Becoming

 Being Catholic I am familiar with why a lot of people like to go to receive holy Communion or Eucharist, the little white wafer.  The belief is that the host is Christ, as in Jesus Christ.  To receive it makes people feel better and/or closer to God.  While this is so, it is not the point.  The wafer becomes Jesus, so that those who receive it will become Jesus.  But from what I read in the Bible about Jesus, there are times he did not feel better or feel closer to God.  On the cross he felt abandoned and certainly did not feel ok being whipped and crucified.  So I have to remind myself that when my life seems painful and God seems to have abandoned me, quit whining.  I am becoming Christ.  So I have ceased trying to “get” something I want, when receiving communion.  After all I am weak and selfish and sometimes all about me.  I am glad that I was baptized as a baby and told that I was a Catholic, because if I had to choose it as an adult, I am not so sure I would have signed on.  

Purpose

 What is the purpose of my blog?  In part, it is to help people to find God, the experience, the verb, and not the God as in idea or object, thing.  I write a lot about addicts because if they are going to get well, they need to be on a spiritual path of some sort.  If  people are into a religious tradition, I think they need to find the God that is more than someone out there who they fear, or pray to for things.  God as out there, somewhere, a noun, is not a bad start.  We do it with children.  So my purpose is to move to a more adult, mature relationship with God.  This means that when you feel God is absent, it is really God in hiddenness or darkness.  Feelings about God do not go to a sufficient spiritual depth to be of use in dark times.  I keep running into people who do read me, so I think I am onto something for somebody.  

The God Fight

 A lot of people fight the battle against any spiritual path that includes a “God idea.”  What they are fighting, so often, is the “idea” and not the experience of God as an energy in their lives.  You can deny an idea but it is seemingly impossible to deny an energy.  You suddenly see a flower in all its blossoming beauty and it takes your breath away.  The experience is a God Creator experience.  And the flower becomes more than a flower.  Isn’t your day a lot better for experiencing that flower that heretofore you ignored or did not see?  Ideas of God do not really satisfy many people.  Some like the “idea” God because it makes them feel secure or “correct.”  Many of us need something deeper.  Wave the white flag of victory and give up seeking to be nourished on ideas only.  

White Flag

I heard someone say, “The White Flag of Victory.”  That woke me up.  I always thought of the white flag as a surrender and those who surrender are the ones who lose.  They are not the victors…that is, unless you are in an addiction or a battle to ignore any spiritual path.  To finally surrender to the fact, the reality, the truth, that you are an addict, is really to have become a victor.  Because then you are through fighting your addiction unaided, unless you count your blotted ego as a strength.  There are days when I have to wave the white flag of unmanageability.  I am having an unmanageable day left to my own efforts.  So I reach out for some help…spiritual and practical.  Don’t try to do unmanageable alone.  That is why it became unmanageable.  Tell someone, God or another person or both.  Fortunately, I am not trying to do today all by myself.  I keep a white flag nearby on a daily basis.  Even travel with it, metaphorically.  

One Shoe

 I am reminded that skipping prayer on any day, is like trying to go through the day with only one shoe on.  You can do it but it will be uncomfortable and a lot of work.  The time you wasted walking around on one shoe could well have been used in prayer time earlier in the day.  When I skip prayer, I think that I am going to get a lot of other things done, but it never seems to work out that way.  The spiritual life is the other shoe that I left behind.  It is a form of insanity.  

Unloving Me

Sometimes I seem to be so unloving.  I just don’t have it that day.  I am full of self.  What to do?  I ask God to make me more loving, but seem to fall back into the same old, same old.  Good Grief says Charlie Brown.  But I have learned that there is another way.  I ask God to love through me.  My Higher Power is Love, or so I see it.  At his moment I lack the Power to love, but God is Love.  So I ask my God to love through me.  Use me to be loving.  I seem to have the character defect some days, of not being able to love on my own.  Anxious, fearful, self-pitying can do that.  But God is a power beyond my own self, and for that matter, within my fearful self.  So I call upon this power in prayer and meditation.  Then I go about being useful.  Some days this is a real miracle.   

