TRUST...WE'RE IN GOD'S POCKET, ALL IS WELL

A faint and fleeting thought this morning: Jesus lived Trust. 

Thoughts of Jesus rarely mingle with my own thoughts, so when they do, I listen...a tish apprehensively, but I do listen. 

Fairly recently, and uninvited, the thought for me to trust, for me to learn Trust, has presented itself....kinda like a bum, begging for a buck...unwanted but in need. We know the uninvited thought can be sacred so we do not want to ignore it...yes, but, reason dares not cater to it...beware, look out, be careful blares a tuneless song.

The Father knows our needs....my morning reading which is on the Sermon is all about Jesus going out all but barefoot and penniless, walking and talking and supping with the uneducated, the poor, the whores and the publicans.

Who hasn't read that? More specifically, what seeker of still more spiritual growth hasn't read that...and thought, so what's the point? Or, that may just be me, but it went over my head like a hairnet...not the surface message, I got love all, but the underneath message, I missed trust by giving all not getting.  

Trust that our needs, i.e., our life, breath, health, wealth, flow to us from our Father within...Now. Whether we know it or not, we shall never not have enough...so give.

The Lord is our shepherd, we shall not want...we have enough. Trust.

Thank you.

GOD IS RELEASED FROM WITHIN

When we decide to embrace hope—when we choose to make that our goal and our message—we release a flow of energy that cannot be overcome. -- Retired Episcopalian bishop and Choctaw citizen Steven Charleston, Fr Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation of June 29, 2023 

Our supreme purpose in life is not to make a fortune, nor to pursue pleasure, nor to write our name on history, but to discover this spark of the divine that is in our hearts. —Eknath Easwaran 

That "flow of energy" that Charleston mentions is Easwaran's "spark of divine," and both, the flow and the spark, are the God we seek...in which hope lives.

To myself I say: Pay attention! God lives within...is in constant release from our heart.

My ongoing search for the Father within is taking me deeper...less dependent on the hairs-on-my-head count, more dependent on my unknowing-but-believing feelings. 

I am not overly familiar with the Bible except to quote it when I agree or want to agree with something it says...thus, I quote:  

...all things are possible to s/he who believes....Lord, I believe; help me mine unbelief. -- Mark 9:23-25 

Thank you.

OUR FEAR IN GOD'S HANDS IS OUR TREASURE

I suspect that trust is today's Holy Grail for many spiritual seekers. 

To trust a Power greater than our self to have our back, to be on our side, to be for our benefit...according to our lights. And, there it is, the poison in the pretty...according to our lights. 

The building blocks of trust begin with facing our fear du jour and moving toward it; showing our bum in public; allowing fear of rejection, dementia, poverty, et al.,  their place at our table sans silent suffering or whistling-past-the-graveyard bravado; meeting every instant's mental Uh-Oh with our heart's Thank You. 

To honestly trust the higher Power is to realize love on a whole new plane...by not fearing but being open to the unknown be it by pain or plenty. 

The new lesson is in the same-old-same-old,  resist not evil...nonresistance, a higher realization of love down deeper. 

It is baked in our decision to trust God with our fear of rejection, dementia, poverty. We are headed toward glory with our recognition that nothing turns us to God faster than fear. Resist not, welcome!

We discover our dark fear in God's hands is our greatest treasure.

Thank you.   

RESIST NOT, WELCOME AND BE CALMED

When we are feeling like our skin's on crooked, and there is no immediately recognizable cause...when there is no rhyme or reason or, to be more precise, no person or thing to blame...praying thank you without having a clue as to why calms our mind almost without fail.

Ponder this: unavoidable suffering, valid hurt, necessary suffering...against reasoning mind standards, each is for the benefit of our Soul. Each is of God and tells a story unto itself. 

When experienced not by self-determination but by an inner need, our pain is not so much physical as an ever-deepening, albeit well-disguised, spiritual longing. 

Examples from my personal experiences: unavoidable suffering, our egoic pain as we are being separated from a self-determined objective; valid hurt, our grief over the loss of someone or something we had held dear; necessary suffering, our giving over, giving up, giving in for the benefit of another...especially a less-than-loved person or habit in our life. This is the first step toward acceptance.

Again, unavoidable suffering, valid hurt, necessary suffering are of God...resist not, pray thank you and be calmed. 

Thank you.

SPIRITUAL IN NATURE, THE SPARK DIVINE

Blinding flash of the obvious: Spiritual in nature - all are birthed spiritual in nature.

I suspect that our rues, regrets and remorses come when we are hunkered down within longing for the outer...for showtime!...all the while thinking, "This time it will be different." 

As a line from the song "Loving Arms" puts it: Looking back and longing for the freedom of my chains. What can one do with that but love and laugh? With/for/at oneself. 

It is that love and laughter, of course, that opens my senses today to more shucking of my shields. I almost dare not hope...am I becoming more like a child, un-selfed...unself-conscious, -aware, -protected? 

I choose to believe that the spark Divine grows within that by its light we might see the smaller me, more of God than self. 

Thank you. 

HUMILITY...LOVE IT OR LOVE IT

Ah...caught in a maelstrom in our own mind.... 

That was my yesterday's travail. 

Today's blinding flash of the obvious: My humility was a quart low, that's all. 

God loves me so much.

Thank you.

LISTEN. CLOSELY. CHOOSE. WISELY.

When caught in a maelstrom in our own mind, we are often advised to "turn it over," or, in short,  fuhgeddaboudit. If only.

There, however, is the root of our still more spiritual growth...we hear fuhgeddaboudit, and we recognize the self-determined objective that no longer works. Then. Right then. We are graced by trust that God is on the field...how will be made clear...and the door upon which I knock is opened to us.

Our awakening is the realization that the spiritual decision we must make is to turn over not our problem du jour but our will and our life. To the care of God. 

That decision, honestly and truly made, transmutes frets, worries and maelstroms, i.e., fear, and we know peace. That we will feel fear again is accepted, but we are freed to love and laugh in the midst of it.

When fear calls, we get to determine again which side to choose. Comes the all-clear: Our choice has already been made...pray thank you, and be peaced.

Thank you.