ON AFFIRMING THE GIFT OF RESIST NOT EVIL

The following quote describes to a T for me the why and the how-to for the Sermon's command to resist not evil. It is a quote of Buddhist author and speaker Valerie Mason-John (emphases are mine, added) and is from Fr Richard Rohr's "Daily Meditation," June 21, 2022:   

We multiply the intensity of feeling every time we move away from something pleasant or unpleasant; we create a vicious cycle of craving and aversion. * * * * *  If we are patient, our feelings will change of their own accord—some quicker than others. * * * * * We will feel the unpleasantness, pleasantness, neutralness, or even the mixture of all three feelings, and will turn toward it without an agitated mind. The heart and mind will accept all of it without protesting. When we protest, toxic emotions begin to emerge. . . .

 

There..the why, the how and the ego-reducing gift of non-resistance. 

Thank you.

HARD AIN'T IT HARD...SOFTER, ACTUALLY

There is an element of grace, of something miraculous arising in us which gives us the capacity to be awake to our experience....This is hard enough when conditions are favorable—when we are relaxed and not particularly stressed about anything. However, when powerful emotions arise, it is generally much more difficult to find a ground in us that can be compassionately awake with what we are feeling. . . .  -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," June 20, 2011

Still experiencing off-and-on anxiety and chest pains...which produces more anxiety by the mental gyrations questioning if this is spiritual or mental.

My right now BFO: I can go through this now, or I will go through this later. 

By "through this," I mean stay the spiritual course...trusting that this really is my continuing, ever deeper, initiation...this really is how my spiritual and physical life become One...this is how Soul loves mental into letting go of self.  

In going forward with my regular schedule...exercise, various appointments, etc...I am feeling anxiety...I am fearful...what if this is physical, is heart, is stroke? All are jabbing hard, and I pray to be quick "knocked off my horse" like Saul rather than slow walk as I need do to earn my wings. 

What's the alternative? If I walk it, I stay the spiritual course, carry out my dailies, and come out faith-filled...or stay the physical route...pop another aspirine...go to doctor. have still more of the same tests done showing nothing definite. As in, hunker down in self, head-safe, heart unfulfilled...and wait to die.   

Again, I go through this now, or I go through this later...when it will be much harder. It may not be fear of the physical then, it may be fear of financial insecurity which I have been relieved of not by money but by God...that, too, I can worrit away. 

There is no free ride to God...there is no self-comforted way to God...crash and burn-out of the ego is the only way. Hard, ain't it hard, Lord, loving you...but softer than ego's sharp stick in the eye. 

More will be revealed. Sit and wait on the Lord. And hurry up, already. Please and thank you.

Thank you.

THE CHOICE IS SIMPLE, II

[This is a slightly reworked reprint of my post of December 25, 2012.]

G. K. Chesterton, when asked what the trouble with the world is, replied, "I am." 

I doubt he was the first to know that, to say that, he just said it more succinctly than most others. So this is no great secret, has not been a secret for a long, long time.

Why, then, am I always taken by surprise when it again proves true to me?

Interesting that it feels so good when I can point you toward your bathroom mirror when you're complaining about another, and tell you to look in your own eyes, and say, "I am looking at the problem."

There, as always, is ego. The ego is ageless and will always legislate for itself. The secret to taming  resistance to ego is to get grateful for it, get grateful since it eases our way into seeing that we're going down that wrong road again when, not if, we're doing its dictates.

We're powerless over our ego's voice, but in that very powerlessness, we find our choice...God or ego? 

The choice is simple: Get grateful or get screwed...by ego.

Thank you.

THE CRUCIBLE....HIS WILL FOR US

As you announce peace with your mouth, make sure that greater peace is in your hearts. —Francis of Assisi

Blinding flash of the obvious: Experiencing the psychic-spiritual pain of a new realization aborning is akin to self will in the crucible melding into God's will. 

All the words that we speak are not just words that we quote by rote, repeat, write about. They are true, but they must be proved by us in our life...or they are as naught. This crucible that we go through, the pain, fear, wonky EKGs, light-headed dizzy is us being put through the strainer of conscious thought into the consciousness of the Christ...where words become truth imbued, and that is All. 

