Loss

 There is a saying, “the one who has not, even what they have will be taken away.”  It can refer to how selfless we are in our relationships with others and the world around us.  I know in recovery, if a person does only a little, they will not stay sober.  They will go back to dry and they drink again and eventually die from the addiction.  They had a little recovery but never became helpful to others.  They were only takers of what was offered.  So as has been measured out to me in my life, I must measure out to others.  Jesus said all this whether you like him or not.  

Rich Soil

 An alcoholic in recovery becomes rich soil from which much grows to feed others who hunger for wholeness and fullness.  The alcoholic was once very dry from trying to water their life with alcohol.  It dried them up.  They were parched.  In recovery they are watered by others through following the twelve steps.  They become rich soil and grow what?  Helpfulness to others who are feeling helpless.   Become a light for those who are in darkness.  And they grow into their best self that was hidden beneath their escapes from life on life’s terms.  I try to meditate and read something each day to water my healing heart so I can be helpful, as in this blog.  

The Lamp

 Become a lamp.  That is, become a light for others.  That is what a lamp is supposed to do.  You would think it silly if you lit a lamp and then hid it.  It would lose its purpose, its power.  For whom are you supposed to be a light?  You become a light for those who are still in the darkness you used to know so well.  And you don’t really know your own darkness until you become a light for yourself and then for others.  People in recovery know this.  They have risen up from the hell of their own powerless life.  Meditation helps us to see our own darkness and then the light in that darkness.  

Hidden Selfish

 People tell me that they are not selfish.  They help others for instance.  But I see sometimes that the help given is quite manipulative.  Some people give help in order to get something.  It is quid pro quo.  This for that.  They even use the words “I love you,” when what they mean is “I want sex,” Or they want someone to take care of them beyond what they can provide for themself.  The obvious ones are trophy wife and marrying for money.  But there are more hidden ways and someone who says they are a God-Believer or a Recovery from Addiction person must watch out for any hidden selfish motives.  Try being helpful when you get no return or the results don’t work out as you hoped.  This is cutting edge help.  

Becoming the Helper

 In the beginning of Recovery people ask God to help them to stop their addictive behavior.  It is a focus on getting something.  It is a beginning in the recovery process.  But eventually, if the person sticks with the recovery process, they begin to shift a bit to helping others.  They realize that recovery was not all about the drug, drink, sex, gambling, or whatever.  Their world begins to expand as part of their recovery.  They become the helper without judging the results of the help they give to others.  God does not stop helping people simply because they don’t say, “Thank you,” or follow directions.  God is Love.  And so becomes the Recovering Person.  

A True Prayer

 People in recovery, God believers and Atheists have a common prayer.  “God, I don’t know who you are, or where you are or what you are, but if you lead, I will follow.”  Lots of believers think they know God because of the dogma in which they believe.  But dogma is about God.  It is not the same as knowing God.  No human knows God.  God is beyond all human understanding.  Mystics of my religion teach this.  The deeper your prayer in meditation, the less you know.  But the more likely you are to follow.  Recovery happens when you move beyond belief to action.  

Atheism

Atheism is a faith.  It believes without proof that there is no God.   In this sense it is just as blind as faith in a God.  I admire atheists who, though they say there is no God, act as if there is one.  How? By the way they live their life in loving service to others.  What gets them to live such a way of life?  I can only speculate.  I am not that person.  But their life seems to witness to compassion, a sense of oneness, and empathy for those who are suffering in some way.  In this sense, their faith is stronger than the person who believes in a God and goes to worship but connects little outside their clan, if even that.  

Overrated

 Faith can be a bit overrated.  People say, “I have the correct faith, so I am OK.”  But faith of this kind is a dogma in the head.  It is an idea.  But what about action?  Action to be of service to faith must be about behavior and behavior must be about Love.  Action, in which one goes to war over faith, is bad behavior.  Unfortunately, people of bad faith can have a lifetime of bad behavior while thinking themselves just fine.  Everyone else is the mess as they see it.  Correct action in love takes humility.  Faith as an idea requires no humility.  Such non-humble faith is for the “righteous.”  

Daily Cleansing

 There is the phrase, “You cannot stay clean on yesterday’s shower.”  Spiritual practice is a 24 hour thing.  It seems to have a shelf life of one day.  You prayed yesterday and feel that is enough?  Well, learn from people in addiction Recovery.  What they did yesterday, got them through yesterday.  They have to practice recovery again today.  Gratitude is a daily practice.  Being of service is a daily practice.  You cannot be part of a relationship with your God or group now and again.  It does not seem to work over time.  Even if you don’t shower every day, you do something to stay clean.  What is your something today for your spiritual maintenance?  

