GOD IS HERE NOW...TRUST IT

[The] seemingly negative way of the cross could not, and would not, be wrong....Many say pain is physical discomfort, but suffering comes from our resistance, denial, and sense of injustice or wrongness about that pain. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," April 4, 2022

Spiritual truth came to me feeling like a reversal of rational thought. I called it "mirror vision," and I did not know this was acceptable until I read it described by a spiritual authority, probably Goldsmith or Fr Richard, as just that, "mirror vision."  

The Sermon on the Mount certainly fills that bill. When first I read if someone slaps you upside your head, turn the other cheek, I balked...then I read resist not evil and I really balked. Face it, the Sermon does not make a lick of sense to the reasoning mind. Yet, with my own thinking put on hold, that very Sermon has birthed my go-to...the Steps upon which my experience grows me to a higher place deeper. 

Then there is Thaddeus Golas' "Lazy Man's Guide to Enlightenment" wherein he writes that we must go beyond reason to love. Does that make sense on first read? or second, third or fourth for that matter? 

Not without a spiritual bent, intuition, or an authentic crash and burn experience do we even consider  going beyond our own thinking processes...that which we were taught as good and right is good and right, enough said.

Resist not evil, going beyond reason, et al., come down to trust. When we quit fighting the words and become willing to trust the meaning, spiritual growth takes root. The root is trust.

God is not in yesterday, God is not in tomorrow, God is here Now. The way to trust God, the Father within, is to let him Now.

 

People waste so much time in seeking to work out what they see. I declare to  you that in the seeing My purpose, all is done. -- "God Calling," April 14

Thank you.

STAYED ON THE SURFACE NEEDS A LEAP OF FAITH

Without divine accompaniment, most of us will stay on the surface of our own lives, where small-spiritedness keeps us from being bothered by others. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," March 27, 2022

There it is, my egoic fear: lacking divine accompaniment, I am stayed on the surface of life. I can know it for the ego's fear by my self-flagellation when a fly-speck of my small-spiritedness enters into my consciousness. 

The message I first received resonates in me...empty self of self, embrace the Will of our Father within. 

God comes in on a wing and a prayer reminding us, Joy is the result of faithful trusting acceptance of My Will, when It seems not joyous (from God Calling, January 8). I come back to that like a treasure hunter closing in on the gold.

Another paradox: Resisting God's will when it goes against our will is how we build faith...another self-fear comes to our aid by our being proved wrong. Our will is never better than God's will. 

Ego fears come, and ego fears go. Let them. Pray thank you as we hug them, kiss them on the lips, and let them go.

Thank you.

NONRESISTANCE...ACCEPTANCE IN A HARD HAT

 Blinding flash of the obvious:  We...all of us...everyone does now and has ever had the God of our own understanding...we just did not have our own permission to believe that...what we thought was what we got...and called it luck...rotten or good depending on our state of consciousness.

An atheist and a religious fanatic, thought wise, are basically one and the same...their individual want, No God/Super God, is the God of their own understanding. 

It is dual thinking that invites competing egoic minds each wanting to be right...with the  end result being insurmountable resistance to change.

What does it matter to a super religious Jenkins that Gertrude believes there is no God, thinks of herself as an atheist? And vice versa...what does it matter to her that he identifies as super religious, his God can, will and does all?  

The matter is their thinking about it. 

The thing that needs changing is their mind.

The change necessary is the release of resistance.

Nonresistance is not to agree willy-nilly...it is to not reject willy-nilly. We resist not evil not by agreeing with evil, no...we pray thank you which releases our resistance and invites a higher Power's take on the situation...which, after all, is acceptance.

Acceptance...the mind opens higher to a deeper understanding. 

Thank you.

ON THE SECOND HALF OF LIFE

Fr Richard Rohr has written about the second half of life and of a surrendering love, reflecting on Jesus' intentional path of descent.

His writings have led me to a new realization: We are not being resocialized as a result of the pandemic, that is but a tool we chose, we are being socialized into higher consciousness deeper...where all our rues, regrets and remorses are God's slivers of gold, his rod and his staff are love and laughter, and Now is the only reality. 

Our socialization is all about our proving this, not from our self but from within our self. 

The proof comes with our acceptance that it is not through our words or thoughts, i.e., personal efforts, that we are socialized into higher consciousness...showing our butt in public is but God's tool to  use...but by the will of God, the invisible Father within. 

Well into this second half of life, we realize that every word we speak, every passing thought, is God's  grace aborning. Awed, we begin to regret not...to gratefully accept the unacceptable, the unlovable, the unfair, a.k.a., the unnecessary burden of self-will. We surrender in a word.

The Way on this second half of life is the path of intentional descent to the Father within.

Thank you.

WE TURN FROM REASON TOWARD TRUTH

We realize Truth, the same Truth, often and oftener...which does not mean we are relearning or have not learned it previously. We are simply using that Truth as it is intended to be used...repeatedly. 

Comes now the time when we hold our nose and take a leap of faith...we quit quoting by rote the Verified Qualified or our mentors and teachers and move out in faith...where we become less visible, often misquoted, misunderstood, ignored. 

The time is Now...we feel our Soul as it jumps up and shouts Hallelujah! 

The seemingly downward path is the way of the Lord...against our reasoning mind deeper to a higher consciousness. 

We're on the right road, heading in the right direction...away from self toward Self.

Thank you.

JOY IN FEELING GOD'S HUG

[This is a reworked version of a post of mine from December 2015.]

  

I suspect that the only real bondage is the inner bondage of self-centered fear...and, as has been asked, what other kind of fear is there? The gazillion what about mes?...what ifs? The garbage of the future that sends otherwise rational people to an early grave or, more like, a desire for it...or their medicine cabinets. God who?

We all have the occasional what-to-do panicky thoughts no matter how deep our spiritual growth. The discipline is in limiting the time we give to the panic that walks, talks and cries like a baby in our head.

We know, we know: Upgrade our attitude...change our mind. It takes a minimal amount of time...a heartbeat...to turn our thoughts toward God. It is our ego-fear that we must detach from. It only has as much power as we give it, but when we give it an inch we have given it our all.

The paradox is to detach by not resisting. Resist not evil, a.k.a., kiss it on the lips. That and a shaky but sincere thank you, and we joy in the feeling of God's hug. 

Thank you.

TO TRY TO BELIEVE IS TO NOT BELIEVE

We come again to a season of discontent. We have come far in our belief in a loving God...the God of our own understanding who can and will intervene in our life in our behalf. 

Yes, but.

There is this niggling want-to...to believe more, better, deeper, surer. Reasonably, we justify that as  seeking still more spiritual growth when in truth we are fighting paradox: To try to believe in God is to not believe in God. 

We try and try again until we finally reach the unanswerable-to-the-reasoning-mind. At the point of unexplainable...when the reasoning mind surrenders...is when the miracle of God appears. 

Higher consciousness aborning is crash and burn to our ego. Crash and burn and birth are painful, but both are essential if we would give up the idea that we can or should think God into Being. 

We experience again the hardest thing life asks of us, that we change our mind...or hug it and kiss it and let it go. 

Thank you.