WELCOME OUR UNWANTED NEEDS...TRUST

We’re finally indestructible when we recognize that the thing which could destroy us is the very thing that could enlighten us....We can receive the miracle of new life by embracing our own difficulties. -- Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, April 21, 2022

Believing this, the miracle of new life, does not make it a living truth within us. 

We cannot live it by learning it...by memorizing the words, quoting them to ourself and to others. It can only be internalized unto living it by experiencing the pain, the shame, the embarrassment that we so diligently pray to be relieved of. 

That is the nature of surrender, a hard word that shouts "resist!" But surrender we must to get to acceptance, a soft, inviting word...a virtual lullaby to our senses.  

We must needs walk every step of the way through the pain to ownership, knowing it came by invitation only. Finally we regret it not, we accept. 

Now we can love and laugh as we pass it on. We are unresistant to others' unbelief, even rejection...we are humbled in fact. For that, too, is of God.

Thank you.

FOR THE BENEFIT OF OTHERS

What a great gettin' up morning! At 5:00 AM, I had this blinding flash of the obvious: 

BFO today, April 20, 2022: The only battle is within myself...i with I...within...within...i, my reasoning mind, ever fighting I Am...that is the only battle/there is no battle...'resist not evil, we have ceased fighting.'

At 5:30 AM I sat down to my daily readings and found a very blinding flash; namely, I opened God Calling and found my note of April 20, 2011: BFO - '11 - realized if I seek and do what Jesus sought and did, I will be.... 

Then I opened Easwaran, Words to Live By, and read: '11- there is only one need...to be and do as [the first 100] showed us and did.  

Well, there it is...I have my blinding flash of the obvious this morning, then I find my own handwritten proof that exactly eleven years ago this day, the birth of this BFO came to me. 

That, too, divides itself in my understanding: Reasoning mind goes for condemnation of self...how slow can I go? Eleven years it took me to realize? Then raised consciousness melts me...thank you that I have not wasted those eleven years for I have used each day seeking deeper to be raised higher.

I began by studying the Sermon on the Mount, which was the first 100's guidebook. The Sermon, I learned, was the basis for the writing and publishing of our own book which is used by us to this day to guide us as we Step out in our new life. 

Slowly we have learned to trust God...in our life for our  benefit and that is all. Whether we know it or not. We pass it on to others...to hold it in is self feeding self and starving Self.

It is to love and laugh. There it is, the peace we seek waiting within.

Thank you.

DIFFERENT WORDS, SAME MEANING

Resist not evil (Matthew 5:39)

And we have ceased fighting anything or anyone....  (The Anonymous Press, p 84)

It seems everybody loves you until you start showing them who you are...and how you got to who you are. Then it's, "Whoa, Nellie!...bridge too far!...too much information!"

We realize that is how it needs be. That is the human condition...needing to learn that which we need to learn starts by our resisting the source, the subject, the meat of the matter. Because what we need to learn is not of the material mind...cannot be reasoned to a spiritual conclusion...welcomes resistance to that which it teaches, i.e., resist not.

It is that very resistance that breaks down the niggling, nattering, yes, buts of the reasoning mind and lets God's sliver of gold shine in us. It often feels like we are on that wrong road again, but we learn if it seems to make no sense, we are on the right road...in fact, heading in the right direction. 

My lighting rod came when I was first introduced to resist not evil (Matthew 5:39) which was a throw-away, fuhgettaboutit it, line to me. But it intrigued me, as in, how? How can that have stood the test of time? And still stand? 

The lighting that struck my rod came when I was led to my truth, same meaning different words: And we have ceased fighting anything or anyone....  (The Anonymous Press, p 84). 

I knew and I knew not how I knew, but my mind was opened to a new light, a new way. A way to not think. A way to realize...to wait, let, surrender, trust, accept...not to understand but to receive.

Not to understand resist not evil but to receive it, we cease fighting anything and anybody physically, mentally, spiritually. Which may not happen in toto until three days after we are dead. 

I'm good with that...I know I'm heading in the right direction...trusting God even, or especially, in the midst of my doubts.

Thank you.  

BE NOT AFRAID...OR BE AFRAID & TRUST GOD

Being one's self and showing it...walking it...cannot be a self-determined objective. According to me, a self-determined objective is all about saving self...face, rep, money-honey...self in any and all forms. 

Even as we pray to be, we do not have a clue how God will work that out. If we did, we'd no doubt back off p.d.q. The spiritual fact is that we have shown our being already in our life, too often listening to our ego's doubts and ignoring God's grace. Ego always speaks the loudest in our head. 

It is in looking back that we know appreciation for the results, the gift. The gift not to us alone but to others, with us being included...almost as an afterthought. There...grace in a sliver of gold.

