Tolerance

I've recently had two people ask me to sponsor them, coming from encounters with other members of OA with whom they could not work. I was reminded of that, reading this morning from Not God, A History of Alcoholics Anonymous by Ernest Kurtz.

For all their thinking in terms of "salvation," neither Bill Wilson nor Dr. Bob Smith nor Alcoholics Anonymous as such ever fell into the treacherous trap such an understanding could lay -- the oppressive burden of obligation to impose vision and the consequent intolerance that often ensnared those conscious of possessing "saving truth." "In the early days of of A.A. I spent a lot of time trying to get people to agree with me, to practice A.A. principles as I did, and so forth. For so long as I did this...A.A. grew very slowly." Quickly although painfully Wilson early noted, "Nor have we ever had the slightest success in insisting upon some particular form of salvation. Nevertheless we can bring people within the reach of salvation -- that is, of the salvation they choose." (pages 152-153)

Kurtz goes on to quote Wilson as saying "The way our 'worthy' alcoholics have sometimes tried to judge the 'less worthy' is, as we look back on it, rather comical. Imagine, if you can, one alcoholic judging another!"

It's like raising children. You can tell them, give them something to rebel against, or you can show them. I've done enough telling people what they ought to do in my life. God, help me live to show them how to let you tell them how.

In the Context

I enjoyed the meditation readings today, but the reading that's sticking with me is the cartoon today, One Big Happy. The mother's answer to the question about why it's called bath tissue is that sounds nicer than toilet tissue. Begging to differ, the child says toilet contains two of her favorite words, toy and let, the illustrative sentence making her name the indirect object and toy the direct object of a directive sentence. Bath, on the other hand, does not sound pleasant, and she stretches out all the sounds to illustrate. Father, entering the setting, says he feels her pain. He, too, hates to get a hair stuck in his mouth. 

Husband asked me yesterday if I'd called one of our sons to see what's going on with a situation. I said no. He said I didn't seem to care. There's no reason for me to even ask if he's called the son this week or this year. 

I've been getting some medical help the last three weeks, getting a lifelong bad habit corrected. The presenting problem that drove me to the extreme of finally taking care of it, though, wasn't getting better. On Friday they discovered the two weren't related, and with treatment for the presenting problem, now finally there's considerable pain relief there.

We've thought we knew the answers all our lives. Maybe we did, but we didn't know the questions until we started turning this life over to God and seeing his guidance and direction.

My abstinence is clean since March 30. Thank God!

D-E-N-I-A-L

DENIAL. Don't even know that I'm lying. Geesh.

I have told many of you that the betrayal last April/May was one I was able to take in stride, that I wasn't angry, was over it. Denial. Don't even know that I'm lying. Yes, the woman who betrayed me is a sick woman, yes, I've moved past the professional hurt. But still, there were relationship issues way behind that, and the plain fact is, I weigh now basically what I weighed last April/May. I didn't let it go. I held on, tight, keeping the resentment and the hurt on my own body. As though that could hurt her. How ridiculous. How true. 

But not, it's not denial. Now I know I really am over it. Maybe it was the April around the corner that got me here, because the first part of April was when the other stuff started happening last year. But I've been absolutely abstinent since Monday first thing, March 30, and I'm not denying I'm taking back my life.

Thank God!

One Day at a Time -- Progressively

I just looked back, expecting the last who-knows-what number of posts to reflect a struggle. I didn't find it -- primarily, I assume, because when I'm posting it's from a position of relative strength. The absence of many recent posts, then, reflects the struggle in its silence. And this post says there's strength again. It's not mine. I'm powerless over food and my life is hopelessly unmanageable -- by me. Fortunately, I can resign control and sit back and watch while the master pilot straightens the course. 

Yesterday's abstinence from food and games tore at the core. Today's has been relatively smooth. I sit here now in front of the television, wanting to play a game while watching the show, but I also know that relatively harmless behavior is just as harmless as it would be to go into the kitchen and bake cookies with the intent of eating just one. I cannot do just one -- game, cookie, box of pudding, whatever. If I were to open a game at a safe time, within three days (and probably tomorrow) it would be the dominant activity. So. No games. Not today. And my will staying in it's proper spot, not tomorrow or the next days. I actually can survive without ever again playing sudoku or spider sol or tetris or yubotu.... 

