WTFAI

Perfect Love!

I am endeavoring to examine my fears, as I don’t seem to be afraid of much, but I do have a nagging suspicion that I am not living up to my potential. I am arriving at this conclusion through self-examination and while I am grateful for what I have and do my best to share, I think I’ve fallen into the trap of comparison. Setting the comparison bit aside for now I am sure that fear, the self-centered variety, not the survival instinct type, is the obstacle that is interfering.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pinterest.com%2Fpin%2F334040497334820798%2F&psig=AOvVaw0eu2uYKMnOP56Eiuwm7CPw&ust=1622216845536000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAMQjB1qFwoTCOjc2eia6vACFQAAAAAdAAAAABAO

How is it then that Perfect Love is able to vanquish my fear? and What is it after all that I am afraid of? I am going to dig into this this a bit and in the act of composition and presenting this, perhaps an answer will emerge. I’ll start with perfect.

As an adjective perfect is described as

Being without flaw or defect
Satisfying all requirements
corresponding to an ideal standard or abstract concept
Faithfully reproducing the original
Legally valid

The definition goes on but I get the point as something to aim for but not necessarily achievable. Onward

Perfect as a verb

to bring to final form
to make perfect : improve or refine

Love, well now what have we here, if I am to find or practice Perfect Love in order to be liberated from Fear?

Love as a noun is described described as

strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties
attraction based on sexual desire : affection and tenderness felt by lovers
affection based on admiration, benevolence, or common interests
an assurance of affection

Okay right I get that and am sure I’ve also sought that and, tried as best as I could to express (l)ove

I like Anthony de Mello’s definition

Clarity of perception and accuracy in response

Now what do I know of Love? Not much when it has come from humans, other than my mom and other family. However I have the experience of God knowing my heart and loving me precisely as I am. That is the way I strive to love others. I am utterly incapable of this without His love transforming my entire being.

Now back to the Perfection of Love alleviating fear. In order for me to be fearful I am dwelling in another realm, the future. Fear is obliterated in His presence. If I am remorseful or plagued with regret I am focused on the past, another realm I visit. I am blemish free in The Father’s view as I abide in The ultimate Act of Love for Creation.

I have a mission, that being, to examine myself honestly, which is tricky because self/ego wants me to die, or so it seems at times. I should also, as I catalogue my findings admit them and dwell in His grace, becoming willing to be transformed and to enlist His aide as I cooperate with Him by shifting my focus from, my pain and frailty, toward others, knowing well that He Loves them.

Perfect Love is The Present

Don’t turn away!

As uncomfortable as it is, to truly see, absorb, and integrate the implications.

Unlike any other year, I have been doing just that. As much as my natural inclinations tend to compel me to look away, I am facing it. I only know what is written about it. Those writings can’t possibly convey what it was really like to be a witness. I am incorporating this into my contemplation about it. Imagining being there. Taking part in it, as much as it’s possible in my mind.

Something is very different this year. There seem to be parallels and analogies, in the events of the day, everywhere I turn. We’re on the verge of something, I sense it.

So this year I am turning toward it, leaning into it, capturing the very essence of it, as much as is humanly possible, and in so doing, my ability to celebrate literally everything is possible.

That which we deny, or fight we give power. Don’t be that guy/girl, what have you.

Happy Easter

Is it really so?

I heard it said that these are dark days for our nation. I wondered, according to who? why am I to agree? I do have free will and a choice, do I not? That is my decision, to embrace what is, and to choose to see it as my opportunity to infect my sphere of influence with the Love that has been so graciously been bestowed upon me.

I am choosing to behold, observe and revere the mystery of the nature of things. In carrying on with the experience that if I am aware and honest, pausing to reflect upon the magnificence and miracle of living, I can experience the “Light infused darkness” that accompanies acceptance of uncertainty. I don’t know and don’t need to. Growth doesn’t occur in my comfort zone. Celebrate life and give thanks for the chance to make this a better place.

Bring it!

I am going to attempt to share an attitude emerging into my consciousness. As with almost all attempted descriptions regarding the spiritual, words are spectacularly insufficient. I am in fact quite comfortable delving into the obscure. The impetus of this new attitude is a realization that, the degree of intensity with which I desire things to go my way, there is in direct proportion, the real result that these things evade my grasp. I’d like to just be able to attend to my simple existence in peace without interference, from the behavior of others wanting the same thing for themselves, going about it in the way they view as best, from their perspective. I could of course, go off and seclude myself from all contact with all humans. I have become a little bit of a hermit, with the unexpected “blessing” of the response to the “pandemic”. Striving as Paul related to “apprehend that for which he had been apprehended of Jesus Christ.” So as I have read and is becoming abundantly clear, “all is well”, so long as I “dwell” and “abide” He’s got this, so “Bring It”.

