Greetings. I knew I hadn't posted in a while, but it never occurred to me it had been nine days. I need to be here, and I appreciate the fact you're here for me. I'm thankful for those of you who have said these posts are meaningful for you.
I'm thankful also for my very first abstinent Thanksgiving! It was a blessing, and I found it easy and joyous. Thanks be to God! It's been eleven months and two weeks since my last compulsive eating, and now that feels natural. Wonderfully, naturally natural. Geesh. Who'd a thunk it?
I was asked by the sponsor coordinators at The Recovery Group if I was still "full" and not taking on new sponsoreds (my word--I don't like sponsee or pigeon or anything else, and I really don't like this one either. What does work?) Anyway, I have three new people, and they're a real treat. I needed this, and it all came at the proper time for me in my program.
Another event happened appropriately this weekend. I've expected for more than a month for my hard drive on my favorite computer to crash. It failed while I happened to have a computer programmer in the house, home for Thanksgiving. He installed Windows for me, and I was confident when I sent him home I could take care of the rest. However, I kept running into glitches. Not permanent roadblocks, just glitches, making it impossible at this point for me to connect to the Internet on that machine or to even copy all the carefully backed up files I've been saving for the inevitable event of the hard drive crash. I've discovered, though, it's not a problem. It's a blessing. I've needed these two days without ready easy access to cyberspace to put my life and my priorities back in perspective, the perfect end to the long Thanksgiving weekend. Tomorrow I'll ask the question I need to ask for access to be restored, but for today, I've chosen not to. With God's guidance and help. I licked through the power of the twelve steps the compulsion to play computer games that caused me to start this blog on September first. (I've not played a game online since then, have started two paper sudoku puzzles and lost interest, leaving them unfinished. Amazing!) Now I've seen the problem with the instant access to the Internet, and while I'll maintain the access to work with my sponsoreds, to blog, and to communicate with my partners on a major project and my friends and family, with God's help it will be in the proper moderation.
The post is long already. I'm tempted to go ahead and do a devotional that's playing in my mind, but I guess I'll post this and very soon, I'll post the devotional. Thanks for reading and for walking these steps with me.
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Friday, November 16, 2007
Lazy Today
I haven't posted a devotional for a while. Okay. I posted a couple on Wednesday, but I don't think I wrote them on Wednesday. Anyway, this isn't a devotional. I don't think.
It is, however, a report on how it was, what happened, and how it's different.
I lived stretching the limits of my small life, but it remained a small life. That's how it was. What happened is I found these rooms, and nothing's been the same since. That will be eleven months tomorrow. Wow, what a transformation!
How it is today. Wonderful. What an empty word to attempt to describe how it is, despite the fact I'm tired. But the reason I'm tired is that it's wonderful. I have exploded the limits of my small life, and I'm stretching the limits of an unlimited life. Wow!
I knew my world was growing, and I was pushing on it, encouraging it, watching God do what I hadn't even imagined in it. Then Tuesday, the dam burst. My three partners and I--well, we are. But the enterprise was new enough we haven't signed a partnership agreement. I guess now it's time and well past that!--had with sane, logical steps started a new business enterprise, stretching our worlds, but testing the strength of each limb before we ventured onto it. All of a sudden our group conscience (thanks for letting me borrow the term for non 12-step stuff) was challenged, declared wrong and invalid by a professional. Individually each one of us might have caved in and submitted to the "better" judgment of somebody with experience. With the strength of our commitment to each other and to our common idea, goal, project--dream--we stood our ground, reduced the participation from one plus four back down to four, and became a business. My heart still speeds as I type that "became a business." But we're going to do it, we're going to do it our way, and we're going to do it up right as well as right.
I'm spent a lot of nights lately at the computer until about midnight, back on it at 5, and I'm tired. I'm tired, but actually, I'm not really lazy. I lied to you. I apologize.
What's your dream? It can come to fruition if you work these steps and put it all in God's hands then let go and let him use you. I promise.
It is, however, a report on how it was, what happened, and how it's different.
I lived stretching the limits of my small life, but it remained a small life. That's how it was. What happened is I found these rooms, and nothing's been the same since. That will be eleven months tomorrow. Wow, what a transformation!
