GOD'S WILL IS OUR WILL...PURIFIED

Every level of growth builds on the previous ones. The principle is this: transcendence means including the previous stages. Then you can see the limited—but real—value of the early stages. -- from Fr Richard Rohr's Daily Meditations, July 31, 2013

That quote describes to a T my life experiences. Arriving at age 80, I began to experience its truth. I was being gifted with situations that I had experienced some years back...when they angered (scared) me, sent me down that self-willed road, turned me around...eventually...and I could see the limited—but real—value of the early stages.

I talk a lot about it, of experiencing again that which I newly experienced back in the day. That which when first experienced scared me, and I prayed...really hard...for it to be lifted since, according to me, it could not be God's will. 

Since that "wart of many lives" wasn't lifted, I lived to praise it for it was God's gift to me personally. My unwanted wart at its birth became a sliver of gold as I grew spiritually and has become my pocket of gold now that I am in my 80s. 

Lessons learned: A perceived problem being magically lifted is rarely God's will, God's way. God is always for our still more spiritual growth whether it seems so as we live it or not. 

God's will is our will purified...that is probably my basic life lesson. 

Thank you.

UNFETTERED ACCEPTANCE IS OF GOD

A Rabbinic text from the ninth century declares that every person is accompanied, at all times, by a procession of angels crying out, 'Make way, for an image of the Holy One is approaching!'  

I've read that often and love it, but I admit it took a while for me to realize that it does not say "Make way for the Holy One is approaching." No. It says, "an image of the Holy One is approaching." An image...that's you...that's me...that's our best friend and our worst enemy and any stranger on the street.

Now that is righteous...and not to be pondered, analyzed or debated, but accepted. Again, we go to God for we cannot self-will acceptance which, when done right, is of God. 

We let go and let God's perfect will enter our Soul unfettered by our reasoning mind. 

Thank you.

WE ARE GOD'S HANDS AND FEET

Blinding flash of the obvious:  It is not God that has brought us here, we have brought God here. It is God that can and will lift us up in his time in his way...slow down, listen, love the little things, and trust.

It is not God that has brought America here, it is America that has brought God here. Only God can right us...in God's time, in God's way. 

It is our hands and feet that will accomplish God's will, God's way...as we slow down, listen, love life's little things, and trust.

Thank you.

PRAY THANK YOU...IN TRUST AND HONESTLY

I really only love God as much as I love the person I love the least. -- Dorothy Day, one of the founders of the Catholic Workers Movement

There...that is a sobering thought on this 4th of July...as the history of my country is refreshed in my mind, bringing again tears to my eyes. 

This is not the first time I've read that quote of Day's...not the first time I've felt gobsmacked by its meaning. It just feels like the first time.

It was a quick trip to the realization that this is the first time that I recall having so very many people not personally attached to me that I love the least. Mercy...a half dozen names of the unloved popped to mind before I finished my sentence. 

That's not all...I feel justified. Justified, or rigid, righteous and right. But I am justified...rigid, righteous and rightly so! 

I have been consciously talking with God about my feelings toward the main person of my discontent for a while...not getting very far, but I give me points for awareness that it is my problem. 

What with the most recent...accumulating...events on our political scene, my definition of "justified" is changing...maybe my opposing the current events is God's will just not God's way. 

Resist not, dig deep and find God's way to change...to change my mind, to change my take on events, to change the events not to my liking but to God's perfect intent, i.e., to overcome evil with good. Ah, there's my sliver of gold, to overcome with love as opposed to eradicate with hate. 

 

My new marching orders, my daily Open, Sesame to the Father within, are to love and laugh at my efforts to live and breathe this when all I need do is pray thank you...with the added caveat of meaning it. 

There's the blood, sweat and tears of our prayer of thank you...honestly meaning it. 

Thank you. 

