When To Start

 I have a blog reader who always seems to read my blog before I even post it on FB early in the morning.  She is up early because she starts her day the night before.  I meet people who tell me they cannot make an early morning meeting or early church.  I ask why?  Inevitably they went to bed late the night before.  Many people with good spiritual paths begin their day the night before.  Drunks who could not get up before mid-morning, now make 7 AM meetings in my City.  You can have a life and go to bed early.  My sister in Florida has a life and she gets up to watch sunrises at the ocean.  Learn from the winners.  

Being Wrong

 I like the right to be wrong.  If I give someone some advice I should say “this is what worked for me.”  What works for me may not work for them at all.  So I tend to stay as clear as I can in working issues of a spiritual path, that what I say works for me.  Or, “this has been my experience.”  If I have no experience then I am but quoting some other source.  Send them to the source.  When people come up to me and say I must do something to be on a good spiritual path, I know it is something that works for them.  But it may not be for me.  Advice can be wrong a lot of times if it is given as a “must.”  I have yet to meet someone who stopped drinking because I said, “You must.”

Hope

 What is “hope?”  It is a feeling.  An example of this feeling is when a drunk goes to their first AA meeting.  Their life is a mess at this point, or they would not have gone to this meeting.  The person cannot stop drinking.  Their life is spiraling ever downward in health, finances, and relationships.  They might even be homeless or near to it.  In their first meeting they understand almost nothing of what has been said, but a snippet or two gets to them.  “You don’t have to drink anymore.”  They are not looking for happiness.  Who can be happy no longer drinking?  But they hear that there is a way out of the downward spiral.  People greet the person afterwards and exchange phone numbers.  When this drunk walks out of the meeting, things are the same in their life, but EVERYTHING FEELS DIFFERENT.  That is hope.  

Happy Solutions

 Happy St. Patrick’s Day!  But will it be with corn beef and cabbage, parade or two, wearing of the green?  It could be that, but a lot of people will go out and get drunk today, and many of them just use it as an excuse.  They are drunks.  And they prefer to live in the problem.  I may think I have the solution, or the answer to that problem, but that does not mean someone in the problem wants to move to an offered solution.  There are other areas of life in which there are answers but people would rather live in the problem.  Why?  A big part of it is that moving to the solution means change.  Change so often comes only when there is no other way out of a mess, the problem.  I have to ask myself each day, if I want to continue to grow, what do I need to change today?  Maybe nothing, but I must be open to a vista beyond routine.  Grace will enter when I am ready.  

Results

 When I moved from Colorado to California as my official address, I went in person to the post office to request “mail forwarding” and filled out the form.  Nothing got forwarded.  So eventually I went on line to some company the post office hired to take address changes.  Nothing happened.  I have yet, after several months, gotten any forwarded mail.  At first I was frustrated but then I remembered a principle and it is that I am not in charge of the results, but only the right action I can do.  Eventually, all things will settle down.  Acceptance.  

Oxygen

 We need oxygen to stay alive.  People who are in recovery and those on a spiritual journey need prayer as their oxygen.  It keeps them going in a positive direction.  I like to keep this in mind when I think of “decisions” to pray or not.  Would I do the same with breathing or not?  I find that life is diminished if there is a lack of prayer in a day.  So I try to think of it as my oxygen.  Then I will not skip it!

Te Adoro

 The last words spoken in this movie are “Te Adoro” as two groups that hate one another help carry a dead body out of the schoolyard.  It is the first time they help one another.  Hate, in this case due to prejudice, leads only to destruction.  This is why forgiveness is so important.  But also, acceptance of differences can help to keep us from doing destruction to ourselves and one another.  I try to keep this in mind each day.  People have differences for whatever reason, but cannot be judged, hated, and even killed for such.  So what is the name of the movie?  Hint: Think Romeo and Juliet.