 

I seem to be at that me-unknown-to-me place. The inside change is I am loving and laughing before reason sees it for true. I only know my Santa Fe meeting frees me to be me and suffer the egoic regrets after...with my ego chanting "They must think I am a fool" and my Spirit loving and laughing. Whole new world for me for sure.  

This morning I was led to read some recent BFOs, and they comfort me on this my journey:

3/29/22  Blinding flash of the obvious: Shuck the shield of what i know...detach from learned, let new-born flow forth...not to impress others but to depress self's image...return to the Cloud of Unknowing. 

3/24/22  Blinding flash of the obvious:  I may need to quit my reliance on the KJV's Sermon...for that is the consciousness of then, without regard to the fact that consciousness has risen. Every word written in  the Sermon was Truth then...is still Truth, but that same Truth has risen deeper...each direction has a deeper meaning in higher consciousness.

3/2?/22  Blinding flash of the obvious: My learning-error in agree with  your adversary quickly (and with resist not evil) is in saying nothing while continuing to mentally judge. We speak not for the egoic win (for self) but for open-ended agreement (for unity). Which cannot be done by the reasoning mind but by collaborating with the Spirit. 

In the face of the unknown, of physical, mental, spiritual unrest or upheaval, go with God, stay with God, trust and be not afraid...or be afraid, it's just another nevermind to ever-present God. 

So be it with us as with God. Love and laugh.

Thank you.

TRUST GOD...NOW WALK IT

I had a serious me eye-opener yesterday...from my mouth to a friend' ears: "Putin is evil and should be taken out just as Hitler should have been long before he did it himself." She disagreed with the killing part, and I defended it.

In my quiet time this morning the Word flashed bright and right, and I felt humbled: Resist not evil...no exceptions.

I did not consciously have a clue of my thinking about Putin or Hitler. Clearly, my egoic mind was doing and will do my reasoning for me whenever and without a first alert. I just reckon that's the way I invite the Lord to teach me so I pray my thank you and reach for still more spiritual growth. 

I am grateful that finally my want and my need are the same in that I seek for a neutralized view of Putin...not to "save" him but to upgrade my attitude about him. I begin by acknowledging he is not evil, but his acts and the facts about his acts certainly are. We resist them not, for it is by our resistance that we make them ours...as in, when they shoot, we go for our guns. 

Just as we cannot change our own minds by self-will, we know God can and will if sought...same goes with evil. It is our raised consciousness, out of the reasoning into the spiritual, where God consciousness perfects that which is given us to do.

I pray thank you for the spiritual enlightenment of Putin... and me...that we are freed from self-will, self-interest, self-determined objectives, self. 

Trust that Truth...Now to walk it.

Thank you.

GRATITUDE AND GRACE, II

[This is a slightly reworked reprint of my post of  December 14, 2014.]

Gratitude is the handmaiden of grace. Grace leaves us with our facts unchanged, but our feelings about our facts upgraded, uplifted, enlightened. And we are grateful.

We know peace by developing and maintaining an attitude of gratitude. Then, no matter the appearance to our reasoning mind's eye, grace riding our endless wave of gratitude lets us realize...again and again and, yes, again...that this, too, is God's will. 

All is well.

Thank you.

GET OVER OUR SELF...LOVE AND LAUGH

 I view Jesus the way I view Elvis—I love the guy, but a lot of his fans freak me out. -- John Fugelsang

It's come to this...I came across that quote, loved it, and had to Google John Fugelsang to learn who I was identifying with. He was born in 1969...I'm now identifying with people who were born nearly half my life later than me. Which makes no nevermind, but it pleases me that I'm not resistant.

It seems to me though that it is the name Jesus that hits peoples' panic button...I wonder why it is that the name is such a turnoff. 

[Sidebar: "turnoff" is fear aborning. If, as I believe (having read it in a pop-psychology book), there are only two emotions, love and fear, from which all others spring, then any negative feeling is fear.]

Back to the name Jesus being spoken aloud. Nobody gets that panicky look in their eyes when the word Buddha is mentioned...maybe a tish when Jehovah is, or Allah. But people get fairly vocal for and against when they hear the name Jesus being invoked...as a curse is okay.

I know I substitute a neutral word rather than use the word Jesus when I'm writing...and I don't recall a lot of deep conversing about Jesus or the promise of Jesus. I do know it is his adamantly vocal followers and detractors I choose to avoid. But then, that is true of political partisans, sports super-fans and righteous religious folks...I say let 'em as I walk on by. 

Yet, as to Jesus, I can't say I love the guy...but if a non-personal love counts, then I do. It is the promise of his life and what he taught that lives to this day that calls to me. What he knew, how he knew...and lived it...are my lodestar.

It is thank you, leading to love and laugh, that covers the essence of my spiritual life. The Sermon on the Mount, which is not a knee-slapper, started me on the rough and rugged road to glory. 

Glory, plain and simple, is getting over our own self. That's all, folks.

Thank you.