OPEN MY EYES THAT I MAY SEE...THEE

 My own notes in my "God Calling" on November 4 tell my story:
 2008 - President Obama! Thank you, Jesus! Amen
2014 - Republican tsunami
2017 - Trump -- 'there is a crack in everything'

Then, not in my notes but from this morning's "Daily Meditation" of Fr. Richard Rohr: The great and, for some, disappointing surprise is that many people who are not at all correct are the most connected by reason of their intense need and desire.  With my added note: TRUMP??

My newly found focus is to realize President Trump's intense need and desire as the same as Saul of Tarsus' intense need and desire. Importantly, neither of whom were aware their need and desire was for God...but God did.

There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in. -- Leonard Cohen's "Anthem"
 
Thank you.

THE SHORTCUT: DECIDE FOR GOD

Releasing the love that is sealed up within us is the journey.

In the moment of need, of unknowing, releasing love feels tricky because our reasoning mind is ever selecting the right way to show love. Is this love or is it ego-victory? Is this love or enabling? Love or self-aggrandizement?

Here's a metaphysical speculation that came to me (at 3:00 AM, so....):

Say, we're trying to help a beloved friend in need. Our beloved lost a leg...and the loss was apparently through our own carelessness. He refuses to use a wheelchair...or crutches...or a cane even, all the while she remains beloved but with a boatload of guilt added on.

Do we carry him, going to extraordinary lengths to get him wherever he needs to go? The lost leg was after all on us.

Or do we find a place to put her to be taken care of properly...against her vehement wishes, not to mention her inability to pay? The lost leg was after all on us.

It is the end result of all our questioning that proves our awakening. It is the end result that begins with our decision...the fork in the road of still more spiritual growth...that leads to the discovery that all roads lead to God.

The Decision: Do we go with God (He goes before us to make the crooked places straight), i.e., do we trust God and carry our friend? Or do we go with self (which is ego hidden in denial), i.e., do we accept the apparent reality and rely on our best efforts to get her help?

In other words, do we rely on our untested core of love which will give God the opportunity and the glory, or do we rely on our own self which will give us the credit, knowing we will have carry-over  guilt for a time?

And there it is...the unseen trick our ego will ever play in order to feel the winner: Upfront, we know neither how long guilt for a time may last, nor how deep that guilt may claw...be assured, though we know not the day or the hour, in the end denial will go down in defeat.

I'm convinced either way spiritual growth comes out the winner. Both ways take a looong time, but going with God first is a smoother ride...we learn the art of nonresistance...and we find peace.

Going with self is denial...a long and often misery-packed trudge down to crash-and-burn...where we are woke by a Higher Power, the God of our own understanding...and we find peace.

Gratefully, we realize that all roads do lead to God.

Thank you.

THE HARD...WHOLLY SPIRITUAL...JOURNEY

My morning BFO: In my heart, I seek nothing but the love that I have for God for that is the love given me by God before conception...indeed is implanted within me, you, them before conception until after death when it is returned for reuse at rebirth.

I suspect the big block to knowing love, actually realizing love within us without us, is we think of love as such an intimate act. Personal. Not to be openly expressed.

It is often mistaken by lust. Probably too often in our younger days; i.e., up to and including 60...well, 70...or, who's kidding whom, older if we're lucky.

I suspect it is the personal sense of self that love connotes that causes us pause in stating love openly...except about inanimate items, maybe. As in, love that dress. hairdo, car! Or when speaking of guaranteed lovables...babies, puppies, kittens. Can't go wrong there. Even while they are peeing in our lap.

It is a hard journey, because it is wholly spiritual, detaching from our personal sense of love even as we consciously seek our God-gift of love.

Too often we force the outward response, while the inward intent remains like a cancer. *** We cannot afford even inner disconnection from love. *** In Matthew 5:44, Jesus insists that we love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. -- Fr. Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," October 30, 2018

And there it is: Love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us...that is the essence of our hard journey, for what that asks is that we get over our own self.

Hard, ain't it hard, Lord, loving you...so cries my ego, Lucy With the Football.

Thank you.

AN INDOMITABLE BELIEF

...real faith is the prayer that is so sure of a glad response.... "God Calling," November 1

After my rant of yesterday, I found in my "God Calling" this BFO, dated one year ago: Love is acceptance of everything...resistance to nothing. There. To me, that is proof that God is our teacher, and he pays close attention to our every thought...our every inclination. And corrects us as needed.

Love being acceptance of everything, resistance to nothing, seems to be the place where Etty Hillesum lived her last years in Nazi Germany.  It is what her writings show forth as she lived in hiding, then in concentration camps, and certainly as she was crammed into the train going to Auschwitz.

Hillesum is my idea of a walking around saint. She lived that new way of thinking, on a higher plane deeper within, and she wrote it down for us to learn from. To learn that it is not only possible but preferable, no matter the outer conditions, to live not resigned, but accepting...and grateful. I doubt not that she felt fear, great fear in such horrifically fearsome conditions, but her journals prove her indomitable belief in the higher good. 

