OUR BFOs LIVE US...TRUST, LOVE AND LAUGH

Father Richard Rohr reflects on Jesus’ surrender to God through a path of descent.... Daily Meditation, April 13, 2025

It was a solid Yes! for me when I read Fr Richard's words. I know when it was that I realized the path of descent was my rocky but righteous road to God, but it took some serious spiritual growth before my common sense could give over to that realization.  It has been my North Star ever since. 

This way of accepting life on life's terms has softened my existence...anxiety became a cocoon for my life. I do not recall when I stumbled on the name, the path of descent, but it surely fit. I did not resist my apparently opposite way toward spiritual growth, in fact I welcomed it...proof to me that it is of God. 

That was a first blinding flash of the obvious, and I have since come to accept my BFOs are of God and for me to live. Face it, the proof of a blinding flash of the obvious is in the life we live.

Trust the down, and God will take care of the up. -- Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation, April 12, 2025

Thank you.

UPGRADE YOUR ATTITUDE...PRAY THANK YOU

In the secret hour of life’s midday the parabola is reversed, death is born. The second half of life does not signify ascent, unfolding, increase, exuberance, but death, since the end is its goal. The negation of life’s fulfilment is synonymous with the refusal to accept its ending. Both mean not wanting to live, and not wanting to live is identical with not wanting to die. Waxing and waning make one curve. -- C. G. Jung (1875–1961)

I was thrilled to come upon Jung's quote recently. I knew my long-held belief was validated, my belief that God's will is in reverse of the reasoning mind's will...that less, littler, smaller are God's will, God's way, not more, larger, largest.

I remember when I realized my error in believing that the worst thing that had ever happened to me in truth was the best thing that could ever happen to me. Amazing to me, that was some fifty years ago.

That insight back then one-pointed my journey toward still more spiritual growth.

When life hands us a less-than, the human condition is to pray for God to get it gone. This time I saw that whatever came to me looking less-than, only needed my willing welcome...via thank You...to change my life around the experience.

It would not change the problem, only my thinking about the problem needed to change...and I heard: Upgrade your attitude, you upgrade your problem.

Thank you.

GOD'S WILL AND WAY ARE BEYOND REASON

Blinding flash of the obvious: If dementia be mine, then dementia is a spiritual gift...let it lead me, fear it or not, accept it, and be open to the deeper side of it...still more spiritual growth.

My April 12 morning Journal entry: "Fear of dementia is riding me hard...very anxious...my today's God Calling entry came for my benefit via the Father within: Man's need is God's chance to help...is God's golden opportunity for him of letting his faith find expression. The expression of faith is all that God needs to manifest His Power. Faith is the Key that unlocks the store-house of God resources."

Ah, my fear of dementia is God manifesting His Power leading me free...of me. And if it be true, that God's will, God's way is the reverse of reasoning mind's way, then material-mind hate in reverse is spiritual love. There. That is the path we must learn to walk. That which or those whom toward which we feel antipathy, dislike, are our angels, sent to us to bring us through our material consciousness to God's will, God's way...spiritual consciousness, our rightful place. 

The more alone we are drawn to be, the closer to God consciousness we are. -- Blinding flash or material mind? Ponder not, it will prove itself.

Thank you.

GOD CHANGES OUR MINDS, I

[The following is a reworked reprint of my post of December 9, 2013.]

Struggling with one’s own shadow self, facing interior conflicts and moral failures, undergoing rejections and abandonment, daily humiliations, experiencing any kind of abuse or your own clear limitations, even accepting that some people hate you: All of these are gateways into deeper consciousness and the flowering of the soul. -- Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, December 8, 2013

I am so glad that God doesn't hold resentments. Just yesterday, that quote of Fr. Richard had me irritated, resistant and not happy about it. I could not...would not...let it lift me. It was a downer to my ego, and that was good enough for me.

This morning I read it, and my heart sang. What a wonderful gift for it confirms that all my rues, regrets and remorses really are gateways into my deeper consciousness and the flowering of my soul. 

God is so good to me...He can and will change my mind...and heart!...for me. 

How Great Thou Art.

Thank you.

ON LIVING A TURNED-OVER LIFE, I

[The following is a reprint of my post of December 29, 2018.]

Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it. -- Psalm 127

So the difference between 'the boys and the men' is the difference between striving for a self-determined objective and for the perfect objective which is of God. -- Anonymous

So the difference between relying on the reasoning mind and relying on spiritual consciousness is the difference between striving to build our inner house by our own devices and not striving but trusting our Father within to perfectly lead us through the building and then our living therein.

According to me.

Thank you.

UNAWARE, TRUST TAKES ROOT

Morning blinding flash of the obvious: Go for less...more is a fallacy...do not reach for, offer -- from mates to mercy to money.

I feel a tish resistant to that BFO which is the good and the bad both together...I'm gifted with a blinding flash, and I want to argue with it. 

Here's spiritual a-growing: We do not argue, we are no longer in it to win it. We let it stand and look forward to understanding, i.e.,  to getting the meaning of the message under the words.

Life is not for us alone to do...it is for God in us, One'd, to do whether we realize it or not. And trust takes root.

Thank you.

WORST TO FIRST...SELF-WILL TO GOD'S WILL

Inevitably, the journey takes each of us in different directions; however, by virtue of circumstances or choice, each of us will at some point in our lives find ourselves on the outskirts of society listening to the silence coming from within. -- Laura Swan 

In my early years of soul searching, I was awakened to the truism, I am the source of all my woes.  

A while back, I had been beaten down by my own less-than-good habits when that thought bloomed...I was torn between Oh, No, Not Another Change and Thank You. As it happened, that turned my self-searching around...I began to seek answers inside my own self.  

By way of my first resistant-but-willing thought, I was lifted into higher consciousness where I found the God of my understanding...worst to first in a heartbeat that is still beating strong.

Today, I am the source of all my woes is my go-to whenever my life seems to be going in the wrong direction...which, no matter the camouflage, is for material benefit, away from spiritual growth.

As an aside, that is no doubt how I am staying reasonably calm in the midst of the political climate in America today. On awakening, I pray my three-minute prayer, For America.... Then in silence I give over to God to fill in the rest.

Perhaps contemplative spaces can be found wherever people skirt the margins of inclusion. -- Rev. Dr. Barbara Holmes

Thank you.