LIVING WITH TRUST AMID LIFE'S UNKNOWNS

In 2025, we invite you to reimagine Jesus’ timeless metaphors, exploring how to live deeply and with trust amid life’s unknowns — Richard Rohr's Daily Meditations, June 7, 2025

There...sanity described: exploring how to live deeply and with trust amid life’s unknowns. That describes my life since coming to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. 

This may well be what I've been living through since the sharp pain in my belly at 3:00 AM on April 30th. "This" being the process of being restored to the sanity of the God of my understanding. 

At one time, my idea of sanity was to never have a worry, fret, doubt or fear...I suspect that is fairly opposite to God's idea of sanity, else why would we need God?

My blinding flash of the obvious, nothing turns me to God faster than fear, speaks true.

We don't welcome fear for that's a fool's prayer, nor do we deny fear with affirmations, bells and whistles. We feel the fear even as we are enwrapped in God's love...physically fearful, mentally safe in the arms of the Lord.

According to me.

Thank you.

GOD'S WILL ALWAYS PREVAILS...IN TIME, I

[The following is a reprint of my post of June 29, 2012.]

When our free will counters God's will, our free will always wins...but God's will always prevails in time.

Since God's will is going to prevail, why not accept it first thing? Probably because the ego, where our free will lives, always needs something to go up against...to get over on.

That's the bottom-line reason for discipline, discipline, and still more discipline. Why we consciously try to put the other person first, why we try to admit our errors asap, why we want to want God's will, rather than our own will, to be done in our life.

We have learned that our will is not our friend, that God's will is. We rein in our ego wants so that God can "go before us to make the crooked places straight."

We have to start somewhere, and we will seldom start when we're faced with a real ego-reducing crisis.

Thank you.

ON UNKNOWINGLY KNOWING...PRAY THANK YOU

 At the table that Jesus prepares, all may assemble: In his body we are made anew, a community of faith—the living and the dead. In our presence, the Son of Man gathers up the remnants of our memories, the broken fragments of our histories, [and] judges, blesses, and transforms them. His Eucharistic banquet re-orders us, re-members us, restores us, and makes us one. -- Theologian M. Shawn Copeland, Richard Rohr's Daily Meditations, June 5, 2025

For whatever reason...for whatever reason unknown to me...as I read that paragraph, I knew, and I knew I knew, its meaning...its inner, true, meaning.

I very much doubt I'll be able to express that insight...to write it out...to make it clearer than it already is to those it speaks to. 

It spoke to me...deeply and truly...and I cannot even think of the first word to write to explain it for another to understand. Face it, it explains itself to whomever it explains itself to, all others get in line...it will come when, not if, we are ready.

I am not church people nor am I a so-called religious person, but I do believe. I believe what I believe by the-God-of-my-own-understanding...which, the older I get and the deeper my inner-person consciousness is raised, is what Jesus taught. I'm good with that, so be it. 

The inner person is the soil in which God has sown the divine likeness and image and in which God sows the good seed, the roots of all wisdom, all skills, all virtues, all goodness—the seed of the divine nature. -Meister Eckhart

Thank you.

TO HAVE AN ACTUAL CHANGE OF HEART

What we need is a requirement that those who wish to enter actually have a change of heart—that they don’t sneak in to accomplish their own agenda, but rather that they genuinely want to learn a new way of thinking, feeling, living, and being in 'the pastures of God.' -- Brian McLaren, Fr Richard's Daily Meditations, June 4, 2025

Awareness of this "change of heart" is what I believe I have been living since 3:00 AM, April 30th, when I was awakened by a sharp jab in my stomach. Unknowingly, my change began.

As I have been writing, this is and has been a scary journey. But I have not turned back...on I walk with doubt, without doubt, scared, peaced...up until this past week when a sureness settled on me (with shaking hands remaining).

I am not wholly peaced, I am settling. Settling in the new mindset that has been given me...I do not have the words yet to adequately tell my feelings...scared while sensing peace underneath? 

This I believe: Peace underneath is the Christ within.

Thank you. 

REASON JUDGES; SPIRITUAL LAUGHS AND LOVES

Unbeknownst to me, my silent prayer has been "Let me blossom."

The silent answer this morning, "This is me blossomping."

I only love it...I am blossomping. God's will, God's way!

I'm just going to see blossomping as me, as mine as I blossom, bloom and flower. With all the manure necessary to get me to full blossom, sans ping. Or with ping leading the way...what do I know?

My reasoning mind just kicked in...to let me know this is nonsensical, "don't publish!"

Pish-tosh...God's will, God's way seldom makes sense aborning. I mean, give over, give up, give in? There...blossoming full grown.

We get God's answer by doing God's will, God's way.

Thank you.

BE WILLING TO SEE DOWN AS UP, I

[The following is a reprint of my post of May 29, 2019.]

Say we make a decision to turn our will and our life over to the care of God as we understand Him...the hard lesson we learn is that leaves all to God. Every jot and tittle, every breath we take is left to the care of God.

God will ensure a happy return to all of our endeavors...ah, but it, that happy return, will not be all in our singular favor. It will be in the favor of all, which, to our reasoning mind, does not look like we've come out the "winner." It may well appear that we've finished at the end of the line.

That's how we learn if we're asking God to help us "win," meaning to fulfill a want or to come out ahead, we are ego-talking and only our self can hear.

God's will for each of us benefits each of us...the pearl beyond price is when we realize our happiness lies in the fact that God favors not one but all to our individual need.

In losing, we win...and the meek shall inherit the earth.

Thank you.

FEEL FEAR...LOVE AND LAUGH...AND FEEL FEAR

'Where can my negative energy go?' is the enduring human question; it must be exported somewhere. Sadly, it never occurs to us that we are the negative energy, which then sees and contributes to that negative energy in others. The ego refuses to see this in itself. -- Fr Richard's Daily Meditations, June 1, 2025

As I have written recently, I have been experiencing a time of trial in the extreme...as in feeling pea green purple petrified most of the time with the possibility of more hanging fire. I know this has been my well-earned experience, necessary for my growth...spiritual and mental.

On the surface, it was all fear of dementia. A blinding flash of the obvious has hinted that there is a deeper cause...my job, before I ever start, is to quit digging. 

There's the gift...the feeling of fear is not removed; realizing the presence of God is strengthened.   

Not knowing, not seeking the answer, just letting whatever comes be from God for my benefit is accepting that I shall feel fear. The long-ago gift of I feel fear, God is here bears fruit...still, yet, again.

Trust. I get to put to use the trust I have, that I have earned through hard work, through harder earned faith, and grace. Probably in the reverse order. 

Count on it...more will be revealed. Meaning more love and laughter are already in line, ready for my need. 

Thank you.