THE BEST IS ALWAYS NOW

My morning blinding flash of the obvious: Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be. -- Robert Browning's words, God's today message.

The instant those words of Robert Browning came to me, I realized that this is God speaking to me. He is changing my mind, reminding me that by growing old with him, the best is yet to be. 

I have been putting my turning 80 down, the creaking, the panting, the pains. Then, this morning a video came to me from a beloved friend. It was of an old dog who had been neglected to the point of sick, sad, sorry and just looking to die. I was seeing a comparison in the two of us, then I read the rest of her story...she was rescued and is getting better with age.

That's when I had my BFO. Robert Browning's poem came to me, and I realized that I...me, my life and I...will get better with age as I grow with God. We have never not gotten better, and 80 is as good a growing up time as 33 was. (Which, by the by, to my mind at that time, was old, ancient, used up, over. Which is clearly another go beyond reason....)  

I'm reminded of the Gram Parsons/Emmylou Harris song, In My Hour of Darkness, In My Time of Need. It's then that God comes to me...lifts me up, kisses me on the lips, slaps me on the butt and sends me ever upward...deeper.

Thank you.

DEFEAT EGO...BE THE FIRST TO GIVE OVER

Love is the always answer, no matter the question, the problem, the "yes, but." Howsomever. To live love as the answer we must live in and from spiritual consciousness.

The material world is akin to a coin...two sides, one side good, the other not so much. People in the material world, without spiritual guidance, see only from their own life's experiences...quite often anger is their base for interpreting what they are seeing. 

Point: When we try really hard to do love...to be loving...to have love as our ever-present guide, we are inviting an either/or response...either, a friendly smile, a feeling of acceptance, or, the middle-finger salute, a snarky remark...in other words, a less-than friendly response. 

Our problem is us...whether we are  living from self-will, trying to give love to get love...or from spiritual will, to give love. 

That one word, try is the clue. That's the self-determined objective's anthem...try. 

When we try, our concentration is entirely on getting what we want, which causes us to forget that God knows our needs. We forget, or have never accepted, that we have all the love there is which was gifted us with birth. Instead of trying to give love to get love, we love...from our inner supply which is already there ready to be freed.

My to-date experience tells me that to go beyond reason to love is the first goal for spiritual growth. The spiritual lesson be the first to give over in any conflict or potential conflict means we go beyond reason...else we will be in an escalating conflict with our own reasoning mind refusing to give over, give up, give in. Which, face it, is the solution to our own ego's dictates.

We must go beyond reason...beyond the reasoning mind...to love...to God consciousness, One. 

Go beyond reason to love. 

Thank you.

FREE OF ME...RESIST NOT, WELCOME

But the mystery of transformation more often happens not when something new begins, but when something old falls apart. We will normally do anything to keep the old thing from falling apart, yet this is when we need patience and guidance, and the freedom to let go instead of tightening our controls and certitudes....It’s the deep yeses that carry us through to the other side.    -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," July 5, 2020

In my passing thoughts, I am certain that I just want to be free of me. Specifically, free of my petties, of my wants which invariably translate as needs to my ego. It is hard to remember those thoughts are my ego's forever want dressed up as a need. Kinda like the song I'll Go To My Grave Loving You, doubtless I'll go to my grave loving my ego wants...by resisting them. 

As Rohr writes, this is when we need the freedom to let go...we know from experience that tightening our controls and certitudes only nurtures that ego need.

An early blinding flash of the obvious re letting go came from my experience when I welcomed an incoming anxiety attack...and it did not attack. I, of course, thought I'd found a forever cure for anxiety, that I'd never have another just by praying thank you. 

That self-described fix, however, has proved to be temporary, meaning we have to welcome each anxiety attack each time, taking special care not to assume we're in control. To welcome with the idea that this gives us control, is to bring panic quick, hard, and mean...there is no self-control. 

I have found that, in general, when I welcome with God first in my mind and as my guide, often panic (or any other defect) slip-slides away. Ah, a major side-effect: The discovery that our defects of character are not  taken away forever...they are transmuted by grace and by God. 

In short, when we take anything too seriously, it becomes our mental savior, and we are totally under its control. That's when we go for love and laughter...p.d.q.  Face it, when we're being controlled by our own mental conniving, what else is there but love and laughter?

Loose it and let it go. 

Thank you.

HAPPY JULY 4, 2020

What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: A day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless. -- Frederick Douglas

Where's my beer? -- John Q. Public

-- Candorville, a cartoon, July 4, 2018

A Change Is Gonna Come 

Well, it's dark in the city

I've lost my pride

The lights in the streets hide the stars from my eyes

It's been a long, long time coming

But I know that change is gonna come

And it's too hard living

But I'm afraid to die

Cause I don't know what's up there

Just beyond the sky

It's been a long, long time coming

But I know that change is gonna come

And I miss my family

My little girl

She is my princess

I'd give her the world

It's been a long, long time coming

But I know that change is gonna come

I just need some comfort

Some kind of belief

That this war we're fighting

Can really bring some peace

There's no rhyme nor reason

Or sweet melody

More and more weapons

Mean less security

It's been a long, long time coming

But I know that change is gonna come

And I've tried to find it

Some better place

Where having the biggest gun

Ain't some kind of race

It's been a long, long time coming

But I know that change is gonna come

There's been times I thought

I couldn't last for long

But now I think I'm able

To carry on

It's been a long, long time coming

But I know that change is gonna come

It's been a long, long time coming

But I know that change is gonna come

Yes, a change is gonna come

--by Sam Cooke

Thank you.

