[The following is a reprint of my blog of October 14, 2008, slightly reworked .]
I dreamed recently of my grandparents’ home in Kentucky. I had gone to visit but they were away. It seems that I stayed for a very long time.
The house had everything except an indoor bathroom. There was, however, an outhouse way back of their home. I made it my job to put it in pristine condition…I white-washed it, I put fresh lye down every day or so, I made little lace curtains to cover the half-moon hole in the door. It wanted for nothing.
Upon my grandparents return, my grandmother asked how I liked their beautiful bathroom…with which, she opened a door I had not noticed. There was a spectacular modern bath. She said it had “always” been there that I just hadn’t looked for it.
When I awoke, I thought about my dream, and I realized it was all about my Father within. My God who is ever with me, never needing anything to be added unto Him.
I get so caught up in looking “out there,” in search of the perfect Something...person, book, talisman...to change me, make me more, better, different…maybe simply acceptable. Landing on first this, then that…like my pretty outhouse, façade is everything…make it prettier, more admirable…uh-oh, not right, not good enough, start again.
All I need do is look right here, right where I Am…go into the silence and give over to the God of my understanding who is already here, here in my heart, my Soul.
Thank you.
Saturday, March 31, 2018
Friday, March 30, 2018
WHEN YOU KNOW AND YOU KNOW YOU KNOW
The following came to me early this morning, and I prayed my thank you for it:
Today I make my conscious decision to remain "young" - I realize that I have begun preparing to be a sagging, failing, penny-pinching, lonely, forgetful-unto-dementia, hag. I do not choose that. I choose the way of the Lord...loving and laughing within and without, whatever comes. I picture naught but me showering love and laughter...because I choose it. Thank you.
Then I read the following and whoa! That is the message...entirely. It is an extract from Barbara Brown Taylor, an author and Episcopal priest, who wrote of her spiritual journey in her book Leaving Church:
,,,finders will be losers while those who lose their lives for his sake will wind up finding them again. [Matthew 16:25]
In Greek the word is psyche, meaning not only “life” but also the conscious self, the personality, the soul. You do not have to die in order to discover the truth of this teaching, in other words. You only need to lose track of who you are, or who you thought you were supposed to be, so that you end up lying flat on the dirt floor basement of your heart. Do this, Jesus says, and you will live. [My emphasis.]
* * *
Committing myself to the task of becoming fully human is saving my life now. This is not the same as the job of being human, which came with my birth certificate. To become fully human is something extra, a conscious choice that not everyone makes. Based on my limited wisdom and experience, there is more than one way to do this. If I were a Buddhist, I might do it by taking the bodhisattva vow, and if I were a Jew, I might do it by following Torah. Because I am a Christian, I do it by imitating Christ. . . .
And that, great get-up-and-shout-morning, is exactly what I prayed my thank you for earlier...specifically: I choose the way of the Lord...loving and laughing within and without, whatever comes.
Ah, don't tell me God doesn't have my back.
Thank you.
Today I make my conscious decision to remain "young" - I realize that I have begun preparing to be a sagging, failing, penny-pinching, lonely, forgetful-unto-dementia, hag. I do not choose that. I choose the way of the Lord...loving and laughing within and without, whatever comes. I picture naught but me showering love and laughter...because I choose it. Thank you.
Then I read the following and whoa! That is the message...entirely. It is an extract from Barbara Brown Taylor, an author and Episcopal priest, who wrote of her spiritual journey in her book Leaving Church:
,,,finders will be losers while those who lose their lives for his sake will wind up finding them again. [Matthew 16:25]
In Greek the word is psyche, meaning not only “life” but also the conscious self, the personality, the soul. You do not have to die in order to discover the truth of this teaching, in other words. You only need to lose track of who you are, or who you thought you were supposed to be, so that you end up lying flat on the dirt floor basement of your heart. Do this, Jesus says, and you will live. [My emphasis.]
* * *
Committing myself to the task of becoming fully human is saving my life now. This is not the same as the job of being human, which came with my birth certificate. To become fully human is something extra, a conscious choice that not everyone makes. Based on my limited wisdom and experience, there is more than one way to do this. If I were a Buddhist, I might do it by taking the bodhisattva vow, and if I were a Jew, I might do it by following Torah. Because I am a Christian, I do it by imitating Christ. . . .
And that, great get-up-and-shout-morning, is exactly what I prayed my thank you for earlier...specifically: I choose the way of the Lord...loving and laughing within and without, whatever comes.
Ah, don't tell me God doesn't have my back.
Thank you.
Thursday, March 29, 2018
NOTHING IS EVER WASTED...GET GRATEFUL
Blinding flash of the obvious: Welcome the stigmata...it keeps hands from becoming fists.
