WE WANT NOT...FOR ANYTHING, FOREVER

"The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want." I shall not want for anything, forever...any need I perceive has already been filled before I could perceive it...my perception of a need is my realization...the bubbling to the surface of the fulfillment of that need. -- My morning blinding flash of the obvious.

We know our perceived need has been fulfilled not just by the feeling of good about our self but, more importantly, by the inner feeling of peace and goodwill about the world, about our world, about all around us, from within out. That's our click-click that God is on the field (a description of Joel Goldsmith's that I identify with).

Thank you.

THE PERFECTION OF UNKNOWING

Deep acceptance of ultimate mystery is ironically the best way to keep the mind and heart spaces always open and always growing. Fr. Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," April 29, 2015

I believe those of us who have chosen the spiritual path have made the U-turn...away from our logical reasoning mind (as in, how can I fix this, make that happen, not happen?), toward the ultimate mystery...realization, yet unknowing, of God's perfect outworking of life itself. Yours, mine, that child we worry so about, an elderly parent, a lost friend...lives already perfected. Ours to let them be.

We may not understand the perfect outworking for, being of God, it benefits all, the how of which the reasoning mind is not built to understand. If we divorce our self from our fix-it reasoning mind, we will not need to understand the how of the perfect outworking. That is the perfect outworking.

Thank you.

HEALING POWER OF POWERLESSNESS

Many years ago...eons it seems...I was gifted with a knowing. The knowing was all about the healing power of powerlessness.

I was told that it is not enough that I love the Lord my God with all my heart, with all my soul, with all my body, with all my brains, but that I must trust that God of my own understanding just as much. And that I can only show to myself that I love my God by living that trust.

I have learned that to live that trust is to come to realize that I cannot do that which has been given me to do. I cannot fix any problem of my own making or of yours. I can justify it. I can excuse my part in it. I can even forgive you your part in it...but it is only by crashing and burning by/through my own efforts that I am forced to acknowledge my own powerlessness. There. Right there is the invitation for the higher power to rush in with the healing balm of acceptance. In that instant flash of realization, our skein of tangled worms is unraveled, cleaned up...for the benefit of all concerned.

And we may never know it. Or, more to the point, we may never believe it.

We need only gratefully accept that God has it, without knowing the how of it, and we will walk free in our own mind. If we continue to live in our reasoning mind, however, worrying and wondering, we will continue to live in our own blame and shame.

Loose it and let it go.

Thank you.

WHY NOT COME TO BELIEVE?

More and more I am believing that the way to no more wars is to be the one who first agrees. The biggest impediment to our willingness to agree first is our reasoning mind will invariably project the final worst-case result, e.g., Chamberlain appeases/London is blitzed or, worse, I agree/you win.

The secret is that if we each learn to live in agreement, it cannot come to blitzing or worse. 

If we are to grow spiritually, we will learn to think small...to project smaller...not out there to worst-case, but in here to best-case. We begin to distrust the reasoning mind for, led by ego, it will always legislate for itself and to our regret...the spiritual mind legislates for others and to our benefit. 

We learn to keep our imagination reined in to our own self, to right now in this moment for this is the only place God is to me...within me right now, this instant. Same goes with Putin/Obama right this minute, right where they each are wherever that may be. Ditto our friend, our  brother/sister/parent, our spouse/partner, boss/co-worker, each or any one of whom may be giving our ego fits right this minute. Agree with your adversary quickly.

That's why coming to believe is so important...without a belief in a power greater than ourselves, we must rely on our reasoning mind to protect us. It will ever seek "me first" even when it is beneficial to give over. 

So the way to no more wars, according to me: We each turn within and humbly ask for the knowledge to do our higher power’s will, whatever that may be, fully understanding that it will not be to our ego’s liking or for our ego’s benefit. It will always be for the benefit of the other...seemingly.

God is available within each of us right now whether or not we believe it...so why not come to believe?

Thank you.

