More Life

 We come to the end of another year.  You are still here.  Do you want a longer life or do you want more life?  There is a difference.  There are persons who may live quite a longer life than I will, but it might be filled with judgments, anger, resentments, divisiveness due to personality and so on.  “More” life, on the other hand, is to be present to the moment and what is in the moment, be it persons, things, or events.  We can be present or absent to the moment.  How do you want to live?  Prayer is being attentive to the moment, even to the Presence of the Divine.  Prayer is not getting someone else’s attention.  It is to get you to pay attention.  I hope 2024 is a time of more life in the moment that is given to me as gift.  Happy New Year!

Good For What?

 Don’t just be good.  Be good for something.  Henry David Thoreau said that.  I remember wanting to be good.  It was while I was bad.  I knew what it was to be bad.  I had lots of experience and events in my story of bad behavior.  I really did not know what it was to be good.  I thought it was just not being bad.  Stop doing bad things and voila! I would be good.  But I came across an old geezer, when I was not yet an old geezer, and though he did not strike me as a Thoreau reader, suggested I do something that was not part of my bad past.  Like what? Thinking he was going to suggest something above my pay scale, he suggested I stack the chairs.  And that was the beginning, for me, of becoming good for something.  I am almost at the end of another year of being good for something.  It keeps the bad in the past.  

My Fictional Life

 I like recovery rooms because I tend to see a person, and not a fictional character in the the drama of my own life.  If I see someone well dressed, I don’t think, “Oh, that person is rich.  Had all the advantages of life.  I bet they drank great stuff while I drank Ripple Wine.  I doubt they know the suffering I knew.  I don’t like that person.”  Or I see someone dressed in shabby clothes, unwashed.  I don’t say, “What a bum. Probably lives in some messy outdoor place.  Glad I never got that bad.”  Unless I can see the real person, look in their face and see them as sharing our life together, then any story I write of myself will be fiction.  Fiction is opinion, judgment, resentment, while love is from the heart.  Recovery is a heart journey. 

Loving God

The Bible says to love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.  Well, which God do you love?  The one you make up? Many of us want a god who agrees with us. That is, agrees with our views, prejudices and opinions.  If I don’t like certain people, then neither can my god like them.  This can be the cause so much religious and ethnic conflict.  It can become political too.  For you to believe in your god, it must agree with you.  Your god has to carry out all your religious rules.  My God lives beyond my narrow world.  But until I can love the person who is”other” I don’t think I can love the real God who is beyond my narrow comprehension.  

Retirement

 Sobriety is like retirement.  One retires from a career in drinking.  For an alcoholic, the career had a beginning and an ending.  It stays ended as long as one remains in retirement.  One goes to retirement meetings and enjoys retirement with others like them.  One can retire from the drinking career at any age and in any health, or financial situation.  Retirement here requires no money.  Each day one gets the choice to have a happy, productive life, or to go back to the work of drinking.  And it was work, many hours, with brief joy, followed by long periods of misery.  One is chained to the job of drinking, unless they retire.  Each day, say, “I am retired.”  Then work at it just like you worked at drinking.  Happy New Year coming soon.!

Driving In the Dark

 In San Francisco, I run in the dark, at 5:00 AM before the traffic and pollution build up.  I wear a beacon light shining from my hat or cap, so that cars can see me as I run against the flow of traffic.  There are few cars on the city streets at this time.  But the ones out there are in a big hurry.  If they can find an open roadway with no traffic lights, the cars will go 60 miles an hour, in a city street zone.  And on quiet side streets, stop lights are optional for stopping on red.  I run defensively.  There are more bike lanes than there used to be and I can run against the flow of bike traffic so I see the bike coming and get out of their way.  Sidewalk running is for those who want knee and hip surgery later in life.  Cement and concrete is no good for running.  Blacktop streets are better.  Darkness has challenges in running and in prayer.  I learn by practice.  

Merry Christmas

 One thing most of us have in common on this day is that we don’t go to work.  Since many restaurants are closed on this day, the cooks, servers, cleaners, are all off too.  I remember that one time, in my unemployable days, I did get a Christmas night job, cleaning the floors of a restaurant.  And the owner was in a bad mood.  I could not do much right for her.  But now, many years later, I can celebrate gratitude.  I have found serenity, peace and freedom from profound loneliness.  God indeed has come into my world in a miraculous way.  Merry Christmas.  

Partiipate

This being Christmas Eve some of you might have a bit of the blahs instead of anticipation of good things to come.  Maybe you are feeling a bit alone? Separate? Even unique and different from all those celebrating people?  There is a way to get a bit more upbeat, less lonely, less judgmental of others.  Participate as in being of service.  Do some good things for others.  I know addicts, who are desperately trying not to ingest their addictive stuff on this day.  They participate, even help out, in some group event or just help one other person in selfless ways.  It seems to work for them.  So maybe it can work for everyone who is a bit out of sorts on this day, evening.  Oh, and God loves you, even if you don't believe in one.   

Creche

 The Christmas Crèche is a way to give children the beginnings of an experience of the Divine that also teaches some history and dogma.  It is very important that “believers” have the experience of something about God that touches them in the heart.  Dogma alone, history alone, won’t do this.  In the crèche scene we can talk about and have the experience of the humility, the unconditional love of God, a manner in which God seeks non-dual relationship with us by surrendering power to become one of us.  The figurines, the scenery can become memorable.  When we grow up, if our practice, our faith grows lukewarm, the Christmas Crèche can recall that childhood experience that might light a bit of fire in our heart.  Public places want to be rid of all symbols of religion, but it is precisely symbols that move us.  

Spasms

We all have spasms of selfishness, resentment and fear.  It happens.  Pause when it happens.  My morning prayer gives me the insight to pause.  Maybe someone or something is at fault.  Life is imperfect out there.  But a pause allows me to refrain from a very damaging response or action on my part.  Hurt feelings are very powerful.  The ego is never really fully satisfied.  A pause allows me to ask what is going on with me that I have this emotional upheaval or response trigger?  Am I being judgmental?  Why?  I can really only work on me and that is enough of a daily job in this world.  Emotional spasms can be like muscle spasms.  Pause. Wait.  Don’t make it worse by overreacting.  Maybe even say a prayer while you are waiting.  

Bathing

 We readily take a shower or a bath to cleanse the body.  But this is not all that needs a wash.  What about our mind, thoughts, judgments, resentments, prejudices, and fears?  Do we not need to cleanse our insides of all this and more?  “Stinking Thinking,” is one phrase that comes to mind.  So I try to bathe daily in prayer and meditation, to let go of whatever is clinging to my spirit, so that I might be more presentable to the world I will encounter each day.  

Prayers Chores

 Periodically, about once a month, I am in charge of sweeping and wet mopping the kitchen in the monastery.  I do it for a week.   It is a sizable kitchen as it is in a monastery.  Now I can complain about having to do this menial job, and how the monks make more mess than is necessary, and so on.  Whine or what?  How about prayer while I mop?  I find it releases me of the burden of self.  I become tranquil and at peace with myself and others as I do this task.  And the kitchen looks the better for it.  And so do I in my demeanor.  

The Polish

The pearl of wisdom is polished with experience.  I can read about wisdom, but until I practice it, Wisdom remains on the page and not in my actions, attitude and relationships with the world.  Many people read the 12 Steps, the Bible, Koran, Tao, and it just remains words on a page, brilliant words, but until you try them, fail, mediocre, pretty good, or however well you act, they will just be words of wisdom on a page.  I try to focus on one wisdom at a time rather than 10 or 12 or whatever.  Lists overwhelm me, so I break it down into something more doable.  Trudge.  

Forgotten Forgiveness

Many people say “The Lord’s Prayer,” for one reason or another.  They ask that they might forgive others and be forgiven themselves by the God to whom this prayer is addressed.  But the one person they forget to forgive is themselves.  People in Recovery, for instance, need to forgive themselves for the crazy life actions they took in the past.  And some they still do in the present.  Character defects diminish but don’t disappear altogether.  Keeps one humble.  In the morning I try to forgive myself for yesterday and then get on with the day.  Hope is central here.  At night, when I am tired, the forgiveness thing just does not have much of an impress on me, but after a night’s rest, I am more clear-headed and can forgive and let go.  I used to pray for perfection but eventually I bottomed out to pray for survival.  Now I do the forgiveness prayer for me too.  Trudging.  

Galaxy Of Stars

 I look up at the galaxy of stars, beacons of light in the night sky.  A wonderful sight at 8,000 feet altitude.  It reminds me of a group of friends, a “galaxy of failures,” misfits, who now shine their light in the darkness that is also part of their life.  We all have a little darkness, but some of us have it as addiction.  The addiction is the spiritual blindness that thinks the darkness is light.  But with the power of the universe at work in us and with one another, we together become a galaxy of light in the darkness of life.  I look up at the stars and see friends, some alive on this earth, and some, well, up there, giving me hope as I move through life.  

