DISCARD SHIELDS...REMAIN OPEN

"In the end one has to discard shields and remain open and vulnerable. Otherwise, scar tissue will seal off the wound and no growth will follow. To grow, to be reborn, one must remain vulnerable -- open to love but also hideously open to the possibility of more suffering." -- Hour of Gold, Hour of Lead -- Anne Morrow Lindbergh

The book Hour of Gold, Hour of Lead is a compilation of Lindbergh's dairies and letters between the years 1929 and 1932. The hour of gold is of the years when she met and married Charles Lindbergh; the hour of lead, the years when their baby boy, Charles, Jr., was kidnapped, including the time of the trial of his kidnapper.

I read the book in 1974, and it opened me to possibilities beyond my imagining. It was akin to reading my own diary...written by me in another time and place. And believe me there is nothing about my life that was or is even vaguely similar to Lindbergh's...only our inner thoughts, feelings, fears and dreams. I wrote my first and last fan letter to Lindbergh after reading this book.

It was the above quote that took my breath away when first I read it. Which it still does every single time I reread it. I am jarred by the simple truth that we must remain "hideously open to the possibility of more suffering." I cannot wrap my mind around the fact that I knew that for truth in 1974. I could just barely comprehend what remaining open and vulnerable actually meant...the idea of desiring to be vulnerable was a real heart-thumper.

This quote is so utterly true to me that it never entered my mind that my whole world wouldn't adopt it as their own...just as I wanted to. In fact, it turned more of my friends off than on. The "hideously open to the possibility of more suffering"  made some go green...and they said some fairly blue things into the bargain.

The fact is, though, if we are going to live a turned-over life...if we are going to do what we say...then there is no earthly way we can weasel out of the possibility of more suffering. That is part of life's grand plan...how we deal with the suffering we deal our self (for we are our own dealer) determines how happy, joyous and free we are going to allow our life to be.

Every time we catch our self complaining, whining, being a drag on our own life and looking for someone to blame, we're simply being closed, hideously closed, to the fact of suffering, thus suffering all the more. There. That is the exact point at which we deal the dirt to our self...the instant when we pick up the mud and sling it in our own face.

Whenever we're feeling less than wonderful about anything...physical, mental or spiritual...we remember Saint Augustine has shown us how to give it to God through his,  "Grant what thou commandest and then command what thou wilt."

We can simply pray, "Thank you, God, for this gift. I'm willing for you to do your thing with it. You lead, I'll follow." Then quit kvetching and do.

Thank you.

SING IN THE SUNSHINE, DANCE IN THE RAIN!

This is what you are to do. Lift your heart up to the Lord with a gentle stirring of love, desiring him for his own sake and not for his gifts. --The Cloud of Unknowing, Chapter 3

Again, again, and yet again, no matter the question, the answer is, "We go to God for God and that is all."

My greatest teacher  was my first dog, Ari, a seven-pound Maltese. This was in the late '70s, and I loved...I still love...that little guy with every drop of blood in me. And he loved me equally. He loved everybody just as much, actually. You could not not love Ari. Much like Ruckus in truth.

My first deep learning with Ari was the time he peed on the living room carpet...just after I had taken him out for his morning constitutional.

Almost the instant I saw that, I was furious, livid, heading toward hysteria, shouting...literally shouting at him..."You know better than that; you are bad, bad, bad." The unconscious thought immediately preceding my fury was (1) he did that on purpose with malice aforethought and (2) I'm not a fool and I'll not be played for one.

It took me a year or more to realize that unconscious first thought and that led to my half-way believing  that there in one form or another is the two-step foundation for all personal disagreements.

The immediate gift in that was Ari just went on loving me...didn't change an iota, just wanted to be in my presence, preferably my lap. The resulting gift there, of course, was that for a short time I punished him by ignoring him (the worst punishment, I believe) but I couldn't resist for long either his love for me or my love for him. I did, however, learn from it. I knew Ari could do nothing but love, but the fact that my love for him was not lessened was my wonderment.

One day...blinding flash of the obvious...I realized that I am...we all are...God's Ari. We pee on the carpet, God loves us. Doesn't beat us up or natter us about it. Doesn't shun us. Just loves us.

God's gift to us is our conscience. We can only pee on the carpet once and get nothing but love in return, without feeling fairly bad about our self when (when!) we do it again. It is our own feelings about our behavior that makes us change...not God's punishment on us for being our self-described "bad, bad, bad."

God loves us right out of the chute unconditionally and forever. It is his great gift to us to let us throw it back in his face until we get the picture. When we stop doing life our way (blaming and shaming our self and others) and start loving unconditionally, we will be the peace we seek...the love we want and already are.

We can stop seeking God's love...know it, show it...sing in the sunshine, dance in the rain! We're God's Ari and we're free to be!

Thank you.

ONE...PEACE, LOVE, GOD

According to me, all petty disagreements up to violence in the streets, right into nuclear warfare, begin with resistance. The blinding flash of the obvious is that resistance is within...self-generated based in the ego's need to self-protect.

The path that leads away from self is through Others...doing for, living for, thinking only of Others. And the lonesome thought penetrates our hearts, "But when will I get mine?"

The answer, of  course, is that that is how...by thinking, feeling, doing, being for Others.  We become full to overflowing with love. By knowing love for, feeling love for... in other words, sending love forth, we are loved. We know it and we show it.

Others is always the answer, and the answer can be found through laughter.

Laughter holds the key to good things. As long as we start by laughing at our self, we'll quicker than quick be laughing with Others...where we find the pearl beyond price: Peace. Love. God.

