WE, OF OUR OWN SELVES, CANNOT

Acceptance. The very word is inviting. It has that huggable sound...that “Oh I want one!” sound. Well, get ready for a shock to the old hemorrhoids. Acceptance is just surrender wrapped in pretty paper. 

And, who’s kidding whom, we know what surrender means. Not to put too mean a point on it, it means You Lose. Stop Fighting. The war is over, and you lost. 

Until we surrender to the very fact that we've been resisting, the fact with all the hair on it, we will never reach the tra-la-la pretty. The paradox is that we have to kiss it on the lips in order to reach that part. We have to kiss it on the lips while it still looks like the frog it is...and feel in the doing totally alone, bereft, hopeless. And kiss it anyway. Because we have no hope. And here comes another paradox! As Walter Brueggeman says, "The home of hope is hurt.”

It is in that very hopelessness that we find God…who has been trying to get our attention all along. Fr. Richard Rohr says, "Divine love is received by surrender instead of performance or perfection." 

The perfection of acceptance is that it does not change the fact that we've been resisting...it changes our perception of that fact. From worst thing ever to God is so good to me. The essential ingredient? Our realization that we of our own selves cannot make that change. We go to God for God.

Thank you.  

ON SURRENDER AS THE ANSWER

In dealing with the dings, the dreads, the differences that life deals us, if we are ever to know real peace in and of our mind, the only thing that we need do is to simply change our mind. That is also the hardest thing life asks of us, to simply change our mind.

When we become entirely ready to do that, we meet the second hardest thing life asks of us: Give up. Then bitch a lot at our futile attempts. Then weep salty tears. Finally say our thank you...and laugh at ourselves. We've begun to understand that we're trying to think our way through surrendering our reasoning mind-power. 

What we are learning is to detach from the idea that we know or that we should know. We are coming to realize that our brain is not, never was or will be our reliance...that God is. Period. Exclamation point if we want...or question mark, more likely, to start with. 

More specifically, we come in time to realize and to accept that God, that power greater than ourselves, lives within us, is on our side, has our back, and can and will intervene in our life in our behalf.

That sounds so easy, so inviting. Yet when we're met with another one of life's dings or dreads we find how difficult believing really is. Mainly, because our reasoning mind linked with our ego will arise and go forth a-shouting, "This is awful! What am I going to do? Please don't let this happen...or un-cause it now that it has happened!! Please, please, please!!!"

That's why dings, dreads and differences are our angels. Nothing else will drop us to our knees so quickly, so completely. We know we're heading in the right direction when we hear ourselves pray, with (or without) peace in our head and heart, "Do your thing, God. You got the power, I don't. Thank you for my life just as it is right this very minute." Repeat as needed.

Then turn our attention to being of help somewhere else.

Thank you.

A NEED...NOT A WANT

[The following is an edited reprint of my blog of February 23, 2012.]

“I stand at the door and knock.” It is the Father within who stands at the door and knocks to be let out…to be released.

My needs are always met…by God. “The Father within knows my needs.”

My wants are sometimes met, sometimes not. It is my obsession with getting my wants filled that turns my wants into my god of the moment, and thus blocks the grace of God. It is known as free will, but there is nothing free about it.

There is nothing, per se, wrong with having wants…that’s how life moves forward. It is when I get all bogged down with whether I’ll get my needs met (do I have enough money to last the rest of my life?) that my wants grow spurs and ride me. That’s when I confuse my want (enough money to last forever) with my need (to know and to do God's will in my life).

It was during my 10 plus years of taking care of the IRS that I learned that…which is exactly why I know my experience with the IRS to be of God, a need I had, but assuredly not a want, and for which today I am deeply grateful.

Thank you.

LEARNING TO LAUGH AT OUR INEPT ATTEMPTS

Very possibly the first blinding flash of the obvious I ever had came to me on the playground at Mt. Logan School in my hometown. I wanted a hug from my brother, and he was utterly oblivious to me or my wants. I remember thinking then that I can't get a hug, I have to give a hug. I do not recall, but I can realistically doubt, that I went over and gave him a hug. 

