Halloween

 Halloween was where I would meet neighbors I did not really know or has little to do with.  We went around the neighborhood knocking on doors, with hope.  As a little boy, we lived in an apartment building so there was no way to know if people were home or not.  One apartment door was the same as another.  Along with hope, we had trust in our little known neighbor.  If they gave us anything it was OK to eat it.  Health was ignored.  Sugar highs were part of Halloween.  Nothing was organized and no one was in charge.  The way it is today shows how much society has changed.  Anyway, Happy Halloween, organized or happenstance.  

Life

 As someone said, “Life is lifey.”  It is what it is.  You don’t have to spend a lot of time trying to control everything.  People and places are what they are.  Stuff happens.  It is life.  Morning spiritual practice is to get me ready for life’s life and not the life my ego must have to be happy.  Egos are never happy for very long.  Ego wants “more.”  

The Pleaser

 People pleasing is very stressful.  Worrying about what others think of you takes a lot of energy.  And it can become very lonely, them out there and you on the stage trying to figure out the script.  Then resentments can occur because you read them wrong.  You did not please, or please enough.  There is nothing authentic about yourself.  People drink and drug over this, go to gyms excessively, starve themself, do things with no aptitude for the doing.  And so on.  It is more likely people are not paying all that much attention to you at all.  Well, that can bring a resentment.  So just try to find the real you inside there and become it.  

Sculptor

You are an artist when you do your morning prayer.  I find it is at this time that I am chipping away at my old self, to reveal the person I am meant to be, hidden inside old behavior.  If I think or feel that nothing is going on, I know that my Higher Power, God, is chipping away at any ego build up or life-long Stoney Heart, to bring out the best me God created.  Like a piece of marble, I sit there and do nothing much.  God is at work.  Then I can better live God’s Day.   

Attitude

 You can follow rules, steps and still not change.  What happened?  Well, you might check your attitude in relation to events in your life.  Just because you are living a less crazy life, does not mean anyone around you is going to change.  They are fine being whatever.  Either you change your attitude or you build resentments.  When your life was a mess, you had shame and guilt, and maybe resentments too.  You changed some outside behavior.  But you are no one’s center of their life.  Well,  your ego thinks so, whatever.  Spiritual growth comes with attitude change. Attitude change, replacing resentments opens up new possibilities for you to act.  

The List

 When my “to do” list includes some time for God, I have it backwards.  I have found that I need to get myself right with God first.  Then things tend to fall into place and my “to do” list can change or become “enlightened.  I pray first in the morning and do some spiritual reading, psalms and such.  Otherwise, my list becomes ego driven, too long, too unrealistic, too fear-based.  

St. Francis

 People in Recovery Meetings sometimes say the “St. Francis Prayer” in their spiritual practice.  This October celebrates the 800 anniversary of Francis of Assisi, “Transitus.”  That is, his death and transition to the next life.  Though he founded a group called Franciscans, he never told them to become just like him.  Rather, he said he had found out what God wanted of him.  So to follow him, find out what God wants for you.  The Franciscan commitment was to give each person a community practice in which they could find out their specific way to follow Francis’ vision.  He was a person of unity and within that, there can be a variety of ways to bring us all together.  Read the St. Francis Prayer.  

Spark

 Where do you see a spark?  One place is in smoke, or stubble.  That is, there is no fire, yet a spark may be hidden.  You can be the hidden spark.  How do you light the fire?  You don’t do it just as a spark.  You need the breath of prayer, quiet breathing in the silence and solitude.  The Higher Power, God, spiritual force is what will breathe into you, the spark.  It will light the fire.  So many people live the stubble life, but your example, your spiritual practice can make a difference.  You don’t change the world, but you do change yourself, or get changed, by prayer and then action.  

Opinions

If you are going to get into a discussion with someone about some issue, political, religious, cultural, you might want to park your opinions and stick to your experience. Your experience is real whereas opinions are well, opinions.  I hear people say that religion is nonsense, AA is nonsense though they have never had any experience with either. If I have had no direct experience I might mention a book or author who said this and that from their experience and study.  If the response is the book is wrong you can suggest the person has not read it and what is their source. It keeps things calmer and maybe more listening. 

