INADVERTENT EGO-ERRORS...GOD AT WORK

I felt an immediate inner connection with both of the following statements from Fr Richard's "Daily Meditation" today (2/28/22):

Unless we’ve had a conscious connection with the deepest ground of our being, we will continue to live as though we are separate from God. 

The final, stupendous gift is that our 'separate' self becomes the raw material for our unique version of True Self. Our ordinary lives and temperaments are not destroyed or rejected. They are transformed.

I know both of those statements to be true...it is how they are proving themselves to be true in my life today that is my gobsmacker. 

I love, and too often quote, my mentor's saying, "Showing your [bum] in public is also spiritual." 

Hoo-boy...I love to quote that, but walking it ain't all that much snuggle-up fun. 

I am conscious that I have been unconsciously walking it for a while now. It is usually in my quiet time that it comes to me that what I said or did one of my yesterdays must have looked, sounded like I am a "rank beginner." 

I note that is what I have prayed for...more than a few times...i.e., to have the mind of a rank beginner. The big uh-oh note...there is a significant difference between having the mind of a rank beginner and actually appearing to be a rank beginner.

Showing my bum in public may be spiritual purely because it puts "love and laugh" to the ultimate test. Once shown...inadvertently (which is God at work)...the self gets its test: Trust God, love it and grin within, or stay with "commonsense" and explain/justify to others, meaning, showing the bum further which is no longer spiritual but now a self-determined objective.

God loves me so much that he's given me a special place where I take no thought of what words may come from my mouth, I just trust and speak...giving me a lot to silently love and laugh about later. 

Truth to tell, I kinda miss having someone to agree as I justify myself...human approval is hard to hate. (God's approval, of course, is better...speaking from my eyebrows up).

Lastly, re that stupendous gift of our ordinary lives and temperaments not being destroyed but transformed, that transformation takes place in our soul, a.k.a., our True Self.  Our soul does not strut its stuff; it comes "disguised as our life," leaving eyebrows up naturally and spiritually the last to know.

Thank you.

ON BECOMING A FOOL...ON PURPOSE

The surprise for most of us is that this place of relationship with God is really not about being perfect. The self in God will still make mistakes, but it lives from a center other than its own. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," February 16, 2022

Just as I was about to write that I never read the Bible, I realized that earlier I had done just that...I had read the Bible! And, as proof of Rohr's quote, it had opened to the needed place: If any man among you seems to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise. (Corinthians 3:18, KJV)

Immediately upon reading that, I knew why I'd picked up the Bible this particular morning. 

Lately, I find myself living the wondrous realization that mistakes, errors in judgment and the like are paving my spiritual way...and daily. Those facts and acts that fall within the human condition are the egoic mind's building blocks for our rues, regrets and remorses. The fact is, this is not new news.  

Meaning that I haven't just caught this...I have been preaching this to myself and others for years. One of my first spiritual realizations was "When wrong, promptly admit it" gives us permission to be wrong, to make mistakes, to shuck rigid, righteous and right as our life-shield. 

There it is...the teachable case of recognizing truth, knowing it for truth, memorizing it, repeating it by rote...until one fine day we realize we may be walking that a little, but we are talking it more. By the way, this applies to each spiritual lesson we learn in life..."getting" it does not happen with "getting" it. 

My today's piece of wonder: Get as smart as we can, as spiritually educated as possible, on the way to being as fit as Saint Francis of Assisi at his fittest...we cannot avoid being the fool. In order to become spiritually wise, we need to become the fool we so resist being. 

If any man among you seems to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise. (Corinthians 3:18, KJV)

If the reasoning mind resists this, rest easy...we are on the right track. We are taking our turn at becoming the fool...which is not a lot of fun but it is the inner path to peace. If the reasoning mind does not resist this, we are on the right track...same goes only doubled. 

The rough and rutted road back to God is paved with our rues, regrets and remorses. This is the road we need to trudge, not to lose those regrets, but for those regrets to be transmuted into our slivers of gold.

Blinding flash of the obvious: That which we think is wrong with us, finally we realize is and has ever been God's will for us...that which makes us whole as our own self.

The sliver of gold becomes our gold ring, and we are freed to love and laugh.

Thank you.

WHY NOT BELIEVE? WHY NOT TRUST?

The Eternal Birth must take place in you. -- Meister Eckhart

Meister Eckhart lived at a way higher level than you and me. His "Eternal Birth" isn't a concept that would come to me after careful thought...but I want it to.   

I know it is God's grace that I make myself available every morning, seeking still more spiritual awareness of the dailies in my life. I do not seek to learn by rote all the holy words and phrases...I seek to walk that which I'm receiving in order to actively live there...in that higher consciousness deeper.

I'm at the place where "the Eternal Birth" is our own spiritual consciousness, plain and simple. But I wouldn't be making myself available every morning if I weren't aiming within for a higher realization. 

It gives me peace to trust that is where Meister Eckhart, Francis of Assisi, my mentor, et al., were at some point on their way to ever-growing spiritual consciousness. Why not?  

Why not believe?

Thank you.

TO SURRENDER IS TO TRADE UP

I am of the opinion that acceptance is likely the most wanted-while-dreaded word in our little world. Even as we are begging God to be able to accept an unwanted condition in our life, our egoic mind is in charge. 

