The Stopping

 I have heard people say that they want to stop their drinking.  So they focus on not drinking behavior.  Maybe they exercise more.  Eat a bit healthier.  Go to bed earlier.  It may work for a short time.  Why only a short time?  There is another word that rhymes with drinking.  It is “thinking.”  They did not change their thinking.  Will-power alone cannot do long-term change.  Self-will does not work because the thinking is self-centered.  For that to change you need some deeper, or spiritual solution.  The source of this solution is within you, but it is not you.  It is a power you don’t have, but is available to you if you are willing to take some steps, some advice.  From whom?  Try someone who had your drinking problem and is now rather more at peace than you are.  As individuals they are rather anonymous.  As a group they are called Alcoholics Anonymous.  

Filling Up The Empty

 Why would you not want to pay attention to your mind, your thoughts, in mediation?  I do this so as to allow the mind to be drained of anxiety, fear, resentment, blame and shame, to name a few thoughts and emotions.  When I sit in the silence and ignore my thoughts, it seems as if a drain pipe is opened and thoughts get flushed away.  Then what?  Then the emptiness can be filled with love.  Who does the filling? Love does the filling and I don’t have to know who or how.  Afterwards, I find that the world did not change.  But my response to situations did change.  I forgive.  Accept. Listen better.  Try to be part of the solution and not the problem.  That emptiness is elevated, transformed.  None of it is done on my own will-power.  

Associates

 Just because you call someone “brother” or “sister” or “neighbor” where you live does not make it so.  It is how you are with that person that makes the relationship, not geographic nearness, or fraternal titles.  If you have nothing much to do with this other person, except in the service of your pursuit of your own particular interests, then that person is neither  brother nor neighbor.  They are mere “associates,” as in a business of getting things done, your things, that is.  

Someone Else

 I am trying to be “someone else.”  In living with men, which I have been doing for many years now, I find that there are some common household and work tasks that is no one person’s job.  Common towel laundry, linens, dishes, food on a counter, garbage/trash might be in this category.  If no one is assigned, who ends up doing this?  Someone else, as in “Oh, someone else does that.”  In fact there is no such person as someone else.  It is a fiction to replace the reality that the speaker is not going to bother.  Men prefer to do things that feed their egos.  I used to get resentful of this, but resentment is not a good way to spend time living with others.  So I am now trying to be the “someone else,” when I see things left undone.  And I try to take God with me.  God Power is what gets me to be positive about living with men.  

God Slot

 I tend to slot God.  I give God a certain time of the day for meditation.  God gets slotted for a half hour to forty minutes.  Then I get up and go about other ego-satisfying or anxiety-reducing activities.  I am trying to get out of this habit.  It did take a while to give God any slot in my day and I was so proud of me for making God room in my day.  But now I want God to be more than forgotten or in the shadowy background of my routines and projects.  When I catch myself in fantasy, whining, resentment, fear, or other debilitating ways to fill my time, I stop, and reflect that God is in and around me.  It is a moment of solitude, when I am truer to myself and what I am about.  Which is?  A glance at eternity in this moment of time.  

An Inviting Word

 Do you speak to be heard, or do you speak so as to be spoken to?  Some people speak out of fear of being ignored, becoming insignificant, unimportant.  With their many words, ego-producing profound insights, they rattle on with the presumption that someone is listening.  They endure your response so that they can talk some more. I believe that less can be more.  With a few words, thoughtfully chosen out of my own comfortable silence, I might encourage someone to speak from their heart.  My few words might give them the trust that I want to listen, that I care.  It can narrow that gulf between us.  What gulf?  Ask someone how they are?  “Fine,” as a response, is the gulf.  

May Day

 May One is referred to as May Day.  For many people it calls us to Spring, to getting outside, to getting into the budding of nature in mid-Spring.  What is waiting for you outside is the silence of nature.  It is the silence away from shopping and traffic.  Nature is very active with new life, sap flowing within trees, leaves stretching out, flowers beginning to peak up at the sun, and at you. But so little noise to do so much work.  How about you?  Can you be of little noise, even better, no noise.  Stop in the midst of nature, let her arms of silence embrace you.  This silence is the real, the lasting.  We, in our noise, are mere interruptions.  We will pass on no matter how bustling, busy, productive we are with our voices, our tools, our anxieties to accomplish.  We so want to be heard, for we fear insignificance, being ignored.  Silence does not mean no one is listening, nor that no one cares.  Be still.  You are loved.