But wait!

I am referring to my previous post.https://wtfaiblog.wordpress.com/2021/01/19/id-love-to/ I was remembering this song from my youth and thought it relevant.

As the song says, I don’t know what to do. I am bombarded by media with what I am supposed to be like and there are experts and “the science” shoving expected behaviors onto my to do list, if I am to be accepted into the “woke” fraternal order. It seems there is an authority that has a supreme dictate which must be adhered to. It sounds a little like fascism to me.

I have a new approach today. The world is just as it should be and best left alone. If I wish to have an impact, my task is to be a better human. I can’t change myself, as much as I might want to. I would just be moving furniture around the room but the dwelling is the same. I must be transformed, I have zero effective way of affecting this on my own. I am under the care and protection of a Gracious and Loving Father. I have the ultimate example in how I should be in Jesus. I wait before Him and the world will be better for it.

I have read the three most difficult things for humans to do are.

Respond with Love for hate
Include those who are excluded or left out
To admit when we’re wrong

These I do my best to keep in my awareness and pray that our leaders and those who have the means to inform the masses will too.

Peace be with you!

I’d love to

What is it, then?

I detect a theme emerging in the recent writings of bloggers I follow. My thoughts were on the notion that what I am doing is not obedience. It is neither submission or acquiescence. I have been trying to put my metaphorical finger on it. As with, literally everything pertaining to each one’s faith, including my own, to attempt to describe it accurately fails miserably with words.

So what is it? My initial answer was a kind of collaboration, but that’s not it, exactly. I was letting these things percolate with the catalyst of mental and verbal prayer and scripture reading, with some blog reading. Here https://insanitybytes2.wordpress.com/2021/01/16/wisdom-from-an-intermediate-noticer/ and here https://jtjustteri.wordpress.com/2021/01/15/gathering-the-scattered-thoughts/

It is in my experience awareness in utter humility. That’s It! I have read Anthony de Mello’s book Awareness countless times and it hit me like (insert any metaphor here) “a ton of bricks” today. The complete realization of my smallness in relation to creation. In addition to the incomprehensible miracle of the humanity. Yet at the same time if we’re in keeping with the teachings of Jesus and the wisdom from the Old Testament. Being small can be incredibly powerful, in our immediate sphere of influence, and beyond, even if, and especially if I possess no intention, other than living a joyous life trying my best to attend to God’s will before my own. Which can only happen in Awareness.

Look, I don’t want credit for things I should be doing. I am also contemplating being helpful while avoiding drawing attention to myself. In so doing I am finding a seeming inexhaustible energy. Bear with me as I am just cataloguing some of the richness I am experiencing lately. I have realized a gratitude for even the trials and sorrows I have experienced. I wouldn’t be who I am without any miniscule part of it.

I have a role which I was specifically and miraculously designed for. There are no rehearsals and I am only witness to it unfolding a moment at a time. So onward with The Ultimate traveling Partner, yet “In silence before Him I become Aware of what I am to do in service, that I might reveal to all I encounter the magnificence of his Love and power to transform, a frightened, selfish, wretched creature into something other…you tell me, I am dwarfed in awe here. “Love and Trust are the solvents for life that I might not resist the opportunities presented when they are revealed.

Sometimes there is nothing which captures it

Patriots and Loyalists

I am continuing on with the theme from my last post. The idea being that there is a stark difference between those who believe in the ideas of the founding of our republic and those who want a more authoritarian form of government. We did not get here overnight, though it may seem to some that things eroded quickly, to where we are now.

The main point that I ascribe to, is in the differences of opinion about, where do our rights come, and why were some (loyalists) against parting ways from England. I think the biggest reason for the loyalist’s aversion to separation was due to the fact that, most of them were involved in trade with England and feared losing that. The patriots were against taxation without representation in parliament, among a great many other things but these two make sense to me with what is happening in our supposed representative government.

Three to four trillion USD are collected into the Federal government coffers.

Photo by John Guccione http://www.advergroup.com on Pexels.com

For a quick reference 1 million seconds is about 12 days. 1 billion seconds is 34 years, give or take. and 1 trillion seconds is 34,000 years. Let that sink in. It looks to me like the loyalists of the day are most interested in staying cozy with the insiders that can dole out a portion of that incomprehensible amount of money to them for their endeavors. I count these entities among them. Big Tech, Main Stream Media, Corporate conglomerates, Educational institutions, and all or nearly all the people employed by or are vendors to these. In addition there is the circulation of campaign contributions that end up back into the pockets of the donors and influence peddlers.