Memory goes back to the early '70s in Foggy Bottom, me sitting in the middle of my bed crying,,,fearfully sure I was losing my mind. Finally, I let go and out loud said that maybe I am supposed to lose my mind, so go...if a lost mind is God's will, let it be so I may walk free with God. I fully expected to run outside, frothing at the mouth, and screaming...nothing happened. Nothing except the anxiety broke, and I knew I wasn't going to lose my mind...right then anyway. And I laughed. 

Gratefully, mercifully, now we know we need do nothing "to get" God...He became I, and consciously came to be within us. 

My recent reconnection with less-than living as my Father's will for me is being proved, and this is the process. This mental crucible is his will for me. This is less being fulfilled as more...less self-conscious intellect, more God consciousness.

Choose it now or choose it later. 

Thank you.

ON CHOOSING SLOW TRANSITION

Freedom to choose less rather than more. --  José Hobday from Fr Richard Rohr's "Daily Meditation," June 16, 2022.

To seek less rather than more is my self-described less-than living. This is the spiritual life we never know up front that we are seeking. The fact that, upon discovery, we are puzzled but pleased is proof to me that we are being God-led.  

To quote José Hobday further, less-than living is: To live simply...it is about freedom. It’s about a freedom to choose space rather than clutter, to choose open and generous living rather than a secure and sheltered way. 

Here's the rub, the freedom we choose may arrive appearing as our worst fear, which, unbeknownst to us, is the God of our own understanding. We must choose to meet our fear, God, to kiss it on the lips to be free to choose open and generous living rather than self-secure and sheltered.

Yesterday, I found me caught on the borderline between egoic mind and God consciousness. I felt wonky, unbalanced and fearful, and did not know whether this was "just" anxiety, or a heart blip, possibly a stroke. I took two aspirin and drank my Gatorade, but after an hour of the episode, I chose to call 911 to get free of me...and gratefully I call the EMTs blessed.

Blinding flash of the obvious: Less-than living is to choose peaceful transition into God  consciousness rather than anxiety rather than heart attack/911.

I seem to go with paralyzing anxiety or certain death as my two choices so I feel immense gratitude, or relief, that my BFO has given me the third choice: The start of peaceful transition into God consciousness.

Comes now the caveat regarding the BFO: The word "start"...we need remember our first day at any school, job, first anything...all of which generally we began with nerves ajangle but came out being happily benefited. 

We cannot expect instant transition...Jesus didn't get it in an instant and neither will we. It's a slow lift underneath to God's arms.

Underneath are the everlasting arms of God. -- ‎Deuteronomy 33:27 

Thank you.

BELIEVE...TRUST...EVERYTHING IS A BLESSING

Walk in My Way and trust Me. No evil can touch you. [BFO: If it does, it is not evil...it is of God.] -- "God Calling," June 16

As I soaked in that promise, I realized a truth for our friend who is now living with dementia in a Memory-Care unit. 

In our friend's out-ot-touch with the material world state, ours is to invite believing unto trusting that he lives in spiritual security deeper than he ever had in his cognizant "real" world. Thus he can, he  will and he does. There. Faith on the hoof.

Rather than cursing fate, we can pray thank you for everything..dementia, too...is a blessing of God. 

...Rest in that truth....Rest, that is, cease all struggle. --"God Calling," June 16

Thank you.

OUR WORST FEAR...AH, GOD'S PERFECT GIFT

You are very very nearly at the point when you shall ask what you will and it shall be done unto you. -- "God Calling," June 15 

There it is...there, the point of the great turn-around where "ask what you will and it shall be" does not read, "ask for unlimited money, personal glory and sexy love, and you will have them." No. We are imbued with the realization that God's will is our will, that our head-want and our heart-need have merged and now are as one. 

Whatever our secret obsessive self-want has been, it has never been first for God's will...no matter how spiritual we made it seem. Our head slow walked that to our heart, and slowly/suddenly truth has bloomed there. 

No more do we ask, wanting...now we give thanks, gratefully. God has and has ever had our own ready for us...as with Francis—and his spiritual sister, Clare. Count on this...meaning, fear it not...ours will come to us looking like our worst fear come true...if we're doing it right. How else can our fear be lifted, transmuted, made gold? Thank you.

It dawned on [Francis] that his destiny might involve living by a different set of values than his parents and peers.

Thank you.