DOG...GOD SPELLED BACKWARDS

...for it is in self-forgetting that we find.  Ah, therein hides the secret of the ages. For what are we looking to find? If not self-forgetting, i.e., God, then we search in vain. According to me.

Further, according to me, in my perfect world, doctor-scientists would stop with the seeking, researching...spending!...to find ways for us old people to live longer. Why not start searching  ways for dogs (cats, too) to live longer? Face it, 15 years is a long time for a dog to live, but it's the equivalent of 15 minutes to us older folk.

Not only that, since I'm on a rant, I may not wholly believe but I do not doubt that seeking for ways to extend the life of seniors is fear on two levels: for the scientists, it's fear of failure...not being good enough in their profession ("good enough" equals garnering profit  and glory for all the world to see); for the elderly, it's fear of dying...that scary unknowable.

Or, it may be that I'm catching too much News-of-the-Day. The possibility is proof that I need a dog to hug.

Thank you.

LOVE IS THE ANSWER...THE ONLY ANSWER

According to the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) our inner attitudes and states are the real sources of our problems. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," October 30, 2018

I am grateful my spiritual life started with the instruction to have...to build if you will...the God of my own understanding. I was fairly broken at the time so I was blessed to be advised to find and stay with one source for my primary guide in seeking my own...then I could remain open to other spiritual material...if it enhanced my primary guide, incorporate it.

I chose the Sermon on the Mount...I tend to believe the Sermon chose me. Gratefully, I have learned from the Buddha, Kris Kristofferson, Brother Lawrence, Chief Joseph. The list is all but endless, but at the top, ah, I continue to learn from F.X., my mentor, my love, who speaks the Sermon, but in my language, a tish profane but always with love.  

I have become convinced that the primary source of all my woes is my inability...no, I am able, it's my ego-victory refusal...to tame my attack mind. That's what clicked when I read Rohr this morning, for I have come to believe that our inner attitudes and states are the real sources of our problems.

The proof of that is the fact that if we will but change our mind, our problem will go away. I was gifted with a blinding flash of the obvious once awhile back which I am still learning to lean on...upgrade your attitude, upgrade your problem. 

We cannot change our mind, we cannot upgrade our attitude, relying solely on our reasoning mind. Common sense tells us if we believe we are right, we're not going to change our mind...for why? 

We must go beyond reason to love. 

Since love is the answer no matter the question, the problem, the other, we need to find a way to look at our "right" from another angle. To look with the inner desire to find a way not to be wrong but to be in agreement with that which or whom we are opposing. 

Our intellect is our friend here. It takes some serious thinking to come to complete defeat. Just coming to the right answer will not give us peace...that's begrudging, and begrudging is Lucy bitching about it. No. Complete defeat is the changing room in God's hidey hole...the place where we can exchange surrender for acceptance and walk free in love.

Learning to give love in order to accept love is going to God for God...and that is all.

Thank you.

EGO DEMANDS vs. GOD'S WILL

I was told at the very first retreat I ever attended that truth must be proved. I had just begun to understand that Truth, with a capital T, was not precisely the same as the truth we need tell when we'd rather CYA...as in, blame, shame and split.

My understanding is that Truth must be proved else we are into magic thinking. The measure of the Truth we have proved is demonstrated by our life and how we live it, not by our thinking it so or by telling others it is so...if any telling need be done, others tell us it is so by what they see in us.

It seems to me that proving Truth pretty much boils down to going against our ego's dictates...those wants of ours that are self-based and usually all dressed up, looking spiffy (which to ego is spiritual growth or close enough).

Recently my frenemy Gertrude made an unwanted demand of me...already we know where I'm going here. I had the devil's own time divorcing myself from my instant decision to set her straight, to do the exact opposite, to flip her the bird,  to split, saying nothing but never ever going near her again.  All that in a heartbeat.

End result, after some arm-wrestling with God, I did what Gertrude demanded without hassling her, which means without giving Lucy airtime.

Here's the surprising punchline: I've found myself belittling my efforts. Thinking because I didn't immediately soar above Lucy's demands...or not have had them to begin with...that there was no positive here or the result was negligible.

As I went into my quiet time this morning, I was gifted with the thought of Saint Paul saying (something like) don't hassle yourself with self-described uglies, think on the good; there's nothing not wonderful in your life that doesn't have some good in it...find the good and think on those things.

I'm taking that as permission to realize my decision to turn from Lucy's wants (the dross) to God's will (the gold) as proof of Truth in my life.

I pray that my life may be a demonstration of what the grace of God can do. -- Anonymous

Thank you.

FINDING PEACE...HEARING ANGELS

We do not know how His plans are laid, we only need to believe that if we trust Him and accept whatever happens as His will and in a spirit of faith, everything will work out for the best in the end. -- Anonymous

There it is: We only need trust Him and accept whatever happens as His will, and everything will work out for the best in the end. This I do believe...it is my truth. Also, it is all but impossible to just  tell another that truth convincingly. Apparently, the reasoning-mind response to that is either Yes, but..., or, No way.