I met a 97-year-old man today who desperately wanted to go home, to "escape" the nursing home. He fully intended to continue to mow his lawn using a walker, but he was willing to hire somebody to do the edging. I made it possible for him to go home, though I limited what he could do there. But I hope at that age I'm not ready to give my life away to useless pastimes, either. He and I both have just the one day. May each of us live life fully and completely this day!

learning what we know

The reading in For Today starts with a quote from Epictetus. Wikipedia describes him as probably a slave born in what's not Turkey, lived in Rome until exile to the northwest of Greece where he lived most of his life in the first and second centuries. He's said to have believed "To Epictetus, all external events are determined by fate, and are thus beyond our control, but we can accept whatever happens calmly and dispassionately. Individuals, however, are responsible for their own actions which they can examine and control through rigorous self-discipline. Suffering arises from trying to control what is uncontrollable, or from neglecting what is within our power. As part of the universal city that is the universe, human beings have a duty of care to all fellow humans. The person who followed these precepts would achieve happiness." The quote that caught my attention falls in line with that, but it still pulls me more than the rest of what I've read: 

It is impossible to begin to learn that which one thinks one already knows. (Epictetus)

That was my hang-up as to religion/spirituality to some extent, but it was one that once I finally got to OA was quickly overcome. I find it true now as to OA itself. I do understand OA, the principles, the literature, the Steps, the lifestyle. But I got careless, became content with the level of recovery I'd reached. Now that I realize I walked away from the real mother lode, or at lease declined to "pick up the egg," I find my self living the truth of the statement. But there is a way. It's the one Bill W. was struggling with in the early '50s. 

Influenced by the events surrounding him, Bill Wilson began and ended his portrayal of A.A.'s Twelve Steps as "a way of life" by stressing the continued necessity of the total deflation of even a raised bottom" and the persistence in even the "recovering alcoholic" of childishness, immature grandiosity, and infantile defiance.  Between these themes and derived from them, Wilson located an ancient motif. The key to the A.A. Way of Life was -- simply -- "humility."

Humility. The key to the A.A. program, "the step that separates the men from the boys," was presented -- perhaps surprisingly -- as Step Six: "Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character." The point was not that only can "I" not directly achieve this removal, but even before an-Other-can, "my" main "activity" can be only the apparently most passive one of readiness, openness. Wilson's explicit exploration of the meaning of humility bracketed his indirect treatment of it in the Sixth Step. Although "often misunderstood, ... genuine humility" was presented simply and classically in Step "realism ..., straight thinking, solid honesty." Especially as "first ... consist[ing] of recognizing our deficiencies," "actual humility" eased the "old pains of ancient apartness." Thus Step Five which exemplified it "was the beginning of true kinship with man and God." (Ernest Kurtz, Not God, page 124)  

Like Micah said, even before Epictetus, what does the law required of you but to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with God?

Milestones

I passed a milestone of sorts a few days ago. About the time I started concentrating on sitting down with program literature and God each morning, I began to write the year on my For Today book, and since March 26, they now have not only an "08" scribbled at the bottom but an "09" companion. I'm not good at keeping good intentions, so to have done it for a year is momentous. I'm looking forward to that time when I grin at those on the tattered pages, knowing the intervening years didn't need the penned reminder I've been doing this for lots of years. But for now, I'll add the "09" each day. When I got Voices of Recovery I started marking the pages of it, as well, but that' more for my remembering what the date is should I pick it up before For Today. Those marks on the page begin on October 28. 

I'm settled into my third year in program, but I've struggled with myself lately, trying to wrest back control. Those old habits of many years seem to have such a strong pull. One of these years, those will be a distant memory and the meditation time just as set as they feel now, but much more welcome.

It's been an interesting week. Last Saturday we had an exciting offer of help, one that's been tough for me to take, as tough as the evaluation of a hard-fought manuscript by an expert in the field, something you know will improve your work, but it's MY work, and I don't "feel" the need for it to be improved any more than I "feel" the need to resist the pull of the old harmful habits. It means the book that began here on this blog will be delayed a few days or a couple of weeks -- that I won't have it when I go to my regional OA meeting. But the book will be better when it does see the light of day. And my humility will be strengthened.

