IF IT PEACES OUR HEART, GO WITH IT

For a while now, I've been feeling off-kilter, that old skins-on-crooked sensation. 

I have wondered, even journaled, whether this was low-level anxiety, to which I am partial, or the initiation to which all spiritual seekers participate (whether we know it or not). In other words, whether this mixed feeling is my now life at 80+ or my ongoing spiritual initiation.  

Then, big WOW, just this morning the eclipse came to mind. The eclipse...the sun/moon activity! 

Can that be the source of my whopperjawed feelings? Just as the full moon in my early years was a reliable crazy indicator when all of us in the rooms were feeling off-kilter...reminds me of Kath's Something. Ain't. Right.

That makes such good sense to me that I'm not going to analyze it. Why not let it be my truth...who's going to say me nay? And it peaces my heart which is hard to hate.

Thank you. 

THE NEW SHAPE OF REALITY

The resurrection is not Jesus’ private miracle; it’s the new shape of reality. It’s the new shape of the world. It’s filled with grace. It’s filled with possibility. It’s filled with newness. — Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, April 6, 2024

The current state of consciousness of the world today is chaos. According to me, we are clinging to the old dual (win/lose) mentality that is fear-based, resisting the new shape of reality that is grace-based and love wins.

Unrealized, the consciousness of we the people, i.e., world consciousness, is being lifted up...exchanged actually. New Thought is aborning and there is the source of chaos. Change without the reasoning mind's knowledge or consent is fear producing.

A spiritual metaphor spins itself: Surrender, or crash and burn, equals crucifixion...New Thought, or raised consciousness, equals resurrection.

Crash and burn is involuntary...it cannot be preplanned else it is a self-determined objective, of self not of God. Spiritually, it is crucifixion, the surrender, i.e., death, of self-will.  

Surrender by way of necessary suffering births acceptance, raising consciousness to New Thought, the home of a Power greater than our self, greater than our dual thinking.

Away with the fear-producing chaos of anxiety, anger and fear. I'm inviting this in to be the new shape of reality...the new shape of the world...filled with grace...filled with possibility...filled with newness. 

Thank you.

TO FALL INTO LOVE, PRACTICE FALLING

 It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. - 1 Corinthians 15:44.

That quote knocked my socks off when I read it recently. I felt gobsmacked...I have known and said for a long time that I live in two minds, one of this world, i.e., material, the other of God, i.e., spiritual. I thought that was a quirk of mine...God's way of helping me process his truths.

Well, there it is. Spelled out in black and white in the Holy Bible: There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. I only love it.

I admit it's hardly surprising that I'd never read it since I have never been a serious Bible reader. Other than the Sermon on the Mount, I've never studied the Bible...and my studying the Sermon came for entirely selfish purposes.

That is an excellent example of spirituality being counterintuitive. I selfishly studied the Sermon to build my sense of self as a good and decent person...and found that worked only if I gave it away. Even as I was learning, I was giving it away without for one second being consciously aware of God interworking among others and me.

It is a fact...whopperjawed but fact...that my spiritual growth has come primarily by looking back. As I look back, I recognize that 99.99 percent of what came to me disguised as dreadful was to become another pearl beyond price. 

That may be the secret to how Meister Eckhart learned if the only prayer you ever say in your life is thank you that would suffice...I kinda hope so.

It is comforting to realize the one-ing of material mind and spiritual mind has come by Love, the Love which is God.  

Love has to be worked toward, received, and enjoyed; the first move is to recognize our deep capacity for fear and hate. But remember, we gather around the negative space quickly, while we 'fall into' love rather slowly, and only with lots of practice at falling. - Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, March 28, 2024.

Thank you.

GRACE OF GOD AND FRIENDS, I

[The following is a slightly reworked reprint of my post of March 31, 2012]

Per today's morning meditation of Fr. Richard Rohr, "If there isn’t some way to find some deeper meaning to our suffering, to find that God is somewhere in it, and can even use it for good, we will normally close up and close down."

There's my truth. What I especially love is that I learned that truth a while back from another source entirely. Which is unneeded, but welcomed, assurance that I'm still on the right path, going in the right direction.

 
It's always fireworks in my heart when I read anything, including the long-gone Ann Landers column, that confirms my path. Probably because I was so long on a path that was mine and mine alone, and I was determined to keep it that way. I knew all there was to know about all there was to know, and if I didn't...don't let anybody else know. 

By grace and a lot of help from my friends, God found me somewhere in the mix and now uses me for good.

Thank you.

OUR UNCHANGEABLE TRUTH EVER CHANGING

Notes from my journal this morning:

We are being changed just as we are...gifts and faults interchangeable. Self-determined changes are of the reasoning mind and change our core not; changes realized but not self-determined are of God and form our changed core.

There will ever be others who misunderstand us...ours is to accept being misunderstood in order to understand others.

To silently accept through gritted teeth is ego, to silently accept with a peaceful heart is nonresistance. Nonresistance is the path to making welcome God's will and way.

Spiritually, seeing is not believing, it is not seeing but trusting that scores belief. The reasoning mind is vice versa.

We each have our own individual gifts...they seldom arrive looking good enough. Resignation to our poor, pitiful, puny gifts is ego driven by self-will; acceptance of those pitiful gifts is the beginning of Trust.

Each of these thoughts are according to me. I stand on them...until my mind gets changed.  

Thank you.

NO PARTY, JUST PEACE...THIS, TOO, IS OF GOD

If the resurrection really is the best good news that has ever hit the planet, then its goodness doesn’t depend on us.… The tomb is empty. Death is vanquished. Jesus lives. Period. -- author Debie Thomas, Fr Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation, April 2, 2024

There's my mini-BFO...by living in raised consciousness, not of the material world but raised up into the spiritual, we are carried over material death. We, by our raised consciousness, and not just Jesus but we, too, can walk free of the material ties that bind us to earth by our living the Sermon-taught love. 

Not to put too fine a point on it, but we will experience material world death, it is the afterward that holds the golden promise. For that, we continue to seek still more spiritual growth. There is no graduation party, there is better...God consciousness.

God consciousness, the counterintuitive knowing that fear is our pearl for it leads us back to God. Living in God consciousness, we meet life Now, i.e., openly. We may/will still feel a myriad of self-centered fears, but we are peaced by knowing that each one is of God.

Thank you.

COUNTERINTUITIVE UNDERSTANDING OF GOD

Each time we choose to surrender, each time we trust the dying, our faith is led to a deeper level, and we discover a Larger Self underneath. We decide not to push to the front of the line, and something much better happens in the back of the line. -- Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, April 1, 2024

I do not recall when I first got a glimmer of the counterintuitive nature of spiritual growth...that less was more, that bigger does not make for better...but I have practiced that...imperfectly...since. Still, I feel awed when I read the likes of Fr Richard's quote above which casually confirms that truth. 

Practicing that has made my life considerably more interesting...we quit pushing to get to the front of the line and find better happens in the back of the line. 

The first few times we hear that, our reasoning mind will balk which is why we've been led to seek still more spiritual growth...that is spiritual growth's training ground. The reasoning mind, not having been built to accept that, must be raised, and we find a higher consciousness waiting to be accessed from within. 

We seek, we study, we analyze...searching ever searching. We are looking in the wrong direction...out there. Yet, we must go in the wrong direction to be turned around...to look within...to find the Father within who doeth the works.

As promised, our faith is led to a deeper level, and we discover a Larger Self underneath. 

Thank you.