It occurs to me that I can call my arthritic hands and feet my stigmata simply as a reminder when I'm mentally carping about the pain that they're doing my spiritual work for me. I have physically never raised a fist at anyone, nor stomped anyone for that matter. Ah, but mentally? A whole 'nother matter.
I am seeing more and more that every judging, "gotcha" snark I think is my raised fist and/or my foot on the face of my nemesis de jour (who is actually my angel in disguise).
It is often a lot harder for me to say me nay (i.e., pray my thank you) than it is to think, worry, fret, stew, curse...and finally condemn...you. When you have not lived up to my high standards for you. Where I am concerned. Where others are concerned, hey, I'm on your side...and comforting.
I'm feeling put upon and my hands are hurting. I suspect that's what invited my memory of the BFO about my fists. God lets nothing go to waste...makes no never mind, arthritis or daffodils, he's on it. That is beyond comforting to me.
Thank you.
It occurs to me that I can call my arthritic hands and feet my stigmata simply as a reminder when I'm mentally carping about the pain that they're doing my spiritual work for me. I have physically never raised a fist at anyone, nor stomped anyone for that matter. Ah, but mentally? A whole 'nother matter.
I am seeing more and more that every judging, "gotcha" snark I think is my raised fist and/or my foot on the face of my nemesis de jour (who is actually my angel in disguise).
It is often a lot harder for me to say me nay (i.e., pray my thank you) than it is to think, worry, fret, stew, curse...and finally condemn...you. When you have not lived up to my high standards for you. Where I am concerned. Where others are concerned, hey, I'm on your side...and comforting.
I'm feeling put upon and my hands are hurting. I suspect that's what invited my memory of the BFO about my fists. God lets nothing go to waste...makes no never mind, arthritis or daffodils, he's on it. That is beyond comforting to me.
Thank you.
Wednesday, March 28, 2018
WE REALIZE WE ARE HIS OWN
The trouble with intellectual understanding is it seems so much more reliable than spiritual insights. I mean, intellect knows...insight hopes. It takes a boatload of spiritual unlearning to get the inner security of intellect's outer confidence.
It sometimes seems to me that spiritual unlearning basically requires us to just shut up. Especially when another's strong intellect is blathering...to let 'em blather without judging. Which sounds fairly judgmental, who's kidding whom? Already I'm over my own head.
But that's why I know Gertrude as an angel in my life. S/he is blessed with a really big brain and the ability to speak really smart...and I have been graced with silence in that presence. And not silent scorn. Ah, there it is, a miracle with angel wings and halo. Don't tell me God doesn't know my needs.
It is the intellectual understanding, though, that seems to be the springboard to still more spiritual growth if we will let it be. To not get mired in proving even to our own self that what we know from our own experience about our self and others is what we're stuck with...is our truth.
Actually, it is what we get to gives thanks for because it is the key to the hidey-hole of our Father within. And we do not know how. And we do not have a clue what to do. And we feel afraid because we do not know. And we have no control over that fear which feels awesomely awful. And we resist it.
Until we crash and burn. And our Father hugs us and kisses us and tells us we are his own.
And we still do not know how anything, which we've come to realize is our great, stand-up-and-shout awakening. Because we are his own.
Thank you.
It sometimes seems to me that spiritual unlearning basically requires us to just shut up. Especially when another's strong intellect is blathering...to let 'em blather without judging. Which sounds fairly judgmental, who's kidding whom? Already I'm over my own head.
But that's why I know Gertrude as an angel in my life. S/he is blessed with a really big brain and the ability to speak really smart...and I have been graced with silence in that presence. And not silent scorn. Ah, there it is, a miracle with angel wings and halo. Don't tell me God doesn't know my needs.
It is the intellectual understanding, though, that seems to be the springboard to still more spiritual growth if we will let it be. To not get mired in proving even to our own self that what we know from our own experience about our self and others is what we're stuck with...is our truth.
Actually, it is what we get to gives thanks for because it is the key to the hidey-hole of our Father within. And we do not know how. And we do not have a clue what to do. And we feel afraid because we do not know. And we have no control over that fear which feels awesomely awful. And we resist it.
Until we crash and burn. And our Father hugs us and kisses us and tells us we are his own.
And we still do not know how anything, which we've come to realize is our great, stand-up-and-shout awakening. Because we are his own.
Thank you.
Tuesday, March 27, 2018
WHEN WILL WE EVER LEARN?
[The following is my reworked post of June 5, 2014.]
