TRUTHS WE TRY TO LIVE BY

The following are a few of the phrases, words and sentences that originally spoke to me. I hope they speak to you, too: 

Be not afraid...it is I. -- John 6:20

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The final word on nonresistance:  You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,' But I say to you, Do not resist one who is evil. -- Matt 5:38-42

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If the only prayer you pray in your life is thank you, that would suffice.  

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The eye with which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me; my eye and God’s eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowing and one love. —Meister Eckhart, Sermon on Sirach 24:30 

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If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend who you hate. -- Nikka, age 6 

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The Dalai Lama said little beyond, My religion is kindness.

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Philosopher Hannah Arendt wrote that isolation breeds radicalization. 

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Before you speak of peace, you must first have it in your heart.  — St. Francis of Assisi 

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God’s message of love is sent into the world in human envelopes.

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Blinding flash of the obvious: Our problem is never the named thing; it is fear of the named thing.

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We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope. Only in this way shall we live without the fatigue of bitterness and the drain of resentment.   —Martin Luther King, Jr.

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Carl Jung: Life, so-called, is a short episode between two great mysteries, which yet are one.

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Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth (Matthew 5:5)

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 Some years ago, E. F. Schumacher said, Small is beautiful.

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Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Blinding flash of the obvious, thy rod and thy staff are love and laughter.

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It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. - 1 Corinthians 15:44

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According to the Talmud, every blade of grass has its own angel bending over it, whispering, Grow, grow.

That last quote is very likely my favorite. 

Thank you.

THE GIFT IN FAILING AND FALLING SHORT

Failure and falling short are the best teachers; success has virtually nothing to teach us on the spiritual path. -- Fr Richard Rohr, Daily Meditation, February 26, 2021

I suspect that self-determined objectives in spiritual growth are the devil's own handiwork. 

As I read again Fr Richard's quote, I remembered my original response to learning that failure is our best teacher...I thought of deliberately failing so as to hurry up my spiritual growth. There it is, self-determinedly heading down that wrong road again. 

A self-determined objective is nearly always the wrong way to go...face it, "self-determined" tells the tale. If we need think about it, we're already on the less-than right road.

Self-will is just another bump in the road...to fear it or fight it is to crown it the winner for we are relying on self-will to erase self-will. 

Finding the gold in failure and falling short is the gift. It is in the failure, the falling short that the gold is hidden. We think about it, worry, fret and stew until we come to intellectual agreement...and then find that doesn't work either. 

We must fail and fall short not to personally get but to be spiritually lifted. It's akin to the luck of God's draw. 

It is so simple, and the hardest thing I've ever attempted. The paradox is that success comes by way of failing although I never deliberately tried to fail. 

Ah, God's will, God's way just realized...unexplainable by the material mind.

Thank you.

GIVING GOD GRINS, I

[The following is a reprint of my post of  September 17, 2018.]

This morning's blinding flash of the obvious: I can't make a fool of myself with only me seeing it...I be the fool for the benefit of others for however it comes to them to be benefitted.

After that daunting BFO, I read this interesting anecdote about Thomas Merton: When, at his monastery, a complaint was voiced to him, Merton would say, We don’t come to the monastery to get away from suffering; we come to hold the suffering of all the world.

What's fancifully wonderful is that I can equate my making a fool of myself to holding the suffering of all the world.

I say again, if it weren't for us, God wouldn't have any laughs at all.

Thank you.

ACCEPT THE DIRT, LOVE THE GOLD, I

[The following is a reprint of my post of July 12, 2017.]

We must seek to know our own self until we accept that the dirt we find is our gold. By accept, I mean love. Love the dirt, love the gold for they are one...not two sides of the same coin, but one through and through.

With that love, we are turned away from our constant naval gazing, our ego search to find (and correct) our self, and we know: That is God's gift...we know that in our whole and complete trust in the God of our own understanding, our search is over.

We seek no more in our bellybutton or in our brain. We are now living wholly by spiritual standards. We will know spiritual standards for they seek us out.

Thank you.

WHEN WE ARE READY, ALL WILL BE LOVE

Go beyond reason to love - it is safe. It is the only safety. Love all you can, and when you are ready all will be shown to you. -- Thaddeus Golas, "The Lazy Man's Guide to Enlightenment"

There. Short, sweet, and true direction for living a spiritually based life: Go beyond reason to love. 

To go beyond reason is to walk on the dark side...which is righteous even as it sounds wrong. It sounds wrong to our reasoning mind since we were born and raised primarily by the dictates of reason. 

Most of us never make peace with the dark side, never allowing that to be a welcoming to our spiritual growth. The truth, however, just as light is of God so is dark...everything is of God.

Opening our mind to the dark side, albeit scary, is a spiritual act that cannot be experienced through self-will. It requires faith, pure and simple...there is no act as if. 

That faith is already inside of us...it is the capstone that blends the dark and the light with reason left behind. We are connected with the Almighty, and in the peace that passes understanding, we are immersed in love.  

Thank you.  

WE MUST GO BEYOND REASON TO GOD

Each of us must strive for the internal spiritual balancing act between knowing and not-knowing. .... these two spiritual traditions is light and darkness...Together, they create a magnificent form of higher consciousness called biblical faith. -- Father Richard's Daily Meditation 

Learning to walk our own rough and rugged road is our true life lesson...that may be a blinding flash of the obvious. We'll only be certain of it when, not if, we realize its truth...its truth to us personally, to nail it to our Cross.

My current walk along the rough and rugged road is particularly mind-bending because there is no physical pain, no rues, regrets, remorses...only unknown. Living through the unknown gives preference to physical pain. According to me in my moments of self. 

That is when I am still looking back and longing for the freedom of my chains (with thanks to the great Kris Kristofferson). The wholly holy news there is I look back without regrets...I look back in awesome wonder of the Great Spirit that inhabits me...and you and all the world.

Feeling all at sea, not knowing, wondering as I wander...all my yesteryear's deep fears today form my Lantern lighting the way as I stumble, amble, ramble...or just get on down the road. Getting off track to get back on.

BFO...Getting off track is doing it right! 

Nothing turns us to God like realizing we are off-track. Period. We must get off our own track to accept that we are now solidly in need of God's tracks.

We must go beyond reason to God.

Thank you.

ON GIVING GOD A GRIN

Stop trying to figure it out....Your only task now is to set your soul free. -- Saint John of the Cross --
Fr Richard Rohr's Daily Bulletin, July 16, 2025

I am feeling so...empty? un?...un what I do not know. Simply, un.

Unknowing is scary to the reasoning mind which believes it knows, or scarier, should know...and does not.

I choose to believe I am in the grace of unknowing and my need is to welcome that...go beyond reason to love.

We know we cannot will going beyond reason...because it is reason that is determining our need.

I have been in this state of unknowing since 3:00 AM, April 30th. No...that was the blinding flash...all the rest has been me virtually arm wrestling with God about the flash. What to do? How? With what? I stymie myself that way, then pray the Lord come to my rescue.

There it is: Stop trying to figure it out....Your only task now is to set your soul free. [Uh-oh...how?, etc. This is also known by me as giving God a grin.]

Thank you.