Just Enough

 How much or little do we need to love ourself?  I need to love myself enough to ask for outside help when in a turmoil.  Love myself with enough humility to admit that I am worth a solution to my present predicament and I am clueless at the moment what that solution is.  But I trust I am not alone though I may feel frightening alone.  This is the bottom line love of myself.  It is needed when I feel at the bottom of whatever mess I am in.  In prayer I seek to love myself in turmoil, fear, loneliness, and resentment.  Oh and in self-pity too.  It is easy to love me when things are going well.  I forget it was not all my doing that things are going well.  I take too much credit in the good times, but have too little power of my own in the bad times.  So I love myself to ask for help and be in gratitude.  

Like And Love

 I don’t have to like someone in order to love them, or act lovingly toward them.  Some people are unlikeable because they are lonely or overcome with shortcomings.  This does not make them terrible people or bad people.  It just makes them unattractive.  I might tend to leave them be in their misery and negativity.  But I want to become a better person and so I try to act lovingly toward them.  How?  Pay them some attention.  Ask them how they are doing at the moment and then be patient and listen.  Give them time, my oh so precious time that I used to use up in crazy stuff.  

The Enemy

 Why this “Love your enemy,” that crops up in spiritual paths?  One reason is that you love the enemy with no expectation of return.  Your ego drops out of this kind of love.  Many of us love to get something.  The ego does not like one sided love unless the ego is on the getting side and not the giving side.  You can develop a depth of compassion when you love without any expectation of return.  Unlike loving a selfish child who you hope will grow up to become a good person, given your parental example, you love your enemy who may remain your enemy.  Jesus hung upon the cross and said, “Father, forgive them.”  He died and they did not change.  

Live It

 Maybe a religion or any spiritual path needs to be lived first before it can be understood.  Most people want to understand something, like the content of a faith, before they will commit themselves to its practice.  Most people who drop out of religion may have had the faith as some propositions like a creed, but never really practiced it much beyond an occasional attendance. Recovery programs are spiritual ways of living.  Someone comes in new and says they do not understand the 12 steps and so leave.  It is suggested that you practice the program and then it will make sense.  Practice opens the spiritual dimension that was hidden from the skeptical, closed mind.  Desperation can be a good thing sometimes.  It gets one to practice a path while the mind remains in a clueless fog.  

Closed Mind

 If you read a theology of a religion other than your own, you must find a way to be open to it.  Most believers of “their” religion, if they read some other faith, do so with a prejudice to prove the other wrong.  You cannot glean any nuggets of spiritual worth from another religion if you read it only to prove that you are right and they are wrong.  Christians don’t read their bible like a novel, so why should they quick read the Koran and then say, “This makes no sense.”  You can be on a religious path that works for you without having to be “right.”  God is not bound by any path.  

Poetry

 Prayer is a little bit like reading poetry.  You have to give it time to come to you.  Poetry is not meant to be read like a Newpaper or a tweet.  Poetry is not so much about information, as it is about transformation.  So it must be given time, space, and openness.  A poem cannot be rushed or read while thinking about something else.  Nor do we worry about “what does it mean.”  Given its time and an open, uncluttered heart, the poem will reveal what you need at that time.  The poem will speak quietly if you let it.  And so will prayer.  

Silence

 Silence that is full of vexation, worry, self-regard, is not a silence that will take you to your deeper self.  You can be silent, making no sounds, but worried about how you are going to pay your rent or mortgage, or keep your job, a relationship and so on.  The more contemplative silence is one that if relatively free of any focused thoughts.  This is the silence that can seep into you and help bring about a change at the heart level.  I try to avoid mixing up prayer and problem solving.  

Humility

 Sometimes the answer to a question on the spiritual path is “I don’t know.”  It is a humble response.  We don’t have to know in our minds, or satisfy our ego, by coming up with an answer to what is happening within the prayer.  People see a change in us for the better.  They experience a more loving us, and they want to know how prayer helps.  Sometimes we must say, in all honesty, and humility, we do not know.  What we do know is that we keep showing up to the practice. God is at work.  

Tears

 Sometimes the soul needs a shower.  This can be our tears.  We can cry with joy or with sadness.  Tears for both.  Shower for the heart.  Crying is often put down as weakness or self-pity or just an embarrassing nuisance.  But if you are trying to be loving, or at least a bit kind to others, it is not selfishness.  The tears of grief in a loss, water the heart which thirsts in its experience of loss.  “Toughen up” is not quite what is needed.  It is the advice of those who are in denial.  Sometimes there are tears in meditation.  They are to help us move through events, some we do not even recognize.  Let it flow.  Let it flow.  

The Match

 A candle is wax and wick until it is ignited.  Then it is flame, light and warmth.  Meditation is like the match that fires up the flame within so that we become a light, a flame of love, a warmth for others who know only the experience of their wax and wick.  The way we live our life in the world can become a reminder, a revelation, of what we all can be.  I think of the match for the flame as surrender.  We are all waiting to become a flame of love if we can dose the ego.  

The Performer

 At times we want to be a performer, distinct and separated from anyone else.  Think of a violin player.  Alone, they perform with their instrument.  No other performers on stage with them.  Everyone is supposed to focus on the singular performer.  The ego loves it.  But in fact, in the spiritual life, we are to be part of a concert.  Each person does their best to contribute to the whole in order to have a successful concert.  We are all doing our best with our talent to contribute to the whole.  The conductor is love.  Private mediation is when we work on the instrument of the heart so we can later contribute to the whole in service to the concert of life.  

The Star

 Well-known spiritual masters were born with a star over them, so the story goes.  Buddha and Jesus would be examples.  Jesus had the Star of Bethlehem that was shown to the Magi way over in Persia maybe.  What is the star about?  Well, before creation brought forth us types of humanoids, or any life or planets, there were stars.  The stars have been long witnesses of their Creator.  Stars are born, live, flourish and then die in explosions.  New stars come from that.  So stars are God's friends for the longest of times.  God enjoys stars and I think the stars enjoy God.  Then, eventually, we come along.  And if God is going to transition into this world, the stars want to watch.  They are overlooking God and pointing to God for us clueless, but loved part of God's creation.  So why not try and see a star-lit night if you can?  Look at Gods longterm friends.  

Dark Skin

 Christmas is coming which means a lot of focus on Mary, the mother of the baby Jesus.  So what is it about these images here and there of Mary with dark skin?  Is it an ethnic thing?  No.  It refers to the spiritual life.  Dark is not bad.  It is just dark and dark is good. How so?  You go through the dark to get to the light.  The baby Jesus will be born from the dark womb into the light of the stable.  No wonder babies cry.  Many Catholics have the spirituality of going to Jesus through Mary.  In the mystical sense of Mary, you go through the dark night of deep meditation, seemingly nothing there, into the revelation of the light of non-duality.  A Christmas tree looks best when it lights up in the dark.  Got any holy cards with the dark-skinned Mary?  

Beg To Differ

In the First Letter of John in the New Testament of the Bible, John 1:5, it says, "God is Light and in him there is no darkness."  Well, this could be a bit misleading as is the statement that "we are called to be children of light."  How do you experience the Light of God, except against the darkness into which you are called by deep prayer.  First comes the darkness of Nada, Nothing, beyond  your thoughts, imaginings and fantasies.  In the darkness you let go of all this.  Truly dark.  Then the true light that is so much brighter in the deep darkness.  Then you become a child of light.  But first be a child of the dark.  Meditate.   

Moon Rise

 When was the last time you went outside to watch the full moon rise?  Maybe never?  Not is a very long time?  We might catch the sunrise because we are getting ready for our busy day, when it is light and we can get lots of things done.  But moonrise is at night and we just don't see ourselves going out into the darkness to  patiently wait for the moon to rise.  But I guarantee you it is quite spectacular, and quick.  Let the darkness manage you. Put aside your sense of urgency and go out to some hill or unobstructed horizon place.  Wait in the dark.  What a nice time for prayer.  Stay warm.  

What Manages Who?

 We try to manage the dark.  When it gets dark outside, we put on lights, inside and outside.  We avoid darkness until we want it for sleep and then we might have on "security" lights or some low light to put to sleep the fears of goblins and demons, and monsters.  This is the first day of December, and in the Northern Hemisphere that means lots of darkness.  We are approaching Winter Solstice.  Why not take advantage of the darkness.  Let it manage you.  Lots of good stuff can come in the darkness.  We celebrate Christmas right round the most dark days of the year in our Hemisphere.  Santa won't come if it is light.  Santa works in the dark.  The red nose reindeer guides him.  God does great work in the dark.  Enjoy the dark or at least get used to it.  And save on electricity bills.  

Nada

When people start a spiritual practice, generally their motive is to have  "more" of something.  A good feeling, the sense of God or Spirit, peace, a good inner buzz, whatever that might be conjured up to contain.  Anyhow, many mystics, spiritual winners, say that "more" is not want you want.  No spiritual benefits  until after "more" is obliterated.  Yuck! you say.  But what is proposed along the path is that you reach a "Holy Ignorance."  More yuck.  But if you can stay in that moment when God seems most absent, the darkness will rest.  Trust God in any absence of God.  Isn't that what those recovery people say, "Trust God."?   