The road to the place where God lives begins with complete surrender. Simply put, resistance keeps our wants before our need...me before he. We want acceptance, we need surrender. The secret about acceptance is when we accept the truth about that which we are resisting, that changes it. 

Surrender has the justified rep of losing when, against all reason, it is by losing that we win. In losing our self-determined objective, our want, we accept God's perfect objective, our need. 

Blinding flash...surrender is just another word for trading up.

It is by surrendering our wants, that we receive our need, God's will...before we can know what that is. There. Surrender's sliver of gold, or acceptance aborning.    

 

Here's grace: All of this happens within us in a heartbeat...it just takes the reasoning mind longer to get the message. 

Go beyond reason to love.

   

Thank you. 

I BELIEVE...NOW TRUST

I suspect a major source of our woes is our mistaking our wants for our needs. Wants are of self, needs are of God. The Father knows our needs.

I believe I have made a freeing discovery going back to my ten-year-old self, a discovery, if correct, that can change the whole pattern of my life. I want to nail that down, be not just assured but ensured that it is right, and I am now free, see me fly!

Comes now the hard part for self...for God is in this moment...here Now, not a moment before or a moment from, but Now. When fully realized, that pretty much puts the period to "want." Face it, want is just another word for future, or more specifically, not Now. 

It is only recently when I had my blinding flash, yet I want to have irrefutable proof Now. Proof that it is all I want it to be, i.e., the solvent to the poison of the memories of my childhood trauma...setting egoic wheels in motion. Who can I turn to? Who can help me figure this out? Why can't my mentor of thirty years be here for me Now? Should I go to a therapist? Which one? 

God loves me so much. None of my self-generated fix-it wants are apparent or even exist to God...leaving me free to love and laugh at those same fix-its. Today...mostly...I freely accept my egoic mind, as in, taking  myself too seriously, because...mostly...I do my God-guided actions. 

Then I do what I do: Go into my quiet time, lay my perceived problem before God, tell me and he that I'm good with whatever he's got, pray thank you, and then trust him to keep me informed. I repeat if and as necessary for my own imperfect self.

When we’re doing life right, it means nothing more than it is right now, because God is in this moment in a non-blaming way. When we are able to experience that, taste and enjoy it, we don’t need to hold on to it. The next moment will have its own taste and enjoyment. -- Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation," February 13, 2022

Believe that, believe that, and walk worry free...for Now. 

Thank you.

ON WELCOMING THE DREADED VULNERABILITY

We cannot go to God self-protected. It is our vulnerability that opens the door upon which He knocks.

Vulnerability...that which the reasoning mind dreads, hides from, resists at all costs. Vulnerability it is that exposes us to self-contempt which we often...and fearfully...assign to our peers. Most important, and likely the least understood, it is vulnerability that lifts us deeper into God consciousness. 

As Father Richard wrote in his "Daily Meditation" today, I don’t think getting it right teaches us vulnerability. It’s when we’re wrong that we are taught to be vulnerable.

There it is...the big risk...being willing to trust the unseen God has our back all the while fear is breathing down our neck. That is vulnerable...and the pearl beyond price.   

Apropos of nothing but the date, here's a favorite quote lifted by me from the February 23, 2019, comic strip, "Candorville":  I agree with Cicero. He said, 'I have always been of the opinion that unpopularity earned by doing what is right is not unpopularity at all...but glory.'  

Yes! Stand up and shout Hallelujah! Amen! Bring it, Brother! Sing it, Sister! And thank you into the bargain. 

Thank you.

GO BEYOND REASON...BENEFIT THE OTHER

Our initial sense of connection with our mother, and hopefully with our father, is the beginning of the unitive consciousness to which we ultimately want to return.* * * Those who know and live with a sense of secure connection to special loved ones have been shown to be more able to tune in to and be compassionate toward others, deal with anger constructively, cope with distress, stay open to and forgive others, show more generosity and tolerance, and shape a positive sense of self as one who is worthy of love and care.  --  Fr Richard Rohr, "Daily Meditation." February 22, 2022

Although many of us as a babe missed out on the vaunted mother-love connection, and have spent way too much time carping about it, God, grace and the sliver of gold in our "rotten luck" found the way for us. 

The way is our fellowship which is spiritual in nature. Among other things, it teaches us to cease fighting everything and everybody which turns out that means we can trust God. From our own experience, we now know that God can and will intervene in our lives for our benefit...we are freed from self to live for the benefit of another.

To live for the benefit of the other goes against the reasoning mind, against ego's I See Me, against the stand-up-for-self psychology prevalent in today's world. Who's kidding whom, to the egoic mind, that is hard to love. Gratefully, today we rely on the spiritual principle, Go beyond reason to love. 

There's the birth of our unitive consciousness to which we ultimately want to return. 

Through still more spiritual growth, we have become able to tune in to and be compassionate toward others, deal with anger constructively, cope with distress, stay open to and forgive others, show more generosity and tolerance, and shape a positive sense of self as one who is worthy of love and care.

It all started with our "rotten luck," grew through our changing our mind, and continues through the sliver of gold in our continuing "rotten luck" which requires us to change our mind and give over, give up, give in for the benefit of the other. Who knew? 

God...God who loves us so much knew.

Thank you.