Weeds

 I went to the San Francisco Arboretum last month for the Magnolia Season.  Blue sky, no fog or cold wind.  Chamber of Commerce weather.  I watched the gardeners pruning the ground around the plants and trees.  Get rid of the mess, weeds, and such that get in the way of growth and nature’s health.  I thought of character defects and human shortcomings.  These are our weeds.  We are the plant or tree.  We are meant to be beautiful, but choke ourselves off with character defects, bad habits, and bad choices.  People in Addiction Recovery know of God the Pruner when they practice any one or more of the Twelve Steps.  No one prunes themself.  Though the delusional think, “I can do this myself.”  

Garbage Man

 When I go out early in the morning for a walk or run, I see the garbage man and the truck getting rid of all the mess we make each day.  God, your Higher Power, is the garbage man of the mess we make each day in all our imperfections, mistakes, and self-will run in over-drive.  The Catholic Church has a sacrament for this.  It is called Confession.  During Lent season a lot of Catholics go see the Garbage Person, God.  Addiction recovery Programs have a specific step for this.  It is Step Seven.  When you put out the garbage in plain sight, Garbage Power takes it away.  

Close Your Eyes

 God Power is obscure but not invisible.  What?  Well, why do so many people close their eyes when they meditate?  Why are eyes closed when you sleep?  To see better the visible, to be led to the unconscious, the depth of oneself and reality.  The open eye cannot see all of this Power.  God Power lives in your darkness, intimately.  This spiritual Energy lives in seen and unseen creation, trees, plants and so on, but that is not an intimate, most near presence.  In the darkness, eyes closed, you enter the obscurity of faith.  Now you see with the eyes of God.  Darkness is not so dark.  

Grace

 Grace is often spiritual power showing up in unplanned moments.  This power is always at work.  God does not sleep.  But it is most experienced in the unplanned moments.  You wake up and plan your day.  Grace is not so visible though you ask for, and expect, spiritual help.  But Grace is most experienced, felt, in the unplanned moments.  “I am going to do something tomorrow,” but then you don’t.  The drunk knows this one.  But one day you just walk into a meeting, your first.  This is Grace felt at work.  You don’t even feel like you did it on your own, like in planned moments.  You suddenly pick up the heavy phone, now grown lighter, and call someone.  You walk into a church or synagogue, “out of the blue” as we say.  Grace just wrote this blog!

Electricity

 Spiritual living people, such as believers in religion or recovery people, are pre-electricity people.  They are candles.  A candle is meant to be lit in the service of light.  And the candle will then burn down.  Prayer that leads to service, sacrifice for others, giving up of self, is like a way to keep the candle lit.  Without prayer, you burn out. Then you go from light to darkness for yourself and others.  So keep a balance. Time for self and time for others.  If you know your baptism date and your last drink date, then you know when your candle was lit.  

Tyranny

 Humility liberates us from tyranny of self.  People in recovery know this quite well.  Humility does not mind being ignored.  It does not crave attention, that is, the need to be the center of their universe.  Freed of this energy suck, we can spend ourself on being of service to others.  We are all miracles happening or waiting to happen, just not in the self-willed time line.  

Patience

Do you lack patience sometimes?  Or often?  Well then you very well may lack hope.  And you won’t wait until the end of the story as someone said.  Quick and negative judgments can get in the way of The Power’s ability to bring about “miracles.”  Miracles are not necessarily instant, but eventual, the slow kind that require patience.  Some people mature quickly and some take a lot of time with mistakes along the way.  And when someone or something seems like a “hopeless case,”. God may still be at work, but you don’t see it.  Maybe the story never seems to end even with death or extinction.  But then maybe there is more story, the beyond.  Recovery people never give up hope in one another.