DAILY UNLEARN; DAILY UNKNOW...AH, PEACE

My free-flowing thoughts today remind me of me back in the day...back when I was mind-wrestling with whether I should go to therapy to fix me...teach me how to stand up for myself, fight back, Be Somebody...or to stick with God and get whatever He had for me

 

Today's free-floaters, to me, reveal the difference between going to God for God to receive the ongoing blessing of giving over, giving up, giving in, and going to therapy to learn how to get right by my own reasoning, then to hold that line.

I swap my welfare for your welfare in my heart and in my head...my welfare is not mine, it is God's...to be concerned for my own welfare is to show no trust in God...God always has the welfare of me, of you, of others, giving bones to our goal to line up with Him and aid in His care for all of us...as we are learning (or unlearning, it is never what we think) to do for others...as others need to do the same for still others.

God's will for me: daily unlearn, daily unknow...remain open. I give thanks today for my slow but steady willingness to unlearn...to unknow...to resist not, to forgive.

here is a cause for joy:

the realization that every blessing

and all you hope for

is so close to you

as to be within you.

-- from John of the Cross, “The Spiritual Canticle”

There. We go to God for God, and that is all...for that is everything.

Thank you.

ON SURRENDERING TO OUR NEMESIS

It was a great gettin' up morning when I realized that the hardest thing that would ever be asked of me was that I change my mind. 

It was pure and rarified peace when I realized that changing my mind was not of me...it was of God. I suspect I recalled that the difference between my want-to and God's is the difference between a self-determined objective and the perfect objective which is of God.

It was an even greater gettin' up morning, however, when I realized that a changed mind is the first step up to a deeper exchanged mind. 

[SIDEBAR:  My definition of an exchanged mind: Being raised from our material mind into the spiritual mind, or to leave solid reason for transparent good. For instance, Peter in raised consciousness walked on water...until he had the thought, "I'm walking on water!" And he sank. He went from transparent good to solid reasoning.] 

The exchanged mind is not a one-shot deal...we must needs consciously go to our exchanged mind when we first find ourself resisting, judging, denying...anything. 

Ah, in a perfect world.

Neither living in a perfect world nor particularly wanting to, we see scrupulosity drum majoring the way. It is a difficult parade to march, a nigh impossible line to hold, the difference between still more spiritual growth and scrupulosity...mainly because spiritual growth allows for mistakes, errors, misjudgments, being flat-out wrong, and scrupulosity does not. Scrupulosity allows for rigid, righteous and right, enough said, shut up already. 

Being wrong has a friend...our friend tells us what to do when, not if, wrong. As in, promptly admit it, own it, take personal responsibility for it, hug it and kiss it and let it go. Sent it on its way, it is no longer ours, except for laughs at ourself when revisited in memory.

Scrupulosity's so-called friend lives in "do the next right thing." There's the perfect justification for sitting up in our head trying to decide on the right action to take to keep from being wrong. 

"Just do the next thing" is the necessary green light. When our desire is for still more spiritual growth, we need not fret that "just do the next thing" gives us permission to do wrong on purpose...that's just another I See Me doing our thinking for us...to stay us from moving forward.

Comes the awakening...surrender to the nemesis that our reasoning mind has for so long carried tenderly wrapped in needles and brambles is of God and our pearl beyond price.

Our exchanged mind knows that to give over, give up, give in is surrender. Whoa! We realize that surrender is acceptance, and acceptance is perfect peace. 

Thank you.

TO BE IN GOD CONSCIOUSNESS IS TO BE

Blinding flash of the obvious: The less I am recognized and notarized, the closer I am coming to Be.

Now that's a hard lesson to learn...or to accept, really...that the less we are getting our props, i.e., recognized and rewarded, the closer we are coming to God consciousness, to Be. 

Face it, who doesn't kinda wanna be known as "the winner," as not only doing it right but better than most. We are way aware, however, that "the closer we are coming to Be" is  the closer we are coming to being unnoticed, unacknowledged...eek, unquoted! There...that is reasoning mind on parade. 

Ah, but to Be, our inner Self knows from experience, is to be in the Silence...outwardly unnoticed...and the overwhelming surge of peace, love and joy that courses through us in that silence. 

It is in that silence that we Be...loved. We be the fount from which love flows. The love that flows without our knowledge or control. If we are lucky, the love that flows to the very ones who are in the midst of badmouthing us in the moment.

Our deep fear of not counting is our great gift of not needing to count...there is never a need in God consciousness...just Be.

Thank you.