Darkness

 Darkness was never created.  It was just there.  In the beginning, as Genesis says.  The earth was not yet. There was just a formless void.  Nada.  Nothing.  There must be darkness before there is light.  "Let there be light," says the Creator.  God seems to be comfortable in darkness.  If you like Big Bang, the darkness was already there or here.  When the Divine went into human form, it started out in the darkness of the womb.  Darkness was the transition state.  So why do we hate darkness or fear it so?  Many people want God but only in their light.  Christmas midnight mass is spectacular for many people because it has so much light.  Easter Vigil much less attended.  Too dark.  Anyway, this is just another plug for meditation.  You are not alone in the dark.  God, Higher Power, Creator, Divine, One, Ultimate Reality, has your back.  

New Life

I hear people say, " I want to be raised on the Last Day."  The same people ignore darkness ands silence.  Electricity gives them lots of light and sound.  Before that there was lots of darkness and silence.  Those pioneer settlers did not fear the dark and the silent the way so many do now.  It seems that resurrection of Jesus began in utter darkness and silence.  It began in a tomb.  So you want new life?  Last Day resurrection or whatever you want to call it?  Better get into silence and darkness.  Don't babies start out in the darkness of the womb?  We are all in the womb of God, in the quiet and the darkness.  I seek my roots of life each day.   

Pay Attention

Jesus says "pay attention."  Notice the birds of the air and the lilies of the field.  No wonder we ignore the Spirit within.  We don't pay attention to the outer world.  It is not part of our space, our cyberspace.  In many ways then, we are blind.   With a partner, marriage, close relationship/friendship, it is the inner light that must pay attention to the other.  The outer light of the eye can see appearances, activity, but it is the inner light that sees what someone needs or is trying to communicate with words, actions, gestures.  "You are not listening," is what one says to the other, as the relationship is being strained.  "I heard you," is hearing with the ear.  Meditation might help us to tune into the inner light which can make human encounter quite a learning experience.  Some people pity the blind person.  But many of the blind hear the birds and smell the flowers.  And in their darkness, they love from a heart that lives in the light.  

The Lightbulb

Electricity, the light bulb if you will, got us away from the value of darkness.  For one, the outer light of electricity says it is the source of light in the night.  But in the darkness, before electricity, we knew the light was within us.  The indwelling light is what shows us the true way.  It may be why we close our eyes in meditation.  When we are not in touch with the inner light we tend to not pay much attention to what is really going on.  Outer sight  prefers appearances.  The bulb makes us lazy.  Appearances make for a superficial sense.  As Barbara Taylor Brown might say, you mistake such sight for perception.  A blind person is much more aware of what is going on.  They don't skip over things in a room.  They have to notice.  On a street corner they listen.  They are aware.  They are not looking at their cell phone as they cross the street.  The blind are quite likely to pay attention to the indwelling light.  

Transformation

Transformation is not meant to comfort you.  Ask Ken Wilbur. It is to dismantle you.  Jesus agrees: "Those who find their life will lose it."  The Christian seeks transformation so as to lose their life for the sake of Jesus.  It is in the bible.  It is the way they will find their life.  Given this, I suspect there are not many Cristians who seek such transformation.  Many people who take up religion want to get something, such as salvation, feeling good, or at least better in the moment.  With or without a religion, many people take up meditation to obtain something they judge positive without any loss along the away.  'More" is the operative path.  I find that one of the best paths to losing oneself is through encounter with another person.  This is honest, free of judgment, resentment, or prejudice.  You let down your guard and enter into open honesty.  The ego does not care for this.  Ego holds on.  For the ego, transformation is for losers. 

Dark Emotions

 We don't so much have dark emotions, but emotions in which we have no skill or too little skill in coping.  Someone we love dies.  We are overcome with grief.  We try to escape it, avoid it, dose it with some intake into our bodies, go to the gym, or just feel miserable.  There are grief groups that can help such a person to find the skill to deal with grief.  Grief won't go away, but we find out how to deal with it in a constructive way.  We learn to face it and learn from the emotion, the feelings of grief, loss, emptiness, and sadness.  We are not brought up, trained, to deal with the human condition.  Escape is for the unskilled and does not work.  Sadness does not deplete you. It is the energy one uses to avoid sadness that depletes.

Urgency Road

 Urgency is often the road to nowhere, but you hurry to get things done in the moment anyway.  We can become servants or slaves to the urgent.  It must be done now.  It is a slavery to being busy.  For the preoccupied, meditation is never urgent.  It can always be done later.  Except "later" never seems to show up.  This is why I try to begin my day with meditation so that I can free myself from the shackles of urgent that wait to chain me to the frenetic moment.  Happy Thanksgiving.  Avoid the frantic.  It is a gift to yourself.  

Surrounded

 The Sufi Saying, “Standing in the water, looking for the river,” reminds me that we are too often searching outside ourselves for something.  We cannot be present to the Now, as in Be Here Now.  We are immersed in, surrounded in the present moment by that which we seek.  Stuck in our thoughts of the past, future, fantasy, emotional instability, we miss what is present to us.  The holy, the fullness, Love, is within and around us.  We are standing in that for which we search.  Meditation brings us to where we can experience the river.  We are here, but then the mind takes off and we are gone elsewhere.  What moved?  

The Furniture

 Too often, religion becomes like furniture in a house.  It can be expensive, pretty to look at, and comfortable.  But in itself it does not build a relationship that feeds the heart.  Some homes are very beautiful, but there may be less love there than in a simpler, or even seemingly almost barren space, like a cave or a hut.  A lot of “teachings about” a religion are really furniture for the mind.  The relationship with the Divine, a transforming one of love, is done in emptier settings in which the mind is ignored.  A non-dual relationship with the Holy does not need thoughts, images, scenery.  It needs mostly surrender, silence, solitude, and time.  Declutter your heart and rest in the darkness.  

Belief

 Generally, when young people, say up into college age, pursue religion, they are interested in “belief” as in items of dogma.  They seem to be less interested in the meditative aspect of a religion that might build a relationship with the Divine.  In recovery programs you might find many people who don’t believe in a God, as an item, a thing, but they are interested in meditation.  So in a religion “class”  for young people, the focus is on whether something is true or not, e.g. Virgin Birth.  Students want to know that they have chosen the correct religion.  If they cannot buy into the facts, the dogmatic items, then they leave.  Eventually, the knocks of life might bring them back to look for something to feed their heart.  Dogma did not do that when they were younger, and they did not know the emptiness of heart that can come with time.  

Sabitity

 One of the ways in which I know that I am in good emotional balance is that I see the similarities that I have with others instead of the differences.  If I am in a meeting or gathering and begin to do an interior inventory of those around me, pointing out their differences from me, then I know I am not in a fit spiritual condition.  Even if I prayed earlier that morning and read helpful spiritual book(s), I need to red-flag myself in that moment of judgements.  Take a time out from my mind.  Ask myself, “How are we the same?”  Then try to be helpful, positive in the meeting.  

Divided Body

 I started to jog again.  It had been a six month hiatus.  In that time I had walked a lot, but I think of running as “me.”  But not all of me agrees.  My mind says, “ I am a runner.  It is who I am.”  But my legs complain when I go out there to run: “What is this you are putting me through?  I am done running.  Go back to eating donuts, cookies, pie and die of diabetes, or cholesterol stuck in your arteries.”  My will says, “I don’t want to run.  You are washed up as a runner.  Read a book. Meditate and get holy.”  My lungs complain when I am running: “This is 8,000 feet!  No oxygen up here.  I am exhausted trying to get some air in and out of me.”  Legs, will power and lungs all are for dumping this running.  My hope is that eventually they will all come together and I will be a runner in fact as well as in my mind.  I try to avoid fantasy too.  Don’t get into dreaming about winning anything.  Just become a runner in fact.  

Insanity

 What I spoke about yesterday, and you may well have forgotten it already, is a form of insanity.  That is, things are going well and we expect, without any effort on our part, that life will stay pleasant.  The outsides change.  Weather, traffic, health, age, other people, they all are out of our control.  Yes, sometimes things can go our way without any effort on our part.  The insane thinking is that it will always be this way.  As if we were God in control.  So assume that you are flawed but that with a daily spiritual practice, what steps that may be, are needed to work on yourself, your insides, over which you can have some control.  The world out there may not respond or care for your guidance, your efforts, but the heart waits for attention. The outsides do not give you emotional stability.  Insane people think otherwise.  

