OUR WORST FEAR IS GOD'S PERFECT GIFT

God creates the very dissatisfaction that only grace and finally divine love can satisfy. -- Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, May 13, 2024

Thou preparest a place before me in the presence of mine enemies. -- from Psalm 23:5, KJV

The essence of those two sentences is the basis for my changed heart and mind. When a spiritual yearning came to me, 50 some years ago, the only prayer I knew by heart was "Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep." The Lord's Prayer I could repeat a beat or two after the person next to me said the words which was fine by me.

My spiritual yearning came to me back then dressed as Anxiety Attacks. Oh, how I prayed for God to remove them...lift them...free me. 

Here was my first lesson (albeit unknowingly) in the counterintuitive nature of spiritual growth. My anxiety was not lifted, removed or even lessened...no, I used it to help me learn to welcome my anxiety. The peace of resist not evil was born within me.

It took several years, and then only in looking back, for me to recognize the true nature of the happening, i.e., spiritual growth taking me to a deeper level higher. 

This was one of my first experiences of being physically used by my inner knowing, and I am grateful that it took several years to fully grasp it. The wonder of it is that more is being revealed to this day...being physically used by our inner self for our own spiritual growth is the Father and I are one.

Mostly I know that from my toes to my nose but completing the journey?...maybe three days after I'm dead. I can only hope so I'll keep on growing spiritually.

Thank you.

WE LIVE IN GOD'S WORLD...HOW BLESSED WE ARE

We have heard that one aspect of spiritual growth is learning to love in a loveless place. The only thing stopping us from loving in a loveless place is wanting to. But what place needs love more? That loveless place is within us, begging for the love we already have but we fear using lest we show our need for love.

It is fear which spreads its unseen wings, and we seek no further. Fear of not knowing, fear of finding out what it is we are not knowing.

We unconsciously rely on our mental faculties, our egoic mind, to dictate the path of our lives. The revelation comes when we recognize that is the gift. The more we grow spiritually, the more we see our egoic mind as the spur we need to thank...through its failure, we are turned deeper within to our spiritual core. 

Inner spiritual growth constantly takes us to that deeper place higher of which we are not consciously aware. Not by thinking, not by analyzing, not by conscious effort but by grace we are led to God-rest and regeneration. 

Sooner or later, we are awakened to the realization that this is God's world. How blessed we are.

Thank you.

TO LIVE FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE OTHER, I

[The following is a reprint of my post of November 15, 2017.]

In spiritual growth, there is a different...a better...way of hearing ...we hear from the 4th dimension where peace, love and joy flow freely...on the material plane, our ego-victory thinking does our hearing for us. -- Blinding flash of the obvious.

What needs to change, I'm coming to believe, is my hearing. According to me, we hear that which we want to hear the way we want to hear it...then react to our interpretation of what we chose to hear. If we hear pretty, we respond in kind; if we hear not-so-pretty, we react in kind.

With still more spiritual growth as our singular life goal, we find a new way of hearing. It is not ours to work for, to attempt to "get." No. It is the free gift we receive from living not for our gain, but for the well-being of the other...which is one definition of still more spiritual growth. Knowing and showing that God has our back frees us up to think, then act, for the other's good.

I suspect that this takes a lifetime to learn unto doing as we breathe, but it's a lifetime well-lived.

Thank you.

CALM INVITES GOD'S WILL...AS DOES CHAOS

God Calling today is all about calm...I had been pondering some folks' m.o., i.e., the minute they hear a personal "taboo," they close the conversation. This gives an "un" message, an egoic message of being in control of the taboo. It does not cultivate calm, it cultivates rigid, righteous and right.

I'm reminded of those who pride themselves on not watching or reading the news of the day...self-chosen ignorance is still ego, there is no spiritual growth in that.

We seek calm, not indifference. To cultivate calm, we do not resist indifference, not to grow it but to desting it. God grows kindness...kind thoughts, kind heart, kind actions.

The politics of today, the very atmosphere, cannot be minimized by ignoring it and its daily results. We will be affected by an inner conflict that we do not recognize and cannot fathom...even as it leaks out all over others with our name on it. No, to ignore invites ignorance of our inner self...which is yearning to love and that is all. 

Learning to welcome our reasoning mind's Oh, No! is love...God...in action, and only God's action through us can prevail. 

This realization is entirely based on the Sermon's "When someone slaps us upside the head, turn the other cheek." If I win, it is an ego trip, the same goes if I "let" you win...ego trip. When both sides come out the winner, God's hand is in it.

Our lesson a-learning: Not by will but by grace.

Thank you.

EVEN THE DARK PLACES ARE FOR OUR GOOD

God creates the very dissatisfaction that only grace and finally divine love can satisfy. -- Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, May 9, 2024

As I flipped through my journal this morning, this sentence popped up: And there's the joy...recognizing a personal rue, regret, remorse as the gold I get to love.

I did not note when that was posted but I know it was some time ago...it has been my go-to for a long, long time is all I'm certain of. I do know it was born in a blinding flash of the obvious no doubt when I was bogged down in taking myself too seriously.

The flash was: There is a sliver of gold in everything...find the sliver of gold and hang onto it for it will lead you free. That has proved true in my life. I have had some hairy life experiences, as we all have if we're doing it right, and that one sentence has helped me stay my course...away from self, back to Self.

 Along these lines, there is a sentence in the 23rd Psalm that nearly always stops me cold: He prepares a place before me in the presence of my enemies. It is God the Father that prepares the place...in the presence of my enemies. 

There's our proof that even the dark parts are used in our favor. Our spiritual and personal need is to trust that.

Thank you.

TO HAVE A MIND AT PEACE...NOW

The pleasure...the power!...in being 80 years old, 80 plus now, is pluperfect to me today. Daily living now is Oh, No giving over, giving up and giving in without conscious effort to thank you. 

It is described eloquently by Fr Richard in his April 29th post, i.e., living simply helps level the playing field and offers abundance and enoughness to all. My take: The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want...I can never not have enough.

I am finding my reasoning mind being changed without any resistance from me (the key, of course). To my material mind, my world goes lacking on occasion. I am realizing that the structure of my life has changed seemingly without a by-your-leave from me, and I consciously welcome this.

The Sermon on the Mount, particularly resist not evil, has opened our spiritual core and allowed resist not...anything to bloom.    

That is how we walk the rough and rugged road of life, not resisting but welcoming the slings and arrows of outrageous fate. (I love that phrase...it covers all the mental Oh No bases.) 

Looking back, we see the rough and rugged places in life have been turned into the slivers of gold that peace our mind. Our mind is peaced as it need be, and there it is, our now definition of peace of mind.

Thank you.

FEAR MIRES US IN SELF, I

[The following is a reprint of my post of October 3, 2018.]  

Idle thoughts: There is no bulletproof-shield-God between the material world and us...we will feel every bullet, every rotten egg, every snark...every hit, justified or unjustified. God is inside/outside so as each hit lands, it is depersonalized and does not stick but becomes nothingness. It is our trying to avoid incoming or to respond in kind to the incoming that invites the fight, and our fear takes hold.

Another idle thought There is no magic wand that God waves over the material me changing my every dread into his precious gift to me...transforming every fearful thought into a bye for me. That is whistling-by-the-cemetery thinking and mires us in self.

God lets us choose our own path...he goes before us to make the crooked places straight, but we must walk our chosen road, crooked places and all.

It is our thank you as we put one foot in front of the other each day that seals the deal. Thank you confirms to our own self that God is on the field, that wonderful and/or less-than-wonderful will come and it will go but naught will stick to us because it is not ours.

By grace and by God.

Thank you.