The patriots are, in my opinion the ordinary people that wish to just be able to go to work and prosper in a thriving economy, which happens when the government is least intrusive and lets the people keep more of what they earn. They just want accurate information and equal opportunity to succeed or fail without interference or having to comply with ideas antithetical to their beliefs. They resist being categorized in any way and for the most part love what they do and want to let everyone live and be who they are, unless it’s being forced on them.

This is where, in my opinion, the need for division amongst the masses becomes the paramount objective of the power junkies. The difference between leading and ruling is revealed. If the ruler types can keep us at odds with the portrayed enemy, we’re more easily influenced. The only thing that allows this to occur is if we’re not allowed open exchange of ideas. That is sadly where we are. Opposing ideas and truthful information are being censored and expunged from our means of receiving and disseminating information. The loyalists have relegated the patriots to a “digital ghetto”, where we’re cast out and ridiculed and sometimes physically threatened or worse.

There is also the issue of a seeming insulation from law and justice being perpetrated by the elite, ruling class which is appalling and is allowed by their tone deaf narcissistic minions in the media. Gaslighting and accusing freedom loving people as being exactly as they, in fact, are.

The only way out of the woods is to rediscover Love, Truth and Justice for all.

I am not capable of arriving there naturally without God in my life. It is His strength, courage, and unfathomable Love that has taken up residence, at my invitation, into my heart.

Where are We?

Right here and now. As it has become my practice, I do my best to be present. To bring my attention to what is and to embrace it, to allow it to be just as it is without attempts to alter it. Acceptance- “Nothing, absolutely nothing happens in God’s world by mistake.” pp 449 Alcoholics Anonymous 3rd edition.

It is my contention that those of us that have submitted to things eternal, unseen, and unheard in obscurity, that ascribe to Truths in scripture and disseminated throughout a vast history, are feared like no other. Why else would they wish to silence us? Could it be that our mere existence is a threat to to their amassing more than their due? That if what we know to be true was allowed to flourish, would undermine their influence with the uninformed and easily swayed?

What seems to be best for the common good, in my opinion, is only best for those with the most power that are seemingly, strangely out of the reach of actual justice. Which is in fact not good at all. Good or bad? Seems it is a matter of your perspective and depends on what you wish to believe is true, not what is really true. I rely on what I see with my own eyes and what is revealed to me in prayer and meditation. I have to be quiet and let these things sink in. The will of the people has in my view been thwarted. It is actually what it is. My guess is that there are those too, that are fine with that, as long as their side prevailed, which saddens me. So now what? What is the actual Right thing to do? My experience guides me to be still and Trust Him. The appropriate response will be revealed and it will likely be doing something I don’t want to do.

Hold on there Bucko

Don’t be so quick to put the experience of 2020 behind you. I’m talking to myself here. A promise offered in “The Big Book” Alcoholics Anonymous “We will not regret the past, nor wish to shut the door on it.” and “We will see how our experience can benefit others.” These are taken out of order and slightly incomplete. The point that is occurring to me is that, I have gained a great deal in 2020. I have learned more about what I most value and recognized that though we all respond from a diverse set of circumstances and may appear vastly different. We’re not!

We all can appreciate beauty when we see it. It seems we all initially recoil from uncomfortable situations, when encountered. As I have become better at paying attention to my responses to things, in a non-judgmental fashion. I remember times when I thought this is the worst, when in fact it was an opportunity to learn and grow. I look back now and have to chuckle, at how baaad I thought it was at the time and now my memory of it has been altered.

Blessings in disguise. A lesson I learned working in the restaurant business is, “it’s just another day.” The reason for that was I was always working when everyone else was out. Friday and Saturday nights, Valentines Day and NYE. There I was helping make it possible for the customers to enjoy themselves, while escaping from a miraculously mundane existence with weekends, made up holidays and the routine grind in cubicles under fluorescent lighting they’ve been conditioned to believe is the best way to live. My wish is that given this era of forced retreat into our dwellings all may recognize alternatives which are more rewarding and healthier for their soul.

So now! I am becoming, less sensitive while simultaneously becoming more attentive to my physical senses and less to emotional/thinking. Sensible?

Themes for my 2021

What seems the worst may in fact be exactly what I need

2. Challenges turned to opportunities

3. “We’re walking each other home.”

4. Aspire to Love others the way God Loves me

2020 has enlightened me tremendously and I will not miss the chance to make the best of what I have without complaint. I may stumble and lash out reflexively, but with practice I will continue to improve.