A TRANSCENDENT HIGHER POWER, GOD TO ME

Per Psychologist Stanley Milgram (1933–1984), who was significantly influenced by the Holocaust:
Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority. -- from Fr Richard Rohr's "Daily Meditation," September 14, 2019

Milgram describes precisely why I believe a transcendent Higher Power, God to me, is a personal need in the life of each of us. That being true, I also believe, as James Finley has written, the absolute love of God protects us from nothing even as it sustains us in all things.

Until we stop looking to God to protect us, change us, change situations we ourselves have created through ignorance or malice or misguided love, we will be unable to accept the love of God. We will know it, the love of God, only from our eyebrows up.

It is our unfailing inner efforts to know and to show the love of that transcendent Higher Power, God, that imbues us with our fundamental standards of morality, the ability if you will to see [our] wrong and try to right it.

Equally important is the ability to accept our human condition which will ever be en garde for self. Of course, by "to accept" I mean to get over ourself. And don't think for a minute that doesn't take a boatload of cooperating with a transcendent Higher Power, God.

Thank you.

NOT JUST CHANGE BUT EXCHANGE

When we come to a stuck place, I heard a long time ago that all we need do is move to another pew...we don't need to change churches, just move to another pew. It's that kind of unsophisticated, or down-home, philosophy that keeps me open when (not if) I hit a stuck place.

It also seems that when I'm thinking I've got The Answer, I'm sooner or later moved to another pew...a deeper understanding. For instance, I've been relying for sometime now on the flash that the hardest thing life will ask of us is that we change our mind. I realized this morning that most times we think we've changed our mind when all we've changed is our opinion.

Which led to a new flash: The hardest thing life will ask of us is that we exchange our mind.

Our mindset must needs be moved  up to a deeper consciousness...from dual consciousness, me/you/me thinking, to God consciousness, the spiritual awareness of I, or One, thinking.

That process usually begins with a simple realization such as the worst thing that could ever happen to me is the best thing that could ever happen to me. There's a simple realization that our reasoning mind will resist till the last frog has croaked. Which is as it must be...truth must be proved by us if it is to be true for us. Take, for instance, He goes before us to make the crooked placed straight...we must actually walk those crooked places, not knowing what is around the next crook in the road.

We can't get there by praying for the crooked places to be lifted. That's simply wishing for our fear to be gone by God or by grace, by hook or by crook. It makes no difference to the reasoning mind fueled by fear.

We learn to rely from our experience on the truth that fear is God in camouflage. Fear immediately turns us to God which walks within us along those crooked places...in the end lifting us up to a deeper consciousness.

Here we find peace...we know it and we show it. We love and laugh.

Thank you.

WE DO IT FOR NEITHER PRAISE NOR PRIZE

Morning blinding flash of the obvious:  Seek to win nothing, seek to earn.

That flash took me back to another, the one about praying for anything is ego-based, being purely self-interest no matter how pretty we dress it up. Seeking to win, even the kingdom of Heaven, is looking to get. We seek within to find the kingdom of Heaven which is and ever has been there, awaiting our opened eyes.

To win is to lose when we stay in that egoic either/or mindset. Through our inner work we earn our rightful place in God consciousness...the consciousness of One.

It is God consciousness that awakens us to the great reward of gratitude. Just this morning I realized that nothing elicits a more personally satisfied feeling than doing that which I need to do when I'd just as soon not do it. No matter how small the effort, e.g., my yoga-exercise. I usually do it because I do it. This morning, I had every justification not to, but I did...later than usual, against my want-to, half peeved but I did it.

The warm and wonderful feeling about me that I got upon finishing my yoga this morning is still with me...has already made my day. I did what I needed to do, and I did it for neither praise nor for prize. That alone is the pearl beyond price. This warm feeling...my earned treasure...is and will be available for me as proof of purchase the next time I need it.

Just as I am the source of all my woes (ego-led), I am the source of my own treasure (God-realized).

People often asked Dr. Jung, 'Will we make it?' referring to the cataclysm of our time. He always replied, 'If enough people will do their inner work.' This soul work is the one thing that will pull us through any emergency. — Robert Johnson (from Fr Richard Rohr's "Daily Meditation," September 12, 2019)

Thank you.