Putting Off

 Sometimes we put off a good thing.  Life is going our way and we feel no negativity at the moment.  Feeling good, we postpone doing something that led to this serenity in the first place.  What we put off is for the purpose of not facing reality.  What reality?  That our shortcomings, bad behavior, and human flaws never really go away.  The inner demons never sleep.  This “Putting Off” can come especially when there is a change in our life: a new location, job, relationship.  The shift can affect our previous routines.  It is a slow motion relapse and soon enough it will gain enough strength to mess us up, take away those good feelings.  So why wait for bad stuff to happen again?  Stay with what worked to get you to a balanced emotional life.  

Stillfulness

I like this word, "stillfulness." My dictionary and spell-check do not seem to like it.  I do.  It is an attitude, a manner, a quality of lifestyle.  It is more than a counter to physical busy-busy.  It is also a quality of prayer in solitude.  I can still the body after a bit, but the innards might take all the technique I can engender.  But the goal is stillfulness.   There is a famous psalm refrain in the bible that says, "Be still and know that I am God."  Stillfulness runs through a lot of spiritual paths and practices.  So it must be important.  Even in a busy day, are there moments when you can be still, but let anxiety, fear, resentments keep you agitated?  Not moving, like waiting in a car, is not stillfulness.  I add this word to my spiritual dictionary .  

Dying

 I am dying.  I woke up one day and said to myself, "I am dying."  Depressing thought?  Well, maybe.  Depends on the response.  Suddenly the thought came to me, that I was not dead yet.  I woke up.  Biologically, I may be dying on that level, but I am not dead yet.  I am alive.  This day is a gift.  No one wakes up dead, that I know of.  So how do I live the gift?  As gift, I try to live in the NOW.  Not now I am depressed, but now in being positive and loving, caring, of service.  Love myself by taking time out to pray, a little exercise, nourishment for body and heart.  Then be a light for others around me.  Who knows how they woke up?  If they are in darkness, be a light.  You never know.  

Change

 Life happens.  Well, better it happens to you than to me.  I have trouble accepting that life happens.  Why?  Because that means change.  I prefer control, stability, power, certainty.  The only certainty is that life changes.  When I don't want the change, which is too often, I tend to blame, complain, have a pity party with myself.  Pathetic, yes.  I can temporarily get rid of all these feelings, life happening, in very self-destructive ways that are short-term.  Tried that in the past.  Disaster.  I became more pathetic and miserable and life was no different.  It was changing.  So I work on acceptance.  Acceptance is the springboard for me to positive action in the real world of change.  Sometimes, doing less in the moment is the better way to keep up with change in a positive acceptance mode.  

Stuff

One of the best things about moving is that you have to confront your stuff, the things that you bought, for instance.  Stuff goes into two categories: the things I need now and the things I never really needed or don't need anymore.  You no longer ski but you have ski paraphernalia.  This is an easy one.  But the harder stuff is the stuff you never really needed but bought to satisfy or fill some need or void.  You have four knit sweaters.  You bought a fifth one in a different or the same color for reasons that seems vague now, or that were meant to fill a void at the time of purchase.  Here, you now get a chance to look back on memory lane, or shopping to make you feel better.  Don't beat your self up.  Just be glad it is not the way you solve a void today.  That fifth sweater goes in the give-away carton.  I will be doing all this soon enough. 

Not Yet Old

 Something is not old if it keeps recurring in the present.  So why do my "old" thought patterns keep coming back or periodically return unexpectedly?  I think that it has a lot to do with a daily spiritual practice or the lack thereof.  If the heart is not fed, then negative stuff will return or stay current: such as anger, impatience, selfishness,  and self-importance.  The will is not strong enough to get to the innards of energy that feed these patterns of negativity.  I cannot just wake up and pledge to do good and avoid bad in my behavior and attitude.  Our promises have to go deeper to the heart and the only way to go there is with some spiritual practice,  that has a bit of silence, stillness and solitude.  Be with oneself for a little while without trying to think good thoughts.  Forget thoughts.  It seems in these still, silent moments the less one does, the more that gets done.  Must be some Power somewhere at work.    

Misery

 Addictions don't seem to respond to surgery or medication the way cancers might.  The medical world can do lots to be rid or put into remission lots of diseases and illnesses.  But addictions seem to need some spiritual steps.  Addictions can be quite cunning.  You may be able to survive an addiction with some program of recovery.  But if the addiction cannot seem to kill you, it just might settle for making you miserable.  So why go half-way and remain miserable?  If a surgeon said they would do a little surgery so we don't die, but will remain miserable, what would we say to that?  Yet so many addictive people do "a little," too little, and remain miserable.  Going to church once a week isn't going to make you very spiritual, and then you blame the religion for your misery.  

Laurels

 Many of us have heard the phrase, "Resting on our Laurels."  What it translates for me in my life is, "I am fine, thank you.  Leave me alone."  Maybe I did some work on myself and now I feel better than I used to.  But that has proven to not be enough.  There is such a thing as emotional and spiritual sanity or sobriety, in some circles.  I might feel fine, as I say, on the outside, but the insides are not at peace nor am I free of emotional eruptions, waiting to happen as my plans fail me.  This is all false pride mixed with laziness.  But rather than wait for some upheaval of the heart, I try not to rest on my laurels.  I keep trudging each day.  No one stands still in emotional sanity.  

Embers

 If you are indifferent about the suffering of the world or your own demise into misery, take heart.  All is not lost.  Indifference is better than not caring at all.  Indifference has the embers of caring that can be relit at some time down the road, near or far.  There is caring but doing nothing positive about the situation.  This rubs close to indifference.  There is hope for change.  Not caring, you make no attempt.  Indifference, you make some attempt now and again.  Addicts who want to get sober but don't do much are indifferent.  Attempts are made here and there, but then indifference takes over.  "Maybe next time," or "Maybe I will do something about this or that in the future."  People who are indifferent about God or spirituality actually have a spark of interest, or maybe embers of interest.  Don't give up hope for them.  If you are a grandparent who bemoans your kids or grandkids not going to church, maybe they are indifferent as oppose to not caring?

Silence

 What is the purpose of silence in our prayer?  It makes room for encounter.  You rid your prayer of words, ignore noisy thoughts, let the  imagination drift off from the tethers of your mind and find a quiet space.  Now you have room for the encounter.  With what or whom?  With the silence of God.  This silence is God’s primary language.  It is the wordless language of a desert experience, empty of our words, imaginings and thoughts.  The ego died with the loss of all that.  Now you can encounter your deepest self, truest self.  And find God immersed in you in this encounter.  Transformation is this experience.  Dogmas and rules require no such letting go.  

Basic Needs

 Many people do not recognize their basic spiritual needs, and so they do not know the cause of their suffering.  Early in life we are more often goal oriented, such as school, career, partner, family, home.  It is somewhat more outward.  At some point there is this, "not quite enough" sense in our life.  Futile non-solutions are tried out.  They fail to fill up the "empty" in us.  The spiritual solution, if we stumble onto it, calls us into a desert, to confront our shadow, the darkness that developed from our interior life being ignored.  But within the darkness is the light that will set us free.  Unless we confront our own demons, our past that is unacceptable to us, we will demonize others and the world around us.  Resentment and self-pity just adds to the mounting suffering within.  

Ego Death

Many people have a dualistic view of resurrection.  They think in a way that the ego never dies.  This would mean that God awakens us somewhere else into a distant future.  You don't become one with God.  The ego cannot be one with anything else but itself.  It is always living in duality, ego and God.  It would be a resurrection of the ego.  Rather, I like to think of resurrection as into a transpersonal unity with God.  Jesus said, "The Kingdom is within you."  Non-duality, Oneness, is always within me but in this life the ego gets in the way.  Mysticism touches on the truth of this inward reality and then we begin to see the world in a more holistic manner.   A bit of heaven on earth.  

Solitude

To be a person who likes solitude as part of their spiritual practice, it does not mean that you cut yourself off from the world.  Yes, in some prayer you are in solitude and you appreciate your alone time.  But it allows you to be able penetrate the everyday of your world and find God there.  You withdraw from the everyday so that you are led back to the everyday, but with a depth of connection and insight.  The same is no longer the same.  No one climbs a mountain to sit forever on the summit.  But you will never be the same from the summit experience.  Escape from the world is not mysticism.  Rather, you begin to see unity with all things in a new way.  If I am in a monastery to run away from the world, I am here for the wrong reason.   

The Pace of Wellness

 One of the gifts that God gives to people in recovery or in any spiritual path, for that matter, is not getting “well” too soon.  People are attracted to anything that has a quick fix.  Drugs can do that, but such is not wellness, just diversion and detour for the moment.  Wellness, recovery, spiritual development that is truly transforming takes a lot of time and this is good.  Time allows for depth, for change in perspective, for actually becoming of service to others.  The slow progress keeps us coming back or staying with the whole program, process of change.  With time we realize it is an ongoing process, never complete.  And to stop is to go backwards to where we were when life was a mess.  Carry on. 

