THE COUNTERINTUITIVE LOVE OF GOD

The turning point into my gutbucket belief in God was when, almost unbeknownst to me, I accepted that God's will, God's way, was counterintuitive to the reasoning mind. The reality being it is only counterintuitive to the egoic mind...it is right-on right to the Spirit.

Realizing that we live spiritual growth not to avoid necessary suffering but to experience necessary suffering was my breakthrough. 

Whoever read the Sermon, not others' interpretations but the one in the KJV, and thought "What great advice!" or "I can't wait to do this!" 

Face it, the Sermon itself is counterintuitive. For instance, "If someone slaps you upside your head, turn the other cheek" is not inviting to the reasoning mind...and a tish dicey to the spiritually inclined.

Comes our dawning. A peaced Soul is a side bennie... and the gates ajar in open invitation for us to go beyond reason. There it is, the Sermon's Open Sesame in the words of Thaddeus Golas, We must go beyond reason to love.

By the by, the rest of the quote explains in full the suggested injunction that we cease fighting everything and everybody: Go beyond reason to love - it is safe. It is the only safety. Love all you can, and when you are ready all will be shown to you. 

Note "when you are ready." We get ready by relying not on our reasoning mind, but by ceasing fighting, by loving the unlovable, by kissing the leper, by loving our self as the fool. Getting ready is the low-key excitement of the spiritual life.

The best part is that when, not if, we go beyond reason to love, we are living God's will, God's way.

Thank you.

TO BE PEACED, LIVE PEACE...RESIST NOT

I talk often, too often probably, about the change that took place in me seemingly the minute I turned 80 and continues now that I am 80+. I'm talking Big Changes...I'm talking infinitesimal changes...I am a changed me.

I got a jolt this morning in reading Fr Richard's Daily Meditation. Rev. Dr. Barbara Holmes wrote of the song “God Did It Suddenly," as in,  God changed the way I walk, the way I talk, changed my attitude, and God did it suddenly.

Whoa and Wow! I was gobsmacked. 

Here's the thing. I have been knowing that for years now...knowing that from my eyebrows up, apparently. But to be walking it without any overt action by or from me...to read that there is a song, an old song, about this very happening is...uh, surprising? disconcerting? perturbing? Yeah, you bet...not to mentiion, UN-Mother of God-Believable.  

I can't put it as clearly, as beautifully as Holmes, so I'm going to (mostly) quote her text: ....it is that understanding—that God can enter in, no matter how devious our perceived problem, and suddenly change everything, can change the hearts of our enemies, can make us strong enough to be able to stand, can give us power and can give us strength.

Lest I forget, I See Me is ever with me,  will do my thinking for me whenever and however, and I am powerless over that. No biggie...just get grateful that we have ceased fighting everything and everybody, thank it for sharing, and turn back to God.

All of this I thought I believed. It is to experience it as I live and breathe today that puts the period to my uncertain sure. God can. God will. God does. Without My Input! 

God can, will and does...whether I know it or not.  I am peaced. 

Thank you.

GOD'S WILL, GOD'S WAY...PEACE

The way down always teaches us. -- Fr Richard Rohr

A particularly hard lesson for us to learn is to neither fear nor deny our personal defects, errors in judgment, missteps and mistakes...actually, we need to praise them for what else leads us back to God so earnestly? 

Trying to do spiritual growth, relying only on our own understanding is the first Uh-Oh as we begin our spiritual journey. There is a whole lotta unlearning we need before we are unselfed enough to honestly pray for God's will, God's way.

God's will, God's way is the secret to a peaced Soul. 

The promise of ask and ye shall receive comes true...it is God's circuitous route that requires our change of mind. 

True story: Fifty years ago when I started my search for still more spiritual growth, I thought I had to read the Bible. Naturally, I sought no help, I just opened the book and started reading. Ask and ye shall receive caught my eye so I asked. I prayed for an emerald ring. 

Forty years later a lady I less than loved came into my life seeking my help. I spent many an hour on my knees praying to accept her just as she was, warts and all. Then I'd concentrate on her warts and how to fix them.

The gift came when I realized it wasn't her warts that was the problem. The problem was my faulty perception...or more precisely, my problem was me, is me, will never not be me.  

That being true, why not make a perpetual problem a perpetual gift? Kiss it on the lips and get grateful. That's how the lady and I became friends, and later, when she passed, she left me her emerald ring.

Did I mention circuitous? God's circuitous route brought me what I needed...gut-bucket acceptance that I am the source of all my woes. The emerald ring was just a personal gift from a friend. Or my God's wicked sense of humor...which I lean toward.

Personal change, if done right, will feel like "the way down" which we need remember "always teaches us."

Thank you.

