TO GO BEYOND REASON IS TO GO TO GOD

Well, here it is, my latest life's paradox: We are to trust God utterly and completely which means we must go against our reasoning mind...whose self-determined objective is to trust God utterly and completely. 

That leads me to conclude that still more spiritual growth is our lifelong lesson. We slowly learn we cannot get it by thinking, reading, analyzing, discussing, debating...although, we even more slowly learn, it rarely comes without all that thinking, etc.

Our reasoning mind wants only the best for us...to live and let live, to love and be loved. Ummm and uh-oh...that is our want, according to our lights. 

God knows our needs: Love...or resist not, forgive and that is all. 

Learning unto doing still more spiritual growth is to love our enemies, let the one who badmouths us badmouth us, offer understanding to any who may work against us, be a forgiving person. ABTW, selective forgiveness is a control issue which is pretty much all the reasoning mind is, of course, a control issue.

There it is...the why of it, why still more spiritual growth is our lifelong lesson, why we rarely get there without thinking, reading, analyzing, discussing, debating. We cannot do it without prior proper planning, or just because we know better.  Pray thank you.

According to me, it boils down to trusting our spiritual path...God. Sometimes that feels like being stuck between a rock and a hard place...take heart, that's usually when we're doing it right.

We must go beyond reason to love...which is going to God for God and that is all.

Thank you.

THE PEARL OF POSSIBILITY

As I’ve come to understand that life 'composts' and 'seeds' us as autumn does the earth, I’ve seen how possibility gets planted in us even in the hardest of times. -- Parker Palmer

I am much taken with this quote of Parker Palmer's. On first reading, I flashed to yesterday's "God Calling" quote which advised us to empty our mind of all limits, and rest knowing possibility within us. The possibility that whatever is beautiful we can have through our still more spiritual growth.

It is possibility that is ever with us/within us, planted within us, even in the autumn of our  years, even with the ratcheting up of our fears. 

It is possibility that proves that as we age, "Live long and prosper" translates to, "Having lived long, prosper spiritually...more, ever more."

It is possibility that lives in our hearts and we know all things are possible with God. That has been our truth from early on, we are living that truth now. With an exchanged mind, why not without end? 

All things are ever possible, but with God, the possible flows from within you and me. There. That's the pearl beyond price.

Thank you. 

GO TO GOD FOR GOD AND THAT IS ALL

Empty your mind of all that limits. Whatever is beautiful you can have. Leave more and more the choice to Me. You will have no regrets. -- "God Calling," May 5

From my own experience, I know this: It matters not where we are, as in what angst we are living with, or when...at what age...that promise is flat-out true. 

As I often note, I have been reading "God Calling" daily for nearly fifty years...every year when I come to May 5, I read this and rejoice. I have underlined, highlighted, noted enough times to doubt it not...as I look back.

I started reading GC when I was in my 30s, I am now in my 80s...it holds out more promise to me today than ever before. Chances are that is exactly what I have thought and felt every year on reading it anew. 

Today I was gifted with a blinding flash of the obvious, i.e., to empty our mind of all that limits is to realize all our current "old-age" fears as that which is beautiful. All we need do is leave to Me more and more the choice of how we experience our fears. There...that is to have no regrets. 

I picture my  friends and each of our projected limits, i.e., fears. We are all in our 80s now, each of us living happily with an incurable, progressive disease. 

I pondered leave more and more the choice to Me, with "the choice" for each of us being: for Gertrude, dementia; for Jasper, depression, for Elmer, various physical ailments portending death at his door; for me, my childhood nemesis redux, left alone, unloved, unwanted, unneeded and unappreciated. 

I know, for a fact, that God has made our incurable, progressive disease beautiful for each of us, so I delight in thinking: Then why not dementia, depression, death, and left alone? 

The key, of course, is to empty our mind of all that limits...for all that limits is fear. 

Be not afraid, it is I. -- John 6:20

A new life really does begin at 80.

Thank you.

THE GIFT OF VULNERABILITY

At our most vulnerable, there is God's presence, protection and peace. It is in our vulnerability that true invincibility is manifested in the world.--  Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," May 4, 2021, paraphrased.

Vulnerability, according to Google, is "the quality or state of being exposed to the possibility of being attacked or harmed, either physically or emotionally." 

Well, there it is without the hair on it...and we need, not want, need!...to believe that being vulnerable is where we'll find God's presence, protection and peace. 

Vulnerability, i.e., being exposed to the possibility of being attacked or harmed, either physically or emotionally, is not something we joyfully anticipate happening...like, it's not on anyone's Bucket List. My mind goes to the likes of Joan of Arc or the Boys of La Pointe du Hoc...they did not have "being vulnerable" as a choice to make but a fact to face...and face it they did.

I'm guessing vulnerability is a side bennie in spite of our best efforts to protect against it. It's not like as if we face our worst fear just to feel vulnerable. No. In spite of our vulnerability, we do what we gotta do...and looking back, joy in our own Atta Girl! 

A friend once shared that she had been placed in a position where she knew not what to do or to expect but she went forward doing what she could do...and won big. She said she knew afterward that her vulnerability was what won for her. Vulnerability is attractive in its purity.  

All this is by way of understanding that our self-protective instincts are not always our best shot; trusting our Father within is always our best shot. We come to that trust by divorcing ourself from our egoic need to self-protect. 