Action

 You may find it hard to talk about your beliefs, but as St. Francis of Assisi says, you don’t have to use words.  Use action.  This avoids hypocrisy.  I can be pretty good with words and this helps others on my blog since they don’t see how I act.  But action is for those who do see me.  And some of my best action is when I am selfless and no one sees it.  Oh, forgot.  God sees.  Oops!

Evolution

 There is a spiritual evolution as well as a physical one.  The spiritual evolution takes place in the short time of our physical life.  What is it?  As Jane Goodall says, we have to evolve from the ordinary, everyday humans, into saints or mini-saints.  Well, that is a tall order.  But just as physical evolution is slow, so is spiritual evolution.  We may not even notice it developing, but it will if we have a daily spiritual practice and spiritual reading that helps direct our daily lives.  Slowly, we move from being all about “me” into being for others without worrying about results or payback.  There can be setbacks, as we aren’t perfect.  But setbacks help us to stay humble.  

Preoccupations

Why do I forget Spiritual Powers in my life?  Preoccupations take up too much space.  It is not the same as something “really important.”  There I would call upon my Power, my God.  It is preoccupations that I make bigger than they merit.  Why?  Ego of course.  I have to attend to this and that because I need to prop up my ego.  The ego never gets excited about God stuff because God stuff sets the ego aside.  The self, falsely, only calls upon spiritual forces, when the self feels like it is in the foxhole, stuck.  Then the ego makes a deal and promises to pray better…tomorrow, or later.   

Give To Keep

If you want to possess something try giving it away.  Say what?  Yes, I keep my faith or grow in it by trying to share it with others in one way of another.  I try to keep to the contemplative life by telling others about it in teachings now and again.  In Recovery Programs, people keep their sobriety and grow in it by sharing it with others.  They “give away” what got them sober in the first place.  You are diminishes by simply holding on.  Faith and Recovery become merely dry and so many people thirst for a better life.   

The Journey

Retirement is not a stop altogether.  Life is a journey with change and growth.  Retirement is the outer garment we wear as we journey.  We are always on the way, but retirement is being on the way in a different pace, manner, surroundings.  There will be new paths opened to us.  We go down them at a slower pace, measured energy, wisdom from the past.  Retirement is like going away from what we know, its old surroundings, pace and practice, routines.  It is a somewhat connected path, but new at the same time.  It takes a getting used to type of life.  But it is life.  It is movement.  Just less frantic.   

The End

Why does death have to be seen as the “end?”  Why can it not be seen as the fulfillment of a life well-lived in the deepest sense?  Such a life probably planted some good seeds you don’t even know about.  People say things at your funeral that they never told you in person, wonderful things.  Plus, the end implies there is nothing after.  The ego cannot take extinction.  If I have been trying to surrender a too big ego, then death is not so much seen as the end followed by oblivion.  I don’t think about oblivion.  In my faith there is the next step.  But even if you have no such faith, the end a of life well-lived in love and service really will live on in others who benefitted from your spiritual practice flowing over into relationships and the work you did.  So don’t waste your energy on fear, whining or such, but on the deeper path in which much died in you so that you could live a fuller life.   

Surrender

If someone gives you the seeds of a spiritual practice, nothing will take root until something dies in you.  Without surrender you are simply too shallow soil.  As a child, a faith tradition is easy to accept and practice.  Not much to give up yet.  But the practice has to mature as you get older.  What gets in the way, and needs to die is the too big ego, self-will run riot, self-centeredness to name a couple of things that come with those double digit years of age.  A mature spiritual practice is not all about you and your feeling good.  It is about service to others, commitment to daily meditation and some reading or aural listening.  It connects you to your deeper self, soul, and your truest identity.  That is then expressed in service to others whether they see it or not.  

