Blinding flash of the obvious: Respect is possibly the most important thing we can give to whatever is coming into our consciousness...be it person, thing. weather, or stumbling block.
Recently I heard a woman say that she reads Jesus's words in the original Aramaic. This was said in pretty much a "bragging rights" way, and I'm grateful I did not feel the need to respond in any way. (Probably, in truth, because I didn't think of a response until later when I was talking to my bathroom mirror.)
But the fact is it does not matter in what language we read any spiritual work...if we're reading to remember so we can preach it, we're missing the entire point no matter what spiritual work we're into.
I'm reminded of the short story, Flowers for Algernon, where the main character is just learning...period. He has just gotten...I remember not but say exclamation marks...and he's writing a letter: Dear! Sir! I! wish! to! advise! etc., etc., etc. That's true when we're reading to learn so we can parade what we're learning. The end result is we've got a bunch of words strung together, signifying nothing of spiritual significance.
To me, the sole reason for reading Jesus's words is to make them our own in order to live them. And by-the-by a soul reason for us to learn his words is to learn to live respect...which I am being led to believe is very likely the most important courtesy we can extend in our walking-around world today.
Respect especially includes for our own thoughts. Keep 'em courteous...our life's work in three words.
Thank you.
Saturday, December 14, 2019
Friday, December 13, 2019
LASTING PEACE - A TURNED-OVER MIND
. ...every detail of your lives is planned by Me...wait for Guidance in every step. Wait to be shown My way. ...All the responsibility of Life taken off your shoulders.... - God Calling, December 13,
Today's God Calling lays out what has been leading me deeper for awhile now. Deeper into the gut-bucket belief that the Father within is dealing my deck, has always, will always...the hook, of course, is daily waiting. To let that be true by trusting it...and trusting it is like breathing. No should I or shouldn't I? No but what about this other? No let me think this through to see if I agree.
We are breaking free of self when we accept that this is not doable in the walking-around world, meaning for the uninitiated. Which is why we seek still more spiritual growth, why we meditate, why we study the Sermon, why we take time daily to clear our cluttered mind...to be freer daily of self-will.
For a long time, we did seek, but only to be able to say we seek. For us actually to do that which we were learning, i.e., to turn the other cheek, to resist not evil, was a "some day" thing. And then, blinding flash of the obvious: Now is the acceptable time. Now is the only time.
This is our building faith time. We commit to being grateful that whatever action we take is of God. Admittedly, it may seem regrettable in the moment, but we soon recognize that's because we didn't think of it.
We pray our thank you and wait. Since we're relying on our training to seek the sliver of gold, it doesn't take long to find it. Our reasoning mind does not have a clue what is going to result, and we worry not for we are relieved of the fear of being wrong or the need to be right. We are at peace, which I like to think proves Rohr's contention that grace isn’t a gift for getting it right but for getting it wrong. There...peace of mind aborning.
Lesson learned: The only lasting peace for the reasoning mind is a turned-over mind.
Thank you.
Today's God Calling lays out what has been leading me deeper for awhile now. Deeper into the gut-bucket belief that the Father within is dealing my deck, has always, will always...the hook, of course, is daily waiting. To let that be true by trusting it...and trusting it is like breathing. No should I or shouldn't I? No but what about this other? No let me think this through to see if I agree.
We are breaking free of self when we accept that this is not doable in the walking-around world, meaning for the uninitiated. Which is why we seek still more spiritual growth, why we meditate, why we study the Sermon, why we take time daily to clear our cluttered mind...to be freer daily of self-will.
For a long time, we did seek, but only to be able to say we seek. For us actually to do that which we were learning, i.e., to turn the other cheek, to resist not evil, was a "some day" thing. And then, blinding flash of the obvious: Now is the acceptable time. Now is the only time.
This is our building faith time. We commit to being grateful that whatever action we take is of God. Admittedly, it may seem regrettable in the moment, but we soon recognize that's because we didn't think of it.
We pray our thank you and wait. Since we're relying on our training to seek the sliver of gold, it doesn't take long to find it. Our reasoning mind does not have a clue what is going to result, and we worry not for we are relieved of the fear of being wrong or the need to be right. We are at peace, which I like to think proves Rohr's contention that grace isn’t a gift for getting it right but for getting it wrong. There...peace of mind aborning.
Lesson learned: The only lasting peace for the reasoning mind is a turned-over mind.
Thank you.
Thursday, December 12, 2019
TO FIND OUR FATHER WITHIN...AGAIN
[This is a reprint of my post of June 30, 2018...slightly reworked.]
What if Donald Trump is our Saul of Tarsus? As in Saint Paul before his involuntary conversion.
What if that's you and me? What if we're all Saul...rigid, righteous and right...before involuntary or voluntary conversion? Some of us crash and burn leaving us no place to turn but to a power greater than ourselves; some of us are born seeking a higher power, and some are born into it. It makes no never mind how we get there, but get there we must...if not in this lifetime, then the next however many lifetimes it takes.
We keep coming back until we get it right according to me.
