WE ARE ONE...HAPPY, JOYOUS AND FREE

As I look back over my 2013, and forward to my 2014, I feel the grace of gratitude...I have no regrets, I dread nothing.

And that's the truth. The further truth is, if I took five minutes to ponder my 2013, my 2014, I could have regrets, I would have dreads...and someone to blame. My ego is not dead, nor does it sleep. But neither does the God of my understanding. All I need do is kiss my ego on the lips (i.e., resist not) and keep my focus on God, and all will be well...all in my world is well.

The best part? I know, if I keep my focus on God, I can be a channel for the same no regrets/no dreads for my friends and/or my perceived enemies. For we become one...happy, joyous and free.

Thank you.

NOT TO DISCOVER BUT TO RETRIEVE

It is such a comfort to me, when a problem looms, to remind myself that that problem has already been solved. 

I usually want to get in the midst of it, figure it out (to my advantage), get all concerned to agree with me, but I need to quiet my mind, to listen. To listen...not for the answer to my perceived problem (for in God's world, there is no problem), but for the discipline of simply sitting quietly and listening. 

As Fr. Richard Rohr writes, "...spiritual knowledge is more like retrieving than discovering." 

Whatever answer we need (which likely has not an iota to do with what we're thinking we need) will come to us. That answer may look less than wonderful and a butt-biter into the bargain, but it is, in truth, our gold mine.

All we need remember is the promise: "Be not afraid...it is I."

Thank you.

GOD CAN AND WILL IF ASKED

Our goal is not to agree with that which we know to be wrong...our goal is to not disagree with it. It is the disagreement that is the glue that holds our ego together...our ego's sword and shield in truth. As long as we allow our ego to believe that we need a sword and shield, our ego will be our god. 

Just this morning, in his "Daily Meditations," Fr. Richard Rohr wrote, "The contemplative [quieted] mind does not need to prove anything or disprove anything. It’s…a reading of [our literature] that looks for wisdom instead of quick answers. It first says, 'What does this text ask of me? How can I change because of this story?' And not 'How can I use this to prove that I am right and others are wrong...?'”

This is the path we get to walk in order to cease fighting anything or anybody...that which, when first we read it, we know is either a misprint or a forget it, I can't/won't/don't want to learn how. 

Again we find that the hardest thing life asks of us is to simply change our mind. I can't, God can, It has my work cut out for me, thank you. 

Thank you.

THE GIFT OF TAKING NOTHING PERSONALLY

I had a disrupted friendship once over something I said. The friend was so angry, she wouldn't talk about it, and the friendship stayed disrupted for a long time. When finally we talked, it all boiled down to what my friend heard and what I actually said. 

We must become willing to change our minds. We hear what we hear...why would we change our mind about that? Because how we are interpreting what we heard is causing us pain...we are taking it personally. Even if Gertrude calls us ugly to our eyes, if we don't take it personally, it cannot hurt us, harm us, irritate us or take us down. 

We do not take it personally by allowing the possibility of another way of interpreting what we know we heard. There. That's our open invitation to God to do our thinking for us because we have let go of reliance on our reasoning mind.

We hear A, and we react with anger. We open our mind to another way of looking at A which does not change A, only our interpretation of A...God enters, and we know peace. 

This is a practice that will take this lifetime and the next to do as we breathe, I'm guessing, but it gives us hope. Doesn't that beat living in our own mind...discontented, hopeless and blameless (i.e., put-upon) to boot?

Thank you.

LOVE AND LAUGH. TRUST AND PRAY.

Love and laugh. Trust and pray. -- "God Calling," December 27.

For this coming year, I hope to continue to love and laugh, to trust and pray. That is the open secret of living happy, joyous and free. To me, that's the inner circle of life.

Before first thought, wake up, feel God's love and smile. That smile becomes a feeling of laughter, of all's right with the world...which we recognize as trust that God is in control, all is exactly as it should be. And we pray our thank you.

Then we get up.

And all the rest is a matter of self-discipline...the discipline of turning our material world thoughts (usually self-centered fear thoughts) over to the care of the God of our understanding. It helps me to just take a short-cut and consciously say, "I've no doubt made a decision based on self that's going to bite me today...I'd best get ready now to admit it and laugh about it."

Getting ready is learning that we must keep coming back to: "I am the source of all my woes. Without fail." Else we get stuck in the outer circle of life...where reasoning mind and I'm right/you're wrong live.

And that, too, is for loving, laughing at, trusting God and praying, "Thank you."

Thank you.

MY DREAM

[The following is a reprint of a blog of mine from May 9, 2012.]

I dreamed recently of my grandparents’ home in Kentucky. I had gone to visit but they were not home. It seems that I stayed for a very long time. 

The house had everything except an indoor bathroom. There was, however, an outhouse way back of the house. I made it my job to put it in pristine condition…I white-washed it, I put fresh lye down every day or so, I tatted little lace curtains to cover the hole in the door. It wanted for nothing.

One day my grandparents returned, and my grandmother asked how I liked their beautiful bathroom…with which, she opened a door I had not noticed. There was a spectacular modern bath. She said it had “always” been there, I just hadn’t looked for it.

When I awoke, I thought about my dream, and I realized it was all about my Father within. My God who is ever with me, never needing anything to be added unto Him.

I get so caught up in looking “out there,” in search of the perfect Something, person, book, talisman, to change me, make me more, better, different…maybe simply acceptable. Landing on first this, then that…like my pretty outhouse, facade is everything…make it prettier, more admirable…uh-oh, not right, not good enough, start again.

All I need do is look right here, right where I Am…go into the silence and give over to the God of my understanding who is already here, here in my heart, my Soul.  

Thank you.

WE KNOW IT AND WE SHOW IT

We are celebrating the feast of the Eternal Birth which God the Father has borne and never ceases to bear in all Eternity....But if it takes not place in me, what avails it? Everything lies in this, that it should take place in me. -- Meister Eckhart

And that's the whole message.

What good does it do us to worship a God-sent person if we aren't willing to do as that one did? Be it Mohammad, Jesus, the Buddha, our mentor, our mother...whom we are adoring makes no matter, that's just tinsel on the tree if we're only adoring. 

We get to adore AND look within to find It, to release Him, to let Her take wings from within us...and coo our names as It soars. When we hear it, we will know...when we know it, we must show it, or we don't know it.

Thank you.