The Sower

 If you want to share your spiritual practice with someone who seems interested enough to ask, then become like the farmer who sows seeds on all kinds of soil.  You just don’t know what will take and what will not.  Don’t worry about the soil.  Just have hope.  In Recovery Programs, newcomers enter the room.  Some are good soil.  They are ready.  Some are not.  Give them all the seeds of the program, and give it with an attitude of hope.  Let God do whatever.  Even someone with little soil, shallow, will go away with your sense of hope.  The program works and the hope is that it can work for the newcomer.  

In Charge

 In baseball, the pitcher is in charge until he is not.  The batter is guessing what the pitcher is going to throw,  The pitcher knows what he/she is going to throw.  But if the pitcher does not execute the pitch correctly, bad things can happen to the pitcher’s team.  Batters feast on mistakes.  So goes my day.  I am in charge when I get up.  I have my plan, but if I don’t execute my plan, then my day can become a loss. Part of the plan is to make room for the unexpected.  Stuff happens, but if I have made room for it in my plans then the day can still be a winner.  So I pray early.  I exercise early.  And I make my bed.  

Drop The Ball

 There is the phrase, “Dropping the ball.”  It means you did not get something done and the day is not a winner.  It comes from football and baseball, though different sports.  If you throw the ball and your teammate catches it then good things can happen.  If they do not catch the ball, lots of chaos can result.  The spiritual life is like that.  I wake up and God throws me the ball of opportunity to pray, do good for self and others, exercise and so on.  But I have to catch the ball of opportunity.  A wasted day is most often when I dropped the ball, rather than nothing was thrown my way.  

Newcomer

 When people come into a group setting, communal group of some sort and say they are “returning,” they are sometimes judged and treated by that judgment.  “Oh yeah.  They are coming back again and they will just revolve out again.”  We judged them not worthy of our attention and time, as if such was so valuable to us.  But the “Newcomer” is treated much better.  They are new, so no judgement, even if they have been there before.  “New” seems to get more effort on our part than the “returner.”  So I like how recovery programs do it.  They don’t have returners.  They have newcomers and treat them as very special.  No matter how often the person comes and goes, they are always “Newcomers.”  

The System

 When it comes to some things, certain groups want no change and others are very open.  The reason?  What is at stake.  If it were economics, life-style, the rich are set up in the system.  It works for them.  Any change is seen as loss.  The poor on the other hand seem to be more open to economic change because they have far less to lose as they see it.  In my personal life, I ask how much I have to lose if things change around me.  It becomes all about me.  There is little empathy for someone who might benefit from my loss.  In groups, the newcomer has the least amount of power to make a change.  I try to keep this all in mind when change suggestions come up.  

Missing Day

 I just realized that I never wrote a blog for October 10!  What happened?  Well, a wedding happened that day.  I was out of town surrounded by young enthusiastic, energetic young people and parents.  For an introvert like me that takes a lot of energy.  Plus, I was out of my normal eat and sleep patterns.  And did those young people like to party.  It was a beautiful wedding with a loving bride and groom.  Apparently I did not bore people too much with the homily and the wedding was well received.  So I did not get in the way.  It was all out of town in St. Helena, Napa County wine country.  The bride is the first granddaughter of my high school/college friend.  As an introvert I was way above my pay scale in talking to so many people.  And you got no blog.  Nor did I get much sleep.  

Justice

 Sometimes justice is not always the best way to go.  If people are working for a daily wage the just thing is to pay more to the one who worked more that day.  But maybe not.  Sometimes goodness is better than justice.  Maybe those who worked a short time was not their fault.  They are day laborers and got hired late in the day.  If you pay them justly, they get the least amount of wage at the end of the day.  But is the “least” enough to feed family, take care of that day’s needs?  If you put yourself in their place you might opt for goodness instead of justice.  The full day worker will balk, because they are about justice.  They do not have empathy for the last hired.  I try to put myself into another person’s place before I make some decisions.  

Yeast

 A thought, suggestion, notion can be dealt with a little like yeast.  Yeast has no particular power to make little things bigger until it has some moisture added to it.  When you give a suggestion, notion, thought time and attention it is like adding the moisture to the yeast.  If the thought is bad for you then don’t give it any time.  Get onto something else or ignore it if you can.  For those who tend to live fear based lives, that fear is just waiting to grow bigger for your destruction.  

