Beautiful Boy

In the movie, “Beautiful Boy,” I never got the sense that there was a spiritual dimension to Nic’s recovery.  There is no mention of a higher power, much less God.  He has all the recovery lingo, goes to meetings, has a sponsor, but where is step 11?  Maybe it is the only way the movie could be commercially made.  Skip mediations and higher power stuff.  At one point Nic goes to the bathroom at his girlfriend’s home and sees a bottle of pills on the counter.  This is the moment when the program of recovery says only a power greater than yourself will save you from the temptation.  He takes the pills.  He begins another run of addictive behavior.  During the credits at the end of the movie, the voiceover is of Nic reading the poet Bukowski.  I read Bukowski.  Oops!  I’ve said too much.  But even Bukowski, in the free verse poem Nic reads, though seeming to hate everything, including opera and oranges, comes to an experience of connection in the simple, everyday experiences of life.  This is where the higher power hangs out.  The fear based person misses it.  So maybe Nic found his soul to fill the emptiness, but only after the story depicted in the movie.  One can only hope.  There but for the grace of God, huh guys?

Due Diligence

There is the wisdom story I found in the Bible.  A person has a devil, and the devil leaves, driven out by say good behavior or a spiritual practice of the possessed person.  The person feels relieved, their inner house all swept and clean.  The person stops the spiritual practice since they got “well.”  The evil spirit roams around and finds no new home so comes back bringing seven more evil spirits or devils to repossess the person.  The moral?  “The last condition of the person is worse than the first.” This is what happens when someone is out of balance, as in habitual bad actions, addictions, character defects, self-will run riot.  They get sick and tired of it, so in desperation they take on some spiritual path, practice, and get well.  They stop the practice.  The old behavior returns and is worse than their former bad behavior.  While the person is coasting, the devil is working out and getting stronger for another attack.  Ask any addict who stopped working the steps.  If they are still alive and sane enough to talk.

Presumption Not Hope

People sometimes mix up presumption with Hope.  Presumption says things like, “Oh, it will be OK. No big deal,” or “She/He will let it go.  They are very forgiving,” or “They have thick skin.  They will let it slide.”  Such attitudes as that is not hope.  We presume so much.  I have seen it in religion and recovery programs, and spiritual paths of all sorts.  People don’t do the work but think things will go along just fine.  A good past effort is only connected to a good future by presumption if you are not going to continue to do the good that got you where you are today.  “I used to go to meetings.  I used to meditate.  I feel fine but don’t need those things anymore.”  “God loves me.  All will be fine.”  God or your HP does the heavy lifting and you coast?  Presumption.  Hope says, “I do not deserve forgiveness.  I have messed up and deserve the consequences, but HOPE that I will be forgiven.”  People of hope work out of a deeper sense of gratitude and powerlessness.  I hope that I will or won’t do certain things today.  Now I had better get to work.  Hope cooperates with love, that is the love of God or another person.  When you presume things about your partner, mate, spouse, you are on a slippery slope.

Rewind The Watch

Old folks will remember, if they can remember at all, that we used to have to rewind our watches each day, sometimes twice a day.  This is a good metaphor for daily prayer.  It is like rewinding the watch.  if we think of ourselves on a spiritual path, or in a relationship to our spiritual center, we cannot take for granted that all will go well without daily effort.  Without some daily prayer, reconnection, “time out” for some quiet solitude, we will run out of the spiritual energy that fuels right living.  At first, our progress slows and wrong actions, like wrong time, will enter our daily life. Then we just stop growing.  We become dysfunctional.  We think we are in the present moment, but in fact we are living in some past, as a clock that shows the wrong time.  I try to rewind myself each day lest I lose touch with the present moment and the energy to live it properly wound up to the real.  Maybe this blog is a part of your rewinding?

A Power

I met a guy who said that he was having trouble with this “God business.”  It turns out this fellow used to be a horrible drunk, addicted to alcohol.  He could not stop drinking once he got started.  But now he was free of the desire for alcohol.  “How did you do that?” I asked him.   He told me some things that he did, sobe friends he had made, but ultimately he had no idea how the desire to drink left him.  I suggested it might be “God.”  He was conflicted because his idea of God was this separate person out there somewhere who never did much good for him.  “Maybe your idea of God is just an idea,” I said.  “Maybe God is not so much a separate person out there, a noun, but rather a verb, Love.”  He is pondering this.  To me, God is action, relationship, love.  This is why I prefer Contemplative type prayer. It lets go of the noun God, the idea, the thought of God, and lets the Power be love.

Obedience Generation

I grew up as part of the “Obedience Generation.” To us you could say, “Go to mass on Sunday or burn.” We went to mass.  But the obedience generation is becoming extinct.  It might exist in Latino immigrants, but it won’t last into their children or grandchildren.  If a priest is still saying “you burn” then he is preaching to the dinosaurs.  The younger generation is more into the experience of mass.  If it is boring, irrelevant to their lives, lacks communal bonding, then they are more likely to drift away.  As John Paul II said, each generation is like a newly discovered continent.  This implies you cannot simply impose the old on the new and expect all to go well.  As a youth, when I went to mass I was surprised if there was a sermon and it was good or relevant to my life.  I had no expectations.  I went because that is what Catholics did.  It was how we related to God with Eucharist and all. It was enough experience for me with Holy Communion.  Mass was brief.  Singing minimal if at all.  You go early and get out soon enough to go to the bakery and butcher shop, get the funny comics in the newspaper and go home.  I am a dinosaur!

All Saints

In my Church today is the Feast of All Saints.  It covers all those people who have died, and lived saintly lives, but got no special recognition with their own feast day.  Well, what about the living saintly people in our lives today?  This should be their feast day too.  I should celebrate it by letting them know how their good example, their selfless lives, their loving ways, have inspired me to try and do likewise.  You might know such people in your life who are like this, and for most days of the year you ignore saying thank you, or asking that they pray for you.  Well today is the day to NOT ignore or take them for granted.  Give them a shout.  My sister Maureen said that I was a devil, so my feast day is tomorrow, All Souls Day.