Whose Job?

 Recovery programs don’t make the same mistake that the Catholic Church seems to have made too often.  In my church there is a sense that the priest ordained is better than the rest of the people, the laity.  And thus the priest does the heavy lifting of spreading the good news.  It is in part the result of clericalism, and there are priests who do think they are an upgrade on the people.  In recovery this is not so.  Everyone is in charge of spreading the good news of recovery.  In fact, part of recovery is to be of service to spread the message of recovery, to run the meetings and so on.  There is no “better than” in this recovery process.  In fact, the most important person in the room is the newcomer.  Often that same newcomer, visitor, is ignored in my church and people just talk to the ones they already know.  Often both groups meet in the same building, the church building.  One meets downstairs and pays rent. The other meets upstairs and is not charged anything.  

Immensity

 If you don’t have an immense desire for spirituality, I don’t know that you will ever get much beyond mediocrity.  OK, I speak for myself.  An addict knows immense desire for that next drink, fix, food, whatever the addiction.  Recovering people and holy people know what immense desire is.  Mediocrity is not a safe place to be for such people and therefore they are blessed to be addicted.  They know that half-measures, the spirituality of many of us “religious” people will end up for them losing everything.  But such a past can stay past if one can seek “immense” in their recovery and spiritual life.  If immense does not start for me early in the morning, then mediocrity usually runs my day, and that is not a safe place to dwell.  

Anonymity

 A lot of people seem to aspire to live like Jesus of Nazareth, and many consider him to be God come to earth.  And such people try to follow him.  But do they?  Well, not if they are self-promoting, egocentric and looking for praise and popular esteem.  In Mark 1:40-45 a leper comes to Jesus and wants to be healed.  Jesus says ok and heals him.  This would inflate many an ego.  But Jesus tells the healed leper to keep it quiet.  There is not even something of the leper saying thank you.  How many people get sober and forget gratitude.  Anyhow,  I am trying to stay right-sized and be helpful without wanting for a thank you or publicity.  Which means if no one says thank you for my blogs, I will be OK with that.  Hmm.  I guess I have a bit of a ways to go.  

Jubilee

 Jubilee refers to “seven” as in seven years.  In the ancient world, an ethic was that every seven years was a time to rest.  Let the earth rest from your planting.  Lie fallow.  It comes from the idea of God resting on the Seventh Day which then became the Sabbath.  If the all powerful deity needs a break why is it that so many of us, religious as well as non-religious cannot take a break and some even wish that we had an eighth day to get everything done.  You think you will disappoint others if you take a day?  Where did others get that expectation of you?  Recovery  people race around trying to make up for the mess they created.  I try to start out the day saying to myself, “I cannot complete or undertake this agenda all at once.”  The first person to drop expectations of yourself is yourself.  I try to take control of my day of rest, rather than control of the world or my world of work and tasks.  

Valentine

 Well, it can be a Happy Valentine Day if you can love yourself.  To wish someone else a happy Day while ruing your day and life, does not bring much happiness to them.  A Valentine starts from within oneself.  You give the love you have for yourself and expand it to love others.  You cannot give love that you do not have.  Many people sit in recovery meetings feeling down because on this day they don’t have someone “special” as a Valentine.  But the fact that they are in recovery shows they loved themself enough to do the recovery work of showing up.  At this point, my life is bad if I make it bad.  Attitude comes with perspective.  My mailbox may have cobwebs, but I will love myself for becoming the me I am today.  Happy Valentine’s Day from my heart.  

Other’s Meet

On the surface, God or your Higher Power is seen as “other.”  It is not you.  This is where most people remain, short of a deeper life of meditation.  But if you pursue the silence and solitude on a daily basis, what can happen is you become an “other.”  In your depth you are an “other.”  Like how?  You say to yourself or experience within yourself, that you are not the person you once were.  You have a sense of becoming an “other” person.  Recovery people know this as do people steeped in their religion.  So your other meets the other of God, and you sense a oneself, a bonding.  Two others meeting become a ONE.  Some married people know or have known this.   

