WANT TO HEAR THE BIRDS?...LISTEN!

Blinding flash...my entire "towing" experience, beginning last Sunday, is further initiation...for my benefit. 

Everything I do that mentally causes me pause (sharing yesterday and feeling shunned; driving home passing the bicyclists and facing oncoming traffic when bikers would not move over into their lane; perceived silence from a friend when I shared my experience, and whatever comes today) are my continuing initiation, counterintuitive, and for my benefit...inner and outer benefit.

Thank you.

A BLESSING WITH NO FINGERPRINTS ON IT, I

[The following is a reprint of my post of December 6, 2019.]

Trying to avoid suffering is probably the cause of most personal suffering. Same goes with trying to avoid making a mistake...we either wind up with a head full of worry but doing nothing, a major mistake, or we wind up causing unintended consequences which invites mistakes.

The answer, we find all over again, is to sit and wait on the Lord with the inner intention of going to God for God...and that is all.

To sit and wait on the Lord is in spiritual consciousness the time for inner action. This is the time when we detach from our busy mind race-race, run-running on how to avoid or to fix our perceived problem.

Now we sit quietly and offer up a conscious invitation for our dreaded perception to walk right in, sit down with us and share a cuppa. Then we let our mind float to the many promises we have read of and invite any one up to do its thing.

Say that we are given It is I, be not afraid (John 6:20). Our mind's eye (I) recognizes our dread and our mind is changed...what we are dreading is the gateway up deeper, our sliver of gold. We realize that this, too is of God, and we hug it and kiss it and let it go.

This, of course, is not a one-shot deal...it takes as long as it takes to break completely free of our own imaginings. Often and oh so often we find it gone, leaving us wondering when we were freed.

There it is, the pearl of great price: We know we are blessed for clearly self 's fingerprints are nowhere on it. God can and will when self-protection takes a hike.

Thank you.

DOING IT WRONG LEADS TO PEACE OF MIND

By love, God can be embraced and held, but not by thinking....You must also know that this darkness and this cloud will always be between you and your God....So be sure you make your home in this darkness. It’s the closest you can get to God here on earth, by waiting in this darkness and in this cloud. -- extracts from The Cloud of Unknowing 

 

It is a wonderment to find comfort in the words of an anonymous 14th-century mystic that the darkness and the cloud will always be between us and our God. 

We were taught, and have sought to believe, that if we prayed hard enough, acted good enough, spoke with love only, we would feel good about our self, we would be fear-free, guaranteeing our perfect peace of mind. 

Ignoring the fact that to seek perfect peace is still a self-determined objective, we carried our own personal cross of less-than...never good enough...and seeking, studying, pondering more and harder became our how-to. 

When we came across the quiet word that we must go beyond reason to love, our life changed...or, more to the point, our mind changed which changed our life. Our changed mind lifted us into higher consciousness, and we began to think, feel, do and be from a place of love, i.e., God consciousness. 

The rude awakening, albeit necessary suffering, to be lifted into God consciousness does not preclude living in the natural world. That explains the comfort we receive from the words you must also know that this darkness and this cloud will always be between you and your God. 

Or, as our home-grown saint Fr Richard has written, we don't get to God by doing it right, we get to God by doing it wrong. There's our peace of mind...if we will use it.

Thank you.

WE ARE RAGGEDY EXAMPLES OF GOD...HOORAH

A deeper understanding of that which I already knew came to me in my quiet time this morning. I have ever known that I am living my worst fear...of being all alone. Actually, that is not my worst fear, my worst fear is of being left all alone. That is where my hidey-hole has been. I made sure I'd never be left all alone by never letting in anybody who could then leave me. 

My morning blinding flash of the obvious is that being alone has always been God's will, God's way for me. My self-determined want has been my block; I could not, would not, allow that to be the Truth. 

I can only assume why God's will and way has been for me to be alone...maybe to grow the gift of my spiritual nature deeper? To be a walking-around messenger for the Higher Power? More likely to be humbled by my egoic self until I am a raggedy example for like walking-around egos on earth. 