The Rosary

The rosary is the book of the blind.  Some people cannot read the Bible or much of anything else.  They may be blind, or illiterate, or something else. The rosary is a prayer for everyone.  You don’t have to go anywhere, in case you are debilitated or a shut-in.  You don’t have to be especially good to say the rosary.  It is relatively simple to memorize.  It has a mantra quality.  And you don’t have to finish it.  You can stop whenever you want and just sit in meditation.  It is one of those Catholic things that is so practical and is for everyone, not just Catholics.  It has scripture scenes upon which to meditate, if you want.  You can say it walking around or sitting in a park.  Some people say it if the sermon is long or irrelevant.  Never while I am preaching!  While you never know.  

Wanting

 A very hard concept to grasp in meditation, is the idea that as long as you want spiritual progress, it will not happen!  The wanting is an act of the will.  You need to let go of any focus on the will.  For one, we don’t really know what spiritual progress is.  Not for our individual self, and God is unique in the one on one relationship with each of us.  We have wants to get to heaven, be good people, and so forth.  But the depth of spiritual progress is about awareness, insight.  The “Aha!” It is not about being good, or getting things done.  It is a way of being that will underly all your day.  It is an awareness of non-duality that permeates in all your activities during each day.  You don’t forget or put aside this awareness when you are about getting things done.  You do and act with this awareness.  Just practice the prayer, a lot.  

All Saints

 Each one of us is a unique expression of God.  God expresses the divine, the True in so many different ways.  Sometimes I do not let this God-Expression shine forth, or at least I think my behavior so dense that God does not get through for the world to experience.  But I am working on that in my spiritual practice.  I try to pray, meditate, read, first, early in my day and then my negative stuff loses its power.  In my tradition today is called "All Saints Day."  Each of us are walking around as expressions of God.  No two of us are alike, yet all Saints in the making.  

Happy Halloween!

 The one day a year I get to put on a mask, a disguise, and beg for treats is today.  In one way or another, I used to do this all the time.  Halloween is the day I am reminded to ask myself, "Terry, are you doing Halloween on a regular basis?"  Do I put on a face, a mask, disguise and act like a beggar, whining for things that do not nourish?  On the other hand, who wants to present their mood or attitude when it is all negative, selfish, angry and resentful?  So yeah, when my spiritual practice is running on empty or neglectful, I put on the mask.  At least I am charitable, not showing my nasty, blaming self to someone who does not deserve it.  But I do try to practice regular heart prayer so that I can someday have only one Halloween.  Let it be this day.  Happy Halloween!  I will be at Sacred Heart of Jesus parish sometime today in Boulder if you are bringing around treats!  I have no shame.  

Nothing

 Once I realized that I was next to nothing without God, I was able to lower my expectations.  I lowered what I thought I could do on my own but raised my expectations, my faith and hope, in what God could do if I did not interfere through my self-willed bad behavior.  I used to live with "unrealized desires."  I call these things fantasies.  I preferred to dally in fantasy than to live in the real world of my human imperfections.  Alone, I lacked power to become the best me.  Fortunately, I lacked the darkness to become the worst me.  The world of human ups and downs, striking out a few times too many.  Now I realize that I do not have to do this life alone.  I find that there is a power to fill in and at times to just carry me along, clueless as I might be.  I find my God power in prayer, other people, service, reading, and some good healthy life style habits I learned along the way.  

Unique Word

 You don't need to try and become unique to show how spiritually evolved you are.  Take the word, "GOD."  I get that a lot of people have issues with this word because it reminds them of some negative experiences in their past.  But other people refrain from using the GOD word because they don't want to seem spiritually immature to those around them who belittle the word.  If the word God means something positive to you then why not just use it?  Might make for humility in a world where so many of us want to fit in.  I might say to someone who does not like that word, to substitute something else and I give some examples: Ultimate Reality, The One, Energy Fount, Source of All.  But I am comfortable with God as a term and simply use it saying it is the term from my tradition.  I don't apologize for my path.  Our uniqueness is more in our actions, manner, than in the words we use.  Erudite discussions are not transformation.  

The We

 Usually, I am the one who got into my mess or into trouble.  It is not someone's else's fault, though others may be involved.  At the same time, I alone, will not fix my mess.  I may have an immediate band aide or temporary solution, but the mess does not go away.  It just gets covered over.  The solution is a "we."  Become part fo something bigger than myself that knows how to work together to benefit each person.  A team does well because they work together and for one another.  Each member is functioning at any one time on a higher or lower level.  But they all know it is a team effort.  If I am doing poorly on a team, I say, "I am doing poorly" and try to work with the team to do better.  I alone cannot fix a team.  But the team together can do wonderful and permanently good things.  God and I are a we.  

Plumb The Depths

  Why do we say, "Plumb the depths," when trying to get to the bottom of things?  Because we have to go through a lot of yuck to get to the bottom.  Prayer is a way of moving to the depths of the heart, heart love, our true center.  But to get there, I have to go through a lot of mess that developed over a lifetime of bad behavior, bad habits, and bad attitudes.  So I plumb the depths in my prayer life.  Prayer, then, will not always be a feel good experience.  But below the gunk, the mess, the character defects, is the place of peace and contentment.  Transformation, recovery, interior growth is not always about feeling good.  If it were, more people would be doing it.  We have a lot of "I used to..." people.  They gave up and missed the miracle.  

To Eat

 Why would you give money to clothes or shelter, to someone who has not earned it?  A fair capitalistic question.  No work and therefore no pay.  I might say, "Why don't you get a job?"  Well, I am not an economist.  But I am at this moment, looking at someone who, this moment has no shelter or is cold or is broke and hungry.  Their need is immediate.  Now, I could sit/stand in judgment and say they are addicted, lazy, and will use whatever I give them for some bad thing as I see it.  So I do nothing.  But I was changed from that by a friend with whom I was walking in a downtown city.  He stopped where a homeless person, disheveled, mumbling about "help" was sitting on the ground, and gave him some money.  I said, "He is only going to use it to get a drink."  My friend said, "Maybe that is what he needs."  This is when addiction was considered a moral failing and DT's was your punishment.  

The Heart

 Our basic goodness rests in the heart.  So I try to learn to respond from the heart.  It is the place of love.  The head is filled with education, opinions, judgments, experiences, but not love.  I get a mic better fulfillment when I respond to people from the heart.  So each day I have to attend to the heart.  Meditation is the gym workout for the heart, to grow strong in love.  

The Deal

 A lot of people treat God as a "deal."  Or their Higher Power as a deal.  In my church there are some who think that they will get a better place in heaven if they do more of this and that.  Such people look around at others in the pews or think of others who have vacated the pew, and think, "No way that one gets into heaven."  In recovery meetings it is a lot of the same "more."  "If I do more of this and that I will be way more sober than that person over there," pronounces the one doing "more."  But I think of it as being on a plane.  Some people get deals, work hard to get better prices, or better perks while others do not much more than buy a ticket a few days before the flight.  They all get to the same place at the same time.  The plane takes off at the same time for everyone.  The delays effect everyone.  God, your Higher Power is Love.  Love does not have gradations.  It is not a rewards program.   The "more" that you do is to help others, and not to judge.   

The Individual

Do you want to do your own thing, be your unique individual self?  Sounds pretty good, right?  Maybe not.  I have been impressed by people who decided to be of maximum service to others.  That is the "fit" they wanted.  They called it a fit spiritual way of life.  They are willing and do, give up, things that are part of who they are, so that they can be of service to someone who really needs help.  And many who need help don't even know how much help or what kind of help they need.  The rewards of service are not always so immediate and obvious.  As selfish as I am, I have given up of myself for others, with the outcome unknown or not suited to what I hoped or expected.  So what.  It helped me to be a better person.  I don't always know how to do that when I am all about my own agenda 24/7.  And sometimes the maximum service has surprising results, in a good way.   

A Stranger

One of the best gifts God can give someone who walks in a gathering of people, is that feeling of being a stranger, an outsider, different.  Why?  Well, if the group is on some spiritual path, some loving way, someone from the "insiders" will greet you, welcome you, invite you to join in, no questions asked, no forms to fill out, or tasks to perform for acceptance.  I have seen it in the basement of churches and in their upstairs cathedral settings.  The gift of being welcomed without judgment will remind you someday, when you are an insider, a member, to welcome the newcomer who has that same look you had when you first walked through that door.  Just a sobering thought.   

Being Enough

One of the reasons people let themselves go, physically, mentally, emotionally, is that they do not think themselves enough to care about.  I look at myself in the mirror in the morning and say, "Who cares?"  What I really mean is that I don't care.  No one else, to my ego's consternation, is really thinking about me.  So I have to work on me.  I try to take care of me for me.  Care about myself.  I think it comes or comes back with a spiritual practice of meditation for instance.  Body, heart, inside and outside all are one.  It is not selfish to do good things for yourself.  A spiritual practice tells us what the good things are.   

