THE PERFECTION OF UNKNOWING, I

[The following is a reprint of my post of April 29, 2015.]

Deep acceptance of ultimate mystery is ironically the best way to keep the mind and heart spaces always open and always growing. -- Fr. Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," April 29, 2015

I believe those of us who have chosen the spiritual path have made the U-turn...away from our logical reasoning mind (as in, how can I fix this, make that happen, not happen?), toward the ultimate mystery...realization, yet unknowing, of God's perfect outworking of life itself. Yours, mine, that child we worry so about, an elderly parent, a lost friend...lives already perfected. Ours to let them be.

We may not understand the perfect outworking for, being of God, it benefits all, the how of which the reasoning mind is not built to understand. If we divorce our self from our fix-it reasoning mind, we will not need to understand the how of the perfect outworking. That is the perfect outworking.

Thank you.

A LESSON IN LOVING...FROM ME TO ME

Morning blinding flash of the obvious: I need to risk extending love un-self-consciously with no hope of receiving love or even acceptance in return. 

Un-self-consciously is the spiritual key. I'm guessing unselfconscious is God-conscious, or the gates ajar at any rate. 

It is our thoughts that need spiritual guidance...our mouth knows better today, "better" meaning to stay closed. Too often, though, that gives thoughts free rein, and free rein to our thoughts is akin to a fire sale at Macy's...chaos.

To openly give of our self...not through self-will, but through the Spirit within...starts with unselfconsciously extending our hand, a word of welcome, our thoughts for the other.

All of that was learned in junior high school etiquette class...knowing how to becomes quite mechanical over the years. We are on the spiritual path going in an entirely new and higher direction now, and all of those words have become just so many words. 

Face it, this is where I do not know is the only acceptable answer to just about anything we are seeing in a new light. 

The way to love, not to get but to give, is not to choose to whom, but virtually blindfolded to extend welcome to whomever...without overwhelming. Ah, there's reasoning mind setting up limitations. When, not if, we are unselfconsciously extending love, we trust God, always at the helm. 

We extend love to whomever is present...and try not to be aghast when "whomever" is the one person we've recently been less than loving to "because they were a jerk to me first." 

Show our happy face and trust. That's as good a start as we're likely to get for however long it takes...however long we take. 

Keep it simple, Stupid: Love and laugh.

Thank you.

OUR INNERMOST DESIRE IS ALREADY TRUE

Pray always; pray unceasingly. (1 Thessalonians 5:17)

That's another of the Bible's impossible-to-understand demands. It is literally impossible to pray unceasingly if we're praying as we were taught to pray...on our knees, hands folded, etc. Fortunately, we've come a long way from there, but we still need direction.

Here comes Fr Richard to clear the way: We can pray unceasingly if we find the stream and know how to wade in its waters. The stream will flow through us; all we have to do is keep choosing to stay there.

There's the key...find the stream...then through our continuing spiritual growth we know how to wade in its waters. The best part of the promise is that the stream will flow through us...the hardest part, all we have to do is keep choosing to stay there. 

Choosing to stay there, we come to find out...slowly, slowly...is learning to stay in the Now. From our first inner desire to stay in the Now, our consciousness is being raised. We can never think our way there, we need only build trust by praying thank you...and repeatedly getting out of our own way by getting out of our own head. 

We know today that we have found the stream, we know how to wade in its waters, the stream does flow through us, we do choose to stay there...but we only learn this by looking back. 

Looking back, we see our original regret has become our pearl beyond price...seeded by remorse, grown by prayerful tears, gifted by God's will, God's way.   

Everything is a gift...rues, regrets, remorses? Our pearls beyond price. Thank you! 

True encounter with Christ liberates something in us, a power we did not know we had, a hope, a capacity for life, a resilience, an ability to bounce back when we thought we were completely defeated, a capacity to grow and change, a power of creative transformation. —Thomas Merton, He Is Risen

There. That is our innermost desire and is already true...whether we know it or not.

Thank you.