A Concealed Presence

 What are those Catholics looking at when they see the round white and thin wafer that they eat and adore?  They “see” a concealed Presence.  Physically, what they see is a round white wafer of bread.  The Presence of their God, their Higher Power, is hidden from the view of eyes, but seen at some deeper place within them.  Nonsense?  Superstition?  But then again, this Presence that Catholics see, moves them to become more loving, more at peace, a better person.  Or so one hopes.  Hidden Presence is not just in this example.  Say you are in a Recovery meeting.  Do you see the Higher Power with your eyes?  No, but you do see people helping one another, becoming sober, better persons.  This is the Hidden Presence of a Higher Power.  To go from being a drunk to being a sober and loving person is quite visible.  God is at work in such miracles.  This Presence is about change.  When you look at an item in a store window, clothing, jewelry, a computer, you do not see hidden presence.  Even if you purchase such an item, you are not going to become a more loving, kind, forgiving and  compassionate.  And maybe such a consumer purchase is the real nonsense.  I would prefer the recovery meeting or the worship space of a church.  And it is a lot less expensive.  Spiritual power is free.  At least to those who are not bound up by self.  

Noah's Ark

Someone referred to our churches, recovery gatherings, so-called Holy Places as being a bit like Noah's Ark.  That is, they are treated as places that support security, preoccupied with internal needs.  How often does the preacher speak about social justice, or the recovery meetings about personal sobriety as only the first step on the way to be automatically happy, joyous and free, while those in attendance are concerned with music or the temperature in the building, or their parking place, or the taste of coffee?  These gatherings are to nurture us, strengthen us so that we can go forth and be of service to the suffering world around us.  Recovery is not Noah's Ark, nor is weekly worship.   

Secular Separation

The Secular is often separated from the Sacred.  Why?  It seems that many of us think of them as completely separate, as if God can only bestow Grace, God-Life, in the religious, which we call sacred.  But is not God everywhere?  Does the alcoholic say that God or their Higher Power is only in meetings?  Or only in them when sober?  No.  When someone goes to church, synagogue, ashram or temple, they do not enter into God-space when they walk through the door.  God is everywhere because God cannot be a noun, located in a particular place and not in another place.  God is everywhere.  God does not go away when we are acting out our shortcomings.  We cannot diminish the power or the presence of God.  

Focused Thought

 Focused thought can be very helpful in learning to meditate.  How so?  Pick up a spiritual subject book and begin to read from wherever you left off or from the beginning.  This reading is not like reading a novel to get from beginning to end with various scenes flashing by.  With the spiritual book, read slowly and as soon as a phrase grabs you, holds your attention or becomes the AHA moment, stop there and just focus on that which grabbed hold of your mind.  This is the way to focus an inquisitive mind.  Again, there is nothing wrong with an inquisitive mind.  Unless you want to go deeper into yourself in a way that the inquisitive mind might simply pass over.  You are trying to help the inquisitive mind to stop and pause on something that grabbed your attention.  Or to slow down its inquisitive pace.  It is sometimes called Lectio Divina.  

The Shadow

 The internet and World Wide Web trains us to want and expect things instantly.  This includes our own personal development.  People enter into religion or recovery expecting to get holy or sober, or at least to change sooner rather than later.  But time takes time.  If one has spent a long time and effort to become a mess, why should change be so instant?  Imagine “light” as in shining or bright.  It is an image often given in the spiritual path.  You hear, “Become the light!”  Your life seems to be a lot of darkness or at least dullness.  But you sense that you are not becoming the light as you wished.  Well, does not light cast a shadow around it?  You cannot see light if there is no shadow or darkness.  The light of a lamp is not visible in the clear light of the sun.  Be content to be near the light.  Become the shadow.  Your life, by your actions will become the shadow that reveals the light.  Recovery is the light and many are shadows on the journey.    

Become What You Don’t See

 If you attend some group or in person meeting or event and begin to criticize what people do or don’t do, why don’t you become the person you think others should be?  If you don’t see anyone welcoming you as a newcomer or first-timer, rather than walk away with a negative judgment, why not start doing what it is that you think others should be doing?  This gets you from thinking about yourself and judging others, to thinking about others and dropping judgments.  Judgments gain us little if anything, but action is what changes us.  And if you find yourself saying, “Why do I have to do everything?” You might want to get a second opinion as to whether this is whining or a legit complaint.  For me, it is usually whining.  Which is why I need outside help in managing my life.  