Unclean Spirit

 In the first chapter of the gospel of Mark in the New Testament, Jesus encounters a man described as having “an unclean spirit.”  Well, doesn’t that sound like a good description for an alcoholic…and I suppose a few other types of people.  What does Jesus do?  He tells the unclean spirit it to shut up.  “Be quiet” to quote the Bible.  After Step Five of the 12 step recovery process, a person is supposed to sit “quietly” for an hour to see if they got everything out in telling another person the mess they made of their life.  Did they bring up all the spirits of resentment and fear against people, places and things?  Anything left out?  Quiet is part of the healing process.  Our inner demons, whatever they are, hate quiet.  They hate meditation.  They don’t want us to reflect quietly on how are we doing, honestly.  Have we missed or omitted any character defects, shortcomings?  Quiet yourself and you quiet your demons.  They hate sober quiet.  They will go bother someone else if you spend quiet time each day.  

Songs

 The Psalms in the Hebrew Scriptures are actually songs written in a certain meter or beat for the sake of singing.  Song formates are for the purpose of remembering something important.  A certain refrain remains in your memory as opposed to some written item.  Love songs are for the same purpose, to remind us of something that is important.  A lot of the psalms are of an uplifting type of nature, about love, future good times, a new and wonderful relationship and so on.  In the “Sound of Music” movie, the young nun is really hiding out in the monastery, lacking the courage to pursue her deepest feelings.  What does the abbess do?  “Climb Every Mountain” is the song she sings so that the young nun will have courage, know her direction and fulfill her life.  Dylan’s songs in the early 60s wanted to make a point to be considered.  And maybe some answers are still blowin’ in the wind. 

Mom

 Fortunately, for my religious education, I had a loving mother.  When I messed up with Mom, I might feel guilty, but powerless to make things right.  I was but a kid, with few resources.  But my mother still loved me.  She might correct me but it was for my betterment, not just to punish me.  So, when I went to school and the sisters talked about a loving God, one who loved me even when I messed up and could not fix things, I had a comparison with my Mom.  A lot of kids do not have this, so such an idea of God is but a myth.  

Fire

 Enormous effort is being made to put out the wildfires in California.  But this is not the only fire that some people try to put out.  People in recovery and Christians have the fire of recovery or baptism.  Their life is supposed to change for the better.  Though this fire is within and good, some people don’t like it because it rubs up against self-centeredness.  If you are hanging round with people who are basically all about themself, and you start to change with this inner fire, they don’t want you around unless you go back to what you were.  Recovering people know this about their “former” drinking buddies.  Christians might know it by people asking, “Why are you wasting your time going to church?”  Meditators of any path might be asked if they are still doing that meditation thing.  But whatever, let us keep the fire burning within and pray for the end of the fires burning outside.  

Missing The Mark

 When we get obsessed with the struggle for temporal existence, we can become complacent about spiritual growth.  Our religion becomes one of materialism, security and good health.  So ask yourself what you do pray for?  What is primary?  For Christians, recall that your savior did not come into the world in a nice home or with a nice bank account.  His health was in danger as the local potentate wanted to kill this little baby.  For those in recovery from addiction, is your first prayer in the morning, assuming you pray at all, gratitude that you woke up and are sober, in your own bed?  I try to start my morning with thanksgiving and then be open to my God’s will for me, and that I not get in the way.  

Silence

 The divine will for Christians is that silence must be a good part of our day, that is the silence of prayer, rather than the grumbling about the mess of the world or our own life.  Why?  Because the Christian God came as a baby.  What do you do if you want the baby to sleep and thus grow up to a mature adult?  Shut up while the baby sleeps, right?  Remember, in Jesus day he did not have a big house with his own room where one could close the door and then go about babbling on.  Silence is the way that our infant spirituality grows into adult maturity.  Babies can whine and be self-centered.  But they are babies.  Pathetic for an adult.  And especially not good for a recovering addict.  

Unimportance

 When people first enter a recovery program, they initially feel they are nothing.  They have lost so much and their life is a mess.  Then they get a sponsor who walks them or drags them through the 12 steps, gets them to be of service at meetings, and to feel better about themself.  They begin to feel important and this is good for sobriety.  But recovery programs are more than sobriety. It is about transformation.  A complete change from deep within our innards.  To get moving into this deeper dimension we must let go of our sense of importance.  Realize that in fact we are not all that important.  Most of our resentments have to do with others making us feel unimportant, not central to the world or them.  They are doing us a favor.  We really are not that important.  Why is this good to accept?  So that one can begin to see that the Higher Power simply loves them.  It is totally unearned.  The ego wants to be loved for its good deeds, righteous way of life, keeping all the rules.  So shallow.  I am unimportant and God loves me because that is who God is. Love.  You can ignore me.  Oops!  Does this mean you will ignore my blogs???  Well, I guess I have a way to go.  