How it is today. Wonderful. What an empty word to attempt to describe how it is, despite the fact I'm tired. But the reason I'm tired is that it's wonderful. I have exploded the limits of my small life, and I'm stretching the limits of an unlimited life. Wow!
I knew my world was growing, and I was pushing on it, encouraging it, watching God do what I hadn't even imagined in it. Then Tuesday, the dam burst. My three partners and I--well, we are. But the enterprise was new enough we haven't signed a partnership agreement. I guess now it's time and well past that!--had with sane, logical steps started a new business enterprise, stretching our worlds, but testing the strength of each limb before we ventured onto it. All of a sudden our group conscience (thanks for letting me borrow the term for non 12-step stuff) was challenged, declared wrong and invalid by a professional. Individually each one of us might have caved in and submitted to the "better" judgment of somebody with experience. With the strength of our commitment to each other and to our common idea, goal, project--dream--we stood our ground, reduced the participation from one plus four back down to four, and became a business. My heart still speeds as I type that "became a business." But we're going to do it, we're going to do it our way, and we're going to do it up right as well as right.
I'm spent a lot of nights lately at the computer until about midnight, back on it at 5, and I'm tired. I'm tired, but actually, I'm not really lazy. I lied to you. I apologize.
What's your dream? It can come to fruition if you work these steps and put it all in God's hands then let go and let him use you. I promise.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Why me, God?
Consider Numbers 11:10-15.
Two extremes typify our reaction to discord, tension, and tragedy in our lives. One is this response of Moses, mad at the inconvenience, blaming God for dumping on him rather than putting one foot in front of the other and in God’s peace walking through the mess, discovering in the process who he is and the talents God has bestowed on him.
The other extreme is to accept responsibility for all ills and trouble in our lives, blaming ourselves because of a past indiscretion or a general feeling of blameworthiness. “I tell myself it's because I stole the man’s wallet twenty years ago. When I got cancer I knew that was why.”
Neither is healthy. Both express anger misdirected. Both cause us, compulsive overeaters, to turn to food. So what can we do?
Look at the problem realistically. Turn to God and ask him -- not in a blaming way but praying for guidance, for stamina, for God’s presence to walk through the current problem. And look at the past problem in the same light. What have you done in the past that actually may have affected the present? How can you understand the whole situation so you can address it rationally and in God’s power.
Numbers 12 tells an interesting story of Moses’ siblings feeling him blameworthy. That’s between Moses and God and long past. It’s not our inventory to take. Take your own.
Look at the resentments you listed in List my tears, God! and the reasons for your anger. Beside each, look within yourself and examine what you might have done—or definitely did—that could have caused the situation or worsened it. Write it down, being completely honest with yourself.
Two extremes typify our reaction to discord, tension, and tragedy in our lives. One is this response of Moses, mad at the inconvenience, blaming God for dumping on him rather than putting one foot in front of the other and in God’s peace walking through the mess, discovering in the process who he is and the talents God has bestowed on him.
The other extreme is to accept responsibility for all ills and trouble in our lives, blaming ourselves because of a past indiscretion or a general feeling of blameworthiness. “I tell myself it's because I stole the man’s wallet twenty years ago. When I got cancer I knew that was why.”
Neither is healthy. Both express anger misdirected. Both cause us, compulsive overeaters, to turn to food. So what can we do?
Look at the problem realistically. Turn to God and ask him -- not in a blaming way but praying for guidance, for stamina, for God’s presence to walk through the current problem. And look at the past problem in the same light. What have you done in the past that actually may have affected the present? How can you understand the whole situation so you can address it rationally and in God’s power.
Numbers 12 tells an interesting story of Moses’ siblings feeling him blameworthy. That’s between Moses and God and long past. It’s not our inventory to take. Take your own.
Look at the resentments you listed in List my tears, God! and the reasons for your anger. Beside each, look within yourself and examine what you might have done—or definitely did—that could have caused the situation or worsened it. Write it down, being completely honest with yourself.
List my tears, God!
Consider Psalm 56:5-8
The big “THEY.” How huge a word that is. Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die. For the compulsive overeater, that poison has many names, among them sugar, corn chips, pizza, cola, and mashed potatoes lathered with gravy.
