To Do Or Not To Do

 If a person wants to drink themselves into oblivion day after day or on a binge, there is not much I can do for them directly.  I can pray for them.  Self-destructive behavior is rather oblivious to help.  But if someone wants to stop this behavior, then that is my business.  As a priest I run into people who are on self-imposed misery.  I am powerless here.  But then I seem to be found or find people who want to get out of this madness they are in.  That is my business, to be helpful to those who want help.  I believe you can help the helpless if they want help.  

Anger At What?

 Some people are very angry with a god who did not come through for them.  So they stopped believing in God, but they stayed angry.  As someone pointed out, now you are angry at something you don’t think exists.  If someone says they do not believe in a god because they have never much thought about it or were never taught anything, they are rarely angry.  They might be puzzled at believers, but they are not angry.  When I find anger and non-belief in the same person, their atheism is suspect.  You cannot be angry at what does not exist.  Maybe that is why Step Two in recovery programs is about asking to be restored to sanity, so you can at least be angry at what does exist or drop the anger.  

Pluto

Remember when Pluto was a planet, the ninth and farthest from the sun?  And then it was declared “no planet.”  As one astronomer said, this does not make it worse than it was before simply because its ID was changed.  “Planet” is not a status, but rather an identification of something.  Pluto is still Pluto.  Nothing changed in Pluto.  So why do we people get all upset when someone changes our identification.  We are still the same person.  So many of us cannot accept ourselves without some title, which we think gives us a better status.  We are still the same person.  Title does not change us.  Whether someone calls me “Father” or not, does not change who I am.  If someone calls you a “name” out of disrespect or hate, that does not change who you are.  Don’t see yourself through the eyes of others.   

Spiritual Principles

 If you are an addict to something and you go to recovery meetings faithfully, read the literature, work inventory steps, you will find your flaws, character defects, such as selfishness and fear.  But all you have gotten so far is knowledge.  And as one person said, “Knowledge avails us nothing,” when it comes to addiction.  You have to live by spiritual principles.  Have a Higher Power and pray to this power in words and then meditation.  I have heard of many a person who went to lots of meetings for a while, read the books, worked some steps, but never prayed or formed any relationship with a Higher Power and then they went out, their lives got worse and so on.  Spiritual principles will make us loving people.  

The Purpose

 Not everyone on a communion line will have the same response to the host they receive.  If they receive a couple times a year, holidays, family visits and such, I doubt that the host means much.  They see with the physical eye that the host is a round white wafer.  They taste with the physical tongue nothing much.  Sacraments, to be effective, must be approached from a heart level.  Someone why sees with the eye of the heart, and tastes with the heart of the tongue, will have a rather profound experience of that wafer.  Persons receiving at this level, depth, might then be able to see beneath the actions of others, hear deeper than the words spoken, and then speak with the tongue of the heart to the pain buried deep with that other person.  Jesus on the cross saw in his public executioners something deeper, some pain they buried, so that they could do what they do.  And he said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing.”

Being Young

 If you are willing to grow, to learn, to be open to something new and healthy, then you are “young” as in young at heart.  Age does not matter.  Children are often eager to learn.  Why does that stop at some point in “adulthood?”  Why do people get set in their ways?  They begin to identify themselves with their work, their exercise, their race, economic status and voting identity.  They begin to talk only to people with whom they agree.  They want to live in places where everyone is about the same…like them.  I have met many a senior who is still willing to learn.  They go to classes, workshops, try new things, talk to people (and Listen) with whom they disagree.  You don’t have to travel all the time.  Sometimes that can be an excuse for being uncomfortable in your own skin.  But not always.  So you may be senior in years but young at heart in attitude and openness.  

The Bottom

 The bottom of your disaster/bad habit, whatever it might be, is not to be compared with the bottom of someone else’s disaster.  Otherwise, you compare and contrast and the convince yourself, “Well, I am not so bad,” and do nothing.  If this is so, you will hit a lower bottom because your activity has become habitual.  So whatever your bottom is, it’s one that got you to finally do something about your life so that you don’t get worse.  If down the road of positive action to renew or recover a better life, you look at the past and say, “I don’t want to go back there ever again,” then you are using the past in a positive way to keep on the better road you are on now.  Look ahead but don’t forget.  It keeps us humble.  

Emotionally Open

 If someone says to me, “There is no god,” that is pride speaking.  In reality we don’t know.  Even a believer or one who says, “There is a god,” does not know for sure with the mind.  I appreciate when someone says, “I don’t really know.”  This admits to a certain ignorance and humility.  I think that humility will take us further along the road of emotional growth than will false pride.  The emotionally insecure refuse to be open.  They close themselves off by certainty.  No more discussion.  

