CHANGED MIND...RAISED CONSCIOUSNESS

I once feared if I stated my truth, or I pushed back, that was being self-willed, or even smart-mouthed. Because I feared that, I often sounded like that. What a surprise...what a gift!...to learn that all that I need to do is change the tone of my talk. 

Being self-driven, my pushback was often defensive...my mental thank you has made all the difference. The same thing said with heart...with love...is inviting. 

If the one to whom I am speaking takes offense, that is their lesson to learn, not mine to teach. Ego alert: That truth needs prodigious spiritual awareness with kindness leading the way. 

It is right pitiful how easy it is to think "That's your problem" when we have stepped on another's toes without intention but also without caring.

It is very nearly a given that any hurtful thing said with a not-my-problem attitude cannot qualify as truth. The more we dress it up with spiritual bromides, the more ego's hand is in it. 

Paradoxically. when we realize our misdirection and turn within to our thank you, the error becomes the benefit...we begin to see the light. Our reasoning mind is changed, and our consciousness is raised if only a tish...every tish is a milestone in spiritual growth.

We make a leap upward when we are gifted with the realization that each of our rues, regrets and remorses is a sliver of gold that cracks the hard shell of ego and lets in the light of our Father.   

Thank you.

OUR SELF-HEALING POWERS WITHIN

Do we really want to find out just how far God will let this go before God 'does something'? Or could we instead perceive that God is indeed doing something, through the knowledge and work of people and through the self-healing powers built into the planet? -- Author Debra Rienstra, Fr Richard's Daily Meditations, March 7, 2024 

Self-healing powers! There it is. The self-healing powers built into the planet be the hidden power of God within...within you, me, them, all. 

For this we seek still more spiritual growth: To come not only to believe in, but to rely on, the divine power of the Father within. We seek only acceptance of the fact of self-healing powers within...before our intellect grabs hold and sends us down the rabbit hole of trying to figure it out.

There it is, the hard-to-hold spiritual hook...spiritual understanding is counterintuitive. 

The hidden power of God is ours already. Seeking our idea of it is our denial of it. Love and laugh.

Thank you.

THE COUNTERINTUITIVE BLESSING...UNTHINK

Here's proof of the truth of the old adage, we make plans, and God laughs. In my post yesterday, I wrote: I plan to do my taxes today.

I had completely forgotten...totally ignored?...that this was Super Tuesday, primary day! The day we vote for our choice to run for President in November. When I was reminded...well, talk about gobsmacked!

Not to put too fine a point on it, but my thinking got bollixed up, and I took some God-time to get straightened out, then dressed for show and out the door to go vote. By get straightened out, I mean I had to unthink. I let all my plans backtrack, start over and put me on hold.

The point of all that is simply that it reminds me of how important it is to me that my quiet time be the first thing I do each morning. 

My yesterday's "bollixed up" was my calm before my storm of yesteryear...when taking myself too seriously reigned.

I let that fact warm me right now, accepting that I don't think a lot about spiritual growth...I'm just grateful I live it. Having such a pure example, though, of what my reaction before would have been and my reaction yesterday is the pearl beyond price.

Again, my spiritual growth is counterintuitive. My set-in-concrete plans to do my taxes dismantled by my need to vote and I did not have a hissy fit. Beyond doubt, my self-determined objective met God's perfect objective, and I am grateful.

Thank you.

GO TO THE DIVINE NESTED WITHIN

Reminder: I do the footwork and God does for me what I cannot do for myself. 

My reminder came when I read those words in my daily reader. It's not as if I never heard that before...ah, but this morning, it came from the Divine nested within me. 

I am fretting about the new Turbo Tax forms and, because of them, dreading not being able to do my taxes this year...which I honestly like doing for myself. 

  

Fairly often, while watching Jeopardy, the final question is waaay over my head...I just throw out a word or a name, saying "because I don't have a clue." And it turns out to be correct. Recently the question had to do with an ancient poet/warrior, and I said "Ovid, because I don't have a clue." And the answer was Ovid. 

My morning blinding flash of the obvious is that is the key to "a faith that works," and I realized I need to nurture that ability, to find it deeper, naturally. 

I plan to do my taxes today to the best of my ability...not to carelessly fudge anything so I can stop and turn them over to a professional tax preparer, but to sincerely make an effort. 

