A New Normal

My Mon passed away this date 23 years ago.  We were close.  Along with my Dad, we did things together, shared events, in specific places, or just a pace of life together whenever I visited which was often.  They were a meeting place for my siblings and me.  The mourning was not just for the absence of my Mom in my life, but the sudden absence of things and events and a way of being, all of which was well time spent together.  One should not try and replace one life too quickly with another as if to avoid the emptiness.  Mourning is for just that, the emptiness.  It takes energy.  Mourning loss, the sadness, the tears are all part of the space needed to let go of something gone, and be with it.  In time, healing time, I would later come to a sense of who I am, Mom-Less, and begin to build something of true self into those spaces.  The missing never stops as my friend Marcia once told me, so wisely.  But one does live on with memories that are not meant to fill the space, but simply to be part of one’s knitted life.   

Fitting In

 If you are trying to find yourself in your own world, it does not help if you focus all your attention on fitting into someone else’s world.  If someone tries to fit into the world of the rich in order to get something from them, that person will lose themself because they are not fitting into their own world.  A healthy group, be it church, recovery, club, is such because it is helping you to find yourself in your world.  Drunks in recovery come from all different worlds of experience and income.  They have a singleness of purpose which is to know the truth of themself and help others to do so to in recovery from their alcoholic behavior.  They are different but bound together by a common purpose.  

Negative Presence

 When we pray but feel bored or empty, it is called “Negative Presence.”  God, Higher Power is present but we don’t feel anything that we would call a presence.  Feelings don’t go deep enough to experience the depth of Real Presence.  I try not to go into meditation with any expectations.  I trust that God is at work whether I feel anything I would call God or not.  Boredom comes and goes, but God is always present.  So come and stay still.  Your Higher Power is at work.  

Equal

 There is the boss and there is the employee.  There is the rich and the so-called middle class.  There are language differences, skin color differences, and ethnic differences.  Lots of differences.  But love is a great equalizer.  Love does not focus on any difference, but rather on what is connective.  In San Francisco there are lots of “mixed” couples.  Such a couple sees the ‘blend.”  Sobriety is a great equalizer.  Alcohol does not care about differences.  It destroys equally.  In a meeting all blend together with a common purpose.  To stay sober just for today is a common purpose.  

Doing Nothing

 For those who keep score on all their daily accomplishments the idea of prayer does not factor in.  Prayer becomes “doing nothing” or scoring no points on the board of things done.  You don’t see results with prayer.  You sit and meditate, looking into the darkness of your inner self, and say, “nothing is going on.”  The something of meditation is often experienced as nothing since it cannot be quantified or apparent.  But wisdom says that one who is rich in works and poor in prayer is ignoring the interior while attending to the exterior.  Such is spiritual poverty.  

The Cross

 When a couple gets married in my church they never go to the cross or crucifix in the front of the church.  They are not asking their God for the self-emptying that will be required to live a life-long marriage, the sacrifice required to make the marriage work.  When I was ordained a priest I don’t recall going to the cross either.  I was too full of myself from the ceremony and congratulations.  I learned the hard slow way.  But I am still here almost 50 years later.  Grace is everywhere.  

Forgiveness

 We cannot buy forgiveness.  And no one can pay us to receive forgiveness from us.  We might be able to buy mercy, but never forgiveness.  If I am going to forgive someone it must come from my heart.  It must replace resentment and revenge.  Forgiveness is very valuable.  If someone chooses not to forgive me, that is not my concern.  I cannot earn it.  But I can live the better life than the one that got me in all this mess in the first place.  That I can do as it is my side of the street to clean up.