The Guide

 A guide will always be successful if they stay on the path for others to follow.  If others refuse to follow, or wander off the path, go it alone, the guide is not responsible for their contrary behavior.  Just stay on the path.  Besides, someone unexpected may wander into the path seemingly lost, but newly found.  A guide is not a counselor with an office to which people come and the guide says do this or that, while the guide just stays in their office.  A guide leads by example.  A guide was once in need of guidance.  That is how the guide discovered their knowledge.  I don’t tell people what to do.  I might make suggestions but they are suggestions I still practice.  But I must model the path by the manner and way I live my life.  Emotional balance keeps me on the path.  

Old Friends

 When I was young, I could move and make new friends.  People at that age I was in, were open to new friendships.  Many of them had moved too.  But now that I am much older, I find that I need to retain those old friends.  The ones from early school days remind me of who I am before I tried to reinvent myself.  The friends I made in my career years I need to keep.  We share some common memories that are precious to growing into mature adulthood.  People my age are not so interested in making new friends.  They have their friends, and are a bit set in their ways.  This is why assisted living places that are good, make a big effort to bring people together.  Old people learn how to be alone since they have lost so much.  But alone is not usually a healthy or even natural way of life.  So, as I move along, I try to retain and revisit these old friends I have made over the years.  Houston, Knoxville, Boulder, New York City, you just may find me about.  

Surrender

 When you are in a battle with something and you surrender, it doesn’t mean you always lose.  Surrender can mean that you drop your weapons that are failing you, and pick up something new to continue to battle.  What are the old weapons?  Resolutions, wishful thinking, false pride, and willpower.  These are all broken weapons.  And you were doing battle alone, with no help, no group support.  You find new tools.  At first, the enemy, your nemesis, seems to go away in defeat.  It is not defeated,  But rather retreats and waits to see if you will be consistent with your new tools.  False pride says, “I win.”  You drop the tools, and the enemy returns.  Your life goes from bad to worse.  Whatever the solution that worked, it must be done on a daily basis and not in isolation.  Surrender to the old way and trust in the new way.  It works if you work it.  

The Problem Remover

 Alcohol is a bottle of problem remover.  Drink the bottle and no more problems.  It is a way to manage one’s life, until it doesn’t.  For a while this solution puts one at ease.  Then the problem remover bottle becomes a dis-ease.  All short term solutions to problem solving management in one’s life are just that: short term.  Once we stop the short term solution we may come to discover that the real problem is not any one issue, but oneself.  Feelings arise and are faced.  One’s life appears totally out of control.  One cannot manage.  Many people say that alcohol was their problem when in fact it was themself who is the problem.  People use many other outside things to solve the problem of self.  None of this works long term.  The solution to self is done with others and not alone.  And it is very much an inside job as well.  

Progressive

 Alcoholism is progressive.  Other things are too.  But alcoholism is sneaky.  You think you are cured, but all the while it is progressing within you.  It is pretty much that way with anything I try to be rid of.  Bad habits don’t go away just because I did some good practice today.  Skip tomorrow and the habit will come back because it is always progressing.  Maybe that is why we have to keep doing our examination of conscience and admit our faults to someone even if they did not go public today.  They lurk.  Keeps me on my toes.  

I Have Arrived

 I have arrived as a supermarket shopper.  I picked up about six things, too few to stand in line for a cashier, but maybe too many to get any help from self-checkout.  I have never used self-checkout without a store employee doing it quickly for me with my one or two items.  So I found my store savings card and told the helper lady that I was ready to be helped.  She said, “There is an open machine right there.”  I took her off my prayer list.  So I went over and stared at the incomprehensible.  A voice said what to do but not how.  I put my store card here and then there and then finally al beep.  I assumed that i had registered my store card.  Then the voice said what to do with each item but not how to do it.  So I put the bare code here and then there and then the beep.  There was more correct than here.  And so it went.  I tapped, “No bags.”  Then the voice asked how I wanted to pay?  I stared.  Then I saw the visa sign and tapped that.  Then the voice said to follow the diagram as to where to put my card.  I stared.  And stared.  Then I saw the card machine on the far left side.  I put my card in and a beep.  “You were successful,” said the voice.  I have arrived.  Easy peasy!!!

The Group

 If you have a conversion of some sort, such as religious faith or recovery from addiction, don’t try to do it alone.  You need the group.  A lot of people of faith gather with others of that faith, in order to help carry one another along.  It keeps one from isolated conversion, which is a kind of oxymoron.  With the group you might learn how to live your new conversion.  You only know how to live the old way with maybe some old lethal companions.  Just learning how to live life on its own terms needs the example of one another.  And a group can always give you a second opinion.  Conversion does not mean you are no longer crazy.  

Never Too Young

Why do so many young people think they do not have problem with something that keeps recurring?  It is often because they are young. “I am too young to be…” is what they might say.  They think their recurring issue of bad behavior, for instance, can still be controlled when they “grow up.”  Or they compare and contrast with others and say, “I am not that bad.”  The problem with waiting until you “get that bad” or desperate, is that death, illness, injury, disease, unemployment, and broken marriage vows, may come first.  So don’t wait.  And we older people, let us not be afraid to say, “You need help.”  Any maybe even be part of the help.