How else does God do for me what I cannot do for myself?

This begs the question...why do we fear making a mistake when God is our cleanup crew?...or to put it more prettily, when God does for us what we cannot do for ourselves. 

When we’ve run out of purpose, when memories of war sicken us, when Earth is attacked with unparalleled savagery for coal, gas, oil, timber, and profit, when poverty runs rampant and extreme wealth for very few soars, when friends betray us, and everyone we love lives far away … then, still beauty endures, and helps us make it through. Like God…. -- Marya Grathwohl, a Sister of St. Francis

Thank you.

OUR FIRST THOUGHT...SPIRITUAL IN NATURE

If I get my email first or start worrying and planning my day, the moment’s over. It’s done because I’m not really present. But we can preserve and protect those sacred moments before we read the news or check our email, before we look at social media or review the day’s agenda. If we can find a way to be present to the “givens,” especially the natural “givens,” I believe we can be happy. -- Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditations, March 4, 2024  

Fr Richard's reading today is about making a spiritual connection first thing. I'm taking that reading as specific to me...I need to continue what I learned 50 years ago: First thought, spiritual in nature, unformed and inviting. 

I have wondered if my proverbial 80s had changed that for me, and I allowed me to read the likes of "Breaking News" first. No...I need to return to a conscious spiritual connection first.

Fr Richard's givens come with his morning walks and are of nature, the birds, the flowers, all of God's giftees. 

My blinding flashes of the obvious are my givens, God's gifts to me, and they flow from within.

I can align myself with my BFOs by letting my first thought on awakening be thank you. Oh! or my long-ago thoughts of lilies of the valley. I feel the very memory lifting me deeper now.

Here's me already thinking of things to ponder, and my specific instruction was of thoughts unformed and inviting. Love it and laugh.

Here's a comforting BFO: God uses all that we are, every last thought, feeling, right or wrong sense of self, of others...of the weather! 

Going down that wrong road again? Get happy, God's got our back. This, too, will be for our benefit.

Thank you.

MY 'LESS THANS' ARE MY LESSONS

My morning blinding flash of the obvious: My 'less thans' are my lessons...my lessons are my blessings.

As I have learned, experienced and accepted, my life gifts nearly always come to me looking less than. Today, that realization is my pearl beyond price. 

When a less than comes calling, after a time of recalcitrant resistance, thank you just follows, and I am freed to do the next thing that comes to mind.

When I am first removed from the snafu, my mind is cleared to journal or text a friend or read, whatever. But on a deeper plane higher than when I was resistant.

 As I look back, I see again that my spiritual growth has been largely counterintuitive...that invites in my favorite Bible verse, Resist not evil.

Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh in re mindfulness: Embrace your anger with a lot of tenderness. 

Thank you.

ANSWERLESS...OUR TICKET TO RIDE

I am more and more convinced that the watchword of today's corporate world is whatever works well for the consumer, needs to be "improved." The consumer knows the so-called improvement as the curse for, all but invariably, it ruins the previously well-run product.

I began working on my taxes yesterday. (I am inordinately proud that I, i.e., Turbo Tax, do my own taxes.)  And, yes, the curse has struck again...Turbo Tax has "improved" its system.

I began working on my taxes at 1:00 PM and quit around 2:15 PM...about an hour in. Haven't touched them since. My one and only job now is to silence the what-to-do-what-to-do that wants to live in my head.

As I began my quiet time this morning, I was blessed with my angels bearing the word from my post from yesteryear: If nothing turns us to God faster than fear, then answerless is our ticket to ride, our answered prayer.

With that one sentence, I knew my fear had done its job for my benefit. It allowed me to recall previous like experiences with Turbo Tax with the resulting always right answer for me.

There is a spiritual energy in fear...acknowledging fear of our powerlessness invites the inner Resource that soothes the what-to-do into submission, and we are peaced. Peaced enough that answers from our spiritual taproot can move us forward. Unknowing, we do the next thing, praying thank you all the while, and fear of powerlessness is transmuted for our good. 

When, not if, the perceived problem is solved, we know God's will, God's way is doing for us...always and all ways.

All things work together for our good. -- Romans 8:28

Thank you.