SILENCE IS OF GOD

Try not to be as nasty as you want to be. -- my personal golden rule lifted from a Henry Mitchell column, "Washington Post," early '80s.

Slowly I am accepting an already known fact...it is my thoughts that are the source of my nasty...our thoughts that we must discipline daily not to be as nasty we want to be. We begin in our morning quiet time...before we remember that slight resentful nudge from yesterday (or ten years ago). That One, that s/he who sent the supersonic arrow that justifies our ego being as nasty as we want to be.

It is that arrow that is our bane and our gold. Our bane because it is so small as to appear easy-peasy to overcome when, in truth, it is I See Me, and we have never won that one; our gold because it is I See Me, and God's got that one.

Awareness unto acceptance is the bedrock of one day at a time...meaning every day...every day we go into our quiet time, into the silence, remembering "Silence is God’s first language," according to Thomas Merton.

In the silence, our inner eyes and ears are ever open to receive the guidance of our Father within. Face it, our Father would never guide us or our thoughts to be as nasty as we want to be.

Thank you.

AN IDEA, SPIRITUAL IN NATURE

All great work for Me is done first in the individual soul of the worker. -- "God Calling," May 10

An idea not of our own breaks in our head, that idea begins the changing of our mind for it is spiritual in nature. It comes from a different place than our reasoning mind, and no matter how teensy-tiny the thought, it feels radical...but right.

It takes time for that idea to start to move out, since it is all about changing our mind, and we have not a clue how to or even if we want to. Ah, but it is on the move...God is in charge. 

This journey takes as long as it takes since it is moving from our head down to our gut, making a U-bie back up to our heart from which it flows through our soul...changing us, changing our mind...with as many pit stops, detours and delays as our reasoning mind insists on. 

The delays, of course, are due to that new, radical, teensy-tiny idea, "for the benefit of others," being introduced...specifically, our doing for the benefit of others by our own giving up, giving in, giving over. 

Tell me that's not a crash-and-burn awaiting...tell me how crash-and-burn will come to be for my benefit. See how long it takes me to be convinced. There. That's how long it takes to change our mind...even while willing to believe God is in charge! 

Face it, it is because we get to choose...that free choice we got at birth with which ego is still trying to win while lip-synching God is in charge.

We once heard, agreed with and now talk, In the end all that matters is what we have done for others.

Well, Rubber, meet the road...let's roll.

Thank you.

DO AS HE DID, GET WHAT HE GOT

My last night's blinding flash of the obvious: Jesus was not "visited" by God from on high. He awakened to the realization of the Divine Presence as his  own, living within him.

Well, that is not news...ah, but it must come to us new.  

I suspect that same is true of the Buddha, Abraham, Francis and Clare, each mystic, saint and/or walking-around human being, then and now. All can and must realize as our own the living God within...fully and totally, the presence and power of God in all the holy names of God...or God as we understand Him.

We may believe that God is within, we may talk it...a lot...but in fact we only know the words and agree with them. Until our knowing is empowered from within...and, I'm guessing, until we test drive it repeatedly...we continue to live in the world of reason. 

It is these BFOs that assure us that we are heading in the right direction...that we are seeking to do as He did and, often, getting what He got. There. That's our proof of purchase, so to speak. 

That's what stays us on our course. By doing as He did, we get what He got, which assures us that "greater works than these" we can do.

Then I read Fr Richard Rohr's "Daily Meditation" today:  This inner knowing is the Indwelling Presence.

Can I get an "Amen"!

Thank you.

[SIDEBAR: It was purely for convenience that when first I got the word that I could have a "God as I understood him," I chose to follow the teachings of Jesus. At that time, the Buddha wasn't yet "in" so if  he crossed my mind, I would stop and think if the "h" came after the "B" or before the "a." Plus I knew how to spell Jesus. How my spiritual decisions were made...plain and simple.]

REALIZING ALREADY ANSWERED PRAYERS

On humility...on humility being the healer of pain: Humility heals from within else where would we go to get it? Asking God for humility is as spitting on God's gift of humility which is waiting within us all along. 

Our life flows with the humility, the spiritual, that grows within us...it is ours to choose whether we go with that flow.

In the words of St. Francis, It is no use walking anywhere to preach unless our walking is our preaching.

There was a time, back in the day, when I worried that I was not humble enough. Then I came to see that I would have to get humble before that could be a problem. 

After which I realized there is no "humble enough." Every waking moment is a realistic chance of our being humbled...and being humbled by our own invitation. The best we can hope for is enough self-awareness to see our part in it, to take responsibility for it...that is humility aborning. 

Pray for peace, then be the peace we pray for. 

Thank you.