TO MOVE ON, FIRST BELIEVE OUR THANK YOU

In a blinding flash of the obvious, I realized this morning my deepest fear. It is that my mind, through anxiety, might overpower God.

I was gobsmacked that my fear, as I'd always believed, was not that I might lose my mind, but that it would take the reins and run right over God.  

That insight came as I was thinking back on yesterday's borderline anxiety when the feeling was upon me that my mind might be about to do the dirty any minute now.

My personal eye-opener came with my recollections this morning when I felt more meh than Oh No! 

Letting that filter through, I sensed my old Velvet Comforter had enwrapped me, and I knew: My inner Self holds me safe and secure no matter what, is not dependent on my mind, sane or not so much. 

There's my peace of mind back and shouting Hallelujah! I've not been lying to myself all this time! It is true, God has my back!

All that puts the period on my wonderings of what God's will is for me with regard to my personal mishaps and missteps of the day: Pray thank you, feel it, praise God and move on. 

OBTW, we must in truth believe our thank you to move on.

Thank you.

SEEK THE DIVINE WITHIN

I wonder if there is a decision to be made that is greater than ours to throw in completely, totally, one hundred percent with God...albeit the decision being God-born. If it's not, it's a self-determined objective...still self leading our parade. 

The hard lesson to learn is that the decision fully made takes time...happens in God's good time. In ego's thrall, I have often figured the God of my understanding for a drag-foot which he may be, but he's never late. 

Our self solutions are rarely if ever the perfect solutions of God. Face it, our need is to go through the crucible of ego-deflation in depth to find the divine, God's solution...and we are inwardly changed. Outwardly we're the same old self, but we feel new, welcoming our Now solution. Our new best-dress is within and, interestingly, if we flaunt it, we ain't got it.

All on our own, trying to change ourself or our attitude, we begin trying to upgrade the less-than-wonderful about us into something "good." That is just exchanging one judgment for another. We are still into ego victories underlying which will always be self...face it, we're heading down that wrong road again. 

We learn...again...that we cannot upgrade our attitude by self-will alone. We need to bring in the Peacemaker (and not a Colt 45). 

We are building our inner connection with a power greater than ourselves. This is the cornerstone of meditation...being led higher into the silence...turning our reasoning mind over to the divine secret hidden deep within.

Teresa of Ávila envisioned God telling her, 'If you wish to find Me / In yourself seek Me.'

Thank you.

HAPPINESS...ENJOYMENT OF SELF & FRIENDS

I relate completely to the following quote of Joseph Addison whose name I had to Google for I knew naught of him. Just FYI, he was an English essayist, poet, playwright and politician, born 1 May 1672, died 17 June 1719.

 True happiness is of a retired nature, and an enemy to pomp and noise; 

it arises in the first place, from the enjoyment of one's self, 

and, in the next, from the friendship and conversation of a few select companions. 

-- Joseph Addison

I suspect I could rest happy with that as my inner guide. To complete my true guide, reality encourages me to admit that I need my other favorite quote:  I just try not to be as nasty as I want to be. As lifted from Henry Mitchell, a columnist in the 1980s with "The Washington Post."

It really is the simpler things that make me comfortable, i.e., put my mind at ease. A mind at ease is peace of mind...except when I'm trying for peace of mind, my mind is not at ease. 

The quiet word is still, give over, give up, give in. Doing it is still, resist not evil,  and evil is still self-determined objectives...not giving over, not giving up, not giving in. 

Thank you.

TO TRY IS TO TRUST, II

[The following is a slightly reworked reprint of my post of December 10, 2017.]

I was mentally beating myself up this morning for having tried something and came out looking like a doofus. My apparently favorite line, "When will I ever learn?" raced in my mind.

Then, thank you, Lord, my blinding flash of the obvious: I tried, I trusted.

There it is, when still more spiritual growth is our sole goal, we can know I tried, I trusted as God, grace and self-forgiveness.