THE PROMISE LIVES: GOD FULFILLS OUR NEEDS

We don't have to make ourselves loving, we need only to remove unkindness from our speech and finally from our hearts. -- from "Patience" by Ecknath Easwarn 

Isn't that wonderful? Were you like I was on first read? As in, well, yeah, everybody knows that. Then,  second thought...so why don't I do it? Or why am I still failing?...not as often, not as ugly, but neither life nor God grades on the curve...particularly as defined by our self. 

It is a fine line we walk between setting a self-determined objective and "removing unkindness from our speech." Ponder that as we slide into "and finally from our hearts." There's the touchstone, unkindness removed from our heart. 

Truth is we can pray till our face falls off, God will not remove unkindness from a hateful heart. Why would God remove our apparent treasure (else why are we holding it so dear?) with no effort from us other than pretty words offered up. Even you and I are clear that we would (and have) gone right back to our ego's house of worship, me, to continue doing that which we just prayed to be detached from.

Our need is not to be detached from the problem...the problem is not the problem. I am. You are. We need to detach from our reliance on our egoic mind especially when it is pushing our opinions, judgments and  unkindnesses.

The harder we try to "spiritually fix" us, the harder we are pushing God and God's will away. The always answer is to align ourself with God...with God's will, God's way. 

With our thank you leading, wants are transmuted into needs, and there the promise lives: God fulfills our needs. God cannot not fulfill our needs. 

Thank you.

WHETHER WE KNOW IT OR NOT

We have come to live what has been taught us; namely, that loving service to others is to live happy, joyous and free. 

Loving is the quiet word...too often, service to others is done with an eye toward what we're going to get in return for that service. Since loving can only go forward, outward, we rest in the love of God...whether we know it or not. 

Our gratitude pays that forward through his constantly replenishing love...ego is shuttered, and there's no "what's in it for me?"    

The lesson our egoic mind will resist until death do us part: Gratitude remains a self-determined objective until, without forethought, we feel as grateful for the less-than appearing as we feel for the apparent more-than. It is the grace of gratitude that opens the door and guides us into "the Land of Plenty," where others may slander us, the dollar may fail, our health may be dicey, and without thought we pray thank you...and mean it.

Those words may seem like an impossible dream, but the pure fact is: We are already there whether we know it or not. Those six words, whether we know it or not, are our new blankie. Hold them close...they are our Velveteen Rabbit as we awaken fully and still more fully.

We are to be grateful not just in the good times, but also in the bad times; to be grateful not just in plenty, but also in need; to maintain thankfulness not just in laughter, but also through tears and sorrow. -- From a quote of Brian McLaren

Thank you.

LIFE...GOD'S LOVE WALKABOUT

God Calling today, November 22: Ask for Love. 

After years of reading that and never thinking a thing about it, my first thought this morning was, I am loved...I do not need to ask for love...I am loved. I need to love. I need to ask to love.

The question then pops: What does "to love" mean to me? What is lacking? I feel loved but I all but discount that in my ask to love. 

To take a stab at it, I'm thinking to love is to be able to give love without forethought or preplanning. I receive love freely...no prepping, no machinations. Thinking about it, I'd say in receiving love I just feel gratitude. 

With thanks to Lakota author Doug Good Feather, gratitude is the doorway to divine intuition, which allows us to be guided by our connection with the Creator. Ah, beauty in Truth. 

Clearly, I need to get grateful for my need to love...there's my doorway to divine intuition allowing me to be guided by God. 

God cannot not love us...it is our realizing unto walking his love that peaces us. Until our life is a love walkabout, it's pretty much wishful thinking...albeit heading us in the right direction. 

It is on us to accept God's love, that which is already ours...born there, growing still.  It is God that gets us there. Pray thank you.

Thank you.

EVIL...EGO IN A PRETTY DISGUISE

A dream is about to come true for me: I plan to visit friends in Santa Fe over Thanksgiving. I have set no personal goals for my Santa Fe holiday...I trust the Father within knows my needs.

After I first read my Father knows my needs, I studied it, I tested it...I came to experience it! I now live in the comfort of trust...with a few side trips when ego has its say. That's when love and laughter, mumbling I'm only human, earn their keep.

We grow into trust from our unpolished, unprepared, unlearned self which gets no kudos...yet we are peaced. There. Our real need is nonresistance which brings not praise, but a new kind of  peace.

Unselfed kudos are lovely but, left unaware, they can be the Venus flytrap for ego. Ego is always in thrall to its true love, being envied by others, which is also the slippery slope to justified resentment. Oh wait...there is no unjustified resentment, is there. That's like justified anger...what, I wonder, does unjustified anger feel like?

Resist not evil. (Evil, ego all prettied-up to go dancin'.) 

Thank you.