ON USING FEAR TO LIGHT OUR PATH, I

 [The following if a reprint of my post of December 31, 2019.]

Fear is never lifted out of us. Praying for God to take away fear is a waste of our breath and God's time. No, God does not take away our fear...He imbues us with the power to walk through it to get to Him. Face it, we are the source of all our woes, and God is the cleanup crew.

Our ego seeks to be absolved of all blame always...but blame is just fear with a new haircut. We are slow to learn that is where God's glory lies...blame (fear) is spiritual growth aborning for to lift us deeper. Time set aside daily to meditate, to journal, to ponder on the mysteries of the spiritual is the new GPS we are gifted with.

We slowly realize the nature of the path we have been set upon. It is a path that leads us ever forward guided by ego's denial of its determined hold. The many bumps in our road are our hard-earned giftees; equally important, they benefit others at the same time. Thus, we all come out of self free.

Fear is never lifted out of us...it is used to light our path out of self into God's hidey-hole.

Thank you.

ON LIVING HAPPY, JOYOUS AND FREE

 At its best, Franciscan life is not words or even ethics. It is flesh—naked, vulnerable flesh—unable to deny its limitations, unable to cover its wounds. Francis called this inner nakedness 'poverty.' -- Richard Rohr's Daily Meditations

I choose to believe that all words have two meanings, the good and the not-so-good, the words of peace or love and the words of hate or hurt, 

Maybe all acts fall into those two categories...keep it simple being our best intention. Keeping it spiritually simple...ah, there be the Self stripped bare.

My recent revelation...the reasoning mind is incapable of keeping it simple.  We go to God or we live in self-centered fear, which we suspect is the natural state of the reasoning mind. 

The great and glorious news is: We do not need to live in that state...we can and do trust God. We can have faith and live happy, joyous and free!  

Thank you.

THE GIFT OF UNKNOWING, I

[This is a reprint of my post of December 31, 2015.] 

 The more we know the more we know we don't know...reasoning mind weeps, Spirit exults. 

 Thank you.

ON LIVING HAPPY, JOYOUS AND FREE

 At its best, Franciscan life is not words or even ethics. It is flesh—naked, vulnerable flesh—unable to deny its limitations, unable to cover its wounds. Francis called this inner nakedness 'poverty.' -- Richard Rohr's Daily Meditations

I choose to believe that all words have two meanings, the good and the not-to-good, the words of peace or love and the words of hate or hurt, 

Maybe all acts fall into those two categories...keep it simple being our best intention. Keeping it spiritually simple...ah, there be the Self stripped bare.

My recent revelation...the reasoning mind is incapable of keeping it simple.  We go to God or we live in self-centered fear, which we suspect is the natural state of the reasoning mind. 

The great and glorious news is: We do not need to live in that state...we can and do trust God. We can have faith and live happy, joyous and free!  

Thank you.

THE GIFT OF LOVE AND LAUGHTER

In order to be free for a full and authentic life, we must quite simply be free from our smaller selves. -- Fr Richard Rohr Daily Meditation, October 3, 2025

According to me, there is no greater task than to be free from our smaller selves. Probably because our smaller self looms so large in our mind. 

I can't help but appreciate the old saying, I don't think much of me, but me is all I ever think about. How true, oh Lord, how true. 

Comes the dawn...that is so true that all we can do is laugh. Proving yet again, our worst fear, thought, reaction comes as a gift wrapped in laughter.

Love and laugh, live happily ever after...with mini breaks for taking oneself too seriously. 

Thank you.

THE MAGIC OF WHEN

 I suppose there is no more counterintuitive spiritual idea than the possibility that God might actually use and find necessary what we fear, avoid, deny, and deem unworthy. This is what I mean by the “integration of the negative.” Yet I believe this is the core of Jesus’ revolutionary good news.... "Richard Rohr Daily Meditation," January 19, 2025

I've written about that before...probably more than a couple of times...yet it speaks to me louder each time I am met with it. 

I recall when the still small voice first came to me with you gotta find the good in this bad situation, and I knew that to be a direct message to me from my own Higher Power, i.e., God. That was many years ago. 

It is the mystical realization of that fact that turns us around...heads us in the right direction which at first feels like the wrong direction. 

As a young teen, I realized that I had a different daily pattern to live by. God's gift was the vital point: I knew and accepted that I could not set the new pattern for me; I could only live it as It presented Itself to me. 

That was my first glimpse of the New Way. Over the years, that led to my knowing...knowing when I am doing God's will, God's way...when conversely this is ego's choice. 

When...the pearl beyond price. No greater gift.

Thank you.

KISS...KEEP IT SIMPLE, SWEETIE

Righteous violence ultimately leads to self-justifying monologues, rather than the continuous love dialogue that reflects the Trinitarian nature of God and, by extension, the entire universe. -- Richard Rohr Daily Meditation, September 27, 2025 

Righteous violence is violence in fancy dress. 

I write that without any thought behind it so it's subject to change. I wonder, though, if that isn't how wars begin...a spat leads to an argument leads to a fight leads to war...with no memory of what led to that first feeling of resistance. 

It could be that all that leads to a war is one person's first feeling of resistance.

That certainly clarifies the "magic" of thank You...feel a twinge of resistance, promptly pray thank You, and there, a peaced mind. 

That is simplified in the extreme, but if Keep It Simple, Sweetie isn't our mantra, it does qualify,

KISS...what could be easier to remember? And with God's grin thrown in to bless us.

Thank you.