Our Father knows our needs. Knowing that, believing that, walking that does not protect us from feeling vulnerable when we are caught unaware. 

Ah, vulnerability. There it is, our sliver of gold...pray thank you.

Thank you.

ON REACHING COMPLETE ACCEPTANCE

One block to acceptance is the self-satisfaction that comes to us when, on being falsely accused, we know we have back-up that will prove the accuser wrong. 

Ego's glorious danger is getting stuck in the feeling of actual joy that we can shame her, make him sorry, or (our self's deepest dread) publicly humiliate them. 

The ultimate and hard-to-learn-but-do-it lesson comes by way of practicing daily becoming unto being so attuned to our spiritual center, to God, that no thought of payback enters our mind. (This I am learning to accept by believing or to believe by accepting.) 

But first, our spiritual lesson is all about accepting the need to let go of our desire either for glory or to punish. This is what the Sermon is all about which explains why it is as a foreign language when we begin our study of it; e.g., if someone slaps you upside your head, turn the other cheek.  (Initial reasoning mind reaction: I do not think so. Long-sought spiritual response: Thank you.)

We come again to our spiritual path: We must go beyond reason to love. We must needs recognize many times over that love is God...we must go beyond reason to God. 

Comes the dawning: Our reasoning mind is changed when we stop trying for reason and let go, accepting that our mind has been exchanged.

We have come to believe that God can and will intervene in our life in our behalf.

Thank you.

THE STEEP CLIMB DEEPER

 I am gobsmacked...again!...by the first line in today's "God Calling," To conquer adverse circumstances, conquer yourselves. 

Here's me, sitting in the middle of "adverse circumstances"...again!...with my egoic mind spinning churning, spitting out one-liners that'll set her straight...her, being the choice of my adversity.

Long/short: Open House yesterday, her unit was not one opened, I was not even on the tour, she apparently thought I was so mistakenly left me an insultingly rude voice message accusing me of entering her unit "uninvited, call me!" 

How unforgiveable is that! Like, I should trust that God thinks that's OK? I should not resist being personally insulted?...my very character assassinated? Well, and harrumph, I do not think so!

I've gotten far enough into the source of all my woes to recognize my resistance to her begins (and no doubt ends) with the plain fact that from the jump I have found her less-than-wonderful. 

In my quiet time this morning, I recognized her as another angel, gifting me with an opportunity to do that which I preach: Trust God, resist not, forgive. 

I promise, sitting in my head, that is golden...I only love it. It is the answer to any and all of life's problems. 

I promise, doing it...whoa now. She actually...practically...accused me of breaking and entering into her condo! 

Only here comes God all wrapped up in my "God Calling," selling his side of the story. And there's my dilemma: Trust God or trust my reasoning mind? Oh, rats.

This is the place where what I know and what I do are two entirely different matters...and only I can choose which way to go. Knowing that either way will lead me to God, it's just a matter of how long I want to sit and stew in the luxurious, self-glorifying feeling of being rigid, righteousness and right. Or of letting me (not her, me) off my hook...by changing my mind and accepting that she took herself a tish too seriously, which I do every chance I get, and let it go. 

And there it is, the nut: If I could just let it go by knowing better, I wouldn't even be writing about it. Just saying that I've let it go is me trying to make an end-run around God. The hard work of going to God for God is going to God for God...for as long and as often as it takes for my want to be washed clean by my need...to go to God for God and that is all.

At least I know when next I see her, I'll be trying not to be as nasty as I want to be. God's grace comes just as it comes to those in need.

Thank you.

OUR FATHER KNOWS OUR NEEDS

In my study of the Sermon, I am this morning at Matthew 6:25-33 "Therefore I tell you, do  not be anxious about your life [then He names eat, drink, wear and compares to how God feeds, waters, clothes the birds, beasts and nature] ...your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well." 

I'm thinking of this ending with do not be anxious Period, end of sentence. Which then opens me to the Just Do It part, i.e., Trust, Forgive, Resist Not. 

My God-aim is to seek first his kingdom...to trust God, forgive you and me, and resist not/resist naught.

[Note: I do not mention here and his righteousness. That is the juggernaut. I say often I wish he'd left it at "seek first his kingdom" which, comparatively, is easy-peasy, but his righteousness??? Mercy. That's a hard one for me to want without egoic reservations...even eyebrows up takes some serious work.]

At any rate, thus begins my Get Over Yourself work...my acceptance of anxiety at a deeper level higher since, to date, anxiety has been my sliver of gold linking me to God. It was anxiety that told me nothing turns me to God faster than fear; ergo, love, laugh, fear and get on with it.

So far in my life, spiritual freedom has come by doing that which I believed to be right, and, when (not if) wrong, admitting it and making my U-bie. The time it takes each time is the time it takes each time. 

This is my trust by doing, forgive by my U-bie, resist not by admitting and moving on.

Obviously, this is a plain and simple roadmap to free-from-me. I long ago realized I would need to strive to be a Grandma Moses wannabe in doing spiritual since I have a hard enough time staying between the lines of my own understanding.    

I'm guessing that is why the last three stanzas of the St Francis prayer lighten my heart: For it is in self forgetting that we find; it is in forgiving that we are forgiven; it is in dying to self that we are reborn into everlasting life.

Thank you.