GET CRACKIN', TIME'S A-WASTIN'

All this talk and turmoil and noise and movement and desire is outside of the veil; within the veil is silence and calm and rest. -- Bayazid at-Bastami (from Eknath Easwaran's "Words to Live By," July 3)

As I read that this morning, I thought of the Trump effect, the pandemic, the Black Lives Matter movement, the financial condition of so many, the condition of America itself...then, of course, how it is affecting me, then you, then the country, then the world. Apparently, we are stuck outside the veil, in the material world, the home of our reasoning mind.

I recalled what Dr. Barbara Holmes had written about the civil rights movement: You cannot face German shepherds and fire hoses with your own resources; there must be God and stillness at the very center of your being.... 

I knew that is the solution to a mind at fret, no matter the fret...a bad hair day, no food in the fridge, a pandemic..there must be God and stillness at the very center of our being. 

Then I read Fr Richard Rohr's "Daily Meditation," which told of Jesuit priest Walter Ciszek who spent five years in a Moscow prison, then was sentenced to fifteen years of hard labor in Siberian prison camps. Per Rohr, He is an example of someone whose life has been pared down to the 'one thing necessary' for he was able to live in deep peace knowing that God had stripped away from me many of the external consolations, physical and religious, that people rely on and had left me with a core of seemingly simple truths to guide me.

In short, he went on to say, The fullest freedom I had ever known, the greatest sense of security, came from abandoning my will to do only the will of God. 

My thoughts evidence my reasoning mind's path: First, that's for saints, clearly; second, even to try, I'd be setting the bar too high so why invite failure? 

Ah, and here comes God to save my day. Since he doesn't have my back only when adversity is coming from out there, he's also my golden goose when my own thoughts need help: Third thought, the Trump effect, the pandemic, the Black Lives Matter movement, etc., are my Siberian prison today...only we can begin to break free from our own self which, from experience, we know to be: Upgrade our attitude, upgrade our problem(s). 

Then Rohr (again) came to me with the question, What is your work to do today to bend the universe a little more towards justice?

My first step forward is to acknowledge that God has changed my mind: It's not just for saints. 

Thank you.

TAKE NOTHING PERSONALLY...WALK FREE

For human beings, affection is the ultimate motive, because the force that powers us...is not 'steam, magnetism, or gravitation,' but 'a Soul.' -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," July 2, 2020

We are taught whenever something upsets us, no matter what the cause, there is something wrong with us. This is deep down in our Soul truth...our upset is our reasoning-mind want in conflict with the God consciousness we seek. We are humbled by the discovery of what our real upset is...without fail, ego is the source. 

It is difficult to remember in the moment but nothing happens in this world that God is unaware of, hence cannot heal, fix, change for good, upgrade, make better. Ah, but only when we turn away from ego to that Power within awaiting our need. Awaiting in its hidey hole, the Soul.

Eventually we see that God has upgraded our problem which was always recognizable by our resistance to the fix. It is seldom, if ever, what we had in mind. We must never forget that ego legislates for itself, always and ever, for itself alone, and we are itself. There it is, the problem. 

It takes spiritual attunement, not spiritual knowledge alone, to turn away from our egoic solution (mine) to a solution for the benefit of the other(s)...how long that takes is entirely contingent on our willingness to loose it and let it go. 

It...and we...are freed when we no longer take it personally...neither the problem nor the solution. They exist no more. We know love and we laugh.

Thank you.

LOVE AND LAUGH...AGAIN

Don't tell me God doesn't love me buckets and boatloads. A note that I wrote six years ago is so on target for me today, I came on it in a daily reader today, July 1, from 2014: All the disputing of my word now is my invitation sent out and being returned...to see me as I appear to others so that I may forgive them for their reactions to me. 

There's an answered prayer...a prayer I didn't even consciously realize I was praying. Looking back, I see how the disputing calmed into nothingness.

Today, my word isn't being disputed, but my attack thoughts are on the march. OH...quick thought: so it is God's word that is being disputed, there's my upset, my inner discord. 

And so simple a fix...love and laugh.

That just happens to be the context of "God Calling" today: Learn daily the sublime lesson of trust and calm in the midst of storm. Whatever of sorrow or difficulty the day may bring My tender command to you is still the same -- Love and Laugh....[F]or all you may encounter in others, this should be your attitude, Love and Laugh. 

For all I may encounter...pandemic, civil unrest, political turmoil, America disrespected globally, and so forth and so on...it may take years for any or all of that to change, but calming my upset must begin now. Ah, the starting place never changes...with my thoughts which must be upgraded.

It is ever our thoughts that cause our pain, and it is our spiritual growth that informs the way: Our resistance to the turmoil must be surrendered. We know from experience that cannot be done by our reasoning mind...by our thoughts or by our prayers. 

Our prayer for our desired outcome, no matter how righteous and right our outcome seems to be or is, is not God's will as we're praying it...that's just us, our will. We're praying for an end to our pain, our confusion, our disarray.

God's will is not about our discord, God knows no discord...God is love. Love aborning in each and every living thing in the universe, humans, animals, plants...rocks included. 

Ours is to get quiet and let peace envelop us. Love of life will follow and we can laugh...for taking ourself too seriously.

Thank you.