Agony

How do you eliminate the agony of temptation?  You give into it.  You have a craving, an itch for something?  It won't go away.  It seems to be consuming your thoughts and feelings.  It is so easy to just give in.  The alcoholic knows this after the first drink, and even before the first drink.  To give in is temporary relief.  Then the suffering, the shame, the guilt, the ego deflation.  That becomes a pretty deep hole.  To try and wrestle with temptation by ourself is often a good path to giving in.  Rather, call someone, or get out of the space you are in, or try and be helpful to someone else.  I rarely have these temptations when I am being useful to someone else.  Temptation loves loneliness.   

Pilgrimage

 People on a spiritual path are on a pilgrimage.  They move from what they know to the unknown.  It takes courage.  You find a prayer life you like.  It is comfortable, but soon becomes too permanent.  We fear the unknown, but something encourages us to take up a change in our way of prayer.  The word, "Deeper" seems to attract us, though we may have doubts.  Courage.  God is at work.  The spiritual Tour Guide.  A person in recovery stays stuck at some comfort zone, some initial step out of the twelve.  Or no steps.  They simply enjoy the meeting, the warmth, acceptance, the coffee and treats.  They will soon drift backwards and out.  Pilgrimages have comfort zones, but not permanent housing.  Entering into prayer, is entering into your tent, not your castle.  

Action Without Faith

You can have faith without faith in order to do an action.  In recovery programs a person walks into the room, for the first time, and has no faith in a God, but has faith that the action suggested, the steps, will help them to stay sober.  Desperation can create faith without faith.  You can walk into a religious oriented building with no faith in that religion, but you have faith that a bit of peace and quiet might help you.  Or you have faith that a group of people at prayer, or practicing that religion, might be a safe and uplifting experience for you.  Watching and listening often precede faith in action.  You may become convinced that your self-will way is not working.  So watch and listen.  Faith not required.   

Unreal Satisfactions

Fantasy can take us into excitements, delights, and satisfactions, as someone said.  The problem is that fantasy is not real. Plus it is an unreality with no depth.  Now, contemplative prayer, deep meditation, is not easy and we don’t really control the process, as we might with fantasy.  Fantasy, you control the story.  We sometimes enter into fantasy because we don’t control the reality of our life.  The deep meditation is done not for control, but for a way to enter into the depth of reality.  Any one period of meditation is no guarantee of any depth, but persistence, and patience are important for an overall experience of our true center.   

Faith

 When people say they have “faith” most often it means that they believe something, some doctrine, and the morality it warrants.  It might even be an emotional experience of faith, but none of these guarantees a complete change of life, transformation.  Transformation goes deeper than what we believe or how we think we should act.  In transformation, everything changes.  In recovery, everything about a person changes over time if they keep to the process, steps, meetings, service, reading and zero use of any addictive stuff.  When will transformation be complete? Well, never.  It just keeps going deeper into the self, all the hidden crevices that hold the reasons and energy of why we acted so badly in the first place.  I try to be a person of faith each day.  And I don’t do it alone.  

Holding On

 One of the things about my church is that if you receive communion in the hand, you have to stop holding onto things in order to open your hand and receive the host.  A good metaphor.  Put down your cell phone for a moment.  But more than that, it is a symbol of letting go of other things we hold onto.  Receiving the host, God, for the believer, they are invited to let go of resentments, fears, self-centeredness, hate, anger, revenge and such character defects as may diminish oneself from a relationship with their God.  Recovery too, invites openness.  It invites an open mind, and an open hand to be of service to others, to reach out to others, and in meetings, to put down the cell phone.  

Me And You

 Why is it that I so often feel better when I help another person, or contribute to a group effort, or get a task done that benefits others?  I think it is because in service to others I stop thinking about myself.  Two things often happen when I think about myself.  One, I fantasize.  Two, I whine and suffer self-pity.  Thinking about me too much, there is never enough.  The real world is never enough for me.  Fantasy is a solution to that.  Just get out of the real world, reality, the present moment.  I find that when I am of service I am thinking about someone other than myself.  Plus, I have learned to be of service without expecting results to go as planned or to be thanked.  Get out of me.  