The Mind

If you want to live a more spiritual and sober life you go beyond right action.  You must add right thinking.  Yes, it begins with doing the right thing.  Because then you can notice what you are thinking or feeling.  Outsides reveal insides only to you.  Others see only the action and might praise you.  Ego loves this.  But what if you did the right thing with resentment, or self-pity, or fear, to name a few things to work on.  What to do?  Tell another person who might be able to give you some wisdom. And pray with humility.  If the ego runs your life, you are on a slippery slope.   

False Pride

 If you judge yourself or someone else by the results, that is false pride.  For yourself you say, “I should have done better.”  For others you say, “ I could have done better than them.”  It is the negative side of pride.  It separates us from our best self and from others.  Effort is what we might control.  Results are not up to us.  Plus, the prideful person cannot accept results that do not match what they want.  Some very good results are often hidden at first glance.  

Wretched

 Going to confession in religion and going into AA after a long absence or first time have something in common.  You feel kind of terrible maybe even wretched.  You don’t much like yourself and maybe others would agree in your everyday life.  But by going in and admitting the truth about your mess, you have the chance to come out feeling a whole lot better.  The more honest, humble and thorough, the more you will feel wonderful later.  And then going to confession more regularly and attending meetings more regularly will have even better results and all those people who avoided you might welcome you back.  

Who Is Looking?

 Meditation helps me behave better when no one is looking.  How much time do you spend on outward appearances for when someone is looking?  We can appear a certain way in public though we might feel quite differently on the insides.  We can put on a good face for the sake of others.  We might have responsibilities that call for us to put on a good face, positive attitude, sense of control.  But then who is going to take care of the insides when those people are not around?  Inside stuff cannot be faked for our insides.  The healing, the getting in touch with the really real requires some quiet and stillness.  Solutions for the insides are inside us.  

Pop Quiz

 Why Meditate?  Well, life can be like a pop quiz in school.  If you have not been studying much at all, or sporadically, then you will not be ready for the quiz.  Stuff happens on a daily basis.  We are not in charge of what comes up.  It just happens, like a pop quiz.  If we are meditating on a regular basis then we are more ready to handle the unexpected.  Fear, anxiety, resentment won’t control our response.  What will happen today?  I only think I know.  So I meditate and am more ready to respond better to the unexpected.  

Away

 The one area in which I am never “away” is in my relationship with God.  God is everywhere, or at least my God is.  So I am never away from God.  Now I can skip any spiritual practice and feel far way from God, but that is just a feeling.  God is still near, regardless if my will or mind drifts off or my feelings are about abandonment.  So if you ask how to find God, it might be you who are lost.  The idea of finding yourself, your truest self, is finding God.  Right here and now.  

Guardians

October 2 is the Feast of the Guardian Angels.  It is one of my favorites.  Guardian Angels have gone out of fashion but I am still a core believer and ask each day for help guarding me.  Against what?  Mostly myself getting too much into myself.  I identify with these angels.  They are the lowest rank in the celestial hierarchy of angels.  They are the foot soldiers having to be at the job 24-7.  They do the grunt work but are very faithful.  And they are big reminders that God is never far away.  I think of my blog writing as an every day thing, not a big deal in the internet world of stuff, but faithful and trustworthy.  

Not Sure

 People who tell me they are not sure if they have a drinking problem, probably have a drinking problem and are thinking about it.  It would be like someone saying they are not sure they have a soul, or there is a god.  They are thinking about it.  The openness of AA if fascinating.  You only need to want to stop drinking when you come in the door.  You don’t have to believe you are an alcoholic, whatever that might be.  You don’t have to believe in any god.  You just want to stop drinking. It helps me in that when someone comes to my church looking for something, I simply ask what they might want.  Usually, it has something to do with inside emptiness or lack of fulfillment.  I listen and don’t try to convert.  I invite them back.  Stay in touch.  Be where they are in their search.  The seeking never stops.