Light

 How might I have a sense that I am helping others.  For sure, it comes when we are a light in dark places.  Someone might talk about things that they have lost or how they feel lost.  This is a dark place, though often accompanied by self-pity.  No matter.  It is a darkness and if you are on a spiritual practice then you can become a light in their life.  Your heart connection will guide you on what to do and not to do, to say and not to say.  The prayer life you have will free you from mixing up your ego-self with good advice or action.  The ego wants praise.  It wants to feel better than the person in darkness.  The ego only acts to be helpful if it boosts the ego .  Pray and then act.  

Belonging

Someone might drink in order to feel a sense of belonging.  They find that the drink has become addictive and they still feel a lack of belonging.  Then they stop drinking with the help of a Spiritual Power, God, and the foxhole prayers that got them started.  They say they are on a spiritual path of prayer and acting better in public.  But they still don’t feel a sense of belonging.  That is why there are “programs” of sobriety that include group.  You join a group and get to know and be known.  Maybe there are weekends of spiritual growth together.  You can belong to God, but it is nice to feel a sense of belonging to something you can see in human form.   

Again No More

 How do I know that something I do is addictive?  One way is if something always goes wrong when you do it.  You try to do something for someone that you think is a good thing.  Well, that is your opinion.  They always get angry, upset and then try and avoid you.  You may say, “I am doing it for their own good.”  Maybe.  But if it is always going to be wrong or sideways, maybe you are doing it for your own good.  It is the heresy of helpfulness.  It lacks the spiritual practice that might signal to us a different path or action.  All service and no prayer usually goes sideways at best.  

Value

 I think it is normal to want to feel that we are of some value, that is validated as to who we are and/or what we do.  But there is a difference in being validated by others,  rather than trying to be validated by ourself.  This is where addiction can rise up and bite us.  Someone comes into a group and feels like an outsider, unimportant, unnoticed.  So they start to drink, and as they drink alcohol, their personality, manner and self-perception change.  They feel like the center of attention.  It is validation by overindulgence.  It can happen with work, or even doing good for others.  When it becomes overindulgence, we know that the action is devaluing us.  Moderation.  And if that is impossible, abstinence.  

Retired

 Some people, when they reach “retirement age”  have a fear.  They won’t be busy.  I am listed as “retired.”  I can get into this fear.  Why?  Because I might have gotten too used to work, schedules, to do things, as a way of covering up something, such as spiritual growth.  Such growth comes with REST!  Rest in meditation, walks, doing something slowly and not on a schedule or deadline.  My worth would depend on getting things done.  So I write this blog for myself.  You young people might think it is not for you.  But maybe your present choices ought to be in preparation for retirement?  Learn to take rest time in prayer, renewal?  Or you might not make it to any “retirement.”  Stress is often a choice.  

Restless

 To be restless is an invitation to prayer.  It is a signal feeling.  It demands the discipline of turning inward in some way.  Evil is on the outside, that is, we have not yet done any stupid action in response to this restless feeling.  The outsides are trying to tell the insides what to do and this is not good.  The need for discipline is because the heart is not so noisy as to shout out, “Pay attention!”  That would come after we have done something stupid, like get drunk or spend money we don’t have, or enter a relationship that is not good for us.  Being uncomfortable in this restlessness is just part of life.  The quote, “Be still and know that I am God.”  Or “Accept the things I cannot change and change the things I can.”

The Field

 Meditation is like a fruit that grows and ripens in a field that is cared for.  The field can get cluttered up with things that are not part of good soil, such as rocks, branches from nearby trees or trees in the field.  And when a tree no longer bears fruit it can be removed, like a work that is no longer productive.  Meditation seems to guide me, with its Power, God, giving direction as to what is next.  I must be patient but work daily, as the farmer must work the field though the fruit ripens in its own time.