Happy Easter

 This is a special day for Christians.  It is when our God beat death and rose from the dead.  Defeat, hitting the bottom with a crucifixion, was not to be the end.  While I celebrate this in my religion and my own personal life, I ask myself if I am aware in the calendar of the special days for other religions and spiritual paths?  I need to work on this.  Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists, for instance, all have special days.  In Recovery there is the celebration each year of one’s first day of sobriety or last day of giving into their addiction.  Anyway, I hope to find or have a big dinner today somewhere with friends.  The monastery has an Easter morning mass, but then since it is Sunday, their custom each Sunday is to have no meal together.  I find this yucky, so I may be elsewhere celebrating my Easter, dinner with friends.  

Courage

 A quote from a wisdom book: “Courage is the ability to continue in the face of fear.”  I always thought that courageous people did not have fear.  I was fearful, and fear paralyzed me.  In time, I came upon this quote.  It is very sobering.  I don’t have to be rid of fear.  This is not my job.  I have to be rid of paralysis when it comes to action.  For this, I need help.  So I do not do any spiritual path by myself.  Isolation feeds the fear.  

Good Firday

 Seems like an inappropriate name for a day in which someone is innocently tortured and crucified.  But if someone suffers out of love for another is there not something good about it?  Great love has great suffering.  A parent knows that.  Someone being of service to another out of a sense of compassion does suffer some in the effort to be helpful, especially if the one you are trying to help does not appreciate or want it.  A recovering alcoholic trying to be helpful to a drunk knows this very well.  So whether you believe in Jesus or not, at least for today try to get beyond “what will I get out of this good deed,” and just be helpful to others even if they don’t thank you or appreciate you.  You will become a better person, if you don’t whine, and is it not a good day if you grow?

The Trainer

 To become a better person, or at least not worse than we have become, we often need a trainer.  You can read a book or guide, but it is not the same as a person who knows your unique self.  You may not even know what you need.  The trainer does.  The trainer has the tools from their own experience, and from getting to know you, can adjust to your situation from day to day.  They coach you.  In a spiritual training you have some guide in whom you confide.  Eventually, you become a guide for someone else.  You can call it sponsorship.  If you think you are an adept or advanced, ask yourself, “Who have I helped lately?Isolation is not going to help you or others.  Oh, and today is my birthday.  I hope this blog helped someone.  

Go-To

 What is a “character defect,” a shortcoming in our way of life?  It is what someone called their “go-to behavior.”  They encounter someone, experience some situation, and have an immediate behavioral reaction.  They judge, condemn, put-down, get angry, and maybe swear a lot.  It is the immediate reaction.  That is why it is called the go-to behavior.  What to do?  Well, start small.  Give the person or situation you just judged something it in fact may not deserve.  Give compassion, forgiveness, and maybe even acceptance, though that might be a stretch early on.  What you are doing is showing “mercy.”  Isn’t that what you want from your God or Higher Power?  Mercy is not deserved or earned.  Maybe a little mercy to yourself.  Ask for help.  Give someone else a chance to show mercy to you.  

The Other Side

 When faced with something new or different from our routines, we can become frightened.  Example: making a move geographically or internally.  If you are moving from what you know, “home,” be it your routines or physical space, you fear giving up your comfort zone.  The move seems overwhelming, until you get to the other side of it.  So break the move down into little pieces on a daily basis.  Sort out some of your possessions, what will move and what will be given away or tossed out.  Do a little each day.  One day, pick up some boxes for packing, or call a mover.  Pack something each day until everything is packed or gone.  Then the move is inevitable.  It is the same with an internal move.  It is why people going to a Recovery meeting or Church for the first time, walk in at the last minute, sit near the exit, in the back and hunker down.  They are getting to the other side of their fear, one step at a time.  

A Start

 Just because I walk into a Catholic Church does not make me a Catholic, walking into a Recovery meeting does not make me  someone recovering from my addiction.  But it is a start.  As a curious newcomer or searcher, being part of depends on why I walked in.  Maybe I am doing research for a school paper.  To watch is one thing.  To listen is something more.  But to listen, I have to shut up the critiquing mind.  Judgement gets in the way of incoming information.  If I come into something new, outside my comfort zone, I try to empty judgment before I even sit down.  Oh, and get there on time.