What is resentment? The Latin root is “to feel”—resentment is to feel again. Feel what? Anger. Anger? What am I angry about, you may ask. Probably the real question is, “What are you not angry about?" Perhaps you grew up believing nice people didn’t feel angry, that good children don’t have bad thoughts. It’s time to rethink that old idea.
We do get angry, and over the slightest things. In the middle of preparing a meal, we’re interrupted when our child comes in, needing us to do something simple. We love the child, it’s appropriate we’re asked to do it, but the interruption is, well, interrupting. The child’s business takes precedence over ours. Maybe in the larger sense we even see it’s proper that way, but it doesn’t stop the fact we felt resentment.
Most resentments aren’t that small. The ones we remember and re-remember, the angry moments we live time and time again are far from small. It can be from decades ago when your mother would not have stopped to help and the child was you. It can be a terrible wrong, a crime, committed against you. Until you take them out and look at them, they remain. And as they remain, you deal with them. For compulsive eaters, we deal with most problems by numbing the pain with food.
The psalmist resented. “All day long they twist my words; they are always plotting to harm me. They conspire, they lurk, they watch my steps, eager to take my life.” What do you resent?
Who is your “THEY?” Why do you resent them? Take a piece of paper, and along the left side of the page write the names that come to mind of people you resent, skipping a line between each. Add ideas (you can’t date until you’re 16, respect your father, etc.) and institutions (the church always just wants money, the bank won’t leave me alone.)
Go back and briefly describe why you resent that person, idea, or institution.
The big “THEY.” How huge a word that is. Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die. For the compulsive overeater, that poison has many names, among them sugar, corn chips, pizza, cola, and mashed potatoes lathered with gravy.
What is resentment? The Latin root is “to feel”—resentment is to feel again. Feel what? Anger. Anger? What am I angry about, you may ask. Probably the real question is, “What are you not angry about?" Perhaps you grew up believing nice people didn’t feel angry, that good children don’t have bad thoughts. It’s time to rethink that old idea.
We do get angry, and over the slightest things. In the middle of preparing a meal, we’re interrupted when our child comes in, needing us to do something simple. We love the child, it’s appropriate we’re asked to do it, but the interruption is, well, interrupting. The child’s business takes precedence over ours. Maybe in the larger sense we even see it’s proper that way, but it doesn’t stop the fact we felt resentment.
Most resentments aren’t that small. The ones we remember and re-remember, the angry moments we live time and time again are far from small. It can be from decades ago when your mother would not have stopped to help and the child was you. It can be a terrible wrong, a crime, committed against you. Until you take them out and look at them, they remain. And as they remain, you deal with them. For compulsive eaters, we deal with most problems by numbing the pain with food.
The psalmist resented. “All day long they twist my words; they are always plotting to harm me. They conspire, they lurk, they watch my steps, eager to take my life.” What do you resent?
Who is your “THEY?” Why do you resent them? Take a piece of paper, and along the left side of the page write the names that come to mind of people you resent, skipping a line between each. Add ideas (you can’t date until you’re 16, respect your father, etc.) and institutions (the church always just wants money, the bank won’t leave me alone.)
Go back and briefly describe why you resent that person, idea, or institution.
Monday, November 12, 2007
Triage
The assignment for my poetry group was the subject "Triage." I know NOTHING about medicine....
Can the patient be saved?
Depends on what you mean.
Her immortal soul? Oh, yeah.
These martyrs have it made.
She’s lived in hell through a
marriage with a lout. Nothing
post mortem could phase her.
Pshaw. You know that’s not
what I mean.
Physically? She’s not too far
gone, lots of stress injuries
even to muscles and ligaments
not from exertion but from,
well, stress.
Come on. Quit being cute.
I’m serious.
I’m serious, too. The levity’s
a cover for my spirit rupturing
when I see the psychic pain.
I know. Can she be saved?
Yeah. She’s reached the bottom.
She’s ready to give up using all
her substantial resources trying
to hold it all together, to make
a life for the kids he taunts,
to build her self-respect that’s
atrophied under his onslaughts,
to grow against his attempts
to espalier her like a bonsai tree.
And reaching the bottom is good?
