FINDING THE GOLD IN NONRESISTANCE

It comes to me as I sit in my quiet this morning that thy rod and thy staff are my self-determined objectives...they comfort me is the gold I must needs seek when my objectives turn to dross.

Generally, our self-determined objectives are rooted in egoic wants...also generally they go awry with us left holding the poop bag. Ah, that's our ego's rues, regrets and remorses aborning. We quick turn our thoughts from self to spiritual and seek until we find the sliver of gold there that comforts us.

Sidebar: We go with the word gold which is, of course God, but we never know when talking with a newbie to us if the very word God is verboten to them. Since, who's kidding whom, gold is rarely verboten to any of us, spiritual or not, we cut down resistance.

And absolutely apropos of nothing: With the last couple elections as my yardstick, I suspect that yesterday's election results will be rued by the winners and praised by the losers in the long run. So, winners, don't get too up, and losers, don't get too down...all is well. 

Thank you.

TO DO FOR THE GLORY OF GOD

Idle thought: Nothing of God is ever wasted. All the prayers that we pray, all the spiritual axioms that we quote, we think if we are not consciously doing them even as we breathe, then they are just pretty words signifying nothing. No. They may well be falling on just one pair of ears that needs to hear, ready and waiting to get the word that will take root there and grow. And flow out to another in need of hearing them. In order to grow and flow.

Another idle thought: Our rational mind looks at Jesus being vilified and replying naught...which led to his crucifixion. My ego Lucy thinks he did it wrong...in ego's view he should have been avenged, gotten the better of his accusers and rode off to glad Hosannas. Looking good. But he didn't...he did it for the glory of God, not for self. And the glory of God has come down from that moment to this through the consciousness of the Christ...which we get to choose. Until we choose, we lose.

And another: The egoic mind's idea of love is to accept others without question...kinda like a child hugging a teddy bear...any teddy bear, they're all the same to a child. What the ego fails to realize or accept is that the love of God is imbued with respect, and there is our hard lesson a-learning...how to love all with respect.

Extreme example: Take, say, a rattlesnake or just anyone who will not hear us...we've learned that we must love all, but how? Ah, love starts with our respect for the other and for who and what they are. Neither a rattlesnake nor the non-hearer is for hugging, but they, like you and me, are loved by God.

We go to God for God which opens the love in our heart that needs naught but to flow out...and we walk on in peace.

The work of spirituality is constant detachment from ourselves...our conditioning, preferences, and knee-jerk reactions. -- Fr. Richard Rohr

Thank you.

COMPREHENDING THE NATURE OF LOVE

Our supposed logic has to break down before we can comprehend the nature of the universe and the bare beginnings of the nature of God. -- Fr.  Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," September 11, 2018

My yesterday's post of my newly found focus to realize President Trump's intense need and desire as the same as Saul of Tarsus' intense need and desire has been flittering through my thoughts. I suspect that is why I was led to the above quote of Fr. Rohr.

Without my thinking, or my permission for that matter, my logic is apparently being broken down. My rational mind does not see any possibility of giving over, giving up, giving in to President Trump's behavior. Ah, and there's my ego Lucy doing my thinking for me...pulling up the wrong that logically should be resisted when just this morning my BFO told me peaceful nonresistance is love.

I note and give thanks that Fr. Rohr's quote says our supposed logic has to break down before we can comprehend the bare beginnings of the nature of God...for it is certain sure that my desire for a realization of love toward President Trump or his behavior is going to be a hard slog.

And God grins...just another ego begging to be broken.

Thank you.

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.