I am glad Lucy ran loose yesterday...that led to my appreciation for Etty this morning, and how I need to continue going for the higher good.

It occurs to me that whenever in our life that we have done a good and decent thing, we need to ponder that. There have  been innumerable acts of good and decent things done for us that we have not even noticed or did notice, even appreciated, and may have forgotten. We can let those things remain with the givers of the goodness to remember.

We must needs hold our acts of kindness dear for they are not of us. They are our proof that the Father within is on the job.

Thank you.

DOG...GOD SPELLED BACKWARDS

...for it is in self-forgetting that we find.  Ah, therein hides the secret of the ages. For what are we looking to find? If not self-forgetting, i.e., God, then we search in vain. According to me.

Further, according to me, in my perfect world, doctor-scientists would stop with the seeking, researching...spending!...to find ways for us old people to live longer. Why not start searching  ways for dogs (cats, too) to live longer? Face it, 15 years is a long time for a dog to live, but it's the equivalent of 15 minutes to us older folk.

Not only that, since I'm on a rant, I may not wholly believe but I do not doubt that seeking for ways to extend the life of seniors is fear on two levels: for the scientists, it's fear of failure...not being good enough in their profession ("good enough" equals garnering profit  and glory for all the world to see); for the elderly, it's fear of dying...that scary unknowable.

Or, it may be that I'm catching too much News-of-the-Day. The possibility is proof that I need a dog to hug.

Thank you.

LOVE IS THE ANSWER...THE ONLY ANSWER

According to the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) our inner attitudes and states are the real sources of our problems. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," October 30, 2018

I am grateful my spiritual life started with the instruction to have...to build if you will...the God of my own understanding. I was fairly broken at the time so I was blessed to be advised to find and stay with one source for my primary guide in seeking my own...then I could remain open to other spiritual material...if it enhanced my primary guide, incorporate it.

I chose the Sermon on the Mount...I tend to believe the Sermon chose me. Gratefully, I have learned from the Buddha, Kris Kristofferson, Brother Lawrence, Chief Joseph. The list is all but endless, but at the top, ah, I continue to learn from F.X., my mentor, my love, who speaks the Sermon, but in my language, a tish profane but always with love.  

I have become convinced that the primary source of all my woes is my inability...no, I am able, it's my ego-victory refusal...to tame my attack mind. That's what clicked when I read Rohr this morning, for I have come to believe that our inner attitudes and states are the real sources of our problems.

The proof of that is the fact that if we will but change our mind, our problem will go away. I was gifted with a blinding flash of the obvious once awhile back which I am still learning to lean on...upgrade your attitude, upgrade your problem. 

We cannot change our mind, we cannot upgrade our attitude, relying solely on our reasoning mind. Common sense tells us if we believe we are right, we're not going to change our mind...for why? 

We must go beyond reason to love. 

Since love is the answer no matter the question, the problem, the other, we need to find a way to look at our "right" from another angle. To look with the inner desire to find a way not to be wrong but to be in agreement with that which or whom we are opposing. 

Our intellect is our friend here. It takes some serious thinking to come to complete defeat. Just coming to the right answer will not give us peace...that's begrudging, and begrudging is Lucy bitching about it. No. Complete defeat is the changing room in God's hidey hole...the place where we can exchange surrender for acceptance and walk free in love.

Learning to give love in order to accept love is going to God for God...and that is all.

Thank you.

EGO DEMANDS vs. GOD'S WILL

I was told at the very first retreat I ever attended that truth must be proved. I had just begun to understand that Truth, with a capital T, was not precisely the same as the truth we need tell when we'd rather CYA...as in, blame, shame and split.

My understanding is that Truth must be proved else we are into magic thinking. The measure of the Truth we have proved is demonstrated by our life and how we live it, not by our thinking it so or by telling others it is so...if any telling need be done, others tell us it is so by what they see in us.

It seems to me that proving Truth pretty much boils down to going against our ego's dictates...those wants of ours that are self-based and usually all dressed up, looking spiffy (which to ego is spiritual growth or close enough).

Recently my frenemy Gertrude made an unwanted demand of me...already we know where I'm going here. I had the devil's own time divorcing myself from my instant decision to set her straight, to do the exact opposite, to flip her the bird,  to split, saying nothing but never ever going near her again.  All that in a heartbeat.

End result, after some arm-wrestling with God, I did what Gertrude demanded without hassling her, which means without giving Lucy airtime.

Here's the surprising punchline: I've found myself belittling my efforts. Thinking because I didn't immediately soar above Lucy's demands...or not have had them to begin with...that there was no positive here or the result was negligible.

As I went into my quiet time this morning, I was gifted with the thought of Saint Paul saying (something like) don't hassle yourself with self-described uglies, think on the good; there's nothing not wonderful in your life that doesn't have some good in it...find the good and think on those things.

I'm taking that as permission to realize my decision to turn from Lucy's wants (the dross) to God's will (the gold) as proof of Truth in my life.

I pray that my life may be a demonstration of what the grace of God can do. -- Anonymous

Thank you.