Oh, essential. Now she can let go
reach up, admit she can’t,
and God’s there, waiting for
the slightest hint of her invitation
to come in and fix it all.
So she’ll live.
Oh, more than live. Now she’ll
thrive, she’ll fly, soaring to
heights of talent and energy and
success she’d buried so deep and
so long she’d though never even
existed when they’re who she is.
Yes, now finally, she’ll live!
Can the patient be saved?
Depends on what you mean.
Her immortal soul? Oh, yeah.
These martyrs have it made.
She’s lived in hell through a
marriage with a lout. Nothing
post mortem could phase her.
Pshaw. You know that’s not
what I mean.
Physically? She’s not too far
gone, lots of stress injuries
even to muscles and ligaments
not from exertion but from,
well, stress.
Come on. Quit being cute.
I’m serious.
I’m serious, too. The levity’s
a cover for my spirit rupturing
when I see the psychic pain.
I know. Can she be saved?
Yeah. She’s reached the bottom.
She’s ready to give up using all
her substantial resources trying
to hold it all together, to make
a life for the kids he taunts,
to build her self-respect that’s
atrophied under his onslaughts,
to grow against his attempts
to espalier her like a bonsai tree.
And reaching the bottom is good?
Oh, essential. Now she can let go
reach up, admit she can’t,
and God’s there, waiting for
the slightest hint of her invitation
to come in and fix it all.
So she’ll live.
Oh, more than live. Now she’ll
thrive, she’ll fly, soaring to
heights of talent and energy and
success she’d buried so deep and
so long she’d though never even
existed when they’re who she is.
Yes, now finally, she’ll live!
Sunday, November 11, 2007
What does willingness mean?
Consider Genesis 22:1-12.
I hate some of the Old Testament stories. When my children were day-care age, I "interviewed" a church day care as to their curriculum. I mentioned Noah's Ark, and the woman said oh, they used that all the time. I pointed out to her that wasn't a picture of God as I knew him, someone who gets mad and destroys humanity to just start over. She didn't understand, but I put my kids there anyway, lacking anything better. The story of Abraham going to the mountain to sacrifice Isaac is equally abhorrent.
Still, what a lesson it teaches for Step 6! What does that language of "entirely ready" mean? It means absolute trust. When it looks like God's careening down the wrong path with your life, it means you resist the urge to grab the wheel. It means whatever is most precious to you--your reputation, your wealth, your family, your career, your abstinence, anything!--will not stand in the way of your blind obedience to God's will. He has no obligation to show you the whys. He doesn't have some "'splaning to do" as Ricky told Lucy. Faith. Trust.
There are activities meant to build group cohesiveness involving blindfolded people falling backwards and being passed from hands to hands calmly. Could you do it calmly? Could you do it at all? If you knew God's hands were there to catch you, would the answer be closer to yes--or further away? How real is your God? Is he such a spirit, so disassociated with the physical, you couldn't trust him physically?
Isn't it easier to trust him physically than mentally or spiritually?
Write about it. How well do you trust God? How ready are you to have him remove defects of character that are an integral part of you? How can you cope? How could you decline?
I hate some of the Old Testament stories. When my children were day-care age, I "interviewed" a church day care as to their curriculum. I mentioned Noah's Ark, and the woman said oh, they used that all the time. I pointed out to her that wasn't a picture of God as I knew him, someone who gets mad and destroys humanity to just start over. She didn't understand, but I put my kids there anyway, lacking anything better. The story of Abraham going to the mountain to sacrifice Isaac is equally abhorrent.
Still, what a lesson it teaches for Step 6! What does that language of "entirely ready" mean? It means absolute trust. When it looks like God's careening down the wrong path with your life, it means you resist the urge to grab the wheel. It means whatever is most precious to you--your reputation, your wealth, your family, your career, your abstinence, anything!--will not stand in the way of your blind obedience to God's will. He has no obligation to show you the whys. He doesn't have some "'splaning to do" as Ricky told Lucy. Faith. Trust.
There are activities meant to build group cohesiveness involving blindfolded people falling backwards and being passed from hands to hands calmly. Could you do it calmly? Could you do it at all? If you knew God's hands were there to catch you, would the answer be closer to yes--or further away? How real is your God? Is he such a spirit, so disassociated with the physical, you couldn't trust him physically?
