FORGIVENESS...ON GETTING OVER OURSELVES

Forgiveness demands three new simultaneous 'seeings': I must see God in the other; I must access God in myself; and I must experience God in a new way that is larger than an 'Enforcer.' -- Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, April 30, 2017

Forgiveness. I suspect the word "forgiveness" is the devil's (my ego's) hidey-hole. I suspect that is because the very word all but makes me break out in shingles...who's kidding whom, my ego finds it sanctimonious. 

My admittedly rare experiences with forgiveness have been realized by my looking back. One particular occasion, a betrayal by my then mentor, when I was hurt to my core. I was spiritually advised to let it go...which I did. I did not hurt; I did not dwell there. Ten years later when that same person came to me for help, I did not even remember the hurt experience, and I gave my best to them.  

When forgiveness happened, I know not...it was only upon being reminded many years later of the experience that the memory of it returned...not the hurt, just a memory with no ribbons or bows attached. 

The above quote invited me to look more deeply into that experience and discover the following points of identity today:   

I must see God in the other...the other was my mentor, who I already considered holy, so God's hand was clearly in any forgiveness. Proof...we are close friends today, fifty years later.

I must access God in myself...I tend to believe I access God in myself by God's access of me. There is no other way than by God's grace that my mind could be cleansed in the instant; it was then and has been on the rare occasion since.

I must experience God in a new way that is larger than an 'Enforcer'...I do not recall thinking of God as an Enforcer...more like my "Stepin Fetchit," precisely the old way that must change. I must experience God in a new way that is larger than i can imagine.

Forgiveness. The very word is an exercise in getting over our self. Love and laugh.

Thank you.

WEEP NO MORE, MY LADY

Blinding flash of the obvious defined:  Spiritual cognition is recognition. It's knowing on a more conscious level what appears to have been known in the unconscious. Now you have the ability to humbly, quietly trust it, and even on occasion say what so many biblical characters and saints say, 'God told me.' 

This was given to me on June 29, 2016.

That comforts me this morning. 

Thank you.

AN IMPERFECT INSTRUMENT OF THY PEACE

Blinding flash of the obvious: We are One, an imperfect instrument of Thy peace.

It is our imperfection that turns us to God. It is our imperfection that is the sliver of gold that graces our constant seeking to make no mistakes.

That constant search to be a better person, for peace of mind, for the glory of God...all, ego incognito.

Our mistake is trying so hard to fix us, to make us better...sweet, kind, considerate, lovable and generous. Each of those is our gift at birth, yet when life calls on us to use any one or all of them, our egoic mind thinks us a loser...a wimp...a wuss.

We are an imperfect instrument of thy peace...embrace the imperfect! The imperfect mirrors our need for God. 

Without denying an objective outer reality, what we are able to see and are predisposed to see in the outer world is a mirror reflection of our own inner world and state of consciousness at that time. --- Fr Richard's Daily Meditation, December 4, 2023

Thank you.

ALL CREDIT GOES TO GOD WITH GRATITUDE

How we see will largely determine what we see and whether it can give us joy or make us pull back with an emotionally stingy and resistant response. -- Fr Richard Rohr

There. To me, that is a fair affirmation of the power of our thoughts...of positive thinking, in fact.

Positive thinking keeps our mind peaced, and a peaced mind keeps our heart, soul, body and brain ready, willing and looking to do God's will, God's way. We do not consciously know how, we just know it does, and we only know by doing it...while keeping our thoughts spiritual in nature.

More often than not, we confuse positive thinking with thoughts of winning. There is no winning, no losing, in a peaced world. There is only an attitude of gratitude aiding in our unconscious desire to do for the benefit of another.

Interestingly, if questioned about actually doing for the benefit of another, we'd deny it...deny it by saying how we wish we were that good and decent a person. That thinking, too, we must beware of for it can lead to false modesty which is ego in a pretty dress.   

It is only right that inner goodness is unacknowledged by us for it is unrecognized by us...all credit goes to God.

Thank you.

NOT BY SELF, BY GOD, II

[The following is a slightly reworked reprint of my post of December 3, 2013.]

We are told the promises of God will always materialize if we work for them.

Why is it so hard to remember that the "working" for them is the work of maintaining conscious contact with our God? 

It is the work of aligning our will with God's will, of detaching from our wants (most often fear-based and always of self), knowing our needs (always of God) are already met...are within us waiting to be released.

As we are released from our ego-victory wants, our needs flow forth, materializing as that which we need at that moment. 

We think, "What a coincidence! I was just saying...."

The spiritual life is not a theory. We have to live it. -- Anonymous

Thank you.

ON LEARNING TO LOVE ANEW

We only get this one chance to live this life of love. Every day is a lesson in love, learning how not to bind up ourselves and our neighbors, but in fact, to free ourselves and others....We’ll have to feel this and that. But we’ve got to keep the stable center by a conscious choice for love. If we practice returning to that Love, it will become truly real and vital. —Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, December 2, 2023

Love and its varieties are riding herd in my head and heart this morning...specifically love and how to do it. I'm coming up empty...or overstuffed...I got words, meanings, analyzes, but I got no meaning. 

The thought floated in my head yesterday that I do not know love...how to experience God-love. I know and appreciate familial or boy-girl or pet love, but I have never experienced love as truly spiritual souls speak of love. 

I almost regret that the word love has become interchangeable today when speaking of people, pets, clothes and cars, to mention a few. Though I have to wonder if that isn't for our benefit...it makes us dig ever deeper to find just what the meaning of spiritual love is to us personally...the love of our Father and all his works.

My best has been to find words that describe what does not mean spiritual love...I'm thinking God love. Not our love of God, which is dicey at best, and not God's love for us which is unfathomable...it is God, Period. 

Maybe that's the hidden catch...maybe we are not meant to mentally get love... otherwise, we'd stay right there expounding on it, or wrap it up and put it on a shelf for safekeeping.

We can take heart in Fr Richard's words, Every day is a lesson in love, learning how not to bind up ourselves and our neighbors, but in fact, to free ourselves and others. 

We can accept that learning how is not a one-shot deal...it is our life's gift. We get to go over and over and over again the lessons that turn us to God daily even as we resist.

Thank you.

NECESSARY SUFFERING...RESIST NOT...LOVE

It’s the nature of life to circle around the smaller and smaller self, to take fewer and fewer risks, and to never go outside our own comfort zone of people who are just like us.... Every day is a lesson in love, learning how not to bind up ourselves and our neighbors, but in fact to free ourselves and others. -- Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, December 1, 2023

We need constantly nurture...to hold dear...the reminder that we live spiritual growth not to avoid necessary suffering but to experience necessary suffering.

Our need is to experience that, not just to know it by thinking it, talking it, writing about it, but actually in our soul experience it. That cannot be done from the eyebrows up. Mainly because most of us have never truly grasped our soul as a working part of us. There's the proverbial Catch-22.

Proving our soul is akin to proving our God. We believe...ah, but proving it gets right dicey. 

It's after the fact that we have our proof, our so-called miracle. Before the fact, we have our prayer, thank you, then we trust...or hope and call it trust.

Here's the lesson...necessary suffering is the act of exchanging our mind, the loose it and let it go part. We are coming to the realization that the material world is not where our peace is...the full realization of which we'll likely not get in this time and place.

Changing our mind is of the material world, the world of right/wrong; exchanging our mind is of the spiritual world, the world of nonresistance or love. 

Love through nonresistance is that for which we are diligently seeking every day in every way...whether we know it or not.

Every day is a lesson in love, learning how not to bind up ourselves and our neighbors, but in fact to free ourselves and others. -- Ibid.

Thank you.