TRUST...WE MUST GO BEYOND REASON

.... the mind of Christ still inhabits the world. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditations," January 23, 2026

Well, here's a comfort: I don't know, and I don't know what I don't know. 

That is the best I can do in trying to figure out where I am in my own still more spiritual growth. Ah, but the best I can do turns me to the mind of Christ, God's mind, my realized sufficiency.

I rather suspect (hope?) that's pretty much where all seekers stand. Face it, we wouldn't be seekers if we already knew The Answer. Not to get too deep into the weeds.

I take comfort in looking back where the answer to my yesterday's puzzlement is found...i.e., released. Released is when we find no self-enlightening answer, so we stop trying to "figure it out." We accept and voila it is now God's gift.

Blinding flash of the obvious: God's gift rarely comes looking like our answered prayer. 

To the reasoning mind, it's more like an unanswered prayer.

Yet, how else do we build trust? Trust, that which we have been building...or attempting to be building...all along.

We go beyond reason to God.

Thank you.

OUR NEMESIS IS OUR ANGEL, I

[The following is a reprint of my post of December 28, 2018.]

The forever lesson to learn:  To our reasoning mind, the one arousing our negative side is our nemesis...ah, but spiritually, that one is our angel.

There it is...the key to changing our mind. Then we must stay our focus on the power within which is ever on hand to further the opening, as needed.

This is an ongoing spiritual process...an opened mind releases the power for good within. Our detachment frees our thoughts from building self-determined results. That which we are resisting is freely transmuted in our mind...and we are graced with another angel in our midst.

Thank you.

PAIN TRANSFORMED...AH, PEACE

As I wrote yesterday, I'm at the place I lived in dread of in my younger years...i.e., being left all alone. With my sister's passing, I am being returned to that long-ago fear...now fact.

It is too soon to experience my unarmed feelings...I am still self-protected, and it is too soon to try for deeper. I am comforted by my long-ago decision to invite God to lead me through my life...the good, the bad and the uh-oh. 

As I write, I am realizing that pretty much everything I'm writing is from my eyebrows up. I am too deep in the sorrow of loss to begin to get cleared and/or clarified.  Ah, and that is how it needs be.

Rushing to get one's unwonderful feelings behind oneself is a self-determined objective at its strongest. We must feel our feelings at their core, or they can and will live in our core...making our decisions without our knowledge or informed consent.

To know those words is not to live them. We want to get passed the pain, but that just masks it...to rise again we know not when. 

We must feel the pain...it will transform us, peaced by grace and by God.

Thank you.

THE GRACE OF GRATITUDE

For many...women today, 'wilderness' or 'wilderness-experience'...meant standing utterly alone, in the midst of serious trouble, with only God’s support to rely upon. -- Womanist theologian Delores Williams, "Fr Richard Rohr's Daily Meditations," January20, 2026

That quote describes to a T how I am feeling today and have felt for the past days, weeks...month? I've lost count.

The welcome news to me is that I am not feeling panicked...not knowing what is to come when feeling utterly alone is a God-gift for certain-sure. I choose to believe that is the pearl we get in old age...when utterly alone is not a feeling, it is a fact!

I am the last one in my group of women still in "our" neighborhood...all the others have either moved into assisted living here on earth or in Heaven. God bless and keep them, and, not to put too fine a point on it, but God bless me, too!

I think that with a smile on my face...there's the fruit of my "still more spiritual growth." I'm at the place I lived in dread of in my younger years...i.e., being left all alone...and feeling gentle with it.

My sister, my best friend in our growing-up years...whom I depended on more than either of us knew at the time...is short breaths away from dying. We have not been close in years, but I'm living our early years memories now, and my heart is filled with painful gratitude. I "know" my sister is leaving with peace in her heart...as good as can be expected according to me.

To go with God in our heart, our soul, our body and our brain is the pearl beyond price...and that is my grateful prayer for my sister.

Thank you.

P.S. I just learned that my sister passed at 2:30 this morning. My heart is graced with gratitude for having had her in my life, and my thoughts are weeping salty tears for not having her here anymore. You were my anchor, Jane. Rest in peace knowing you were...and are...loved. 

TRUE FAITH...OUR IMPOSSIBLE DREAM

Faith is stepping off the map of what’s known and making a new road by walking into the unknown. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditations," January 19, 2026

I connected with the quote of Fr Richard's, but the rest of his quote, i.e., true faith is seeing a bigger circle in which we are all connected, all included, all loved, all blessed, is the equivalent of my impossible dream.

My life to date...looking back and remembering...feels perilously close to a revelation.

I do not recall ever determining that I was going to take an action whereby I would "walk into the unknown." As I look back, I can see my self-determined objective was simply to get what I wanted which I chose to believe was a need.

The first maybe half of my life "what I wanted" was what determined my actions. It was, however, "the worst thing that could ever happen to me" that lifted me...introduced me to the God of my own understanding, set me, my own mind, away from self toward Self, God...God's will, God's way.

In short, my inner self was opened to and welcomed by the God of my own understanding.

Looking back, I can appreciate my many stumbles, bumbles and feelings of unloved, unneeded, unwanted and unappreciated as determined by God for my benefit.

Today, I accept each stumble, bumble, mistake, or misstep that we make as caught by God and turned into a pearl beyond price. Our realization of that truth begins our still more spiritual growth. And repeatedly.

We are now and have ever been in God's loving care whether we know it or not.

Thank you.

UTTER POWERLESSNESS...AH, PERFECT PEACE

Our utter powerlessness in the face of our own self-will opens us to our path to God, i.e., still more spiritual growth. We seek within at an ever-deeper level in order to realize our Higher Power.

There it is, our path to peace...our utter powerlessness.

It is utter powerlessness that we resist...that we try with a will to overcome...that is our unrealized savior. It is our thinking, trying, manipulating that keeps God's will, God's way at bay. 

Face it, we can't get to God, to the Father within, by thinking. The Father within appears to us freely...unplanned, usually unrecognized and thus, from our eyebrows up, unwelcomed. 

It is that path, however, that opens us to our Father...unthinking, we experience. We experience God's will, God's way, in God's time,

We experience utter powerlessness and realize perfect peace.

Thank you.

FEAR...ON REALIZING ITS GIFT...THANK YOU

In theological terms, the story tells us that everything is grace, everything is a gift, and everything comes from God....It’s all meant to be enjoyed, if we can accept it as the gift it is. -- Father Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditations," January 15, 2026

Upon reading Fr Richard, I realize the most important part to me today is if we can accept it as the gift it is...or, not to put too fine a point on it, the most important word to me today is if.

Rearing its ugly head is dementia...again, still, oh my.

It is fairly interesting to me that I do not feel as scared as my writing indicates. Ah, but is that our dear friend denial doing my un-feeling for me?

Questions, I've got questions. 

The funny/sad part: I've got answers; I've got the right answers...all I need do is use them, live them, put them to work, daily.

Blinding flash of the obvious: This is how I put them to work daily. By wrestling with my egoic thoughts...fear dressed as real...with doubt push-pulling me all the way through to the other side.

The other side being God's will, God's way. 

Admitting unto acceptance that this way, from start unto this minute, is God's will, God's way. Comes the dawn (again): God is leading us through. 

As we walk God's will, God's way, we are unknowingly blessed to be feeling unloved, unwanted, unneeded, unappreciated. What else would press us on...push us upward into the ever-present arms of God?

God is so good to us...God is so good.

Thank you.