I love that that's what ticks me off most...that which clearly is not mine, can never be mine, and I get all up in my head about it.
That immediately leads to my own personal slippery slope: That which is clearly not mine reminds me of old wo/men laying down the law for young women and what they should do with their bodies. While young men do what they do because "boys will be boys." As Gloria Steinem, a very smart woman, once said, "If men birthed babies, abortion would be a sacrament." Tell me that's not true.
There it is...spelled out before my own eyes. I can write I am utterly at peace knowing the mirror image of God reflects my life exactly as it need be in this instant. I pray my thank you. Then, in a heartbeat, I'm ranting about one more thing that I will never experience so I make free with my heavy-duty opinions.
Well, I just figure we are the only fun-figures God gets to love and laugh about. Dogs and deer...crocodiles and kangaroo, for Heaven's sake...surely are better behaved.
Thank you.
Wednesday, May 30, 2018
LOVE...A COMPLETE TRANSFORMATION
If we are to be a continuation of God’s way of seeing, we must first of all be mirrors. We must be no-thing so that we can receive some-thing. To love demands a complete transformation of consciousness. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," May 5, 2018
The key to living a complete and fulfilled life lies in the realization that there is a mystical, transcendental Presence within us that has already provided our infinite supply unto eternity, that contains within Itself our companionship unto eternity, and that has within Itself the power of fulfillment. -- Joel Goldsmith, "A Parenthesis in Eternity," p 269
Goldsmith's key to living a complete and fulfilled life requires the complete transformation of consciousness of Rohr's "Meditation." I'm convinced that is the giving up of our hope of Heaven. An utter surrender of self-will moves us in the right direction...turns us away from our own idea of Heaven and leaves us without an answer, not even sure of the question. Feeling hopeless, helpless and bare-butt naked in the world.
The answer we seek is seldom what we want...and there's the nature of the mirror image of God. We may experience what to our eyes looks like pain beyond enduring only to learn on the other side of that pain that to God's eyes it was what we needed to be led free...Free Of Me. We realize a complete transformation of consciousness.
God knows our needs, we only know our wants...which wants may even match our needs only we cannot self-will them. We must go to God for God, and all these things shall be added unto us.
Thank you.
The key to living a complete and fulfilled life lies in the realization that there is a mystical, transcendental Presence within us that has already provided our infinite supply unto eternity, that contains within Itself our companionship unto eternity, and that has within Itself the power of fulfillment. -- Joel Goldsmith, "A Parenthesis in Eternity," p 269
Goldsmith's key to living a complete and fulfilled life requires the complete transformation of consciousness of Rohr's "Meditation." I'm convinced that is the giving up of our hope of Heaven. An utter surrender of self-will moves us in the right direction...turns us away from our own idea of Heaven and leaves us without an answer, not even sure of the question. Feeling hopeless, helpless and bare-butt naked in the world.
The answer we seek is seldom what we want...and there's the nature of the mirror image of God. We may experience what to our eyes looks like pain beyond enduring only to learn on the other side of that pain that to God's eyes it was what we needed to be led free...Free Of Me. We realize a complete transformation of consciousness.
God knows our needs, we only know our wants...which wants may even match our needs only we cannot self-will them. We must go to God for God, and all these things shall be added unto us.
Thank you.
Tuesday, May 29, 2018
REGRET NOTHING, WELCOME EVERYTHING
I tend to believe that regrets are just resentments in fancy dress. The first sentence in today's "God Calling" is just two words: Regret nothing. The second sentence: Not even the sins and failures.
That's sure not putting too fine a point on it, is it?
That's not Fatherly advice, that's a command.
Why, then, do we find it so difficult to follow that command? Who's kidding whom? There is no room for debate there. No way is Yes, but acceptable...or even allowed!
I never wanted to deny it. I just wanted to learn how to let it be true, to be my truth.
I bring good news. We let it be true by our daily commitment to seek still more spiritual growth. Now. Here. Right where we are.
We seek still more spiritual growth daily not (just) for the Big Bang, God Is moment. But for the little constants...the misspeaks, the inadvertents, the oops of life. Those are the regrets my ego Lucy could polish until they were clear enough to read another's name on...and a resentment was birthed. The resentment needed not be at the other, it often was at me, specifically my own stupidity, ignorance, no-good-dirty- whoa, Nellie, I'm gone again.
Ah, and there's the pearl. Through daily practice, we find a whole new wakin' up morning. We can feel that niggling regret, and we can know peace. We are now aware that it's just looking to blame and shame, but there's no willing body at home to accept it.
It is in the search, the discipline to seek still more spiritual growth daily, that we find the peace that passes understanding. Without that daily discipline, it fades, and it fades a lot faster than ever it comes.
Maybe that's why we're told to pray without ceasing...and maybe that's why, per Meister Eckhart, If the only prayer you say in your life is thank you, that would suffice.
Thank you.
That's sure not putting too fine a point on it, is it?
That's not Fatherly advice, that's a command.
Why, then, do we find it so difficult to follow that command? Who's kidding whom? There is no room for debate there. No way is Yes, but acceptable...or even allowed!
I never wanted to deny it. I just wanted to learn how to let it be true, to be my truth.
I bring good news. We let it be true by our daily commitment to seek still more spiritual growth. Now. Here. Right where we are.
We seek still more spiritual growth daily not (just) for the Big Bang, God Is moment. But for the little constants...the misspeaks, the inadvertents, the oops of life. Those are the regrets my ego Lucy could polish until they were clear enough to read another's name on...and a resentment was birthed. The resentment needed not be at the other, it often was at me, specifically my own stupidity, ignorance, no-good-dirty- whoa, Nellie, I'm gone again.
Ah, and there's the pearl. Through daily practice, we find a whole new wakin' up morning. We can feel that niggling regret, and we can know peace. We are now aware that it's just looking to blame and shame, but there's no willing body at home to accept it.
It is in the search, the discipline to seek still more spiritual growth daily, that we find the peace that passes understanding. Without that daily discipline, it fades, and it fades a lot faster than ever it comes.
Maybe that's why we're told to pray without ceasing...and maybe that's why, per Meister Eckhart, If the only prayer you say in your life is thank you, that would suffice.
Thank you.
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