KEEP OUR EYE ON THE PRIZE, THE DIVINE WITHIN

The spiritual journey begins with a pause, a centering-in-God pause, and over time becomes a constant and ceaseless prayer, an honoring of and a connection with the Divine in you that awakens your essential self. -- Spiritual director Caroline Oakes, Daily Meditation, July 3, 2024

The worse the national news appears to be today, the more convinced I am that we are in God's hands. Face it, most of us didn't originally come to God because it seemed like a neat idea...we came out of gutbucket need...God-inspired, God-delivered need.  

Still, it is difficult to keep that thought in the forefront of the mind even having had a crash-and-burn experience bring us to our peace. However, we are brought back to it in a red-hot minute, when needed.

That is how we learned to welcome life's less-thans, by being brought to the realization that underneath are the everlasting arms is truth...our personal truth, not just a pretty saying from the Bible. Admittedly, we never heeded that saying till we crashed and burned, a.k.a., when we needed it.

We would have no working knowledge of those arms if we were as unfettered as we want to be, as we pray to be. It is our prayers, however, that have led us to the place we need to be now. [Think of the line in the 23rd Psalm, Thou prepares a place before me in the presence of mine enemies.] Filled with anger...i.e., fear...over the state of America and our life in it today, we wonder what we can do to help right it. 

Comes now our answer, a centering-in-God pause, and over time becomes a constant and ceaseless prayer, an honoring of and a connection with the Divine in you that awakens your essential self. 

God's will, God's way is not of the reasoning mind...we discovered that as we looked back and realized our worst fear had become our greatest blessing...and always we had been an active part of it. 

That was true then...that is true now. Our way will be made clear to us in the moment...Now...as we keep our eye on the prize, the Divine within.

Thank you. 

WE GIVE OVER UNCONDITIONALLY...WITH LOVE, I

[The following is a slightly reworked reprint of my post of December 29, 2022.]

We learn early on that we are the source of all our woes, and that resentment is the trigger for our woes. It is best to learn early and not forget that justified resentment...is there any other?!...is purely willful ignorance. A get-out-of-jail-free delusion.

The good news is that there are tools to use to head off a resentment completely. The bad news is to own those tools, we must be willing to give over to whatever/whomever we are resenting. To give over unconditionally. With love.

All of which brings us back to the God news...our mind is being changed. Our consciousness is being raised...we are being focused on better than our egoic feelings, and only good can come from that.

It's a given that ego is ever available to us and has but one goal...to legislate for itself. Ego...edging God out.

This we know: When we made our decision to throw in with God and God alone, we began to receive still more spiritual growth daily...away from ego to a higher level deeper.

We must go beyond reason to love. -- Thaddeus Golas

Thank you.

GOD'S HAND IS IN THE CHAOS...LOVE AND LAUGH

President Biden's debate performance last Thursday night was so reasoning-mind awful...disastrous, not to put too fine a point on it...that we can believe and joy in the belief that God's hand was in it. 

The President could not have sounded worse, but underneath, behind the scenes, unbeknownst to the reasoning mind's abilities to produce a solution, always there is God...the hand of God lifting the heavy load of logic, imbuing our need with his perfect answer of love and laughter. 

I have a couple of real-life examples: First, in 1971 when I was diagnosed with an incurable, progressive disease, I thought...I knew...my life was over. Today and every day of my life since, whether I knew it or not, that diagnosis has been God's perfect gift to me, for my benefit. 

Second, in the early 1980s, when the business that I was part-owner of went bankrupt, all the other partners went to Italy, and I got the $50,000 debt...and the IRS. Fairly early on, I came to realize that this had to be a spiritual gift to me...and indeed that is what it proved to be. Plus, I paid off the entire debt...without a glimmer of resentment. There's God's perfect gift to me.

When the reasoning mind sees less-than-wonderful, faith calms us, knowing that out of chaos comes un-figure-out-able peace. The Ship is righted not by blaming and shaming, not by logic and lies, but by God's will, God's way...love and laughter.

This I believe.

Thank you.