IT IS "WHEN WRONG" THAT WE DO RIGHT

I have come to believe that for me, for my Grandma Moses-like spiritual growth (i.e., stick figures and primary colors),  "God Calling" is the deepest spiritual book I will ever read. The fact that the book is so simple and straightforward...no frills, no fancy-schmancy...is what makes it a spiritual rarity. In its simplicity I missed its depth for way too long.

I felt poleaxed when I finally recognized first that, second why, his directions to "love and laugh" are on so many pages. I had always read them as if they were throw-away lines...fillers if you will. Then with one blinding flash of the obvious I realized those words as the entire directions for living a life of peace, love and joy...impersonal love and impersonal laughter are God's love incarnate.

We will never avoid rues, regrets and remorses...if we're doing it right. Once we've accepted that living by God's will is better than living by our own will, and then trying to do God's will, we tend to believe we have our guarantee for a regret-free life. God loves us way too much for that.

It is "when wrong" that we give our self the opportunity to learn...to learn how to agree with our adversary quickly, to turn the other cheek, to resist not evil. And that gives God his opportunity to laugh...in joy at our learning.

I love pondering God loving me through laughter...like, for instance, if it weren't for humans, God wouldn't have any laughs at all. Maybe "the human condition" is just fancy talk for "God's laugh track." Maybe our sole, singular, one and only purpose on this earth is to give God laughs. And there it is...the way to love our rues, regrets and remorses! We're giving God a giggle! How loving is that?

Thank you.

HOLY, HOLY, HOLY

Blinding flash of the obvious: The trick to non-resistance is to hold our self with the Father within so as to not accept the invitation to dispute, disagree with, question that which we are seeing/hearing/thinking and which is not acceptable to us.

That came this morning as I was up in my head getting all twisted on how to explain to Gertrude (so there could never be another question about it) that the axiom, "we have ceased fighting anything and anybody," is right, spiritual, God-given, God-dictated, infallible, Truth with a capital T and that rhymes with P and that stands for Phooey.

Why do I get myself in my own binds? It is a given the two of us have not, will not, get in a verbal confrontation here...Gertrude and I are both much too spiritually advanced to actually come to words. As I said, phooey.

How petty am I that I hope she's as up-in-her-head about this as I am? No, it's not "hope" as much as it is "absolutely certain."  Who's kidding whom, my ego Lucy would have it no other way.

That's how we keep our virtual food fights alive...up-in-our-head with no way out except through forgiveness, which is just a holy-sounding word for giving over, and No. We're not entirely stupid, giving over means wresting "I am right" from Lucy, softening it to present to Gertrude...with no strings attached. That's not holy sounding, that is holy.

And there we go again. Go to God for God, and that is all...for only God can referee a virtual food fight and have everybody come out a virtual winner.

Thank you.

IMPERSONAL FULFILLMENT, OF GOD

Matthew Fox writes that 'laughter may well be the ultimate act of letting go and letting be: the music of the divine cosmos. For in the core of the Trinity laughing and birthing go on all day long.'

I loved reading that this morning because I've been building on my belief concerning the different levels of love and laughter. For myself, I am finding that the love and laughter that we find spiritually is an impersonal love and an impersonal laughter.

Personalization is the glue that holds opposites together. Love, personalized, is attached to its opposite, hate...or dislike at any rate. Likewise, laughter, personalized, is attached to sadness, both being at or about something, usually out there. Both love and laughter are commonly shared with another.

Impersonal love and impersonal laughter flow together from within and attach to nothing. They cannot be deterred by appearances for they are evidence of God intervening in our life in our behalf. They are fulfillment as we stand bare-butt naked in our socks, and they cannot not be shared...felt...by others.

Thank you.

INNER FREEDOM THROUGH GIVING OVER

The wise recognize that without a certain degree of inner freedom, you cannot and will not love. Spirituality is about finding that freedom. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation" of August 29, 2016

I'm finding that inner freedom can only be found by releasing others from our resentments. We can never walk free in our own head if we are holding another accountable for any reason...which reminds me of my old crutch, "Having someone to blame is perfect peace." 

