ENOUGH AND MORE THAN ENOUGH, PART II

[This is an updated version of my post of May 31, 2012]

When I was 10 years old, my 12-year-old brother, who was my hero, became very ill and was admitted into Children's Hospital. After a month or so of many tests, he was found to have an incurable illness, was brought home and, three months later, passed away. There was enormous debt, yet we never went hungry, we always had a roof over our head, a bed to sleep in...enough, in a word. I'd be putting on airs to call us "middle class," but it never entered my mind that we'd not have...enough.

Same goes in my adult life...I have always had enough. I've never gone hungry, I've always had my bed to sleep in, I've always been able to pay my rent or mortgage, I've always had friends...I've always had enough.

Yet it is a fact that back in the day my prayers to God were always for more. I'd dress it up right pretty, but it was always for more...more love, more glory, more security...more.

I've been pondering this since I saw a news story recently about a youngish teacher whose job was abolished. From the sounds of it, she immediately went right down the tubes. Lived on the streets, admitted, with tears in her eyes, that she went home more than once with a stranger..."lived under the bridge" in the vernacular and maybe in truth.

My heart went out to her because I know the pain of relying on the reasoning mind to fix our problems. It matters not if they are the apparently unfixable ones or the dailies, our go-to fix is ever our reasoning mind...worrying, in point of fact, but call it thinking, please.

My interpretation of her story is that in her consciousness that job was her security, her God. If she lost the job, she lost her God...no job, no God. So that when that happened, it so demoralized her, so demolished her, that she simply slipped into hopelessness, rather than accept that the job was not the answer...rather than change her mind.

Lo! It is the reasoning mind's utter defeat that frees its worst case scenario from the bondage of self. The dreaded surrender gets its time to shine. In our inability to think of a solution, feeling hopeless, helpless, powerless, our Soul seeks help...and we are raised into a deeper consciousness.

We go beyond reason to love, to our Higher Power...and find green pastures, still waters, peace. Enough in a word.

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want....

Thank you.

WE MAY BE WILLING, BUT ARE WE READY?

Jesus is the stand-in for all of us. We had thought our form was merely human, but Jesus came to show us that our actual form is human-divine, just as he is. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," January 10, 2022 

When I read that sentence from Rohr on January 10th, I felt gobsmacked. I had had a blinding flash of the obvious just two weeks previously, to wit: 12/27/21 BFO: Jesus is the generic name for me.

That thought has been paying stop-and-go visits since it came to me, then Rohr's quote gave it more credence...more "what if?" possibility. 

It was my (at the time kinda embarrassing) BFO about the name Jesus being generic for me that caused me pause. Then I realized, if generic for me, then for all of us in this world...which opened me to its roots, as in, what else could the Father and I are One be about? 

I'll say this, it is a lot easier for me to see me being "loving" to my Gertrude-nemesis as opposed to "not as nasty as I want to be" when I picture me walking in Jesus' sandals.

For  now, I'm taking this as my 2022 To Try For...I can only give it my best shot which is God-directed so I just need remember to walk behind and follow directions. As always, mistakes will be made...and why the quiet word is when, not if, wrong, promptly admit it.

I feel like I'm setting out on a journey! As has been said, if invited to go to Paris, we know we're willing to go but are we ready? As in, current passport? Shots? Packed?   

I'm trusting that I wouldn't have had my blinding flash if I weren't ready. And if I'm not, what's the harm in trying? Win-win.

God loves me so much. 

Thank you. 

P.S.  For years the very word "Jesus" gave me heartburn...except to mock, I did not go there. Early on my path of spiritual growth, three personal events happened not simultaneously but too close to quibble over...first, I found it essential to find a God of my own understanding, then spirituality was introduced to me, then I learned from one of the first members of my fellowship that the Sermon on the Mount was their early-days textbook...and that Sermon came from Jesus's mouth to our ears. Thus ended my resistance.

NOT PUNISHED, TAUGHT...LISTEN

A half-awake thought tottered into my mind this morning; namely, I probably should quit thinking that we must go through the muck and mire to realize our good...that that is why I'm not rich, famous and beloved by all. 

Believe it, that opened my eyes p.d.q. Doubtless it flashed the thought that it is the realization of the rough and rutted road as My way that, "rocketed into the 4th dimension," has kept me there or close enough. Clearly, "rich, famous and beloved by all" is I See Me, that first one a-calling. 

For whatever reason, as I sipped my coffee, relieve me of the bondage of self came to mind. With it, I realized that we are relieved of the bondage of self today, but we trot along with the reins of self ever present, albeit invisibly. Whenever I See Me, the reins tighten, sometimes imperceptibly, and we head too far left, too far right. 