AND EVERYTHING ELSE

Fear is the root of all negativity...anger, resentment, hate, even minor dislike. What we must needs remember...and recall...and remember again is when we think we're fairly fear-free and yet have out-of-the-blue attack thoughts, it is not anger that is our problem, it is fear.

We are told to wait for the faintest tremor of fear, then stop everything and turn our thoughts to God. If we're not aware that "the faintest tremor of fear" includes "the faintest trace of irritation," we can be deep into our own attack thoughts before our heart beats twice.

Today's "God Calling" sets out in the simplest terms the hardest lesson for us to learn: Do not seek to work for Me. It's a new day a-dawning when we realize the value of that advice...a self-determined objective, dressed up in our own minds as spiritual work, is still a self (not God)-determined objective.

It goes on: Never make opportunities. Live with Me and for Me. I do the work and I make the opportunities.

The path we take toward learning unto trusting unto showing that God's will is only good, not us mentally making good out of bad, is in those simple instructions.

We can want to do good. We can strive to be better than we are...we must, in fact. We just get to let go of the results of our wanting, of our striving. If it turns out good, wonderful, if it doesn't...ah, that's how we build our trust in God's will. By trying to do good and failing miserably to our own eyes, we often find later that failed result is our pearl beyond price...that which on our own we could never have brought about.

Vengeance...and everything else...is mine, saith the Lord.

Thank you.

EMBRACE THE UNWONDERFUL

My morning's blinding flash of the obvious: The biggest danger we face in our walking around world is believing our own press...the accolades and the rotten tomatoes...for they are all the same, nothingness, in the spiritual consciousness that we seek, i.e., God's world. The danger, of course, is in our believing, we resist...making them Velcro to our ego.

To me, since both praise and pans will come, we get to go against the ego's want (to wallow in the praise) and embrace the pans. Achieving that (getting over our own self) is our gold, and we can know it is our gold from the resulting peace that comes...which praise never gives, it just begs for more.

There is only one consciousness, God consciousness; however, there are many levels therein. We must, through our silence (not just of mouth, but of mind), seek to go deeper to a higher level if we will ever move out of self into Self.

Choose you this day whom ye shall serve. -- Joshua 24:15

Thank you.

WE ARE NOT IN THE LEAST ALONE

I wrote the following first thing this morning: My spiritual growth is to go forward toward my seeming betrayers, not correcting them but correcting me, through the Father within. LET My Spirit run me.  [NOTE: Let it be known, my "seeming betrayers" are those who disagree with me...not to put too fine a point on it.]

It was after I wrote that that I read both of the following squibs:

From Easwaran's "Words to Live By" today: We need people to grow, and all our problems with them, properly seen, are opportunities for growth.

From Rohr's "Daily Meditation" today:  Even the Gospels seem to jump over Jesus' thirty years of uneventfulness, paralleling midlife for most of us, during which all the seeds are planted for a later sprouting. Jesus increasingly encounters many human trials and hostility, just as most human lives do if lived with integrity. He thus identifies with humanity at its lowest point, in the place of rejection, betrayal, immense suffering, and even crucifixion. That's the bottom, the place of powerlessness, the place of emptiness as the separate ego allows itself to die, the place where transformation usually happens. Here God says to all of humanity, through Jesus: 'I'm with you. I understand. You are not in the least alone.' And this lowest point is in fact the beginning of the highest point, as a new symbiotic relationship begins between the soul and God.

"And this lowest point is in fact the beginning of the highest point, as a new symbiotic relationship begins between the soul and God." There. That's the message I knew even as I wrote my note to me this morning...it's the rest of the story, the why I'm to go forward toward my seeming betrayers, not correcting them but correcting me.

Now my real enlightenment time begins...the hard work of detaching from my ego's need for victory. To let my betrayers be right...not so much without as within. Not by my words, but by my attitude. By my honest desire to see us as seeking the same for ourselves and for each other...still more spiritual growth pure and simple. 

Here's my great comfort:  "Jesus increasingly encounters many human trials and hostility, just as most human lives do if lived with integrity." And here, also, is where I go to God for God and that is all...for God is with me and does understand...I am not in the least alone.

Thank you.