WE GO TO GOD FOR GOD AND THAT IS ALL

If there isn't some way to find some deeper meaning to our suffering, to find that God is somehow in it, and can even use it for good, we will normally close up and close down. The natural movement of the small self or ego is to protect itself so as not to be hurt again. As I shared last week, neuroscience now shows us that we attach to negativity 'like Velcro' unless we intentionally develop another neural path like forgiveness or letting go. -- Fr. Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," February 26, 2016

There is a Higher Power within us that leads us to our good. That is the sliver of gold that we need seek unto realization unto enlightenment.

And our enlightenment is: There is a Higher Power within us that leads us to our good.

Thank you.

AH...WHEN OBEYED

I awoke this morning with a busy mind. I stumbled out of bed nattering to myself: OK, that which I seek is already mine. But how do I recognize it? If I'm still seeking, I'm obviously missing it. For sure I haven't inner-eye seen it. 

I sat down to my beloved "God Calling," and there it is: Looking to Me, all your thoughts are God-inspired. Act on them and you will be led on. They are not your own impulses but the movement of My Spirit and, obeyed, will bring the answer to your prayers. Love and Trust.

It is not the prayer fully answered, gift-wrapped and bow-tied, that brings peace, it is the seeking. It is in the very looking to God, away from self, to God that we are led on, led aright. 

Looking to God in love and trust with all our heart, soul, body and brains, when obeyed will bring our answer.

God is so good to me. God is so good.

Thank you.

GROW WITH GRATITUDE, GRACE AND GOD

For this day, I am grateful that I am open to God and grace and growth. No matter how little I feel it.

It is in the time of not feeling gratitude that we need to cling to the fact, not the feeling. The fact is, whether we accept it or not, God is. Whether we know it or not, Grace flows. And Growth grows.

Get grateful.

Thank you.

PERSEVERE IN PRACTICING LOVE AND LAUGHTER

'14  It is not to overcome others' ugly, it is to not resist it so as to let it pass by...with love and laughter.

I ponder my yesteryear's blinding flash of the obvious, and I marvel that I have written '15 ditto and this year, '18 same. 

My first thought was that this is just proof that it keeps coming back until we get it right; then I realized, actually this is getting it right...else the message would be different. This is how we come to own it.

I just picked up a book I haven't read in a long time, and the first thing I read is apropos of what I was thinking, but oh so much clearer:

That all things are possible to him who believes; that they are less difficult to him who hopes; that they are more easy to him who loves, and still more easy to him who perseveres in the practice of these three virtues. -- Brother Lawrence

Thank you.

GOD HAS OUR BACK...ALWAYS AND EVER

It is necessary, living in our day-to-day world, to learn to speak up for our self, take our own part, not be a doormat. However, once we have learned how...or, more to the point, that we actually can...our need for still more spiritual growth leads us to a new way of thinking. Ah, then we get a clue that freedom from self begins with giving over, giving up, giving in.  

It is hard enough to learn to do the egoless thing...give over, give up, give in...but once we learn, as in once we do that very thing (and usually after arm-wrestling with God about our need to do it), we then must contend with our ego after the fact.

Our ego will ever want to take all credit, tell the whole world, how spiritual it is and has been. No. Our just walking-around directions state that when we feel our toes have been stepped on, seemingly without provocation, invariably we find we've made a decision based on self that later placed us in a position to be hurt.

We have not gone above and beyond to a whole new spiritual plane...we've followed basic directions in order to live a relatively happy, joyous and free life. Which, in order to live there, puts us in a whole new spiritual place.

I was pleased this morning, after I wrote the above, to read Fr Richard Rohr's "Daily Meditation," in which he, a lot more clearly and concisely, spells out and then names this procedure: 

Clear-headed dualistic thinking must precede any further movement into nondual responses, especially about issues that people want to avoid. We cannot make a nonstop flight to nondual thinking or we just get fuzzy thinking. First use your well-trained and good mind, and then find your response in a holistic (body, mind, soul, and heart) response. This is the heart of spirituality. 

Thank you.

WE ARE THE LOVE WE SEEK

...love the innermost self of all about us. -- Eknath Easwaran, "Words To Live By"

There it is. In order to love your enemy as yourself, we need to love the innermost self of all our perceived enemies. The Father is within everybody so we'd best open our heart...beginning with out mind...to loving the Father within everybody. 

I'm guessing we err when we try to love our enemy by trying to love that which we object to. Our error is when we get specific and our ego objects...in righteous indignation. As in, we picture Gertrude, who cheated us, lied about us, whatever, and we're trying to love that cheating, lying Gertrude. Well, good luck...we're going for spiritual not stupid.   

We make our U-bie when we remember the gift from our original decision to seek still more spiritual growth...specifically, we now follow directions from a higher plane than our reasoning mind is accorded.  

We turn again, and always, to spirituality's first lesson: We must flow with the go, with the good, with God. That starts in our head where we let go of our own idea of what we need, and we invite a spiritual solution. This is probably the hardest part because it takes time, but we soon learn that we get nowhere until we take the time needed. When we get it there, it will begin its journey down to our heart, and almost without stopping, it flows freely into/out from our Soul, God's hidey-hole. 

The it, of course, is love, and our perceived enemy is no longer personal to us...s/he is the love we have. 

Thank you.

ON DETACHING THROUGH SPIRITUAL GROWTH

My sister in  dissing me is seeking God...my being made to pay (for whatever/from wherever her anger stems) is her God.  She needs me to give her something to get over on...I want to let her for my own good. -- My 6/8/04 note written in reference to Easwaran's statement that there is nobody who is not seeking God.

Reading and rereading my daily spiritual books, in particular the notes I had written to myself, sometimes surprise me by giving me a deeper insight than I originally had.

Today, 14 years after I first wrote that note, I look back in surprise that I grasped then that I did want to let her for my own good, only I realize now that I needed to for my spiritual good. I have come to experience the fact that someone will ever be passing through our life seeking God through something to get over on. We seldom want to, always need to, let them.

I must needs keep it simple...and the longer I live, the more I understand that the "it" that I must keep simple is every single thing in my field of comprehension. Shuck it, clean it, strip it, sit and wait on the Lord, and when I hear what I hear, then shuck that, clean that, strip that...else, count on it, I will put my spin on it.

It is in becoming willing to detach from our own ideas, our own interpretations...loose them and let them go...that we arrive at realization. We get the Word, we know it, and, if we stay out of our own way, we show it.

All that rarely happens in one or two or three sittings. It takes as long as it takes, and all it takes is willingness. That's how we learn to welcome...or not fear...despair. I doubt anyone ever crashed and burned while giggling and grinning. (Although I do love Tom Lehrer's song with the line in it about dancing around the funeral pyre singing rickity-tickity-tin.)

Sometimes still more spiritual growth is simply divorcing our self from our own opinions. According to me.

Thank you.