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?

Not Guaranteed

 Just because you have strong will-power and intelligence to accomplish many things, does not mean that will-power and intelligence will work in all cases.  Some people who have great success in sports, business, personal goal accomplishments, have absolutely no success when it comes to alcohol.  Will-power and intelligence, so good in so many other areas, is useless when it comes to alcohol.  They drink when they know they should not, or forget they should not, and when started, cannot stop.  So you may be successful in many things too, but not in all things.  Do not let your success ruin you.  We are only human.  

Interior

 One must have interior silence if one is to be open to the Divine Power within.  Exterior silence is simply the ear hearing no noise.  But the mind is full of anxiety about past, future, present, this and that.  We have to learn to let go of all this so that we can enjoy interior silence.  One can go to a church service and be quiet but hear nothing from altar, or pulpit because one is filled with their thoughts about this and that.  One can go to a recovery meeting, and be quiet while others speak, and yet hear nothing.  Again, one is filled with anxiety, their troubles and worries.  But they are not talking.  Interior silence allows us to listen, to pay attention and then we might hear with the ear of the heart and be changed for the better.  

Witnesses

Many people are looking for witnesses rather than teachers.  I have know people who are not much for teaching.  They simply are not very articulate or lack the personality to teach, but they are wonderful witnesses.  A person new to recovery goes to a meeting and remembers nothing of what is said, taught, but they do notice that there are "normal" looking successful people in the room.  I don't want what someone teaches.  I want what they live.  I can read a book, big or little, long or short.  I may say, "I can't do that."  Then I meet someone who can and does.   I often forget what I read, but I don't forget the witness.  

Wrong Turn Grace

 What I like about my God is that if I come to a crossroads and take the wrong turn in life’s choices, God goes with me, even if the other way was more preferable.  Grace does not need me to be making correct choices, optimal choices, to be Present and Loving.  Many people believe that if they mess up, God abandons them and that is why they feel empty, alone, in the dark, from those choices.  But God is still there in what seems like a darkness.  The light is hidden, not absent.  I have discovered a loneliness, and it has helped to make all the difference in what I do when I know I am lost.  I was found by others who had the correct direction, the right road,  and then I found myself, my better self.  My choices improved.  

The Outsides

 When I condemn someone, judge them as deficient, it is because I am judging them by their actions.  It takes no work for me to judge someone by what they do, their outsides.  I see it.  It goes against my sense of right action.  I condemn the person.  But I know nothing of their insides.  There is always much more to someone them what we see.  But that would take time and effort on my part, should the person decide to reveal some of their inner life.  Even then, it is difficult to talk about the inner life for anyone.  I blunder around in these blogs.  The blogs are the outsides trying to express the insides.  A drunk on skid row, drinking a bottle out of of paper bag, all disheveled, may be a saint on the inside if they could find recovery.  I have seen it happen.  

By Force

 You cannot force yourself to become a monk.  For one, there is no one size fits all.  You are unique and on a search.  You are trying to find something.  But the process is one of being found.  You find yourself eventually in God, in some non-dual capacity that connects you to nature and people, wherever the encounter happens.  But God does the heavy lifting, though you do a lot of stuff, routines, daily commitments to practice.  God’s work is Grace, and it is most often hidden in your daily efforts, until finally you realized you have been conquered by love.  Grace works in your faithful commitments to daily life.  Is it not this way with many a vocation?  There is no one “Paulist” priest that you work to become.  You are to become yourself as a Paulist, and it will be unique within the dynamic of “priest.”  Marriage, Recovery are other paths one follows to find their truest self, conquered by love.