Managing Results

 Not much changes if you are only trying to manage the results.  a drunk might say, “I don’t want to have any more hangovers.”  The drunk wants to cease getting drunk.”  If this is the focus, then nothing changes.  Results are a product of behavior.  A bad action must be replaced with a good action.  But the drunk does not see the connection between craving another drink, and getting drunk.  The good thing about bad results is that they tend to hurt.  I have found that pain, a lack of joy in my life, makes me look at my behavior, including attitudes.  On a spiritual path, with some good advice, I find the connection between pain and behavior.  I used to blame people, situations and places for making me miserable.  And the result was a bad decision.  But God saved me from myself.  That is, I was most often the problem.  So now I work on my side of the street.  

Opium

Karl Marx said that religion is the opium of the people.  That is, religion is what you take to solve your problems, feel better, and stay uninvolved in more world-wide issues that people suffer through.  He saw religion as that which isolates in good feelings.  But maybe today with all the drugs going on to escape pain, isolate, and feel better, we might say that "opium has now become the religion of the people."  It is recovery programs, with their steps, personal and communal support, that must come first before anyone hopes to climb out of their drug addiction.  Recovery brings likenesses together, while religion is less of a guarantee to bring such a communal dynamic.  Religion can be a great support to recovery, and may even lead to recovery.  Surrender is important in both.   

A New Creation

 In ancient antiquity there existed a lot of inequality.  Income, birth, ethnicity, winners and losers.  Upper Crust Roman aristocracy were at the top.  Slaves were a the bottom.  Christianity tried to change this.  Paul, the Apostle, said they we are a "New Creation."  All are equal is what he said.  God loves everyone and Christ revealed this in practice as Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, as Christians say they believe.  But I have too often found that Christianity has grown back into inequalities while the Recovering Addicts in their meetings have learned that all are truly equal.  Addiction unites them, men, women, rich, poor, black and white and Indian and anything in between.  And many of these groups meet in the basement of churches, practicing the Christian ideal of the New Testament, while upstairs it is a rather mixed bag.  

Change

 To what degree has your faith penetrated and changed your very existence, your way of seeing and living life?  A Catholic might say to me that they now go to mass on Sunday.  OK.  But that is a bit like someone who says they are in recovery that they did not take a drink today.  Yes, a change, a good one, but not very deep.  A lot of the rest of your life, the way you see and experience daily life also needs to be penetrated and this takes a lot more work then some first steps.  First steps are called “first” because they imply subsequent steps, actions.  Some days I do the bare minimum, but I will not remain, much less grow, in a spiritual life on this pace.  Putting on my jogging clothes is not jogging.  It is an early step in the process.  Growth is work.  

First Is First

 What does “First things first” mean?  It is about priority.  What is your priority each day.  For a recovering person it would be sobriety.  For a person on a spiritual path, it would be listening to their God or Higher Power.  So who do you listen to first in trying to get some advice or direction in your daily path?  If it is just yourself to whom you listen, then it is said, “you are being led by an idiot.”  I don’t know if it is all that bad, but it is truly better to listen first to God and then move along.  God can speak in mediation prayer, but also in another person who you trust is on a spiritual path.  Over time you begin to trust in this spiritual force wherever and however it speaks to you.  Our own singular advice can be filled with too much desire for power, control and esteem.  God-listening is spiritual medicine that keeps us healthy in our decisions.  I try to listen early in the day with reading and meditation and advice from others.  I am not my first advisor.  

The Right Space

 I write this from mid-town Manhattan. I came here thinking I am “people who visit NY.”  Such envisioned people go around seeing this and that. stay active with all NY has to offer. I soon realized how the monastery was such a good fit for me. I am not “people” but rather myself. I prefer a smaller venue with less activity or things to do. The monastery would be boring to people who need a lot of outside stimulation. I don’t think the busyness of the place here suits me. I like the quiet, less people around and less stimulation. If I am to live in a bigger city I think San Francisco, a smaller, less busy, fewer people, would be more of a fit.  I just found a little park of trees and benches two blocks from this NY rectory. Quiet. Trees. Shade. I meditate. Perfect

Not Only Me

 How I treat others in my moments of difficulty tells me one how I’m doing and how I am going heal. My pain is not all about me. There are other people involved. I am not alone in this world, though I may feel alone in my world. Sometimes healing is especially helped by our compassion for others in spite of our own difficulties. In recovery, people know they are not alone.   Becoming one among others on a common journey is all part of the healing of the addiction.  Isolating is rarely helpful or healing. 