BELIEVE IN THE LIGHT...LOVE AND LAUGH

Jesus says, 'Believe in the light so that you also may become children of the light' (John 12:36), letting us know that we participate in the same mystery, and he is here to aid the process. -- Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, April 4, 2024  

This is what I sense is happening in me...my conscious reminder to keep my thoughts upgraded to receive the message waiting within me.

I am so grateful that my life experiences remind me to ever question my state of mind and being or my exaggerating nature (inherited in the Carters' sense of humor, and I love it) will fly away with me. 

For a while now, I have been questioning whether I am in material world anxiety or spiritual world growth...especially when I have elevated thoughts or experiences, as in after I read in one of my dailies the exact experience I so recently had.

It is not only that I choose to believe...I am being led to believe, too! This is me having taken the fork in the road leading to higher consciousness. I am very hesitantly walking this new path of Trust, gratefully acknowledging that this is a spiritual gift, being consciously received.

Lest I forget, my material world footwork must not be neglected. I've made my 2-Do list, even done a couple...there are more. They ain't going 2 Do it themselves. Get crackin'...and Love and Laugh.

Thank you.

TRUST...SPREADING ITS WINGS

I need God's direction. The question: Is my recent unconscious behavioral change proof of authentic spirituality OR an indication of dementia?

My natural state of mind fears this may be dementia, but spiritual consciousness says this new, not me, feeling can just as well be God's will, God's way, heading me in a new direction. Never having been here before, it feels wrong...but somehow right at the same time.  

That is the nature of change...it feels wrong precisely because we've never been here before. Self-protection keeps our toes tacked to the floor...with our thoughts in turn around, go back mode. Spiritual growth lifts us up on the back of thank you.

I choose to believe this is trust having been born within me, now spreading its wings. Trust that God's will, God's way is always and all ways for my benefit.

Only later when I look back will I know the answer. This we can be sure of...the answer can be spiritually raised consciousness, may be dementia with a spiritual base, but it likely will be beyond imagining...God's will, God's way. 

Trust and let it be.

Thank you.  

GO BEYOND REASON TO GOD

Everyone’s an infinitely loved, broken person in a fleeting, often not-so-fair, gorgeous, lovely, unexplainable world. -- James Finley, Fr Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation, April 8, 2024

There's the secret...the secret to still more spiritual growth. We already are that which we are seeking.

Reminds us of the can't see the forest for the trees adage...we can't find our growth for pushing it out of the way looking for our growth. 

Then there is thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. We go to great lengths to avoid our own conception of that one. The reasoning mind can only think painful!, when in the counterintuitive spiritual world, thy rod and thy staff bring love and laughter. The painful part is getting over our own self to awake to love and laughter.

We can never enter the counterintuitive spiritual world by rational thinking...it comes in God's good time by way of inner awakening.   

Go beyond reason to find joy in being an infinitely loved broken person in this counterintuitive spiritual world. 

Thank you.

WE CAN CHOOSE TO LIVE FROM OUR HEART

It doesn’t lie in our power to make these insights happen, but here’s the key. We can freely choose to assume the stance that offers the least resistance to being overtaken by the fire that we cannot make happen. -- James Finley, Fr Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation, April 8, 2024

I am reminded of my BFO yesterday about loving God with all my heart, soul, body and brain. I noted that the brain is last, and that last is the first place we speak from. 

What we need do is sit in silence to absorb the wonder of it... of our heart full of love flowing over into our soul into our body with the brain slowly awakening to the wonder of it...and wanting to talk about it. Uh-oh.

No wonder we tend toward addlepated when we're going for a spiritual life...too often we speak from our intellect totally bypassing our Father within which is ready, willing and able to speak from our heart. 

Silence...sit in silence. Trust is born, bred and grows in silence. Thomas Merton said it beats in our very blood whether we want it to or not.

We have to look for the thread of sensitivity to such insights and decide that we’re going to live this way. It’s a kind of obediential fidelity that nobody can see but it matters more than everything. -- Ibid.

Thank you.