TRUTH PREVAILS...STAND ON IT

[Note: The following is my memory of American history...don't hold me to every word, just accept it for the storyline.]

During the birthing of America, during the Revolutionary War, our armed forces consisted pretty much of farmers, blacksmiths, store keeps...plain old folks in other words. All they knew of shooting was hunting for rabbits, wild fowl and the like for the family dinner.

When the British soldiers came to our shores, wearing their bright red coats and shiny black boots, they marched in formation down the roads, with their rifles on their shoulders and ample ammunition, prepared to get their job done. Our home-grown militia wore the clothes they owned and had only their own rifles and ammunition...which meant none to spare for sure.

Their instructions:  "Don't shoot till you see the whites of their eyes."

They were not told, "Don't shoot till you see their backs." That would have been a much safer way...a coward's way, but safer.

To me, that reflects the very foundation of the United States...the first brick was laid with honor, fairness...equality, actually, no matter the better equipped versus the home-grown. Our forefathers believed right is might and truth prevail, and they were willing to stand on it.

I personally believe God knows naught of war, but since humans tend to love it, our free will brings it. I further believe that since we bring it, we do best when we rely on God's word, will and way to get the most honorable results.

According to me, we're heading in the wrong direction...almost like we're using "shoot 'em in the back" as our guide. If that be true, we'd do well to start our U-turn now for that change is like turning the Queen Mary...it takes time, a steady hand and heart, and more than anything, that reliance on God's word, will and way.

Thank you.

THE GIFT OF GRATITUDE

Today my plan is to take a risk...a personal, inside, no-big-deal-to-you-but-huge-to-me risk.

As I opened my "God Calling," the words with God all things are possible were there before me. It just so happens that seemingly every time I have a challenge to meet, those words are given to me, and sometimes from the most unlikely places.

It's not surprising I'd find them in "God Calling" but on this particular day with no preplan or thought? When in doubt, assume the best is my mantra...my risk just transmuted into God's will which makes it feel less risky. Thank you, Lord.

Now, even if my action turns out less than wonderful to my ego's eyes, I can know God's hand was in it...meaning,  there will be bennies. I'll get to sit and wait on the Lord.

If the results are close enough to wonderful, I'll have the gift of gratitude to wrap me in...no better feeling.

God is so good to me.

Thank you.

GET, BE AND REMAIN AVAILABLE

Just as there are levels of consciousness, there are levels of learning then relearning the same thing. In the normal course of the day, when we make the same mistake we've made before and thought we'd learned our lesson from it, we often beat our self up with "Will I never learn?" 

It's a great gettin' up morning when we realize that relearning is not necessarily proof of no growth, it's not even relearning. What is happening is proof that we did learn our reasoning mind lesson well, but now we are being moved on up to a deeper level. Here we learn the same lesson from a new dimension, i.e., from a spiritual point of view.

This is where and why the reasoning mind balks. We well know that the spiritual point of view is all about giving over, letting go, putting the other first...which at first feels like pulling heavy tape off bare skin. Like, it smarts.  

That's how we know we are being moved. We believe we're willing, but we have not a clue where, why or how to start. That's why our willingness is not to feel the pain of the change, but to quit with our incessant thinking, analyzing, mental meandering of how to change. We have become willing to detach from our own thoughts with no mental time limit set. We never know the hour or day the bridegroom will come.

That's our lesson, in toto: We must be willing to detach from our reasoning mind in order to realize that each relearning comes at a deeper spiritual level, and we have no say in when that realization will come...our job is to get, be and remain available. Which is never easy, but it is, indeed, the pearl beyond price.

Thank you.

SEEK THE SPACE BETWEEN

It occurs to me that just as there are planes of consciousness, there are various levels of right, of being right.

There's rigid, righteous and right...when we're there, self, the ego-victory self, is the driver. That way only strengthens ego, by-passing spiritual growth completely, and we know (or should know) that we are going down that wrong road again, old Route 666. 

Then there's being right with no personal attachment to it...that way is of God. I like to picture the Sistine Chapel with the two forefingers almost touching. That space in between the fingers is where we need to be. There is no self there. 

Since being right represents our peace of mind, we'd best get off Route 666, get on the path leading to still more spiritual growth and become willing to seek the space between...everything.

It is in the space between that we find God.

Thank you.

SCRUPULOSITY...WHAT A HOOT!

[This is a reprint of my blog of August 23, 2016.]

The literal level is one of the least fruitful levels of meaning....A heart open to the power of metaphor ("that which carries you across"), a heart open to the feminine and open to intimacy, will leap every time. A heart trapped in historical literalism, or closed to the power of poetry, will remain bored, reactive, and trapped in critique. -- Fr. Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," September 28, 2015

That I believe defines those of us who talk in exaggeration. We are poets, weaving fun in and out of the daily-ness of life. Which reminds me of the point made in The Cloud of Unknowing by an unknown 14th century monk to "be wary of the overly scrupulous."

The overly scrupulous use a one-inch yardstick to measure us by...and our saving grace is we let them because that's the stuff we use to weave our fun in the telling of it.

God loves me so much...and the overly scrupulous, too.

Thank you.

LOVE AND LAUGHTER RIDE AGAIN!

Give the Father his due for the devil will for sure take his.

That blinding flash of the obvious came to me this morning as I was again arm-wrestling with my better self about spending the full twenty minutes in meditation. I do that when I peek at the clock, and there's only a minute or two to go.

There are times when I exceed the twenty minutes which is always lovely, but when I don't, the last couple minutes do take their own sweet time trundling by. It's like the last two minutes of a tied football game...I've had years go by faster.

It is important for me to give to God the full twenty minutes I have committed to God, not to please him, but for my own self-discipline. That lesson...learning to keep my promises to my own self...seems to be the hardest to hold to. Yet I have found if I don't keep my promises to me, there are  promises I make to God and to others that fall by the wayside. The bitter pill being that I never know which promise that may be. Inevitably, after the fact, it will feel like the most important one ever, and "coulda woulda, shoulda" sings at 3:00 AM.

I just reread my first sentence...the part where this morning I was again arm-wrestling with my better self about spending the full twenty minutes in meditation. See? I know the importance of keeping my commitment and yet  here's me this morning mentally justifying dropping a couple of minutes.

Ah...there's my pearl beyond price. Love and laughter come through again...specifically, laugh at myself and love me anyway.

Thank you.

SO OTHERS MAY EAT

To rule aright is to rule from poverty.

Another way of saying that...we rule aright when we rule not from plenty but from lack. Whoa! There's my blinding flash of the obvious, and I no sooner put the period to the sentence than my reasoning mind is softening it. Not poverty, surely, Lucy whispers...lack, maybe, but not poverty!

If memory serves (and mine seldom does anymore), the majority of the members of our Congress (if not every one) is at least a millionaire. I am not a hater of money, and I am all for capitalism, but I have a strong suspicion that our Congress got on the wrong track when they opened the boundaries to their raises and bennies.

I fear that the only thing that will reverse that decision is the downfall of the House That Greed Built...which, to the builders' mind, was not a matter of greed but the need for personal security. There are few...very, very few...who have voluntarily given up the source of the expansion of their material security for the well-being of others. No matter how noble the cause.

Bottom line...would I? Would you? 

Having plenty of lack, or lacking plenty, I could kid myself into believing I'd be noble, but factually every year when Social Security raises are announced, and recipients get none, I am seriously (justifiably!) lacking in noble.

It ain't easy doing spiritual...also known as, judge not lest ye be judged.

Thank you.