And doesn't that sound right? It is only when we try to use it that we find having someone to blame is endless resentment...as in, my blaming another gives that other someone to blame, namely me, starting the endless circle and cycle of resentment into anger into fights into battles into war.

Our spiritual life begins when we decide to follow directions...i.e., be the first to give over. At first, when the other smirks and walks away, we feel less than wonderful about the whole thing, and then...and then, we feel God's smile. We know an inner wonderment that we actually did it! We actually let the other off the hook, and our joy beats their smirk by endless miles. 

Enlightenment is the realization that in going against our reasoning mind's objective, the other "won" rationally and we "won" spiritually. Ah, God's hand really is in it when both sides come out the winner!

There's the beginning of a certain degree of inner freedom because we have just proved that being the first to give over is love.

Thank you.

LOVE...AND THAT IS ALL

"God Calling," 9/26/01 Note to Self: When our actions are 'less than' toward others, we are living in two worlds.' Love = One.

What we see is always our self; what we receive is always sent by us to us...it is never her/him/them. There is no her/him/them.

The Father and I are One.

Thank you.

THE FATHER IS SEEKING US

If you go on working with the light available, you will meet your Master, as he himself will be seeking you -- Ramana Maharshi

Isn't that a comfort? I first read a like thought in C.S. Lewis's "The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe," one of my all-time favorite books. This is where I first met Aslan who has been in my life since, and I am the better for it.

Coming into contact with goodness in the form of a walking-around, breathing entity or a written-about being or, on the rare occasion, intuitively, and consciously realizing this as goodness...ah, that is our consciousness being raised...without our effort.

We can read love your enemy till our face falls off, agree that that's a good thing (or not...in which case, bless you; if you're reading this, you're seeking) but until we consciously realize that as truth, it is just so many words.

As Fr Richard Rohr has written, We don’t have the power to follow any of [the] major teachings about forgiveness, love of enemies, nonviolence, humble use of power, and so on, except in and through radical union with God.

We must needs remember that we cannot settle for being a quoter, a talker, a spiritual thesaurus on the hoof as it were. It is possible to believe every word we quote, but until we experience them...prove their truth...we are faking it. (Or not being true to our self, which doesn't sound so harsh.)

However, I am a believer in keeping it simple...Grandma Moses simple as in stick figures and primary colors...so it is a comfort for me to believe every conscious "thank you" we pray, every conscious thought of a spiritual nature that we have, that is God making contact with us.

Simply put, we can quit trying so hard...for  God will be loving us, even as we are straining to change our own self. He will be seeking us even then...maybe especially then.

Thank you.

SEEK, FIND...BE GRATEFUL

My power to save increases as your power to understand My Salvation increases. -- "God Calling"

I chanced upon that sentence once, and it set my sights a tish higher. It was at a time when I was nattering my mentor as to why I needed to study the same literature over and over and still over again. And there it was, my answer.

That was proof to me that God does indeed listen in on our conversations, does hear our questions and does answer them in his own way. Truly, my mentor had explained and explained well and true, I just refused to "get" it. Then, at the exactly right time for me, I "chanced upon" the answer...and I got it.

To paraphrase the old saying about when all we have is a hammer, our entire world looks like a nail, it is true that when all we seek is still more spiritual growth, all that happens to us is of a spiritual nature. And there it is. The seeking alone upgrades our understanding.

Whenever less-than-wonderful happens in my life today, when it comes looking like "Oh no, Mr. Bill," I remind me that this, too, is God calling. I don't always remember in the instant, but I am inevitably brought back to it by the nature of life itself...meaning, it'll continue to look like crap until I upgrade my attitude. Which is little enough to do, who's kidding whom?

Go to God for God, and that is all.

Thank you.