Will we open our mind to the possibility of it?..to the possibility that we are Trump in disguise...or Charles Manson...or Gertrude, our own nemesis? Are we willing to find within our own self that part of them we are repulsed by, to seek for that identity in order to release it...loose it and let it go...and find our Father within?
Until we do, we will be immersed in our own repugnant thoughts...calling our own thoughts Trump, Manson, Gertrude, et al.
Those thoughts will grow...but we won't.
Thank you.
What if Donald Trump is our Saul of Tarsus? As in Saint Paul before his involuntary conversion.
What if that's you and me? What if we're all Saul...rigid, righteous and right...before involuntary or voluntary conversion? Some of us crash and burn leaving us no place to turn but to a power greater than ourselves; some of us are born seeking a higher power, and some are born into it. It makes no never mind how we get there, but get there we must...if not in this lifetime, then the next however many lifetimes it takes.
We keep coming back until we get it right according to me.
Will we open our mind to the possibility of it?..to the possibility that we are Trump in disguise...or Charles Manson...or Gertrude, our own nemesis? Are we willing to find within our own self that part of them we are repulsed by, to seek for that identity in order to release it...loose it and let it go...and find our Father within?
Until we do, we will be immersed in our own repugnant thoughts...calling our own thoughts Trump, Manson, Gertrude, et al.
Those thoughts will grow...but we won't.
Thank you.
Wednesday, December 11, 2019
FEAR NOT, GOD IS NEAR
Life is a series of interchangeable problems and gifts...interchangeable because we often can't tell the difference. It's only by trudging all the way through to the other side that often we find we've mislabeled the problem and/or the gift. Which, by-the-by, is why we trudge with the Higher Power as our flashlight.
There will come a moment in time when our perceived problem is "fixed" in a flash...we know, we know we know, we feel safe, secure, at peace. The moment may pass into days...but then, whoa! Here's us, facing the same problem. Start trudging.
I bring good news...unbeknownst to us, this is our hidden gold mine.
This is the seed of the proof that the place upon which we stand is holy ground. The place where our faith takes root is in our moment of scared. Afraid that our fix was a self-driven wish, we turn within to our ever-aborning God...the One who is gifting us with understanding of Him and Her mysterious ways and the wonders It performs.
Showing us again that fear is naught but God in camouflage since nothing turns us to God faster than fear. When (not if) fear slithers into our imagining, without thought or hesitation we turn to God repeating our homemade mantra: Feel fear, know God is here.
A fairly cynical thought occurs: The chances are all of our assurances of peace on earth, and love and laughter, the only forever answer, will be tested until three days after we're dead. Well, what if? That will be if we're truly blessed for what else would turn us so consistently to God?
I feel like I've just been hugged by God.
Thank you.
A fairly cynical thought occurs: The chances are all of our assurances of peace on earth, and love and laughter, the only forever answer, will be tested until three days after we're dead. Well, what if? That will be if we're truly blessed for what else would turn us so consistently to God?
I feel like I've just been hugged by God.
Thank you.
Tuesday, December 10, 2019
GOD LOVES US...WAKE UP AND CHEER
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. -- attributed to Edmund Burke
Ah, the candle was lighted this morning. I read that and, as per usual when I read it, I felt guilty that I "do nothing." Comes now my blinding flash of the obvious: I do not "do nothing." I seek.
I know and I know I know that seeking counts...it is not nothing.
Lest my ego Lucy uses that to justify pondering and analyzing and calling that "doing something," the big time howsomever is, as Fr Richard Rohr has written, If your spiritual practice doesn’t lead you to some acts of concrete caring or service, then you have every reason not to trust it.
I seek within and without. One of my hard-won gifts is the acceptance of myself and my limitations. I do not march, lobby or proselytize, I make myself available, I welcome the exchange of ideas. I seek not to prove I am right or to be proved not right but to be one with the seekers of the self-less way.
The self-less way has been paved by many who have gone before. One can flounder by mixing and matching so I long ago settled on the Sermon on the Mount as my way, and all that comes from that is pretty much sacred to me.
Two ideas that come straight from the Sermon are my guides: (1) We have ceased fighting anything and anybody; and (2) It is a spiritual axiom that whenever anything upsets me, no matter what the cause, there is something wrong with me.
Proving those true in my walking around world counts as "something," which, best face it, is not easy. Ah, but there's the grounds for gratitude.
God loves me, you, them, ours and theirs so much!
Thank you.
Lest my ego Lucy uses that to justify pondering and analyzing and calling that "doing something," the big time howsomever is, as Fr Richard Rohr has written, If your spiritual practice doesn’t lead you to some acts of concrete caring or service, then you have every reason not to trust it.
I seek within and without. One of my hard-won gifts is the acceptance of myself and my limitations. I do not march, lobby or proselytize, I make myself available, I welcome the exchange of ideas. I seek not to prove I am right or to be proved not right but to be one with the seekers of the self-less way.
The self-less way has been paved by many who have gone before. One can flounder by mixing and matching so I long ago settled on the Sermon on the Mount as my way, and all that comes from that is pretty much sacred to me.