Thank you.

EXPECTATION vs. ANTICIPATION

[The following is a reworked reprint of my blog of October 28, 2010.]
   

I considered this morning the difference between expectation and anticipation. For whatever reason, to my ear, expectation has a negative connotation…but anticipation just sounds happy.

I checked my Webster's (I may be the last person standing who still uses a cloth-and-paper dictionary) just to see the exact meaning of each word.

Expectation: to look forward to (as a foregone conclusion)…which to me translates as “to look forward to with dread.”

Anticipation: to foresee and provide for beforehand…which to me is a hoped-for thing.

In anticipating a complete awakening in God consciousness, I can know it is taking place within me now. I have no idea how. It will display Itself through me. It already has and is.

In expecting an unfolded consciousness, I have my own idea what that means…enlightened, feeling at peace, knowing sunshine and rainbows. In other words: getting a whole new me. And right there…that is what keeps me stuck in my material state of mind. Even in thinking I’ll be getting peace of mind, loving kindness…all the pretties…I am still in it for the getting. Not getting these self-determined objectives leaves a vague feeling of “loser”…sunk by my own expectations.

Be still and know that I am God…I already am.

Thank you.

BE KIND...DON'T ACT, BE

We are told, and I believe, "There is no advantage to playing the victim, and we are forever warned against victimizing others."

In a less-than-wonderful situation, the hard lesson learning is that when we respond in kind, we are responding as a victim.  We immediately wrap ourselves in the self-protection of the victim shroud where we either shrink into quivering hurt or lash out with our machete-tongue. Either is just an excuse to victimize another...often not even the person we felt victimized by.

According to me, all slights, petty disagreements, arguments, wars unto annihilation begin with somebody feeling the victim and, justified, victimizing another. The big however, however, is, in my own experience, there is nothing harder to actually do than to not respond in kind. Because we must detach from our own self-interest.

The word generally heard is that we must love our own self before we can love another...we must forgive our own self, etc. etc., etc. I believe it is our preoccupation with self that keeps us from even considering the other much less loving him, forgiving her.

It is only when we choose to let the word we hear be Others, and then willingly choose to put Others before our own self, that we can begin to know the Light. I'm convinced we make that choice when we realize that the Father really does know our needs, and it really is his good pleasure to give us heaven...and that realization can only be delayed by our attachment, our want, to feel the victim.

Here's my good news: The Sermon on the Mount is the virtual playbook for how not to play the victim and how not to victimize others. Its only message, underneath it all, is: be kind...not act kind, be.

It's all about cleaning up our insides...our thoughts, our feelings, our self. Clean them up and out...to make room for love and laughter, and  that is all.

Thank you.

NEVER STRIVE FOR PEACE...RELEASE IT

If you're not moving forward, you're moving backward.

The first time ever I heard that, I was blinded by the light! I'd probably heard it many times, but the first time ever I inside heard it, I knew it for truth. I saw that there is no standing still. Nothing is stationary, not even the Rock of Gibraltar...every day Gibraltar is changing...minutely, but changing, and so are we.

We get to a place of peace and want to stay there...now we've got it, now we're safe, we tell our self. So we hunker down and try to hold it. Right then we've shifted into reverse by trying to hold on to that feeling of peace. There is no peace when we're trying to hold on to it...we've just lost it in the trying.

Here's a  paradox: When we realize that we're moving backward is when we've started moving forward...it is that realization (and panic) that turns us away from self toward help from elsewhere. Maybe toward God, maybe a mentor, maybe our spiritual director...whoever, wherever, it is away from self, and it feels scary. Because we don't know. Period. We do not know. Or we wouldn't be seeking help.

A further paradox comes when we find that place of peace again. If we haven't entirely surrendered to a power greater than our self, we will again try to grasp that feeling of peace...nail it down inside, hoping it will hold forever. Which...here we go again...means we've already lost it, we're moving backward.

According to me, that is a very simple description of life itself...and that's if we're doing it right. There is no perfect peace with never a blemish or a niggle in life. Indeed, striving for that, we are taught, is the "point at which we depart from the degree of perfection that God wishes for  us here on earth."

It is the striving for peace (for any inside thing, really) that takes it away from God, keeps it our self-perceived objective, and heads us down that wrong road again.

Loose it and let it go.

Thank you.

WHAT FREEDOM FEELS LIKE

I read Fr. Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation this morning and identified with: "One of Jung's foundational ideas is that mere words and concepts do not give us access to the unconscious. *  *  *  Analysis, if it remains dominant, is merely a control mechanism of the ego."

And then I read my God Calling and saw why I identified with Rohr's statement. I had written a note some years back that fear of letting go of what my reasoning mind has not yet resolved keeps me stuck in the past.

That was true then, it is true now. The great leap-to-your-feet-and-shout-hallelujah fact is that without resistance to that fact, we are freed from the compulsive need to analyze...to analyze even that fact!

Knowing, or rather accepting, our truths about ourselves is the sky-light for our Soul. Accepting that I over-analyze has freed me to over-analyze in which case today I rarely over-analyze. With a little help from my friends (and foes!, my real angels),  I keep a clearer eye on myself, my motives, my perceived persecutors, my me...I just don't analyze us endlessly.

I'm fairly certain that is what has given my intuition its voice. My blinding flashes of the obvious are free now to step right up and out...to state their case as it were.  I no longer have to analyze them unto uselessness.

There. That is what freedom feels like.

Thank you.