ON BEING NO BETTER THAN I OUGHT TO BE

I am reminded of my heart's homemade acceptance prayer: Thank You that I am no better than I ought to be, being me. Amen.

Seeking still more spiritual growth skates fairly close to the spiritual arrogance line. A quick clarification...it's not seeking that's a problem, it's nattering about it. The humble brag if you will. 

Maybe the answer to the problem is found in Meister Eckhart's "subtraction" theory; i.e., God is not found in the soul by adding anything, but by a process of subtraction.

It's difficult for me to imagine talking a lot about letting go of a defect today (subtraction) because my today's defects are so petty, small, niggling...embarrassing.

God is a good housekeeper...he cleaned up my biggies a long time ago. By cleaned up, of course, I mean he transmuted them so now when I catch myself re-using one, I get to laugh at me...together with the friend who is with me.

Still more spiritual growth for me today is when I'm caught relying on a petty, small, niggling defect...usually trying to impress. That's when my acceptance prayer earns its wings for there's me, standing naked in my own muddle. For whatever reason, nothing soothes like a mental Thank You that I am no better than I ought to be, being me.

That, and knowing that God loves me sooo much.

Thank you.

RESIST AND LOSE, WELCOME AND WIN

Of all my spiritual-growth training, discipline, seeking, I find my thoughts are my bane for they prove the hardest to tame, to train. This has to be the basis of my belief that changing our mind can only be well and truly accomplished by grace and by God. 

I am often awed when my actions in a dicey situation are spot on...invariably proving peace-giving begets peace-receiving. Then sometime later...wham!  My thoughts have returned to the place where my actions were so gratifying, only these are not peaceful thoughts...they are attack thoughts that have sprung up unnoticed, and they have taken charge. 

It is counterintuitive, but essential, to welcome those attack thoughts else we are in that losing battle of self-will versus self-interest, breeding denial in the form of justification. In short, resist and lose, welcome and win. The battle, after all, is in our own mind. 

Interestingly, I have just read today's "Words to Live By" by Eknath Easwaran. There is his validation for welcoming our scattered (attack) thoughts by mentally repeating our mantram (our thank you) at all times:  In all cases, you are putting your time to better use than if you were just letting your mind run on about what might be troubling it. You are sending the mantram deeper into your consciousness. It is many of these little moments that finally add up to tremendous spiritual growth. Patience and concentration blossom in the space that you have cleared for them.

According to me, all our training, our discipline, our seeking has...and is!...for just one goal: To remember that to welcome is to pray thank you, and that is all.

Thank you.

OUR DARKEST CORNER...GOD'S HIDEY-HOLE

Our great gift is our realization that God is not waiting to gift us with patience or forgiveness or peace of mind. No. We were gifted with those at birth. We are wholly responsible for finding them within us as needed...in the darkest corner of our heart, soul, body and brains.

We joy in the fact that God holds our responsibility in trust for us. We go there and find love.

Yes, love is the final goal but ever deeper trust inside of darkness is the path for getting there. -- Fr. Richard Rohr

Thank you.

GOD LOVES YOU AND SO DO I

Even when insulted, Francis did not take offence. Now that is freedom, or what he called 'perfect joy!' -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," September 8, 2019

Short form of Saint Francis' yardstick for finding peace: It is not winning the love and admiration of others or even winning the Nobel Peace Prize. If, however, you are called scum of the earth and get spit in the eye...and you can reply, without lying, "God loves you, and so do I," you will know perfect peace.

Reading Rohr's one sentence this morning, my eyes were opened. In effect, this is exactly what I had told JoB that I sought...and what she soon delivered to me and with an audience!

My BFO: I was given the opportunity to follow Francis, to do as Jesus did before Pilate, answering not a word.

My block to making that opportunity mine, or finding that promised "perfect peace," has been my search to understand JoB, to excuse her, to find, by my thinking, no fault in her. That is a purely egoic search...seeking the gift God has already given, but not to my thinking. 

I say often that the hardest thing life will ever ask of us is that we change our mind. Here's me with God's golden opportunity to do just that, and it's the last thing I recognized.

Change your mind. No greater gift.

Thank you.