With that as a possibility, I feel peaced...I do that well actually. I do draw others to me, I am neither a falling-down failure nor a shining star...I am a Carter, I am a child of God, and I am unique. Same as you are. Ain't that good news?

God loves us so much.

Thank you.

ANGELS...MESSENGERS OF DEEPER MESSAGES

St Francis [of Assisi] found the transcendent not 'out there' but 'in here'—the transcendent was largely revealed at the depth and 'inner' of things. This is what we actually mean by 'angels.' Angels are the transcendent within of things. Everything, therefore, has its angel or 'messenger'! They make all things 'fly,' as it were, and all things are messengers of deeper messages. -- a parsed quote of Fr. Richard Rohr from 2013  

I love that quote so much that it almost hurts. I have pondered it many times over the years...the first time I posted it, I admitted I did not yet know its underlying meaning but the beauty of it enwrapped me.

The beauty still holds me close, plus I have found my inner meaning. A BFO...blinding flash of the obvious...that I experience is an angel. I have always known that I just did not know its name. I do not hesitate to claim it now as my Truth. 

Each BFO contains a deeper meaning that lifts my Soul. It brings the proverbial spiritual in nature feeling to my heart and head whether I "get" the deeper meaning immediately or not. That is beyond simple security...joy, peace, love and laughter pop, seemingly from my toes to my nose...and I am peaced.

The lesson alearning is to enwrap that feeling within me...without care, it can be usurped by ego's self-centered fear, and it is a climb back up. Ah, but with God all things are possible.

Thank you.

PEACE...BE STILL...LOVE AND LAUGH

Continuing with further insights born by recent trauma, today's Daily Meditation in which Barbara A. Holmes compares jazz with spiritual growth is right on point: The straining trumpet blasts away the illusion that our upward mobility will bring peace. 

Substituting panic for jazz: The panic blasts away the illusion that our upward reasoning mind mobility will bring peace.

Holmes further: To subject everything to rational analysis reduces the awe to ashes. The restoration of wonder is the beginning of the inward journey toward a God who people of faith aver is always waiting in the seeker’s heart. [Other than ain't it the truth, enough said.]

There it is...the quiet word: It is time for our constant analysis to be peaced, for us to sit and wait on the Lord. What we need will be made clear...our lesson has already opened for us.

Peace...be still...love and laugh.

Thank you.

MENTAL TRAUMA...A SPIRITUAL AWAKENING

Fr Richard's Daily Meditation today is about the gift of art and how it grows us. I had a traumatic experience yesterday, that was more mental than physical. I am amazed...delighted!...that Fr Richard's experiences with good art are transmuting as my trauma's spiritual gifts to me. 

Using today's article, the following bolded words are my very primitive coordinating insights:

"Sometimes, when we can’t take our eyes off a picture or work of art [or a trauma is visited upon us], an epiphany is happening. We don’t yet know what we’re knowing while the wisdom of the unconscious is being ferried across to the conscious mind. This I have been experiencing...insights into my very scary experience from a spiritual perspective.

"Art [mental trauma, as in necessary suffering] invites audiences to consider the spirituality and transformative power of images.

"Engaging with art [mental trauma, inviting a higher meaning] means we have to slow down to allow a new experience to enter which perhaps cannot be accessed in another way. So far, this is true and feels like the diamond in the rough.

"I believe good art, good poetry, and true mythology [mental trauma, necessary suffering...Fr Richard's cosmic story] communicates, without our knowing it, that life is not just a series of insulated, unrelated events. The great truths—when they can be visualized in images—reveal deep patterns, and reveal that we are a part of them. That deeply heals us, and it largely happens beneath our conscious awareness.

"We don’t close our eyes to the world’s pain, but on a deep, unconscious level, a cosmic story offers us healing and coherence. I began receiving a higher understanding of my trauma as soon as I arrived home and was alone...I knew that this, too, was of God and thus for my benefit...and, equally important, for the benefit of my friend who was a part of the experience."

Here's the natural mind's hard part in spiritual awakenings...waiting for the proof of purchase, so to speak. I know within me, this entire experience will prove to be of God...my egoic mind is saying, "When?"

I love it. 

Thank you.