Strength or Power

It struck me today, trying to figure out what that last phrase of the 7th step prayer is and going back to look at it, that there's a significant change in shift between the 3rd step prayer and the 7th. I've been making a mistake in the 7th step prayer, praying for power. That's a REAL mistake. Now that I've spent the morning, or at least bits and pieces of it, thinking about power and strength, I realize they're far from the synonyms I would have told you they are. In fact, in program at least, they're polar opposites.

Power. We had power, or at least longed for power, when we were in the morass of disease and distress. I have an old disk (a reference disk for Microsoft Office Professional, (c) 1983-1996) that is a valuable possession of mine for the Microsoft Bookshelf '95 on it. I've sat here for a while reading all the quotations filed under "Power." Then I went to "Strength" and found the quotations for that -- or, rather, the lack of any quotations on strength. But the ones on power are as fascinating as the lack of quotations on strength. Among them:

• "A friend in power is a friend lost." (Henry B. Adams)
• "It is a strange desire, to seek power, and to lose liberty; or to seek power over others, and to lose power over a man's self. (Francis Bacon)
• "Those in possession of absolute power can not only prophesy and make their prophecies come true, but they can also lie and make their lies come true." (Eric Hoffer)
• "To get power over is to defile. To possess is to defile." (Simone Weil)
• "Power? It's like a Dead Sea fruit. When you achieve it, there is nothing there." (Harold Macmillan)

But then there's:

• "The purpose of getting power is to be able to give it away." (Aneurin Bevan)
• "I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be." (Thomas Jefferson)

In recovery, power is a god attribute, God being described as our Higher Power as we understand him. We do use power in the 3rd step prayer, but it's not our attribute, but God's: "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 Life." In fact, what we're asking for in the 3rd step prayer is surrender of our power. "I offer." "Relieve me." "Take away." The only affirmative request is, "May I do Thy will always!"

Then to the 7th step prayer, after walking the path through 4, 5, and 6 -- a path that can at times feel like a gauntlet -- through the triumphal arch. "I am now willing." and "Grant me strength... to do Your bidding." It's not "grant me power."

Strength is defined as "the power to resist attack; impregnability," "the power to resist strain or stress; durability" and as "a source of power or force." Power, on the other hand, is defined as "strength or force exerted or capable of being exerted; might."

Like many similar words in English, one (power) comes through the Roman/French influence, "to be able." Strength came through the old English, celtic influence.

I guess I finally arrive at the conclusion that having power is okay, but seeking it is not. And having power, without seeking it, we're in the position Jefferson envisioned and Benjamin Disraeli described: "Power has only one duty -- to secure the social welfare of the People."

Ego

First, I had promised to lead my readers here on the blog know when I mastered the intricacies of uploading Slender Steps to Sanity as a Kindle book. I did. (I hope.) Since I'm writing here about ego, I'll say it was both a boost to the ego in finally figuring it out (with a little help from a computer guru I raised) and a reality-check in the work it took to get my stuff up and out there. And it led to a touch of humiliation and a healthy serving of humility when I found that the mention in the text book of "seremity" left me anything but serene. Sigh. Anyway, the Kindle book is now available.

While I was pulling my hair out trying to figure out how to send Amazon the encoded book I'd labored over, making the code look right and reflect the line breaks, etc., in the book, I had three chat boxes going at once. One was with a business partner getting account numbers and details I needed to set up the Kindle account, another was with my computer guru son, or more specifically with his wife until she got him to type for a while in her place, and the third with a "sponsored." (It's been a while since I said here I hate the word sponsoree.) Here's part of that conversation:

Sponsoree: I just sent that email back to you

  (and to me)

8:39 PM me: okay. one minute.

9 minutes

8:48 PM Sponsoree: my biggest revelation is that all my resentments stem from one thing - I feel entitled to be the center of the friggin' universe

8:49 PM me: Yeah. Wait a minute. Grinning. But not kidding much. ;)

8:51 PM Sponsoree: i'm still here for a bit. i'm going to read a few pages until  hubby turns the light out.

7 minutes

8:58 PM Sponsoree: ok. back

9:01 PM me: Okay. I got my fire put out too.

As I look at this, obviously I wasn't very honest. My one minute the first time took nine, the second time that same minute came up, it meant seven. And she and I were both busy being the "center of the friggin' universe" at the moment.

