EGO-DEFLATION AND GLORY

Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on My account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so men persecuted the prophets who were before you. - Matthew 5:11-12

 

Note the three words in the quote, on My account...not as a personal matter and not to denigrate us. Plain and simple, the point is flat out on My account, or fancy, For The Glory Of The Lord (which kinda puts my back up but that's on me). 

This is the windup of the Beatitudes, the final verses, and, I'm convinced, the crux of the matter. What could be a more ego-deflating proposition than having all manner of evil uttered against us...falsely!... and getting to rejoice and be glad about it? Reminds me of poor, pitiful Bobby McGhee who was left busted flat in Baton Rouge, waitin' for a train...I've always felt for the rejected me in Bobby.

To go a step further, the achieving of this ego-deflation is well nigh impossible even thanking God righteously...it is not an easy leap. Which brings up my explanation of reincarnation...we keep coming back until we get it right. Right is when we have no hand in it, i.e., not by self-will but by God's will. 

We are seeking God through a raised consciousness, and our consciousness can be lifted deeper only on My account. The key is to remember, or not forget, the Father and I are one. I suspect true spiritual growth does not start until we realize, experience and live in that truth. Speaking of feeling  busted flat and waiting...oh wait, here comes the light: that feeling is not a fact, and we're waiting on My account.   

All roads lead to God. I try to live by the Beatitudes, in particular Matthew 5:11-12, mainly because there is no possibility of my  misinterpreting it for my benefit...which is just me trying to make an end-run around God's will for me. I finally got it. If I'd do it his way to begin with, it would result in his intervening in my life in my behalf...plus, I wouldn't resist having yet another amends to make.  

Yet I'm convinced the following say the same thing just in fewer words: First, there's Easwaran's quote, the Buddha sums up the spiritual life in one simple phrase: 'going against the current.'  Then there is our dreaded favorite: We have ceased fighting everything and everybody. Ego-deflation in depth, baby.

Thank you. 

LOVE CAN LITERALLY CHANGE OUR BRAIN

I remember nearly fifty years ago now when my beloved friend, Ellie B., and I set out to learn about love, specifically how to love. Learning to love. How hard can that be? He caught on before I did, but then he always swore the reverse. Both of us trying to be humble probably.

At any rate, learning to love is not easy-peasy...shucking our shields is merely a first step in the right direction. The first shield being our overcoming, letting go, detaching from our fear of being loved. Wholly and completely loved...God's free gift to give, ours to accept. 

To accept, we must loose our shield, ego's invisible fortress, and let it go. That fortress is loosed through ego-deflation in depth...in short, a swap out of our self-determined objective for God's perfect objective.  

As we know, we defeat our purpose when we try sending self-determined love to anyone...simply put, trying to self-will love for a perceived unlovable can only get us bupkis. 

Love for others comes from within our own self for our own need. Our own need to love. Which then invites anyone in need ...or even want...of love. Dogs have this in their DNA.

I'm convinced love is nonresistance...don't resist, depersonalize. Take nothing personally, and nothing attaches...to our ego or our id...likely because taking nothing personally is a spiritually based action. Spiritually, there is no personal self to protect. There is only Self, which covers it.

The primary analogy for God is Source of Love, Word of Love, and Spirit of Love....Our hearts can literally change our brains. Our altered brains will change our actions. -- Professor Heidi Russell as quoted in Fr Richard Rohr's "Daily Meditation," January 13, 2022

Thank you.

THE BAD NEWS IS THE GOOD NEWS...THANK YOU!

As usual, I read my "God Calling" this morning, but the first sentence...the first paragraph!...of the  reading sent a tingle, a chill, a whaa? through me. I felt gobsmacked twice-over. 

Here is the source of my, ummm, surprise: You must say 'Thank You' for everything, even seeming trials and worries.

See my dilemma? 

I have read those words close to every day for nearly 45 years, yet there is not an underline, a hi-lite, no note by me at all marking them...as in, no indication that I attached any importance to them...or that they attached to me.

However, some years back I felt thunderstruck when I read Meister Eckhart's If the only prayer you pray in your life is thank you, that would suffice. Which I have not only quoted daily but have lived by also daily...or close enough...since the day I first received or realized the import.

I suppose I feel so elated this morning for there is the proof I seek...the answer I have been relying on, living if you will, for the past maybe 20 years has been mine for the past nearly 45 years. So, for 25 years I have wandered through my life clueless, praying for I knew not what. All the while, there was my answer in my daily reading...more importantly, awaiting within me. (Actually, waiting since before conception, but that's a whole 'nother, deeper layer higher.)

Now I can aver from my own experience: All our answers are within us, waiting to be realized, all our needs are already met within us, waiting to be released...not by self-will but by the Father, not we, when he knows we are ready. 