Two ideas that come straight from the Sermon are my guides: (1) We have ceased fighting anything and anybody; and (2) It is a spiritual axiom that whenever anything upsets me, no matter what the cause, there is something wrong with me.
Proving those true in my walking around world counts as "something," which, best face it, is not easy. Ah, but there's the grounds for gratitude.
God loves me, you, them, ours and theirs so much!
Thank you.
Monday, December 9, 2019
TRUTH MUST BE PROVED
My refined mantra: The hardest thing spiritual growth will ever ask of us is that we exchange our mind.
Our spiritual growth spurts open a needle's eye to a higher mind deep within, and the course of our life gets upturned. Without our reasoning mind's knowledge or consent...or we'd ever be analyzing the issue...we begin growing out of self into here and now, the place where God lives.
Living in our exchanged-mind world allows us to respond to life situations as opposed to react to them. Response is achieved through our inner listening, reaction is ego on parade...in a blinding flash of want-to.
We slowly learn a better way to live our life is to react not, but to hold to the recognition of our basic need to extend peace, love and joy to any and all. In this new reality we remind ourself, repeatedly, that each person or situation we meet is our angel.
Times will come, more often than not it seems, when we must disagree with another. We are not only allowed to disagree, it is essential if our egoic but what about me is to crash and burn. It is how we disagree that holds hope for our future.
Learning how to disagree is the mother lode of richest spiritual growth...not to speak not a word nor to go along to get along...neither to curse nor to curry...for both are self-determined objectives. Without disagreement we would be unlikely to grasp an essential goal: We disagree not to get peace but to have peace.
We come to the happy realization...through repeated self-managed do-overs...that we are only human, common as dirt (dirt being rich beyond imagining) and happy to be. This reality knocks the secure props out from under ego's determination to know, show and glow in pride of self.
I'm guessing the reasoning mind could put all these words together, but pull it off? Truth must be proved...meaning, God's work is cut out for us.
Thank you.
Our spiritual growth spurts open a needle's eye to a higher mind deep within, and the course of our life gets upturned. Without our reasoning mind's knowledge or consent...or we'd ever be analyzing the issue...we begin growing out of self into here and now, the place where God lives.
Living in our exchanged-mind world allows us to respond to life situations as opposed to react to them. Response is achieved through our inner listening, reaction is ego on parade...in a blinding flash of want-to.
We slowly learn a better way to live our life is to react not, but to hold to the recognition of our basic need to extend peace, love and joy to any and all. In this new reality we remind ourself, repeatedly, that each person or situation we meet is our angel.
Times will come, more often than not it seems, when we must disagree with another. We are not only allowed to disagree, it is essential if our egoic but what about me is to crash and burn. It is how we disagree that holds hope for our future.
Learning how to disagree is the mother lode of richest spiritual growth...not to speak not a word nor to go along to get along...neither to curse nor to curry...for both are self-determined objectives. Without disagreement we would be unlikely to grasp an essential goal: We disagree not to get peace but to have peace.
We come to the happy realization...through repeated self-managed do-overs...that we are only human, common as dirt (dirt being rich beyond imagining) and happy to be. This reality knocks the secure props out from under ego's determination to know, show and glow in pride of self.
I'm guessing the reasoning mind could put all these words together, but pull it off? Truth must be proved...meaning, God's work is cut out for us.
Thank you.
Sunday, December 8, 2019
ENCOMPASSED IN GOD'S LOVE
As I read again the words of Dr. Diana L. Hayes, "[Events of my life have] forged me in the fiery furnace of God’s love," it occurs to me that life has not necessarily forged me in a fiery furnace...it just seems that way to my ego Lucy.
Comes the dawn: It is fear of that "seems that way" that has made so many of my life's decisions.
Face it, "fiery furnace" whether of God's love or of ego's fear gets the old resistance up and revving. Without a commitment to spiritual growth, that resistance will ever...cannot but...do our thinking for us.
However, by relying on the Sermon wherein we are taught: Do not resist one who is evil, we can use that resistance to be released from our paralyzed clutch on reason as the way out. (By use I mean we welcome it, pray our thank you and trust God's will is already done here and now. And it is good.)
Letting go to the unseen in trust of a good outcome is the essence of reasoning mind's dark side. Which we need not fear for that, too, is encompassed in God's love.
Thank you.
Comes the dawn: It is fear of that "seems that way" that has made so many of my life's decisions.
Face it, "fiery furnace" whether of God's love or of ego's fear gets the old resistance up and revving. Without a commitment to spiritual growth, that resistance will ever...cannot but...do our thinking for us.
However, by relying on the Sermon wherein we are taught: Do not resist one who is evil, we can use that resistance to be released from our paralyzed clutch on reason as the way out. (By use I mean we welcome it, pray our thank you and trust God's will is already done here and now. And it is good.)
Letting go to the unseen in trust of a good outcome is the essence of reasoning mind's dark side. Which we need not fear for that, too, is encompassed in God's love.
Thank you.
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