I talked yesterday with my therapist. She pulled out some facts in my life -- honors and achievements -- I hadn't talked to her about, and she tried to make me realize how special they are. No, I hadn't told her about them, for I'd been working with her to get to the core issues, and I didn't see the need to try to impress her. But I do understand how special they are, and when I'm insecure I find ways to work those kinds of facts into my conversation. Last night I was in a crowd of people (about 40) I didn't know. Well, one I've known for twenty years or so, and another I've been married to for several decades, but most of them I was meeting. And I don't remember names well and don't easily blend into an established group of people. When I dropped my most obvious impressive credential, though, the answer was, "We know." Well, yeah. It's kind of obvious, and the kind of thing people would know even just talking about him, as "his wife is...." But something about me needed to say it, needed to establish a foothold of credibility. Standing on my own two feet wasn't enough. 

It is with you, my OA family. I'm me. I'm on the same pedestal you're on -- well, at least the same podium. Pedestals are too lonely; podiums are raised and can be shared. I like that. I used to live in a tri-tiered universe. I was on a lonely pedestal with nobody near. Above me were those I hero-worshiped. Below me were the rest of the masses. Sometimes the populace above was multitudinous; sometimes that below. But my pedestal stayed lonely. Then I came home. I don't have to be the center of the universe, nor do I have to stand alone no matter what level. We're all equal, we're all God's kids, and we're all worthy, without having to impress anybody. We're loved.

Thank you for loving me.

Humble

Wow. That's absolutely the way I feel. My Slender Steps to Sanity is here, but I strongly feel it's not my book. Maybe "ours" meaning belonging to the whole fellowship, maybe God's. But its not mine.

I will be buying a number of copies at my author's discount and sending them to individuals I know in OA and to individuals connected with groups and intergroups I haven't met. I'd appreciate your help in doing this. I'm sending them as a gift. If you want to make some of them your gift as well, there's a link to the right where you can contribute to the printing and postage costs. If you know of OA's who should receive them,  you may email me their physical address. Thanks for being there, for giving me the message so I can carry it to others in this way and more. I'm so totally blessed. I love you all.

Learning AGAIN To Get Out of the Way

Wow. Wow!

 

My friends at Silver Boomer Books took cover drafts for my new book (Slender Steps to Sanity -- Twelve-Step Notes of Hope) to a meeting last night, asking for votes on four possibilities. I tallied the votes, and there was a clear winner, but it seemed everybody had a very definite favorite, and they disliked intensely the other options. So God took over and told me the answer. "None of the above." He's right. The new cover is perfect, then to top it off, God addressed another issue I've had with the book forever: How do you market a book in OA? He told me. "You don't."

 

But the whole story is even more interesting. Half my life ago, I entered into a partnership in my chosen profession. Soon, I was bringing in more money than any other partner. Then the partnership fell apart, and I was left as a self-employed professional. My billing fell off -- I gave my services away. I could earn money for my partners, but not for myself, and that was at a time I really needed the income! I ended up finding an employer who would give me a paycheck for my services, and I've been loving that job the last 21 years. 

I've had books published before, and I know very well books get sold these days only when the author markets them -- at least until the writer get to the point of best sellers, but even those generally find the writer out pitching the book, just in grander forums to more people. My books have been praised by those who've read them. But plenty of people haven't read them. Add to that the fact of writing anonymously, the marketing of this book has been a fear that probably kept me from getting it out earlier.

 

But then, my kind friends at Silver Boomer Books are in business to sell books. Now, don't get me wrong. They're so open to recovery, to our kind of service and our message, they've developed a Recovery imprint for their third book (my new book) as well as for others planned, one very close to publication. But still, business is business, and they need to be paid for their trust in me and my book, though I've always said I won't take any profit from this book but will give it back to OA and compulsive overeaters.

 

So, this morning I woke with my answer. God's answer. I'm going to use the free books I get as part of my contract with Eagle Wings Press (Silver Boomer Books) and give them free to others in the rooms of OA and looking toward the possibility of exploring them. Then, if the recipient wants me to keep giving them away, I'll give another away for every ten dollars given to me. They can say to whom the book for their money will go, or I'll choose various intergroups and groups or individuals. It's a way I can do service and the recipient can pass on the service, doing their own for somebody else.

The book has been sent to the printers. We'll have it within a couple of weeks. Now, I've got to find out just what God wants me to do as the next right step. But first, I want to thank you, my readers. The book started out as meditations here on this blog, and your support has been invaluable to me. Thanks!

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!