Actually, this is reasonable since we live in the material world which consists of provable facts...things we can hug or not hug but see for sure.

That's exactly why we must needs be open to seeking still more spiritual growth even as we breathe...not just a half-hour every morning, or an hour or so every day. No. As we grow our life...as we flow with our life...the instant we feel resistance from or to whatever, we have learned to not take it personally. Our new watchword has become, take nothing personally.

We think our thank you and move with the perceived block which often disappears with our acceptance of it. However, those times when the block remains, and there will be those times, we learn to offer no resistance as we smile and remove our self...shake the dust off your feet and move on is the word we get from the Bible and from my favorite, The Lazy Man's Guide to Enlightenment. (Likely from a lot of other sources but if I get it from those two, I quit searching...I've found my answer.)

Everybody wants peace of mind, nobody wants to do peace. Face it, a fret-free life is a self-free life. Short course in freedom from self: trust, accept, believe in God and his will, take nothing personally, detach and get grateful.

We shall find peace, we shall hear angels, we shall see the sky sparkling with diamonds! -- Chekhov

Thank you.

A DAILY FOCUSED COMMITMENT

Relying on our reasoning mind leads to resignation. Being powered by self-will, resignation gets us the same-old-same-old...period. The s-o-s-o often ends with us looking for someone to blame.

It takes a daily focused commitment to still more spiritual growth to get over our own self. Ah, but the learning is in what we are focused on...what we are committed to. Say a self-defying problem arises...we tend to want to give that to God to fix...in our favor. And Now.

God can and will solve the problem in our favor...in his way and in his time. Say we, or a loved one, are diagnosed with a dreaded disease...the usual response there is, "Please, God, remove this...take it away...heal me." But dreaded diseases kill and/or maim a lot of people...that may be ours to face.

If we resign our self to our fate of death by this disease, we will die unresolved within...meaning unhappy and often angry...at God. Acceptance of our fate, however, opens us to God's solution in our favor: the mysterious ways of the Lord...a mind at peace, a quietly joyful heart...as we lie dying. Or not. God's will.

This is not "according to me," nor is it a theory. I have been with both cases more than a couple times. It was for me a life-changing experience...in all cases.

Our daily focused commitment is ever: We go to God for God and that is all.

Thank you.

WHEN GIVEN A CHOICE, CHOOSE GOD

The promises that we are given in our quiet time, that we receive from deep on high, are true. But they cannot be true for our self alone...if they are not true for the universe, they are akin to the devil quoting scripture...just ego whispering ego-victory wishes to our self.

I read in Fr Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation this morning that it is written we must be ground like wheat, and once we have recovered, then we can turn and help others. I'm taking ground like wheat to be our ego resisting the need to give over, give up, give in.

My prayer concerns a petty, infinitesimal pushback that my ego Lucy is wrapped around. Having to do with another, of course: God grant that I be willing to give over, give up, give in to her will...let it be...resist not are just words if I'm not going to do them...starting within my own attack mind and walking it all the way through. I can mentally ask him what I can do to help when I walk in the door. What's your suggestion, please and thank you?

There. That's me being ground like wheat. I do not want to mentally ask him what I can do, I want to physically tell her what she can do.  Oh, wait...BFO...is this maybe God in him inviting God in me to love and laugh...together? As One? I'm going with that...when given a choice, choose the one with the less ego.

You must be ground like wheat; once you have recovered, then you can turn and help the others. --  Luke 22:31-32

Thank you.

GET GRATEFUL...OR LOVE AND LAUGH

If the seemingly unjustified regrets of our life (the unfairs, the not-my-faults) are never resolved to our liking, that is our glory...the result we get is the result God wills. That is the reason God invented gratitude.

It is my ego Lucy which holds the grudge, slings the mud, and winds up hurting no one but me just as long as I hold the grudge and sling the mud...if only in my own attack mind.

It is forgiveness (which is the whole of life right there) we need, and we must needs seek to extend it rather than seek to receive it. Toward that end, we learn the art of forgiveness which plain and simple is learning to take nothing personally. If all is God and all is of God, there is nothing we spiritually can take personally. And all else is but a dream.

We tend to give short shrift to forgiveness, using our get-out-of-jail free pass...I cannot forgive, only God can forgive. Ah, but how does God do forgiveness but through our own words, thoughts and deeds?

We begin our gratitude journey toward forgiveness by consciously deciding to replace our egoic wants with our needs, or a willingness to seek and accept God's will. The hard work on our part is letting go of the hard work...of trying to do the forgiveness.

Our awakening comes with our first glimpse that God is Love and sees nothing to forgive. We come to accept that we are forgiven...more importantly, we know this can only be held by passing it on. Forgiveness is passed on when we realize that there is nothing to forgive.

We love and laugh.

Thank you.