Gratitude

 I try to live in gratitude.  I have had unlikely beginnings that have led to some wonderful ways of living.  I tried to live "my truth" and shortly was saying, "this ain't going to work."  Just because things start off a bit rocky or uneven, or full of misfires, doesn't mean that you are on the wrong path.  It means that things are not going as you fantasized they should.  I remember doing the right thing but my attitude needed attention, and major adjustment.  I was not so grateful to be a priest, but rather I was whining that I  was not "feeling great" about being a priest in those early years.  Life did not come up to meet my fantasy or my ego or my sense of talent.  I came realize that talent develops with attitude.  Plus, people, not many, but enough, would say that I was a wonderful priest, loved, precious.  Ok. Precious might be pushing it, but you get the idea.  Gratitude.    

Obstacle

 Life has obstacles. or maybe not.  What?  Well, what if the obstacle is really a way to a solution.  Your doc and/or your body says that you cannot jog anymore.  "I will show you!" I say.  I go and jog anyway, with some more stretching, new shoes, whatever.  It is downhill from there.  You become a complete mess, and maybe surgery, new body parts, and so on.  The bionic solution did not work.  In fact, not being able to do something, opens up new possibilities to replace that loss with something new.  Ok, walking is for wimps.  But you give it a shot, or you swim or elliptical bike.  Maybe pickle ball, or maybe not.  On a spiritual path, obstacles open up new possibilities.  

Life's Terms

If I am to accept life on life's terms, on a daily basis, I will have to deal with grief, uncertainty, and a lack of hope.  These are the emotions that bring me to say, "I am having or about to have a terrible day."  If I'm not in control, bending circumstances to fit my plans, or avoid my fears, then emotional stability goes into a nosedive.  I do wake up with my plans, or make early day plans.  But I have to do some spiritual practice to get me out of myself, or deeply into my heart, to balance my plans with the reality of the day.  "Life on Life's Terms" is a pretty good daily mantra.   

Curiosity

 Problems are often viewed with fear and anger whenever our sanity level is low.  What would happen to these same problems if we found a spiritual way, an inner way, to fill up that sanity level?  The same problems might begin to be viewed with curiosity.  Curiosity might say, "Humm.  I wonder why this seems like a problem?  Why is it not an opportunity?  Or a way of seeing with different set of eyes?"  All this is a way to prepare us to widen our way of working with the situation.  We might come up with something quite creative for us.  Instead of a narrow view, we have a wide vista.  No doubt there are tragedies.  But meanwhile, many of the things that come into our heads or emotional life, are viewed quite narrowly.  I work on sanity early in the day to be in more fit spiritual condition to handle what comes up, real or imagined.  

No Baggage

 I may become a bit homeless down the road.  Wait and see.  But think about leaving someplace.  What do you need to do when you go?  Travel light.  Leave resentments behind.  “I am so glad to be rid of this place,” is not good baggage.  People focus on some negative to make themselves feel better about leaving.  Then after they are gone a bit to a new place, where things don’t go as they fantasized, they begin to miss the old place.  “Oh, I should never have left,” burdens them.  Better to have recognized resentments while you are still at the old place, and then let them go.  Make space for the good things that you are leaving. Mourn.  Be filled with some gratitude for being there at all.  Yes, there will be some hole in your heart, but don’t try to fill it too quickly when you move to a new place.  That would be like eating a quick dessert to fill an immediate hunger.  New joys are often slow cooked.  

Wait

 I am at the ocean shore.  I got up early to look out at the clear sky, no fog coming off the Pacific.  Sea Ranch.  I walk outside in the dark and look up.  A few bright stars reveal themselves.  Couple of planets. Orions Belt and such.  But I thought I would see more stars.  Wait!  That is right, just wait.  Let the eyes adjust to the dark.  Soon enough more stars appear, the shy ones.  They want to know I care enough to wait, be patient.  God’s magnificence sparkles the sky.  My prayer: “God, why do I ignore you so much?  And why do I not trust that you have my back?  You are always here in my midst ready to be discovered anew, if I just wait.  Be patient, like you are patient.”  Little me.  Big sky.  Bigger universe.  Look up on a dark night.  It can humble you.  

Fitting In

 Some of us use something outside of ourselves in order to “fit in,” however you define fitting in.  It could be clothes, fitness, religion, club memberships, degrees, substances, and whatever, all meant to get us something we think we lack.  None of these things give us any sense of permanent fitting in.  The feeling passes all too quickly.  I have found that some interior work, sometimes working with others or another guide, keeps us on track.  It keeps us working on the insides.  The insides, the heart is where we are somewhat empty, and outside stuff does not fill up the heart at any depth.  And meditation, for instance, is pretty inexpensive, as are recovery meetings for that matter.  

Care And Action

 I may care what people think of me, but that does not mean I have to act on it.  I can have an emotional reaction, but I don’t have to be controlled by an emotion every time one pops up.  I may not get my way at times, but it does not have to kill me.  It will pass.  A lot of darkness will pass.  I have a feeling. I have an addictive solution.  But I don’t have to act out that solution.  The feeling will pass.  Find something else to do, more constructive and less debilitating.  Painless solutions are painless for a brief immediate moment.  Then they make everything worse.  Emotional maturity takes times, and practice.  Work with a coach who knows the better path.  

Right Action

 One of the things I have learned with some emotional maturity is to do the right thing even when I don’t feel like doing it.  I used to look at a pile of dishes, shrug, and walk away till “later” which never seemed to arrive. Or just leave things for someone else to do because I don’t feel like doing it.  Feelings are not always helpful, especially when it comes to tasks that don’t feed the ego at the moment.  On the other hand, I have learned not to do something when I want to do it.  I don’t need to say something just because it pops into my head at the moment.  Action and silence have become my friends lately.  

Emotional Maturity

 Many people decide to change, improve their life in order to get something, like a job, finish school, marriage, or to avoid something, like being fired, divorce, failure in school, bad health.  People try to give up an addiction for some of these same reasons.  But they sell themselves short if they do not seek emotional maturity or emotional sobriety.  All those other things they  sought will be unsatisfying without this emotional maturity.  Note the rich and famous people who are still very unhappy.  People can have lots of outside stuff to fill the outsides, but inside, in the heart, they are empty or at least not filled enough.  I try to work on the insides each day or at least point myself in that direction to keep some focus on priorities.  

Hanging On

 Sects, fundamentalists, tend to hang on to the past or seek to go back to the past.  Mystics tend to let go.  It is why they are so far apart in approach to things spiritual.  The mystic senses that the world is evolving, that is the whole universe including ourselves and our ideas.  What made sense to people long ago was in part because that was the “current” way of thinking and so made sense.  But with new knowledge and insight in our 21st century world, the past becomes not such a good fit.  We study to learn from the past but not to repeat it.  Down the road, someday, we will learn new things about addiction and new ways to deal with it, to “recover.”  If AA is spiritual it will let go of what it knows from the 20th century and embrace this new discovery.  If it is a religion, it will hold on to what it has and put down the new as “nonsense.”  

The Trip

 Taking a “trip” on drugs can give you a pleasant experience, even of oneness, but it is more on the ego level and thus does not transform you.  You don’t become a better person because you took a drug trip.  You are not kinder, more compassionate, a better listener, more helpful, because you do mind-altering drugs.  The drug may transform the moment, but not the person.  The experience does not go deep enough, beneath the ego.  Transformation is not an escape from the everyday, the seemingly sameness of life, but rather finding the treasures in these very moments.  

The Hidden Wisdom

 Lots of us got the teacher we deserved and the teacher got the students they deserved.  I have found that many teachers have deep, interesting wisdom and knowledge but don’t know how to teach. They come across as dual and uninteresting.  The students don’t challenge with questions, private interviews after class.  They just accept and sit bored, uninterested.  I have found that I can learn a lot by studying to the point of having questions, opinions I want challenged that I can bring up in class or in private one on one.  Priests and ministers and rabbis can give terrible sermons, but are much deeper and profoundly interesting one on one, if I have some knowledge of the subject.  Learning often starts with me and not the teacher.  

Faith

 Faith does not make God happen. It might make you happen, but not God. God already is but many people of “faith” have not yet been awakened to the Presence.  Besides this, there are more than a few who say they have no faith in a dogma, religion, but have been awakened to that Presence within and around them.  It is not that faith is unimportant, but rather that we cannot use faith to control God, in any way.  There are quite a few one time past believers who gave up the faith when they did not get what they expected or wanted from their believing.  There are people who read my blog once, don’t get whatever they wanted from it and never read it again.  That list is legion.  

Eclipse

 When you put religion between a person and God, it is called “Eclipsing God.”  God is light and religion is supposed to help reveal the light, not hide it behind rules, dogma and theology.  God is near and even within.  Jesus said this plainly.  But sometimes a religion says that God is far away, up in the heavens and we have to do the right thing, say the right prayer, and get God to come closer, so as to get the ear of God for our wants and plans.  Some parts of religion are medieval and have failed to evolve as we have learned more about our universe and creation and our very selves.  We need to awaken to the Presence, and not try to make it happen.  We cannot control God.  That bothers some people who want to be the power.  Surrender is difficult for such types.  

