The Things God Told Me

This past year I’ve tried to spend some time each day in silence and contemplation.  Sometimes, I’ll admit, the experience is beyond my abilities because I am distracted, unfocused, or interrupted.  Still, there have been moments when I’ve heard, quite clearly, thoughts or instructions that didn’t come from me (or if they did, they came from the part of me that is of the subconscious, which in my opinion is pretty much the same thing as the indwelling presence of God).  In addition, I’ve read several books that talk about who we really are; our True Selves, our Immortal Diamonds; vs. our False Selves and our Shadow Selves.  From both the times of contemplation and these books I’ve read, I’ve written down many things; the things God told me.  Here are a few.

Volunteer to help a struggling child to read (I did, Giovell.  Sweet child!)

Think about limiting time on Facebook even after Lent.  Too hard to be humble and pokes at old wounds (I have been somewhat successful at this)

Write Shaleen (An old friend I hadn’t heard from in years; I did so and, interestingly enough, she’d had a fortune from a Fortune Cookie the day before she received my letter telling her “an old friend you’ve lost touch with is coming back into your life”!)

Throw away your To Do Lists (Ok, this one freaked me out, but, I’ve done so and life is a lot less frenetic!)

Try to see Kathleen and Peri (My good friends from CA; I did, and also Debbie, Pam, Vesna, and Elaine.  It was a wonderful visit!)

You don’t have to convince people by what you say; make them curious by what you do.

You have to displace (In order to distribute my Blessing Bags, I have to go out of my neighborhood and comfort zone). 

Whenever you have any sort of negative thought, stop and immediately replace it with a positive thought.  Philippians 4:8.

Practice silence.  Psalm 141:3.

Let things go by.  Be a mirror!

I (God) am in the interruptions.

Love outward.

Let it be.

No problem to solve.

Trust in the how.

Choose the positive.

Accept imperfection.

Patience, kindness, generosity.

Heaven all the way to heaven.

Whatever you let go of/lose, you didn’t need it, anyway.

Stop saying “but”.

Attach evil indirectly.

Hold out for the yes.

I’ll close this entry with a wonderful poem that was in “Just This” by Richard Rohr.  As he said, “It is this simple and this hard.”

The Welcoming Prayer

Mary Mrozowski

Welcome, welcome, welcome

I welcome everything that comes to me today

because I know it’s for my healing.

I welcome all thoughts, feelings, emotions, persons,

situations, and conditions.

I let go of my desire for power and control.

I let go of my desire for affection, esteem,

approval, and pleasure.

I let go of my desire for survival and security.

I let go of my desire to change any situation,

condition, person, or myself.

I open to the love and presence of God and

God’s action within.

Mrs. B

Let's Get REAL

Old Age Ain't No Place for Sissies:  Redoux

Many years ago, as I was edging towards the age of fifty but still had a comfortable buffer of four years before I actually hit that milestone, I wrote a blog post which I called “Old Age Ain’t No Place for Sissies”; the title of which I borrowed from a famous quote by the actress Bette Davis.  Of all the glamorous Hollywood actresses of the 1930s and 1940s, I always had an affinity for Bette because she just seemed so comfortable in her own skin (or at least I made that assumption based on her own words).  And, those words were incredibly spot-on, old age isn’t a place for sissies; for those who constantly bewail “Why me?”, for the thin-skinned, for the faint of heart.  I’d written that particular post because I’d been struggling with certain side effects of aging; namely, those that typically rear their ugly and volatile heads in women at the on-set of menopause.  I’d been sharing these thoughts with Mark, and he’d done his level best to assure me that I was still very much a woman, and a good-looking one in his eyes. “And shouldn’t that be all that matters?” he asked me somewhat plaintively.  “Well, yes, well, no, well, crap I don’t know! I’m going through menopause don’t ask me questions with obvious answers!”

The conversation, which had been going thus:

“I’m old!”

“You’re not old!”

“I’m ugly!”

“You’re not ugly!”

“I’m fat!”

“You’re not fat!” (aside; Mark tells me if I die before him, my gravestone will read “Here lies Amy.  She was NOT fat!”)

ended with him asserting in the most loving fashion possible that I wasn’t “creepy”. He meant crepey, as in crepe-paper skin; and this malapropism resulted in such considerable hilarity that I had to blog about it.

Anyway, despite what I wrote in that blog post all those years ago, things such as:

“It’s a wise woman who comes to grips with their body as they age, because spending a life in abject misery, constantly dieting and throwing money away on surgeries (that may result in one looking like a psycho blow fish and thus gathering more pity and ridicule than would have resulted had one just left nature well enough alone); ain’t worth it!”

“One other positive thing about getting older is the treasure trove of life stories.  Oh, I do hope that everyone who is reading this is in a position to understand what I am talking about and has some of these memories!  Ones of adventures, of events that possibly you’ve never shared with anyone, not even your best friend.  Ones that still make you curl your toes in delight and satisfaction.  Ones that, when you are truly in your dotage, you can sit and remember them and cackle in enjoyment at their recollection while those around you nod and smile and think to themselves, “Poor Auntie, she’s really gone around the bend now!”  Oh, if they only KNEW!”

“I think it’s important to realize that older doesn’t always mean wiser.  In order for that to occur, you must truly know yourself.”

the truth is, I continued and continue to struggle with both the outward appearances of aging and the corresponding, close on its heels guilt I feel for being so shallow.  In fairness to me and others who are tormented by this, it’s mightily both compounded and reinforced by the obsession our current age has with youth and beauty; heck, even our cell phone camera apps have a wide variety of filters to apply to your selfie to “soften you up” (not that I am familiar with these; oh, ok, we’ll not add blatant lying to my list of character foibles!)  Many of us, it seems, routinely berate ourselves for being, well, ourselves.