My brother died when I was ten years old, and I never consciously thought of that again until I was well over thirty. The reason it came to mind then was that a group of us were all rhapsodizing about unconditional love, that we all needed it in our lives. My BFO was that no one can get unconditional love, we can only give unconditional love. And I recalled my thought about the hug all those years ago.

It was sometime later that I realized that, in fact, only God can give unconditional love. We can only give conditional love...and then go to God to hone down our conditions!

The paradox is that we can't get any of the inside things. The reason being is we already have them. They are ours to give...that's how we find out we already have them.

Take for instance, understanding. We can talk till our face falls off, we will not get understanding...we can get someone to agree that they understand but that's usually just to shut us up. Then, because they want to be understood, they start to talk...and talk...and talk…until we agree. Just to shut them up. The secret is, if we learn to honestly listen to each other in the first place, love does take seed and understanding grows and flows.

Reminds me of Dylan's song asking how many years? How many years does it take before we understand that our life is not about us...it's about others. It's about understanding that if we love our enemies, we will have no enemies. It's about realizing that all on our own we are incapable of doing that...of loving our enemies. But that the Spirit within us can and will if sought.

It’s about realizing that we already have that which we seek, but we must seek help from that Spirit, our higher power, in order to give it away. Daily. As we breathe. Without hesitation. And failing…then laughing at our inept attempts.

It’s about never giving up that single goal...for we are learning how to go to God for God. That is All.

Thank you.

PROOF THAT GOD LOVES ME

Woke up with a head banger this morning...telling off two different people at the same time and them in two different beds far, far away.

I was half way down the road to chewing them each a new one and utter despair that I'm going down that wrong road again.

That's when God whispered in my ear, "This is just a snowflake on the bosom of the Potomac."

God loves me so much.

Thank you.

GOLDEN RULES

I was contemplating a person's guilt this morning. His guilt is way out of proportion to his misdeed...plus it happened a dozen years ago. Double plus, his guilt is not mine to assuage. But I do empathize with him...mainly because he is still lashing out at the party he maligned, and he is utterly oblivious to the fact that that is the taproot of his ongoing guilt.

As I sat there, a quote of the long-time gone but never forgotten Senator Everett Dirksen (R-IL) floated through my mind. My recollection of that quote is, "This [event] will have all the force and effect of a snowflake on the bosom of the Potomac."

I applied that to the man's remarks all those years ago, and that is exactly the result they had on the person he was referring to. They had all the force and effect of a snowflake on the bosom of the Potomac.

I have always loved that quote...mainly because it applies so aptly to about 90% of all our rues, regrets and remorses.

That's going to be my co-golden rule. My golden rule is: Try not to be as nasty as you want to be. Now, right along with that: Let this have all the force and effect of a snowflake on the bosom of the Potomac. 

I hope I remember that.

Thank you.

ALL THAT IS REQUIRED

I got over myself yesterday…in a conversation with a person who had bad-mouthed me and wasn’t sure I knew. We were able to have a pleasant conversation, and I in no way zapped her with my knowledge…and I consciously made that choice even while we talked.

In like situations in the past, I have either shot really ugly zingers (and suffered the remorses of a dog beater), or I refrained from retaliating in kind only because I couldn’t think of anything not ugly-mean but sufficiently clever enough to make my point. So I would show nice then go home and shoot zingers at her to my bathroom mirror.

There is no permanent growth in practicing “good behavior” and thinking attack thoughts...according to me, and I speak from personal experience.

My job now is to keep my thoughts reined and turned to God…to grow loving thoughts toward that person in particular and to not entertain the inevitable ego-driven attack thoughts that will sneak through.

Here’s why that is so hard: All that is required of me is that I go to God for God. That is all.

Thank you.