Happy

 Usually, when someone says that they are happy, it means that the ego is “happy” because nothing unpleasant or painful is going on.  For the ego, happiness means that reality agrees with the will, the plans for the day.  As soon as any of this goes array then the ego becomes “unhappy.”  But I know people who have chronic health issues that they have to manage on a daily basis and they will say that they are happy on any particular day.  Such people have gotten beyond ego control to a deeper spiritual path.  They may indeed have some discomfort in mind or body, but they do not let arising emotions control their attitude at that moment.  They have become much freer than an ego controlled person.  They have an awareness but not an attachment to the awareness of discomfort.  A person who gets deeply into addiction recovery has lots of happiness with attitude and acceptance adjustments.  

Version

 As you grow spiritually you develop better versions of yourself.  One version improves on another in a sort of progression.  I am not sure that one ever arrives at the final real you.  But one can lose their best version so far, by ceasing to do, practice, and even to be open to new information about a practice.  Science can help a lot as it continues to discover new realities they never knew existed.  Just because we “know” something does not mean that what we know is the ultimate.  It is what the mind can hold at the moment.  So keep at it day by day.  Practice is just that, practice.  It means not perfect.  

Showing Up

 Prayer is not to get God to show up and pay attention in my life, but for me to show up in God’s life.  I show up by going within myself to where God always is, uninvited, loving me.  The key that opens  the way into myself is silence, stillness, and surrender of my agenda, my plans.  God know them already, and knows which are good and which are not so good for me.  My ego only knows what it wants, too much of everything on the surface of life.  So my ego is abandoned, but waits on the surface, where trivialities dwell in their discomfort.  I can be quiet but with a busy mind, anxious, away from the NOW present.  God is shy but patient.  God will wait.  But can I keep God waiting, and yet live a fulfilled life?  

Watching Me

 From time to time, when I was little, and short, my big sister, Maureen, was in charge of “watching me.”  This meant that she could not be with her friends, or do what she wanted.  Little brothers can be burdens.  It was summer.  I remember that because Maureen was out of school and I was too young for school.  We were walking about on a hot day and came to a Bronx water fountain.  I was thirsty but too short to reach in and get a drink.  Maureen tried to lift me but no leverage.  She looked around, I thought for some help?  Then she said, “Wait here,” in her big sister voice.  She walked away.  Now I felt thirsty and abandoned in the Bronx.  Moments later, Maureen came back carrying a little stool, like one might squat on.  She placed it at the fountain and helped me to stand on it so now I was high enough to get my drink of water.  Where did that stool come from is not the question and was never answered.  Rather, I ask myself, am I as kind now as Maureen was then?  I wonder if her two girls Trisha and Kathy are as kind as their Mom?

Words That Matter

 Can your words, spoken out loud, improve on silence?  Many people are uncomfortable with silence, so they have background sounds or communication sounds from tv, radio, internet.  But I ask my self, when I am thinking of saying anything, “Can I improve on the silence that I find precious?”  So now I speak less.  Maybe the other person is enjoying the silence.  Plus, if they do not respond, I may get upset that I am being ignored, or they do speak but change the subject, which hurts my tender ego.  A simple “Good Morning” or a friendly “Hello” may be all that one needs to do out of curtesy.  How their day is going might be none of your business at the moment.  

The Mirror

Let the heart become like a mirror.  A mirror shows just what is in front of it.  The mirror does not judge, but reveals only what it sees reflected in it.  If I look at someone or something and make an opinion,  from ego-consciousness, I uplift or demean what I see.  I don’t see it except with judgment that clouds what I see.  This clouding is what makes for duality, what I see separate from me.  This is at the route of racism, sexism, and differentiation as in ethnicity.  There are differences but they need not be judged.  Simply seen for what they are.  That is why meditation is important if it gets the ego out of the way or at least into the background.  

The Action Repeated

 If you do something by “accident” you will probably do it again.  It came from somewhere inside of you that remains unexamined.  If you do something bad, after giving a lot of thought to it, then there is a much better chance that you will not do it again. So a Roshi taught me.  If you say you don’t drink anymore but then simply pick up a drink without much thought, by “accident” you might say, you will do it again.  If you give it a lot of thought and then do it, a good chance you will not do it in the future.  Of course, you may get plastered at the moment, but surviving that, you will do what is needed, most likely, to not do it again.  A well thought out mistake shows that you are powerless.  A thoughtless mistake will be repeated.  

Talk And Walk

 I think that talking about spiritual practice, particular religion, recovery can be all well and good.  But if you want anyone to be listening, timing is important.  Let your good works, good attitude shine before others.  Then you might get an audience of one or more.  Our wholesome actions give credit to the One, Power, God that got us to where we are.  If someone is going to talk about joining something that person better not be talking from hypocritical manners.  Remember, that before anyone becomes part of anything, they feel like outsiders, especially if they have a lot of hurt in their heart.  If it is a little outside your comfort zone to welcome a stranger to your "group" then ask someone you know to help you.  It might be the only time you will otherwise ever see that newcomer.  

Plumbing

 Why do we say, "Plumb the depths," when trying to get to the bottom of things?  Because we have to go through a lot of yuck to get to the bottom.  Prayer is a way of moving to the depths of the heart, heart love, our true center.  But to get there, I have to go through a lot of mess that developed over a lifetime of bad behavior, bad habits, and bad attitudes.  So I plumb the depths in my prayer life.  Prayer, then, will not always be a feel good experience.  But below the gunk, the mess, the character defects, is the place of peace and contentment.  Transformation, recovery, interior growth is not always about feeling good.  If it were, more people would be doing it.  We have a lot of "I used to..." people.  They gave up and missed the miracle.  

From The Heart

Your basic goodness flows from your heart, not from your head.  The head is filled with all kinds of education, opinions, judgments of how things and people should be.  There can be some great wisdom in all this, but no Love.  You will find a much more fulfilling sense if you respond to persons and situations from the heart.  I have seen the miracle of very selfish people, learn, step by step, how to respond from the heart.  They were transformed by it.   

Two Things

 Two things I have learned in my spiritual practice.  I am not alone, and I am not in charge.  God is with me and it is not my job to fix the world.  Humility is what reminds me to pray and then not to take on someone else's job.  Just because things are not going my way, according to my plan, does not mean that God is on holiday.  It just means that I am not getting my way at this moment.  When my ego takes charge, only bad things happen.  They may look good in the near term, but my addictive ego is not the long term solution.  It has always proven to be so.  Stay right-sized.  

Once Planted

 The seed of sobriety, once planted by grace, a High Power, can grow with some regular nourishment and attention, just like a plant that will grow to blossom into itself.  Sobriety flowers with meetings, service, steps, reading, connection with others to guide the fledging.  Some plants take longer to blossom and some need more attention.  The gardener accepts each plant to be itself in its time.  So with sobriety.  Some people take longer than others.  Some cannot read much.  Some don't have transportation or computer.  But with the proper attention from other sober garden type people, everyone can grow.  Sometimes I am more like the plant and sometimes more like the gardener.  They need one another.  

MOM

 My Mom died 20 years ago today in Vero Beach, Florida.  She taught me a lot, even when I did not care to learn.  I was 60 when she died.  I said,  " What will I do without my Mom?"  She was a big part of my life with my frequent visits to Florida, especially when I lived in Knoxville, TN.  (Go Vols!)  Well, I have had 20 years to figure that out.  Had I tried to figure out life on my own self-guided tour, I would be dead now.  My solutions were, well, not solutions.  I did not replace my Mom, but I did find other guides.  For instance, everyone loses a parent sooner or later.  And many people, my favorites, learned how to live a balanced life, from first making bad decisions.  I can relate to that.  My Mom did live long enough for me to finish my 8 year term as pastor of the Campus parish in Knoxville, so I could move to Vero Beach to take care of her and Dad.  Grace at work.  

Being

 Do you  want well-being or more-being?  Well being is what I hear most often from people who want to improve their life.  They exercise, join a gym, study something and even shop for stuff that makes them feel better for the moment.  More-being is of a spiritual focus.  We do things here that improve our insides, and like well-being, we do it regularly.  If you stop exercising you will loose physical shape.  If you stop some spiritual exercise you will be miserable all over, inside and out.  Lots of us try and make well-being take the place of more-being.  "I don't need that spiritual stuff," says the shopper or gym rat.  More well-being can never replace any more-being.  They can match up for us, but they are not the same.  

Popularity

 Sobriety is not about popularity, being liked by others.  Your shortcomings in social situations might not be conducive to being included, liked, popular.  You get sober, work the steps first because you are worth it, even if others don't seem to be drawn to you.  Secondly, you work the program to be of service to others as best you can.  It is not selfless to do service, become helpful, so that others will like you.  Why should you help someone who is not particularly friendly to you?  Because you want to change you.  You have no control over their choice of friends or behavior in your regard.  When you were drunk you had no friends.  You only thought you did.  Anyhow, with little social life, you get a lot more solitude!  I have lots of solitude time.  Maybe I have no friends?