My angels guard you day and night and nothing can harm you. You would indeed thank Me if you knew the darts of frets and evil they turn from you. ("God Calling," June 5)
Here's a thought, a scenario: What if those unknown "darts of frets and evil" turned from us are our unanswered prayers?
What if our deepest desire, our oh-please-God-please prayer, is the one thing God knows would do us and all we love harm beyond measure?...and he protects us from it by denying it to us?
And what if we were able, through sheer self-will, to get our self-determined objective, overcoming all obstacles, trampling all resistance, we got it? And after we got it, we thanked God and told all that clearly it was God's will because we had overcome so much to get it.
What if it turned to dross a week after we got it? Would we ever think that all our woes were the result of our using our freewill to achieve the result we prayed for?
Of course not.
There's an ego's fine chance that we would choose to take that as proof that there is no God, else he wouldn't have done this to us.
We are the source of all our woes. It may well be that the only thing standing between us and all our gifts is our self-will. If we will turn that self-will over to a power greater than ourselves to do with us, to build of us, as he wills, we can have our chance at peace of mind no matter the whirlwind around us.
Ah, then we can choose to fight no more forever, just like Chief Joseph.
Thank you.
My angels guard you day and night and nothing can harm you. You would indeed thank Me if you knew the darts of frets and evil they turn from you. ("God Calling," June 5)
Here's a thought, a scenario: What if those unknown "darts of frets and evil" turned from us are our unanswered prayers?
What if our deepest desire, our oh-please-God-please prayer, is the one thing God knows would do us and all we love harm beyond measure?...and he protects us from it by denying it to us?
And what if we were able, through sheer self-will, to get our self-determined objective, overcoming all obstacles, trampling all resistance, we got it? And after we got it, we thanked God and told all that clearly it was God's will because we had overcome so much to get it.
What if it turned to dross a week after we got it? Would we ever think that all our woes were the result of our using our freewill to achieve the result we prayed for?
Of course not.
There's an ego's fine chance that we would choose to take that as proof that there is no God, else he wouldn't have done this to us.
We are the source of all our woes. It may well be that the only thing standing between us and all our gifts is our self-will. If we will turn that self-will over to a power greater than ourselves to do with us, to build of us, as he wills, we can have our chance at peace of mind no matter the whirlwind around us.
Ah, then we can choose to fight no more forever, just like Chief Joseph.
Monday, March 26, 2018
WORST FEAR? WELCOME IT!
In faith, there is no possibility of an uninterrupted success story. The only way you’re going to face your wild beasts and your shadows is by failure and rejection, by people not loving you, by having to learn how to love your [spouse] and your children and those who hurt you—the enemies—those who make you aware of your own incapacity to love. -- Fr. Richard Rohr
I find such comfort in that quote of Rohr's. That which my reasoning mind has ever prayed for is the exact opposite of that which I need. Whose reasoning mind would think to pray for failure and rejection when facing its "wild beasts and shadows?"
Ah, but we don't pray for them...our Father knows our needs...we accept them as they come creeping into our conscious mind. We accept them with grit and knee-knocking courage. Until, through our own experience, we come to believe that these apparent "wild beasts and shadows" are God's will. Then we can...most often...accept them when they first start nibbling at the edges of our mind...before they get an ego-hold.
We find again the magic of acceptance, and our acceptance is so simple. I'm guessing that's why it takes so long to believe...that a simple "thank you" could be our keys to the kingdom, peace of mind. Who knew? More like, who could accept that without trying it repeatedly unto successfully...say, more than seventy times seven.
It is our own personal success in giving over, giving up, giving in, that convinces us, and it starts and ends with "thank you."
If the only prayer you say in your life is thank you, that would suffice. -- Meister Eckhart
Thank you.
Sunday, March 25, 2018
WE ARE THE WORK OF THE LORD
I see more deeply this morning that if it be true that what we see is always ourselves (from "The Lazy Man's Guide to Enlightenment"), then the three so-called-by-me banes in my life are each one me.
Then I read my Rohr meditation, and there, first thing, is the quote: All of us, gazing with unveiled face on the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image that we reflect. This is the work of the Lord who is Spirit. —2 Corinthians 3:18
Seems to me that between the Guide and God, I'm being told the same thing: What we look on with disfavor transforms us into the same image we judge; what we look on through the glory of the Lord transforms us into the same image we adore.
Why ever, accepting that for true, would I not hold Gertrude 1 as my spiritual initiation angel, Gertrude 2 as my friend through thick, thin and thinner angel, and Gertrude 3 as my peripheral irritant angel?
They are all angels in disguise, and only my ego-victory Lucy can stay my peace with each... and, for that matter, with all others who scratch my veneer of peace, love and joy.
This is the work of the Lord who is Spirit.
Thank you.
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