It is the trust we have built through spiritual growth that reminds us God knows our needs and remembers for us our learning to drive a car...a little to the right, back to the left is the way. It is also the Way that leads us out of self to God.   

Life is all about our return journey to God...our passage along the path of the material mind with its many detours, pitstops, U-bies and necessary changes of mind. We are ever being led deeper into the consciousness of the higher Power.

God is so good to us...we are never punished, only taught. 

Thank you.

THE HOW-TO FOR A FOREVER GOOD OUTCOME

I am reminded...yet again...that all paths lead to God. We will get to where we need to get to as we learn to surrender our wants and welcome our need. There are unlimited wants, some often necessary...think your favorite thing, as in Georgette Heyer Regency romance novels...ah, but there is only one need.

Wants are of the reasoning mind, need is of God. 

As we grow spiritually, we discover our reliance is not so much on thinking and rethinking but more on a wondering acceptance of intuitive knowing. Going less to our reasoning mind allows reliance on intuitive answers to catch breath within us. 

As we're growing into our intuition, it sometimes comes up bupkis...but that is also true of our reasoning mind even after we "think it through." There it is: Choose you this day whom you shall serve, and be ready to accept that neither is going to be to our liking one hundred percent of the time.

The walking-around fact is that neither reasoning mind nor intuition are black-and-white proven beneficial before their time. With a good reasoning mind outcome, we strut our stuff and move on; with intuition, sometimes outwardly the result seems to be less-than-wonderful but inwardly proves to be priceless. 

That is our building of faith, of trust in our spiritual core, a forever "good outcome."

Thank you.

IF WE ARE TO HAVE PEACE ON EARTH...EXTEND IT

An atmosphere of loving understanding to all. This is your part to carry out, and then I surround you with a protective screen that keeps all evil from you. It is fashioned by your own attitude of mind, words, and deeds., towards others. -- "God Calling," January 17

Extending an atmosphere of loving understanding to all, is to invite into our life even those with whom we disagree. It is then that we begin to realize they are truly our angels for few but the personally disagreeable turn us so quickly...so sincerely...away from self toward God.

We delve deeper under Saint Francis' words, "Help me to seek to understand rather than seek to be understood," and we are opened to the beyond-me prayer, "Relieve me of the bondage of self." There. Our invitation to God to help us shuck the shield of resistance.

To the reasoning mind everything we feel the need to resist, loosely put, qualifies as evil. Thus our  glimmer of acceptance to resist not evil...to the recognition that our need is basically to resist not. All our arguments, debates, no-nevers about resist not evil as God's will are as crib notes for ego.   

We are on the precipice of that leap of faith out into the wild blue yonder...of actually realizing unto living the words: This is your part to carry out, and then I surround you with a protective screen that keeps all evil from you. It is fashioned by your own attitude of mind, words, and deeds., towards others. 

There's the key to the kingdom of Heaven...others.

It is not complicated. We have come to believe and trust that God has our back, knows our needs, can and will intervene in our life in our behalf. Now, we pass it on...to others who are seeking to extend it to others, who are seeking.... 

It is not about me, it is not about you, it is about us for we are each somebody else's other. It is about all of us in this world and the peace we seek.

...if we are to have peace on earth, our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. . . . We must develop a world perspective. No individual can live alone; no nation can live alone, and as long as we try, the more we are going to have war in this world. . . . The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Thank you.

SILENCE...ON LETTING THE SPIRIT SPEAK

Our true and deep need is to experience the unitive mystery in ourselves and in all of creation. The spiritual and the material are one....For more and more people, union with the divine is first experienced through “the Universal Christ”—in nature, in moments of pure love, silence, inner or outer music, with animals, or a primal sense of awe. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," January 16, 2022

I seem unconsciously to be evidencing silence as my new learning tool, and consciously recognizing  that my work is to accept that as the beginning of still expanding consciousness. 

Most like, this is why trust has been the flashing light to my inner eye for a while now. I need honor the voice of the Spirit by my trust in silence, as in letting my spoken words come or not only as the Spirit moves me. 

Mistakes will be made. 

But I trust, and my trust is supported and encouraged by knowing in willing wonder that mistakes will be made...if I'm doing it right. There will be no mistakes if self-willed silence prevails...then my Old Reliable can be tape crossed the mouth.

Whoa, Wow, and Oh rats. This is all news to me. But look....no exclamation points ! . Proof...silence aborning.

Here's me, Lord, do with me, build of me, as you will so that I may better serve you.

Thank you.

THE GIFT OF UNKNOWING, II

[The following is a reprint of my post of December 31, 2015.]

The more we know the more we know we don't know...reasoning mind weeps, Spirit exults.

Thank you.