Not too long ago, I came across this meme on Pinterest; I think it sums up the situation rather aptly.

God Affirms:  “You’re NOT Creepy!”

This has been troubling me so much of late that I ended up sharing my struggles with a Spiritual Director last month.  She’d helped me considerably two years before when I’d been in angst over not wanting to climb back onto the hamster wheel by taking on too much volunteer work at church, yet, I felt guilty over saying “no” to God.  She’d listened to me, given me several scripture verses to read, study, and meditate on; and advised me to spend the rest of the day in nature with God, or taking a nap with God; to think of myself being held by God.  Not too long into this, I had this thought pop into my head, “There is nothing wrong with your heart, Amy”.  There’s more to it, but, I immediately felt relieved.  God knew.  God knows.  So, no reason not to believe I might have a similar experience regarding the whole self-image/aging thing.  Admittedly I felt a bit, well, ridiculous telling the Spiritual Director that, with all the things I could (and maybe should) be concerned about, the thing I wanted direction on was how I looked.  Yet once again she listened, offered scripture and insight, and sent me on my way to spend time with God. This time, God basically told me to knock it off, to stop talking smack about myself to myself, because it was getting in the way of what He has in mind for me to do.  That came mostly from meditation on Isaiah 55:9-14, but also in conjunction with a lot of reading I’ve been doing of late about finding our True Selves in God, and “dying” to our False Selves.  I get that this may sound a bit “out there”, but, if you spend any time delving into any of The Christian Mystics and Contemplatives (e.g., Richard Rohr, Thomas Merton, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Clare, St. Catherine of Siena, etc., etc.) this stuff starts to rub off on you because it makes so much sense. 

Shortly after meeting with the Spiritual Director, the importance of truly embracing, of allowing, this virgin state acceptance of my so very not fresh-faced appearance became crystal clear.   Sometimes life’s lessons, or, messages from God, or reinforcements of messages from God if you’d rather, come to you in pretty funky ways; ways that, when you sit back and muse over how it all played out, there’s just no mistaking that it WAS a nudge (or maybe even a hearty shove) from The Three-In-One. 

Up Next:  

A Messenger in the Mall in the Manifestation of Mr. Mikey

Mrs. B

A Flurry…I Mean a Fury…of Resentment

I am contemplating my “furies”; what gets me so upset that I am blinded by anger?  Honestly and sadly, I’m not overly much concerned about social injustices.  I know I should be, and I’m ashamed to admit (even to myself and especially to God) that I am not.  Oh, sure; certain things bother me, and I might even feel sorrow about them, but God’s pure anger?  I don’t think so.  Conversely, (and thankfully), I do not find myself misdirecting my own anger as God’s. 

Does this make it all a wash?

I know hands down what possesses me, what can cause me to say things I really don’t want to (at least my True Self doesn’t want to, my ego happily spouts things off rapid fire), as well as to sink into the pit of self-pity.  RESENTMENT.  It is, after a year of really thinking about my “Goats”, probably the most stubborn and persistent one; even more so than anxiety and recrimination!

This is the scripture I’d assigned to the symbolic exorcism of the Goat of Resentment last Lent:

“Keep your heart with all vigilance for from it flow the springs of life.”  Proverbs 4:23

Wise words (Proverbs, after all!) yet, well, so very hard to do at times.  When resentment flares up within me, I wonder if it’s driven by physical factors (like a child being overly tired who ultimately throws a temper tantrum), past wounds that are still not forgotten or healed, or my ego, plain and simple, desiring recognition, accolades, applause, and groveling (no, not really that!)  Probably a mixture of them all.

Richard Rohr says about anger:  “If you keep…justifying why you deserve this anger, you are probably acting out of your own offended ego.  When you can let go of it…after properly acknowledging it, you can probably retrieve it without its excessive charge and then use it effectively.  If you can’t do that, I hate to say it, but you are likely “possessed” and need an “exorcism”!”

So, my head may not whip around at an 180 degree angle while my mouth projectile vomits split pea soup, but the sight (when I am possessed by resentment-driven anger), is not pretty nevertheless (if you didn’t catch the reference to a particular movie here, you are either way too young or have never seen one of the scariest horror movies of all time!)

Here is another thing I’ve realized as I’ve thought about it.  I do not resent what I am asked to do so much as I resent not being acknowledged for doing it.  Sadly, it does appear, then, that it’s ego-driven.  First half of life stuff.  Obviously,  I’m still a long ways from Falling Upwards.  I suppose I should be grateful that at least I recognize it; and I can continue to humbly rely on God to point out to me what I need to work on.

Ego-Resentment-Anger-Forgetfulness (not keeping my heart, not taming my tongue) = Unacceptable Behavior = (the potential for) Destruction

Richard Rohr’s suggestion?  “Allow another person’s smile, hug or words to dissipate “the whole thing”.  In so doing, they perform an exorcism  You might resent them (my aside:  the Devil never takes too kindly to the exorcist!)  but this reveals the actual emptiness of your anger.  It was not really “you” at all, but you had let it become you.”

And, another person is not required for the procedure!

“When The Furies have you, your practice can be to make eye contact and smile at another person – deliberately detaching from your Furies –”

And, so we begin!

Mrs. B