Self-Complacency

In any program and religion that has lots of rules, people who keep to the rules can become a bit complacent.  Keep the rules and regulations and you will be on the inside, the correct side.  But this can lead to complacency because you are not so open to something new, different, a change.  Traditionalists want things always to be the same as they are.  Change in itself is not necessarily good either.  But I notice that when Buddha, Moses and Jesus came along, the rules and regs people, government and religious officials, were not so able to get on board.  They ignored or fought the newness.  Recovery programs have what is called a group conscience.  When change is proposed, the group talks it over, trusting that their higher power will make known what to do.  To simply say, “We never do it that way,” or “We don’t do that,” without talking it over, is to fall into “self-complacency.” 

Whose Itinerary?

 When people begin to pray, and meditate, they tend to want a payoff, as in good feelings, concepts, and images in their imagination.  But this is like getting off to a good start in a foot race.  The start is not the race, but only the beginning.  If we will only pray when we get a good start then we are full of self and ego.  If you keep on with the prayer, you have to let go of the need for the good stuff at the beginning.  Why?  So that you can let go of self and allow God, your Higher Power, to show up on God’s terms and not yours.  God’s terms might include feelings of boredom, a sense that nothing is happening.  This is the ego whining about not getting what it wants.  Transformation means that you have to stop being your own center.  So how do you know all this is working, this non-feeling prayer? Your life begins to really change for the better.  

Impostor Syndrome

 There is something referred to as the “Impostor Syndrome.”  It is about feeling unworthy of something.  An Alcoholic who does their step four and five, might see deeply the great gift of sobriety that they have been given.  They could not sober up by their own power.  Besides feeling thankful, they often feel shame and guilt at the mess and wreckage of their life.  They feel unworthy of sobriety.  This is the Impostor Syndrome.  Unfortunately, young people don’t have enough of this.  Children receiving their First Holy Communion believe and are taught they earned to by good behavior and going through all the classes and preparation.  They think they earned their Christmas gifts and birthday gifts and so on because they were good.  It cannot be a gift if it is earned.  I did not earn the gift of waking up sober this morning, or waking up at all.  A bit of impostor syndrome is not all bad.  We are all a work in progress.  

Sober

 One blessing, among many, for being sober is that you have a future.  You did not die from addictive behavior.  Addiction has its own timeline and wants you dead.  It knows how long it will take if you cooperate and live in your addiction.  At first, it will make you happy enough to chase the addiction.  You will feel in control since you don’t do it every day.  Gradually, all that changes and you are a daily mess.  Then you die.  OOPS!  Everyone else, not your addictive buddies, saw it coming.  Addiction not only changes the present, it shortens the future that God, a Higher Power had for you.  I am thankful today, for today.  It could have been different, being no today.  

The Future

 Don’t live in the future but see if you can surrender to it now in the present.  I woke up this morning which means that God has a plan for me.  I must live in the present moment, anchor myself in morning meditation, so as to stay in the moment but surrender to God’s plan for me today.  I don’t live in the future of today, but turn my will and my life over to this Power that has a plan for me.  This is faith, not in dogma, but in trust that God has my back.  

Enlightenment

 We have learned how to illuminate our city but we have not learned how to illuminate ourself.  We have not learned how to become enlightened.  We now have far more light time to get things done, be busier, but not yet any more fulfilled by all this activity.  Before all this artificial light came along, we were encouraged by mystics to enter into the darkness.  That darkness was quite plentiful back then.  The challenge was to just make use of what is there to become enlightened.  It was less about getting things done, our prolonged agenda, and more about being done to by whatever power was to be found in this darkness.  The only darkness I want to escape is the insanity of self-will run riot in my life.  The abundance of light now simply gives me more time to do the unnecessary though I fool myself into thinking it is necessary.  We think we are happier than the pioneer people or who those who live in a desert.  Check the suicide rate and see if this is so.  

Just A StarLight

The Magi who followed the star to find the baby Jesus, had no other light in the desert they traversed, but they made it just fine in the darkness.  Today, we think we need all these streetlights so we can get around.  Most of the light from street lighting goes up into the clouds, but creates shadows for us that complete darkness would not do. Originally, meditation did not require one to close their eyes to keep out light or from seeing things around them to distract them from meditation.  When I went out into the night at the monastery, at 8,000 feet altitude, I could see on the horizon, the nearby city lights polluting the sky because all that light was going up into the sky.  Street light has allowed us to lengthen our days and get less sleep.  It allows for night shifts, 24 hour factories, and such.  Longer is not necessarily better.  I try to keep this in mind when looking at my day in the early morning darkness, such as it is.  And I prefer matinees.