I've done better on food today and the past two days. After I "restarted" on Monday it didn't last, but this one, beginning Thursday morning will. I know. I've come to realize the truth of a statement made on Wednesday at my OA meeting, that we can overeat on abstinent foods. Not that I've stuck to abstinent foods since I've been struggling, but I know it's more the behavior and the mindset than the food being eaten, and to work on that area, I'm going to start the Steps over. But I won't dawdle, for I know a lot of the work I need to do is later in the steps, though of course the first three are the foundation for them all. I also will start today doing a better -- okay, rigorous honesty. I'll start today consciously doing Step Ten, something I've never done on a regular basis. 

A few days ago I made a mistake trying to get an email from a friend into a particular file to save for future work in writing about recovery topics. I accidently posted it here for a few minutes until it was called to my attention, but the quote I was trying to save is worth the posting, just not the names included in the email:

Many want to change their results, but they are unwilling to change themselves...they therefore remain bound! — James Allen

I'm ready to change myself and lose the bounds.

Perspective

I went to an event yesterday I expect will change me, again. The last two of these annual events have been momentous growth events, and I can see yesterday's leading me further in the right direction. These have nothing to do with compulsive eating. Rather, it's a gathering of writers. Still, the well-known writing professionals who have spoken at these meetings are inspiring human beings who speak to me on all levels. 

The central message yesterday was to claim the prize set out for us, to not let temerity or low self-esteem hold us back. He told of a childhood Easter egg hunt, of finding the grand-prize-winning egg and feeling he was too young to win the bicycle, of failing to pick up the prize, of watching as someone else claimed it. Since then, he's done a masterful job of claiming the prize laid out for him. Even as I sit here typing, I'm thinking, "I couldn't do that." 

How many prizes have I avoided because I wasn't worthy, because success scared me? I entered a contest once, a prestigious international writing one, and while I didn't win, the editor of a major imprint of a super-big publishing company wrote me a personal letter telling me how to fix my book, directing me to send the rewrite directly to her. I didn't know how. And I didn't ask people around me for advice to help me make the growth spurt she was asking for. When I finally did the rewrite, she no longer was at that publishing house and my efforts to put my book before her failed. I've sent yesterday's speaker the covers of two books out little publishing venture intends to offer in the next few weeks, accepting his gracious offer to critique them. And I'm going to grow enough to correct errors pointed out.

He said something else to me privately that may make an even bigger difference. I was the last one through the serving line, having a role in coordinating and managing the event. My food plan is heavy on protein, and I took an ample serving of brisket and sausage, neither of which are preferred foods on the plan, but they were the protein available. Besides that I had a spoon of cole slaw and a small serving of pinto beans. And he commented on how much food I had on my plate. My resentment wants to rear it's head, but instead, I'm taking it as a growth point like all the rest he gave.

A trusted friend helping me work my program suggested this week that I imagine myself not at the lowest weight of my adult life, which is true, but which has remained pretty stable for a year now. She suggested instead I think of myself as always thin and having reached this body size, which is 190 pounds or thereabouts. If this weight horrified me as much as the 300 pounds did once upon a time, wouldn't the motivation to really work this program be stronger? Yes. It would. 

And I know I'm still too heavy. My right knee has been painful the last four or five days. I've still been climbing the steps to my fifth floor office, knowing that may be stupid or may eventually help. Yesterday I wore slacks so I could have a tight garment around that knee -- but the garment was bought about 40 pounds ago, and it's not that tight anymore. 

One more facet to the growing pile of proof it's time for a new surge in spiritual awareness, in humility and in accepting God's abundance, came in the fact two trusted friends have recommended I see Shirley Valentine. One of those suggestions was over a year ago, in February, 2008, and since that time I've had a note on the dashboard of this computer that says, "Shirley Valentine, 1989 British release." I was loaned a copy last Thursday, and I've now watched it twice. And ordered a couple of copies of it so when I give this one back, I'll have one to keep and one to loan out.  

Today I am abstinent, I am claiming my Easter egg, and I'm trusting God to remove my fears and show me who he would have me be. Thank God!