Isn't it easier to trust him physically than mentally or spiritually?
Write about it. How well do you trust God? How ready are you to have him remove defects of character that are an integral part of you? How can you cope? How could you decline?
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Spewed from God's mouth.
Consider Revelation 3:14-22.
I live in a small city, a tad larger than 100,000. I go to a comfortable church, not in the ritziest part of town, but respectable. And many of the congregants do come from posh sections. Maybe a dozen blocks away is a poor area, not destitute, but obviously struggling. We serve them, have outreach projects. We have a lot in common with Laodicea. Probably your church does, too.
What about you? What about me? Does God want us to buy gold from him refined in the fire, to buy white clothes to wear. What? In winter? I don't look good in white. I might spill stuff on it.
I bet you've prayed for God to help you lose weight. Right? I certainly have. What did you want to happen when you prayed? That he would remove the offensive pounds, that he would pull you to his comforting hug when travails and tribulations drove you to the food for comfort? That he would make the excess calories you consumed evaporate? Or did you pray for him to give you the courage day after day after day to eat the right foods, to plan what you eat and eat what you planned, to truly rely on God for comfort and consolation rather than the food?
Are you willing to ask God to take away your difficulties, to release you from your self? What would that mean? Honesty. Openness. Facing the blackness of your soul and forgiving yourself. Facing those you've wronged and seeking their forgiveness. That's what it means for God to take away your difficulties, to release you from yourself, your self.
Is God everything, or is God nothing? What? You don't like those choices? If God is everything, we have no say-so. We don't decide our goals, our actions, who we like, who we hate. We don't run our lives. If God is nothing??? No. God is not nothing. What's the other choice? Can't I just be good, ask God's advice, let him in on the decision making? No. Halfway doesn't count. In our out. Hot or cold. Or get spewed from God's mouth.
The third step prayer is.... Wait a minute. I won't do what the big book does and give you the prayer then the warning. The warning from page 63 of Alcoholics Anonymous says:
Okay. The third step prayer says:
Don't pray the 3rd step prayer lightly. Think about it. If you're ready to pray it, you might want to do it with another person or in a church.
I live in a small city, a tad larger than 100,000. I go to a comfortable church, not in the ritziest part of town, but respectable. And many of the congregants do come from posh sections. Maybe a dozen blocks away is a poor area, not destitute, but obviously struggling. We serve them, have outreach projects. We have a lot in common with Laodicea. Probably your church does, too.
What about you? What about me? Does God want us to buy gold from him refined in the fire, to buy white clothes to wear. What? In winter? I don't look good in white. I might spill stuff on it.
I bet you've prayed for God to help you lose weight. Right? I certainly have. What did you want to happen when you prayed? That he would remove the offensive pounds, that he would pull you to his comforting hug when travails and tribulations drove you to the food for comfort? That he would make the excess calories you consumed evaporate? Or did you pray for him to give you the courage day after day after day to eat the right foods, to plan what you eat and eat what you planned, to truly rely on God for comfort and consolation rather than the food?
Are you willing to ask God to take away your difficulties, to release you from your self? What would that mean? Honesty. Openness. Facing the blackness of your soul and forgiving yourself. Facing those you've wronged and seeking their forgiveness. That's what it means for God to take away your difficulties, to release you from yourself, your self.
Is God everything, or is God nothing? What? You don't like those choices? If God is everything, we have no say-so. We don't decide our goals, our actions, who we like, who we hate. We don't run our lives. If God is nothing??? No. God is not nothing. What's the other choice? Can't I just be good, ask God's advice, let him in on the decision making? No. Halfway doesn't count. In our out. Hot or cold. Or get spewed from God's mouth.
The third step prayer is.... Wait a minute. I won't do what the big book does and give you the prayer then the warning. The warning from page 63 of Alcoholics Anonymous says:
We thought well before taking this step making sure we were ready; that we could at last abandon ourselves utterly to Him.
Okay. The third step prayer says:
God, I offer myself to Thee--to build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will. Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy Power, Thy Love, and thy Way of live. May I do Thy will always!
Don't pray the 3rd step prayer lightly. Think about it. If you're ready to pray it, you might want to do it with another person or in a church.
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