Grateful

 Why emphasize “gratefulness” in any spiritual practice?  Well, I am a bit of a tricky guy.  When things are going well, that is, they are going my way, I tend to take credit.  Things are better, I say, because of what I do.  Magic: prayer, meditation, silence and solitude are what I did to make this a better life.  Humility?  Thanking God for all the Power?  Absent.  Then when things don’t go my way, God messed up.  God is not grateful for all my spiritual practices.  I need a new God.  And so it goes.  The miracle is that once again GRACE wins out and I am drawn back into gratitude.  Life can be what it is.  God has a plan.  So when I wake up I thank God for lots of stuff I did not make happen.  Thank you God for all my blog readers, though I might have lost some now because I fessed up.  

Half-Measures

 A way to look at half measure spirituality is to want some change to be built around your life that is otherwise unchanged.  In recovery, that would be “stop drinking” or whatever the addiction, but otherwise change nothing else.  It is building sobriety around an otherwise unchanged life as someone pointed out.  Going back to church would be a change built around an otherwise unchanged life.  Half-measures eventually become no measures.  Surrender is that yucky word.  Surrender is not “a little bit.”  It is everything that needs change in order to change.  Addiction was a symptom.  Surrender is everyday and all day.  Trudge that road!

Expectations

Someone gets into religion with the thought that things are going to get a lot better.  In the beginning, maybe so, and the ego gets pumped up with more expectation.  But then life does not live up to expectations.  Christians love Christmas but not the Cross or Good Friday.  A deep spiritual practice of prayer allows for us to accept that life and my expectations will not always match up.  I practice prayer to change me, not the world over which I have little control.  My ego needs humility.   

The Map

 A map tells you how to get somewhere you say you want to go.  It can be on paper or on computer with AI.  You would think it silly if someone got the instructions in detail and then set out without following the instructions exactly.  “I got this figured out,” says the ego.  I know about where to go!  So what good is a recovery program if you are not willing to follow the directions exactly.  Religion says, “Do this and you will live.”  AA says it for its own twelve steps.  Not six or seven you like, but all twelve.  The Ten Commandments are Ten and Six.  And so on.  I have found that following directions gets me there sooner and with less hassle.  

The Choice

 For the Addictive Person, the choice for a while is drink or don’t drink.  But that is a delusion because the person addicted, always choose to drink.  Then the choice changes.  It becomes “change or die.”  So let’s not delude oneself about a spiritual practice.  We think for a while, when our prayer life is shallow, sporadic and sometimes fox-hole, that we can say “pray or not pray.”  But over time, as life gets less meaningful and less satisfying with “stuff” we see that prayer of some greater depth, meditation, more time in quiet with oneself, is not optional.  The body may stop drinking, but the soul always searches for spiritual Power.  

Not Enough

 When you use recovery programs as meetings where you meet people and have some sober social life, you may feel good for a while but it is not enough.  You need to go deeper for a change that is true “recovery.”  You need a spiritual practice that goes beyond the social and the hearing of the message with the ears.  It is a bit like going to church and that is the only time you pray and maybe not even meditate.  You connect with your God, but not deep enough to effect the change that God wants and you need to become your best self.  

Holy Indiffeence

 Indifference can be holy.  How?  We are indifferent to the results of our actions.  But we do act.  And we act trusting that the results are up to a more forceful and spiritual power than anything I have just with my own ego as the acting force.  I know that God is in charge.  I am not all that powerful nor am I all that wise, to have something turn out a certain way.  Failure can be humbling to the ego, but not to one who has abandoned themself to the will of God.  Even my action depends on the Grace of God.  So I act and do my best.