The Living Book

 I often hear people say to someone, "You ought to read the Bible," or "You ought to read the Big Book of AA."  Well, what if they don't or cannot for whatever reason that is beyond your judgment?  Instead of telling other people what to read of a spiritual nature, why not become that book for them?  How?  Well, beyond being able to quote some helpful passages, you might exhibit the lifestyle of one who has benefited from the reading of one of those books.  If someone says to me that I should read the Big Book, I watch their lifestyle.  If I do not see anything that I admire in transformative growth, I don't know why I would read that book based upon their recommendation or advice.  Become what you read in the spiritual life.  That is the best attraction for others.  

Growing Up

 Spiritual progress, recovery, is all about growing up.  When we are not so grown up, we want what we want when we want it.  To be helpful to others out of love of them, in spite of their imperfections, is beyond us.  When not so grown up, we do for others, rarely, but for the getting of something in return.  Ultimately, we are all about ourself.  Spiritual progress and recovery does not mean we are no longer about ourself, but that we grow up to the realization that by being helpful out of love for others, really helps ourself to be a better and more contented person.  We don’t ignore the Self.  We just stop worshipping it.  

Terminal

 Are you special in your own mind?  This can be good.  You are worth something.  You have gifts, a purpose unique to yourself.  God loves you.  But are you “terminally unique?”  This is not so good.  You can become judgmental, standoffish, and snobbish.  among other not so good things.  You become someone who might serve others, do a good deed, but not out of love.  You feel obligated because others are messing up your world and you cannot get them to go away.  You try and “fix” things to suit yourself, since you know best.  This is self-destructive and isolates you.  That is why such an attitude is “terminal.”  

New Friends

 I am very fortunate.  I have lots of friends I have not yet met.  They wait to meet me when and if I move to someplace else.  More often, people fear that if they move it will be hard to make new friends.  But I look for people who are like me in something important to me.  It has to be something smaller than a church service or big social event with a lot of people.  It has to be some group where enough of them know one another to form a group, yet are eager to meet new people.  A hobby group, an avocation attraction, book club, recovery meetings are all places to make new friends.  I expect nothing from a group that comes together, but privately, for their own individual purpose but has no need to meet a new person.  A group in a movie theatre, or most Catholic coffee and donut gatherings would be this type.  

Grace

 My blogs don’t keep anyone sober.  That is not my job.  That is God’s job.  Maybe God wants to use my blogs for Grace, the Higher Power at work, to help someone.  I can be of service, but I am not in charge of the results.  God provides the results.  I write a lot about prayer and meditation.  A lot of 12 step work is doing something.  But meditation is more about not doing something, not paying attention to one’s ego, one’s mind or fantasies.  You just sit, and wait, not trying to make anything happen.  It is an important balance to being active in good works.  And then the good works won’t worry about you looking good.  Anonymity.  

By Myself

 Someone said to me, “I kept myself sober by meetings, reading, service and steps.”  Oh!  So you did this by yourself and with some human aide?  Human power alone?  I wish I could be a better person, free of bad tendencies, emotional shortcomings, debilitating reactions to life on life’s terms, all by my own efforts, and maybe with some help from others.  But ultimately, human power never did it for me.  I need a POWER Greater than ME.  Humility.  Surrender.  The narrow road.  But a road I don’t stumble on.  

An Amend

 Did you ever run into someone who said that they were sorry, as in an apology, but then just went on with their same old behavior?  That is not an amend.  It is only an attempt for them to feel better or because they may want something from you down the road.  It is all about them and not you.  An amend is when you apologize for some wrong you did to another, and at the same time, your behavior changes.  You don’t go on to do the same ole stuff.  A Catholic confession is rarely an amend to God because the so called “penitent” just goes on to do the same old stuff.  They just keep coming back to confession.  That may be OK but it is not an amend to God because the behavior never changes.  I am a work in progress.  I hope!

Inadequacy

 Whenever I feel inadequate I realize that it is just my opinion.  I had a great sense of inadequacy in Graduate school when I went on to get an MBA after college.  I was near the bottom of my class.  I could not pass the calculus exam and had to take extra classes for that.  I could not figure out the accounting.  I was most unhappy those two years.  I thought that maybe marriage, a girlfriend would be the solution.  Fortunately, she dumped me before we got to that.  I came up with other solutions for inadequacy feelings over the years.  But with help from wiser persons than I and a spiritual practice, I step by step have come to see that my sense of low self-worth is just a momentary, personal opinion.  Others help me back to reality and sanity.  

Dry

 There is such a thing as a sober bottom, and the way down to it can be quite stressful to everyone.  A sober bottom is when you are no longer drinking insanely, but you are not yet dealing with all the problems for which you drank in the first place.  People drink to escape.  The alcohol is the transportation by which they run away from themself.  They live an “untreated” life.  Part of the insanity of this life is that they don’t realize they are insane and addicted.  They just keep doing impulsive and stupid stuff that hurts them and others.  For many, the bottom is not hit until death.  Lots of damage to them and others along the way.  

The Great Me

 Vainglory is the focus on the greatness that is Me.  It takes a lot of work to feed this vainglory, this ravenous Me.  You clamor for attention.  You pursue task and goals that will give you the glory your imagination craves.  This is very exhausting.  “Poor Me,” you say with all your works, such that you can think yourself a martyr.  You do all this good and get no recognition.  Some people in their efforts to feed the great ME, are gone from home and from themselves a lot, in efforts to do “good works.”  Such works can be very good.  It is motive that is important to your own growth or lack thereof.  Instead of purity of heart, you have a ME that demands complete attention.  

Hell

 Some have said that hell is absolute self-absorption.  You are a fiercely self-centered person.  The hell is that you become an internal bickering machine with yourself and others.  Nothing is going right most of the time.  In your imagination you confront persons with your righteous fury.  So much anger is exhausting.  And it seems to have no place to go.  And it can numb deeper feelings.  Spiritual paths respond to this with the “suggestion” of self-surrender.  To what?  Something or someone other than you who has some power you seem to lack.  Religions, recovery programs, mediations, yoga, all focus on this letting go.  It beats hell.  

Clare

 Her name was Clare.  She lived in Assisi, Italy.  She was a young, rich beautiful teenager.  In our modern Western world, she had it all.  She did not earn rich and beautiful.  She just had it.  Society offered her, as it does today, so many options.  But her heart received another vision that would set her apart from the options offered by society.  She followed her heart.  She became a contemplative, living in a monastic enclosure.  Crazy?  Her heart hungered for a way of fulfillment, of becoming her true self, and this was the Way of Christ.  Her friend Francis told her about it.  She had a full life.  How many rich and beautiful people can say the same thing if they only focus on rich and beautiful?  Clare wanted less of the material world.  Many people think that "more" is the solution.  The solution to what?  

The Gain And Loss

 What is it to gain so much of the world of things, fame, fortune, success, if you never come to know who you really are?  Think of waking up in the morning and having the exhausting ritual of putting on, getting together, the self you want to present to the world, while all the time a nagging sense dwells in your gut.  This is the sense that you live your life as on a stage.  You perform to fit in, to be acceptable, to not make waves with any unique ideas or questions about why this is this or that is that.  Society only has expectations because society does not want to change.  It likes a certain mediocrity disguised as something important, that must be accomplished.  When I sense that I am faking it, I try not to stay in that zone for long.  I might just forget who I am, not who others want me to be.  

Routines

 I have my routines, priorities, and plans.  What if someone cries out for help, or assistance in some way?  I don’t wake up planning to respond to sudden calls for help.  So if I do respond then it takes me out of my routines, priorities and plans for that day.  I might run across a visitor passing through my routine world.  That person might benefit from my time in listening to them or helping them in some way that is possible for me to do.  But it will be at a cost of my plans for the day.  So I try to stay a bit flexible if I can.  Don’t get too maxed out with trying to plan too much in too short a time.  My own welfare might benefit by being of service to some one else.  

Time

 If you have gotten out of a bad habit, at least one day at a time, what do you do with all the time that you now have?  You are not wasting it on your bad habit.  But are you wasting it on a new bad habit that took up the empty space in your day?  I think of change as not just getting out of something, but of replacing that something, with a much better daily dose.  I may read, or exercise, or cook, or help someone(s) in need of support.  Maybe pray more.  I cannot just live in a vacuum of time passing.  Not yet anyway.  

Gossip

 I have no control over people with whom I live or work.  I could get angry at them, be rude, or condescending.  But more often than not I tend to deal with these control issues by gossip with whoever will listen.  I can even develop my favorite gossip friends, the ones who will listen with pleasure.  And of course I never bother to look at my part in the behavior of others.  Gossip interferes with self-examination.  No 10th step for me.  A truly bazaar way to gossip is to get drunk alone, and gossip out loud about others to no one, since there is no one else in the room.  One would need 11 more steps for that one.  But what would I know?