Second Chances

 I have enjoyed second chances. Addictive behavior, fear based choices, selfish decisions, greedy efforts for more or other, all have gone down wrong roads that looked good at first. But My God has gone with me and when things seemed darkest, God was the Light and Power that led me onto a better path. I have learned to bear crosses as long as they are not of my own making. 

Change

 You want things, people, situations, to change?  A secret is to begin by changing the way you look at things.  I am amazed the number of times that things change simply by me changing the way I look at things.  I can get stuck in, “that person is no good,” or “ nothing good can come out of that situation.”  The worst is when I say, “My life is in ruins.”  It helps to talk to another person who does not wear my particular blinders.  Or follow some simple steps, or ask my God to “enlighten” me.  Before I label anything or anyone, I look at my side of the street.  Can I see differently?  Unless my heart changes, I will not see differently.  It is an inner spiritual journey into a new sight.  

Fireworks

 I hope this is a fun 4th of July for you.  As for its original meaning, the 4th, it is still a work in process.  I can tell how I am doing in this “equality” arena, by the degree of judgment I bring to people and situations.  I like the recovery meeting dynamic because people in that meeting soon enough will realize they are all the same.  Not so much in churches, neighborhoods, clubs and schools.  But the nice thing about fireworks is that everyone can see them.  Ethnicity, social standing, income, skin color, the fireworks are for everyone.  I am in San Francisco eating hot dogs and hamburgers from the grill outside our rectory living room.  One of the Paulist priests there specializes in this annual ritual.  I have to go down to the wharf to see the fireworks or look out beyond the tall buildings to see the sky light up over the Giants baseball stadium.  And I am sober, the best freedom of all!  

Deeper Surrenders

 All conversions point to deeper surrenders, more conversions.  An Alcoholic goes into recovery and “surrenders” their choice to drink, use or whatever is the addiction.  They think they have finished up recovery.  They converted from taking in to leaving off, from drinking/drugging to none of it.  But this is only the beginning.  But those who know, don’t say that.  Just come to meetings, read the literature, work the steps with a guide, help others.  The deeper surrenders will come in time.  You don’t tell an early convert this.  People join my church.  They think they have arrived.  I give them some regular practices.  Something within their wheelhouse.  Simple but consistent.  In time God will ask for more, and deeper surrender.  The challenges of life will seem daunting at times.  But Higher Powers are patient and will ready us for the future.  If you whine, then you have not kept your side of the street.  

Dark Times

 Alcoholics are never cured.  They have a daily reprieve based upon a level of spiritual awareness and practice.  As mere human and imperfect beings, with the flaws of the human condition, they will have dark times in their spiritual practice.  They may try to help someone who does respond in a healthy way.  They may find prayer at times nothing but darkness and emptiness, feeling abandoned by their Higher Power.  Some meetings will be beyond boring.  But they do not drink.  Darkness is part of life.  It comes and goes.  Christians have dark nights in their prayer life too.  Nothing and no one seems to be there.  All emptiness.  Abandoned.  But this is not bad.  Their God died on a cross, abandoned, lonely, darkness covering the whole earth.  We all surrender to these times.  The dark night prayer times tie Christians to the cross of Christ.  It does not mean we are abandoned, alone, forgotten, or a spiritual failure.  We are all trudging the road at times, but happier destinies are ahead for those who stay the effort.  Don’t give up.  

Aloneness

 An interior solitude is not feeling lonely.  It is more of a thirst for God in the silence.  This thirst comes from the depth of our heart.  We are convinced that there is a Presence though we seem to have a disability of blindness within.  But this solitude needs a certain amount of aloneness if it is to have a deep companionship with God.  We are not trying to become isolated from human encounters.  We are looking for a quality of interior depth that will make all human encounters so much more meaningful. The rewarding interior social life with God can well lead into a rewarding social life in the world.  Such interior prayer takes us away from the world to prepare us for service in the world.