The Father knows our needs. Yes! Now we sit and wait on the Lord. Oh. Rats. But thank you!

Thank you.

FINDING PEACE IN DIFFICULTIES...THE ONLY WAY

This morning, I am reminded that all roads lead to God, that it is our mistakes that bring us to crash and burn...thus opening the door on which God knocks allowing thank you to enter and set us free.

Since our reasoning mind cannot believe it is that simple, we almost always go with guilt...stuck in the muck and mire of our yesterdays. Then we're left with our egoic go-to, feelings of unloved, unwanted, unneeded and unappreciated. There. Evidence that we willingly wrap up in yesterday's ego...ahem...stuff. 

Ever-new old BFO: There is no God in yesterday, or, for that matter, in tomorrow...God is only here Now.

I suspect we can hear this, want this, but cannot trust this because we need live it for so long before its wobbly legs gain walking-around strength. Yet it is a wary fact that often others can see our change before we are fully aware...or dare to believe. 

The "others" are our angels in disguise. Believe them. Then say thank you.

Life with Me is not immunity from difficulties but peace in difficulties....Expect rebuffs until this is learned -- it is the only way. -- God Calling, January 8

Thank you.

LET GO & LET GOD IS NOT JUST AN OLD ADAGE

Nonresistance. Face it, the word nonresistance shouts "loser," at least to the spiritually unformed mind...and a long time into the spiritually forming mind. The reasoning mind comes to our aid when we become willing to want to believe. We can ponder with selfless intent.

Nonresistance to those who have crashed and burned and experienced utter hopelessness, the absence of self-will, know gratitude for the resultant miracle. 

My recent blinding flash expanded my awareness. We call many things "miracle" today...but I suspect that actual miracles seldom occur purely because we are living in the flow of grace now. That first miracle of crash and burn has never stopped, it is just continuing with the flow of grace through us. 

The sooner we detach from one-shot-miracle thinking to the acceptance of grace in our life's happenings, the sooner we can believe without our fingers crossed. Our realization and acceptance allows us to believe in God's blessing of a defeated self-will as a continuing spiritual necessity. 

Let go and let God is not just an old adage. 

Thank you.

BEST PART...IT IS NO LONGER DEBATABLE

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be satisfied, - from the Beatitudes

It is our hunger and thirst for righteousness that invites God to transmute our rues, regrets and remorses into our good, love and laughter...our satisfaction.

To my elementary, keep-it-simple-stupid mind, either we must have something to show as evidence of God's protection or he has to have something to correct to overcome our doubting minds.  

Our spiritual growth has led us to the realization that there are no irreversible mistakes...only opportunities for God to reveal his protection. We go forward, often wary but not deterred, living a trusting life. 

In trust we make our mistakes. We are amazed they no are longer rues, regrets and remorses but...let's call them "misfires."  In God's perfect outworking, a misfire becomes an admit-to-it error in judgment...creating a pearl beyond price. 

I am grateful that I learned early to take the step allowing us to make mistakes; i.e., when, not if, wrong promptly admit it. That is my backup, my proof of truth if you will. 

With that in my pocket, I pray thank you freely (or not so much) for my daily mistakes, knowing they do not define me, the end...no, they inspire me to grow, to extend love and laughter...to get out of self. 

That is a lot easier to write about than to walk about, giving us another pearl beyond price: God perfects that which is given us to do.

Thank you.

TRAIN AND DISCIPLINE FOR GOD TO USE

 ....train and discipline yourself. That is your work -- Mine is to use you. -- "God Calling," January 6

Blinding flash of the obvious: Take care my own idea of what is right does not hinder God's will. 

Self-denial begins with our realizing our need for daily training and discipline...fitting ourself to be of maximum service to God and the people about us. 

We begin by developing the habit of denying our little self its hurt, wronged, rigid, righteous and right feelings. The sliver of gold is our own conscience which natters us until the time is right...then, God will not be denied. The way is cleared, and we are opened to God which uses our faculties to correct our own boondoggles. 

It is our want-to that needs the discipline...our want to feel the delicious hurt of our victim that must be denied. Others supply us daily with reasons to try not to be as nasty as we want to be, to not react in kind, but to free the love that lives within us seeking to be released. 

A new way of thinking, a clarifying thought, comes like the proverbial thunder 'crost the Bay...others' hurt, anger, misunderstanding, none are mine to fix! These are the others' spiritual needs...these are for the others to accept as their boondoggles looking for God's fixit. 

The recent quiet word about silence, for me to hold my silence, is balm to my tongue. 

As I pray my thank you, I wanna believe I hear Meister Eckhart whispering, "Told you so." 

Thank you.