Nothing

 “I am nothing,” is what we sometimes say when we feel so insignificant, or ignored, or seemingly forgotten.  “I am but a drop in the ocean,” is our self-image at these times.  But a drop in the ocean, though but a drop, is part of something much bigger.  We are all part of this something, drop by drop. The ocean is not an ocean without a lot of drops to make it I up.  So be your drop and do your part to make this ocean what it is.  You don’t have to be big, or noticed to be important.  Participate in the ocean of life.  Be kind to the drops around you.  

Ruts

 Why do people in addiction recovery programs keep going to meetings?  Why do religion believers keep going to worship?  Ruts.  Today, one may be sober or a believer, but if they do not work at it, meetings or worship, prayer, service, they will inevitable stumble into ruts, old behavior.  They may not drink that day, or lose faith, but they will practice  old messy dysfunctional behavior which makes their day and usually the day of others around them all the worse.  Ruts are the beginning of a slippery slope.  

Normal

Normal changes.  To live life on life’s terms is to be able to accept new normals.  If we can accept these type of changes then we have a better chance to flourish on a different platform.  If you lose a body part, you live a new normal.  You are not diminished, but changed in your everyday way of life.  If you are getting sober in recovery you are living a new normal.  If you have a conversion experience of any sort, it will affect your daily life.  Some things are dropped and some new things are embraced.  We cannot grab onto the past and still live to our fullest in the present.   

Inside And Outside

 I often speak of prayer as getting inside yourself, to your deeper self in meditation.  But prayer of this sort or any prayer is to help us get “outside” ourself.  Yes, we do pray to get things, but if we are on a spiritual path, what we want to get is in part to be of service to others.  Just wanting what I want when I want it for no other purpose than  to feel better is not getting outside oneself but rather feeding the self and becoming more insular.  This can feed isolation.  So if I ask God to feel better, I hope I have some purpose outside myself.  

Enough

There is a wrong path or a lack of path that is called “enough.”  It is the detour from a deeper, growth oriented spiritual life practice.  A drunk gets into recovery and does all the right things.  Then one day says, “I am sober enough.”  There is no enough.  It is delusional.  Go forward or you will go backward.  No standing still.  Try standing still in a spiritual practice and  you go from sober to dry, from daily practice to occasional to rare, to nothing.  People who used to believe or go to church or meditate all know this.  And they probably used to read my blogs.  If you don’t grow you go.  

Death

 Death is inevitable.  But we can postpone it by good behavior.  A drunk who sobers up and enters recovery, interrupts their death.  Someone who listens to their doctor or trainer and begins to live a healthier lifestyle of exercise and diet, interrupts their death.  I think that meditation does too.  In touching our depth it also heals the body.  I have found it so.  

Inconvenience

 One thing that moves us beyond our own inconvenience is being of service to others in need.  We don’t need much depth in a spiritual practice to be helpful when it is convenient or serves our own sense of worth, or makes us feel better.  These actions have their obvious rewards.  But without some depth of spiritual practice, some deeper meditation for instance, we won’t move beyond our own inconvenience barrier.  But this depth of practice will also protect us from overdoing, and burn out.  The Power always moves us and levels us.