God is so good to us.

Thank you.

LOVE, LAUGH, GET OVER YOURSELF

Life as we live it requires our reliance at times on our material mindset, at other times on the spiritual.

Knowing when to rely on which, I follow my own decoder such as it is: My material mind's rule of thumb is, self is the benefactor, profit (as we so choose it) is the motivator; the spiritual accepts God's plain and simple word as, Get over yourself, Beloved.

We have learned that "great love and great suffering" are the keys to still more spiritual growth, and, face it, great suffering is a lot more common to us than great love (until we learn the peace of universal love, a whole 'nother post).

In making our transition from comfortable reliance on our material mind to trusting our search for the Divine within, we accept the risk of showing our rear in public...not to put too fine a point on it.

Or, as Jung more elegantly put it, we accept the importance of inner experience as the only pathway to transformation.

We experience (and repeatedly), as Fr Richard Rohr clearly puts it, that we absolutely need conflicts, moral failures, defeats to our grandiosity, even seeming enemies. These are necessary mirrors, or we will have no way to ever spot our shadow self.  

Only then is our heart truly opened to Meister Eckhart's If the only prayer you pray in your life is thank you, that would suffice...putting the period to love, laugh and get over yourself.

Thank you.

FORGIVENESS IS WINNING

According to Fr Richard Rohr, "If we can truly love this, whatever this is, it becomes the gateway to everything....We have to find our capacity to see, to love, to accept, to forgive, and to delight in one thing."

Well now. Finding our capacity to see, to love, to accept, and to delight in one thing is an enticing prospect...but I home in on focusing on our capacity to forgive. A frisson of dread runs down my spine. Who's kidding whom? If we have to find our capacity to forgive, something we find not right...wrong, and personally wrong into the bargain...usually has us in its clutches. 

I often recall my friend who made a decision to be a forgiving person...and certainly appeared to be able to live there. I finally accepted that when I try to be a forgiving person, invariably in my failure I wind up making myself miserable...and must needs turn to God for help. I try to remember to start with God now.

It is interesting, apparently a human condition, that the more we focus on A, Z is in our face nattering...when we seriously try to be a forgiving person, unforgivable comes begging for attention. Try for loving...hateful blooms.

I take that as the egoic mind going up against the spiritual...and winning. Winning every time until we give up the fight. Until whatever our self-determined objective is has been loosed and let go, we will be in a losing position...and blaming and shaming others, or God.

When, without thought, we strive for the perfect objective which is of God, we know peace, we love, we find joy...and  forgiveness is winning.

Thank you.

ON LIVING THE GREAT GOOD NEWS

Upfront, I need to admit that I have never read William James' "The Varieties of Religious Experience" in toto. However, the quoted part below is the basis of my still more spiritual growth, the path I walk toward all I hold near and dear, the perfection of which is beyond my reach. For which I am grateful...my ever-necessary attempts keep me heading in the right direction...away from self.  

For to ponder:

Since victory and defeat there must be, the victory to be philosophically prayed for is that of the more inclusive side, - of the side which even in the hour of triumph will to some degree do justice to the ideal in which the vanquished party’s interests lay.

The course of history is nothing but the story of men’s struggles from generation to generation to find the more and more inclusive order.

Invent some manner of realizing your own ideals which will also satisfy the alien demands, - that and that only is the path of peace! -- From "The Varieties of Religious Experience" by William James (1842-1910)

If God did not love me so much, that originally would not have made a lick of sense to me. I simply  would have forgotten it until it came to me again, no doubt much later, and probably in a different form. This I know: My need was such, and God does love me so much, the message would have come to me. 

I've read it off and on for years now, and I admit it makes broader sense to me every time I read it. 

The great good news is there is no end to inventing some manner of realizing our own ideals which will also satisfy the alien [his/her/their] demands. 

God loves us so much. 

Thank you.