Grace

 Stories about recovery from addiction are not really stories about success over failure.  That would be more a story of personal efforts, the hero overcoming the odds by their Herculean efforts to recover from addiction.  No, recovery is really a story about Grace, the free gift from a power that the person does not possess on their own.  It is an outside and an inside power.  It is not them but it is in them.  To recover is to discover this power.  I look at my life as a priest and realize that it is a story of grace, not my great holiness, that has kept me on the path of my vocation or gotten me back onto it when I might have drifted off the mark.  So if your life is one of grace accepted then let us start our day with GRATITUDE!

A Way Of Life

 Alcohol is mentioned only in the first of twelve steps in Recovery.  Those twelve steps are really a way of life.  Some of these steps have been copied from other spiritual paths but they are all put into a good order for a spiritual path.  Sobriety is only a small part of recovery.  Addicts who successfully kick the habit on a daily basis don’t stop the 12 steps simply because they do not experience the addictive cravings or desires or drugs as a solution.  They continue to practice the twelve steps as a way of living that is quite full.  Their lives and efforts carry the message to others.  I cannot say the same for many of the baptized or bar mitzvahs.  

Agnostic At Prayer

 Some people say that they are agnostics because when they prayed they felt nothing.  So they assumed that nothing was “out there.”  Thus they are unsure of a god or power or whatever.  They want sensible piety, feeling.  They do not yet know about purification and dryness.  They will believe only if they get some kind of buzz.  It is like the alcoholic who believes alcohol works for them because they get some kind of buzz.  Until they don’t.  Then they realize that the buzz was a false path.  Prayer is not about buzz.  It is about change, your change as a person.  I have seen people become quite complete and full as a person who feels not much of anything when they pray.  But they keep praying.  

The No Experience Prayer

 Why must you have an experience, an emotional buzz, a nourishing feeling or thought when you pray?  This is all about self.  Sometimes, to get out of self, we are given nothing but blah, blah when we pray.  It feels like nothing is going on.  Yet, beneath all these “abandoned” feelings, something very deep is going on, but we cannot always connect to it.  The solution?  Just keep on praying in some disciplined fashion.  You don’t need to change books or position you sit in or walk.  Just stay with it.  Eventually this dark night, this seeming emptiness, will pass.  Prayer is not all about you.  It is relationship.  It is about becoming One.  It will take time, especially if you started out praying, to get something.  

The Creator

 A man and a woman may say that they are creating a new life, a child.  But are they really the creators, or are they ultimately participating in the action of the Creator who started the whole process of creation from nothing?  The Original One began a process, a dynamic in which the universe participates.  So, in a sense, the new life is begun by God.  We humans are part of a long process in which everything new with life if from the Original One.  And so belongs to the Original One.  I find it comforting to think that no matter who dies in my life, I still belong to One who lives always and lives in me as part of my created life.  For this reason I still say thank you when I wake up each morning, for another day in this evolving universe.  I may be a small part of something very big, the universe, but I am still part of, with another day to grow into a fully me.  

All Saints

 Yesterday in my church was the celebration of “All Saints Day.”  And I know a lot of saints.  They did not get the title “Saint.” But they lived the life of one.  They might seem rather normal, not standing out in any special way to the world, but I know how far they have come to get to what we might call ‘normal.”  My saints used to be frighteningly bad in destructive behavior.  They had low social skills in group settings or even in one on one.  They were often restless, irritable, irritating, and destructive. They lived in discontent.  Now they are what you might call normal.  But I know the spiritual work they did to get where they are today.  They are not self-made.  They had help from others and from some power that is not their own.  So they are my saints.  

Don’t Stare

 It is OK to look back on some bad behavior, but don’t stare at it.  You want it as a source of information to someone who might need to know how you improved your life from bad/not too good/disastrous/mediocre, which is where they might be at the time.  The past can be helpful to remember how far you have come.  But to stare at it is to start down the old well-traveled road of shame and guilt.  Stop punishing yourself.  The past is done.  Live in the present moment.  There is not much gratitude for what you have if you are not present to it now.  And forget about “I should be better.”  Just work on today and “better” will come along in due time.  False pride is very sneaky.  It hides behind the “should.”  You are alive today, so there is a plan for you.